Old Gent's Tales

My Pen is Lost

2010-08-16T10:16:00.004+05:30

When I was 11 years old and my command over English pronunciation was rather shaky much like my peers in the missionary school that I went to, this sentence uttered with speed became a crude joke. So not many of us, who had just started using pens as preferred instruments of writing, complained when we lost one. And in that boarding school there were many a case of lost pens.
In the mid nineties, when I was still a student streching my studies far beyond my intellectual capacity into a PhD course, my friend Daud Ali gave me a Mont Blac pen. Till then I had heard about the iconic brand and seen some samples at stores on Bond street, but had never ventured to ask the price of one or desired to possess one. The first MB pen for me was easy to get. Daud was carrying it in his breast pocket [being an American he was more aware of the brand and its value than I fresh from Delhi was] and all I needed to have one was a short conversation that went like this:
I: Is that a MB pen you are carrying, quite fancy of you to do so on your poor lecturer's salary.
Daud: Would you like to have it?
I: You are not serious
Daud: Yes, I am serious please take it [Did I tell you that Daud was an incipient Communist and did not care much for branded stuff]
The pen was mine. In the post-possession convesation that followed, I discovered that Daud had not bought the pen, he had just found it in the courtyard of the School of Oriental and African Studies where I studied and he taught.
For the next two years, I used the pen a few times only to sign my name on some university papers, preserving the pen with utmost care. For I had realised, that this was something I would not be able to replace any time soon in my life. After couple of years, the pen made its journey back to India. In the summer of 1999, the pen and I found ourselves at an Old Monk party in Calcutta on a special occasion - the occasion was very special for my father in law. The Old Monk was potent, my morals weak, emotions high and tongue lose. It was a fatal combition and in a rare moment of lapse of judgment, I offered the pen to my father in law. Who on this occasion behanved exactly I had with Daud and took the pen from me. That is how my first MB pen was lost.
Good fortune come to me again exactly 10 years later in 2009 when I, again by chance and sheer luck, presented myself for a business chat at a friend's office. The friend, a successful new economy entrepreneur, had got a few MB pens to give away to important people. Although I certainly did not qualify as an important person, he was kind enough to give me the last of the MB's in his gift collection. I do not want to name the friend for the fear that many of you may land up at his door steps to take advantage of his propensity to give away expensive gifts to undeserving people. Suffice it to say, although a successful entrepreneur he is as bindas as Daud in mattters of worldly possessions.
Having lost one MB and having got another one by sheer luck, I did take all the care this time not to give it away in a state of high spirits. However, luck did not seem to have been on my side this time too. I lost the pen thanks to the handiwork of someone who knew its price but not its value.
Since then I have had to do with ordinary pens like Waterman and Parker as I wait for yet another munificience from another friend. I can't yet even after 30 years publicly say "my pen is lost".
Anyone planning to gift me my third MB pen, I promise to keep it safe from strong sprits and weak human beings and much else.

Losing a bit of my past

2010-07-04T18:37:00.002+05:30

How can you lose your past? For that matter how can you change your past? I too thought these were not possible, your past was your past - not losable, changeable or even forgettable. But all that change with a brief two minute phone call which casually informed me that that a particular house in a particular town in Bihar was sold. No other details about the sale was available and still is available. Someone ran away with a part of my past and don't even know who it was. The more I think about it more helpless I feel. THe house in question was nothing extraordinary, a two story heap build built in the middle of a 5 acre plot in 1908 by my maternal great grandfather - a local lawyer and a grandee - Jyotish C DasGupta. A rather upright and strict man who lived till the ripe old age of 100. A poor man who had economically and socially risen in life - the first by building up a successful law practice in the district town of Purnea and at the same time marrying [ as a ugly but bright boy] the daughter the local magnate: Kusum DasGupta [a woman of cosiderable beauty and weath]. Nishikanta Sen, my greatgrandmother's father was as seriously well known as he was rich and he was also Roy Bahadur. The land for the house in question was "given" to JCD by NKS to build the house [JCD was stricly against dowry]. The house was the marital home of JCD and KD and was strategically located too. It was just outside the football pitch type compound of NKS's own chateu like house [the original was destroyed in the 1934 Bihar earthquake and the remake still stands: last heard it was taken over by the CPM and converted into a party office, but that is another story!] It was in this house that JCD and KD lived for nearly 80 years of their lives saw the birth of several children [8 of whom survived], saw a few grandchildren, and a fewer great grandchildren and kept them all under their wings till 1979 and 1981 repsectively before they passed away. I had the honour at a tender age to bear on my shoulders both of them to their funerals. Things changed rapidly after that. For a few decades three unmarried children and my grandmother kept the house going with all its verve intact. In the 1990s oly two unmarried daugters lived in the house. The others mainly children of his sons were waiting for the last two daughters to call it a day. One passed away couple of years back, the other is till alive [my mother's family members seem to be blessed with long lives] and has apparently beeen moved to a flat in Calcutta. I should have no attachment to that house: economic, social, emotional. But apprently I do. My grandmother, my mother and I were all born in that house. The house will witness many more births and deaths, sale and resale, but I have irrevocably lost a part of my past and dont know how to recover it.

Where do I belong?

2010-02-05T15:43:00.002+05:30

I am a 42 and like all other clever 42 year olds, I was planning my retirement abode when I hit this problem. I like Nashik but can't live there since I am not a Maharastrian nor can I speak Marathi. I like Delhi, but can's speak Punjabi or Urdu nor am I a Punjabi, Haryanvi, Western UPite or Bihari who have traditionally laid claim to the city; I like Kolkata and West Bengal and can even speak the language; but the locals think I do not belong there since I have been an expat for two generations. Orissa and Assam are out because I would be identified as a Bengali there and I do not know the local language... Further north-east people will consider me as coming from India and therefore alien. Southern states too are out of the question, I will not be able to have any meaningful conversation there beyond sign language. Goa? Marathi's and RUssians are already fighting over it. Kashmir ideal by I am supposed to be a Hindu! Punjab no way, they are already chasing out anyone who smells of Bihar. Bihar? not a bad idea since I lived the first 16 years of my life there and my ancestors a few centuries from my mother's side. But Biharis always consider Bengalis as at best friendly aliens. So where do I go? Here is my profiile: I speak Hindi, Bengali and English; am a staunch secularist believing that religion does more mischief in human hands than good; I have lived 16 years in Bihar, 14 years in Delhi, 6 years outside India, 2 years in Mumbai and 4 years in Kolkata? It seems, India has no place for "Indians" -

Delhi Trafiic and Tata Salt

2009-11-19T09:55:00.004+05:30

I just heard that the Delhi Police has launched an ambitious plan to ensure "free" flowing traffic all across the city well before the Commonwealth Games. Taking a cue from the old Tata Salt advertisement of free flowing salt, it has declared that well before the commonwealth games the traffic is Delhi will be flowing freely all across the city. On being contacted by yours truly the joint commissioner traffic patiently described the whole plan.
According to the JC {T}, just a humongous task can not be carried out by the police force alone, therfore the the Delhi Police for the first time has entered into MoUs with other Departments and like-minded agencies to partner. The first to sign was the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation and its chief vendor Gammon India. DMRC and Gammon being full of thoughtful people like engineers and MBAs have applied the Pareto principle to the issue [they learnt it it simply as the 80:20 rule]. They have agreed that they will take care of 20% of the city that controls 80 per cent of the traffic. Accordingly, they have blocked the main arterial roads and crossings across South Delhi with men and material and barricades and also caused a major accident on a critical road connecting Moolchand to Nehru Place. With astounding results.... traffic flows in all directions at the same time giving a new twist to the constitutional freedom "to travel freely in any part of the country". The DMRC spokesperson has assured that they would continue along similar lines for many years to come. Delhi Police JC {T} was happy at the way the partnership with DMRC was working out. The Municipal Commission of Delhi, not to be left behind, has joined hands and has made it clear that they too have a few tricks up their sleeves to make sure that the Delhi traffic continues to flow "freely". Asked to elaborate, the MCD Commissioner indulgently mentioned that the plan had been in place for years and comprised the following:
1. Allow pavements to be taken over by shopkeepers [unfortunately there are very few pavement dwellers in Delhi]
2. Give a free hand to civil contractors by never focing them to clean up after themselves and allowing them to pile up materials on the roads
3. Plan to build several flyovers and never complete them
4. Pass on advance information on road construction to telecom operators and Delhi Jal Board so that as soon as road are re-laid they can start digging.
The Commissioner looked surpised that your correspondent did not know these rules, especially since they had been a great success since the days of the Asian Games in 1982.
The JC {T} generously praised the MCD for its insight and the value it brought to the partnerships and criticised the New Delhi Municipal Corporation [NDMC] for its refusal to participate in the partnership faced with political pressure. A thoughtful NDMC Commissioner explained that all the politicians and bureaucrats lived in NDMC area and would never allow such "freedom", true to their ilk.
The most effective step to ensure free flow of traffic has however been taken by the lead partner Delhi Police. Taking a leaf out of the seminal work by Levitt and Dubner - Superfreakononmics, the JC{T} suggested that the solution to all complicated problems are really very simple. We have made sure that the traffic flows "freely" throughout the city by simply putting the traffic lights out of use. We have so far covered about 50 per cent of the city's traffic lights and we are sure that we will achieve 100% success with the traffic lights well before the commonwealth games.
Your correspondent also learnt from reliable sources that Delhi drivers true to their character have taken to this new approach like fish to water and are immensely enjoying their new found "freedom"... one of them, a recent arrival in the city from Jhajjhar {haryana}, quoted an ancient authority "the city air makes you free".

Poor, Their Lordships

2009-11-05T11:24:00.004+05:30

For sometime now the RTI wallahs and the newspaper wallahs have been hell-bent upon forcing their lordships the High COurt and Supreme Court justices to reveal their assets - much like old directors harangue starlets to reveal their assets on screen.
After months of haranguing and harrassing their Lordships decided to give in. Perhaps not under pressure from the press or the RTI walas but under pressure from their own ilks. Once again it was the relatively new comers to the business, in this case newcomers to the high courts, who started this trend; exactly like in the movie business where the new comers are more eager to reveal their assets. It started with a smaller and newer lord in the karnataka high court folowed by another smaller lord at Chennai high court and then gradually the all their lordships decided to join the bandwagon. It was much like the movie indsutry where a relatively newcomer like Bipasa Basu starts revealing assets and everyone up the value chain right up to the top Madhuri Dixit [the then equivalent of the Chief Justice) has to reveal.
Oh what fun has it been to watch the terriers snap at the heels of their lordships forcing them to relent. But did something come out of it? Unlike in the movies, unfortunately nothing came out of it. As in much else that happens in India, it was like making a molehill out of a mountain... or its more apt hindi version Khoda Pahar Nikli Chuhiya.... Their lordships revealed that they had no assets worth revealing. The richest of them was worth around 40-50 lakhs slightly worse off than a shopkeeper in Sarojini Nagar.
It now transpires that their Lordships did not want to reveal their assets in the first place NOT because they wanted to hide their wealth, but because they wanted to hide their poverty. I think that is a fundamental right of all Indians and we should not deprive Lordships from that right.

Security Forces and Taj Mahal Hotel

2009-08-26T12:39:00.005+05:30

Nah, I am not taking you back to that fateful day in November and write a rambling and critical note on the role of security forces on that fateful day. I am going to better than that and narrate two separate incidents. These are two separate incidents that seemed to be linked yet you cant pin-point the link.

The first incident happened at the terminal 1A of the Delhi Airport. As usual I was much ahead of time for the afternoon flight and approached the main entrance to the terminal at a leisurely space [1 oclock flights are always empty]. I had in my shirt pocket several A sheets neatly folded, these were various tickets etc. that one normally carries. I took out one A4 sheet and checked it an handed it over the to the CISF guard at the gate, he took 2 minutes to scrutinise it, asked for my photo id and fully satisfied let me go [I wonder where he was when someone flew on a ticket bought on my credit card for Kingfisher sometime back]. I walked confidently towards the check in counter, ut before that there was another CISF person double checking the tickets. Once again I fished into my pocket took out a A4 sheet and handed it over to hi. Once again he checked it for 2 mins reading all the details of Flight 887, matching the date, my name and much else. The he handed me back the ticket, smiled at me and let me pass. As I was folding the ticket to put it back in my pocket, I could not help but laugh out aloud. I could clearly read what the ticket said: Mumbai Central to Hazrat Nizamuddin AC1, 21 August. The ticket which let me through the second gate was my return train ticket for the next day! It came as a shock to me that the person who was inchage of checking tickets was not literate and he looked at all printed A4 sheets with some columns as a plane ticket.

The second incident happened the next day at Taj where the organisation I work for was holding a large confernce. With a view to getting some work done while listening to the speakers at the conference, I asked the ballroom incharge to provide me with a wireless password. He had no clue and promised to sent the "IT guy" across. The IT guy came soon and I requested for a password for a couple of hours. "Yes" he said and suggestively mentioned, "should I tell you the rates beforehand". I said Yes to that thinking to myself it cant surely be more than a couple of hunder rupees for an hour. To my shock I was told that the minimum charge was 2,500 Rs. I did not get the zeros wrong. I maintained my dignity and asked him if there was a lesser scheme. he said there is no scheme for ballroom. To which I sugested that I had booked the ballroom for the day and would up running a bill of at least 4 lakhs... does not that call for a scheme for me? No Sir, was the reply. I think since people have completely stopped hotel phones [remember those rip offs in the earlier era?], this is the new way some hotels are making money. What a sad commentary. If you want to make money out of internet charges why not start a chain of cyber cafes? why start a five star hotel?

Digital Content and Services: Does Mobile Hold the Key?

2009-06-22T09:43:00.001+05:30

Doesn’t it sound interesting that after 15 years of growth based on “user generated content” the mobile phones walas are now moving towards non-user generated content and after 15 years of non-user generated content, internet walas are moving towards user generated content.
Sounds confusing? Let me try and make it easier: In the first round of growth mobile/wireless phones have thrived only on voice which is nothing but user generated content. To be slightly technical, the telecom operators have provided a platform on which we the users have contributed our voice content based on which the industry has grown to have more than 400 million customers. In case of the internet over PC/Laptop however, the beginning was made with web 1.0 where the content was provided to the user to web 2.0 where the platform is provided to the user and s/he contributes her own content.
So it appears that the that the adage “grass is greener on the other side” is coming to be true so far as digital content in India is concerned: Mobile walas are now increasing moving towards getting their customers hooked on to non-user generated content and internet walas are seducing their users by user generated content.
As of now, so far as the Indian market is concerned with its various skewed and awkward developments, it appears that the mobile walas have a distinct advantage in distribution of content and services on four fronts:
User generated content OR voice has proved to be a killer application
Which in turn has meant that benefits of “networking” is accruing to the users [more mobile phones there are more and more people would like to buy one; if you are the only mobile users you would have too few people to call
Mobile after all is a complete gadget: it allows you to talk, it provides connectivity and also acts as a tool for interaction [for using internet on PC you would at least have to have a PC/Device, a modem and a connectivity, sufficient electricity/battery supply. Mobile phones integrates all of these in a small and portable gadget]
Unlike the internet walas, the mobile walas have taught the users how to pay for content and services
It is small wonder that everyone is now trying to capture a share of the new user demand for what is perhaps a little too loosely known as mobile value added services. These services range from ringback tones on one end to mobile banking facilities on the other and anything in between.
This need for pushing content and services on mobile phones would continue to be driven by two significant factors:
The falling ARPUs, arrival of 3G and stiffer competition from new licensees would drive the telecom companies towards more and more value added content
On the other hand content and service providers which include such different entities as internet companies, film and music production houses and pure play mobile content and service providers, banks, retailers; increasingly use mobile as an important channel for distribution of content and services.
There is, however, an interesting dichotomy here: telecom users are not used to creating content and services [flourishing as they have done so far on voice]. The content and service providers on the other hand have so far not been used to paying the lion’s share of revenue for distribution [they are used to paying small commissions], and the current business models primarily dictated by telecoms irks them quite a bit.
So the current situation is somewhat like this: mobile walas need content and services to retain and obtain customers but do not know how to create it. Content and service walas are seduced by the huge customer base of telecoms, but are apprehensive of revenue models. While the industry has grown quite a bit within this constraint, it is time to break the ice and work out a sustainable model that benefits both for the telecom operators as well as the relatively smaller content and service providers.
From business models to what content would work in the future? This is a tricky one since the 400 million odd mobile users in India represent the entire universe of user type. In my view, a few things will work well [quite apart from p2p sms, premier sms and RBT that currently goes for all the content and service on mobile]: a) anything that is a part of the process of monetary transaction including actual transfers b) critical information that call for action now, c) active search for information and d) entertainment/fulfilment on the go. Interestingly again, telecom companies can not get into these businesses without losing their core competence just as much as content providers can not set up their own wireless networks to distribute their wares!
While it seems that once the telecom operators and content and service providers have developed a sustainable business model the growth of the industry is going to be unfettered; it would not be unwise to guard against a few roadblocks: a) at 400 million we have crossed all heretofore single product/service market sizes; we do not know our customers except that they want to talk, it is always difficult to service such a customer b) at 400 million we are more than 400 times over the English literate population, we still do not have local language phones worth mentioning c) at 400 million we are set to cross the total literate and numerate population of the country, will the next set of user be interested in mobile content and services at all? If so, of what kind? We do not know!
So even while the b2b issues are solved in the near future, the primary issue of “knowing” the customer, an issue that perhaps irks all mature industry will have to be faced and the industry will be limited by its knowledge or lack of it of its customer.

Universal Service Obligation

2009-04-14T16:55:00.003+05:30

Before I go any further, let me warn the reader that the title is a technical term used for the obligation in India of the telecom license holders to provide services in the rural areas. I would also like to clarify, if it is not yet clear to anyone who has read my blog entries, that I like to write on things I know nothing about [sometimes in business this habit is petulantly termed as lateral thinking and sometimes it is called thinking out of the box].
So here I am writing about the Universal Service Obligation of Indian Telcos and I begin my story with not mobile phones but with electricity. In the 1960s, the government of many states had this crusaders' mentality [like they have now for telecom]. It was thought and genuinely believed in policy circles that electricity could change people's live.. some even believed that electricity in villages could actually cut down on the birth rate [I am sure u can figure out how and why. I will give u a hint, in my high school economics book one of the reasons given for high birth rates in rural India was supposed to be "lack of entertainment" in rural India!].
Be that as it may, the various state governments started pushing for ambitious electrification programmes. In Bihar this is how it happened: in the '60 wooden electric poles were erected, in the 70s these poles were completed eroded by the rains and were replaced by concrete poles, in the '80s poles had wires which were not live, in the '90s poles became live... but the last mile [that is connecinting homes with live electricity] was still not complete. That was the time I left Bihar for greener pastures and have not returned.
The fun on the entire process was that no one lost out. How? the electricity boards got huge money for ambitious plans, poles wallas got their money, the wire wallas made their money and the villagers did not have to adopt to something they were not sure about as yet. So the story ended in a happy note.
Somewhat similar is the story of the Universal Service Obligation Fund for telcos. This is how it works at present [ I may be wrong since as I said I write about things I do not know about]: the government [which is now very keen to earn money from anyone who makes money] takes 6 per cent of all revenues of telcos, puts it in the consolidated fund of India and promises that any telco which will wire up rural India, will be subsidised from this fund.
Do you see the uncanny similarity between the old electricity story and the new telcom story? How do you think this is going to end? As they say, more things change more they remain the same! I can clearly see that the telcos will start building towers, the wirewallas will supply the wires, the switch wallas will supply the switches and [god forbid] the rural folks will be saved from the mobile phones. So evey one will be a winner just as in the case of electricity.
What is the way forward? I think it's easy..... and the best way forward is to make a lose lose situation for everyone. But How? Simple, dont start from the telcos... start from the consumers and reverse the the flow of subsidies. Here is how the flow chart would look:
1. Pay Rs 1,000 to anyone in the rural areas to buy a handphone [one per family only]
2. Handset manufacturers will start making handsets for 800 Rs and set up shops in rural areas
3. Tower companies will start setting up the towers since people are waiting with handsets
4. Wire companies will quickly wire up the towers [or is it wireless?]
5. Telcos will very soon charge up the wireless, they will know how many consumers are waiting at the other end.
It will be a lose lose situation for all: the rural consumer will be burdened with a mobile phone, and all others will have to invest out their own pockets to build a rural business and the government will be hauled up by the election commission. And the process will be complicated... but then if you have decided to give away free money why not make the dsitribution process as complicated as possible?
Jai Hind

Diamonds for Economically Challenged, Anyone?

2009-03-26T09:32:00.003+05:30

Ratan N Tata and his team have finally launched the Tata Nano Car. The ultimate in the world in "poor person's car". I am told that a lot of work and moolah have gone into the making of this poor person's vehicle - original reserach and development, design, engine etc etc. You name it and the car has it. The only thing retained from the heretofore known design of the cars is that the steering is still on one side [right side in this case]. I have always wondered why car steerings are on one side and not in the middle. Cars evolved from horse carriages where the coachman sat in the middle hence it would have been natural for cars to have steering wheels in the middle. That way u could also have two passenger seats in front. Perhaps someone making cars for persons who cannot even afford Nanos will make a car with the steering wheel in the middle.... someday.
But, as usual I digress. The whole point is, here is a great man from a developing country who thought of the have nots and put his resources behind making a car that is affordable by the poor. Just imagine if every industrialist and businessmen thought like him. The world would be a wonderful place to live in. So here are my suggestions to some of the biggies to make use of the recession and make pro poor products:
1. Shell, Chevron and others should start making a poor person's version of gasoline [to be used with Nano]
2. De Beers should start making poor person's diamond [we also have women to make happy, you know]
3. Boeing and Airbus should seriously start making planes for poor persons [some of us have got bored with cars anyways]
4. Central Banks should start printing poor person's money
World would be such a wonderful place to live in - there will be no class tension, no social tension, no neighbour's envy owner's pride syndrome.
Reminds me of a story I heard as a boy:
Rich Man to his new illiterate Driver: You know my only son is a IIT and IIM grad and works in Dubai
Driver: What's the big deal? My son also works in Dubai.
Thanks to Mr Tata the car industry has got Dubaied.. May his tribe increase.

Spread of Ideas

2009-03-04T10:22:00.002+05:30

I heard this story many years back from my friend. His father, also my teacher much later than the incident described here, as a young member of the Communist Party in his younger days had participated in meeting to discuss the defeat of the Party in all seats in Punjab except one. I was told by my friend that in the meeting the young scholar had raised his hand and asked "would it not be better if, rather than dissecting the cause of defeat, we deliberate on how we won one seat and recreate those conditions elsewhere so that we could win more seats". He was hooted as a charlatan and soon after he ceased to be a member of the Party. I narrate this story as an entry to the somewhat scary story of the recent takeover of the Swat valley by the followers of Taliban and the stark fact that Amritsar is only 500 kilometres from Swat.
Apart from the obvious historical fallacy in the scaremongering [Amritsar has always been 500 kilometres from Swat and Swat has always been a land of warlords since as far as historical records go], it does give an opportunity to see how ideas spread or more importantly how the spread of ideas are restricted. Here are some examples to start a debate: Bihar is zero kilometres from West Bengal where CPM has been ruling for 28 years. The presence of a marxist party at its borders has made no impact to Bihar's own variety of politics. Ditto with Tamil Nadu and Kerala. North Korea and South Korea; China and Pakistan are other examples where the flow of ideas and therefore politics have refused to permeate each other's territories. It seems obvious to me that ideology does not spread by mere geographical proximity. Then how do ideas spread? I really don't know. Perhaps socio-economic situations help or perhaps political sponsorship does....
Be that as it may, I am not alarmed at what is happening at Swat for two reasons, a) what is happening at Swat has been happening there at least since the last 200 years or more [I think Birbal too got killed in one of Akbar's campaign in that region] without affecting any one outside that area; b) empirically, ideas do not spread by just being in the neighbourhood. So let us not rush to contain the spread of ideas by half cooked methods, that could prove to be the most effective way to bring home the idea. As the Bengali proverb goes "Dont dig a canal to bring the crocodile home".

Pubs and Women

2009-02-23T11:49:00.003+05:30

With the tragedy of the pub issue in Bangalore quickly turning into a farce with a) presentation of pink chuddy b) case against minister and c) defamation suit against chaddi party, I thought it would be appropriate to share my perspective on pubs and women and make enemies of two things I love most Women and Indian Culture.
But first a clarification: a) Pub here is stricly a pub short for a public house. Not a lounge bar we know why people go there, certainly not to drink; NOR a restaurant which also serve booze; we also know why people go there and certainly not to drink. A public house is a place orginally in UK where the public went to drink [sofas and food were incidental]. These were known as bars in the US [given the wild nature of the locals, bars had to be put at the serving counters, much like what we had in Delhi till recently].
Now the big question" "Should women go to pubs?" [strictly as defined above] and the answer is NO. especially in India. For the following reasons [mainly]
1. Women usually do not drink more than a pint or two
2. Pub is not the best place to have fruit jiuce and blue curacao and various ohter virgin drinks.
3. Even when drunk women do not usually make a fool of themselves by shouting, abusing and quarrelling.
4. They listen and note conversation to be used later rather than particiapte in it. Believe me in real pub there are no listeners only talkers except the barman.
5. They do not puke in the loo, force and abuse others to let them drive after drinking and do not indulge in any other activities that are usually called post pub syndromes.
6. Finally, in male company they never pay [resonably so since they do not drink, or do not drink so much not do they participate except as passive agents]
So what is the point in going to a pub? More relevantly what is the point in taking women to a pub [as defined above]
Disclaimer: This is not an open invitation to persons of either sex to join me at the nearest bar in my next visit.

Elections on the Net: Let’s Bring Politics to Internet!

2009-01-19T15:21:00.000+05:30

In 1952 India had her first general elections based on universal adult suffrage. Two things at that first election determined the DNA of the election system of India: a) elections were based on universal adult suffrage, an understanding quite uncommon at that time across the world that all adults irrespective of caste, colour, creed, education and wealth, were competent and enlightened enough to choose their representative. It was actually a very bold idea at that time; b) the elections were to be conducted not by a government body but by a constitutional body called the election commission. As we now know, both these concepts had a revolutionary impact in establishing and maintaining India as a democracy for the last 60 years.

The first Chief Election Commissioner of India was a self-effacing bureaucrat Sukumar Sen of the Indian Civil Service. He served between 1950 and 1958 overseeing the first two general elections. Interestingly, he also served as the first election commissioner of Nepal and Sudan! [I got this information from the Wiki]. He was so self-effacing that he has hardly left behind any papers to enable historians assess his remarkable contribution to the election process in India. As the first Election Commissioner, he also determined the DNA of the Election Commission. While the successive Election Commissioners have not necessary followed Sen’s streak of self-effacement, they have unequivocally maintained the election commission as an independent statutory body, over the years making it one of the most efficient, effective, unbiased and progressive bodies not only in India but the world over.

If you were a senior citizen, who has participated in many elections over the years, you would not help wonder at the progress that the election process has made over the years in terms of shortening queues, better booth management, safer voting environment, ease of casting vote and above all else introduction and use of high technology in the election process.

It is quite a pleasant surprise to know how tech-savvy the working of the election commission is. Electronic voting machines are the most visible gadgets on the tech side. But the whole process of listing, weeding and maintaining voters’ lists and issuing voters’ identity cards is an enormous task given the size of the electorate and the constant stream of newly eligible voters in each successive election. Of course, it would be fair to assume that there was perhaps no alternative before the Commission but to embrace technology fully and efficiently given the enormity of the task and the streamlined nature of the commission. In the last 8-10 years, the Commission has therefore by design or default or by a judicious mixture of both, has chosen some of the most IT savvy civil servants to head its IT function who fortunately have been given a free hand to carry out their functions as long as they have produced the desired results: conducting the elections more efficiently.

Given the history and DNA of the election commission and the imperative need to make more and more use of technology — especially since the size of the electorate if growing, there is demand for more fair and efficient elections, there is need to bring more and more new groups into the election process; I think it is time that the Commission takes the next logical step and seriously considers the concept of “internet voting”. This simply means that registered voters should be given the option of casting votes on the internet.
The task prima facie sounds daunting, and it is so. But we can rely on the historical efficiency of the Election Commission to implement the project on one hand; and on the other, the number of benefits it will bring to the country on the whole.

On the first issue of the Commission’s capability, needless to say, it is important to get the Commission to think in terms of internet voting. Once the thought is accepted seriously by the commission, I am sure, it will not be too difficult for the Commission to implement it – just as it has so smoothly and efficiently implemented electronic voting machines. Of course, in the case of internet voting there is no global precedence, just as there was not precedence of electronic voting machines on such as large scale. So there is the opportunity to set a global benchmark.

On the second issue of benefits, one can safely state that they are far too numerous and important. I will just mention three top issues that can be resolved: a) Literally, millions of so called middle classes who do not come out to vote since they consider the process to long and boring will come out and vote from the comfort of their homes thus possibily changing the whole demographic challenge that elections in India face; b) It will be much safer for people to vote and not be intimidated and c) finally, due to a drastic cut down on physical arrangements such as setting up booths and deploying security forces, the government will save considerable time and money. If these are not compelling reasons, I wonder what are?

As a postscript and from a narrow personal perspective, I may also add that “internet voting” will give a new thrust to internet use in India and help in higher internet penetration – something that successive governments have failed to achieve, may as well be achieved through the good offices of the election commission. This I would say would be the best “collateral” achievement of the whole exercise.

Hyderabad Blues

2008-12-08T16:03:00.002+05:30

For long my acquaintance with Hyderabad was through history books about rich but miserly nawabs and their fabulous wealth and eccentricities especially onthe dining table on one hand and on the other the famous telengana movement in 1946. In more recent times, that view was moulded by high dowry demands [no I never thought of marrying a telegu girl at any point in time, I could have been richer] for nice boys in the marraige market. Fortunaltely though in the last few years I have had first hand experience of the city especially its various hotels, convention centres and other things that make up modern Hyderabad including the latest addition, the new airport. After savouring these modern delights in this medieval city, I am firmly of the opinion that if one has to see India's city one has to move out of Delhi and Mumbai. These two cities are old matrons surviving on borrowed make up. If you erally want to see the real beauties of the future look beyond to Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Surat, and perhaps even Chennai which is suddenly grown into beauty in middle age [some women do that trick on you].

Of course, the old Hyderabad looks as beautiful and as dirty as ever, Charminar is as majestic and Golconda fort as awe inspiring and Hussain Sagar as beautiful. But this time old and new culture had a new meaning for me. I discovered the most beautiful heritage building Chiraan Fort in Secundrabad which had been converted into a fantastic restaurant and bar complex. It was the most beautiful bar that I ever visited [and I have visited many]. Built on the model of what seemed to me the Falaqnuma Palace, this place was just out of the world. And to top it all although it was a club, they allowed non-members like me to enjoy a drink and if u are from Delhi or Mumbai a full bottle of beer at Rs 100 in a heritage builing in mid town is almost as good as free... After so many surprises, the only surprising thing left for me was that I did not get drunk.

The Child of the Nation

2008-11-14T11:06:00.002+05:30

I was completely disappointed today when I opened the newspaper. There was just this little quarter of a page advertisement from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting commemorating the birthday of Jawahar Lal Nehru, while the whole paper was either full of pictures of scoundrels who had managed to get tickets for the forthcoming polls or full of bigger scoundrels who had not managed to get tickets... A couple of broadsheets tried valiantly to market Children's Day.... But it has clearly not reached the stature of Valentine's Day or even mother's day...
It is a sad day for our democracy that on the eve of elections, we forget the one man who fought everyone else within and outside his party, tolerated ridicule from colonoial masters and the world but stuck to one point that has made India what it is: Universal Adult Suffrage. And this was at a time when in the other large democracy people of colour were not allowed to vote and in other smaller democracies women were still fighting for their right to elect their representatives. Of course, in most countries of Asia and Africa people did not even know that there was a system through which they could actually elect their own representatives.
My humble suggestion is that the birthday of the first Child of the Nation, Jawahar Lal Nehru should be declared as the univesal suffrage day and all of us who never vote take a pledge to respect our demicratic right and cast our vote in all elections. Thus making sure that we do not fritter away one of the most prized legacies.
It is also a bit sad that on Children's Day children have to go to school while on Vishwakarma Puja they are forced to take a holiday

Like Father, Like Son!

2008-11-11T11:34:00.003+05:30

I am not particularly obsessive about cricket nor am I very fond of Bengali heroes. I therfore am not sure why I am makng this entry on cricket and on a bengali connected with cricket. But there you are.
Once upon a time, many years back a father would take his son to practice sessions. The father, I think was a member of Cricket Association of Bengal. The indulgent father was ridiculed by his friends and acquaintances on his one obsession, to make his son a test cricketer and play for India. Those were the days when the economy and polity had ensured that the otherwise cocky Bengalis had lost their self-confidence. While people made the right noises in front of the father, when his back was turned, they smirked at the overambitious father and the impossible dream that he had. Of course, as they say the rest is history.... If the father was dogged in his determination, the son was the top dog of Indian cricket for many years.... if the father carried the onus of the son's success, the son carried the onerous task of the country's success; if the father wanted to establish his son as a famous Indian, the son wanted to put his country as the world leader in cricket... Both of them carried out their tasks with grit and determination and at the end succeeded. One is still a young man, the other past his prime. His son has given him enough to enjoy for the rest of his life... I think, like Martin Luther, Chandi Ganguly too had a dream, but unlike Luther, he was able to fulfil it in his lifetime and sit back to enjoy the fruits.
If you think Saurav Ganguly was great as a cricketer, captain and a leader, please do remember to give some credit to Chandi Ganguly.
As they say in Hindi
Baap Ka Beta/ Sipahi Ka Ghora... Kuch nahi to Thora Thora!

Jai Maa Kaali

2008-11-07T03:42:00.004+05:30

I remember as a child, every Bengali family of repute and ill-repute would have a very gaudy and hastily framed photo of Maa Kaali reclining on the puja box or adorning a wall to be worshipped with vigour especially by the elderly in the family. The design and printing were quite basic probably crude: the goddess was painted in garish blue with several hands holding arms, a chain of skulls around the neck as garland, a severed head in one hand standing with one foot on the chest of supine Lord Shiva, the divine consort, her decency covered artfully by her long hair. The garishness of the colours or the gaudiness of the whole concept did not affect the devotees. These pictures were usually designed along the lines of calendar art of that time.
I also remember, the bahurupiya who came calling every now and then, painted in blue, with a tin tongue sticking out of the mouth and long tresses of jet black hair on the head dressed as Kaali - it was a bit scary to see a man dressed like that but nonetheess awe inspiring and definitely a good business idea on part of the bahurupiya. Of course, as a budding intellectual, I also knew early that this was one of the roops of Maa Kaali - the destructive roop.
After so many years it was rather fun to see the gorgeous Hiedi Klum dressed exactly as the Kaali depicted in those early calendar art posters. I thought it was a cool idea to resurrect something many my age have grown up with and perhaps forgotten in course of their life's journey. Of course, hindu groups in the US were quick to protest this "insult" to their deity [I doubt how many of them are Kaali worshippers who remains till today a deity local to some parts of India notably Bengal]. I think it was very thoughtful of the now ageing model to pose as Maa Kaali - the ultimate symbol of feminism in my part of the world. One vital element of that motiff was missing - lord shiva, the divine consort lying at her feet. It would have been great if Seal could do that for us. I guess just as Heidi was painted blue, Seal would have to be painted white [for Lord Shiva for some strange reason, was always white in those photos I remember].
Thank you Heidi for reviving a childhood memory after fuelling several middle age fantasies. What will it be next time? Sheronwali Mata?

Celebrating the Humble Plastic

2008-11-03T13:56:00.002+05:30

Santosh Desai, the famous brandman, write I regular column in the Times of India. I have always wondered what qualifies a person to write "freewheeling" columns in national dailies? But to stick to the point I wanted to make. I was inspired to make this entry by his article on steel which appeared today. For me it is the humble plastic which needs to be celebrated today as a great business facilitator, great leveller and a great insider to all that we do.
Remember those silly paper bags made by poor widows and chidren, which could not even hold soggy salt [there was no plastic packed tata salt then], remember those metal buckets that used to adorn most bathrooms and those aluminium mugs which kept millions of bums clean every morning? Remember the humble bathroom tin door on a wooden frame? They have all lost out to the plastic and various versions of it. On the dining table there are plastic plates, plastic cutlery sometimes even plastic food [I am exaggerating]. In case you forgot not many years back airlines used to provide real cutlery not the plastic one which can only poke yout tongue or cut your lips. Not to forget milk in glass bottles, coke in glass bottles. We have travelled a long way since then one brand of whiskey very successfully switched to glass bottles for 500 ml servings.
Then of course there is the great recycle potential of plastic as office bags, as tiffin carrier, as everything really.... you just have to look what we get in and what we get out of our houses and you would be convinced that the civilisation as we know it, would cease to exist wihtout plastic. This is the biggest triumph of humanity in recent years and we are like typical humans celerating the success in such a way that we even describe human emotions with reference to plastic: plastic smile for example..... It looks like soon we will have to shrink in order to make room for plastic in this planet. My personal observation is that in India Bombay is the real plastic city both literally and figuratively.
Victory to Plastic!

Amazing Biharis

2008-10-31T05:19:00.006+05:30

It is amazing how Biharis continue to be in the news in spite of no known bomb blasts in Patna sicne the salad days of JP Narain and George Fernandes. In this day and age it takes a lot to be in the news for a people and state which does not have a Narendra Mody, a Mamta Banerjee, any serial blasts, no cyclones, no big investments, No Behen Mayawati not even an Amar Singh.
How do Biharis do it year after year? And prove that when it comes to newsworthiness it is unique. It is a simple recipe really.... but supreme sacrifice mixed with a little violence turned inside. The sacrifice story is simple... either there are floods or they are beated up on other states. As perhaps the largest group of internal and seasonal migrants in India, Biharis have been threatened from Kashmir to Maharashtra. This trend is likely to extend to Bangalore soon [my driver's cousin has a pan shop in Bangalore and he is eating up local jobs there, I guess] and perhaps reach Chennai very soon. One day it might also cross the Palk Strait and enter Sri Lanka. In the north, the past time of Bihari baiting is likely to go any further than Kashmir unless, but who knows the next frontier may be Afghanistan or Pakistan may be even China. In any case I will probably not live to see the day when a prospective US presidential candidate makes "Bihari Bhagao" the main plank of her election campaign. With the expanding frontiers of migration and unlimited supply of migrants, Bihar is sure to continue to grab headlines just by the virtue of being beated up by everyone across the country and perhaps across the globe [that will be true globalisation Bihari style].
The second method of getting in to the newsheadlines is natural with extremes of weather forces working on a poor people, Bihar is going to be in the in the monsoons, summer and winter. Unless the weather becomes moderate or the people become rich enough to fight the elements. Both seem very unlikely in the very long run.
It is by being at the receiving end of the weather and every body else that Bihar manages to beat otehr states in grabbing coverage. Sometime when it does not work [rare is such an occasion] there is always the inward looking violence - just kill a few people of other caste and get killed; or burn some trains in your own state; or attack trains passing through your own state. Endorsing the negative perception that most of the country holds about Bihar. Who is to blame? I do not know. But two things are simple: a migration is an economic and social process and cannot be stopped by clubbing a few Biharis. Second, politicians who have screwed up the state along caste and communitarian lines have no right to preach to others who are treating Biharis as outsiders.
By the way whatever happened to the floods in Bihar this year? Has the breach in Kosi been mended? Have people returned to their villages? How did they celebrate Diwali? No news? Not even a human interest story?

Diwali and a Mature Consumer

2008-10-27T13:24:00.002+05:30

It is long believed by marketers that children influence the consumption patterns of parents not only in relation to goods and servies consumed by them, but also with regards to goods and services consumed by the adults in the family. It is around this belief that some proud parents happily declare "you know my ten year old son told me not to buy Laura but settle for Civic" or that VAIO was better than HP". it is little wonder that many of the so called kids channel are full of advertisements that have nothing to do with children. I too had a taste of these baby mature consumers in the last few days two. In the first instance, my daughter asked me one evening while I was trying to put her to bed "dad do children make crackers"? I said yes several lakh of them are employed in making crakers and that there was a whole history of Child labour beginning with the Industrial Revolution were little boys where send down the mines and up the chimneys. The next demand was obviously to buy firecrackers "lots of them" but withiout noise. It made me realise how tiny consumers were very mature... there was guilt of consumption, there was greed for consumption and there was awareness behind what was to be consumed at th instersection of guilt and greed. In the second instance, while watching TV with my daughter, I noted with excitement the ad for a famous children's movie and before I could tell my daughter "we must watch it together", she said "how stupid, do they expect us to watch a movie at 9PM on Diwali evening"!
I am learning fast from my new teacher, what to consume, how to consume, how to prioritise comsumption and what not to consume......

Prime and Sub-Prime

2008-10-13T00:35:00.004+05:30

At the sub-prime of my life and with lack of a degree in economics it is a bit of a dare devilry to talk about the so called sub-prime crisis that is causing much heart-burn everywhere. Don't worry I am not going to go deep into the problem and suggest authentic remedies - there are hosts of people doing just that [they never read English and are not aware of the adage "too many cooks spoil the broth"]. I am here just to make my little bowl of soup and move on. The so called sub-prime crisis which is the grandmother of all crises now faced by financial institutions across the globe, has been played out in a way that seems to give the impression that poor americans took loans and were unable to play. And by implication, poor people across the world are bad news for lenders. This inference is dangerous: firstly because poor people need loans more than rich; and more importantly, empirical evidence from micro financing institutions show that poor people have the best record of repayment [he pays up for he needs another loan after repayment].
What has not been brought out clearly that the present crisis has been brought about by the greed of a few persons, who had huge powers of manipulating, cheating and otherwise doing anything possible to increase their variable salaries and performance based bonuses. They were usually very rich people and they wanted to become richer. The surprising thing is not that such people would be greedy. What is surprising thing is that they could hold everyone including mighty governments to ransom and get away scott free in the name of free markets. It is time that some of these people were brought to book and made to face the music. And the sub-prime crisis should be promptly renamed super prime crisis.

JB My Friend and Teacher

2008-10-06T15:58:00.003+05:30

My friend, my former colleague, a most enchanting gentlemen is no more. He was not yet 60, to be precise he was just 57 or 58. He had gone for a routine check up, a chest congestion problem and was suggested a bipass. He never came back to us after that. This was on the day that this year the Durga Pujas began.
JB what the fuck you thought you were doing? Just going off like that? Why could you not hold on for infinity? Fight the inefficiency of the doctors and nurses and live to tell is the tale? Why should we suffer becuase of your softness, kindness and gentleness? Your caring for us? Your gentle ways? Your ways as a gentleman? Why should we suffer ur absence?
Remember, what u said to me about ur grandfather? About your experience as a student in Delhi? About making me knowledgeable on the history of Assam? And much more?
Why did u have to do this? Where will we learn our manners? Our correctness? Our behaviour while enjoying rich gossip? How will we know what class is? And what classiness is? How will we know what it means to pitch for quality rather than quantity?
You have ditched us early JB, and this is not fair......... All of us are left shallower since your deeper nuances will no longer be with us any more.
I have never me Romola, but I hear that she wore the pants in the family... Bullshit.... if she wore the pants, you certainly wore the suits.....
JB this was no way to go, please come back if you can.
PS: In case u do not know who JB was, his picture is above left.......

Power Surplus or Surplus of Power

2008-10-05T21:52:00.003+05:30

Read in the day's newspapers that Delhi would soon be power surplus. No this is no thanks to the not yet signed and sealed nuclear deal thantIndia has recently signed. It is about the fact that Delhi is going to have more electricity than it can consume. The efficient and erudite Chief Minister of Delhi has a very subtle way of campaigning for elections, so one is not sure if this is yet another announcement. I am also not sure if this was a "bought news" [read advertorial] or a "free news".
Even with so many uncertain thoughts, this is the best news that the citizens of this city have got in years. For many years, Delhi has lacked two essential components that make great cities ample water and uninterrupted power supply. It amazes me that a whole modern city could thrive and grow on all sides without sufficient electricity and water. But Delhiites being what they are have artfully managed that.
So no longer buying expensive invertors, batteries, generators etc. [what would happen to these guys?]
But even after everthing has been saud and done much remains to be said. For example: Why did it take so long for a city full of powerful people to get sufficient power? Does this mean that the powerful people in the city never actually suffered from lack of power? Does power surplus mean assured good quality power where we can also do away with the UPS like in Mumbai? But then that would mean a differnt story altoghther. For now, I will take the news or advertorial for what it really is - a subtle election time propaganda.

Al Zajira, CNN and Terrorism

2008-10-04T22:57:00.004+05:30

I feel so proud these days as an Indian. We have not yet sent a man to moon and we have had to lean on our Russian friends to send a person to the orbit, but we have come of age so far as terrorism is concerned. Gone are the days when people manning the PMO [Prime Minister's Office] could sit back smugly and declare the hand of our friends across the border was at work in a case of terrorist attack. We now have our home grown, home bred geniuses doing it for us.... Delhi, Ahmedabad, Surat, Bangalore, BAD or worse, are our making. These are our boys not some organised Soldier and Gentlemen across the border.... . We have finally arrived in an area we have been lagging since the 1980s when some of our sikh brothers decided there is more to be made in business than in terrorism and renewed the efforts to migrate to cooler climes.
I do not want to delve into the causes behind terrorism and the factors that will bring them down. There are people who are paid to do this [yes they get paid at the level of an union secretary even after retirement and some of their grandchildren have just become jobless post the failure of i-banks in the US so they need the money much more than we do]
The point is about the media...... Isn't terrorsim more a handiwork of CNN, Al Zajira, NDTV, IndiaTV and all other media? No? Ok.
Media would say that most people "like" terrorism on TV as much as they like seeing mothers of children who have died in 30 feet ditches, or fathers whose sons have been arrested by police as terrorists, or boys whose brothers have been killed because some rich business man or rich peasant did not want to lose honour.
Even if we want it that way, is it the business of the media to show what we want? Aren't there are some dos and donts, principles, ethics, operating principles? No?
Then let me say on behalf of a depraved nation, we want to see porn everyday especially those involving nicely done up white women and those revealing private lives of our leader, and especially those telling us whose child studies where and whose wife sleeps with whom.
We as audience are dying to know these things. Please give us a break from the gory details of people dying of terrorist attacks and please let us have some fun on TV by showing on "popular demand" the private lives of politicians and journalists. We would send your TRP shooting through the roof just give us a chance.

Delhi Women and Bearded Men

2008-09-18T04:23:00.006+05:30

Just above the headlines the Hindustan Times carried this smaller headline leading to a news in the inside pages of the paper " Delhi women prefer to kiss clean shaven men". The Headlines screamed "Police Release Sketches of Suspected Bombers". This was a few days back and the headlines referred to the bomb blasts in Delhi.

Apart from the obvious surrealism of these two lines appearing together, the survey raises interesting questions [Quite apart from the most obvious question which shaving razor manufacturer could have sponsored the "research"?].

The first question that came to my mind was what type of women did the survey interview? Please note that Delhi is home to three of the most powerful women in India Mrs Sonia Gandhi, Mrs Pratibha Patil and Mrs Sheila Dikshit - were these and others such as Mrs Renuka Chaudhary, Mrs Jayanti Natarajan, Mrs Sushma Swaraj and Mrs Meira Kumar interviewed for the survey? I mean these are women of substance, if they were not a part of the survey on behaviour of women, the survey has no meaning.

The second question that came to my mind was in a city dominated by our Sardar and Jat friends who are very particular about their facial hair - the whole hog in the case of former and on upper lip in case of the latter - are our sisters in Delhi going Kissless for generations? Is this leading to further social tensions? Should our brothers in Delhi show some TLC to our Delhi sisters and take up that offer from the razor manufacturer to stem the tide of social tension?

The third question was more sinisiter - Do these surveys really matter to the Delhiwalla? We do not ask women of their opinion, nay dont even consider that they exist except when we feel naughty and want to pinch them and in any case most of the times we kill them even before they are born.....

There are surely better ways to sell razors to Delhi men... [what about " A lethal steel weapon, well crafted to kill and maim - you can also shave with it"]

Amen

PS: Look at the picture carefully, Aren't shaving razors beginning to look more and more like potato peelers? What does that make you, Brother?

Hardening Up

2008-09-12T01:59:00.003+05:30

It has happened to me quite a few times in quite a few places. The first time it happened was when I was 14 years old and standing in a rather violent queue for a first day first show in my native land. A boy of my age decently attired came up to me and said that he had come from the nearby town and had lost his parents and did not have the bus fare to go back. I trusted him and gave him two rupees [the cost of the cinema ticket was three rupees just to give u a sense of "relativity"]. Crooked that I was even at that age, I started thinking if I had done the right thing or if I was royally cheated [My friends took me for a fool] and I promised not to be so gullible again.
The next time it happended was in Calcutta again at a cinema ticket counter, this time I was old enough to watch adult movies. A smartly dressed gent came up to me and on the pretext of losing his wallet asked for 25 rupees. I hesitated for a moment and then give away 25 rupees [a dress circle ticket at New Empire cost only 5.75 rupees then, u get the "relativity".
The last time it happened was in New Delhi railway station one fine morning when I was catching a train to Bihar. Again well-dressed gentleman with a wife in tow came up to me and said they they too were victims of pickpockets and had lost their money and tickets to Patna. Yes once again, I forked out 300 rupees again with that nagging feeling at the back of my head "was I being taken for a ride?".
Many years passed without trouble and things started improving. In fact for six years in my small way, I started paying a pound to homeless, buskers and drunks in various nooks and crannies of London. But the deal was simple, you give money for food or beer [no busker claimed to have been cheated by a recording company and no drunk claimed to buy vitamins]. And I started thinking world had changed while I was getting older - we were moving towards more transparency and clear RoI on charities.
So when this old lady stood in front of my seat in the AC first class compartment of Rajdhani Express one evening at Mumbai Central and claimed that she wanted to go back to Azamgarh and needed six hundred rupees, I hesitated checked my head first and then my heart, the latter once again won and I parted with the money feeling rather smug having helped an elderly person reach her family.
My happiness lasted for two weeks. Exactly a fornight later under exactly the same circumstances, I found the same lady in front of me with the same story asking for exactly the same amount of money. I will not tell you what I did... But all these and many other stories came to my mind that night and I was convinced that all my life I was gullible and a victim of cheats.
Now I am a hardened man, [I have even stopped paying the beggar at Defence Colony the customary one rupee that I paid everyday for three years].
Can you blame me? I keep feeling guilty though, especially when I pass under the Andheri flyover in Mumbai or the Moolchand crossing in Delhi.

End of the World

2008-09-10T15:27:00.004+05:30

My seven year old daughter asked me last night before going to bed: "Dad are there going to be Earthquakes tomorrow? Are we all going to die". I explained to her that these were rumours floated by people who did not know what was happening and what were the implications of the experiments carried out by CERN. She was assured and went off to a peaceful sleep.
But I was not very reassured myself and sat up and read up about the experiment and the arguments for and against it.
Now I am of a scientific bent of my and am fully aware that from a particular perspective, we live under the threat of extinction every day what with so many zombie like asteroids, planetoids, cosmic rays, planets going around the solar system, it is most surprising that we are still around after so many billions of years. You just need to look at the surface of the moon to know what I mean.
However some fundamental questions came to my mind and I list them in no particular order:
1. While scientists were planning this mega planet blower experiment, Indians were begging to be introduced to much less harmless nuclear suppliers group and people were seriously debating if India should be allowed further nuclear tests. I found it ironic.
2. CERN are the same group of people who discovered quite accidentally the Internet while researching some aspects of nuclear physics. It's a bit like Christopher Columbus... He became a famous discoverer after having preciously failed to discover what he wanted to doscover. I mean how seriously should we take cooks who set out to make samosas and end up making rasgullas instead [delicious though they might be]?
3. Fundamentally, how would we benefit if we are able to know precisely what happened after the big bang? Will it help us in any practical way? I know where I could have used that 5.5 billion dollars more fruitfully.
4. Should not there be more information sharing and debate before some such groups start on some such experiments? I mean here people are stripping naked to save some whales from wily Japanese and here there is not even a modicum of debate over what some people think is the end of the world. Remember human cloning is banned in many countries becuase of its moral implications.
5. Finally, I trust the scientists to the extent that they are not sucidal and will start off an experiment which will kill them first. But then who knows? It was after all some very gentlemanly but nutty scientists who handed over the atomic bomb to Oppenheimer.
6. Finally, please do not take such opportunities to seek the services of God. He will not be of much help, he never is.
But by God! if the experiments goes horribly wrong what a way it will be to go..... I wonder will it end with a bang or a whimper.

Made in America: Bill Bryson

2008-09-04T05:10:00.005+05:30

According to the author this book is about America's contribution to the English language. But that is just the sub-text. The book really is one of the best history text books for anyone [and I guess there should be many in India] who wants to know a little bit about American history.

But I am getting ahead in the story. Let me begin by two confessions: 1. I have never been the US [that is saying something in this day and age!] 2. I had very little knowledge about American history till I read this book [Again that is saying something because since High School through to PhD, I have read only history. But then a gentleman called Thomas Babington Macaulay and his Indian followers had ensured that I knew more about Tudors and Stuarts than about the Boston Tea Party]

I am not going to summarise the book here since it is one of those books which has to be read and experienced. But just inform you that next time when you are in the US and you are not the type who would carry loads of rice and dal, cook yourself the same food everyday, stick to your community, save virtually more than you earn and look for Green Card from the time of your arrival; you must read this book. It will make you immesely knowledgeable about America and allow you to talk intelligently. The book starts at the beginning even before the Pilgrims [we are told that these were by far not the first settlers and by no means the best set of people]; talks about the several bunglings of Christopher Columbus, take you thorough the formation of the Union, the constitution, the civil war, and all that is American, language, sports, business, advertising and even sex.

The size of the book is intimidating, but once you start reading it you will find it engrossing: each page is like a new discovery.

And this is NOT the book which begins with the now famous Bryson line "I come from Des Moines, someone had to!" Yet I read the whole book but could not find the answer to a question that has been in my mind for 20 years now. In any international gathering an American [US] will state her/his name and the name of the city [even if it is Des Moines and little known outside the county: "Hi I am Bill Bryson from Des Moines"] This is completely contrary to the international custom. I have never heard an Indian saying "Hi I am Subho from Katihar" not a Japanese saying "I am Sugihara from Kyoto". Rarely a Brit would announce his/her city even if s/he is from London, Nor have a met a Rene from Niece. All of us have the natural habit of declaring our place of origin/domicile in an hierarchical order. Thus if I am in Bihar with the Biharis, I would say I am from Katihar; if I am in Delhi with people from other states, I would say I am from Bihar and if I am in London with people of many nationalities, I would say I am from India and then go on to explain my state and town. This, I believe is the general rule for all except Americans.

Mr Bryson does not mention why is this so. And I have not yet been able to develop a theory around it. If you have any theories please share them with me, else, I guess I would have to make that long overdue journey to the land of Mark Twain.

That Time of the Year

2008-08-26T11:49:00.006+05:30

It is that time of the year when the place in north east Bihar where I grew up is in the news for the right reason. But even the right reason is not very right and certainly not bright. At this time of the year, that region is in the news not because some MLA killing his rival, or one caste killing a dozen of another in an evening of macho sports not even that of a minister caught with his pants down, no train accidents either. It is that time of the year when my favourite part of the world for the last half a century [I have lived through 40 of those years] has a divine and devastating visitation in the form of floods surrounded or enclosed as it is by three riviers which are either very large or very wily or both: the Ganga, Kosi and the Mananda. the last two rushing to merge in the Ganga to the south.
For those who are usually upset at what is no more than waterlogging in our cities like Mumbai and now increasingly Delhi would note that this area is visited by floods [not water logging] every year for half a century.
Imagine a situation where there is almost clear sky but water rising inside your house or fields in dealthly silence. The scariest part is that you will not know how high the water will rise. Every year it is high enough for a quater of the population of this area [what used to to be the old Purnea district now divided into many others] seeking shelter along with their worldly possessions on sundry embankments or railway line[if these are spared] and surviving anywhere between 10 to 15 days each year on dry chidwa and gur thrown at them from helicopters by a "sympathetic government". Before they went back to their villages to salvage whatever they could. In some areas the rains, flood and the water logging seamlessly merges with the bitter winter [but that is another story]
This is the environment which gives rise to heartwarming stories like the one in which a poisonsous snake and a man spents three nights in perfect harmony on a tree-top just above the water level each too respectful of the other's situation.
This year though, the situation is slightly different: No do not worry I am not going to make you feel happy by saying that the situation is better [situations never get better in my part of the world]. In point of fact, the situation is far far worse than one can imagine. The most wily river of all, Kosi has this year decided to change its course. It has made a breach of 3 miles which is growing at the rate of 200 metres a day and carving out a new course towards the Ganga 100 kms downsrtream. There is a fair possibility that some of the districts in the upper reaches on the boarder with Nepal will cease to exist after the new route of intercourse between Kosi and Ganga is completed and some of the districts further south will be irreparably damaged.
The best part of the story is that very few will ever know of this and yet fewer will act on it. After all who cares about Bihar anyways!

[The accompanying picture taken by an overseas visitor and used without permission]

Mumbai Meri Jaan

2008-07-12T04:24:00.003+05:30

If you happen to read three relatively recent books on Mumbai, Shantaram, Millennium City and Sacred games, you will not fail to notice that Mumbai continues to be the most captivating city in India both in terms of dreams and aspirations on one hand and the reality. Shantaram is a narrative of the experiences of a man, Millennium is part fiction part truth and Sacred Games is a pure fiction based on "what possibly happens" in Mumbai. But if you read them together, you will realise that so far as Mumbai is concerned it is difficult to tell where fiction ends and facts begin. To me they appeared interchageable so far as the great city is concerned.
Another striking point is that once you start writing about the city, you just can not stop. Look at the size of all the three books I mentioned.... each of them looks and feels like a brick. Of course Sacred Games takes the cake followed closely by the other two. It would seem that the authors just could not stop writing. And if you keep in mind that all three books describe incidents of only a few years and not decades or centuries of the city's history - you ought to be impressed.
However, missing is all these mega narratives, although there are slivers of this in all and most notably in Shantaram, is the life of the ordinary person. It would be fascinating to chronicle the life and times of an ordinary citizen with all its ups and downs. Unfortunately, I do not read Marathi very well and have not had an opportunity to look for Marathi books on the subject. I am sure there are a few around. However, I have had the opportunity to read a four volume biography of a Bengali who was born in 1899 and became famous after he fled home in Calcutta. Among the various places he fled to was of course Mumbai. The name will not be known today but he was a cult director in 1930s and 40s making such movies as Yahudi Ki Beti. Premankur Atorthi was his name and his voluminous biography is titled "Mahasthabir Jataka" .
Not too many people can read Bengali these days, I am therefore, planning to translate the book and I can assure you Atorthi's description of Mumbai before the first world war will give you goosepimples and put many of the recent authors to shame. Especially fascinating for me was his description of pavement dwellers and fighting among gangs of beggars.
I hope I will find some time to soon to start translating the book.

Inflation in Amar Colony

2008-07-06T06:24:00.005+05:30

5 years ago when I moved into a new locality in Delhi, Amar Colony behind my residence was the nearest market one could go to for sensible shopping. But then situated in the middle of a "refugee" colony with houses built like little steel trunks stacked on top of each other, there was not much to the market. You went there only when the posher shops in GK1 markets did not provide the services or goods that you might just require - shortening a new set of trousers, colouring a dupatta, buying note books, art papers, razai or fresh samosas or locally made farsan. You get the slant.
Over the years, there has been a cleaning out process, the toy shop has become so big that Vikki, the owner, young that he is can still dream of giving Hamleys a run for their money in his lifetime, the local milk and paneer shop going by the now famous name of Gopala actually stocks Mishti Doi as well as multigrain bread, there are a few export huts where you can buy original addidas and nike at "affordable" prices, the local confectionary, Junejas, is stocked with all sorts of colourful bottles including a few of English mustard, and packets of exotic chocolates. The Nokia shop looks swank, the Coton showroom looks is full of posh ladies - the crowd of course comes down from as far as Defence Colony and GK2. The small tailor shop, the razai shop and the momowalas are still around as are the cycle rickshaws, but certaily there are more Honda cities and Corollas than Maruti Zens parked all over the place.
This is the market I frequent now and on my last visit, the toy shop known rather sweetly as KiddiLand had a queue at the entrance, inside it looks more like a godown where free toys are being distributed than a well stocked shops frequented by doting parents from Defence Colony. At the milk shop Gopala, it took around 10 minutes to get the attention of the salesperson, at the humble stationery shop at least 10 teenagers were crowding and mobbing the elderley owner. And I did forget to mention, the newly opened Cafe Coffee Day was full too. At Junejas, one had to take recourse to the elbow trick to find one's way. Even the humble but good GP who is gradually building up his practice, now charges Rs 200 at least per visit and has patients lined up.
Those who say we are hit with 12 per cent inflation must visit Amar Colony and breathe a sigh of relief. The news of inflation has not yet reached these parts.

what is happiness

2008-07-04T19:02:00.002+05:30

don't know:)
but I am happy in a way for my age::)
I can eat where i want to
I never have to go to a place where there is no loo
I can fart when I want to
I can buy the cd I want to
I can watch porn and people think I am senile
I can abuse my coworkers, and they say he has the right to do so
I can come to office late and my colleagues are happy that i at least turned up for work
I think my daughter is the preetiest and the brightest in the class
I pee with the rim down, ohters can go to the alternative loo
I can sing aloud in the loo and people generally say I sing well
I have the time to read one book every night
I can say fuck off to my employer [ if i see them]
I think people who work for me take me to be good
I love people I love
I hate people I hate
Many more......................................
I am generally happy

Need Based and Want Based Consumption

2008-06-26T16:08:00.004+05:30

Staunch believers in market forces like Dr Monmohan Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and P Chidambaram have suddenly changed track and are actively colluding with non-believers in market forces to control the bogey of inflation and why not. No one minds cutting ideological corners in an election year and no one blames them for doing so. of course they would argue, as all market wallahs to this has nothing to do with market mechanisms, if it was a free market then inflation would not have happened, this is a market failure blah blah blah. No wonder we have some of the best ecomomists of the world in India engaged in the worst ecomonic policies since the days of Paul Baran [he was I think the PM's economic adviser for a short period in 1950s]

I think it is best to leave inflation a free hand rather than tinker with it. In the past tinkering with the eocnomic foces have had disastrous result and this time around we have no reason to assume otherwise.

Till a generation back we had a middle class polulation that decided to buy something only when it was a necessity. Nothing that was not desperately needed was ever bought however rich you were. And the need ot lack of it was justified in various ways..... if you are leaving in a small town why do you need to buy a car, travelling is much faster by rickshaw.... Why do u need ACs for three months in a year? just bear it out... Fridge is not a good thing the quality of food is not preserved! Cauliflowers in summer are not tasty stick to bhindi.....

They knew the value of everything

That was then, things have been different since alomost a generation.... u like it u buy it, what use u are going to put it to or if it has any use at all or not will be decided later..... best example is that of Gurgaon where the gentry have on an average 3 ACs per flat in town where there is hardly any electricity for three hours in a day. Or on Mumbai where everyone seem to have a big car, never mind if there is just one road for all of them.

We know the price of everything and value of nothing.

I find it laughable that the same set of people who taught us the principles of free market liberalisation etc 17 years back are now asking us to exercise restraint..... when we have forgotten what restraint means.

For us we have been there done that and been here doing this it's a great fun to watch all these.

If I were serious about checking inflation I would recall Kaushik basu back from Cornell and give him a freehand: )

The picture is that of Kaushik Basu taken from the internet

Is the Sun Rising Over Bihar?

2008-06-23T16:27:00.003+05:30

As a young boy growing up in Bihar one of the less lurid and suggestive local songs I heard went something like this.... "धीरे धीरे लागे कलाई थामने; उनको ऊँगली थामना ग़ज़ब हो गया" This was sung by a woman, narrating the fact that "misfortune" stuck her the day she gave an inch to a wily man! This song could not have been a more realistic representation to what happened in Bihar in the last 60 years since independence, especially since the mid-1970s - a period which also marked the height of political movement in बीihar under the leadership of the formidable JaiPrakash Narain. Those were heady days when most Biharis thought that the Sun would rise in Bihar. Little did they realise that that was the beginning of a long sunset for Bihar. Each successive government since then has taken advantage of the ungli [finger] and gone for the kalai [wrist] and much more... and Bihar all the while has acted as the helpless girl who can't say no, taken over by the persuation.... The result was for all of us to see.
It might sound unbelievable to many that till the early 1980s when my cousins used to literally fail exams due to what was known in Calcutta as Load Shedding, we in a small town in Bihar did not know what power cuts were. Of course, by the 1990s, we did not know and did not need to know that there was a something called the Bihar State Electricity Board we were connected on private gensets.
But for the past two years, we have been hearing informally that things are changing and last week there was some proof in the sense that a leading English daily carried the story of turnaround in Bihar as headlines. It was after many years, most certainly since I started reading English newpapers daily, that Bihar made the headlines for all the right reasons.
Of course, there is still a long way to go to reach just where we were in 1980s. But it still feels good to know that there is a group of people who are taking us back to where we began.
We biharis are practical people, please do not show us dreams of an utopia, light at the end of the tunnel, bright future etc etc. Just please take us back to what we left behind, give us back what we had, we will be happy with it. In fact we never wanted more than that...

The Last Mughal and the Last Sahib

2008-06-13T17:51:00.002+05:30

THis is my review of THE LAST MUGHAL by William Dalrymple for a portal.
Short background about the author
William Dalrymple understands India, Indian history and his readers inascending order. That is what makes him a very good writer and a reasonably sound historian writing on South Asia. The fact that his writing is not determined by academic exigencies such as the pressures of a thesis, the load of a prejudice or the hassles of artificial deadlines allows him the supreme freedom of choosing a topic and going all out to collect sources. And the fact that he deliberately writes for a larger audience than the incestuous circle of South Asian historians, allows him to present history in a form that is at once not intimidating to the layman and very challenging to the more professional practitioner of the craft.
"The Last Mughal"
It is a biography of the last Mughal Emperor (that is the romantic side of Dalrymple) but it is firmly rooted in the social, political and cultural changes of the times (that is the historian and the story teller in Dalrymple). It is a voluminous book, but its essence both as a literary and a history treatise can be captured a few short paragraphs:1. It fills up a major lacuna in the historiography of India in the sense that it supplements the works of Erick Stokes (for NorthwesternProvinces, modern UP) and Rudrangshu Mukherjee (Awadh) among others, who have undertaken in depth regional studies to bring to light the complexitiesof the Uprising of 1857. Before "The Last Mughal" Delhi was, rather, strangely, left out of such in depth treatment.2. For less strange reasons, Bahadur Shah Zafar never enjoyed theattention that his more illustrious forefathers received from Indian historians. Although, in many senses, he presided and lived through over a complex socio-political transformation that few of his predecessors except perhaps Babur did. Dalrymple successfully puts the focus back on this "black sheep" of the family.3. Finally, and this is very important, Dalrymple clearly shows how complicated simple social divisions like class, caste, race, gender and loyalties were before, during and immediately after the mutiny.4. In terms of substance, the book is rich is use of sources, nuanced in its arguments and very textured in the way that arguments and substantiation are knitted together.
From a historian's perspective:
Another new regional study on the events of 1857 - filling up a major void; unearthing of new sources - another big contribution to the historiography. But nothing new in terms of argument. Believe you me, we already knew the broader arguments around race and religion. In fact, Dalrymple's extra leap to connect the Jehadis of 1857 totheir current cousins seems like what it really is - a giant and unnecessary leap.
From a reader's perspective:
That is the way to write history, each character stands out on its own. And although it will not be apparent to an ordinary reader, a trained eye will not miss the hard work that must have gone to flesh out each character with such meticulous detail. And Oh boy! What a style of writing - captivating to say the least. It does read like a best selling thriller.
Lessons for the historian: "
Isn't that the way we should write our history so that more and more people read and understand what really happened and how?"

In the Line of Duty

2008-05-30T10:55:00.006+05:30

It is often said in not very loud tones that civil servants in India are neither civil nor servants but uncivil masters. But I had seen a remarkably civil but very effective civil servant albeit a very minor one in the form of a Train Ticket Examiner while commuting in a suburban train in Kolkata. Naihati is a quaint little junction forty kilometres from Sealdah [one of the railway terminals in Kolkata] and the suburban trains usually stop there for a couple of minutes more than the usual start and stop formula in other stations. I was travelling back to my place from Kolkata in a local train and as soon as the train stopped at Naihati a very serious and scholarly looking man in think blackframmed specs and the mandatory black coat boarded the train. There was no doubt that he was upto checking tickets. Little did I know that he was not the usual bribe taking, conniving ticket checker. Nor did I know then that he was not foolish enough to arrest and fine ticketless travellers [ticketless passengers in Kolkata are often violent]. Nonetheless, he carried on his duty in the most unobtrusive but effective way. He placed himself in the middle of the compartment and announced loudly in Bangla "Those who do not have tickets please stand up and allow those with tickets to sit on the seats". Believe you me, there were people who stood up and people who took those vacant seats. By the time I realised what happened, he had moved on to the next compartment. Later I gathered from the murmur around that the man and his style were well known to the regular passengers.
I also gathered that the passengers in this instnace were lucky. For there was another ticket examiner at Naihati who chased ticketless travellers like a mad dog. He was reputed to have jumped the overbridge stairs in order to catch ticketless travellers and broken his limbs a couple of times.
If you think these civil servants were weirdos.... please note that that in the four years that I was in Kolkata and occassionally took local trains to the suburbs, three ticket checkers were pushed out of speeding local trains and two of them had died.
PS: Naihati's claim to fame of course if that it is the birthplace of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee

Murder: A Middle Class Vocation Now

2008-05-27T12:14:00.003+05:30

Once upon a time, crimes including murder were committed by criminals whose business it was to commit crimes. These crimes were reported in newspapers as a matter of routine much as terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir are reported now. Then came a time when crimes like murders started to be committed by those connected with the film industry, crime especially murder dope and women related graduated to the third page of newspapers. Then crime came to the front page and prime time when politicians' sons and relatives were allegedly involved in it..... Crimes especially murders especially of young women became headlines. Headline stuff built it's own ecology of experts, retired cops whose own career recods were pretty shoddy commented on those who had not retired, security company chiefs whose primary jobs was to recruit poor biharis, clad them in stinking and dirty uniforms and make them secutiry guards started analysing crimes on TV, media persons used to copying and pasting press releases became crime investigators, even the ordinary citizens not only consumed crime reported in the media but were active as commentators and so called eye witnesses.

Finally, like everything else in this country crime became very middle class.... it was your neighbour or your friends neighbour..... These were neither famous criminals who were adding feathers to their caps, nor famous politicians nor were they famous people connected with movies. These were ordinary middle class people who became famous only because of the crime they committed and lives and families they destroyed including sometimes their own.

The police long used to the justification that if criminals are killing criminals [gangsters killing gangsters; corrupt politicians killing corrupt women; shady film producers being killed by shady music directors!] they have nothing to do but sit and watch, soon forgot about crime detection and investigation. But now that crime has become middle class they are finding it difficult to get back to good old investigtion...... a generation of police has no clue about investigation. It is like my doctor friend who when asked about the functions of the left ventricle in a medical interview told the interviewer "Sir questions related to heart were asked last year so this year I have studied only kidney and can answer questions only about kidney".... If you don't get my drift....... try jumping signal in NOIDA, you will not be able to do it without paying bribe, the policemen are so efficient..... But kill someone, it is likely that you will get scott free.....

Over Rated

2008-05-21T16:28:00.002+05:30

Just thought of some of the people and things that are overated in India tody:
People:
Manmohan Singh's honesty
L K Advni's flexibility
Lalu Prasad's Intelligence
Sachin Tendulkar's batting capabilities
Shah Rukh Khan's Chrisma
Amitabh Bachchan's crimes
Salman Rushdie and V S Naipaul's writings
Vijay Mallay's business sense
Objects:
Handicrafts
Nike and RBK shoes
Value of advertisements
Contirnbution of technology
Capability of government
Global warming
Knowledge economy
Please feel free to add your own and enrich my list.

Bermuda Triangle and BRT

2008-05-06T11:59:00.003+05:30

To the generation born with mobile phones and iPods Bermuda Triangle may sound like the latest brand of men's underwear from California. But to the wiser generation it would still inspire curiosity if not awe. But then it is a myth from a different era which also believed in the insane writings and findings of Eric Von Daniken. Bermuda Triangle was a trinagular rea in the atalantic off the cost of southern US where airplanes and ships regualrly disappeared since the second world war. In the 60s there was much myth and speculation surrounding this spot of Ocean and the stories around BT [Bermuda Triangle] were still still popular in 1982 when I was in class 9. it was on a fateful day with much excitement and apprehension that we asked Father Steno who taught us Geogrphy about the reality behind BT. Father Steno, a Maltese by birth and member of society of jesus by choice and a evacuee from Malta during the second world war by compulsion, was exceptionally short and exceptionally bright and exceptionally a man of few words. It was said of him that if you presented a Boeing to him, gave him a manual and a couple of hours, he would safely start flying it. In any event, in his normal conduct with us he showed very few jesuit like qualities.
It was to this man that we asked what we thought was the most important and intelligent question in Geography at that time:
Father what is the reality behind the Bermuda Triangle? Father Steno, who was then teaching us the intricacies of of south west monsoon, looked up in momentrary surprise and then seemed interested in answering the questions. Took off his glasses, ran a hand on his goatee and gave us that rarest smile between a smirk and a grunt.... and then gave the following answer in his heavily accented English: "Hah, Bermuda Traingle? Take any imaginery triangle of equal size in any part of any ocean and if you look hard you will find equal number of stories surrounging missing airplanes, ships and may be a few mermaids" That was the end of our romantic attachment with BT and Eric von Daniken!
When I read in newspapers about the daily jams, accidents and pain that the newly constructed BRT is causing to Delhi residents, I am reminded to father Steno's words.... "Take any imaginery 5.8 kilometres stretch on any Delhi road and you will find an equal number of jams, accidents and pain....

PS: The photo is the most imaginative representation of Bermuda Triangle myth I found on the internet....

We Are Finally Americans

2008-04-29T12:06:00.004+05:30

Many years back an overseas friend told me that what struck him in India was the lack of overseas brands at airports, railways stations, street... India had cafes' soaps, detergents, shampoos, refrigerator etc.... but most of them were Indian brands... This he said was unlike any other place that he had visited, where American brands were prominent. Since my life ran parallel with the Licence Permit Raj, I felt proud at the observation. But that was then.... Now American brands are everywhere, afterall we are strategic partners which means differnt things to Kapil Sibal, Sitaram Yechury, Pranab Mukherjee, George Bush and Strobe Talbott... never mind. But the Americanisation of India is happening quietly but most certainly. Our business leaders who till the 1990s went to UK to watch wimbledon and strike business partnership have forgotten London and are flying off to Connecticut, Texas, Seattle and California. Ratan Tata, Anand Mahindra, Rahul Bajaj and Jamshed Godrej, Gurcharan Das. Asim Ghosh all US educated CEOs of the older generation are trying to keep pace with the much younger harvard and wharton returned CEOs in keeping up ties with US. Our youngsters, especially of the BPO and software industry variety are geographically separeated Americans [Gurgaon and Bangalore can be the 51st and 52nd states of the Union including the wild west spirit]. Our babies are brought up on a strong does of barbie and American cartoons. Our elders too are getting exposed to small town US through their migrant children mostly as baby sitters... We are all exposed and there is no escape.
Yet, we are fiercely Indian and would baulk at the thought of turning into Americans. How long can this process go on till we can definitely say that India as a nation has become Americanised? There is no definite answer: perhaps if the nuclear deal is signed; perhaps we start making films only for our brothers and sisters in the US, perhaphs when all the fortune 500 companies have back offices in India; or perhaps when there is a McDonald in Purnea[my place of birth?
So far as I am concerned, we have already become Americans as a nation in the last fortnight or so. This has happened with the launch of IPL or Indian Premium League. Please do not laugh.... We had taken the game of cricket from our rulers and turned it into our own and now we have given it away to our newly made American friends. I contend that IPL has very little to do with cricket so please do not spend time discussing whether 20 overs is good or not. It is just a mixture or fusion of Baseball and American Football adapted to Indian conditions including the cheerleaders, the dress, the agression, the money and the teamowners.. There is very little of cricket in it.
We have finally beocme Americans... Mr Yechury you do not stand a chance here.....
Cheers to the Cheerleaders:)

Flyovers are Chasing Me!

2008-04-25T12:20:00.003+05:30

I just realised that I had almost half my adult life in Delhi and hold a Delhi passport. By Delhi standards, where you will hardly find a third generation Delhi-ite of my age, I am truly a son of teh soil and a true son, I really love my city fo reasons I am never tired of narrating to a patient listener.
Of late, however, my patience is wearing thin, not because of anythng else but because of the fact that I am now being chased by flyovers all across the city. It began way back in 200o when I went to live in nearly godforsaken East Delhi soon after the construction of the Nizamudding Bridge that connected Delhi with east Delhi. I was confident that in the next decade no new civil construction was doing to be take place in my locality. To my surprise, soon after the work started on a clover leaf flyover connecting various parts of east delhi to various other parts of east delhi and NOIDA, thankfully, Delhi contractors try and finish their work faster than elsewhere, but I had such night mares travelling that I left the place before the complicated flyover was completed.
I moved to what is known as south delhi in an older area and thought now this is the ideal place there is no scope for any contruction here everything has been done... I could not have been more mistaken..... They actually started working on one of the longest flyover in Delhi connecitng Lajpatnagar to Ashram chowk right at my backyard. I maintained my calm. Then they started builing an underpass over which was a road as well as a flyover. An underpass seem impossible there.... I remained calm, then they started repairing the old flyover across Moolchand to Defence Colony, builing gteh now infamous BRT, I was still with the planners firmly believing that this was for my good. In between, they dug up the roads on both sides of my house and buried the till now dry sarita vihar pipeline [the pies were about 8 feet in diameter. The last straw came 15 days back when they blocked the main road in front of my house to begin construction of over head metro lines...
I can;t sleep at night these days.... I dream of jams, pile drivers, diversons, pillars falling on my head.. I am traumatised. I am staying put in the hope that in my lifetime things will improve.
By the way, I think I am a good omen for you if you live in a locality where people are fighting to get flyovers, unerpasses, metro, waterworks, drainage systems, electricity: anything that can disrupt settled life done.. .So do please invite me to stay in your area. if you do not believe me hear this out: Two years that I was in Mumbai, the entire length of pavement from the city to Dadar was relaid and the work started on the airport flyover.

It's Politics Stupid!

2008-04-10T12:33:00.001+05:30

It is fashionable to say following our liberalisation gurus in the US and Western Europe that politics should be separated from Economics. This coming from countries how have in the last 1000 years not been able to separate politics from religion sounds specious, but we shall let it pass for now. Following the dictum of separation of politics and economy many Indians who love the way things have turned out for them including myself, would like to believe that since 1991 politics has been somewhat separated from economics. Any government who has come to power since then has followed a smiliar line [if not in practice at least in preaching] of economic development.
Carrying on this trend of separation [separation of executive from judiciary, religion from politics and economics from everything else] further and separate politics from sports? I know most of us are slightly jealous of or threatened by China but this does not mean that we should try hard and screw up the Olympics, like the US and USSR did in the 1980s [I thought Cold War was over]
President Bush, President Sarkozy have been politicking against the Olympics really hard, not so much against the Olympics but against. And their feelings are being echoed by many others in that country. Ohterwise, one cannot account for so many Tibetan supporters in France and in the US. In normal times you do not see these countries or their leaders making too much noise for the Tibetans...
Of course, the fever has caught up in India also. First it was Baichung Bhutia declining to carry the torch, then it was Aamit Khan giving a confused reply and now it is Kiran Bedi who has declined [does not want to be carried in a cage] Who are these people in any case and what is their claim on carrying the torch? Why has the IOC approached them to carry the torch? The mind boggles.... Why can't we get a few former olympias to carry the torch? Why can't the government come out in the open and say they would like to see politics and sports clearly separated and make sure that the torch is carried safely to China?
There is a bengali proverb which says that when the elepehant is stuck in the mud even the toad kicks him... this is what is happening to China now... but remember the elephant ultimatley get out of the mud...
It is time that we stood up for the cause of sports and separated it from politics before we talk of separating sports from politics...

Loin Kings

2008-03-20T16:24:00.006+05:30

Recently in course of a train journey in a very private compartment shared by only three of us, one of my co-passengers mentioned about "fond mammaries". I was a bit startled. Being middle-aged and much worldly wise I have heard of if not seen many types of mammaries but never heard of a fond one. I was further intrigued after I looked up the right spots on my co-passenger and found that what I had guessed all along was right. For he was unmistakebly a man of around 50 years and an serving army officer at that.
All these fleeting feelings, doubts passed in the next 5 seconds when the revered colonel completed the sentence. I realised what he meant was that he had fond "mammaries" of serving in Kashmir. I am of course not quite sure nor did I dare ask, if that was the way the colonel pronounced the word or it was just a freudian slip connected with his fond experiences in Kashmir. [I wondered then how he would pronounce the actual word]
Many of us living in this particular part of the world have had such encounters..... When someone says he will sport you, he does not mean to hunt you down or engage in a 100 metres dash.. but just that he wants to support you. I still wonder how such people would pronounce the real sports.
Hair you go in my part of the world is not a romantic lament about the loss of hair, but the simple : here you go. And if you hear, "hear hear" while eating, please do not mistake it for someone cheering someone else, instead look for hair in your food.
Similarly saxy obviously does not refer to the talents of the 42nd president of the USA with the saxophone, but simply sexy, nor is painty a new initiative by Asian Paints or ICL, but it is you know what...
Of course nothing in the past 20 years had prepared me for "fond mamaries" except one from my earlierst experiments with truth in these parts of the word.... When someone in my part of the world say consumed by the loin, he is not debauched or decadent in the 19th cenury sense of a D H Lawrence [Remember the opening lines of Lolita?]. But simply that a man has been killed and eaten by a lion. I again wonder how they pronounce the original word.
So long.... and I mean it in the original english sense, please. Do not let your dirty mind think otherwise.

Back to Delhi

2008-02-20T16:19:00.004+05:30

After spending two eventful years in Mumbai, I have come back to Delhi hoping to spend many more eventful years. In no way was my return to Delhi "motivated" by the recent political and parochial events in Mumbai and Maharashtra although I was eminently qualified to be a victim as a Bihari as well as a "fortune seeker".
Delhi has it's shares of problems, perhaps much more than Mumbai: there are these horrible things they are doing to roads, entire roads are being closed for Metro, realigned because of Bus Corridor, new pavements are being laid; there is power shortage even in winter, seriously bad traffic. Girls are still being attacked in their homes by neighbours, men still pee on roads in broad daylight and people still think that everything can be bought with money, men still do not understand the need to queue up. The hindi word Jugad is still the operating principle of the citizens.
But the problems of Delhi are essentially existential - and in resolving them together is the effort of the Delhite to build a better future of herself/himself. Past has got very little to do with it. Present and future are what matters.... Where you come from [figuratively as well as literally] matters much less than what you are and where you are headed. This is where I guess it differs from the colonial cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai and now Bengaluru.... All colonial cities surprisingly run on pre-colonial sentiments of caste, race, sub-caste and identity and communitarian based society and politics.
It is indeed very surprising that the oldest city in India, Delhi, has the greatest collective urge to think of the future while the relatively youthful ones show a strong tendency to go back to some utopian and idyllic past... which actually never existed.
Why is this so? I do not know... But can guess: Delhi is a clever woman, she does not want to belong to anyone whatever the promises made.... She is suffered very badly for this attitude in the last 1000 years, but she still wants to remain free of emotional attachment.... While the others have tied emotional knots with many a suitor at different points in time and are now suffering from the claims and counter claims of each of the suitors.
I love your independence Delhi... Be that way and you will get the best of us seek your hand, although we know you will decline it with a wicked wink.

Ancient Knowledge and Modern Science

2008-02-07T13:03:00.001+05:30

I have just finished reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everthing. Bryson is a prolific and very good travel writer but he deviates a bit in this book and writes about the travels and travails mother earth has undertaken to be where it is and also indicates where she is headed.
For me reading the book has been a humbling experience and a scary one too... from the size of the galaxy to the size of the bacteria that lives at 130 C, I have lost all perspective of size.
From the impact of a moon sized meteor crashing on the earth to the havoc that mutant strains of virus can cause, I have lost all perspective of fear.
From the fact that for the last 300 odd years "modern" science has just been trying to understand things to the fact that some of them have done more harm to us than the collective good scientists have done, I have lost much respect for "knowledge"
What struck me most about the book is right at the beginning.... "Something came out of nothing" That is how the universe was created and the best part of this is that I have read this theory somewhere in a more flowery language.. Can you guess where? If you can't here is a conversation that apparently took place between a guru and a shishya in an ashram more than 2000 years ago:

Student: How did this mighty banyan tree come about?
Teacher: Son, This mighty tree came from the seed
Student: How did the seed come about?
Teacher: Go fetch a seed and see what is inside it
Student: I see nothing inside the seed, teacher!
Teacher: That is correct my son, the mighty banyan tree came from "nothing"

This is from one of the Upanishadas and you will find the whole conversation translated into English in Romila Thapar's Penguin History of India....
Thank you Mr Bryson, your brilliant book has restored my faith in ancient Indian knowledge, in our myths [the large oversized mammals and other weird creatures that you describe from times past are all there in our mythology].
PS: Those interested in scary things, here are three instances from the book of how fragile we are:

1. The whole of 70 odd acres of Yellowstone National Park in the mouth of a volcano, if it bursts one day, and it is due to burst if you belive in probablity, more than half the population of the world will perish as collateral damage:)
2. When you go to sleep remember for the millons of bacteria living off your skin your head looks like a tasty doughnut.
3. Twice in the last 20 years two planetoids have passed the earth's orbit at a few lakh kilometres. This is apparently a miraculous escape, something close to a bullet passing through your shirt sleeves....

Bongs and Communism

2008-01-19T13:03:00.001+05:30

For some both these two words would be synonymous... To an extent this would be true. Intellectually 90 per cent of Bongs are socialists and politically at least 47 per cent of them are Communists of different hues. Even the formidable Congress leader Subrata Mukherjee was branded by his own partyman as a melon.... Green outside but actually Red inside... Such is the influence of Marxist thought in Bengal...
But I think that is only on the surface.... Bongs are certainly not defined by their left thinking but by great intellectual confusion at best and blatant hypocrisy at worst. To give two example: Bengal has ove rthe last 100 years sent most widows to Vrindavan [how these young women were taken to Vrindavan and abanadoned is the subject of many a Nengali classic]. Nearer my time, in a place where my grandfather settled down after partition [a small town in 24 Parganas about 40 Kms from Calcutta], since 1972 every one in the mohalla has voted for CPI or CPM, but I have seen with my own eyes a "guru" visiting each house in winter and some of the housewives washing the feet of the guru and drinking that water....
But I guess there was a time when Bengalis called themselves rational and did not accept anything that did not pass the test of dry rationality... One of the biggest literary figures and proponents to cut and dried rationality was Syed Mujtaba Ali, a true renaissance man. His stories could make you cry and his anti-Nazin and anit-Communist jokes which he claimed to have collected as a student in Germany are real gems of Bengali rational thinking and humourous writing.
Here is a sample: A Russian Citizen was punished for 50 years for publicly calling a Cabinet Minister "Insane".... The judge although a communist was liberal and took the pain to explain to the "offender" the quantum of punishment: 10 years for insulting a government servant and 40 years for leaking out a state secret.....
If you are interested, you can read one of Mujtaba Ali's classic collection of hilarious stories "HasyaMadhur"
Sadly, rationality and laughter are almost dead in Bengal, little wonder that most Bengali look either bloated with self-importance or shrunken with constipation

Beggars as Choosers?

2008-01-16T18:48:00.000+05:30

If you live in Delhi or Mumbai beggars at traffic junctions are a common site. In South Delhi and in the western suburbs it is pretty common to see young kids playing on the kerb, mothers with babies in arms begging for food, Children playing small tricks on the roadside to earn a fe rupees. But of late you would not have failed to notice a new phenomenon.... beggar are increasingly being engaged as salespersons and the line between street side begging and street side selling is getting blurred.
Initially, at least in Delhi small time vendors used to compete with full time beggars for space and mindshare on the traffic junctions.... not small time vendors are jostling for space with full time beggars turned out as part-time salespersons of recognised brands. There are the usual children's toys, agarbattis, chinese stuff etc that these people have been selling to shore up their incomes from begging, but more recently they have been selling well recognised branded stuff.
And I would like to out on record the fact that the worst offenders are newspapers and branded international society magazines.... the names of Mid Day, Hello, Cosmopolitan among others come to mind immediately. Also in the race are pirated book sellers.
These beggars turned salespersons represent a massive pressure on you..... first with their blatant knock [all beggars in India have the right to draw your attention by any means]; then by appealing to your consumer side by showing the goodies they want you to buy and if that fails then by telling you on your face "buy something, I haven't had my morning cup of tea"....
Nothing wrong with these people, they behave just as some of the corporate types that visit your office from Airtel, ICICI Bank or some such do. But everything is wrong with people who engage their services.... First of all no one knows what is their term of engagement, secondly and especially if it is a child's toy why do you get a filthy beggar to sell it to a child [I never buy ballloons from beggars on streets]? thirdly, those sitting in board rooms are clearly not aware of what this means for the erosion of their brand.... I have stopped reading Mid Day sometime back and do not even look at the magazines sold by beggar/salespersons... finally, I find it strange that print media one of the most virulent critics of social exploitation engaging this practice openly... Just imagine buying a copy of a leading newpaper froma beggar and a report inside read "beggars are exploited in our country". That would be a real irony...

Ratan Tata and Tata Salt

2008-01-15T12:50:00.001+05:30

To ordinary middle class people like me, Tatas have been the most honest and transparent industry groupo in India even before Ratan Tata took over the group some 15 years back. Lots have been written by famous people like Vir Sanghvi and Tarun Das and Swaminathan Aiyer about the famous turnaround that RNT managed in the Tata Group.... How he cut down and finally threw out the shatraps, how he broght about speed and efficiency, hired and empowered younger people, how he nurtures talent etc. etc.... But I have a different take on RNT......

Tata group have been famous for low cost Indian product and some of us recall the fact that they always targetted the lower half of the pyramid.... Remember Tata Hair Oil? Tata Shampoo, very popular products of Tata Chemicals? Incidentally both of them came is the same bottle and in the toilet those days, it was difficult to differentiate which was the oil and which was the shampoo..... as a young boy I made the mistake several times. Again take the case of Tata Tea, it makes tea which before the takeover of Tetley was consumed either by people who did not know what tea was or used in Chai shops... the cheapest in the market... Same with their trucks.. which are responsible for spoiling the respiratory system of half the country..... same with TCS... the largest unforcussed body shopping company country. RNT continued which these products till very recently..... and he added one very significant priduct to it... Tata Indica, the worst but most economical pasenger car in the Indian market....
It is only recently tha the Tata Group has realised that people do not necessarily want to but outdated technology just because they are slightly cheaper and made in India... People are increasingly going for expensive teas, Tata Shampoos and Oils have long disappeared from the market, Nobody is keen on buying lowest cost steel from India, Indica has been a hit only among taxi companies and Tata buses were being abandoned for the more expensive Volvos even by the captive state transports...
So the need of the hour was to make state of the art products and only then low cost would make sense.... the result so far as Telco is concerned are first the low floor hi tech buses running as Starbuses in Mumbai or their more expensive Marco Polo version in Delhi and the Tata Nano, what could not be made in India was bought... Corus, Natsteel, Tetley, Jag etc etc.... My guess is there would be something similar for TCS and with a very brilliant FMCG man sitting on the helm of Tata Sons, we may soon see some movement in that space as well.
My take on Tatas is simple..... they have given us the best product that any good honest and transparent company give to it country.... You can't even guess what it is.... Yes ladies and gentlemen, the best tata Product which has and will stand the test of time is Tata Salt......

Oh Calcutta!

2008-01-08T15:18:00.001+05:30

No, I am not referring to the famous restaurant which claims to sell Calcutta cuisine in Mumbai and Delhi. In fact, if you are planning to be there, please drop the plan, it is the worst and most expensive restaurant for bengali food in the whole world even if you include the seedy bangladeshi joins in London. Not that... I am referring to Oh! Calcutta with an emphasis on the exclamation marks and the way the city was referred to when the first strands of hair appeared on my upper lip...
In winter, most expat Bengali from Delhi to Djibouti would, I guess fo that. Winter is the time when Bongs fatten up on some of the best foods that Calcutta has to offer whether it is Marco Polo in Park Street or Amber further up or Bhajahori Manna further down in the city, Calcutta is the place to be in in winter. Does not matter what is your choice of food, Calcutta can take care of you.. Does not matter if you are from down south, up north further west or extreme east.. it does not even matter if you are from Southampton of from South Pole. Calcutta has something for everyone in terms of food.
My memory fades and I have heard that there are new and much fancier places coming up every day in Park Street and other locations... But, my guess is that none can beat the old haunts of mine, Royale in Chitpur, Nizam and Amini near New Market, the chinese food at Tangra, the hilsa in Ballygunge Market, the sweetmeats in BowBazar, Mouchak and the telebhaja shops on Surya Sen Street, the punjabi food near Krishna Cinema, Continental food at Skyroom, sattu, the quintessential Bihari food in any of the streets, Sindhi food at Sindhi Society in Bhowanipur.... whatever you want you will not be disappointed. Any if you are a brown sahib you could visit Nahoums, Flurys or any of the Clubs, Calcutta, Saturday or the Tollygunge.....
The best part of the food in Calcutta some would tell you is its authenticity, others would tell u is the service, yet others would tell you is the taste... all of which would be true.... In fact, I can personally vouch that the best Mughlai food is available in Calcutta and not in Delhi or in Dakhan...... But at the end of the day, the best part of the food in Calcutta for an expat Calcuttan is the part when you pay your bills..... If you are not shocked at the prices...... you would be really below poverty line or mentally challenged....
In case you believe only in liquid diet.... Calcutta is the place for you... in case you believe like is a smoke Calcutta is still the place for you..... I used to buy my liquid diet past midnight from Kola Bagan and my smoke right on the pavement adjcent to my hostel on Peary Charan Sircar Street - a much renowned street between the side entrace to the University of Calcutta and my alma mater, the Presidency College....
So every winter, whereever I am, my thoughts go back to Calcutta... Ask any Bongs, they would agree with me.....

That was my city of joy....... all other cities have been cities of pleasure but never of joy:)

Sweet Memories

2008-01-04T10:09:00.001+05:30

Benazir Bhutto's death was very much like Mrs Gandhi's... no one dreamt that it would happen [except perhaps those who plotted them]. So most of us were stunned into silence rather than agitated with shock.
It was in 2001 [most probably] that I met her at the Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi, when she had come visiting. The wonderful opportunity was ceated for me by Mr Tarun Das, who more than anyone else of his age knows how technolgy can be used to reach out to people. He and my then boss Mr Ajay Khanna insisted that I accompany them to the august meeting and show Madam the wondeful website that we had created [among many other initiatives] to take care of her "track II" diplomacy.
The meeting was at the Taj Chambers in a small meeting room. Soon after entering the room, I powered up my laptop and got ready with the site which we were to show her. The machine was set on the "head" side of the table where Madam was supposed to sit.
I think it was around 12 noon when she walked in. She at that time for some strange reason had taken to wearing brightly coloured jackets over her shalwar kameez... that morning she was wearing a bottle green silk jacket which I thought was hideous...
She walked into the room greeted Mr Das and us and went straight to the laptop with Mr Das explaining what the website was all about.... By the time Mr Das has finished, she has started navigating the site and called me over to her side to explain what was what. I was quite amazed by her skills with surfing, but more than that amazment, standing next to her and bending down to speak to her, I was completely mermerised by her looks, her complexion and the way she spoke. Of course, the whiff of her expensive perfume added to the effect. I am sure, the other two gents who had met her on many occasions before, were similarly enhanted. She was fourteen years older than me.... Never mind.
On hearing the news of her death, only one thought stuck me. She came from the most dysfunctional political family in the sub-continent where no two members of the family spoke to each other. She could have decided to marry a man who really loved her, migrated permanently to London and spent the rest of her raising her lovely kids... But none of these happened to her....
She was a destiny's child and went where her destiny took her. May her soul rest in peace.

Chain Letter

2007-12-24T09:44:00.000+05:30

BILLY CONNOLLY'S CHAIN LETTER
Hello, my name is Billy and I suffer from guilt for not forwarding 50 billion fucking chain letters sent to me by people who actually believe if you send them on, a poor six year old girl in Scotland with a breast on her forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her redneck parents sell her to a travelling freak show. And, do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you, and everyone to whom you send "his" email, $1000?
How stupid are we?
Ooooh, looky here! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get laid by a model I just happen to run into the next day! What a bunch of bullshit.
Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my house and sodomize me in my sleep for not continuing a chain letter that was started by St Peter in 5AD and brought to this country by midget pilgrim stowaways on the Endeavour.
Fuck 'em!!
If you're going to forward something, at least send me something mildly amusing. I've seen all the "send this to 10 of your closest friends, and this poor, wretched excuse for a human being will somehow receive a nickel from some omniscient being" forwards about 90 times.
I don't fucking care.
Show a little intelligence and think about what you're actually contributing to by sending out these forwards. Chances are, it's our own unpopularity.
The point being?
If you get some chain letter that's threatening to leave you shagless or luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it's funny, send it on. Don't piss people off by making them feel guilty about a leper in Botswana with no teeth who has been tied to the arse of a dead elephant for 27 years and whose only salvation is the 5 cents per letter he'll receive if you forward this email. Now forward this to everyone you know. Otherwise, tomorrow morning your underwear will turn carnivorous and will consume your genitals.
Have a nice day.
Billy Connolly
P.S: Send me 15 bucks and then fuck off

Our Intellectuals Their Intellectuals

2007-11-29T09:43:00.002+05:30

Oh what a drama is being played out in the media [now mainly print because there is nothing to "show" only to write about] over the plight or flight [depends on your political outlook] of Taslima Nasreen in/from Kolkata. Reads alomost like one of those Alistair McLean stories from my childhood.... whisked away in the middle of the night to one place across the coutry by plane, driven to an unknown destination in the morning, hidden in an unknown Delhi suburb and then disappearing to an unknown place near Delhi airport.... Reminds me of a McLean novel "Puppet on a Chain" set in the Netherlands and about a man's fight against drug lords...... Woooof.. leaves you almost breathless... But then if you have been reading more than one newspaper and watching more than one channel you would know that she went from Kolkata to Jaipur to Gurgaon and was then taken to the SPG special "guest house" near Delhi airport. Nothing hidden about it.. she has also been given Y category security which means she would have around 11 officers to protect her.... One would think Osman Bin Laden's men were after her. But as a matter of fact and unless the security and IB knows more there was not personal attack on her in Kolkata and what happened in Hyderabad was no terrorost attack either, most radical intellectuals and student politicians face that in College canteens in their youthful days.... There has so far been no court order to arrest her or Fatwa from a recognised outfit in India...

Now turn to four cases, my favourites......
1. Our iconic painter [not withstanding the some of us are jealous that he is still able to attract Ms Dixit at his age], where is he? he wants to come back to India and live here, why can't he?
2. Our intellectual par excellance [not withstanding the fact he he can still serially attract women quarter his age]... why isn't he allowed to visit India?
3. Our youung and radical teacher at Baroda university... what happened to his job
4. Last but not the least... our iconic protestor of social evils, from the banks of Narmada to Nandigram... she was physically assaulted several times in her life... In Nandigram police actually stood and watched her beaten up.....

Do we have double standards for our world class intellectuals and third rate trash authors from Bangladesh? Have we lost our collective minds...

Delhi Leads Road Accidents

2007-11-29T09:39:00.000+05:30

My last post has been vindicated... The figures of road accidents were out two days back in the Times of India. Accordingly, based on the 2005 figures Delhi topped the list of fatal road accidents with over 1,700 deaths. The numbers in 2007 must be considerably more in 2007 and Blue Lines have claused only 106 of these deaths... Isn't it time that we plugged the others who kill on the roads rather than whip the bad blue bus drivers...
Think about it...

Blue Line and Red Eyes

2007-11-22T12:58:00.001+05:30

Deli newspapers are ever ready to show red eyes to the Blue line bus services in Delhi and not without reason. The blue line bus services in Delhi which comprises all of public transport buses are almost like "Devil in the Blue Dress".... Between January and November this year the number of deaths caused by these buses is 106... 106 families have been shattered by these buses in less than a year. The government apparently has tried every trick to discipline these rogues... from insisting that the drivers wear uniforms, to speed monitors to automatic doors to lane driving. In fact this time I noticed that every major bus stop had a Marshall who was directing the blue line buses to stop at the right spot and not overtake... But these measures have not stopped fatal accidents as the records kept by newspapers in Delhi would show.

I am no fan of blue line buses and really do not care if they are there or not in as much as I do not care about Delhi autos, taxis call centre cabs and such likes which make Delhi roads like the jungles of sunderbans where the only operating principle is "might is right".

But I am amazed that a trasport which would end up killing 200 people in Delhi is being so horribly badmouthed by the media to the extent that every week teh delhi high court regularly enquires of the Delhi government as to when these services are going to be withdrawn.

Do not get me wrong, I am not heartless, but at 200 a year they do not even deserve mention in the annals of road accidents in Delhi where if I am not far off the mark over 1000 people die in road accidents every year... It would seem that bluelines are getting 100 per cent flak for 10 per cent of crime.. I would like to ask our friends in the media what is being done to save the lives o other 900 people who are not victims of blueline buses? Here are some other culprits:
1. Call centre drivers [you can ask anyone who drives to Gurgaon eveyday what they are scared of most, all of they would say call centre cars... Their record at killing and maiming is much much better than blue lines
2. Drunken and Rash driving... Culprits and victims are mostly young people with rich parents and big cars... what is being done to punish the parents of such youngsters?
3. MCD and NDMC: pathetic road signs, signals covered with trees, no signage at construction sites, no cleaning up after construction... and so many others.... cows on roads
4. Bikers, Cyclists and Jaywalkers: First category should know that Delhi roads are not for stunt practicces, the second should know that the inside lane is for fast vehicles not for cycles, and the third category should know that in cities roads are mainly meant for vechicles not for walking and crossing whereever you wish to

Till such time as we distribute the onus equally among other "stakeholders" let us at least be fair to blue lines and whenever you publish their score card please mention it as a part of total road deaths so that we can understand their responsibility in the right perspective. Thus: January to November 2007 Total Roaddeaths in Delhi 1000, total killed by Bluelines 106..... This will help up look at roaddeaths as well as blueline from a fresh perspective.

Disclaimer: I or any of my relatives to not own, operate or use any blueline services.

Crowded Skies and Timeless Travel

2007-11-20T17:36:00.001+05:30

Air India's international flights were delayed by 24 hours and there was violence at the Delhi airport last weekend... that was the big news.. The bigger news of course is how the concept of crowded airports, low cost flights and overcrowded skies are combining to change the concept of time altogether in India. Take this example below
When I started flying before the start of so called railway passengers taking to wings, a flight to Mumbai from Delhi actually took 1:30 mins but the declared time was 1:55 mins... the exra twenty five minutes was time to taxi etc.... After two hours if a flight was late by 15 mins, you could see some of the older passengers getting uneasy and some younger people complaining about the sorry state of Indian Airlines [Indian Airlines and Jet take 5 minutes to travel Delhi Mumbai route even today 1:55 mins as oppsed to 2 hrs by all other airlines... I do not know why]........
But as I said, the concept of time itself has changed.... My much younger colleague who flying started post crowded skies, low cost airlines etc.... has a different concept of time altogether... The other day he was on a flight to Calicut from Delhi with a change and stopover to 1:40 mins in Mumbai. When he reached Calicut I enquired after his flight... He was all in praise for Jet Airways and told me in the passing that the Delhi Mumbai flight was only an hour late..... A two hour flight taking three hours is so normal that no one complains nowadays... I could not figure out why this change in us.
Is it because our inherent believe in fatalism, karma or some other tangential cultual experience? Probably not. It's probably those used to train travels have a differnt concept of late/delayed and when they take to flights they retain at least in the initial years of flying the same concept..... It is not surprising therefore that so few people in India complain about late flights and there are so few scuffles at airports... From my colleague's point of view one hour is no big deal since travelling to Calicut from Delhi by train would have taken him a week.....

Has this got to do something with the theory of relativity?

Hindustan Times

2007-10-07T11:41:00.000+05:30

The Hindustan Times, arguably the largest circulated English language newspaper in Delhi has undergone some dramatic changes in the last few months. The regular readers would not have failed to note these changes. First it was the cricket led headlines evey day of the T20 championships, then there is a great page on "user generated content" the best one being "Your HT Your Photo" section. The general tenor of the newpaper now is peppier and happier and I assume it is trying to move away from stodgy old readers like me and move on to greener pastures, becoming the newspaper of the future, so to say. The Sunday edition especially in the post edit page has seen some drastic though not dramatic changes. Thankfully for us Vir Sanghvi still writes his liberal democratic columns and I guess most us oldies read it because of him [although he is now into cooking and lifestyle, he remains, I think along with Vinod Mehta, an old fashioned editor]. Regretfully, Karan Thapar is still there, writing about his daddy and mummy and all those he met through them. Manas Chakravarty has made an appearance as has Indrajit Hazra; the first makes economics easy for us and the second makes reading difficult for us, both of them bring some amount of pleasure.
However, overenthusiasm must be curbed at all costs, they do sometimes cost dearly and make a laughng stock of the paper. And here i am not talking about spelling errors but other interesting goof ups: Here are some: a) Cricket might be a passion of the country but not headline stuff every day even when a tournament is going on. b) circket leads to major goof ups like the one day after India won a match it had almost lost. The headlines read something like "India at the verge of loss", but India had won the match at night after the paper went to print and in the morning everyone had a good laugh. Just imagine what would have happened in a match where India snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. The headlines would have read "India at the verge of winning" and would have lost the match while the paper was in print. We would have read the headline and cursed the paper. c) The most interesting, the YOUR HT YOUR PHOTO Column carried the photo of a langur with a bold caption "your HT your photo"; Yeah I guess if I am still reading HT I must be a langur.
Running a newspaper in this day and age can be a monkey business afterall.
Jai Hind [the last word to be pronounced as in hindi not as in English:)]

Ram Setu or Hanuman Setu?

2007-10-04T10:01:00.000+05:30

I have always wondered why I can't think straight. Believe me I have tried for many years to think straight but failed. Now I guess I am too old to even try.
There is a great debate going on in country at least it was on sometime back, between the secularists and religious fellows; between rationalists and those who believed in the power of the myths, between the north and the south, between those who belived in the power of cement and those in power of scriptures. These debates are nothing new in our vast country. In fact they are very common. This is what inspired Amartya Sen to write a tome called the The Argumentative Indian to much acclaim and which also I guess signalled the end of his career as an economist [nothing much is left in that discipline post Nobel prize and one needs to move on in life]
Be that as it may, what is important in India is the topic of the debate not the two sides [the two sides remain the same whatever the topic] And what is more important that the topic is the fact that there is a humongous effort the reduce any debate to two sides only by simplyfying, recalssifying the many other sides.
The current debate was on the benefits of dredging a piece of sea which was either built by Lord Rama [the pious kind who always doubted his wife] or by a stroke of nature; depending on which side of the debate you are on. Obviously, by common agreement, it was accepted that for the country it was more important to debate how the bridge [Google can help you locate the bridge or the sea depending on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist] came to be, rather than whether it was economically, socially and politically beneficial to dredge the piece of sea and make it navigable.
Was the bridge built by Lord Rama while on his way to Sri Lanka to kill the demon king Ravana? Or was it built at some geological time when the continent of India separated from the Island of Sri Lakna? The debate continues.
However, in spite of having an opinion on things I know and also things I do not know, I am unable to offer an opinion on this. Not because I want to sit onthe fence, nor because my head is somewhere and my heart somewhere else, not even because I am scared of being beaten up by either side. None of these.
But for the fact that the debators have got it all wrong once again. The debate should ideally have been on whether the bridge was built by nature or by hanumana [the monkey god much revered or as much revered as Lord Rama in certain parts of India]. If you go throught the Ramayana, it is clear that Rama caused the bridge to be built, he did not build the bridge. The bridge was built by Hanumana and his cousins. having reached the sea in hot pursuits, Rama simply took the decision to build the bridge [as anyone else in his place would have]. The full credit of building the Bridge must go to hanuman and his "associates". if you realign the debate thus, it would be interesting to see how many of the Ram supporters are ready to take up the cause of his trusted lieutenant Hanumana. My guess would be not many. Is that a better way to take the winds out of a good debate? Shall we wait for some hanuman fans [we would have all the kids on our side] to raise a hue and cry against Rama for getting all the credit?
While of course, the nature continues to do its work quietly on the far margins of this debate. One more tsunami, well targetted, we may have a six lane sand highway to Sri Lanka or a Palk Strait which can take the largest Oil Taker.

Hutch's Dog, Vodafone's Pain

2007-09-28T15:59:00.001+05:30

Once upon a time there was this cute little doggy who was a great pal of this cute little boy and they followed each other everywhere. They became famous as Hutch boys [I am assuming that the dog too was a "boy", I have not really watched the ad so closely to be able to arrive at a definite conclusion]. Together they made a great ad for Hutch "The networks follow whereever you go".... The Dog symbolising the network and the boy symbolising you, presumably.

They came a big red giant across the seas with a logo like one side of an qoute (') it had a nordic name although it was British, perhaps reminding the Brits of the vikings and their exploits in British soil. They bought the prince and his dog and wanted to change everything, tell everybody that they had arrived. But by then the little prince and the little dog were too firmly and warmly entrentched in the people's memory. So what did the red giant with half quote marks do?

It dropped the prince altogether and put the dog in the dog house and ran huge ads all over the country announcing its arrival in the land of milk and honey.
What do the citizens of the land of milk and honey understand from this?
Is it that their favourite prince is gone - sent to exile by a big red giant? And the the network no longer follows you anywhere since the dog is safely confined to the dog house? Or does it mean that the two red giants in the land of milk and honey are going to raise a toast to their success having and plan a great future together?

Who knows?

Stake Over-Done

2007-09-26T11:26:00.000+05:30

Rare to well-done seem be the normal range of stake choices. But in the case of India, the stake now seem overdone.
As if it was not enough to flout $11 billion FDI last year, we dementedly voted to get Taj Mahal among the wonders of the world, a bunch of rookies won us the World Cup in a cricket format that is designed to make quick bucks for greedy cricketing associations than any thing else; it was not enough that increasingly faced with years of haranguing; women too have become cricket fans. Nor was it enough that India's sixty years of independence is being celebrated more in the US with motley of Resident Non-Indians and Non Resident Indias than in India itself or that we are made to believe by an otherwise educated Minister that the 123 Agreement will take care of our power needs. Nor was it enough to send millions of emails across thousands of networks listing the achievements of Indians from Aryabhatt to Sachin Tendulkar. It was not enought to talk about the lakhs of engineers and doctors, and nurses that our system spawns every year. Nor was it enough to say India is the most youthful nation in the world.
The constantly churning publicity machine has really gone overboard now and been taken over by non-Indians, strangely, people and groups who even a few years back did not know where India was on the world map are carrying out extensive surveys on Indians and coming up with ridiculous and quite supefluous conclusions:
One of these recent surveys mentions that India youths are the happiest in the whole world. All the major newspapers picked on this and give it such prominence as if it was the biggest truth. I wonder what kind of Indian youth they met for the survey?
The second survey was even more ridiculous, Indians known to be almost as prude as their former masters, now seem to be the most satisfied nation so far as sex is concerned. This bit of research too made headlines in all the major dailies. Each Indian man on an average has had 6 partners [I guess all female] and each Indian female on an average 2. I would certainly like to take some tips from these men:)
A word of advice, its time we rewrote the Kamasutra empahsizing that Kam in Hindi actually means an honest day's work not what your dirty mind thinks it to be.

Abacus: What's That?

2007-09-22T11:12:00.000+05:30

Just read this morning in Hindustan Times that more and more Indians are getting drawn to Sanskrit plainly for the sake of learning and using that ancient and almost dead language. There is also a revival of interest in Ayurvedic medicines in India, Yoga has been reinvented and patented and is thriving in the galis of Kailash Colony in Delhi as much as in Hounsolow probably. Vedic Maths and Vedic Astrology are increasingly becoming popular and Management gurus of Indian origin are increasingly looking towards ancient Indian text to come up with new ideas on corporate strategy [Gita is very popular among these gents].
This phenomenon of "going back to the roots" is otherwise known as revivalism and is not always and not necessarily good for the society. Fascism was one revivalist movement in Europe on perceived roots and pasts and has since the 1930s emerged in many forms across the globe.
But the aim of this post is not to start a learned discussion on revivalism but to mention the revival of another "scientific" learning tool which is gaining grounds in India now. The most interesting thing about this learning tool is that it has its origin in ancient Greece and not ancient India.
The "thing" is the revival of abacus the crude but very effective calculator. Many of us would remember the ubiquitous slate boards from our childhood days.These were actually made of slate and not wood and had on the side rows of colourful beads strug together with thin wires embedded in the wooden frame of the slate. Although we were told that these were called abacuses, we really did not know what they were and what functions they served. I came to know much later in life that they were ancient calculators used by the Greeks.
However, recently, I got to know more about them through my daughter who attends a "abacus class" in Delhi and had recently won an interstate trophy in the under six age category. I liked my winning daughter but could not actually figure out how the bloody thing worked. What amazed me was that the thing actually worked and my daughter could do all her additions and substractions correctly using the bleeding and beady instrument [kids use a smaller, handier plastic version of it]. IN fact, she helpfully told me that since the last semester, she has discontinued the use of the actual instument and only uses it "mentally", i.e., in her mind. I have not yet learned the use of the instrument having sat with a few times. I guess I was taught maths by another school of thought, the finger line calculation school. But I must admit, Abacus works and the great art of using abacus is being taught in literally hundreds of learning centres in India. It does not matter if it is of Greek origin, it is helping us continue with our glorious tradition in mathematics. Aryabhatta would have been happy:)

Getting Worse Before it Gets Better?

2007-09-18T05:28:00.000+05:30

Those of you who thought Delhi has a better infrastructure than Mumbai or any other city in India, and I was one of them, are having to change their opinion rather rapidly. The whole city now seems to be "under construction" pretty much as it was before the Asiad in, I think, 1982. There is the metro whose digging seems to be happening everywhere fron Nehru Place to NOIDA, then there is this rather funny thing called High Speed Bus Corridor. For the life of me I can not fathom out why they need a high speed bus corridor when the problem with buses in Delhi always as been that they either move at very high speed or do not move at all waiting to be filled. Then of course there are civil works such as redoing the pavements, relaying the verges, recarpeting the roads, and construction of buildings which almost invariably spills over onto the roads. Add to that the half done flyovers at critical junctions like entry to NOIDA and Gurgaon which held up the early morning and late evening exit and entry from the dorm suburbs. Finally, of course there is the menace of monsoons which have left most of the roads in tatters.
Amid all these, there is dengue, malaria, viral fever and hepatitis.
If you think I am exaggerating, here is a personal example. Siince I have moved to this new locality in the heart of South Delhi I have had two flyovers, one under pass, one high volume underground water supply pipeline and now the High Speed Bus Corridor and metro have arrived. Not to mention minor iritants like trenches for electricity and phone lines which seem to be in a perpetual state of repair. That you would say is a mark of progress. But for me none of them are useful, they are useful for people who pass through my area to various dorms in the city. For me it means more crowd, more dust and more disease. Little wonder that the small campus that I live in has seen four cases of dengue in the last two years not to mention small things like malaria and viral fever.
At the end of this hectic building activity, I have realised that this is the best time to work in the cement industry. And I am hoping that the civil work in my neighbourhood would come to an end before I kick the bucket so that I can enjoy the fruits of my pain.

Delhi: A Novel

2007-09-15T04:48:00.000+05:30

Oh what a book. many years back when I cared too much about what others thought of me, the first edition of the book was out in hardcover with a titilating paining on the cover, a half naked dancing girl [after reading the novel, I now realise it might not have been a girl but a member of the third sex] - I thought it was risky to buy the book and worse still get drawn into the shady world of Khushwant Singh's novels. I finally bought a more recent copy with a nice cover of one of the Delhi monuments in watercolour and read it.
I do not want to give away anything, but only suggest that this is the best history of Delhi you will get to read. William Dalrymple's book actually pales to insignificance. Although to be fair to Dalrymple, he dealt only with the late 18th to 19th century of the city's history.
Reading through Mr Singh's book, and the subtitle clearly mentions it to be a novel, I felt that this was far from a novel. In fact it was history and biography. But, I guess, it is so exaggeratedly real the the author had to mark it as a novel.

Sir Francis Younghusband and Johnny Walker

2007-09-15T04:20:00.000+05:30

Just finished reading the biography of Sir Francis Younghusband by Patrick French. I guess very few people would remember who he was and what is his claim to fame even among trained historians. In fact even for me it was a geat discovery of sorts. All I had read about him in all my years of "doing" history can be summed up in a this subtitle "Younghusband's Expedition to Lhasa". Till now I was much impressed by the fact that at the turn of the century an Englishman with troops had acutally marched to Lhasa walking across the formidable Himalayas.
After French's excellent biography, I realised that the man was much more daring, verging alomst on insanity, than I had thought him to be. The famous expedition to Lhasa started at the far end of Himalayas in Sikkim consisted of a large troop of Sikh and Gurkha soldiers and coolies [8 coolies per soldier] lead by Brigadier McDonald. Old McDonald was a soldier while the title of Colonel was conferred upon Younghusband, and by some machination the civilian had forced the senior army officer to report to him [civilians always have their say, even today!].
But the fascinating part of this story was not this trek through areas which were sometimes 30 degrees C below freezing, but there were no existing maps.
If you are impressed by this, it may interest you to know that Younghusband had practiced well for this trip and in his younger days as an officer of the Raj had walked from Manchuria to India [Kashmir] through the dreaded Gobi desert. And also crossed most of the impossible passed in the Pamirs. If you look at the distance between manchuria and kashmir through gobi desert, you will realise that the expedition to Lhasa was a small change for him.
Amazing character.
I wonder what the Johnnie Walker guys were doing those days, they could not have got a better model for their slogan "Keep Walking" that Younghusband.
In case you are interested the book is titled Younghusband and would be available in any large second hand book shop in Delhi. I do not lend my books.

Rediscovery of Railways

2007-09-03T12:43:00.000+05:30

Yes, recently, after a few unpleasant experience in mid air caused by bad weather and my intuaitive fear of flying, I have taken to travelling by trains. Not fully true because there are still places were trains can not take you or can not take you first enough. But I have really taken to travelling between Delhi and Mumbai by trains and I have to make the following observations;
1. It only takes 16 hours to travel from Mumbai Central to New Delhi and the timings are very decent. You can almost finish your day's work in Mumbai and reach Delhi early enough to join office by 930 in Delhi. If you are travelling by Rajdhani you can be sure that in 90 per cent of the time the train would be on time. If you are travelling first class in that train you can be assure of a) a good night's sleep in airconditioned comfort b) great breakfast c) a shower so that you are fully prepared to rush to office in the morning.
2. In a sixteen hour journey you get three full meals which are much much better than whatever they serve you in planes and you can actually choose from a wide menu [at least in first class]. And those cutleries that have now disappeared from airlines, you still get to see them here with real plates, bowls and forks and knives. Food is served to you and not thrown at you. I was amazed to see once that they also carry sugarfree sachets as well as extra chocolates and icecreams, addressing both youngsters and oldies like me.
3. The toilets are cleaner than the normal airline toilets and if you find them to up to your standards of cleanliness you can get someone to clean them for you. The first class coach also has a shower. Toilet papers and mugs both are provided:)
4. You get to sleep on a berth which is six and a half feet by three feet and someone actually makes your bed for you. In addition there is an attendant to respond to your call, a bell being provided in each coupe. If you are an early riser you get bed tea too.
5. Sight seeing is free: You will be amazed to see Neel Gais and Peacocks at dusk while travelling from Delhi in addition to quaint little villages; while entering Mumbai the scene is not so attractive, though:)
If you want to enjoy this journey all you need to do is to book yourself once [you can do an online booking and travel with a printed ticket with your id from the irctc website] and enjoy the experience, I am sure you would be hooked.

A word few words of caution though:
1. Sometimes you will get stuck with the wrong type of co-passenger [ask the conductor to change your seat] I had once been on a 9 hour non stop flight with a pubjabi gentleman who was very talkative and was convinced that Punjabi is the national language of the world and he was shocked that I did not speak the language, that of course did not stop him talking with me all the way]
2. When the waiters come in the morning with saunf post breakfast you are supposed to tip them. 50 Rs in the first class is fine.
3. Most importantly, be careful at dusk and dawn. People standing by the side of the track are neither a welcoming party nor have they come to watch the train. If you watch carefully each one has a water container in their hands. Shakespeare said "world is stage" they say "world is a bog". So do not disturb they with your curiosity.

Bon Voyage

An Englishman in New York

2007-08-20T10:47:00.000+05:30

This is the chair on which sat the "writer" of the Indian Constitution when he handed over that bulky but a watershed document to the first president of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad. I am not sure many would know who the write of the constituion of India was although most of us would be aware of the importance of that document in defining our national lives and our freedom and democratic principles in the last. Some of us who are a bit older would of course know Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar or Babsaheb Ambedkar as the father of the Indian Consitution.
It was almost by chance that I happened to visit the small and rather quaint museum at Pune which has a few of his personal belongings such as his books, working table, dining table, crockery and cutlery, clothes, walking sticks etc. To me he looked a more western than many of his contemporaties and I did not anywhere see the hideous blue suit and the red tie which is most of his statues and calendars are painted. Instead there were some very elegant white shirts and dark grey suits. The museum itself is small but well kept by the Symbiosis Management Institute and happens to be on the main Senapati Bapat Road across the passport office.
Finally, for those of you who would be wondering why this entry is titled the way it is: Poona is traditionally the land of Peshwas and brahmins:)

What's Wrong With Our Kids

2007-08-17T11:11:00.000+05:30

First there was this series on television - not the saas bahu but more ominous type of children dropping left right and centre in borewells and manholes. One day I sat all evening and nearly whole of the night watching live coverage of a kid being rescued from a borewell in Hissar or Hastinapur, I forget which. A few days back, the other child was not so lucky. Then another one fell through a manhole in Ghaziabad, yet another one in some part of Madhya Pradesh. The series, it seems, is far from being over.
In the meantime, we have a new series of abandoned babies being miraculously rescued here there and everywhere. Then there was this remarkable story of one child who was recovered three days after he was abandoned by a milkman. This series too continues.

Then of course there is the penennial series of children [both boys and girls] getting raped and molested in every part of the country with remarkable regularity. And finally there are the usual stories of children getting killed as collateral damage everywhere from kashmir to assam.

What is wrong with you kids? Can't you behave? Don't you know your sixty year old mommy is now decked in a new western outfit with a smear of maybeeline and a hairdo from bblunt is parading herself in front of a global audience flaunting her newly reconstituted figure much to the envy of many other younger global mothers? And daddy dear as usual is drank out of senses basking is her reflected glory. Can't you kids give them some piece of mind and some space to do what they wish to do? Can't you grow up on your own, after all we are 60 now, let us glow one last time before we are snuffed out.

Jai Hind

Bihar Loot-ney

2007-08-13T15:22:00.000+05:30

I was much enchanted by a hindi song rendered on the screen by Dr Shilpa Shetty. It went something like this "Dilwalon Kay Dil Kaa Karaar Lootney; Main Aayi Hoon UP Bihar Lootney". I will not attempt to translate it because much will be lost in translation. Having lived 16 years of my life in that state [in the real Bihar and not the current Jharkhand], I read more meanings into the song that many others. For one, like miss Shetty, the rivers in Bihar also have patli kamar [narrow waists], they are beautiful, dangerously attractive, and lethal when they strike:) And of course, they come to loot Bihar once every year, unlike Ms Shetty who has never set foot in Bihar.

True to tradition, this year too with the arrival of August Bihar is again on our TV screens with large parts of it flooded and with our leaders making sorties on helicopters to "assess the damage". And true to tradition of the last forty years, media is presenting this as something that has happened only this year. Hence statements like biggest flood in living memory et al. I have seen this story repeated every year since at least 1980 when I was old enough to separate bull from bullshit and it pains me to see that the trend - of repeated floods, air sorties by politicians and the reporting remaining the same. No one has ever done anything about it nor will. The reason is simple, Bihar is the most backward state in the country it neither has any money to give to anyone no do it's people ever voted on the basis of "economic and social achievements of its leaders". And of course, since the 1980s most resourceful biharis [like myself] cutting across class, caste and religion have chosen to migrate to Delhi and Mumbai if not New York and California never coming back anywhere near the Patna airport. And of course, Biharis are too good to harm anyone, all they do is to kill each other in their own state - never taking the violence out of the state nor killing anyone who pass through that state. It is, therefore, a completely autarkik society and economy, about which no one need fear and hence not do anything about anything and anyone.
For those who do not know this, there are districts in Bihar notably the Maithili heartland of Madhubani and Darbhanga where the land is flooded for almost nine months in a year. It would need a super economist to explain how people live off the land which is flooded for most parts of the year - but they do and its a miracle. The endemic flood seems to be spreading its wings to parts that were not usually affected even a decade ago, such as Champaran in the west and Katihar in the east.
I have taken the escapists route, but there are two people currently deciding on where Bihar goes tomorrow, both respectable, both with vision and both with the required talent to wind their ways through the byzantine alleys of Patna and Delhi politics to steer Bihar not to a bright future but at least to what it used to be when my father as a young 20 year old migrant landed up in the unknown town of Katihar in 1954. Oh you would also want to know the names of the two gentlemen who could "do something" about Bihar - here they are : Nitish Kumar and N K Singh.

Child Lock

2007-08-13T13:46:00.000+05:30

I have one child and I am very protective about her. Statement of Fact, right! yes right! But do I know what to protect her from? I thought I did, especially by controlling her TV viewing time as well as content and channels that she could view.
She has been watching TV since she was one year old starting with telly tubbies, so she is now and experienced TV watcher. yes a six year old can be an experienced TV watcher especially given the amount of programme recycling that goes on in India. But I digress. To come back to the point.
Till last year due to this amazing mechanism called Child Lock my child's TV viewership was limited to kids channels only, and I was under the impression that what my child was watching was the rith stuff that children her age across the globe watched. I have to say I have had to change my views after going through with her the channels and the programmes she watches. here is what she watches, I don not remember the exact programmes but can give you a gist of the contents: The biggest problem though is that most of the programmes are not avaialble in the original english but in weird sort of translation. Thus there is this popular Japanese cartoon in Hindi of course where a monkey and a terrier are fast friends, but the monkey for some reason is called Mummabhai and the terrier Circuit, they speak in the same style as the eponymous characters in the movie series. The second prorgamme comes in the Disney Channel which for long I thought was a provider of wholesome entertianment to children, till last week that is. The programme she watches is set in a school where you can constantly see the girls and the boys bitching abut each other and trying to undercut each other. it is a child's version of a deadly saas bahu serial. They, of course there are two others one called Ninja hattori in Hindi of course, the best dialogue of which is a onomotopaeic sound which goes like this Tintin tintin ..... tintintin...; and the other one is where the main character is a piece of cheese with the usual holes and some teeth.
Is my daughter especially wicked or retarded, not really. But then what makes her watch these programmes, you may ask? The simple answer is nothing else is available. She is watched tom and jerry so many times [they are repeated very often and she knows all the episodes by heart] that she does not feellike watching them. Animal Planet? She will take some years to understand Richard Attenborough's accent, I guess and she really has no interest in the mating habits of moths, National Geographic? sometimes it's risky. That does not leave too many options. Does it?
So what should I do to ensure that my little darling does not really become retarded watching children;s channels? Or that she does not become an adult before her time watching Children's channels? There is no easy solution, but I have thoght of one simple one and am hoping that it works... I have decided to remove the child locks from all channels to give her more options beyond children's channels. This is the first step and I am sincerely hoping that she will "diversify" even if it means watching Fashion TV - yes, i am quite desperate. If this does not work, i am really wish it works, I have decided that plan B is going to be more drastic - I am going to make the child lock stand on its head and lock all the children's channels, I am sure that will make my child an adult faster than I had planned to, but that will also make sure that she will not be retarded.
Long Live Child Lock.

Taslima Nasreen and Salman Rushdie

2007-08-11T16:47:00.000+05:30

Taslima Nasreen writes against Islam, that is what we are told by some people who consider themselves legitimate mediators between the almighty and ordinary mortals. The government of India does not ban her books [only government of west bengal did], gives her political asylum in India and she is free to preach her cult of anti-Islamic feminism in her Bangladeshi British accent. Fair enough. India is a secular society and is also trying to be a tolerant one and the Indian state should give a democratic platform to people who are deprived of that platform in their own countries.
Salman Rushdie too once wrote against Islam, Salman Rushdie is a person of Indian origin. The Indian state banned his book and made sure that the circumstances were such that he is never able to enter India and visit his native city of Mumbai without fear. Indian state at that instance did not uphold it's secular and freedom of speech values for an Indian citizen.

My belief is that if we had treated Salman Rushdie through our demicratic principles, what happened to Taslima Nasreen in Hyderabad would probably had not happened.

Someone should remind our policy makers the old adage "what you sow is what you reap"

Jai Hind.

Delhi the Piracy Capital

2007-08-09T11:32:00.000+05:30

Yesterday a national news channel in the absence of anything better to do carried out a long story on book piracy. Two things were highlighted in the story a) Delhi is the piracy capital of India b) students, especially medical students, were the worst pirates so far as books were conerned. Coming close on the heels of the recent judgement against a swiss pharma MNC, the story opened up the issue of IPR violation and piracy once again. My views on piracy are simple:
No one has yet come up with a detailed sociological report on piracy. My personal view, having, read pirated books, got my degrees by reading illegally photocopied articles, bought pirated softwares, music and a host of other things, is that any one trying to resolve the issue of piracy should answer the first question, why would otherwise law abiding citizens willingly violate the law?
The simple answer is high need, high cost and low affordability. I need something real bad, I do not have the full money to pay for it, because in my view it costs more than what it should. That is the simple reason for piracy. I have never realised why a trash paperback by John Grisham should cost 500 Rs, I am going to read it once in the plane and throw it in the dustbin; why a medical course book which has been through 100 editions should still costs $100 when the author, publisher and their daddies have recovered the cost of the book several times over, or why for that matter pharma companies keep extending the patents of an old drug through various non-transparent means often in perpetuity, or for that matter why should a CD with five songs cost Rs 300?
The main reason for piracy I feel is the failure of the companies to understand the market and the paying capability of the consumer and every market goes through this process before piracy is well within the acceptable levels. On the other hand consumers also go through their own education and realise some goods and services will continue to carry a price premium because they are better for the rest of it, pirated or genuinine does not really matter.
Take the case of PCs with prices coming down, grey market has almost disappeared. Yet brands like Sony still command a premium. Take the issue of DVD where moser baer is making the consumers aware of the "real" price of a high quality movie on a DVD.
I think more than anything else, piracy is a signal to the marketers to reconfigure their prices or products and they should learn important lessons from a market where piracy is rampant. That's the real consumer feeback and should be taken seriously - we love you but not that much, is the consumer response.

Disclaimer: This blog entry was make with the aid of a genuine IBM laptop running on genuine Microsoft softwares by a genuinine person with a twisted by genuinine brain.

The Train to Pakistan

2007-08-07T15:35:00.000+05:30

To many of us Khushwant Singh looks and writes like a sordid and perverted sardar. To me though he is the greatest living "Indian Writer In English". Not because he is a very powerful man, not because his father was one of the richest men in Delhi, not because he is the most erudite Indian alive, not because he is so alive and acive till this day, not because he is well off enough to have great friends in Delhi and a house in Kasauli for his summer retreats. Not because of none of these. But for these reasons:
1. He writes the best english in all five continents, even though he is a humble Indian and a sardar to boot. All of us thought good Indian english was the prerogative of Bongs and Southies.
2. His one book "A Train to Pakistan: should have won him a nobel in English literature, just that he never knew ho to lobby
3.He is the most fearless anti establishment thinker for four generations now
4. He still thinks and has not gone senile and we should congratulate his mild drinking for this.
5. His children are by our standards better than him intellectually and in terms of achivements, but they will never admit to this. That is like a great father: when you children feel humbled by you.

What can I say to that great man, but may you have may lives and live forever:)

A Woman President

2007-08-01T11:12:00.000+05:30

Unlike most civilisations, we have really complicated kinship terms. For example we do not have simple uncles but complicated mamas, chachas, mausas and buas [all by the way first uncles from mother's and fatehr's side. Likewise for aunts we have mami, chachi, mausi and so on. Kinship terms run so deep in our society that we still sometimes follow the ancient system and call all our father's male siblings "father" in order that they were born relative to the biological father. Thus "bade Papa", "Majhley Papa" and "Chote Papa", Papa and Chacha. if you do not belong to this cultural milieu you would get perplexed trying to figure out who the biological father is, but not so a discerning Indias.
In fact, kinship terms are the first things we teach our chidren after they have learnt to say papa and mamma. It is long process of training and takes upto 10 years for the child to understand and then correctly apply these terms. After all it would be darn insensitive to get this wrong - in fact to address your mami as mausi would make the entire family incestuous.
With so much of training and such finely tuned kinship terms, I was damned surprised when the entire nation started tearing their hair on the latest issue of what would be a female president of India be called. The Presidents have always been men and we have called him Rashtra-Pati [husband to the nation, literally. Though is slightly more complicated that just husband].
Some suggested the obvious, she be called Rashtra-Patni [wife to the nation]. This would make the plight of the Madam President worse than Draupadi, we are a nation of 1.2 billion half of which is our male population. Others, although realising the need to come up with the correct term, kept quiet since Rashtra-Patni was too embarrassing a term to be attached to the first Woman President.
I think, all of us got it wrong and I think I am the first one to crack this. Hear me out on this one and you will soon realise that I am right.
Rashtrapati is so called not just because he is male, but because our rashtra - bharat - is a female. We call it the motherland. Hence the Head of the Sate is called Rashtrapati - Pati [husband] of the state. Now if the nationstate is a female [mother] then isn't it so easy to find a kinship term for a female president?
I think if you are true to our tradition of kinship names a woman president should be called Rashtra-Sautan [sautan again is much more complicated than the simple anthropological term co-wife], but it is the correct term.
Rashtra-patni should correctly be reserved for a woman president in a country which styles ifself as a fatherland - by that standard the only true Rashtra-Patni is Angela MERKEL of Germany.

I hope you will agree with me.

Mahabalipuram

2007-07-28T13:03:00.000+05:30

I had seen the images since I was a kid and also remembered that they were really reall old. Later of course, I ead much more about them and finally yesterday I was able to visit Mahabalipuram and was able to see with my own eyes the work of Pallava sculptors 600-700 AD. The village of Mahabalipuram is a World Heritage Site because of these ancient monuments. It also helps that the beach extends to as far as the eye can see on both sides and the sea is really blue. It was a great day's outing rounded up with a lunch at GRT resort. For the first time in my life I felt jelous about Chennaites. Pity I could not enjoy the beach, which seemed to me to be exgtending from the outskirts of Chennai to probably the southernmost tip of India without a break. Incredible India!

Deluge in Delhi

2007-07-16T11:19:00.000+05:30

For those who believe that good and bad are relative terms, please read on. It rained in Delhi for an hour. It was a Sunday afternoon and after a week of high humidty and temperature rains were a welcome change. But for those who had to travel and for those who have some experience of living in Mumbai! I unfortunately qualified for both the categories. The eight km journey through the city to the railway station took me forty minutes on a Sunday afternoon on Delhi roads. Both sides of the roads were flooded and traffic could move only on the inner lanes of what are usually six lane roads. The entry to the New Delhi Railway station was in knee deep water and the site was more like a third world Venice than that of the capital of an aspiring nation. The two municipal bodies of Delhi have long ago abdicated their civic responsibilities and are engaged politicking, most of the work is outsourced to contractors although there are scheduled departments and workers for all the jobs. So it has been an excellent case of outsourcing without cutting back on internal staff [a situation Americans would have loved].

For once, I felt happy that I was returning to Mumbai. I of course with the typical survival instict of a Delhiite manged to board my train on time. Others I left behind were not so lucky. My neoghbourhood in Delhi was hit by a cable fault which was temporarily repaired late at night.

As my train sped away from Delhi, I was wondering what would happen if it rained for two days in Delhi. Thankfully mother nature has been very kind to Delhi and it is unlikely that it would ever rain as hard as in Mumbai and Kolkata. This would of course, leave the municipal officers in Delhi enough time to do what they do best - petty politics.

A Museum for my Daughter

2007-07-02T14:14:00.000+05:30

Many years back while walking the Royal Mile in Edinburgh I spotted a quaint museum called the People's Museum. In spite of the strong tradition of socialism in Scotland, Royal Mile isn't exactly the place where you would expect a People's Museum. Suffice it to say, the museum reconstructs the life of an ordinary working class scot in the 18-19 century. It captures the technological developments due to the Industrial Revolution and how that changed people's lives and lifestyles. The reconstruction is so well done that you would have to see it to believe it. In fact it is one of the best museums I have seen.
I was reminded of the museum the other day when I tried to explain to my six year old daughter about certain gadgets that I and even my much younger brothers in law have grown up with. Soon I realised that making my daughter understand the technology we grew up with would be a difficult task. Many of the things I grew up with have disappeared from use but have not yet found their way to museums... so where do we find them?
The first one was a rotary phone: where do I find one? The ones in the museum are still from the time of Mr Bell. My first phone was a serious looking black rotary phone
The second one was the steam engine: The ones in the railway museum are 19th century not the powerful ones of 1970s
The third one was the Handwound watch: where do I get one? Museums have fancy repetors and pockets watches from 19th century but not a handwound watch. I am sure HMT still makes some, but..... My first watch was handwound.
The fourth one was a black and white TV with wooden stands and shutters, where have they disappeared? The first TV I watched was a Keltron with four legs and sunmica laminated wooden shutters. Not yet found in any museum
The fifth item would definitely be the Video Casette and Video player. I grew up on a healthy dose of hindi movies on this fantastic gadget
The sixth would have to be the music cassette: I wonder where have those lovely cassettes of Kishore Kumar I collected over the years gone?
There are at least 15 more such items that can be added to the list. And I have just stuck to changes that have been brought about by pure technology and not mentioned anything which is connected to better availability of goods and better purchasing power. That list I guess would be much longer
So after this rather long conversation with my daughter, I realised I need to be happy about the "old things" that she is still sticking to and not be too unhappy and sentimental about "old things" she is discarding. And... one of the biggest piece of good news is that she still likes books and she is just getting into the habit of reading them by herself. Perhaps better still is the fact that printed children's books are still available and doing very well. Although most of the popular heros in the books and indeed the topics have changed, I was happy to discover shared loved between us for some eternal characters such as Mickey Mouse and Jataka Tales.

First Love

2007-06-18T14:10:00.000+05:30

Food is my first love.
I can say this with a lot of commitment and conviction knowing full well that my wife, my daughter, my mother, my sister and three people who I call friends and who have stuck with me through thick and thin for the last 5 years to the last two decades do not read blogs:) [That is what I call freedom of expression].

I am agnostic about food.
I use the word not in the recent sense of technology but in the original sense of religion [techies are using a lot of serious words without understanding them nowadays]
I love food irrespective of where they origin and who cooks them. That is agnosticism for me.

I am religious and dogmatic about food.
Food should be good to taste and made of good ingredients. That is what I mean by I am religious and dogmatic about food.

Armed with the above parameters [again a word which is pythagorean but currently being used by IT project managers], for the last one year I have been hunting for good eating places in Mumbai.

Again, I must mention that my search for good food in Mumbai is not dependent on a) Times Good food guide or Vir Sanghvi's Rude Food or any such tome [I think they are fake]. My tongue and pockets are the best judge. b) secondly, I have my biases: However good a dal is it cannot be sweet, for example, you cannot make a sphageti bolognaise with chicken mice, for example, and there are not diet sweets.....

With such huge biases I have drawn up a list of places where I would like to visit again and again. The list is random:

1. Mondy: Value for money for so called continental food and reasonably priced booze. [Leopold is horrible but the cylinders they serve their pitchers are interesting]
2. Copper Chimney [Good Indian veg and non-veg food, they make their rotis with atta not with maida] Please avoid Delhi Durbar in Colaba if you know your food.
3. JafferBhai: best Mughlai takeaway if you know what to order and if you do not compromise with your mughlai dishes [no salt no chilly types keep out]
4. Taj Mahal lunch buffet [if you like cold cuts and salads for lunch there is no better place than this. They also have a wide selection of "Indian" dishes from Kolkata to Goa]
5. Ivy Bistro best value for money, preparation and excellent wine. Must try the red and white port here. The costs are a real steal here and the bakery stuff is the best
6. Gordon House: The best Indian Chinese in the Chinese restaurant in the ground floor.
7. Sports bar buffet lunch on a late Friday afternoon with beer: Good value for money and you can just gorge on the salads and soups.

I am still working on the list and will update whenever possible. Also, I forget the names of some places which I liked: E.g.; the small place in Malad where they served exquisite chilly meat balls [beef]; or the numerous takeways which are great value for money Or even my local bar ani restaurant where they can prepare a chilly chicken to order.

Please do not take my views lightly if you care either for your stomachs or for your wallets, since my opinion is based on spending my hard earned money and experimenting on my rather mature stomach.

Last but not the least: If you love bengali sweets please not got to sweet bengal try visiting Brijwasi instead.

Bon Apetit

CEOs Salary and Generational Vision

2007-06-01T10:19:00.000+05:30

The Prime Minister in his inimitable style seemed to have set the media on fire. Just one match stick was enough... At the annual general meeting of a large employers' body Dr Singh, among other things, mentioned that CEOs should check their own salaries and generally refrain from conspicuous consumption.

Since then I have read at least three CEOs from three generations all connected directly or indirectly with the employers' association mentioned, come up with typically generational answers: CEO in mid fifties India Chairman of a top consulting firm: 70 per cent agrees with PM 30 per cent disagrees in a national daily. CEO/promoter of a telecom giant just enterning his 50s; 55 per cent disagree and 45 per cent agree with the PM's views again on a national daily. CEO/Promoter of a tech company in his early 40s, competely disagrees with the PM and calls it a demand and supply situation. if there are better schools and colleges training better CEOs and ensuring their steady supply the cost of hiring them will go down, this was in a blog.

All complicated arguments to drive home a simple point to the Prime Minister who is a very 1960s honest man, like many of our fathers. Just to digress a bit and profile such a man. No income outside salary. if you were in government, low salary and low tax, in private sector high salary and 90 per cent tax [if you do not believe me ask any CEO of private sector company in the 1960s]. Only people who made money were doctors and lawyers [but their income too was limited by the poor paying capacity of their clients and a doctor's fee was anything between 2 and 10 Rs and they played the volumes game those days]. What was the mindset of such men. They were brought up in the nehruvian tradition of nation building, sacrifice before consumption. The biggest social achievement then was to show others how much you have sacrificed. Cars were not needed, air conditioners were almost a sin, eating out was waste of money etc.

Great men these were, but at the end of their generation they left behnd a divided and inequitable society and to be fair to them some of them like the Prime Minister himself realised that this model had failed to deliver and consciously chose to move on to another direction that of economic freedom and liberalisation... creating a generation of people like us who now look like frankenstiens eating into the nation's entrails by those who created us.

In this debate neither side is wrong. These are two different ways of looking at things: While the PM looks at the 2000s with his prism of 1960s [not sure how to handle it] the generation of 1980s and 1990s looks at it through their own prism [agains not too sure how to handle it].

To get back to the point. What were the CEOs in their own generational way trying to tell the Prime Minister. I think two things: a) there is a generational gap in thinking and perceiving reality. Please let our generation run the show. You have handed over businesses to us, now handover the politics and economics of the country so that we get a chance to show how it is run in the new regime. b) Economic prosperity is not percolating not because of excessive freedom of privileged classes, but because of lack of freedom of non-privileged classes and non-privileged sectors like agriculture. c) please do not behave like Indian crabs by pulling down those that are going up in life.

I was was in positive awe of my father, his honesty, hardwork for a PSU, commitment, sacrifice, simple lifestyle. But never really bought into his philisophy. Like millions others of my generation. And as I grew older and had a stronger voice did not fail to mention to him at times that a) if he had taken care of himself he would have ensured a much better life for his family [I really do not know how much better since I and my sibling and my mother are doing pretty well in life:)] b) my generation has no human heros: self success is the only hero always looking for a new heroine: money.

Jai Hind

Know thy History

2007-05-23T11:59:00.000+05:30

In India history as a discipline has been a much maligned subject. Just need to look at the controversy each version of the NCERT history texts generate. This does not happen with any other discipline. But as a normal interest area of a student, the importance of history is declining. it is even losing favour with potential Civil Services candidates. I think it would be a sad day for us when our civil servants are not well read and not well read into our history. Among the civil servants especially those who rise high to determine local policies and are responsible for security some books which are quite immortal much be read and updated. I was for example told by a senior civil servant of kerala cadre that William Logan's Malabar Manual written in the 19th century was the most helpful book he ever read as a non Malayali officer of Kerala cadre. He in fact has committed the book to memory. it helped that he was interested in reading as a Engligh literature student and as a polyglot. another important sets of books were the District Gazette series. I have read most of them pertaining to Bihar and Bengal and though written in the 19th century and some of them shoddily updated in the 1970s, they are a wealth of information for the educated district officer. As are the Final Report on Survey and Settlement operations of each district [there would be one for each british district]. As opposed to Col Todd's romaticised Annals of Rajasthan or numberous British translations of Persian and Sanskrit texts, the works that i mention are based on field surveys and meeting with real people and what they thought of themselves and others in thier locality. Also, a must read are the decennial census reports starting in Bengal from 1872 and appearing regularly for each province from 1891 up to today. They are literally invaluable in understanding local language, customs etc. I wonder how many of our civil servants would have read any of these. It does not really help especially since most of our civil servants have little or no training in social sciences [they are mainly engineers and management students or worse still doctors].

To the senior policy makers given the political situation in the country I take the liberty of suggesting an essential reading: William Hunter's "Indian Mussalmans". Published in 1882, less than 30 years after the first "Indian War of Independence " this book is a masterpiece. Hunter was probably the first one to envision that from the Northwest frontier provice [starting in what is now Afghanistan] to the gangetic delta in what is now Bangladesh, there was a continuous tract running through punjab, united provinces {UP}, Bihar and Bengal dominated by the Muslims whose social needs, needs to address their grievances were different as were there responses to the reforming influences of the British rule. Juxtapose this area on a current map of India and you would begin to realise the importance of this book.

Another set of books came out from the mid 20th century till recently. These set of books spoke about civil disturbances, popular movements, millennium movements etc. in a geographical congruous area forming a necklace from southern bengal bihar, chattisgarh, madhya pradesh, andhra pradesh, maharashtra and western parts of Gujarat. Plot this area on the map of India. You will not miss to note two things: a) the area is mostly dominated by "adivasis" b) this is a the now dreaded naxalite belt".

Who says you dont learn from history? it all depends on whether you want to learn anything from it.

Cheers,

Ancient Wisdom

2007-05-15T16:06:00.000+05:30

Many years back I was told by the scion of a large industry house down south that it was a matter of shame that while the Japanese, Chinese and the Koreans always go back to their ancient corpus of knowledge at times of crisis or faced with a dilemma, Indians would fall back and rely on American and English books of management. This was seen clearly as a sign of what came to be known, thanks mainly to many historians, "colonisation of the mind". I am all against the concept, who in their right minds would like to be colonised at this day and age.
To back to the ancient Indian wisdom when faced with crisis was easy for me being trained in Indian history and having actually read some of those classical beauties. Life for me has become much easier since then and I can not resist sharing some of those philosophies with you. 1. No salary rise for 3 years? Open the Gita: it tells you "serve with love without hope for reward [sounds very biblical too]
2. Dont fear if you are blamed to be ostentatious: Open Charvaka "As long as you live happily, if need be borrow and buy ghee" Sounds dangerously like the hedonists of ancient Greek.
3. Tax Raids: Don't be demoralised. Arthashastra prescribed taxing prostitutes [I guess that would have been the service tax] Our Finance Minister has not come anywhere as close
4. Fear of taking risks: Open Mahabharata, five young men of decent upbringing chose to gamble with a professional gambler to get a kingdom and at the end they were successful... but at the very end.
5. Fear of backbiting: Get used to it. Read Mahabharata again.
6. One of the corporate tricks is not to take any decisions: Like Narasimha Rao was supposed to have done when he was the prime minister: Who did he learn that from? Of course Bhishma Pitamaha, Dhritarashtra and other seniors who just sat and watched while Draupadi was being de-sareed.
7. Non-nepotism: Remember Rama asked his wife to go through the fire test. You can do the same to your nephew at the interview.
8. Finally, gender Equality: At least 5 Dharmashastras devote 20 per cent space to the same subject "how to control" women. What does that mean? Since ancient times, women were not controllable by men... So why try it now?
Tathastu...

India: Living on the Edge!

2007-05-14T15:57:00.000+05:30

As an avid watcher [and only a wacther] of AXN and other similar channels which highlight the acts of bravado that "others" perform on screen such as bungee jumping, skydiving, rock climbing, fighting with crocodiles, participating in reality shows where spiders are showered on you or you are asked to eat crocodile eggs or kiss a crocodile on the lips; I have always wondered are we Indians a nation of cowards? are we incapble of such acts of gross and raw bravery? It would apparently seem so, since not one of these shows ever features an Indian. On the other hand from American Idol to all sorts of "gambling" and guessing sort of programmes you would see a fair number of Indians participating.
I thought about it long and hard and was just about to get depressed when the idea stuck. Why do you have to display overt acts of bravado in front of a camera or in an attempt at self fulfilment when your day to day living itself is so dangerous? Irresepective of caste, colur creed or sex all indians live dangerously and on the edge. You don't believe me? Read on:
Farmer: fear of crop failure, non- repayment of loans, expenses on marriage and death, floods, caste and revenge killings
Rich Farmer: Fear of dacoity, retaliation, kidnap of children
urban poor: fear of death by contamination, death due to misdiagnosis, death due to illicit liquor, death due to train, bus accident; fear of employer, fear of unemployment
urban middle class: Fear of EMI, Fear of crowded skies, Fear of being banged by a truck on the road, fear of children being kidnapped to raped; fear of losing jobs, fear of lack of balance between home and office, fear of aspirations not being met.
Business man: Fear of new taxes, fear of collapse of stockmarkets, fear of sealing, fear of kidnap, fear of raids,
Bureaucrats: Fear of RTI, fear of being shunted, fear of being bypassed for promotion
Industrialist: Fear of workers, fear of government rules, fear of FERA, FEMA and many others, fear of hostile takeovers
Politicians: Fear of losing elections and retaliation, fear of immigration authorities, fear of tehelka

We have to overcome so many fears each day just in order to live on to the next that we find acts of bravado done for TV shows or for self-fulfillment pretty gross and pompous.

What do you say?

Globalised Names

2007-05-08T14:17:00.000+05:30

Much before Indian economy became globalised and Indian women started wearing hipsters, Indian parents in order to make their children more competitive and hip and cool have been giving "global" names to their children. So in Punjab you had Tony, Vicky, Lucky and Bobby, In Kerala you had a Dolly Nair and in rest of India you had anything in between.
Bengalis have been very serious about names and for at least the last 70 years preferred secular names. My late father had the fancy and short name of Subrata, he was born in early 1930s. I think Bengalis did away with mythic and religious names long time back and became serious about names. A case in the point is the full version of my own name:) It is little wonder therefore, in globalised names too, Bengalis have been thought leaders. I knew someone in Calcutta who was named Monami Mitra [From the french mon ami] In the Calcutta of 1960s you could find many a woman named Lucy [not to be confused with the bengali Luchi]; and a class mate of mine was called Happy Ghosh. I do not think any other region can beat that.
My pride in Bengali names lasted for nearly as long as I have lived and increased until last week. It happened on a Saturday when I was working alone in my office with the front door of the office open and unattended. On hearing footsteps and rightly suspecting that it might be a bunch of salespersons I got up to get out my room and to confront them. I am usually very poilte but firm with such pushy salespersons but that day I was in a foul mood and decided to be very rude and nasty. In fact when I left my chair I was already gnashing my teeth. By the time I entered reached the door of my room to get into the hall from where the footsteps were coming, two young salespersons were alredy pushing open my cabin door. At which my determination to get rude became even firmer.
Finally, I managed to open the door first and before I could open my mouth, a young man, very fair and with locks that must have killed a hundred girls spoke up " Sir I am from Hutch and my name is Romeo Khan". I do not know what happened to me, suddenly instead of shouting at the guy and being rude I burst out into incessant peels of laughter.... The only thing I remembered while laughing was why didn't the guys parents name him Majnu Khan, why Romeo? By the time I had finished laughing Romeo Khan and his female colleague had left my office. Probably taking me to be insane. While I resumed work after that hysterical bout of laughter, I remembered you can not be more rude to a person than laughing at his name.
I also realised sadly that the best global names in India did not come out of Bengali households anymore.....
Jai Bharat

Zombie Banks

2007-05-07T15:14:00.000+05:30

If you do not know what that term means, you can either call up an economist friend or forget about it, it does not really matter. Simply, put a public sector bank becomes zombie when the government is ready to put just enough money for it to survive and not enough for it to thrive and grow in a liberablised environment. The term was used by Percy Mistry who chaired a committee to prepare a report on how to make Mumbai a financial hub [not clear financial hub of world, india or maharashtra, I guess it must be the world since all of us are thinking global nowadays]

The excerpts of the report that I have read with a layman's perspective has lead me to the conclusion that in order to make mumbai a financial hub the enitre country or at least the entire financial policy and structure have to change. Hah hah!

However, this entry is not about making mumbai hub of high finance, but about a so called zombie bank and my experiences with it. When I enter the bank at 10 am every one seems to be awake and there are actual people in the counters, who talk to you, sort out your problems and very often know you and your last transaction. From opening to a locker to closing an account can be done absolutely fast. You sometimes also get a cup of tea while you are waiting to be served. This does not look zombie to me at all. Most important people in the counters do not change every week and they do not forget the commitments they make to you for the next week.
Compare this with a non-zombie bank which is more in news for floating ADRs and aspiring to become the largest bank in India and aiming to lead the charge if Mumbai ever becomes an international financial hub... It took me two months to convert an account to a joint account since every week the person behind the counter changed and each time I went back the person had no idea about my application form and supporting documents. Nothing is issued from the branch, you would have to wait for everything to come from "mumbai service centre"; cheques are home delivered, except that the couriers have strict indstructions to give it to the person whose name they are in [you are expected to wait at home because the couriers choose to come only in the afternoons or soon after you have left for office]. Even if you have an account with them they will not endorse your address. All these and much more in the name of "your own security". I feel proud that at least in my bank I have Z category security, makes me feel like Jyoti Basu. But does it really make my banking better. Not at all. Of course, a new feature has been added recently to help me serve better, I have to take a queue number even to queue up......

I think I would prefer zombie banks any day. What would you prefer?

Hype over Hapoos

2007-05-01T10:52:00.000+05:30

Summers in Mumbai are always interesting especially in traffic junctions when the hapoos vendors vie for space with sellers of pirated books, toys and other sundry items. Many of these vendors change vocations and switch to selling hapoos during summer going back to pirated books and cheap toys when the hapoos season is over.

14 years ago when I first visited Mumbai [having spent a considerable amout of my life in backward areas such as Bihar, Kolkata and Delhi] I was curiously amused by the fact that mangoes were sold in card board boxes. I had before that never seen mangoes being sold in cardboard boxes in street corners or at traffic junctions much like some tacky consumer item. I was also shocked by the price [which still continues to shock me, although at 300 Rs a dozen every Mumbai equivalent of Tom, Dick and Harry are lapping it up]. A year later and for many years after that, I regularly saw those cardboard boxes making their leisurely journeys on the numerous carousels at Heathrow Terminal 3, as an essential part of the travelling NRI, most of whom actually carried them to sell them at even more exhorbitant prices in their corner shops. The famous hapoos has now worked its way to the US, of course in much puerer form through irradiation and all that. I am happy for the hapoos. It has been the most internationally recognised mango brand from India and given some time, it will definitely give a run for its money to those large ugly fibrous red and yellow mosters from latin america which pass off as mogoes in the west. At least our friends in the west will know what a real mango is [it is not a sour vegetable most certainly but a sweet seasonal fruit!]. I am happy too for the exporters and the orchard owners who would make a mean buck by exporting the delectable hapoos.

I, however, am of the opinion, that hapoos is a highly overated fruit in India. It is an aspirational fruit and people buy it for snob value. And quite frankly it it overpriced. And more dangerously, it has hegemonised the discourse on mangoes in India - people, at least in western India, do not seem to care for any other mangoes. It is much like the case of Nescafe and Bru which most people in India take to be the real thing which they certainly are not.

While the hoopla over hapoos is killing much of the varietly in western India, I can vouch for north and east Indians that they do not care much about hapoos/alphonso. Ask any self respecting mango lover anywhere between Delhi and Kolkata, they will probably name the famous Langra [literally lame]. In spite of its being of very high quality and dominant in the minds of people up north and east, the poor langra has not killed its lesser cousins the zardalu, safeda, malda, himsagar or the hunk of a mango called fazli. In fact, mango season follows a complicated ritual in these parts. Unlike in Mumbai, you do not start and end the season with Hapoos. it is far more complicated and graduated...

Here is how it goes at least in eastern India... At the first flush of summer say in April you start of with the fazli which is sweetest when unripe and tasteless when ripe, then move on to the tasteless but colourful sindoori which is often sour, but tastes good really since you have not had mangoes for a year. Then the yelllow safedas make their appearance, slightly better tending towards sweeter, then comes the higher quality ones like himsagar, zardalu and the rest and the climax is reached with Langra which comes towards the end of the season. The defining features of a good langra from outside are two and you can not miss them: a) they look exactly like the mangoes that your teacher taught you to draw in school b) they are still green when ripe. The defining feature inside is fibreless, not too soft and exquisitely tasting golden fruit with a very small stone and paper thin skin. Commercially, it is good value for money too. Last season I bought them in Delhi at 35 Rs a kilo [a kilo would take 5 magoes].

But alas, like all good things, the langra season does not last for more than 15 days in the summer and if you are a fan, you have to make the most during that short time. And do not look out for them from March end to September, they are not sold irradiated in cardboard packets, nor do they travel across the globe as accessories of NRIs. They are home made, home grown and are there to tickle your taste buds for 15 days a year only.

Richard Gere in Fifth Gear

2007-04-17T10:42:00.000+05:30

Delhi usually is hot this time of the year and in the occasional presence of stars like Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty tends to get even hotter. The temperature broke all records when the venerable Richard Gere hugged and cheek kissed the lissome Shilpa Shetty on stage at a public function. The protectors of our culture were on the streets demanding the arrest of Mr Gere [Mr Gerehas been a major supporter of Dalai Lama and that was the reason why he started coming to India but I have never heard the Chinese government demanding his arrest in the US or his externment from India, a point to be noted]

But the more interesting point to be noted was in fact, was that gesture a just social cheek pecking or was there more to it? That really depends on the cultural shades you are wearing. While Mr Gere did not even figure out that he had kicked shit. Ms Shetty initially held forth like an educated and westernised Indian woman, but actually got nervous when Mr Gere executed the dance pose and the cheek pecking became somewhat passionate. To be fair to Ms Shetty, she held her fort in front of the mediapersons and steadfastly denied any wrong intention on part of Mr Gere.

Why did people get so excited? Of course, the protectors of our culture tend to get excited at short notice. I have never seen them so excited when students from north east get raped in the streets of Delhi, nor have I seen them so excited when underage girls get pinched in DTC buses. They do not hesitate to make catcalls or unwanted passes at women. Why were they so upset then? Was there racism involved? Perhaps yes. But I think not. What was involved is more subtle and more deep rooted in our systems than perhaps we realise.

It was the deep rooted Indian pysche of reserving the right to exploit our own women and giving others the right to exploit their women. But you dare not exploit our women. The definition of our and their can be as broad as anglo saxon versus Indians, Hindus versus Muslims and as narrow as Jats and Jatavs, Rajputs and Kurmis and so on. We just love our women and reserve the right to exploit them, we do not want others to do it. Please respect that right or you will hear from us.

Just to be a devil's advocate, let me ask you this: I have seen hundreds of clips of Mr Gere but never seen him that expressive with any western woman out of screen, was he then really getting into fifth gear? What about Ms Shetty? if this is her definition of air kissing at social events in Mumbai, she surely is going to be a huge crowd puller....

Sex in the City

2007-04-16T17:20:00.000+05:30

Maharashtra and Karnataka governments have decided that they would opt out of sex education in schools. Education being a state subject in India, the centre can not override the legislature of these states. The impact would be on the state run schools primarily, because my guess and experience from many years back is that most missionary schools and private schools provide some semblance of sex education in schools.

For us many years back, it was easy, missionary school, all boys schools and our biology teacher, Mr Mian became by default our sex education teacher. Mr Mian of course could draw extremely well with a chalk on the board and had access all sorts of colourful chlaks. So unbeknown to him the biology classes from standard 8 onwards became really colourful. Initially we giggled, then we asked clever questions and finally when all that excitement settled down we learned something.

What we learned was not much in the sense it was a functional education, we learned about various parts and their functions... It was to scientific and clinical... It certainly never helped us take critical moral and social decisions such as why a woman should not conveive before 18, why it was morally incorrect to sex before marraige, why one should be aware of diseases and hygiene etc etc. Of course, those were pre-aids days so how and why one could contract that deadly disease was till then unknown. The clinical education although interesting enough to tease a conservative teacher was useless. Do you teach a fish to swim? Do you monkey to climb trees, do you teach tiger to hunt? to you teach any animal how to procreate? No you do not... All of them learn it by instinct.

So if the schools going to provide what I called technical education on "sex" it is better not done. If on th eother hand the curriculum is going to include more broad based issues related to sex it may make sense.... Questions such when to have a baby, what health measures to take, what precautions to take, what kind of effect an unwanted child can have... etc etc may be useful...

But getting into the morality of it all can be tricky. Like all moral issues, we can only be judgemental and being judgemental with a child is either likking his/her initiatives or to take him off any learning at all this applies to sex education at all.

I therefore think that it is too tricky to get into at least in schools in our country. If for nothing else, schools which for the last 50 years have not been able to teach maths, physics and history properly should not be dumpled with soemthing as sensitive as sex education.

The second reason for schools to keep away from it is, parents have now almost outsourced every part of child rearing, ayahs, governesses, day care centres, creches, teachers, drivers, private tutors, music teachers, dance teachers, in fact an army of specilists have take over the taks of training the child. Most of these functions till 10 years back would be performed by parents. I think sex education is one which should still be with parents. This will at least ensure that every child suffers from the prejudices or openess of her own parents and do not have to suffer from the prejudices or openess of the teacher[some one else's parents]

By the way, by the time Mr Mian introduced to technical side of sex, most us seem to know much more than him.... so there goes all the education and training.

Cheers.

Mind your language

2007-04-14T14:04:00.000+05:30

As bilinguals and trilinguals Indians have a distinct advantage overseas as well as within India about the language the choose to express themselves. The choice is of course largely determined by who you are talking to, what you want to disucss and whom you want to exclude out ofthe coversation. Say you want to badmouth Mumbai in a crowded bus and you are travelling with you can easily break into Bengali with your bengali speaking friend and rest assured that no one else will understand and respond adversely. In London, you can easily break into Hindi with most Indians leaving the sahibs to look perplexed. In Delhi you can start talking in Tamil and in Chennai in Punjabi. In Bihar you can safely break into English!
This was my wisdom for many years, having grown up among Begalis, Punjabis, Sindhis and Hindi speaking friends. But that gradually began to change as a result of some rude and some pleasant surprises as I became older.
The first experience was a shock... Standing in the admmission queue at New Delhi's JNU, I freshly from Calcutta broke into Bengali with my mates from Calcutta and started criticising not in very charitable language. Until I was told by the student standing behind told me in crisp Bengali that he was a Tamil but could speak Bengali like a native....I as chastised.
The second incident actually did not happen because I was forewarned. This was in a place called School of Oriental and African Studies in London University where I studied for 4 years. I was forewarned by seniors not to use any Indian languages especially to criticise teachers. Apparently between them, the SOAS teachers, most of them British, knew all the Indian and African languages.... I soon go the proof when I met Rachel Dwyer, a teacher, who knew more about hindi movies that half the mumbaikars put together.
But once on a vacation with friends in a really really remote village of Scotand near the Edzell castle on a hiking expedition all by ourselves, we broke into chaste hindi and was being very uncharitable to the "stupidity" and miserliness of the Scots. On the jungle track very far and out of ear shot we say two very old ladies approaching us. We had not expected to see any human being in those parts let alone two old ladies who could speak chaste Hindi since they had spent much of their childhood in what was then the Central Provinces of India. The older of the two hugged us and said Indians were like her "jigar a tukda". A very embarrassing moment avoided since being advanced in years and quite far away she had not heard our views about Scots.
The last incident happened two months back at a large business conference that we had organsed. Three speakers dropped out at the last moment, and I was left with the worst speaker of the session and the much respected and very senior session moderator and was desperately looking at picking up some good speakers from the delegates as the ultimate effort to save the day. The session moderator was the head of a very large company and a Tamil. He could see the tension on my face and gently tapped my shoulder and said in chaste bengali"Chinta Koro Na Sob Thik Hoye Jaabe" [don't worry everything will be alright]. Those were the most comforting words I have heard recently. Thanks to his confidence booster we did manage to have a very good session and end the conference very successfully.
I now have stopped doing bilaterals in a crowd and stopped taking advantage of language and do really mind my laguage.

Sleepless for Mumbai

2007-04-11T17:32:00.000+05:30

Last week I was in Delhi, but spent a couple of sleepless nights thinking about the future of Mumbai, a city I seem to be slowly and quite unintentionally adopting to be my home town. My views on Mumbai are not private and secret and I do not hesitate to reiterate it once again: I like it in small measure, but in large measure I do not like the city... For two reasons mainly:
1. It does not teach you to struggle [weather is mild, people are mild, everything is too mild; water, sunlight, electricity are enough and easily avaialble, transport is easy, jobs are easy etc etc]. In India if your city does not teach you to struggle, if are deadmeat.
2. In spite of 1 above, it sucks quite a bit out of you slowly but surely, reminds you that your dreams are just dreams, takes a lot and gives you very little in return. It keeps you alive by giving you a subsistence that's it.
However, last few nights I have really been scared to return to Mumbai.
One reason was of course, the constant media coverage of so call lack of power supply in Mumbai and its suburbs and the impending doom thereof.... I for one am not scared of power cuts... But in Mumbai you are so helpless if that happens. because as i said earlier, the city has for generations not prepared you for a power cut. There are no invertors, generators etc etc here in Mumbai. In other parts of the country no one really cares the power supply is there or not, every one has their private arrangements.
The second reason was that there were talks of water shortage as well. Again for the same reasons Mumbaikar is not prepared to face it. She is so dependent on BMC suply that she has forgotten to make her own arrangements
The third reason was the news that BPO and ITjobs are going to be cut and Mumbai is one of the cities which is going to be majorly affected. That is going to pinch hard all those merry makers in the hypermalls
The fourth reason was that with the government tightening the money supply very seriously, there will be less of loans. I was wondering how will the Mumbaikar survive
The fifth reason was that with RBI cracking down on various bank rates, the stock market looks like a conoe in an open sea. bad luck to all those who make a killing and then buy fancy flats for cash in the posh suburbs
Finally, the biggest cause of my nightmare was the impending natural disaster. Along with bangladesh, Mumbai is going to be worst effected by rising sea level and large parts of Mumbai will be under the sea. Here again, Mubaikars have no experience of fighting natural calamities. except the July deluge a couple of years back.

I am really worried about Mumbai and Just want to tell Mumbaikars "Welcome to India my dears"

Emergency Response Team

2007-03-30T11:37:00.000+05:30

Have you seen scenes of major train and plane accidents in India on TV. I have for many years and have come to the firm conclusion that no one who matters have seen these gory scenes on TV. Here is why.... the most riveting aspect of these scenes is a few local carrying mangled bodies to no where and a few local state police poking around the debris with lathis. In ultra urban areas like Mumbai, the scene is no different. My first memories of such a scene on coloured television was the clash of two planes over haryana on the wee hours of a foggy winter day. And my lasting memory of the scene of the accident was haryana policemen covered in blankets probing the debris with lathis. These memories were refreshed the other day when I watched the post blast scene in Mumbai on TV. Nothing much seems to have changed.

Haven't we realised in the 60 years of independence that police is not there for accident and emergency response, haven't we realised that there is no point in calling the police to the accident scene they do not know and are not expected to know the abc of emergency response, haven't we realised that security forces are not not gods or not least paramedics..... Clearly we have not. The result is all of us call up a hospital and the police in case of a major accident, terrorost attack, flood, or at best the fire brigade.

Since independence, we have riased so many special forces from teh BSF to the CISF that most people in the Home Ministry has lost count. We have, however, failed to raise on force that would have saved the lives of millions in the last 60 years... India does not have a centralised force of paramedics to response to emergency and trauma... We have spent trillions of dollars on national security but when that security is breached and ordinary citizens fall victim, we have no one to respond.

Dont you think we should have a national emergency response team with paramedics as members. This should be like any of the central security forces the only difference being that they are not fighters but saviours of lives, their jobs? to be the first on the spot, deliver on spot treatment and take them to the nearest hospital... end of work. What would they need? Ambulances, are medical emergency equipement, a few helicopters for large cities, training in paramedicine, driving skills. Where would they be based? In all district headquarters to begin with and their performance would be based on their response time... They would be commondos in a different sense. Where will the money come from? 50 per cent central government and 50 per cent corporates. We have enough money for a good cause, in the last 60 years we have created enough wealth, it is time that we use it for some good causes. This one is on top of my mind. At least, aesthetically, I do not have to see dead bodies being dragged by localvillagers and debris being poked by Police lathis....
What do you think?

When Did you Last...?

2007-03-28T13:22:00.000+05:30

When did you last look at a traffic light beggar in the face? when did you last travelled without with the windows of the car open? when you last buy a shirt from a street vendor? when did you last visit a subzi mandi? when did you last bought your own booze from the booze shop? when did you last visit a temple without any result in mind? when did you last cuddled a baby? when did you last petted a dog or a cat? when did you last have a one-to-one with your office boy? when did you last have a vada pao on the streets? when did you walked the streets without a definite purpose and destination? when did you last write a non-official letter? when did you last say "you are great" to your parents? when did you last asked your partner what she wants? when did you last ask you help at home "how were the kids doing are they still n school"? When did you last help your child with the homeowork or a show and tell? when did you last looked at a pretty woman and told her how pretty she was? when did you last smell a rose? when did you last make a friend? when did you last laughed out aloud?

The gas balloon goes up and up till the gas lasts, after that it comes down directionless, shrunken and rather sad looking and completely useless....

Cheers

Sorry, No Sarees, Please!

2007-03-27T16:19:00.000+05:30

Shashi Tharoor lamented the demise of the ubiquitous saree from the cupboards of Indian women in a national daily last Sunday. And, appealed earnestly to Indian women to not let this ancient mark of our civilization die a quick death. One of the main reasons as one of his respondendents mentioned against saree was "try and catch a bus in a saree" - indicating the non-functional side of the attire and hinting that with women increasingly getting out of homes and into workplaces with all the attendant problems, sarees are best left to the moths in cupboards.
Another man, perhaps not as global as Tharoor, but certainly representing the best of Indian tradition in laughter, Raju Srivastava, has a more serious lament. In a recent episode of "The Great Indian Laughter CHallenge", Raju had this mock conversation between the jeans and the top.
Jeans: I seem to be going down and down and further away from you my friend
Top: Yes, mah dahling! I too seem to be moving up and up and away from you. It seems we shall only get further and further away from each other and never be able to meet in this life.

I am not here to moralise about what women should wear or not wear. Frankly I believe one should wear what one is comfortable in and what one can carry off confidently. Of course, within the larger societial norms in mind. In fact, it is a remarkable sign of our social progress that most urban women [I do not mean just the 8 top cities, but even smaller towns] are condifently wearing cothes which not only their mothers but even their elder sisters would have cringed at. Critics would call this a dubious sign of progress but they would forget that such small changes are harbingers of larger changes in society. Remember those days when you went out and bought cigerattes for your girlfriend who was a smoker but did not want to go to shops to buy the stuff and people who knew you slightly wondering why you - a non-smoker- were buying cigarettes? Gone are those days now, if you were to attend a large confenrence today on any of the new economy sectors, you would find that women lead the pack of smokers during breaks... and what more in most cities you can see women smoking in restaurants, pubs and other places. if that is not progress, I wonder what it...
But of course, there is always a twist to my tales.... and in case of women's smoking habits and sartorial tastes, I have two stories to narrate from rural India which so far as women empowerment goes, has been the trend setter since times immemorial.
The first story was told to me by my sociology teacher Dr Particia Oberoi an Australian national who had moved to India at a very young age marrying Prof Oberoi. When Pat moved to India in the early 60s folks back home warned her that she would not get any skirts in India and she should pack as many of those as possible. On reaching India on her first visit to rural Rajasthan she found much to her shock and pleasure, that women in those parts of India wore only skirts and very pretty ones at that....
The second story is from small town Bihar where I spent my childhood. My friend, all of 11 years used to frequently buy bidis and we knew he was not a smoker. He used to buy it for his own and our neighbourhood chachi [who was completely illiterate but married to to the Principal of the local college and the President of the District Congress Committee, th emuch educated, modern and revered Prof Singh...
Didn't I tell you earlier more things change more they remain the same

Bad Animals and Worse Humans

2007-03-13T12:44:00.000+05:30

Sunderbans [the largest mangrove forest in the world: [12 March 2007] Home to the Royal Bengal Tiger and the Ferocious Crocodile
A Conversation Between A Tiger and a Crocodile:
Tiger How Many today?
Croc: Bad day mate only two
T: At this rate we shall never be able to cull them and free our habitat
C: How many did you cull today?
T: maimed and dead combine 15
C: That's a good day's work
T: Yeah I guess only you and I can do it here, others are all useless, you see they are vegetarians and generally do not kill or destroy something they do not eat.
C: Yeah that fat ass elephant refused to kill any humans saying that that was not his job and in any case he had not taste for human meat
T: Mate that is why we will never be able to score over humans, we are too logical
C: But look at the speed with which the buggers are breeding and encroaching on our property and getting aggressive and killing us
T: Mate it is a losing battle
C: Seems like only option for us is to behave like our friends the dogs and go and settle down in the cities
T: They are really remarkable, look how they have completely changed their habitat, they were once wild animals hunting in packs, now they either adorn and guard rich people's house or have become smart urban foragers
C:Mate I can't beg and eat left overs out of plastic bags
T: Me too, I guess we will have to control our bredding and finally disappear in order to make more and more room for the humans

Bangalore [India's silicon valley and home to large number of ownerles dogs] 12 March 2007
A Conversation between two dogs:
Senior dog to start up dog: Why the hell did you have to kill that child? Dont you know they are harmless?
Guilty Start up Dog: Boss, I said sorry so many times... to so many people
Senior Dog: Sorry does not help anymore my boy, look at what you have brought down on the entire community. you have given us a very bad name and invited the wrath of the most ferocious and intellectually superior animal in this planet.
Guilty Start Up dog: But even the baby's father said on TV that it was not my fault it, I am after all a dog he said and would get attracted to offals thrown out of illegal meat shops
Senior Dog: My boy, you are too young to know that rationality is the first victim when human bengs are hit by a situation, they are not like us... Now run and try to save your life as I would mine...
New Delhi [capital of India and home to many ex-celebrities looking for a cause to support] 12 March
Monologues of a Celebrity:
They have killed them like butchers, 1,500 of them, the local authorities are acting like Hitler and this will only acentuate the menace dogs will grow more feral and bite more people the best way is to make them incapable of breeding en masse, and kill the sick ones...
Mumbai 13 March 2007 [Richest city of India and home to a large number of stray animals and humans and also lovers of such strays]
Observations of an Idiot
Worli: No stray dogs and no mosquitoes.... Clean roads, proper garbage disposal systems, automatic control on breeding of strays.... Some cats in and around societies...
Andheri east: dirty roads, garbage on roads, overcrowding, full of stray dogs, stray people and mosquitoes... right envoronment for breeding... more dogs more sympathies... more food and more dogs....
Conclusion: Controlling dogs is really in human hands
Thoughts of an Idiot
Of course protecting habitats of tiger and croc are also in human hands, all they need to do is to control breed[ing] and greed...
Why can not we achieve both especially since both are apparently in our hands?

Tea and RedBull

2007-03-09T18:09:00.000+05:30

There is a smallish railway junction near Kolkata called Naihati.. It is now a junction for suburban trains. But before partition it used to be on a trunk route to north bengal and assam through what is now bangladesh.. and it was this route which many of the wretched "coolies" took to reach the assam planations from the bridgehead of Brahmaputra. But I digress.

In Naihati station there is [still is] a tea stall as ancient as A H Wheeler books stalls which was licensed to be opened at least 70-80 years back. That tea stall has a large signboard in bengali which lists out "The Benefits of Drinking Tea" a) It stimulates the body b) It gives energy c) It is healthy d) It energises the mind

Those were early days of tea marketing in India [most of the tea before the second world war was for the export market] and simple marketing techniques worked on simple folks and the result is for all of us to see... bengalis at least have become prolific tea drinkers in the last 70-80 years and even today coffee is considered to be a treat in most of bengal to be had only on special occasions in the winter [I am discounting the consumption pattern of the Coffee House type Calcuttans here!]

That was way back in the past. Today, I had the pleasure of having a lovely thali lunch at a small restaurant in Worli quite literally at the heart of capitalist Mumbai and while I was savouring my rasam, an odd laminated poster drew my attention... Coloured in Blue and Red it was a RedBull advertisement, and guess what it said? Yes you are right... Alomost word for word it was same as the Tea advertisement I mentioned about... If you do not believe me you must pay a visit to Kalpana at Worli Naka and have a look for yourself:)

Is it true then that more things change more they remain the same?

By the way, in case you have missed it... Tea is marketed by the tea board now as a happening drink... teak drinkers are supposed to be smart, quick witted and fleetfooted... not stuffed shirts like the coffee drinkers... So choose your drink carefully

Shall We Dance

2007-03-08T11:02:00.000+05:30

If you have seen this movie [it is very watchable starring Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Lopez] you would not have missed out on the character played by Stanley Tucci... A bald and non-similing lawyer by the day and a dressed up dancer with a fancy wig and a set of false teeth by the night.... The highlight of Tucci's makeover which he explains at length to Gere is a set of false teeth which is sparkling white and which is permanently held in the grin mode... Of course both come out at the end with much sadness and laughter revealing the real man...

Something similar has been happening to corporate India in the last theree years... the false grin on Budget days has been accentuated by a fancy flase wig of "affirmative action in the form of training underprivileged people and bringing them up to scratch"; to forsetall a veiled threat by the government to bring in affirmative action [read job quota] through legislation....

After the Budget this year the false teeth is out: Following a non-exciting budget from the industry perspective, directives have been sent out by some ministries to select sectors to the effect the the propsed tax hikes should be absorbed by these sectors and not passed on to users thereby initiating a cascading effect on prices... the sectors interestingly are steel and cement - basic commodities for the booming construction and auto sectors....

The wig too is at the verge of being pulled off: One active ministry has sent a directive to large industry associations stating that proposals for affirmative action submitted by them are not enough and are too slow moving... adding that all their members need to state in their annual reports what affirmative action they have taken [read how many underprivileged have been emploed by them in course of the year]

Now that the grin and the wig are out, will we see the real dance of India Inc? I wish we do not have to say "only time will tell" on this one....

Holi Hai!

2007-03-03T17:18:00.000+05:30

Holi, Bihar 1983:
Get up at seven change into torn clothes, by 8 paint yourself thoroughly with oil based aluminium paint so that no one can maul your clean face and get out. On the sly have bhang ka peda [ground bhang paste between two pedas] and get ready for the show.... By 11 am you are high and short on colours and that is when you thank the municipal cororpation for keeping the dains dirty and open... you are lucky if you save yourself a dip in the muck, if you are unlucky and very high, you start feeling that the drain is actually a comfortable bed... 1 PM back home to clean up with kerosene oil and a scrub 2 PM lunch and still very high.... 5 PM wake up change into Kurta Pyjama get out with friends to go house calling and catching up with the pretty girls who refused to come out in the morning... liberal use of gulal on the girls and bhabhi jis and liberal pet pujs of singharas and jalebis and gujias.... 8 PM back home still high but mentally happy.... have puris and sleep with gulal in your head... I just described one day, i.e., the main day of holi otherwise Holi stretches to one week in Bihar and if some enthusiasts are to be tolerated: "Holi Ka mahina hai, kuch bhi ho sakta hai"!
Calcutta 1987: Hindu Hostel
Holi is not for us, so kep that 12 foot door of the room closed.... reassuring because not even an elephant can break through that 100 year old door.... Lot of banging outside, much like Vandals at the Roman Gates, have a quick bath step out to see what the proletariats are doing from a safe distance... 5 PM after a long day's wait open the bottle of McDowell number one and dig in with room mates.... Oh what a day it has been
New Delhi 1991, JNU
The festival of proletarat is institutionalised here... bhang is served post breakfast in the hostel mess... 9 am every one is out on the Jhelum lawns with Bhang ka sharbat in waterbottles... Kavi Sammelan, leftie songs, keeping an eye on which babe is getting stoned with which hunk...some drunken brawls....2 PM no food in the mess, no shops outside open, no water, wait till 4 PM without food and water to clean up... End of the day....
London 1997
A day after holi: "did you know it was holi yesterday, shit man we missed all the fun, we should have stayed in Southall not in posh Russell Sqaure" Lot of nostalgia, four cans of beer in the evening, at last a new excuse to drink... Dinner at 12... 1 AM neighbours request to lower the volume of the music.... 2 AM more nostalgia as people go back to their flats around the square...
Delhi 2004, Posh College Campus
11 am, change into "Holi Clothes" there are only 24 flats on the colony start with the one next door and visit every one... every one visits everyone dabs a little blotch of gulal on the forehead... everyone gathers in someone's lawns, lots of good food which most can't have because food is too rich and bodies too old.... Lots of good scotch, canned beers and branded vodka.... can't have much... Lots of old songs 1 PM catch the watet and clean yourself... early end to the day.... Biryani and Kababs at home with a few friends....
Mumbai 2007
No idea... But Holi now happens on TV. Noticed how all the serials on all the channels have TV theme in them right from the morning... This is bringing Holi to your living room, no fuss, no dirt, no cleaning up afterwards, no gali, no mithai.... Just digitised Holi on the screen... It is almost like watching pornography... deriving vicarious pleasure by watching others play holi on the screen!

It's indeed been a long journey.....

Have a great Holi

The Art of Forgetting

2007-03-01T11:51:00.000+05:30

The art of forgetting is a well practiced art but quite popular in India and I have had first hand experience since I have studied one subject only form high school to my thesis: History.... When I attended the first History Honours Class in Presidency College in Calcutta, I was told that forget whatever you were taught in class 12: Aurangzeb was not a bigot, he did what was politically prudent, for example.... He was also the most honest and down to earth Mughal emperor.... Feudalism was not about knights and dames but about social processes.... OK so I forgot and moved on.... In my Masters Class in JNU I was told that forget whatever you were taught in your honours class.... history has been interpreted through narrow isms so far but it is really more complicated than that and keep your mind open... OK so I tried to follow the new guidelines and forget the old.... While doing my PhD in London [you will ask why do a PhD in Indian history in London, but that is a totally different subject for me to answer here]... I was told that PhD is the art of knowing more and more about less and less... So I had to forget larger processes that we shaping the history of the subcontinent and focus on my chosen area and time frames...

Now I see that this practice plagues most of the economists as well especially in our country and with disastrous results because economists as a lobby have more power over our lives than historians or political scientists or even physcists will ever have....

Inflation, when we were young, we were told is just a process of transferring money from one group of people to another.... in this case from fixed income groups to flexible income groups.. in our country from you to your shopkeeper.... and there is nothing inherently wrong and no one suffers during inflation if and only if there is a realtime indexed income.... so if the inflation is 7 per cent my salary automatically goes up seven per cent, so does my return on deposits, savings and everything else and the actual raise is over and above it I do not suffer at all..... so if the interest rate is 5 per cent and the inflation is 8 per cent I should get an interest of 13 per cent.... Similary if my annual salary hike is 10 per cent and the inflation is 5 per cent, I should get a salary hike of 15 per cent... But in spite of many sane economists suggesting indexation of income, savings and deposits, we have never sought this way out in our country and most of those economists probably have forgotten about their earlier solution... with the result that fixed income groups are made to suffer through indirect taxes which are passed on to them by the shopkeeper, merchant, industry, and false bank rates like 8 per cent , 7 per cent of which is eaten away by inflation.... Others are making merry and enriching themselves without moving a figer because whenever there is an indirect tax it is passed on to fixed income groups....

So the art of forgetting may be good for historians it certainly is not good for economists... for them the slogan should be back to basics...

Left, Right, Left, Right...

2007-02-28T15:04:00.000+05:30

Do worry I am not askng the reader to march to the sunset, not as yet. This is a simple entry on a rather complicated observation that I made when I was a younger man in my ancestral place which, no do not stretch your imagination, is not in any remote village in Bihar but just forty six kilometres away from Kolkata connected very well for the last 50 years by suburban trains and much else.... This is not exactly my ancestral place which was in East Bengal really.... but this was the place were my grandparents and father and uncles settled when they migrated after partition....
The name of the place is not important but the background certainly is... it has historically been in the heart of the Bengal Jute belt and since the time of the British has housed a large railway workshop, both of which were the primary employers of this town... Politically, post independence with the influx of refugees and more development it has been a sort of left bastion especially, the "refugee" dominated areas... Socially very advanced like most small towns in Bengal, caste colour and creed having very little importance...at least in Public dealings...
It was in this place one fine autumn evening in a house which is connected to mine by marriage and which is the vanguard of the local left politics I saw a bizarre sight:) The feet of a visiting guru being washed by the old widow of the house... nothing unusual for a 60 year old widow, I guess.... But the next scene was even more captivating.... All the members of the family being offered the feet washed water [a few drops] as Charanamrita.... It was a disgusting sight and I left hurriedly before my turn came... and this was in 1988 and not in the age of Ram Mohun Roy!
Little did I know then that more things change more they remain the same at least in our country... This internal cotradiction between more economic and political liberalism leading to more social conservatism OR publicly professed liberalism with privately practiced obscurantism exisits comfortably side by side in the same person in our country....
I was just thinking about this waiting in the traffic in front of the Sai Mandir on Lodi Road in Delhi the other day... it's an open temple by the side of the road, where on any thursday you will see a great collection of most liberated young men and women in designer jeans, fancy cars and other behaviourial parapharnelia of liberalism jostling to get a Darshan....
You would be tempted to call them hypocrites.... but it is certainly more complicated than that.... To move forward and backward in the same stride is a job which only an Indian can accomplish....
Mera Bharat Mahan...

Whisky? No, Peesky!

2007-02-27T18:07:00.000+05:30

This is how one of our primeministers is claimed to have reacted when offered whisky on an overseas trip... It was claimed that he was a teetotaller and the only drink he preferred [apart from tea and milk presumably] was anearly morning cup of his own pee... May sound disgusting, but that kept him going for 96 years... as they say the proof of the pudding lies in eating it...I would also say for that Prime Minister that he knew his drinks, which can not be said about most Indians men or women... I shall take up women first... who prefer bacardi, smirnoff or some delicate french wines.... : Simple suggestions... please do not spend too much money on these brands, they are quite useless.... instead go for old monk [best dark rum in the world and made in India], Romanov [Oldest Vodka in India and one of the best in the world] and Please do not go for french wines, if you do not know about wines you would find the best of them very dry [sour]... Indian wines are good enough and a Chantilli [faux, of course] of Indage for 600 Rs would be a good bait...Now, for men if these are your preferred drinks the same advice applies... [we grow the largest volume and best quality sugarcane, potatoes and grapes so there is not reason why we cant make rum, vodka and wines as good as the others].... But if you are a man and do not like any of the above and prefer Whisky and beer, please listen to my advice.... All Indian whiskies are bad, in fact they are not whiskies at all.... You may instead have Teachers or Black Label... But if anything these are absolutely third rate whiskies and probably worse to the Indian palete than McDowell number 1. I suggest do not waste your money on Black/Red Labels or Teachers.... Of course, if you want to know what whisky really is go for that single malt and to the Indian taste, I guarantee you will take to them like fish to water.... any single malt will do.... but if you have the money go for McAllan.... Lagavulin or Laphroaig.... and please do not mix it with water.... I guarantee you, you will never have a hangover even after consuming half a bottle:) Beer drinkers... the world is your stage... but if you are not that broadminded, I suggest stick to Black label or Kingfisher... Fosters and Castle are third rate beers..... If however you really love good things in life here is a list: Bud, Kronenburg, DAB, Michelob among the lagers, if you want to do better, try bitters/ales from England, they are expensive and you need to cultivate the taste for sometime.... If you are brave try the best of them from Ireland branded as Guiness.... Jameson, the Irish Whiskey is also good.... I have never tried Jack Daniels which I do not believe is a whisky:) In the far east be careful about local brews they are exrtremely potent and after a few shots its every easy to eat that raw fish...Cheers....

TGIF or TGIS

2007-02-26T16:26:00.000+05:30

Do not worry about the abbreviations on the title. I am sure most of you have been dealing with more complicated ones like RFID or RGBS and the like... This is really simple...Thank God Its Friday (TGIF) used to excite a lot of people... After a hard day's work one would look forward to the weekend from Friday evenings onwards etc etc...I have realised Friday is the worst day of the week. Its not Monday, it;s actually Friday... At least for people like me. it's the day when bosses dump a lot of work just around 4 PM and extract your promise to deliver by luchtime on Monday... that is tolerable, after all what else can bosses do... More repulsive is the behaviour of your reportees..... they have been promising to deliver a finished product since Monday and failed... come Friday 4 PM when you are tired of following up.... you get an email attaching a half finished work, which has to be completely reworked and the obviously Monday is the deadline... You rush out of your room to catch the bugger and the security guard tells you very helpfully that the guy jist left five minuted back... As a good guy you do not like to bother juniors on the mobile on Friday evenings......I have therefore devised a way of surviving this two two sided pressure: from top as well as from botttom... Whether I am in office on any other day of the week or not, I make sure that I put in at leat four hours every Saturday.. That's is the best time to get some serious work done... That is why I have devised this rather unimaginative term TGIS, thank god it;s saturday....
You may dislike this strategy, but for me it works very well. On Monday morning I am the only one laughing in the office.......

Highway Robbery

2007-02-05T16:18:00.000+05:30

Have you ever been robbed by law enforcement authorities? I have never been, but I was told as a young boy growing up in Bihar that even when you are paying a bribe, do not ever take out your wallet in front of a police man, else whatever you have inside the wallet will no longer be yours i.e., what you have inside the wallet will determine how much you pay. It works noth ways, many a times I have shown empty wallets and got scott free with of course remarks about my economic and social standing. I do not mind those comments am thick skinned:) But that was not higway robbery. What is highway robbery is to pass an ordinance to get free stuff which has been bought at a cosiderable value by a small company. This is highway robbery and has beencommitted by the government of india or its infamous arm the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.I am sure the government has a sound reason to pass this ordinance, but it is just that it has failed to explain the reasons transparently to the public. If this is to reflect the popular feeling about cricket and how the teeming millions who have no access to cable TV or cannot afford to pay for viewing, it is then a good reason. But then it is the same ministry which has done away with Cable Operators and has started the expensive version of Cable or Satellite TV where viewers in certain areas of the major cities have paid through their noses or not been able to afford it at all [I paid 4000 Rs in Delhi for Tata Sky and 1500 for a CAS in Mumbai my maids and driver in both the places have not been so lucky. And now CAS is going to be extended to all cities].
Secondly, if cricket is so popular and needs to be reached to the masses whenever those matches happen, isnt Ramayana, Mahabharata or Nach baliye, Kyun Ki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu thi equally popular? Does the government have any plans to ask for free feed from TV companies for these popular serials as well? Then all of us can go back to watching good old Doordarshan free of cost:)
Confused? So am I!

Neo Colonialism

2007-02-03T11:11:00.000+05:30

The buy out of Corus (erstwhile stolid British Steel merged with a dutch company) has had the Corus union in UK worried: obvious fear of job loss compounded by the fact that the jobs would be determined by and Indian company. Normally, the Brits are pretty tolerant and Bindas and the anti outsourcing lobby does not work threre half as well as it works in US. But as they say even the worm turns at last... Like the Indians have a high level of tolerance till you show Krishna as a vicious political animal, or try to paint pictures of Allah or think of releasing the last temptation. Let us face it, Corus is a very inefficient company and Tata Steel is very efficient. J N Tata while planning to establish a steel factory (which became TISCO the forerunner of Tata Steel) had returned empty handed from UK: he had gone there to raise money and seek exeprts in prospecting etc. He was told that the idea of building a steel plant in India was a pipe dream [I am sure the Vitorian Englishment would have used more soothing words to drive this message home to Mr Tata] Subsequenltly much of the technical expertise was brought in from the US and much of the money was raised in India [Mumbai]. This is history turning on its head:) Tata's of course have never detached themselves from the brits. In the initial years Tata Steel survived and thrived on guaranteed orders from the India Railways [which was owned by British stockowners] and Tata House in Grosvenor Square in London has been as venerable a sign of Indian presence in UK as the India House off London School of Economics.
India is the fourth or third largest inward investor in UK and with the corus deal we would have expected the following:
Airtel to take over Vodaphone in the next 3 years, BSNL to buy out British Telecom, DMRC to buy of London Underground; Vijay malla to buy out White and McKay and give us some good scotch at Indian prices; Appollo Group with eh support of Max can buy out National Health; HDFC and ICICI can make a joint pitch for the Insurance companies in Scotland and the Indian BPOs can buy out the Irish ones. As my Bangladeshi Brit friend in Whitechapel would say "In your dreams buddy"

Am I a Fool

2007-02-03T11:09:00.000+05:30

I think I am a fool or something is seriously wrong with our crime investigation agencies. Since last week CBI has been raiding homes of police officers involved in allegedly conniving in the henious crimes at Nithari in NOIDA.I would assume that in order for a raid to be effective it has to be done suddenly and without prior information to the person or persons who homes are going tobe raided. This is at least true of Income Tax related raids, information on which are only shared in the last moment with only relevant officers of the department and raids are essentially carried out at ungodly hours so that the raidees are caught unawares. After the first raid on a junior police officer's house a more than a month after the case came to light, the CBI claimed to find some incriminating papers. So far so good.What did they do next? Spoke to the press and said that more raids would follow! This is what I read in newspapers yesterday. What was the wisdom behind this cute piece of communications to the press? To inform us that CBI is really working hard on the case? Or to inform the other suspected policeman to be aware and make best efforts to hide all incriminating papers before the raid happens? I dunno reallyOR is that the safe assumption of CBI that police officers do not read newspapers an watch television?I think it is the pathetic desire to talk more and work less that drives most organisations these days. In teh zeal to talk they sometimes forget what they should talk and what they should not talk about. This bug seems to have bitten many ministers, government departments, police and even the judiciary. I guess normally quiet and reticent government types are learning their communication skills pretty fast from the coprorate types:)