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
Friday, March 09, 2007
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Shall We Dance
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....
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....
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Holi Hai!
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
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
Thursday, March 01, 2007
The Art of Forgetting
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...
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...
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