Order, Chaos and More!

Tribulations of a Petrol Head!

2011-11-05T23:28:00.002+05:30

Do words such as V12, V-tec and TSI excite you more than kinky posters of Megan Fox, Salma Hayek and Hale Berry? Do you fuss about flat spots between 3rd and 4th gears more than the bald spots in your crown?

If the answers to either of the above questions is Yes, then you are officially a petrol head. Though it is a privilege to be one these days, it is not easy to be one.

Being a petrol head has never been easy, and it isn’t getting any better. Perhaps the only time in history you would have enjoyed being a petrol head was when the Shahs ruled Iran. Well, then came the Islamic revolution and with it went the hope of millions of petrol heads. Well, if you were born after 1979 or never liked world history, well here is a pointer, petrol was never cheaper than in the 70’s, parity factored in.

If you are of the kind who believe that life begins after 4000 rpm, then you better change that belief, because if you don’t, you will be hunted down by the knights of Templar of a different kind. To throw a bit of perspective, the number of enemies petrol heads have today is a shade short of the number that Julian Assange has. Er…confused? Well, let me try to put it in a simpler way, a way in which you can count them.

First up, there is the OPEC, the exclusive club of oil reach nations who control the tap to the oil wells and who for some strange reason, prefer closing the valve than opening it. Didn’t anyone teach these guys the “joy of giving”?
Then there are the Oil Majors, who believe that profiteering is the surest way to reach heaven. Well, if not heaven it will certainly get them to the White House.
And there are the gun toting fundamentalists who threaten to blow up oil wells in their own backyard without realizing that they are destined to go back to Stone Age by doing so.
And there is Wall Street and the greedy hedge funds who hoard up half the world’s supply of crude without even owning a tank to store it. Isn't this reason enough to occupy Wall Street?
And then there are the green crusaders who keep pushing for tighter and tighter emission norms which if they get any tighter will split at the seams. Well, don’t they realize that tightening emission norms on thousands of turbocharged and supercharged petrol cars is akin to missing the forest for the trees??
And then we have our own Prime Minister, a man who is known not to have an opinion on even the color of his turban, but has a view that deregulating petrol prices is the way to go. I am certain that the high command drives diesel cars.
Then come the greedy state governments who aim to wipe out their budget deficit through sales tax receipts on petrol. How else will they fund more Adarshes??
Next in line are the oil marketing companies of India who have no product other than petrol to load the costs of subsidy. I really don't blame them, they are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea.
The millions of wheezing, smoke belching, rickety trucks and their truckers who are up in arms whenever there is even a hint of increase in diesel prices. Well, these are no do-gooders or altruists who care about the aam aadmi,all the drivers want is a strike to catch up on rest, while all the owners want is an opportunity to arm twist the Netas.
There are the fat cats who zip around in White Fortuners and Bimmers with revolving lights of all colors and blaring horns, with safari suited goondas following in Scorpios scaring the living daylights out of everyone else on the road.
Then come the smart public, the ones who get oil burners which are fueled by the taxes paid by us petrol heads.Ah! Free loaders....our country is full of them!
Not to mention the Auto Majors themselves, who under gimmickries such as blue and green efficiency happily sacrifice power and performance for better mileage figures. Well, dash it I say!
If you still manage to get past all these enemies, then there are the wife, the family and friends in that order who will be more than glad to raise an eyebrow or two if you ever utter the “P” word.

So, my fellow brethren, do you still believe that there is a place for the likes of us who love our engines free revving as our spirits? I guess the writing on the wall is quite clear; we are either with them or against them, so we have to make a choice, a painful one at that. Either we make our last stand like the ones in 300 and put up a fight or sell our soul to the dark side and start driving diesels.

I choose to stand and fight……et vous???

A Commentary on the Norway attacks!

2011-07-30T13:40:00.001+05:30

It has been over a week since the ghastly rampage in Norway by the right wing extremist left over a 100 dead and many more injured. As Norway and the rest of the world recover from the shock that has been left behind by the dastardly attacks, there have been growing debates on topics of right wing extremism, religious intolerance and the larger problem of immigration that the developed world has been grappling with over the past decade. Though I shall not lend my thoughts on all these much spoken about topics, I wanted to focus on a different topic altogether- the emergence of Individual extremism.

For those who have been following the various insurgent movements across the world, there are a few things that are fundamental to any insurgent/extremist movement:

- There will be a very strong cause at the onset which over the years would have been forgotten only to be replaced by mass hysteria created by manipulative leaders. Case in point- left wing movements in Latin America, the leftist movements in the mining belts of Orissa and so on.

- It is always a group of people who subscribe to the ideology which is propagated through specific channels, religious and otherwise.

- The groups always attack the establishment or the targeted community and never the common man. As evident in all left wing,religious sectarian killings that have taken place over the years.

- The attacks are always about propagating the cause which is firmly established and never about drawing attention of people or governments towards an issue.

- Last but not the least, every movement will have sympathizers who fund the group to recruit, train, arm,plan and carry out attacks against the opponents of the cause.

If one were to look at the Norway attacks, it is an antithesis to all the above mentioned aspects of extremism/terrorism-

- It targeted not just the establishment or the community in question ( Muslims), but the very people of the society whom the attacker belonged

- There was no group ideology involved at all, it was one man's view against that of the country

- There were no co-conspirators or sympathizers, just a lone man acting on his own will

This was an attack like no other, there has been no precedence whatsoever as it cannot be compared to the gunman attacks or school shootings where some loony goes of a rampage and sprays unsuspecting school students with bullets. The alarming facet of the attack is that it was virtually untraceable, an individual accumulating a truck load of Urea for farming in the suburbs of Oslo will not attract any attention, and it doesn't help the cause that this person is a loner and need not look over his shoulder while perpetrating these acts. The fact that he could muster two attacks, one a bombing and other a shooting massacre without being apprehended brings to light a couple of points:

- the governments and defense establishments are attuned to fighting groups and not individuals which handicaps them in a rapid response

- there is hardly any surveillance that will help if the perpetrators are unknown entities

This leaves a big question in the minds of the defense think tanks of various governments. How to tackle "Individual Extremism"? A low key, under the radar form of extremism which is as potent as any other known form of extremism, which stems not from mass ideologies but out of individual thought. These, micro movements, which evolve at a rapid pace and pretty much unknown until they lash out pose a big challenge to traditional defense establishments that are defined by command and control structures and bureaucracies, which serve them well in traditional wars, but will be an impediment in fighting these mushrooming lunatics.

Though there is no silver bullet to the problem, it lays emphasis on governments, especially the ones on the western world to tackle immigration not through knee jerk policies but through long term and sustainable initiatives.

The FF Syndrome

2011-05-18T23:00:00.000+05:30

They are the jet setters,they are the trend setters, they are in travellators, they are in escalators,they are here today,gone tomorrow, they checkout of Marriot now, check into the Taj later, when they are not on their blackberry's, they are on their i-whatevers, while common people's statuses read "single" or "married" or "its complicated", the statuses of these illuminatti read "red/blue", "silver", "gold",platinum" and "titanium", introducing those who fall in the league of extraordinary gentlemen-" The frequent flier".

Just as there are two sides to any coin, there are two facets to any job/role. Though the world knows the snazzy and high flying life of the "frequent flier", little is known about the syndrome that afflicts every flier who is worth his miles. It is called the FF syndrome and it is perhaps the best kept secret next only to the "coca cola recipe". Now, there is no doctor who will treat you for this and there is no known cure, but let me unravel some of the symptoms which characterize this dreaded syndrome, this evil plague which spreads in terminals, in aluminum tubes, in meru cabs and hotel lobbies. You are certain to have the FF syndrome if you have any one or more of the below symptoms frequently:

- the only voice you hear in your sleep is that of a woman making a boarding announcement.

- you wake up from a nightmare which is about a missed flight or lost baggage

- you step up to the security in a mall and spread your arms and legs wide, all ready for a pat down

- you get into a car and search for buckle up seat belts around your waist

- you sit hunched with your elbows close to your body even if you are the only occupant of a lounger

- you keep logging into your airline reward points to check updates as if it were facebook

- you search for the reading lamp switch above when the lights are dimmed in a movie hall

- whenever you switch on your mobile phone, you expect an sms to pop up with chauffeur details

- you try to web check a railway booking in irctc and search for a lounge at Nizamuddin railway station

- you use the recline feature in the chair car of a Shatabdi express only after the train is well out of the city

- you don't recollect where were you this time last week

- you keep your fan in full blast to mimic the drone of the jet engine

Well, the list is never ending, but your patience is not. So to sum it up, if any of the above sound familiar, it is highly likely that you are suffering from the FF syndrome, which like the SARS virus tends to afflict fliers the most but unlike the SARS virus is not contagious and does not jump species. In some rare cases it can affect partners who tend to bear the brunt of the syndrome not because they have contracted it, but because they have to put up with it.

So, if you are a member of the tribe,a part of the whole,one of the swarm, sign up to this crusade against this dreaded disease, this masquerading marauder, the one and only FF syndrome. Come join the movement of "fliers anonymous",we are on facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_218796118149832

a forum for the troubled souls of the skies, a place of equality, where reds share thoughts with platinums and blues take tips from titaniums, your very own lounge on the web which is truly "class no bar". Come in, share your experiences and help us fight the gremlins of the FF syndrome, the exclusive syndrome of the skies....

Why can't I have both?

2011-03-28T23:05:00.001+05:30

It is a dashed world I say. Right from the moment we pop out onto this earth we are indoctrinated with the philosophy of being one or the other, choosing one over the other. Why I ask?

From the time one is conscious of his or her identity, it is all about choosing....

- Be a good kid or a bad kid ( Come on, why can't I have some fun and place a needle on the teacher's seat?)

- Use your left hand or your right hand ( No wonder there are few ambidextrous people in the world)

- Do you like Mamma or Pappa? ( Ummm.......I prefer my nanny actually)

- You study or you play.....( Why cant I play some creative games?? Thank you iPAD!)

- You read or you sleep ( Well, I love to be in the ethereal world where tree beard comes to life )

- You are either studious or a wastrel ( Ummm, who says I can't be both)

- Be a Vegetarian or a Non-Vegetarian ( God save those Vegans....)

It doesn't stop here....you think you are liberated when you become an adult? think again, it just becomes more difficult...

- You are a doctor or an engineer ( Little wonder that I became an Architect)

- You are either a car guy or a bike guy ( Why can't I be an auto guy?)

- Its either friends or "the girlfriend" ( Mutually exclusive)

- Beer or Wine?

- Mama's boy or Wife's poodle?

- Beach bum or a Hill billy?

Allright, Allright! I can see you losing patience and before you give me the heave ho and hit the x on the top right corner of your browser, I would like to make my case.I believe that this compulsion to choose one over the other is one big conspiracy. A make believe scenario which has been propagated for centuries by those who can do only one thing at a time. These uni dimensional dimwits who cannot do two things at a time felt threatened by their ambidextrous brethren, realized that they risked becoming redundant and hatched a grand plot which has been roaring success, not because it is ingenious, but because the ones who have framed these rules, form the majority. As with the case with many other practices in this world,more of the wrong makes it right, running the red light is acceptable because ten others have jumped it too etc, this idea of choosing one or the other is rotten and is bollocks, if you ask me.

Those who have managed to see through this bluff have been few and far between, those true geniuses who have broken through the smoke screen called conventional wisdom, the Neo's of the Matrixes if you will!
Be it Leonardo Da Vinci or good old Enzo Ferrari, they have proven...err, should I say dis-proven these unidirectional thinkers. Just as a Ferrari 458 Italia can be a technological marvel and a beauty of great acclaim at the same time, you can have beer, yet like wine, love blasting down the highway in your thumper, yet fawn over the zest of your hot hatch, love spending the saturday evening with friends, yet take the wife out for a late night spin. It's all possible, as the limitation is not a physical one, but one between your ears. All you need to do is open your mind to the possibility of having both the things you want in life, just for one moment, forget that you have to make a choice and voila, it's done!

For every person who will encourage you to take this path less trodden, there will be a million others who will dissuade you, the nearest and dearest will throw tantrums with tears and the works, in some cases, the kitchen sink too. All an effort to convince retain you in the pack, to make you believe that there is no midway, that life is one of choices and difficult ones at those etc etc.Fear not my friend, in the world of Tuppy Glossops and Fink Nottles, being a Bertie Wooster is not easy indeed, but as the wisest of the Woosters proved it, it need not be either Madeline Basset or Honoria Glossop, it can be the Drones club and a couple of downers.

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Three Damsels and an Evening to Decide............Part 2

2011-02-01T00:56:00.003+05:30

First Up..... The Chevrolet Cruze at Nikhil Automobiles Turbhe:

As you drive up to the home of the first prospect, your dream girl that your family does not approve of, you find that the road that leads you to the gate is dug up completely forcing you to park the car on the dusty open space which has a collection of banged up cars, jump across a culvert under construction, dodge a speeding dumper and enter the building. Chaos! That is what hits you once you enter the abode of your dream girl, the American Beauty ( er....Ironwoman). It takes about five minutes for someone to attend to you, another five for the sales guy to come, another five for him to arrange for a car and voila, in another five we are inside a TD Cruze which is all dusty on the outside but....you guessed it, a little dirty on the inside. Once you get over the disappointment that the girl of your dreams is replaced by her cousin who looks similar, you can have a good time. One thing about men and the girls they lust after is that, they know every minute detail about her without even knowing her, without getting into the gory details, I shall say that the same applies to you as well.

So when you get the face time (finally) you leave the pleasantries and jump into topics that matters the most. The fitment. Driving on Palm beach road which had both, slow moving traffic near Palm beach galleria and some open stretch of road next to DAKC, the Cruze lives up to the expectations. It feels much smaller than it actually is, is nimble yet sure footed, happily chugs along in pretty much any gear you want it to and pulls cleanly when you give it the shove ( turbo lag is something that one will have to accept as a fact of life). As they say in our parts, one should look at the inner beauty of women and not just the superficial one. By that logic, the Cruze is a pretty thing to live in, nice leather all around, good quality plastics ( not great), a snazzy cockpit and good lumbar support for both front and rear occupants. However, the lack of a dead pedal and the presence of the driver hand rest(istant) were a constant reminder of how it was not all hunky dorey as you expected it to be. And the constant reminder that it was a diesel under the skin, thanks to the torque that flattens at around 3750 rpm and the growl, drove home the point the true roots cannot be wished away by years of carefully built persona.

Coming back from the 15 minute te-te-te, it was the moment of truth, time for commercials, if you can actually support this ample beauty ( brawn). At over 15 L on road ( +1 L if company regd), the Chevy Cruze LTZ MT, will remain a car that you can only lust after, not conquer! So you bid adieu to the family, thanking them for their time and the snacks they served, crossing the hurdles, in the reverse order, i.e. the dumper, the culvert and the dust plain to reach our car and headed down to Nerul, where our next tryst awaited.

Second.....The VW Vento at Navi Mumbai Volkswagen:

As you drive on the service lane on the left hand side (East) of the Bombay-Panvel Highway, you see Navi Mumbai Volkswagen, the home of our next prospect. Going by the looks of the home,you know that you are in for a pleasant but bland time. With an all white interior and all the members of the family present, VW Navi Mumbai is as organized as a German household is. Nothing is there without a purpose. The pleasant women at the reception seek if this your first visit to their showroom and promptly guide you to the chaperone who is quite keen to be at your service. Though it is good to be candid with the prospects on the interest evinced by other parties, it doesn't bode well to start off with a statements like -" I hope you know that there is a 6 month waiting period" and -" This is the Vento Trendline Petrol, it does not have ABS and Alloys" when you have specifically asked for the "Highline Diesel". This is like introducing you to the poor cousin when you are there to see the heiress. Anyways, another five mins of pleasantries, followed by another five of documentation, off we go to the damsel who is waiting for us by the roadside, a little away from her home, being discreet perhaps. You have always known that this one is the plain jane and you are here to avoid what-if scenarios in future, but yet, one can't help feeling a tinge of disappointment upon looking at the most coveted damsel in town. She is fairly proportioned, with a firm hipline, has a boot to match which unlike the UnDzirable Dzire does not stick out like a desperate plastic surgeon's creation, but goes well with the overall look. The look me not theme continues from exterior to the interior. The plastics are not cheap but are not plush either for a car that commands 10+ lacs, the steering wheel is plain and functional, tilts but is there only for steering the car. The dash is pretty bland, not the cockpit that one would want to get into and take off. With a central console that tries every bit not to attract attention, one is really left to wonder if there is anything at all that is enticing about this car. Well, nothing in the front really, so let us move over to the rear. The rear seats get a hand rest and ac vents, provide adequate head and legroom and is quite a comfortable place to be in given pliant nature of the Vento's suspension. It appears that the Vento has been designed around the rear passenger rather than around the driver. Perhaps VW figured that over 80% of the sedans in the price bracket are driven by chauffeurs who neither need refinement nor gizmos. A whole host of config options are available right from mudflaps to floor mats to sun films to special speakers, but they all come at a price. So much for buying the top of the line model!

Now the real part of our time with the damsel-“The Drive”. No sooner than you start the engine and slot the car in 1st gear, the chaperone says- " Sir, take a U turn ahead", You almost did it before you realized that it will take you back in the service lane and not the highway which you intended to drive in, to your consternation he adds "Sir, Highway will have a lot of truck traffic at this time". Totally dumbfounded, you turn the car back on the service lane intending to join the highway a little down the road. But alas, little did you realize that driving the Vento would be such a turn off that you would want to break the te-te-te half way through the slotted 15 mins and get out. First, it's the engine, it will make its presence felt no matter what you do.Diesels are loud, let us face it, but inside the car??? The 1600 common rail mill producing over 105 bhp is coarse, noisy and non linear in its power delivery. The gear ratios though not bland are not exciting either. With a first gear in which you don't want to go beyond 15 kph, you have to work through the gears to get the car going, which it does after creating quite a racket. Add to it the vibrations emanating through the clutch pedal and a gear box which feels vague, this is one damsel that is not what she is portrayed to be.With an EPS which is anything but direct, constant corrections to the steering keep the car in line,not something that you expect from a car engineered in Germany. Agreed that the Vento was never known for her flamboyance but atleast she should be a complete car, for the price she commands. If you thought that it was you and your petrol head which is clouding your judgment, you are mistaken as your co conspirator and diesel lover ditches the car no sooner than he gets behind the wheel. As you pull up near Volkswagen Navi Mumbai, there are more prospects lining up for some face time with her.

Ah! it is time for you to bid adieu, and so you do, with your head held high and firmly looking the other way, you head out for the last tryst, patting yourself in the back for correctness in your judgment, that just because the whole world is clamors over her does not make her right for you.

Here is something to think about. The VW advt in which the engineers and people in the shop floor are in tears to see their beauty drive out with her suitor, there is some truth to it. It is pretty much akin to our families who shed tears to see their girls, no matter how flawed they are, depart to start their new life. Well, after all, they are the owner's problem now....:)

Last Stop....the Fiat Linea at Fortune Motors, Nerul:

The last mile in any race is always the most difficult, it is the make or break one in many cases and you don't want to blow it. The fact that the last girl whom you are going to meet is one whom you are unsure about, does not do your confidence a great deal of good, and hey she has that cranky family too right. It is very likely that they never told her of the impending evening, this despite them calling you continuously over the past week to come and meet her. Anyways, that said, here you are, in front of their house, which is perennially in a state of renovation and apart from being home to the stylish beauties, also house their homegrown cousins (Tatas) who seem to outnumber them every inch of the way. This house is certainly unlike the two we visited before, it was neither Chaotic like Nikhil, nor sterile like Navi Mumbai VW, it was in between. Though the theme of white has been carried over with the colors of Tata and Fiat thrown around, there was some commotion and it took some time before the co-ordinator arrived. After completing the regular pleasantries and documentation for the TD, the co-ordinator tells you that the Chaperone has gone on a drive and is expected in 10 mins. He offers a cuppa to relax over in the mean time and you happily accept it. Ten mins roll over to 15 and no sign of the man yet, another 5 mins pass by and at a time when our faith in the crankyness of the family was almost reposed, arrives the chaperon. In order to make up for the lost time, we strap in fast, with you in the rear with the coordinator and the Chaperon at the wheel ( to take us out to what would be a road) and your conspirator in the co-pilot's seat.

First thing you notice is the nice Italian leather and the fine stitching that adorns the seats. The dash has been much written about in many reviews and just to touch upon it for courtesy sake, is made of good plastic and has great texture. The chunky wheel which also houses the blue and me setup and audio controls is the center of the driver's cockpit and the dials are a cool retro. The central console houses the switches for climate control. the audio player ( blaupunkt) and the other remaining controls.The rear seats are as inviting as the fronts and are quite comfortable with good back and under thigh support. As the chaperon takes the rough with the smooth, the Linea doesn't even grumble and dismisses the craters with a smirk. Two minutes on, we are onto the Uran road which is a 3+3 concretized road, it is time for fun. The chaperon steps aside and my conspirator takes over. As soon as he slotted the car in 1st gear and rolled the first few meters, a smile was plastered on his face which never vanished from his face as he put the car through its paces and oh boy, does she fly. There is something about these TCed petrols, they are smooth and they beg to be revved. Though the car does not create music when revved like your 1.6 Sport, she does the job and more often than not the rpm guage is over 3500 rpm. With four adults onboard, the car was nimble as Lionel Messi weaving through defenders ( read as trucks). Another 4 kms and it is your turn to get behind the wheel. Strap yourself in and you find yourself in familiar territory, there is an air of, I've been here before and it gets accentuated when you step on the gas. In no time you get a grip of the free revving engine, oodles of torque ( 2.07 NM), the taut and sharp handling and the awesome all wheel discs, the 16th inch alloys and 205 section tyres. All of this working in unison to clear slow moving traffic with disdain.The next ten minutes behind the wheel blur past and even before you know you are taking a U turn to trudge back to her home. Here comes the surprise, with a turning radius shorter than your 1.6 Sport, this big cat can be maneuvered into corners and will not be an embarrassment in narrow lanes.

You are unable to pinpoint whether it is the shared gene pool with your girlfriend or something else, you are not grumbling about the could have been better's, for e.g. firm and short gear throws, a musical engine note, a raspy exhaust note, a lower loading bay etc, but are happily grinning about the work of art this piece of engineering is, an automotive enthusiast's delight, one belonging to the rare class of TCed petrols in India. The only other one to have graced our shores being the Skoda RS. As you drive back to her home, you see the reality, the cranky family that she comes with and the poor cousins you will have to live with. Well with a service interval of 15k KMs, your trips to her home are going to be once a year and I guess it is a small price to pay for having a jolly good time for the rest of the year. Time to part company and you reluctantly hand over the keys to the coordinator, very well knowing that it is just a matter of time before you will be back to make her your own....

So ends an evening which has been eventful, educative and exhilarating to say the least. The short time frame,constraints, perceptions and opinions have added their shades to the picture but what emerged after the two hour tryst are three fundamental learnings:

1. There is a reason why we fantasize upon things-we do not want them to be our reality

2. Just because the whole world want's one doesn't mean that you will like one

3. Just because you are unsure about something doesn't mean that it is untrue

If you have read till here, then you will certainly be drained out, go get yourself a Redbull or a Lager...Cheers!

Three Damsels and an Evening to Decide..........Part 1

2011-02-01T00:53:00.000+05:30

Imagine that you are a typical Indian male of my generation. Well, that doesn't say much does it?? There are around 100 MN Indians like me in the country who are as different as anything from chalk to cheese. To narrow it down further, Imagine you are a professionally qualified male in your late 20's to early 30's who is termed as settled in life in India. Still grappling with it, well, you have a healthy bank balance, have married off your sisters, have a good but sober social life etc etc, all that is missing in life is, yes.....holy matrimony of course! Everyone you know keeps talking about it, your family, friends, relatives and the rest of the www (whole wide world). Not that you do not have ideas about it, you have it on the radar as well and guess what, there are three likely prospects. Interesting isn't it?? This is how they stack up....

Prospect 1:

- She is this girl from college you have been lusting about. She isn't the hottest looking thing around, but she is stocky, dusky and has a brutish appeal to her ( stereotypical South Indian Male fantasy). You know she is in a different league than you and will be expensive on the wallet. Worst of all, she is from a community that your ultra high priest family members will look down upon.

Introducing the Chevrolet Cruze....150 bhp of pure American Muscle!

Prospect 2:

She is the new girl in town,who is as plain as interesting as boiled potatoes,has the right feminine qualities, but certainly won't turn any heads around as she walks the streets.But she has a very strong lineage (which is highly valued in our circles) and has been marketed so well by her impeccable astrologer father that people are queuing up to match horoscopes of their wards. It is rumored that the astrologer father has setup a generic mailbox for prospective horoscopes and does not entertain any meeting requests in person. You are certainly not interested in her but your family thinks very highly of the girl and and lineage that they are insisting that there is no harm in meeting her once ( luckily one distant uncle who is a retired central govt under secretary pulled some strings and got you an audience).

Introducing....the Volkswagen Vento Highline Diesel, the much in demand sedan!

Prospect 3:

She has been around neighborhood for a couple of years, is a stunner with curves in all the right places, is someone who can walk the ramp as well as walk the prahara of a temple with the same ease. Comes from a family that has a great lineage but with also a crazy and cranky streak. The best part is that she has the same gene pool as your super hot girlfriend of the past five years but yet you have always felt that she is not the one for you, that something that you hold sacred was missing in her. But recently she has returned from a makeover in Italy and from what your friends tell you, she is the one to go for....mmmm???

Introducing..... the Fiat Linea T-Jet, Admiration Guaranteed!

One Evening with all of them:

What if you have just one evening, between 4 pm and 6 pm to choose one amongst these three. You get half an hour with each of them, snack time, family niceties(South Indian custom you see), and face time all included. The three houses (read as dealerships) are within driving distance of each other,so you will not spend much time stuck in traffic working up a sweat as you hop from one prospect to another. You know for sure that there aren't many more prospects in the horizon, not at least for the next six months and hence can safely make a choice by picking one amongst the three damsels that you will meet this evening. What will be a common feature of this evening is that there will always, and aways be a chaperone when you are with the prospect. So there is no way you can plan a secret date, steal a secret kiss etc etc...you get the drift right....

This how the rest of the evening unfolds................................................................................Contd

Dhobi Ghat Explained!

2011-01-23T02:46:00.003+05:30

Every now and then a movie comes along which is refreshingly different, bold, artistic and leaves an indelible yet subtle mark in the minds of the audience, Dhobi Ghaat is one such movie. It is not for everybody, most people won't get it ( most of the audience in the show I went for didn't get it), it is deeply polarizing, i.e. will force you to take sides. Simply put, you will not walk out of the movie hall without an opinion. You will either curse the director for wasting your time and money on a documentary film, one which doesn't even have an interval,or you will walk out all charmed,with a nice smile on your face reliving those nice yet fleeting moments, the frames captured in black and white, the shots through the camcorder, the immersion into the sights and sounds of Mumbai, the maximum city, a city like no other!

Now, I shall not do a full fledged movie review as a lot has been said and written in all forms of media over the past two days. I shall try and capture what Dhobi Ghaat is, so that whoever gets to read this can get a sense of what to expect in the movie and what not to expect.

What it is....

- a poignant work of art which tries to capture the essense of Mumbai through the eyes of its protagonists

- a movie which immerses you in the lives of the characters without trampling over them

- a film which leverages art,photography, videography, cinematography and music to create an immersion experience like no other

- a film in which the actors play their part without actually stealing the limelight ( well Prateik does to a certain extent)

- a treat to the finer senses and a movie which appeals to the urban sensibilities

- a movie which does not have a cohesive narrative ( can appear to move in fits and starters)

- a movie which does not hurry from start to credits with a purpose, but gently ambles along and meanders from time to time

- a bold experiment in film making which makes a quiet and confident proclamation that all is not lost with Indian cinema....er, there is something beyond the Sheila's and the Munni's

To summarize, Dhobi Ghaat is 90 minutes of no nonsense cinema, which has no breaks, no action sequences, no teary eyed scenes and no item numbers. It is a movie which is bound to have very limited appeal given the Mumbai centricity and elitism it exudes, a "Delhi-6" of Mumbai, our very own "Lost in translation" which will be cherished and loved not by all and sundry but by a small fraternity of movie buffs and technical affecionados.

Kiran Rao, Aaamir Khan, Pratiek Babbar, Monica Dogra and Priti Malhotra and the entire team of "Dhobi Ghat"......my salutations!

Dhobi Ghat stands out in boisterous cacophony that is Indian cinema by being silent.Brilliant!

Discovering Mumbai- USA a.k.a Ulhas Nagar

2011-01-01T20:27:00.000+05:30

The word Ulhas Nagar, does not ring a bell to many a people in India. If you were from Mumbai, perhaps you might think of Duplicates, Sindhis and Commerce, in no particular order though. My first brush with Ulhas Nagar was during 2002 when I was in Mumbai for grad studies. It was one marketing professor who gave this suburb of Mumbai a not so flattering introduction calling it the counterfeit capital of India. Well, to put things in perspective, if you were in Fashion street buying Nikei and Levy, it is highly likely it came from Ulhas Nagar. Not only do you get branded apparel for 1/10th the price but also Brittiana biscuits in wholesale, by the Kilo. So, if you are a big time chai drinker who cannot do without a biscuit to dip into, this is the place for you.

Just a bit of history before I delve into one of Mumbai's best kept secrets. Ulhas Nagar was set up post the partition to house the enterprising Sindhis who fled their homeland in today's Pakistan. Though the Sindhis were settled in many camps across the country such as Gandhidham, Chennai etc, a bulk of the refugees settled in the hills around Kalyan and Dombivli along the Central line and started plying their trade, which is essentialy "Bijiness", wholesale trading of whatever is available under the sun. However, the most notable of these trades over time have been timber and furniture along with all the Nikeis and Levys. A thriving hub of commerce now, Ulhas Nagar has the typical chaos that goes with commercial towns, narrow roads in which people, cattle carts, two wheelers (and loads of them), cars, trucks and all the things that move jostle for space. Even the policemen here, appear to wear a sense of resignation on their face as they oversee the chaos on the road.

To enter Ulhas Nagar, one has to drive along an incredibly crowded 1-1/2 lane road ( whether you come from Navi Mumbai or Thane) passing by Kalyan East and dodging a zillion pedestrians and a million Honda Activas and not to mention the innumerable autos.Generally I am pretty good with directions, but my past three trips to USA, I have taken three different routes to get into town, not because I knew the options, but because they all looked the same.

Being a refugee settlement, this town is a town planner's nightmare, a maze of alleys which seem to have been designed to keep the taxmen out criss cross the town.Lining these alleys are decreipt and "might fall anytime" buildings whose frontage to depth ratio is nothing less than 1:10. Apartment blocks jostle with factory sheds and most buildings are pretty green, i.e. they have plants growing out of walls, pipes and terraces. Paint and plaster are pretty much alien to these buildings which all are in a uniform state of decay. As you walk the streets, you see open drains alongside buildings,right next to which hawkers run their snack shops. Some hundred GI pipes running openly on the ground , right next to a dug up pit. Even the lamp posts are incredibly busy-with electrical wires, satellite tv cables and telephone wires all entwined in a tangled web which people from none of the concerned departments can separate. Call it solidarity or convergence, it seems to do just fine!

Now, coming to what I consider to be the find of my

stay in Mumbai, it is the furniture market in Ulhas Nagar. Introduced to me by my brother in-law, who is a Pathologist an Entrepreuner, a Cost Killer all bundled into one, this place is a delight for the bargain hunter. He discovered this place while he was hunting some good but cheap furniture to furnish his laboratories. His first purchase was in 2007 for his face lifted lab and boy he got hooked. Three more trips in as many years, he has pretty much saved as much as 50% of what he would have paid for, had he sourced his furniture conventionally, i.e. in furniture stores. There is a 7 in ten chance that the furniture you bought for your office from a nice store in suburban or downtown Mumbai was made right here in Ulhas Nagar. This no nonsense furniture market has stores which are 15 feet wide and over 150 feet long, a mezzanine included. As you go in looking for your furniture, lights come up sequentially, pretty much like a movie scene. You can find anything ranging from a common stool to a high end "lala" chair fitted out in chic leather. You can also find stuffed sofas, modular furniture, beds, storewells and what not. Speciality stores that are devoted to a single category of furniture stand shoulder to shoulder with furniture supermarkets making the market a compelling proposition for bargain hunters. Ah, and I forgot to mention, that the Chinese are here too, not in person though but through wares. Chinese chairs, sofas and tables, devoid of any guarantee are available for prices which are lower than a meal for two at Pizza hut but the salesmen do warn you " Iska kab kya hoga hum bol nahi sakte", sounds like Rajni's description. A few unique things about the market is that, in all stores you will find two generations of lalas, sitting behind a about to crumble table on a standard issue 1980 chair, some irony for a store that sells some nice looking furniture. Behind the table, adorning the wall is a framed and garlanded sepia photograph of the Lala who made it alive from Sindh and established the store in USA.The second generation lala behind the table clad in a kurta and dhoti, where as the younger gen is in a dingchak jean, a t shirt and sporting an iPhone. They all still take their orders in paper, use a calculator to calculate a standard 10% discount and have no computers whatsoever and oh did I fail to mention, they all ride gearless scooters ( perfect to navigate the choked alleys). These merchants might not be nice, will not greet you as you enter the store, will not offer chai for you as they sip on their cutting, but what they will give you is solid bang for the buck ( don't assume anything dirty).

As we got out from the XXX furniture store having ordered some chairs, tables and the likes for a steal, we dug into some amazing Bhelpuri from a street vendor who, apart from making our bhel puri was indulging a customer with wisdom which captured the essense of the Ulhas Nagar in one sentence. " Do not come to Ulhas Nagar expecting what you get in Pune and Delhi (in context to the bhel puris), all you will get here are duplicates". Poignant indeed, if you get duplicates that offer better value for money, why buy the originals? As I write this, the furniture has been delivered to the new facility and oh boy aren't they good? Summing up, Ulhas Nagar has a lot to offer to the discerning, from a student of history and refugee populations to a photographer, from a student of commerce to a shopper looking for some decent and value for money furniture, Ulhas Nagar a.k.a USA has something in store for everyone.Go see it to believe it.....

The beauty of social networking

2010-12-28T19:54:00.007+05:30

Social networking is a brilliant medium, I must admit. It offers the conveniences which in the real world are just a fantasy. Imagine a world where your social environment comprises only of your friends and relatives and colleagues ( in some cases bosses too) whom you choose and not whom you are thrown into the soup with.

A world where you can simply ignore that painful classmate, the bitchy colleague and that hypocritical relative who preaches the right and practices the wrong. Does a friend become too overbearing on you, simply hide them and voila, they vanish.A place where people are not in discord with each other and all is well,err almost all the time. A place which brings out the compassion in you, well, what else would explain some twenty people crooning over a friend who has.......well, common cold. In the real world, a friend or a colleague turning up with a common cold, is frowned upon at best, forget a sympathetic hug.

This world is also a happy hunting ground for those who loved to be fussed upon and feel that they are not loved enough. Put out a status message like-"Ouch! My pinkie got bitten by an ant" and there will be a flood of responses ranging from oh poor thing, to get well soon to I will kill that ant bas**** to what not. Well a simple emoticon like :( will ensure that you will have some ten people seeking out actively the tragedy which caused the frown. In the real world, turn up with a frown and all you will get is a scowl or a freshly turned back! It appears that people become more nicer than they are, full of compassion and goodwill that the world seems to have become a better place.

As I sit in the rear seat of my cab waiting for the traffic to clear at Dharavi, the jam being caused by a god knows what procession, I can't help pondering if:

-We, the social network crazed generation are really that bothered about the people around us and the comings and goings in their life?

- Why are we so scared to express our feelings in flesh and blood which we oh so generously dish out on facebook?

- If we spend so much time hobnobbing with chums on the virtual world, why can't we just go out to a pub and enjoy ourselves? Isn't the real world experience better than the virtual one, well, you still cant taste beer on FB.

- Is social networking like a mirror which reflects our true nature, without any embellishments and yet we choose to ignore the obvious?

As I think more on this, I am all the more amazed at this phenomenon which has caught the millions of us by the scruffs of our necks and is pushing us in some direction which we have never been before. Perhaps, it is time I start following this as a pass time, just to see if this turns out to be a fad which is ephemeral or a phenomenon that will shape the course of human behavior in times to come......

10 Questions to Bollywood......

2010-12-25T12:57:00.001+05:30

Being an Indian has its own merits and demerits. Like every culture or nationality in the world, we too are stereotyped, the positives include -intelligent, culturally rich and thrifty peoples, the negatives include- call center junkies, cabbies, grocers/fuel pump owners etc. What I left out here is one unfailing identity that we Indians are associated with is that of "Bollywood". I could not categorize Bollywood in either the good or the bad as it fits not only in these two categories, but has transcended into a new category these days- " The downright ugly". I have lost count of the number of duds that have come out over the past three years and the amount of money that has gone down the drain. To an outsider ( Yes, I consider myself one as I come from the land of Koliwood,Chennai), this whole Industry save for a few good men, seems farcical, logic defying and mind numbing.

I might be wrong, perhaps I am not part of the audience that these film makers are trying to cater to, perhaps all is not lost. Well, to believe so, I would need answers, real hard answers to the below questions that have been haunting me, answers that have an iota of truth and not the Coffee with Karan type answers with all the muah muah and floss. So here go the questions:

1. Why does Bollywood shun originality? Why are the mainstream movie makers doing re-make after re-make and that too shoddily?

2. Why do the movie makers treat the Indian audience like the man on the street and throw uncooked scraps at him, expecting him to gobble it up and thank them from the bottom of his heart?

3. Why does every good film maker go down the path of no return? i.e. Gowariker, Mehra to name a few.

4. Why should King Khan+K'Jo and a good script should be mutually exclusive to each other?

5. Why should the Akshays and the Devgans mean only mindless slapstick?

6. Why is the Industry more obsessed with the KK Vs.PCs, the Khan Vs. Khans and the Bachchan Vs.Khans than with the declining quality of scripts.

7. Why do long legs take precedence over acting abilities when it comes to choosing the leading lady in bollywood flicks?

8. Why is that all the money chases only bad and absurd scripts while the deserving ones languish in a closet.

9. Why are there more awards than there are good movies in any given year? Is it celebrating mediocrity or is it democratization of awards,i.e. everyone gets one.

10. When will the Industry's dependence on the Munnis and Sheilas to shore up hopeless productions end?

Crisis or not, there is a certain lack of creativity,quality and ingenuity that is plaguing Bollywood these days.As I see it, this is how the future of the once illustrious Bollywood looks like.......

I really do not expect answers to my questions from Bollywood,which will be akin to expecting Kalmadi's justification for the CWG scam. All I am hoping is to get some interesting thoughts from the readers of this blog who also will be Bollywood affecionados at some level.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year ahead!

Deepavali as it used to be!

2010-11-06T13:29:00.003+05:30

Growing up in small cities in India has its own advantages. First and foremost, one gets to have a lot of space, an independent house with a decent garden, lots of open plots to run around, quite a few bushes within walking distance to hunt for chameleons, dragonflies and other reptiles which children of today get to see only in zoological parks. Secondly, one is always closer to the towns and villages which are pretty much the only places where the traditions and the way of life of India still exist. Now, before you city slickers are up in arms,I do agree that this a broad generalization and there are exceptions to the rule. Having spent my growing up years in Trichy a.k.a Tiruchirapalli in Tamilnadu, I have seen and experienced this first hand and till date, the memories remain fresh in my mind. Linking back to the title of this blog, nothing else symbolizes this growing up in a town experience better than the festival of lights-Deepavali or Diwali (depending on which side of the Vindhyas you come from)

Every year as soon as autumn arrives and the unforgiving sun drops his guard, the southern peninsula rejoices, not only because it is the end of summer but also because the queen of festivals is just round the corner. A sense of excitement sets in across kids of all ages. There is this buzz in the air which is all palpable and the only topic of discussion around "cello" thermos and lunch dabbas ( we didn't have water coolers/canteens then in schools) was Deepavali. Whether the festival was one month early, i.e. October or was it late i.e. November. An early Deepavali meant early holidays ( which was for a whole long week), early shopping and the most important of all, early fireworks and crackers. The boys were more interested in the crackers than the fireworks which was for the girls. The most commonly heard words at this time of the year were Lakshmi, Saraswati (before you get ideas, these were names of the most devastating firecrackers), Atom Bomb, Bijli, Walas ( multiples of hundreds and thousands only). These were the two months during which the beauty queens of the schools were ignored, the books and homework took a back seat and even savories lost taste. There were smaller groups discussing what destruction can be wrought in the neighborhood-which consisted of three streets or a "nagar" typically, and there were larger groups which were planning bringing the whole area down ( one whole pincode) and one was invariably part of these planning groups ( well, no guesses where the planning commissions originate from).

Come October, the planning sessions are all done and it was time for execution with the first step being-BUDGET.Depending on which part of the economic strata you belong, one had to parlay with parents for a firecracker budget which was part of the overall Deepavali budget of the house.The times in which I grew up, a 500 Rs budget was considered lavish and our household's fireworks budget was around Rs.300, which is the price of a flowerpot pack today.This is the time of the year when every member of the house becomes your competitor, when the dearest siblings become dastardly foes and especially the girls who do not consider anything other than silk as dress, Sigh!, how you hate them Come to think of it, I really empathize with the plight of my parents, with four children and an extended family, they really had to stretch every time Deepavali came around!

Two weeks of negotiations, threats and tears, the Deepavali budget is finally frozen with the father picking up the heavy tab and an invariable shortfall. Now that the last rupee has been extracted from the poor (literally) father (or mother) for the Deepavali budget, it was time to go shopping. Before we get to the shopping bit, I would like to state that this budgeting process was not without pain to us, the boys, concessions were made,FM Jeans were downgraded to Cotton pants, Hot Wheels in place of radio controlled cars from Burma Bazaar, 200 vala in place of a 1000 vala, so on and so forth.More often than not, the one person who took the most budget cuts was the poor mother, who in exchange for the happiness of her kids, ended up with an Arni silk saree instead of a Kanchipuram silk saree.

Finally, the Deepavali week arrives and so do the holidays and relatives from near and far. Cots are folded up and moved to a corner to make place for mattresses and mats on the floor. The kitchen becomes a beehive of activity to prepare typical Deepavali sweets and savories- mysore paks ( the most tricky), ladoos, murukkus, thattais, manogarams and the most important of all " The Deepavali Legiyam". For the ignorant, the last item on the menu is a sticky sweet and tangy paste with a consistency that is closer to that of tar and is renowned for its medicinal and digestive qualities. It is a must have to avoid any digestive disorders that arise from one week of unfettered gluttony! The unique quality of the legiyam is that every family has its own signature dish and the custodian of the recipe is the grandmother in the house. The recipe is passed down through generations through word of mouth only and there are no written recipes till date ( not the authentic ones atleast)

Three days before Deepavali, we were let loose and we literally used to come back home with the plan for the whole three days well laid out. With around 8 first and second cousins converging into three consecutive houses in a street, one can imagine what would have happened in the neighborhood. Incessant boom, thunder, rockets rained down on hapless retirees, bank employees and their wives. All Mamas and Maamis used to run for shelter from the Lakshmi Vedis and Atom Bombs which used to go off in stealth catching them off guard as they ferried around sweets to neighbors. The seasoned street dogs took to the forest during this week and any reckless animal which was brave enough to remain found a smouldering 100 vala attached to its tail all set send the canine to its ancestors. Mock wars were simulated, with bunkers dug in empty plots, cast iron water pipes converted into canons, fancy roll cape guns adorned the belts of boys and one could see the odd Rambo running into enemy fire. As the days progressed, so did the fun and food, with a regular supply of snacks being sent to the field, we used to continue our war games for days on end. Day and Night lost their meaning as we soldiered on in the terrace and on the roads making our area the worst place to sleep for those three days.

Even before we realize, Deepavali is upon us and as Lord Rama slayed Ravan, we slay our sleep and wake up at 4 AM, sit in line as our parents plaster us with oil and apply the much dreaded Deepavali paste on our hair. For people who are not familiar, the paste is made of shikakai and is a super sleep inducer. Our brand new clothes are in front of us, kept neatly in front of the gods and godesses who adorn our wall and are dabbed with kum kum and turmeric. One real hot water bath which pretty much scalds the skin, we are out in our best Deepavali gear off to get asirvadham from the elders in the area, invariably the grandparents are around along with their cousins who are visiting from the villages. Done with the chores, we used to rush out to our battle stations and the wars ensue. Three hours hence, the hunger pangs strike, only to be fulfilled by the most awesome spread of food laid out in front of us. In typical Tam Brahm families, one of which I grew up in, Deepavali mornings feature a light snack at around 6:30 followed by a three course meal as early as 10:30 AM.( Which is when we wake up these days!) Special dishes like Pitlai ( which are extinct today) feature along with medu vadais, two vegetables, one kootu, appalams and not to mention the standard SRM fare ( Sambar, Rasam, More). Lunch is topped off with a handsome helping of payasam ( sweet lentil dessert) and some Kumbakonam Vethalai comes in to to help with the digestion. As the afternoon winds down with the elderly taking an afternoon snooze induced by all of the above, we set off on the last round, which is pretty much like what happens to an ammunition dump set on fire. All the remaining crackers and fireworks are piled up mile high and set ablaze. I can hear some of you shouting that it is unsafe, and hell it is, which is pretty much the objective of the exercise. The unpredictability which surrounds this event is for all to behold. Sometimes it passes off peacefully with a series of bangs and more often than not there are rogue rockets chasing maamis in madisars and maamas in veshtis. We have had rockets going into rooms where people are snoozing and after a minute there is a loud bang followed by screams! Oh what a rush....

As the evening closes in, our euphoria winds down, the elders are up sipping coffee and having a tete-a-tete before departure , sweets and snacks are being packed for the bus ride back home, teary eyed cousins leave to Tanjore and Kumbakonam not without promising to be back next year, the women exchange notes on the functions that are lined up the coming year, the Sumangali Prarthanai at Chitra's house in Madurai, the Upannayanam of Swami's son at Mayiladuthurai etc etc. As the sun goes down behind the Cauvery, all the relatives have left and the family gets back to getting the house in order for the impending week and the regular chores which come along with. The end of day and the festivities is marked by a quiet dinner featuring tharisadham and pickles, the ideal dish to mark the end of the culinary excesses of the week. As we retire to bed, the memories of the week that has gone past linger, like the sweet taste left behind by mysorepak, one which we do not want to wish away, till the next Deepavali at least!

Food Paradise- Down here in India....

2010-10-05T23:12:00.004+05:30

I love my job! Well, it is not the best way to start a blog and before you jump to conclusions, my boss is not friends with me on facebook or on twitter or linked-in or in any of those million ways to network in this virtual world of ours! Well, just to clarify, my job allows me to practice my hobby-i.e. hogging, commonly known as eating. Given the cultural and culinary diversity that our great country offers, every business trip to some part of the country offers me the opportunity to satisfy my gastronomic cravings without having to plan, book and travel just for this purpose! Ain't it cool?

Now that out of the way, let me delve a little more deeper into my motivation to write this blog. If you know me, I love giving lame excuses for not doing something (in case you don't believe me ask my wife) in my personal life, my professional life is a completely different story. Sometimes my wife cribs that I have a split personality, call it whatever, I guess that is the way I am and I have made peace with the fact.The one facet of my interests which has suffered the most owing to this nature of mine is my blogging. It takes a lot to get me blogging these days and at this rate of decline, my ambitions to write a book can be dismissed as a whim!

The past two days, I am in the silicon valley of India, a.k.a Bangalore or Bengaluru ( depending on whom you ask). Most of you would come up with only one answer as to why this city is called the silicon valley of India.Though the obvious answer is true, i.e. the cradle of code, hotbed of innovation, outsourcing capital of the world, blah blah. What is also true is that this desi valley resembles the lovely suburbs of Palo Alto and Santa Clara,Sunny(Sundar)vale,Moutainview and Cupertino in the diversity it offers to food lovers. Well, you might not find an Egyptian restaurant jostling with a Vietnamese one as in Castro Street, but you will certainly find a paratha place rubbing shoulders with an Italian diner and a Mallu place which serves beer amongst many other things located bang opposite to a quaint little patisserie. Not to mention the Bengaluru Iyengar bakery just round the corner, which also happens to be the name of an icecream joint.

In the upscale locale of Koramangala alone, one can eat out for two straight years three meals a day, each in a unique place without the need to step into a place where you have eaten before (unless you love a place so much). This is unbelievable, even the Valley will not offer such diversity. It is a different story that most of these restaurants have fewer patrons during the week than there are party members in Musharraf's party, but what the heck, they can earn enough in the weekend to sustain through the week. What I am amazed by is the diversity of themes in these cafes and the way each one has executed them.

Today, I had the good opportunity to visit one of the top 5 burger places in this lovely city, cafe Thulp (www.thulp.in) in koramangala. To get a perspective on the restaurant, do check out their website www.thulp.in, a brilliant execution of the ubiquitous concept of fast food with oodles of style and chutzpah. The comfortable decor, replete with books and yuppies, this place dishes out what might be classified as American Fast Food, Hamburgers, loaded sandwiches, some really good salads and exotic entrees which weigh on the wrong side of 500 on the calorie scale. The Maha Mac will come a distant second to even the standard Moo they serve, forget the exotic Moo which comes loaded with cheese, bacon etc and weighs a whopping 400 gm. Should I say more? I tried out the grilled egg plant and tomato salad which sent me straight up the stairway to heaven. With fried garlic providing the flavor and chilli and vinegar giving it the zing, the salad propelled me straight into 7th heaven. As I was seeing god upon completing the salad, there came the Burger that I had ordered ( a whopper which had its origins in Vietnam when the Americans were bombing out he Vietcong) which sent me straight into heaven. The vietnamese chili burger is a work of art and one has to bite into it to believe it. It is truly a finger licking experience, at the end of which you will vouch that coleslaw and fries are the best things that happened to the burger after its creation.To wash it all down, I ordered a full blooded, 300 ml coke which tipped the calorie scales close to a 1000 for the entire meal, one which will firmly lodge itself in my midriff if I didn't burn it out in the next couple of days.Well, the last sentence was more to clear my conscience and for nothing else. It is a thoroughly culinary experience and if you have to spend a couple of additional hours in the gym, so be it.

So as I wind down my blog, the good food that went down is starting to have its effect,The Iyer Instinct- as named by my good friend Hari, is actually a universal phenomenon, the nice and fuzzy feeling of slumber setting in which makes one head to the nearest couch for a snooze! So, before I doze off I wanted to shout my lungs out and say- "If you are in Bangalore and you want to have good old American fast food- Head to Thulp"

PS: All you vegetarians and lesseatarians out there, the cafe also has some good veggie fare. But the better things are the ones higher up the food chain :)

We Indians make it LOUD and CLEAR!

2010-08-08T17:38:00.000+05:30

Why are we Indians so loud? Be it the noisy suburban railway station or the swish new T3, our behaviour is just the same. Allright, we come from a repressed culture with little or no freedom of expression during the British Raj. But after 60 years of Independence?? The underlying logic just baffles me....Why are we so hell bent on making the other person in the terminal know that "Main har hafta Mumbai aata hoon", or shouting in the transit coach about "das khoke be close kar do", Dudes, whom are we trying to impress here?

Are we generally insensitive to people around us or is it a conscious effort to make the rest of the world aware of our exploits, even if it is as lowly as making a ch------- ( fill in the dots) our of someone at workplace. Agreed, we are a land of a billion people and we don't have the exclusive space that the western world is used to, but it isn't so bad that we have to shout into the ears of the guy sitting next to us in the aircraft. Another curious thing about Indians is that we can't travel alone if there is a known person in the same flight. We will go to great lengths to convince people in the next seat to switch so that we sit next to each other and continue our "gappe shappe". Little do we think of the inconvenience we cause to the other traveller, a person who would have specifically booked an aisle or a window so that he or she can travel in peace. But no, we have to be together and nothing in the world can come between us chuddi buddies. I got to sit next to one inseparable duo on my way to Delhi last week. It was the first flight out of Mumbai and I had started my day at 3 AM, groggy and bugged as I was, all I wanted to do was to catch up on some sleep for two hours. But alas, our friends from some pharma company had decided otherwise, they made a poor unasssuming college student switch seats and then it all started. In the two hours that followed, I had little sleep and more of the office politics in that organization and all in "Shudh Hindi", aaaargh.....not that i don't like the national language, but hell, at 5 AM in the morning when any language is taboo, it was too much to stomach. It is needless to say that my whole day was fired and my productivity was lost thanks to these indifferent morons.

If you think that these are exceptions, you are sorely mistaken, they are the rule and people like us who tend to respect the sense of space are the odd men out. And it is not that these people aren't educated or are not cultured, it is just that they do not care and choose to be apathetic to their surroundings. Education has not sensitized them but has infact given them a false sense of pride, and that they are amongst the flying millions in India has made them even more arrogant. Mediocre but arrogant!

As I await the boarding call of my flight at CSIA, there are 10 such individuals around me leaving me with little peace and quiet, neither am I able to finish "Only the paranoid survive" nor am I able to reflect upon life, all I can to do is vent my anger through this blog!

God save us all!!! I hope he hears this loud and clear......

Hungary Qualifying and Sunday's prediction

2010-07-31T18:59:00.000+05:30

Whoa! What a qualifying at the Hungaroring....

The Red Bulls decimated all and sundry including the last grand prix's 1-2 finishers- Ferrari. Seb pretty much put the rest of the competitors to shame with his blindingly quick sub 1:19 lap including his team mate Mark Webber who is a qualifying specialist. The best of the prancing horses, Fernando Alonso was over a second slower with Massa a further half a second off. The sole Mclaren of Lewis Hamilton followed suit, followed by the other Silver Arrows of Nico Rosberg way behind. The Russian rookie Vitaly finally managed to out qualify his team mate Kubica, full credit to the Russian who has been quick at Hungaroring all weekend. Pedra de la rosa and Nico Hulkenberg complete the top ten.Jenson Button lines up 11th with his erstwhile Brawn GP team mate next to him.

Coming to tomorrows race, it is a known fact that Ferrari have always been strong in the race and have difficulties getting their front tyres to work in qualifying, but even with that added performance during the race, the Bulls look really difficult to catch. Lewis will drive the wheels off his Mclaren as usual, but his Silver Arrows just doesn't seem to work in S2 and S3. It is going to be difficult for him to keep up with the Red Bulls and Ferraris over the race distance.

The aerodynamic superiority of the Red Bulls is clearly visible in the technical parts of the circtuit. In S2 they are over half a second quick than the Ferraris and in S3 they are over 0.4 seconds quick.Hats off to Adrian Newey and his team for making the Red Bull work so well in all types of circuits. Be it speedy Silverstone or twisty Hungaroring, there Red Bull seems to go like Stink. I cant wait for Spa and Monza to come post the long summer break

It is Red Bull's race to lose tomorrow and if the fast starting Ferraris get their act right, it will be an interesting first corner. But I do expect the Bulls to enjoy overall superiority in the race and with the usually impeccable race strategy, they are bound to lock out two of the top three slots.

Retirement Day!

2010-06-06T20:04:00.004+05:30

36 Years! A timespan in which we pretty much pass our prime and start knocking at the doors of what we call midlife. This is the time that my father spent in the country's leading nationalized bank, and I am certain that this is the time that most of those who started their careers in the early 70s would have spent in their first or second jobs, give or take a few years. I had the opportunity to attend his retirement function hosted at his branch, a fairly large one that too which is located in an Industrial Estate which is dominated by SME's, for the uninitiated, it means Small and Medium sized Enterprises. The three hours I spent there was pretty much a trip down my memory lane in which I recalled all the branches my father had served, places where I used to proudly walk into my father's cabin and watch with awe as my father went about his business of passing cheques, sign ledgers, run EODs, clear debit notes and more often than not run out to attend an irate customer at the front desk . I guess I am getting a bit nostalgic here, time to get back to what I started out with....

The farewell function at my father's bank branch is a regular affair with almost one person retiring from service every month, messengers, clerks and officers, all bidding adieu to the great institution.The irony of the occasion was that it was my father who hosted the farewell events for the past two years in the branch. This time though, he was on the other side of the table, errr dias, being felicitated for his loyal service. This time though,my father had company in the form of an august gentleman who had spent 42 years in the banks service, and that too in the same branch- can you beat that? This person joined the bank as a messenger at the age of 18 and rose through the ranks to become a special assistant ( clerical level) at the time of his retirement. His loyalty to the institution does not end here, for three generations this person's family had served the bank, his father, he and now his son, all happily employed in the same organization. I was overwhelmed indeed by the enormity of what I was hearing. Being part of a generation where 5 years in one company is supposed to be ancient, 42 years seem like a millenium.

The function which was supposed to start at 2PM, started out at 3:30 PM thanks to the delayed arrival of the office bearers of the officer's association and the staff union, who with all due respect were victims of a plethora of retirement functions happening across Chennai. And for those who have driven around in Chennai recently, would know that traffic moves at a pace which is slower than that of a brisk walker. The irony of the situation was so stark, here were over 100 bank staff including management assembled along with the two retirees and their families, but could not get along with the function as the Babus had not arrived. Revelation number one, these age old institutions, even if they have moved ahead in terms of technology and e-bankimg, still are victims of bureaucracy. One that is deeply entrenched and cannot be shaken off easily!

I must commend the office bearers as they tendered their sincere apologies and flagged off the ceremony. So typical of bank farewells, the branch head started off with niceities about the retirees and following her footsteps, so did a whole host of people, from the peon through the clerks to the high priest- the accountant. Garlands and retirement savings cheques for the retirees, shawls for the spouses and kids, fruits for the family and sweets for those assembled, it was an affair filled with anecdotes, emotion, hearty laughter and not to mention, lots and lots of speeches. The association secretary was crisp and to the point in his speech, though leaning towards management and its policies, he packed in a few jibes,but he did not use the platform to launch his next election campaign. The union secretary was a completely different animal, whose sole aim was to reach out to all and sundry with his rally narrative on the wage revision, the settlement and on a few occasions as an afterthought, a couple of sentences about the retirees. Five minutes became ten, fifteen, twenty and it appeared that the speech was never going to end, he wrapped up ( possibly caught a couple of people nodding off) to a thunderous applause. Reminded me of my college days when thunderous applause during a speech meant-" get off the stage you moron".

As the function came to its logical end and people streamed in to bid adieu, my parents and us were pretty much in awe and tears as it dawned upon us that we were witnessing the end of a long career, one that spanned multiple cities, branches and positions, yet all in one organization. Though my father did not show it, I was real certain that he was loathing the fact that he had to call it quits and handover his responsibilities to the successor. And the worst part was that he will not be taking over any responsibility this time round. This was an end of an era from his perspective, but for us, it was a beginning of another one, one in which he will spend more time with his second wife ( the first one was always the bank)and the family,possibly tour the rest of India and some parts of the world,sit up with his feet in the air and an ale in his hand and watch the sun go down.

As to me, the takeaway from the function was a glimpse into the world that we have left behind in our lives, a world where, life is simple and lived on a daily basis,the friendships and bonds one builds at the workplace are not defined by any pecking order or snob quotient, but by a camaraderie born out of being part of one large family. A world where going without a promotion for 5 years is acceptable and working assiduosly for 10 years without a wage revision but for the inflationary adjustment is pretty much the norm, a world where one never thinks of throwing in the towel because he or she has a prejudiced boss or has a bad set of colleagues in the other camps, i.e. clerical, non-clerical etc. A world where one has to move lock stock and barrel every three years or be condemned to the life of a forced bachelor in the top floor of a humble lodging in a non-descript small town in India. A world which was part of our past but perhaps not our future!

Mumbai Chronicles- Episode 1

2010-05-05T23:48:00.001+05:30

The seed to this blog was sown last week in a Mahindra Logan cab as I was heading for a customer meeting in the Metropolis of Mumbai from my second home ( read in-laws) in Navi Mumbai. As the car sped over the Vashi bridge over the Creek, I saw the very familiar sight of a local racing along
( and winning of course) towards C.S.T. With atleast a 1000 people onboard, many of whom are migrants who had come to the big bad city in search of their dreams, their destiny. As I sat transfixed by the sight, my thoughts wandered back to 2004, when I used to travel in one of those locals heading to my workplace in Lower Parel.

Circa 2004, August, a pleasant time in Mumbai when the fiery monsoons had extinguished all their fury and were breathing their last. The city was getting back up on its feet, Mumbaikars dusting off their chappals and keeping them inside in favour of shoes but still cautiously carrying around their umbrellas which come in a myriad of colors yet with a singular purpose- pretty much akin to the inhabitants of Mumbai themselves. Okie, now I should stop trying to do a Suketu Mehta here, I am not to meander away and give in to the charms of the city I have always adored. This was the time when I had shifted jobs from One shipping giant to another and moved to Mumbai in search of my dream and not to mention be closer to my future wife. As any young ( well depending on how you look at it) 24 year old professional would do upon coming to this city, I took up digs at a big apartment complex in Vashi, just off Palm Beach Marg. Not to mention that I shared the place with a flatmate, who was with my erstwhile company. As apartments that bachelors stay go, our flat was a humble 550 sqft 1-BHK which had just enough space for two people to move around without kicking at each others limbs.

The coolest thing was that the apartment was a kilometre away from the railway station and I could the distance daily, one may ask what was so cool about it, but to a person who used to earn southward of 20k, saving 20 bucks in auto fare in a day is precious. My usual schedule was pretty much religious ( people who know me will swear that I am anything but religious), wake up at 7:15, rush to brush, freshen up, press the clothes and rush out by 8 AM to be in the station by the time the motorman pulls in the 8:20 Vashi starting local onto the platform. Well, it is sufficient to say that I had a 90% on time arrival at the station and was an ace at getting into the speeding local ( yes my friends, the motormen were sadists and had their thrill accelerating an empty local as enters a platform full of eager beavers) as it pulls up. To complete the journey, I had to get off at Sewri, walk across another 500 metres in crowded lane which was just waking up, hitch a ride in one of those double deckers from Sewri depot, get off at Parel and walk another kilometer to reach my office by 9:20 AM. It is needless to say that by the time I arrived at the cool confines of my office, I was pretty much like a gymmer who had finished his warming up.

If you had read carefully, I mentioned that I was on time 90% of the time at the station. In the 10% of the time my sleep wins over or lethargy dictates my mind, I used to take the ST ( for the ignorant, ST stands for State Transport) to Dadar TT and then find my way to work on a multi modal basis. I typically used to get into the ST, purchase my ticket, find a window seat and continue my dreams from where I left off, more often than not, I will start running around a treee with you know who. I used to consider the interim period in which I woke up and did the chores as a mere interruption,an interval if you will! Forty minutes on, I will be woken up by the drone of the conductor who used to shout Dadar TT ahe, sala sala. Waking up grudgingly I used to amble across the road, have a kadak chai on the roadside, the guy still exits btw, walk over the Dadar fly over, cross, the central line and the western line before alighting off into Dadar Market. As I used to cross the flyover, I used to take in the smell of fresh bake from the parsi bakery on the right, which had a curious board which read " Rights of admission reserved", I am not entirely sure even today why a Bakery would sport such a snobbish board when all it was in reality was a dimly lit establishment which was a relic from the past.

While my gastronomic juices were kindled as I passed the bakery, I completely lost my appetite as I used to descend the steps onto Dadar Market. Well, it was the mix of the sweet smell of sewage, rotting vegetables and the ever present grime that turned my stomach every time I walked past. The only respite came when I walked across the flower market which was teeming with traders and buyers bargaining franctically over fresh flowers- jasmines, roses, lillies, lotuses and what not. As I used to wait for the BEST bus to take me the last mile, er, it was slightly more than that, I used to watch all the chaffeur driven execs go past, en route to their corporate offices, with meetings in their minds and ET in their hands, snobbish to the boot. And here I was sweating it out in the sun with all and sundry waiting for the BEST to pull over with all the Nokia+headphone shod receptionists listening to FM. At those moments, I really used to wonder how it would be to be driven to work in the crowded metropolis where a sense of personal space, comes as a privilege. It was one of thoe moments in work/life when one assuages himself that your time will arrive mate, just hang in there! The thoughts used to last just a fleeting moment as by then the BEST will be rolling in and I had to rush towards the rear of the bus to board it. The next five minutes of the bus ride were pretty bearable, thanks to the birds in the bus, but for the one odd minute when the fish market used to flash past. It is one hell of a place, where if you are not a koli, you will be at sea ( not to mention nauseous), with all the fresh catch displayed and haggled over. The most curious sight of course was the fishes that used come from Andhra ferried in Sintex tanks on lorries, poor old blokes, kept alive through the journey only to be fresh meat!

May 2010, Coming back from my reverie, I feel that life has pretty much come a full circle, with my being chaffeured around ( albeit in a logan) to customer meetings where I meet people who carry fancy titles and advise them how we can help them run their businesses better.As I embark on a new journey in Mumbai in months to come, I am sure that I will look at someone being chaffeured around in a BMW 5 and wonder how it will be to be one of them. I am not entirely sure that if I will get there someday, but I am sure that I will enjoy the journey that lies ahead.....

On renting out apartments and marrying off daughters...

2010-04-27T19:45:00.002+05:30

I am back, I am hungry! er. looks like I am too influenced by H-O-M-P, but I cant help it as it is close to dinner time and I am having hunger pangs. As my missus will be taking care of it shortly, I shall take the time out and explain my absence from the blogging scene for the past 4 months. Well, you guessed it, I was busy with work and pretty much didnt have a life. So, now that out of the way, I thought it was time to post a short blog up front, lets call it an appetizer before the Entree.

For people who know the developments in my life, you will be aware that I am being moved into a new role and that too one based out of Mumbai. With relocation on the anvil and we getting evicted out of our cosy cocoon in Gurgaon, we have been forced to think about finding occupants for our apartment. It is ofcourse a painful decision to let your house to a stranger but, the decision if not taken can be even more painful i.e. an additional 20k outflow from our account every month and not to mention the cobwebs that will grow all over. Now that we have taken the rational decision to let our house, the next step was executing it. Up went the posting on magic bricks and a mail to our society groups. Within no time did smses start pouring into my mobile phone enquiring about our apartment. Now comes the revelation- though my 5 years in Delhi/NCR has left me deeply prejudiced, I never thought i will be so influenced by them. Here is how we are working through the list of possible tenants:

-Mr.Gupta, Oh, he is a Baniya, will not pay us rent

- Mr.Bali, sounds like a Punji, will be too flashy

-Mr.Sangwan, Dilliwala, will have a problem getting him out

You get the drift right? Prejudices that have been built out of our daily experiences are now driving our decisions though it might not be logical at all. I know extremely suave and professional Guptas and sophisticated Punjus.Similarly, not all South Indians are Saints and all Maharashtrians are humble. Next comes the question of if we should let it to only vegetarians? Now, this is a touchy topic and I didnt want to bring it up with the missus. Nevertheless, she being she, thought of it and we went off on another discussion. Though we do not cook meat at home, we do not belong to the orthodox school which will recommend purifying the kitchen with cowdung whenever a rat runs across the floor. We are pretty mucn comfortable with the tamasik way of life and have many friends who bring these delicacies to our place for chowing down with beer. After much deliberation, we decided that it is essential that we get good natured tenants and we should not bother about their food habits, style quotient, sexual orientation etc...( Well, since we will let it out to families, the last one will not come in question)

I am not quite sure which way this is going to swing, but we are picking and choosing prospective tenants as we would select a groom for our daughter ( as and when we have her). It has been a revelation of sorts as we go through this process for the first time in our lives and are pretty much sure we will have more first of a kind experiences to share as we relocate from Gurgaon to Mumbai!

Rajasthani Rhapsody!

2010-01-11T23:02:00.005+05:30

Have you ever switched on the television of late and tuned into the hindi genre of channels? Do you have a mother in law visiting and ever happened to catch her watching TV in the evening? Or do you have a maid who has her own TV in the SQ? If the answer to any of the three questions is yes, then the likelihood of seeing a Thakur brandishing a gun or a group of women in Ghoonghats singing in a magnificient living room ( 2 storeys high) is real high. Ever wondered what is this fascination with the Rajasthani household ( rich one that too) suddenly? It is not as if the Ekta Kapoor's of India have covered the sob stories of all other states of the country, err, below the Vindhyas it is all one state, i.e. South India which anyways does not feed their ad revenues.

So coming back to the Rajasthan Royals who are portrayed in the soaps. I have travelled a bit in Rajasthan and have many friends who hail from the state, but never ever have I come across families that seem to be the toast of the small screens.No doubt that the Marwari ( Mewari, Maheshwari et.al included) entrepreneurship has seen them grow with the British Raj and there is a strong and thriving community thriving wherever the British set up shop, be it Chennai, Kolkata, Guwahati, you are bound to find a pan chewing, god fearing Rajasthani tradesman in your neighborhood. But in all these neighborhoods, you don't find opulence flashed at you as you see in these soaps. No doubt the houses are grand and many families live together and eat out of a plate, but you certainly don't see women loaded up as if they are featuring in a "Joy Alukkas" advert. There is certainly an old Dadi in the family who is a octagenarian, but they certainly don't wield so much power as to burn books of the grandchild ( female one at that) with thier very whim.

Boys and girls get married young, they hardly finish college by the time they are parents, but they are not married into bondage during childhood. No doubt they are rivals in business, but seldom do they travel around with a retinue of rifle touting goons, that too on old post war Willys 4WD. These families certainly are devout but certainly don't have grand temples within their four walls with Puja's running 365 days a year with entire villages attending them. They wear their traditional attire during functions, but are not seen wearing silk kurtas and Pagdi's in 45 deg heat. The Rajasthani women are great cooks and love cooking for their families, but they certainly don't cook with their make up so intact that even sweat shies away from their gleaming faces. They have some tragedies on and off as every family has, but certainly don't have a life that is a complete tragedy.

So with reality being so far away from what is being portrayed on the Indian Telly, what are these TRPholics trying to achieve? Promoting cultural awareness about Rajasthan amongst the rest of the country? Evince interest in India and amongst NRI's to increase tourism in the state, err, I don't think Rajasthan needs any more publicity to attract tourists. Go to Udaipur in December and you will feel a foreigner in the golden state. I am certain that this is not the image that the Shekawats or the Rajes would want to portay of their glorious state and neither will they be happy that soaps are becoming the state's biggest cultural export and not the handicrafts. With more than 10 channels showing atleast one Rajasthani soap a day, it is not long before the rest of India chokes on this cultural overdose as it has choked on Punjabi culture ( Hope the Johars and the Chopras are listening)......

My tip to the smart ones out there, stay away from these channels if you want to retain the romantic idea of Rajasthan and ofcourse to retain your sanity!

I am too busy!

2010-01-10T10:35:00.001+05:30

Waking up on a dreary Sunday morning and sipping at my hot cup of filter kaapi, I went into a sombre and reflective mood. As the spirals start spinning as in the silver screen, I could see the rewind in my mind's eye as I tried to recollect when I wrote a blog last. All I could see despite my best efforts was a multicolor screen which used to come on Doordarshan prior to 6 pm in the late 80's. Ummm, this either meant that it has been ages or that I am having temporary memory loss.Both spelt bad news and I had to put pen to paper, er fingers to keyboard before I forgot what writing was all about. ( other than e-mail)

We professionals of the modern era, atleast the incompetent ones, have this compelling urge to blame our work for most things that we don't accomplish out of lethargy.

-Ooh, I have been so busy that I have missed my gym for 3 months.

- My work has kept me so occupied that I dont remember the last time I spoke to my closest of kin.

- My wife hardly gets to see my face as I work late nights and over the weekends.( It's besides the point if she doesn't want to see it at all)

- Don't remember the last time we went on a holiday.

Well, my friends, if the above lines sound all too familiar, then welcome to the club of lazy gentlemen or ladies where membership is lifetime and guess what, it's free.Yes, all you need to do is - do nothing, and you will be a member of this club where you will find like minded cribbers, a place where from the poker table to the tennis court ( oh sorry, you don't actually exert yourself in any way in this club), the only discussion is how there are a thousand things that need to get done but don't owing to work.

This is quite a predicament we are in, the roots of which can be traced back to our inability to cope with the cultural change that has come about in the Indian society. Thanks to the Raj, we have always been deprived and getting ahead has been priority No.1, it was never done at the expense of life. Every family looked at moving up the ladder over a generation, work hard, build a house, send their kids to good schools and colleges and eventually abroad so that they can move up one notch in their generation. All this was done with aplomb and without cribbing much. I never saw my father complaining about how hard he had to work (he still doesn't come back from the bank before 8 pm), or how he had only the Sunday to complete all admin tasks and take the family out, or how he had to support the entire family which included two generations on one income ( no DINK's then). I still see him coming back home and diligently keeping things in place, writing his diary, catching up with family, watch a bit of TV, do a bit of reading before retiring to bed. I am amazed how he has spent his productive years with just 6-7 hours of sleep a day and yet be so energetic throughout the entire day. I can't get by without my 8 hours of sleep and umpteen cups of coffee during the day, I need my two day weekend, I need my car, I need my DVD's, I need my music, I need my......, well- dash it, the list is never ending.

The bottom-line is that in the race to make it in life, i.e. have a 3 BHK by 30, a sedan and a hatch in the garage, a platinum card in the wallet, a frequent flier status on an air alliance, an international holidays a year and a kid in an international school, we are missing out on the fundamentals. Work, by all means will provide for all this, but does not dictate that you should not do anything else. I guess, we need to get out of this one track mind soon enough before our life passes by in a blur and we end up in our 50's with a whole load of money but also a truck load of ailments.I don't intend to get preachy here, but am setting the tone for myself .I am hopeful that I can bury my ghosts of hiding under a pile of work and letting my skills to rot, muscles to wane,passions to die, and continue to crib that "I am too busy".

So, go ahead and do what you always wanted to do-

- Hit the treadmill today, one day can turn into two and then to three and soon a habit.

- Make the call to the long lost school mate of yours who just had a kid- Facebook Zindabad!

- Go on that road trip to Leh this summer, block your calendar before it gets clogged with cousin child naming ceremonies and bua's bhoomipujan.

- Take a weekend from chores and take your wife on a aimless drive, it really helps!

- Finish reading that book that you picked up a couple of months ago but never got around beyond ten pages.

- Last but not the least, start with that to-do list every day on that small yellow post it. I know people who swear by it, ticking off item by item every day, and it is no coincidence that they are amongs the most efficient of people I know. (I can give their contacts in case you need some gyan)

I need to cut this post short as my breakfast is calling ( read as wife), as the first step in this endeavor, I am going to eat healthy and on time.

Have a great week and 2010 ahead, Adios!

Butter Crisis in Cowland....

2009-09-25T21:13:00.001+05:30

At the onset, apologies for the delay in the release of the first post in the "World runs on GAS series", I haven't had the time in the past week to complete some groundwork that I had intended to do for the post. As people say, when it rains, it pours and that has been true with me on the work front and I have been getting neck deep in an area that I don't have grounding in. So, that out of the way, I wanted to bring to light a unique crisis that is developing in the cow country. Yes, it is the shortage of Butter and Clarified Butter ( Ghee)!

If any of you have been out in the market over the past three weeks in search of butter, I am pretty much sure you would have come back empty handed or possibly with Nutralite ( butter like... but not butter).I faced this issue three weeks ago in the convenience store in my residential complex, and I brushed it off as a stock out and went home. I visited the store again a week later and the same story played out. This was not done, I live in the heart of cow country where cattle outnumber human beings, well almost. In a place where people buy a minimum of four litres of milk and there are atleast four thriving dairy companies with a million cows under their umbrella, this was holy sacrilege. This should have created a riot under normal circumstances, with a couple of buses being torched and some roads being dug up. But then, these are recessionary times and people do not go out in force protesting against inequalities.By now I was really concerned as the butter levels in my refrigerator was running real low and I was staring at a certainty of giving up my chilly cheese toasts and omlette toasts over the weekend and settling on some corn flakes for breakfasts, which no self respecting South Indian would touch unless he or she is in sickbed. Of course, my wife makes amazing Idlis, Dosa(i)s and Upmas but I need to have my quota of toasts, I say. I have to mention that I did try out Nutralite as a substitute and its so appetizing that not even one fourth of the packet is finished two weeks since we bought it.

So, I decided to take matters one level up, went to the central store that supplies our outlet and what do I find, " No Butter" and in place of butter is....yep you guessed it right, our friend "Butter like". I immediately smelled a rat here, being a quintessential Indian who lives on borderline paranoia, I was conjuring up conspiracy theories in which hoodlums wearing ski masks hijacked trucks carrying butter to the distribution centers and driving them to undisclosed warehouses deep in the bad lands of Haryana and UP. I was imagining a clandestine meeting of all the "Butter like" dons in a dark and dingy, non-descript hotels discussing the choking of supplies, controlling butter output and thereby the price.Well, I guess I am overtly influenced by OPEC and the cartelization in Oil and Gas. I started visualizing-delivery tempos arriving with butter and people in my complex flocking it resulting in a stampede, people stocking up "black" butter in their refrigerators, break-ins happening and all but butter remained untouched by the burglars, government stepping in to ration the supplies of butter and I standing in a mile long queue in the sweltering sun to pick up 100 gms of butter. Phew, I need to control my horses here, but you can't blame me for my fears, after all I am a resident of the cow-country and I love my butter.

On a sober note, I gather that the milk dairy units are grappling with a unique situation where the milk production is on an upswing whereas the butter production is falling. For some strange reason, butter is not forming in quantities that it used to. Effects of global warming? Lack of nutrition in cow-feed? Adulteration? Technical problems? Whatever it is, it better be sorted out soon as the festive season has already started and butter and ghee have a lions share of the ingredients that go into making of our sweet meats. Though diet and sugar free are in vogue, they are -certainly not appealing to the mainstream, expensive and after-all FAKE. Going by conventional Indian logic and taste, fake doesn't sell, even if it is Pamela Lee!

Owing to the on-going Navratri, I am not even venturing into what will happen to our Butter Chicken,Tandoori Chicken (coated with ghee), whatever it is Ghost, Meat Makhanwalas and the likes. I am hearing stories of tempers boiling in Punjabi Bagh already, so the GOI better watch out. This one is going to be bigger than Dera Sacha Sauda for sure....

So, please join me in prayer this Navratri season for the return of the king (butter), the good times, the sweet meats and not to mention the chilly cheese toasts,omlettes!

Curtain Raiser: "The world runs on GAS" series...

2009-09-14T21:27:00.009+05:30

If you stumbled upon this blog thinking that it had to do anything with the world's addiction to gasoline, the looming energy crisis etc, or if you are looking for some energy reserves data to supplant your PhD thesis, then you better stop reading any further. You would be better of referring to EIA's website, however, if you are either a greenhorn looking at a corporate career or a student of management ( a PhD candidate in organizational behavior and other esoteric topics), you have come to the right place. I shall try and explore the modern day management practice and most importantly, the emergence and practice of GAS as a modern day management mantra.

Management, which is perhaps the youngest of the disciplines to emerge from the Ivy leagues, was driven by intellectual curiosity which aimed at addressing the question of "How best to create, run and grow businesses that can not only deliver innovative products to customers but also become economic pillars of the society". After the pioneering work of the first generation of management practitioners such as Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan, Peter Drucker etc who helped build the foundation of management as we know it, next came the next gen of management thinkers who focused on esoteric topics around consumer behavior, marketing strategies, organizational behavior etc, more recently management thinkers are doing seminal work in areas such as the extremely complex marriage of management and technology, the exploration of blue oceans, and the much in vogue thoughts on sustainable development and green organizations. I might have missed out on quite a few other thoughts and topics but this listing is more to highlight the emergence of a school of thought which has gone virtually un-noticed, called Gas thinking! Though there is no one to lay claim over the creation of this school, but it is believed that the origins of this philosophy ( if you will) lies in the modern day knowledge company. These organizations which are children of the flat world, born out of a matrimony between cheap bandwidth and cheap skilled labor do not boast of physical assets but boast of intellectual assets. Though there is a great deal of truth in what they claim, the lack of tangible assets means a lot of buffering needs to be done to shore up the balance sheet and what do they use to fill it up, Yes, you have guessed it right, it is GAS! Just as gas is weightless, formless, odorless ( well, in some cases atleast) and ever pervading, this management philosophy is ever pervading while not being there at all, means everything while meaning nothing at all, defines everything while defining nothing at all, so on and so forth, cool eh?

In the forthcoming posts, I shall explore this philosophy bottom up, starting from the very building blocks that build this g(l)ass palace. The objective of the series is neither to be condescending on the practitioners of gas nor to malign the intellect that is behind the creation of these modern day mantras, but to explore the relevance of these extremely vague and boundariless concepts in real life through the eyes of an ignoramus!

Tomorrow's Special:

Vision and Mission.....

How fit are you??

2009-09-07T22:37:00.004+05:30

I once heard someone saying " Fitness is a state of mind", in case any of you would tend to agree with it, I strongly suggest that you go get yourself a shrink. In case you still insist that it is so, then feel free to live in fools paradise. But down here in earth, my friends, fitness lies squarely in the physical domain and needs to be addressed with some real iron pumping and muscle flexing, no matter how compelling it might be to imagine lifting weights while lazing on a couch.

I have dabbled with the gym ever since 1999 and have had a blow hot blow cold relationship with the gym. Every time I get into a routine, I will move out of the town and the settling down rigmarole will take up precious months and by the time I find a new gym and get to speed, it will be time to pack up again. My most recent tryst with the gym is in the small makeshift gym in my residential complex where it is easy to drop a weight onto someone's head while lifting the barbell or to drive the dumb bell straight into someones midriff while doing laterals. Not to mention the blend of aromas from perfumes, deodorants and sweat creating a heady cocktail that sends you in a tizzy every time you lift that 40 kg bench press.

Put off by this experience I decided to push my gymming back till the time the club house opens and was looking at an avenue to move my lazy bones apart from the one odd hour at the badminton court every evening. As a godsend came the circular from our apartment facilties management which stated that a trial run for the Yoga class is being started in our complex which was to last for 5 days starting Monday at 6:15 AM. Me being a night person have never woken up to greet the Sun god no matter how warm our relationship is, in fact the only event that can make me wake up early is an early morning travel, be it by flight or by road, the internal clock will go off 3 hours before the alarm goes off in my bedroom. So that being said, I skipped the class on Monday and sent my wife on a reconnaissance mission. I didn't want to lose sleep over a bunch of oldies getting together and creaking their joints ( as quoted by my wife). I woke up by my usual 7:30 AM to find my wife back home with a smug smile on her face. Though the creaking bones part was correct ( the two other attendees were over 68 and were looking for some remedy for joint pain), apparently the yoga routine was quite a revelation to her and without giving me much details she asked me to join her the next day.

Before we get into the details of my tryst with Yoga, I would like to state that I consider myself a decently fit guy, though I do not have the muscles from brussels build anymore, I have had a constant waistline for as long as I can remember, have a weight that has the never fluctuated beyond 2% for over 5 years and can do some decent trekking up the hills without fainting. So according to me, I was fit as a)I didn't have a paunch to speak of, b) I fit in my clothes pretty well without the need to push or shove c) I could climb from -2 to 3 in my office building. Pretty cool eh? Or so I thought till I landed up that fateful morning by 6:15 AM at our complex lawn after managing to wake groggily and trudging along as slowly as possible. As soon as I landed up in the lawn, I felt 6o years old, no-kidding, here is the scene, there was an old man with hennaed hair doing some stretching in one corner, there were these bunch of "grannies" doing some laughter therapy in one corner as if it were some vikram and vethal show and here we were with the Yoga master who as as old as us and the two septuagenarians! So our core group had an average age of 50 years. Damn, I make it sound like some B-school participant profile, just need to add the average work-ex and a gmat score.

First thing upon spreading the mat was to do some warm up. The first one was real simple, a breathing technique where you take in air and breath out "Om". Funny, eh, but this requires some real control of lungs to get the "Om" right. Seeing this to be first up, I thought that the rest was going to be a cake walk, after all I used to warm up regularly in the gym, what more can this be? It so happens that the masters of Yoga do take the warm up pretty seriously and all the stretch exercises made me aware of muscles that I never knew existed in my body. The twists, kicks, jogs, leg risers and butterfly stretches made mincemeat of my muscles and in 20 mins I was panting for breath, craving for water and wanting to go back home. As I huffed and puffed to do my toe touches and back stretching exercises, my wife seemed to be going great guns, she didn't even break sweat and was actually bending 180 degs, twisting like some cloth being wrung etc etc. Hmmm, some encouragement, she has a bright prospect in the live entertainment ( aka circus) industry in case high tech gives us a heave ho! Coming back, if I thought the worst was over, the next one to come was the biggie, suryanamaskaram, akin to the tongue twisting name, this is a body stretcher where one has to bend one knee, stretch the other leg backwards, go down on your arms with your pelvis on the ground and you have to raise your torso and look up at the Sun god. Oh Gaaawd, and after almost seeing heaven, the instructor asks us to change legs and do the next set, this time I see hell and by the time it is done, I have seen the worst of both worlds. Hey, why the hell should one complicate so much the process of seeing Sun when all you need to do is wake up by 9:30 AM, step out of the house and just look up, voila, there is the Sun god in all his glory. Being the Indians we are, we tend to complicate simple things and I am okie with it, after all, we are like that only......

To wrap the exercise up, we are told to bend down, touch our toes, pull in air and raise up our torso and arms, walk on our toes till the time we can hold our breath. Phew, this exercise which is supposed to increase the lung capacity is a real killer as it comes at the end of the routine and by then you are close to collapsing. As is the case with the Jeyachandran's who never shy away from a gauntlet thrown at us, I suck in as much air as I can and tiptoe my way across the lawn. Ten steps, I am okie, Twenty steps, I am breathless, Twenty five steps and my eyes pop out and I give up. I felt like a fighter stepping out of the ring after going for 3 rounds with Mike Tyson. My clothes are drenched, I am exhausted and I almost jump in joy when the instructor told us that we are done for the day. But yes, we had to do the Om chanting before shutting down, it is a simple breathing exercise which calms your mind and body before you start the regular day. As we trudge back, I felt a sense of elation inspite of the fact that I was feeling like a diesel engine that had climbed to doddabedda peak in Ooty. This one hour of Yoga, though was not like a whirlwind session of pumping iron, but was an intense session of body stretches that leave every muscle ( well almost) in the body worked out in an understated sort of way.

I must mention that the rest of my day was real good and the energy levels were elevated through the day. This encouraged me to shun by sleep for the next four days and we put ourselves through the paces of Yoga, and with every passing day the effect on the mind and body became more prominent. Now after a week of trial classes, we are waiting for the regular classes to begin so that we can continue on the journey we embarked upon! I would strongly recommend this to anyone who is not keen on building six packs and ripping bi's but want to keep fit and be athletic.

So, how fit are you?

Mitsubishi Cedia Sports- Tried, Tested and Adored!

2009-08-10T11:55:00.010+05:30

Ever wanted to go rallying throwing up muck and dirt as you round that bend? Ever wanted to go into a corner real fast and come out of it faster? Ever wanted a car that does not have a mind of its own and does just as you told it to do? Welcome to the Cedia Sports from Mitsubishi, the latest avatar of the extremely capable sedan from the makers of the Evo, which has been around in India for a couple of years but never managed to carve out a niche for itself amongst enthusiasts like the Honda City V-Tec, the Palio GTX, the Ford Ikon Sxi and of course the much feared and revered Skoda vRS. I got to test drive the car over a stretch of 20 kms within Gurgaon thanks to the proactive initiative from Mitsubishi Motors who reached out to people who had registered for the great Indian driving challenge. Luckily, my friend happened to be one of those and he was more than happy to take me along.

At the appointed hour for the test drive, which was 1PM, with the sun blazing away on a sweltering day in Gurgaon, Sathish and I reached our office by 12:55 PM. Much to our surprise, we found the test drive car waiting along with the sales executive. I was quite surprised as the car was a cream colored one as against the bold colored variants that are available on sale. In the color it was a little understated and didn’t catch my attention as I had driven past the car into my office. On hindsight, I realized that I could have missed the car as there was a huge crowd in the spot as a fresh accident had just occurred. Now coming back to the topic, Bijoy was the sales person who had brought the car along for us and I must admit that he is any customer’s delight being the affable guy that he is. Not pushy but very informative and offered his insights on the car very succinctly during the test drive.

The Car:

Exterior:

The exterior design was always a plus in the old Cedia and the overall form is pretty much unaltered. The new additions include the bold “Ralli art” stickering, the linear nose grill on either side of the Mitsubishi logo, the swooping clear glass headlamps, the new 15” OZ alloys, the more integrated side skirts and the rear spoiler. The car looks much more complete now and it adheres to the “Sport” theme through and through. Though I would have preferred to have the double barreled head lamps to the current ones, this car is no slouch, it looks the part in all the colors it is being offered and one can tell from a distance that this car has a racing pedigree. My favorite bit of the car is the rear with its tall clear glass tail lamps and the integrated spoiler which means all business. The wheel arches are masculine and don’t look too flared like the ones in the Optra or are they understated as they are in the Skoda RS. It appears that the design team at Mitsubishi has done a wonderful job and this car is well put together, in and out. No obtrusions, no synch issues at the hipline, no boot lines jutting out, all the lines blend real well and you can follow them from front to back. My only grouse is the choice of those 6 spoke alloys, they are not the ones that will neither turn heads nor make your neighbor jealous. Mitsubishi could have searched in the Evo’s parts bin and come up with a better looking alloy. Anyways, there are aftermarket fitments available in case you don’t love the stock ones.

Interior:

This is where Mitsubishi have come of age in terms of executing a concept. The interior is well integrated with the sporty theme, it is sheer joy to be in the cockpit of this car which boasts of Evo’9 pedigree. The driver is spoilt with everything in the cockpit revolving around him/her and undoubtedy has the best seat in the car. But passengers needn’t feel let down as even the co-pilot’s seat and the rear seat deserve a thumbs up. The carbon fibre and titanium finished dash is neat, uncluttered and elegant. It might look super swank like that of the Civic but it is miles ahead in terms of overall function and styling. The choice of plastics is top notch and the fit and finish will make the likes of Skoda pale in comparison. The dash is designed around the cockpit with the vents placed neatly above the super central console which comes loaded with a navigator, a 6.1 inch 3.1 megs display, a Kenwood DVD player, Bluetooth sync and the works. The instrument cluster is simple, sporty and I really love the adjustable backlight of the console, damn neat Mitsu! I have to give it to the Mitsu designers for walking the talk when it comes to the “Sports” badge, the three spoke Momo steering wheel does not have anything other than the wheel, the airbag and the horn. No gizmos, no audio controls, no phone buttons, nothing, just pure steering! All the controls are within reach of the driver and I must admit that this car pampers the driver in all possible ways. 4 way adjustable seats for the driver, two way for the co pilot, top notch ergos, nice and deep footwell with the dead pedal kept away from the clutch. The sporty alloy pedals are well spaced out unlike other cars that I have driven and there is no way you will hit the accelerator instead of the brake. The driver arm rest is placed unlike the Linea where you can’t shift gears without banging your elbows on the arm rest, but still the positioning can be less intrusive. The leather wrapped gear knob well stitched and gives a great feel. The glove box is adequate in front where as the read loses out on storage bins and spaces for knick knacks which is a letdown. Coming to the seats, the sporty black leather with bold threading and dashes of red look the part and go well with the overall concept. The front seats are fantastic with adequate lumbar support and the rear seats are comfortable but do not spoil you. While it is certainly better than the Skoda’s rear seat for long drives with enough leg room, I was not very impressed with the thigh support. Three adults can comfortably fit in the rear with the central armrest up. The armrest is nicely put together, merges neatly with the seat when kept up and holds cups apart from hands when pushed down. The trap door behind the arm rest makes access to the boot a breeze without stopping the car. The grey upholstery is a functional one and has no bells and whistles. The rear parcel tray is well finished and has a reading lamp for the passenger. NVH levels are amongst the best in class and there is hardly any intrusion of road noise into the cabin, so much so that I had to lower my windows to listen to the exhaust note while revving hard.

Engine and Transmission:

With all the racing pedigree that this car has, one would expect that the engine would blow one’s pants away, but that is not the case with the Cedia. The 2.0L 4 cyliner, naturally aspirated 115 BHP MIVEC engine is a joy to drive with its linear power delivery and the car’s torque curve ensures that the car is a breeze to drive in the city and on the highway. Though the original engine is supposed to belt out some 140 bhp, the Indian variant has been detuned to appeal to the enthusiast and commuters alike and the car returns an unbelievable 12.5 kmpl in the city. For a 2.0L engine this is phenomenal, Suzuki eat that! As is the case with the other Mitsu and Jap engines, this 4 cylinder is revv happy and the car will keep up with your adrenaline rush. There is no turbo swoosh, no back hitting the seat, no tantrums, the engine revs climb as you work through the gears and the car climbs up to the happy hundreds quickly and you will be cruising by then. The engine has a raspy note which eggs you on to revv the car even harder and combined with the sporty exhaust; it is pure bliss to roll down the windows. The 5 speed gear box is slick, gears slot in with the right amount of weight and no vibrations filter through the gear box to the knob. The gearing is just about perfect and with overdrive in 4^th and 5^th, the car puts a smile onto your face as you shift through the gears.

Suspension, handling and brakes:

When the guys in Mitsubishi claim that it is rally bred, they aren’t kidding, this is not a Civic Sport with a side skirt and rear spoiler, this is a car that has been tried and tested in the APRC rally championship. That makes it perfect for Indian roads, doesn’t it? Any highway drive in our country is akin to going for a spin on the gravel. The Mcpherson strut upfront and multilink rear suspension coupled with the stiff chassis, make the car an absolute dream in terms of handling. The car is well planted at high speeds and directional changes are sure footed with no perceptible understeer. Pot holes, undulations, craters may all rest in peace now, for the lord of the roads is here to conquer our sorry excuses of roads! All wheel disk brakes with ventilated ones in the rear coupled with ABS and EBD, makes this rocket come to a halt from three digit speeds in no time and that too in a straight line. We had a friendly neighborhood Alto that decided to stop in the middle of the road thereby presenting us with an opportunity to stop in under 50 meters and oh boy, did she stop or what? The 195/60 R15 Potenzas on the OZ alloys works very well and are pretty quiet at high speeds too. My only grouse was that I did not take the car out on a country road, which would have been an ideal treat on a sleepy Saturday afternoon.

Summing it up, the Cedia did leave me impressed at the end of the half an hour, which was spent accelerating hard, braking hard, turning fast and zipping through traffic. With sporty exterior ( I’m in love with those Ralli art stickers”, immaculately finished interiors and a central control centre with a navigation system that actually works, the car is a delight to spend the whole day in and the Kenwood system just makes it a lot easier. At 10.8 Lacs on road Delhi, the value proposition the Cedia offers is unmatched by any in that segment, not even by the Laura TSi ( albeit being a couple of notches higher). Though the two year 40,000 kms service warranty is encouraging and the build quality is reassuring, the poor service reputation of Mitsubishi dealership and the high cost of spares might work against this impeccable performer. If Mitsubishi and its dealers can raise their game on the service front, they have a real winner in their hands, which in my view can keep the Mitsubishi flag flying high in India, at least till the undisputed king of the tarmac and the dirt - The Mitsubishi Evo, makes his way to the Indian shores!

Dilli Sho Sha....

2009-07-25T11:51:00.009+05:30

If at all one conducted a study on which city and its inhabitants are the most pompous in the country, the result is a foregone conclusion. Our capital city -Delhi a.k.a Dilli will beat all the other metros hands down leaving them way behind in the pomp chart. I know that people will claim that it is the South Indian bias in me that’s doing the talking, but hey,I left south india in 2002 and having worked pretty much all across the country, I have lost my regional biases long ago. Now, I consider myself a pan Indian, if you will. Also the fact that I married a Mumbaikar who does not have any regional affiliation makes me a representative of the typical cosmopolitan indian professional who has a cross cultural family and is never shy to pick up and move where his or her job takes him.

Now that I have tried to clear up my candidature to be devoid of any biases, I shall get back to the topic at hand. To me, Delhi represented the Mecca of Indian politics, the green city of lutyens and not to mention an abode of heavenly food. This was way back in 2005 when I made the shift from coastal gujarat to Gurgaon, a up and coming suburb of Delhi. My only brush with a Dilliwala was in B-School, this classmate of mine who had come in with loads of work-ex and literally claimed the moon. Though mighty impressed in the first month of school, over a period that I could tell his chaff from the grain and used to discount whatever he claimed by a modest 80%. As expected, this friend has gone on to build a very successful career in-Sales! Allright, to clarify my position, I don't intend to malign sales as I am from the domain too, but I belong to the consultative selling type and not the laxative type! With this friend as a stereotype and multiple warnings from friends, colleagues and customers alike, I arrived in NCR with a belief that I can disprove it all. I was never a believer in stereotypes and used to debate against this practice big time.

My three years in NCR has been a revelation of sorts, not only all the stereotype was proven correct, but also I got my exposure to "Jugaad", the short cut or quick fix way of doing things, er...did i say doing, sorry, i stand corrected, "appearing to do" is more like it. It was exciting for my wife and I to:

- see people coming dressed up in D&G to buy groceries ( I didn't know of Sarojini mkt stuff then) and bargaining with the bhaiyya for 2 rupees.

- see people drive out 200 metres to buy 500 ml milk without stepping out of the car.

- find people driving Alto's behaving as if they own the road. ( Jaanta hai mera baap kaun?

- hear about the indispensability of maids in the household for- cooking, cleaning, bathing the dog, walking the child etc etc...hello, what is left eh?

- see people shop almost every other month for things they don't need but to flaunt.

- see people starting to follow F1 and EPL not because they are interested in the sport but to avoid being left out of the discussion. Imagine people following F1 without knowing the names of all the drivers on the grid- well its just 20 of them!

- find that the only way to speak is to be loud, not because other people can’t hear you but to make yourself heard!

- find residents of decent neighborhoods treat security guards like lesser mortals, in some cases as if they never existed.

- see people who think that adding a two sub woofers and playing Himesh Reshamiya is in full blast is cool.

The icing on the cake of my tryst with the perfect Dilli experience came yesterday, when I went to pay the utilities bill in my apartment complex. Our complex has a pre-paid utility system where maintenance and power charges are deducted everyday from the amount remitted. This is an astute ploy by the builder who also runs the maintenance firm to reduce accounts receivables which in many housing complexes runs into lakhs of rupees per month. As I was getting my re-charge code from the facilities guy, I was scanning the notice board for any new notifcations. To my glee I found that the STP (Sewage Treatment Plant) had become operational, and the sewage tractors will be a thing of the past very soon. What caught my attention next was a big A3 size worksheet which had a title- “Returned Cheques”. This long excel worksheet had been sent from the finance team which processes all the maintenance cheques given by residents of the apartments and to my shock, it had more than 75-80 cheques that had bounced and a total outstanding was over 3 lacs. The amounts ranged from as low as Rs.2000 and all the way up to Rs.25,000 and guess what; quite a few of these entries were marked as regular bounce cases. This was hilarious, not only were people issuing cheques that were being dishonored but also doing it regularly. I had a small talk with the facilities guy and he was telling me that this is a recurring problem and they were at sea to deal with these residents who default. Perils of managing facilities I thought and sauntered away from there. As I was stepping out, an old gentleman stepped in, when I say gentleman, I mean a gentleman, very well turned out, in smart casuals with a head full of silver hair. He was carrying with him a couple of "Premium Banking" cheques and was mentioning to the facilities guy that a couple of his household's cheques were dis-honoured and he had come to issue fresh ones and take back the stale ones. Seeing this, I was dumbfounded and legged it from there. One might argue "yeh sab chalta hai" but having come from a banker household, a cheque bounce still remains sacrilege to me.

I was in total disbelief as, these people who live in my complex are all from well-to-do families, or at least they come across as such. They all have 2-3 cars, 1-2 maids, 2-3 air conditioners that hum away day and night, 1-2 flat panel (40" and above) televisions and those big bulky furniture that you find in these parts of the country. From the way they walk and talk, it is inconceivable that they will be hard pressed to pay their maintenance bills. If paying maintenance bills is any indicator of their fiscal discipline, one can imagine the state of cash flows. I am neither being judgmental here, nor am I advocating any fiscal discipline. All I am interested is from a consumer behavior angle. All along, I used to believe that people in Dilli have loads of money from going back to generations and that they are heavy duty consumers. Not all of them work in companies and a significant part of the populace is self employed. But this does not differentiate the two consumer groups as they all flash multiple credit cards, have the latest of cars and they shop big- be it attire, groceries, consumer durables, cars and even takeaways and visit to parlors for that matter. They carry themselves with the air of an autocrat and they present a flawless face that conceals all the structural cracks beneath.

If this sample size is indicative of the upwardly mobile or upper class Indian populace, there is a strong cause of concern. If the expenditures are greater than incomes and financing this gap is through credit cards, personal loans and market borrowings, we might be facing yet another financial crisis in India,one that affects the segment of the population which is supposed to drive growth. Mind you, the economic revival is riding on the shoulders of the 300 mn strong Indian middle class to which these folks belong. And with stories of people losing jobs and foreclosures showing up across the metros, we might have a danger lurking here. However,it is very well possible, that this is a typical “Dilli Sho Sha” and is not applicable to the rest of the country. In such a case I will be relieved and will only be interested to see how long this will go on? Will it ever blow up on their face once? Or will they be able to tide over these cracks like they have in the past?

Time shall be the judge!

What is it with Maharashtra?

2009-07-08T18:09:00.008+05:30

I have always wondered why a state which is called "Maharashtra" never manages to portray its greatness but rather prides itself in coming across as a marginalized state that never got its due. This despite being the most urbanized, 2nd most industrialized and third largest state in the country.Perhaps one of the few states to have revenue surplus (2007) and last but not the least, the state that can lay claim to the crown jewel of the country,Aamchi Mumbai-the teeming metropolis,the maximum city, the commercial and entertainment capital of south asia.

Historically, the state has a strong heritage of rulers and dynasties with the most recent and renowned being the proud marathas, who under the aegis of Chatrapati Shivaji defied the great Mughal Empire. The Maratha presence can be seen far and wide in the country from Uttaranchal in the north to Tanjore and Madurai in the South ( the Naiks). The state has had a long lineage of leaders including Babasaheb Ambedkar, Lokamanya Tilak, Veer Sawarkar whose names reverberate in every household thanks to the history text books. Marathis are highly gifted in the domain of arts, performing and otherwise,its no surprise that even today Pula Deshpande's poetry holds relevance to the facets of life and that the marathi theatre is still vibrant producing the likes of Nana Patekar who have won critical acclaim beyond borders. The tribute to Maharashtra will be incomplete without mentioning the two Kar's of Indian cricket, I am not talking about Agarkar here,whose exploits are pretty much off the field, but of Gavaskar and Tendulkar who in thier times have been nothing short of demi gods in the cricketing world. The latter rated as perhaps the best ever by all cricketing legends and of course by the records that he continues to set!

With such a strong cultural heritage,economic prowess and geographical vantage, Maharashtra should be a proud state with its people holding their head high and setting an example for the rest of India to follow. But alas, that day has never come and the state and its people seem to be going into retrograde. The Marathi Maanus ( Sons of Soil) cry has become louder than ever before and people from other parts of the country are no longer welcome in this state. Much of this has been attributed to the influx of migrants to Mumbai and the marginalization of the average maharashtrian but there is more than what meets the eye here. Agreed that the enterprising gujarati, the educated tamil, the thrifty bihari, the hardworking bhaiyya and the industrious mallu have displaced the laid back maharashtrian from many a jobs but then, Mumbai was never a bastion of the locals but was built by migrants. Perhaps the only Maharashtrians who can lay claim to the island city are the Koli's (fisherfolk) who were living of the sea even before the British set foot. The only two communities that never threatened the average Maharashtrian are the maca pao's who are generally contended with a clerical job in the day and some fish curry and rice to go with whiskey in the evening and, the rich parsi's who never really bothered the locals as their dwindling numbers and rich ancestry rendered them spoilt.

All was well in the city of a million dreams till the late 70's when the older of the Thackeray formed the Shiv Sena and started the agitation against South Indians which is possibly the first ugly riots in Mumbai since Independence. This was a watershed event which galvanized the underlying resentment in the average maharashtrian and the wily Shiv Sena gained maximum political mileage out of this ill feeling. They strengthened thier position across the state and over the next couple of decades became the power to reckon with in the region. The Hindu- Muslim clashes of the 90's, the widespread riots, the subsequent bombings and the bloodbath that followed are better not re-stated nor repeated. One decade passed without much of rancour and then came the attack on the Bihari migrants, be it at the railway recruitment examination at Thane or at the construction site in Nagpur, the poor migrants from the gangetic plains where targeted and hounded till they packed up and left. With the power of the Sena waning and infighting reaching new levels, leaders such as Narayan Rane and the charismatic and fiery Raj Thackeray broke out from the Sena and went on to forward thier own agendas. Narayan Rane went to the congress and along with him went the stranglehold the Sena had on the Konkan belt . Raj Thackeray formed his own outfit, the now (in)famous MNS. Hijacking the Sena's plank of Marathi Maanus, Raj and his band of hooligans unleashed a slew of attacks on the immigrant community which led to shameful scenes that were flashed across the country on the TV screens. As I write, Raj Thackeray has been sent to judicial custody for his role in the railway recruitment board attacks. The now humbled Sena has decided to go back to its roots and is trying to get back the plank hijacked by MNS, which means that more violence is to come against the migrants.

The past week has seen a couple of comical events, one enacted by the Maharashtra government and the second, by....er you guessed it, the maharashtra government. First the Maha govt,ruled that 90% of seats institutions of higher learning will be reserved for the students of the state board. That effectively left 10% of seats to CBSE and ICSE students who for no fault of thiers found themselves shut out of institutions which they otherwise would have got into. The lame argument by the government was that the other boards were liberal in paper corrections and award high scores where as the Maha board was more frugal with marks. Thanks to our judiciary, whose primary job these days is to check the legislature from running amok, struck down this pathetic reservation logic. Today, after much deliberations and dilly dallying the Maharashtra govt, named the Bandra-Worli sea link, as Rajiv Gandhi sealink ( yeah, yet another Rajiv Gandhi...arent they bored of it??). This crown jewel of Indian construction prowess was turning out to be a thorn in the crown for the Maharashtra government as it was under tremendous pressure from the various quarters of the Maarathi Maanus to dedicate the sea link to Veer Sawarkar, the late freedom fighter. Though I agree that dedicating any new project to the Gandhi family is too cliched, bringing in the marathi angle to everything is equally pathetic. With 3 more sea links, a metro and an international airport slated to come up in the next decade, I am certain that the debate would already be on to come up with the shortlist of Maharashtrian leaders after whom these structures should be named. I wouldn't be surprised to find some Thackerays, Pawars and Deshmukhs in the race.

But,setting aside my cynicism, I believe that its time that the average Joe or is it Shinde or Ranade or whomever it might be from the great state reflect on what has become of a once proud community, with all the things that they need to be proud of brushed under the carpet, only the negative divisive sentiment is being propagated,yielding nothing to the public but resentment and a sense of despair. This is pure vote bank politics adopted by short sighted regional players who neither want to see the larger picture nor want the populace to see.I just hope that the moderates in the community wake up to this reality of thier culture and heritage being hijacked for the personal agenda of a few and put the cart back on track before it is too late. Hopefully,Maharashtra wakes up to the reality that it can truly harness its potential and become the model state of development only by being an inclusive melting pot, a california 2.0 if you will and not by being an isolated and reclusive state like North Korea!

Post from hell...

2009-06-27T18:22:00.004+05:30

-Ever been close to a blast furnace in a melt shop?

-Ever been near a seething volcano?

-Ever had a brush with forest fire?

If the answer to any one of the above is yes, you would understand how it feels to live in the millenium city a.k.a Gurgaon these past weeks. It has been pure torment to the residents, thanks to

- A soaring temperature, has not been less than 32 deg c min with consistent upper ranges of 42 deg c.

- A humidity that has decided to descend on these parched lands instead of the rains and makes every day a nice, sweaty and drippy experience.

- A deteriorating power situation where the EB cannot supply even 70% of the load, leading to outages, power amidst trips and almost a complete dependence on diesel power gensets( sudhir and kirloskar are laughing thier way to the bank) which are noisy, emit gases that arent really green.
- The loo or the hot winds that blow in unannounced anytime in the day and kick up the dust that has broken off the caked mud and deposits it in our houses and cars.

- Builders who have misinterpreted transparency and made thier buildings completely pervious to heat and light, almost 90% transmission of the two, thanks to complete glazing on all sides and use of building blocks that are not thermally insulating.

- The prevelant greed of the creature of comfort junta here- the average gurgaonite cant live without AC you see, AC in our living room, AC in our bedroom, AC in our bathroom,AC in our storeroom, AC for our dogs, AC for our maids, AC for our car driver- yeah who keep the engine running in the basement, AC for well,..... EVERYONE!

On the whole- there seems to be a major conspiracy hatched by the elements of nature society and the government that has taken shape and is determined to drive all of us migrants away, Indian and Phoren included. Possibly called HGS....( Haryana Gram Sena) and with a slogan that goes like this...Gurgaon for Gaonwallas

Jokes apart, the model of development ( er... what?) i.e. of turning farmland into apartment complexes and malls without sewer lines, power, water and roads doesnt seem to be going anywhere. The newly formed Gurgaon Municipal Corporation has no source of revenues and an initiative to get property tax out of residents here has flopped with all the kothiwallas putting a big lock on thier properties when the tax collector walks by. As more an more complexes crop up, selling dreams of world class living and affordable housing, the situation is becoming quite the opposite. God save us all- well in the event that god will be busy saving much more needy people in the sub-saharan africa and the Andes, it is best that you move on from here....

Hail the Millenium City!

In the Abode of God..

2009-06-24T14:34:00.046+05:30

Ever dreamt of getting away from the throbbing humanity of the cities we live in and get to a place where all you can hear is the howling wind and all you can smell is the scent of the wild flowers and moist woods. Ever wanted to go to a place where automobiles don’t reach and loud merrymakers are taboo? Ever wanted to be in a place where the food you eat comes straight from the backyard garden? If your answer to all of the above is “Yes” then pack up your bags and head up to Jilling Estate in Uttarakhand. Located on a hillside amidst thick jungle of rhododendron and pines amidst other local vegetation, the estate is a good 30km from Bhimtal on a road less travelled leading to the Padampuri, valley of clouds and beyond. Upon reaching the village of Matial, one has to let go of the automobile, parking it near the grocery store which sensibly stocks up mineral water and carbonated drinks and take the 2 hour trek to the estate. Be warned that this trek can be quite an ask for us city slickers, whose definition of fitness is running on the treadmill in air-conditioned comfort and using sugar free in the innumerable cups of coffee we down and choosing thin crust Pizza for dinner instead of regular. Of course, there is the courteous Ram Lall and steed- guddu who will ease your load by transporting your luggage up to the estate. As long as you can carry your own weight and have decent will power, you could make the climb in just under two hours.

The trek in itself is a revelation, as we walk up the cobbled pathway that rises through the hills and we pass quite a few hamlets en-route, with the cheerful occupants stepping ou t of their houses in colorful garb and curious kids waving at us, the climb doesn’t seem as hard as it is. Another hour of trudging along the path lined with dried leaves and fallen cones of the pine trees that line the forest, taking some five water and breather breaks, we reach a fork from where you head up to the primary guest house where the lucky ones are housed. The other road leads to the house of Mr.Lall which is home to his family and an army of faithful’s- his dogs and also to the other guest houses that dot the property. The knowledge that the destination is near propels one forward with zest and enthusiasm and we reach the guest house in no time, the slope roofed single storey house sits atop a clearing overlooking the valley with the wind blowing across its face steadily. On the other side of the clearing lies the estate of another family who were fortunate enough to get a slice of this heavenly land. The guest house was the residence of Mr.Lall’s parents, the late John and Hope Lall, who being steadfast lovers of their land, still remain there, buried behind their house along with their loved dogs in a small clearing of land which has serenity written all over it. A short walk behind the guest house takes you to the hill that continues rising and a five minute trek will lead you to the highest timber cottage in the estate. With valleys on three sides and the sun setting directly ahead, this cottage is perhaps the best of the lot but does not have a kitchen and you are deprived of the quick bites that you can get in the main guest house. Step behind the cottage and you enter the pristine jungle which envelops the hill. A five minute trail on the path into wilderness leads one to the edge of the estate which beholds an arresting view of the valley.

The guest house is quite self contained with a couple of rooms, a reading room with a fire place well stacked with books, a dining area which opens out to the verandah in front and a kitchen which has a century old coal fired grill stove. The housekeeping crew has been working in the estate for over 15 years and apart from taking care of guests and the cottages they also ensure that the estate is one of the best maintained places in the region. The crew also includes the able cook Ramesh whose culinary skills are second to none. In fact, the food you get to eat rivals the fantastic panorama, the howling wind, the nature trail and the illustrious Mr.Lall himself in the race to be crowned the best thing about Jilling estate contest.

You start your day with a sumptuous breakfast spread including scrumptious parathas of aloo, mooli or onion and Omlettes to die for, along with a never ending supply of chai. Head out into the jungle and spend time in the wilderness, watch the monkeys running amok and the woodpecker carve away the pine tree, walk over to the ridge that overlooks the valley and let the wind push you back in a manner that will ensure your safety and be lost in nature till hunger pangs bring you back for a lunch which is a nutritionists delight with the most tender of all chicken cooked in a masala of local spices, a simple yet tasty vegetable made out of the local garden pickings and a Dal which makes a foodie see god in lentils. To go with these you have homemade chapattis and long grain rice which is so soft that eating it seems a mortal sin.

Post lunch,lounge around in the reading room with a book of your choice soaking up the cozy confines, splay out in the short wall in front of the house looking at the sky with the gentle wind caressing you to sleep, head out to the nearest tree with a mat in hand and allow the chirping birds to send you into a well deserves snooze, or just head back into the wilderness on a new trail which is bound to be as exciting as the previous one, the options are just never ending in this incredible place. By evening, Anil wakes you up with some steaming hot pakodas and spicy chai which makes the perfect evening snack to have as you sit on the ledge and look out into the valley. As the sun sets behind the hills, the lights in the far away villages light up one by one and soon you have a twilight which will make you forget everything that you have left behind in the city and make you compose a Haikou or two. As dusk settles in, one has the choice of lighting up a bonfire in the lawn alongside or cozy up in the reading room to the small yet efficient fireplace.

No matter what you do, be it read up a book in the flickering light of the fireplace or get together with friends for a hand of rummy along with a bottle of vodka to go with or run to the lines with the Jilling crew to fight forest fires that strike during summers, I am certain that you will come back with a story or two to tell. As you wind down on your drinks and te-te-te, the incredible smell that titillates your gastronomy wafts in through the door from the kitchen. As your senses lead you to the dinner table, the sight of the signature jilling dinner greets you. A simple yet exemplary fare containing a vegetable, tender mutton cooked in gravy, moong dal tadka and of course rice and roti to go with. As you gorge on the delicacies in your plate, the temperature outside continues to fall and the interiors become much cozier than before. By the time you are done dinner, there is just one thing in everyone’s mind, a good night’s sleep. As you hit the sack, all that determination to read a page or two vaporizes and you reach a level of stupor which can be called the closest to perfect sleep.

Just as no day is complete without a good dinner, any trip to Jilling is never complete without meeting Mr.Steve Lall and his family. There is a sense of Joie de vivre about him and even a ten minute chat with the man will shore up one’s spirit. The work that Mr.Lall and his family along with the trusted aides have done to preserve the pristine environs of his estate and beyond is truly inspirational and is a must see for all those nature buffs. He is also an avid motorcycle enthusiast and has travelled all over the subcontinent in his thumper (Royal Enfield aka Bullet) and will have many stories to share on his travails. To sum it up, a trip to Jilling might perhaps be the next best thing to nature in the lower Himalayas where one can surrender completely to nature, forget the rest of the world and baggage that comes with it, eat food meant for the gods, live life that one dreams of and on the whole “Feel like God”.

P.S: I shall not mention that you need to drive through hell to reach this heaven. Well after all, one can appreciate heaven better after being through hell.

Maid's law and IT Investments!

2009-06-08T21:54:00.003+05:30

I know, I know, I can see the brickbats that are being hurled at me for putting two disparate dots, that too one in mars and one in moon and expecting the reader to connect them. Well, for starters the two subjects in the title represent the very dichotomy that represents modern day India. On the one hand we are claiming our rightful place in the lofty world of high-tech and on the other, we are fostering the feudal practice of household help. Yeah okie, I can see the upwardly mobile DINKS, DISKs, DITKs, SINKs ( for the uninitated, these are acronyms for various combinations of marital and paternal statuses available) getting ready to take me to the cleaners for touching upon this incredibly sensitive topic, but this is not what I am going to discuss in this post, and you can save your arguments, rotten eggs and tomatoes for the dedicated " Maid in Millenium City" post to be released shortly.

Coming to the topic, Circa 2009 AD, Location: Our apartment in Vatika City, more specifically- our kitchen. As I was giving the vessels that were to get into the dishwasher for a hot wash a customary rinse, it dawned upon me that no matter what technology we invested in our home upkeep, read as Vaccum cleaner, Washing machine, Dishwasher etc, our maid cost has not come down but has gone up over the past three years. I did a quick revisiting of our maid spend and realised that our expenditure on maids has grown at an alarming, 100% on a Y-O-Y basis. To sum it up in laymans terms, "For every passing year, the money spent by a household on the house maid doubles" ( on constant currencies and inflation). Voila, this I would call "Maid's Law" henceforth, as a dedication to the millions of maids toiling around in the homes across our glorious country. Hey, thinking back, the very criteria of making a purchase decision on these white goods was to nullify the dependence on our maid. We looked at increasing salary costs of maid Vs the TCO of white goods and decided that the additional spend would be justified by the freedom that we would get to clean the house at our convenience, wash our clothes at our convenience and Vaccum the house at our convenience ( though the dusty conditions of gurgaon mean that we vaccum for our convenience). But then it never happened and the maid remained, ( ever seen Independence day? ".....I repeat...the target remains.....)" not only did the maid remain but also has thrived and grown her service portfolio and thereby the spend.

Here comes the analogy to the IT investments, I have been working in the Enterprise Software space for over 4 years now, both in the On-Demand and the On-Premise domains. Whenever we sell to a customer, the key value driver is that we can offset FTE costs ( tech mumbo jumbo for Full Time Equivalent), simply put, install our software for running your business processes and you could do the job much better with one employee in place of ten. Yeah, I know, I can hear you screaming that this is oversimplifying technology investments which go much beyond in optimizing your business process, increase customer service, reduce SG&A, reduce cost of capital etc etc. Lets leave all the blah aside and just focus on the brass and tacks.

We spent 50k approx to automate our kitchen and laundry (for the lack of a better word) expecting that we would reduce the monthly outflow of Rs.800 and not to mention the liberation from the erratic schedules of our maid. So, we saw increased cash flows and improved process efficiencies, i.e. better wash quality, reduced dust levels etc .Pretty much akin to an company investing 5 Mn USD in an enterprise suite to automate, integrate and optimize thier business processes, expecting 1000 FTE's freed up ( assuming) along the way and adding the cost savings to the bottomline. Coming back to our maid scene, now that the white goods are in place and duties divided between me and my wife, I get the vaccum cleaner and washing machine, she gets the dishwasher, we need to let go of the maid. We decide that we will break the bad news (layoff) to her the next morning. That evening we get back home and finish our chores as planned and start dinner preparations which seem much beyond the energy reserves of us ( Yeah, as most yuppie DINKs, we dont work out and live on Red Bull!) ,my wife rants that how better it would be if the maid can cut the vegetables in the morning for us, which would amount to an hour saved in the kitchen by evening. Also she starts wondering if she can ask the maid to roll a few chappatis so that all we need to do is heat it up on the tawa. As I see my cost saving dream crumbling in front of me, to add a cinematic touch, comes the fact that our maid had watered the plants when we had gone out of town for a week ( tears...), the maid had gone beyond her call of duty and added value to our household and in the process delighted her customer ( My Wife).

Switch back to the organization, the VP operations and VP HR realise that the 1000 FTE that has been freed up is quite skilled and 80% of them are versatile and can be reskilled, also, the team had pulled together to fulfill a major government order when the remaining two business units reneged on thier promise to meet half of the demand. Now that order has led to two more high value orders for much more sophisticated products and the business unit has put in a request for additional head count. Here comes the AHA moment, the VP Operations and VP HR decide against looking at adding headcount from outside when there is talent within the organization. So, the 800 odd FTE goes right back in, albeit higher up the value chain ( not to mention-at a higher cost).Switch back to my home, now my maid makes a good 1500 bucks, more than doubled her salary, does sweeping, mopping, cutting vegetables and rolls rotis, has definitely moved up the value chain and guess who gets to do the vessels and run the washing machine- Yours Truly!

As things stand today, with a 5 Mn USD deal in the bag, the AE of the software company is already planning the next upsell for the coming quarter, the Customer and Supplier management applications for another million dollars. My maid is working on a proposal to offer a the complete suite of housekeeping solutions, including running the dishwasher, vaccum cleaner and the washing machine. The very equipment that we invested in to render her redundant!

Slumdog Millionaire-2

2009-06-02T14:40:00.007+05:30

The memories of Slumdog Millioanaire winning accolades at the Golden Globes, at the Oscars , at the various film festivals across the globe are still fresh and the crew hasnt yet gotten over the Euphoria of the rants and raves from audiences and members of the academy alike, comes a spate of incidents which have not just vaporized the Euphoria but also left the crew and the wider world with a bitter taste. Yet again we Indians have proven to the whole wide world that we will remain Slumdogs, irrespective of the Oscars we win and accolades we get.

First was the story of the parents of Rubina Ali intending to sell her off to journalists posing as representatives of a millionaire from the Middle East . Though the father refuted the claim that he just wanted a bright future for his daughter, the incident sent shockwaves across the country and child rights group pitched in with battle cries of "exploitation." Though the British tabloid was downright dirty in exploiting the needy, the father is no less culpable as wanting a brighter future for the daughter is not equitable to agreeing to send her away to the Middle East for a healthy sum. Though the adoption stories of the wester starlets, i.e Angelina Jolie and Madonna have received a lot of bad press and brickbats from child rights campaigners, this story of Rubina Ali takes the cake. Immediately after the incident, the media trained its guns on Danny Boyle for not doing enough for the kids ( huh! where is the connect) and he, being the gentleman he is responded immediately by setting up the Jai Ho trust.

Next came the story of the home of Mohammed Ismail, yet another Slumdog star, being demolished by the municipal authorities and the media was quick to pounce upon it and scream "exploitation". Things took an ugly turn when the child's father complained that Danny Boyle hasnt done enough for the kids and had taken advantage of thier poverty and benefited from it. The fact that the Jai Ho trust had located an apartment for the family and they are moving in shortly has been completely ignored by the media and its projected as if its an obligation that had to fulfilled by Danny Boyle. Now the poor Mr.Boyle is faced with finding Rubina Ali's family a new home after her hutment got razed by the municipal authorities. Claims of exploitation are flying around this time too and the Jai Ho trust is working overtime to address this emergency.

My question is this, why should Danny Boyle pay for the lives of the actors? Is it because he gave them a window out to the world which they otherwise wouldnt have even peeped into? Is it because he took them to the Oscars and expose them to the gliteratti lifestyle?, Is it because he was kind hearted to set up a trust to ensure that these kids get the required education so that they arent left behind?. I dont understand why these kids qualify to be taken care of by a film maker and not thier parents. Though I agree that kids should never ever grow up in slums and deserve the right to housing, I dont see the reason why these kids, by virtue of acting in a film automatically acquire the right to better life over millions of kids who live in slums all across the country. What happens to those kids who will never get to see a cinema in real life, forget acting in a movie?, What happens to those kids who are orphaned and left fend for themselves in the mean streets? There were also hundred other kids who acted in the movie as sidekicks, background artistes etc, why dont they deserve a house? If this were the case, then Danny Boyle would either be bankrupt or end up becoming a builder in Aamchi Mumbai. What right does the Indian media have to cry foul and exploitation when they are first ones to exploit the vulnerability of the common man and underprivileged.

What is at work here is called "GREED", uniquitously Indian trait which paints any do-gooder as an exploitable person. The families of Rubina Ali and Mohammed Ismail have learnt from the sting operation that Danny Boyle is a naive foreigner and can be exploited. All they needed was a trigger and with the BMC providing it, with the stage to play upon provided by the Indian media and the audience provided by the vast reach of th cable networks, all that unfolded was a theatrical drama which Danny Boyle succumbed to. Inspite of using the movie as a launchpad and working hard to help thier kids achieve a better life, the greedy kin of these slumdog stars have resorted to an easy but dirty way out. Use the emotional bond the Director developed with his stars to extract favour after favour out of the guy.

No wonder that many NGO's which come with a noble intention of helping the poor in India pack up and leave in a couple of years. It is a classic case of the exploited turning the exploiter and there is no liberation from the rut we are in till the time there is a fundamental shift in mentality. Blame it on the lack of opportunities, cut throat competition, finite resources, casteism, exploitation etc etc but the truth remains that Indians always look for the easy way out, anything that requires the least bit effort and if possible no effort at all. We pride ourselves in biting off the hand that feeds one and complain that there is no one to feed us. Where as, we should be ashamed of our misdemeanor, our tendency to exploit those who patronize us and our tendency to kick the very ladder that helped us scale a wall. As Rubina Ali gets a new home, praises will be showered on Danny Boyle and in no time will they turn into allegations as soon as the home of the next slumdog kid is razed in Juhu- JAI HO!

Not so General anymore....

2009-06-02T13:14:00.005+05:30

If someone had told Alfred Sloan that the General Motors he grew from the days of William Durant and so efficiently made it the management case study of the century is to file for bankruptcy protection, he would have deemed the person as insane. But with the events of yesterday, I am certain he would be turning in his grave. The beacon of American Capitalism, a company that built the modern day America and by putting mobility within the reach of the average american family, a company that was vital in the emergence of the USA as a power during the 2nd world war and later as a true super power in the post war era, a company that wielded immense power in the corridors of power in Washington with more lobbyists than legislators, a company which was instrumental in fighting any legislation that hinted at increased gas mileage, a company that made modern day Americans addicted to gas gusslers-the symbolism of excesses of the USofA is no longer there, officially, GM filed for bankruptcy protection to restructure and emerge as a leaner outfit in the next 60-90 days.

GM with around $82bn in assets and $172 bn in liabilities will shed 20,000 jobs, a dozen plants, 4 brands and will emerge as a leaner and efficient entity by the end of the bankruptcy period. The european and asian operations will continue unhindered thanks to the rescue of Magna group which has pipped Fiat and bought out GM Europe with assurances from the German government and GM Asia is a profitable entity in its own right. The bankrputcy is also likely to have allied job losses to the tune of 100,000 people from the closure of around 6000 dealerships across the country. The brands to go from the GM stable are Hummer, Pontiac, Saturn and Saab which will leave with yet to be renamed company with less than 20% of market share in the US market- a first ever in its history. The American state will be the biggest shareholder with around 60%, the Canadian state with 12%, the UAW with 17% and 10% with the bondholders. The holders of common stock which is trading at around 75 cents a share will lose all thier investment in the organization. It does help that the US government has secured commitments from the bondholders that they will not block the bankruptcy proceedings in the court and this is certain to expedite the process. All going well, this might be the most largest and least painful of bankrputcy filing in the US. In isolation this will be the 4th largest bankruptcy filing in the history of the USA. This is also the first time the government of United States will end up holding a major stake in two of the big three automakers, GM and Chrysler.

This also marks the end of the free market theory that the US has stood by, the theory that the efficiency of the market will drive the economy and the government will be only a facilitator in the process. This intervention, however eloquently defended by President Obama will still be giving an uneasy feelings in the GOP and beyond. There will be some who believe that the era of real capitalism is over and a socio-capitalist state is emerging in the US where the government owns 2 of the three major banks, top two home loan lenders, two of of the big three automakers.

No matter what anybody says, now the US and its auto industry is at the cusp of change. A change where effeciency and sustainability will drive the growth and not bigger and powerful vehicles. With Fiat bringing in small car platforms through Chrysler, with GM coming up with the commercial production of the Chevy volt and other small cars from its stable in Asia, with Ford focusing on expanding its hybrid offering, the automobile market is going to be redefined. Add to this the Toyotas and Hondas who have been there and done that, with the German giants jumping into the blue drive ( thats thier version of Green) we are looking at an Industry whose future looks not only promising but also sustainable way into the future

The death of the small Tech Co.

2009-04-21T10:27:00.003+05:30

What is happening in the technology world? Nimble companies that used to embody the very spirit of the domain are passe. More and more organizations are moving away from a homogenous product/service offering to a heterogenous bundle of products/service companies....er in some cases they just dont make any logical sense apart from an increase to the bottomline.

HP picked up EDS, Cisco is going to make servers and now Oracle is buying out Sun Microsystems. Well- these companies are looking more and more like IBM- whose business is hard to describe, whose market is hard to define, a product range that encompasses a whole range of software, hardware, services, research, infrastructure ( tech) etc. These companies are trying to be the one stop shop for most if not all technology needs of any modern day corporation across the globe. Whether it is the slowdown in thier traditional product markets or the low valuations of the current recessionary era, the behemoths are looking at acquisitions with an increased sense of urgency. The only technology company that has missed this acquisition boat is Microsoft, whose efforts to acquire Yahoo was thwarted by the Yahoo board under the stewardship of Jerry Yang; the co-founder.

While HP picked up EDS and its data center business, it was to counter IBM in the corporate data centers market. Though the market is known for its razor thin margins and EDS had a significant debt on its balance sheet, HP saw the bundling of its products and the data center as the silver bullet to the troubles of running data centers. Cisco managed to tick off HP and IBM by announcing its foray into the server business which it says would consolidate its position in the network gear market, looks like the servers have become a logical extension of the networking world. And now Oracle- with its unprecedented acquisition of the ailing Sun whose only claim for fame these days are Java- the universally adopted programming language and Solaris- the Unix based OS which is a big hit in the low cost servers space. Though Scott McNealy and Larry Ellison go back a long way and remain good friends ( relatively speaking in the hyper comp tech market) , it is not just the relationship that has sealed the deal. Though Oracle has gone without a big ticket acquisition for over 3 years, the last was the embattled Peoplesoft acquisition, buying out Sun came out of the blue for even the close followers of the company. It is interesting to see how Oracle manages its relationship with HP and IBM who are its partners in the database business, now that it has become a competitor with the acquisition of Sun.

All said and done, all these developments have ushered a new era in the lofty world of High-Tech and very soon customers large and small will be left with fewer choices to address thier tech needs as these huge behemoths swoop down with one stop shop wagons and do million dollar deals encompassing hardware, software and in times to come even Sanitaryware.....

Of Apartment Complexes and Coalition Politics!

2009-04-16T09:04:00.006+05:30

This morning, with the pleasant chirping of birds filling my ears, I woke up to a long crack in my bedroom wall. The crack had appeared out of nowhere from the right side of the wall and ran for about 6 feet inching its way to the beam. As I lay still pondering over the emergence of these uninvited visitors, in came the commentary on NDTV on the elections that are kicking off today. This ofcourse was courtesy my invited visitors- read in-laws. I cannot pinpoint whether it was the early morning air or my half dazed brain, but a sudden flash and a sense of realization dawned upon me as to how similar the two were despite being as different as chalk and charcoal, Yes I am talking about "Apartment Complexes "and "Coalition Politics". Two elements in the landscape of modern day India that have become permanent fixtures and will possibly never go away in the near to distant future. Now- lets get to the specifics:

- Both are thrown at the hapless citizens of the country who do not have a choice in what they get but have to make do with whatever these maker's choose to provide them and believe that thier choice is somehow better than the others. While in reality, they are all wolves in sheep skin.

- Both come with lofty promises, offer amenities that are at par with the developed world, unparalleled security, uninterrupted power, water, education ( read schools/creches) ,well laid roadsand the works. But in reality all they offer is a false sense of well being by shutting out the slums from view, power and water amidst interruptions for which we pay a high premium, roads that become potholed after a short rain and not to mention our very own ignorant brethern around us.....you get the drift right?

- Both have an underlying structure that holds them up, in the apartment complex its the RCC frame and in Politics- its the constitution which necessiates that there be an elected government.

- Both have one major constituent which tries to hold the remaining elements together- this being taken up by cement concrete and the single largest party, in either case.

- Both have elements that are by nature do not gel with the major constituent and at the first available opportunity come off leaving the whole setup in a quandary. To name some are the "Plaster of Paris" in apartment complexes and the "Left/Regional Parties" in coalition politics.

- Both have been conceived and developed to profit the groups that had the vision to exploit the needs and gaps in the country- political and infrastructural.

- Both promise to provide a stable environment for atleast a decade where as in real life, they hardly last more than 5 years, that too not without some major resurrection efforts within the first 3 years.

- Both suck up capital from the people who place thier trust and hard earned money in them only to be shortchanged once the election/construction is complete.

As I realize, the more I think of it, the more parallels I can draw and its best that I leave it here and get going with the hard facts of life. Gotta go chase up with the developer of my complex to fix up these cracks which I am sure, will get done despite the time lag involved. I wish I could do the same three years from now when the post poll alliance- whatever it might be, is running our country to ground while its constituents remain busy squabbling amongst themselves and trying to usurp the other on every bill and debate in the parliament.

God save us all!

Xyloed.....

2009-04-02T11:13:00.008+05:30

At a time when I was bemoaning the routine that has set into my life with nothing changing- not even the food in the cafeteria, came a call from above, read- my boss, letting me know that he had a Mahindra Xylo- the newest kid in the Oh-so boring MUV segment coming in for a test drive. It was a wake up call for the slumbering auto enthusiast in me an I jumped at the opportunity to tag along.

Just a prelude to the MUV segment- which has been an utterly dull and tasteless segment which has been kept alive just by the multitudes of taxi operators across the country and yes- the call centre cabbies of the modern day India. Most Indians of my generation, grew up on Ambassadors which used to come once in two years to ferry the family for the 4-5 day road trip on LTC trips of our PSU employed parents. Though the venerable Ambys were good enough for nuclear families- smal and large, for the joint family to go out we needed something bigger- more metal, more benches and not necessarily a bigger engine. Names that I can recall are Standard, Matador and the Mahindra Voyager. Then came the segment bender- the Tata Sumo, it ruled the market till the Toyota brought the 1970s looking but really gritty and dependable Toyota Qualis. Toyota almost killed off the Sumo while Maruti and GM joined the fray with Versa ( who??) and the Tavera. Tavera carved up a niche for itself amongst the utilitarian commuters while families owned Qualises. Just when the scene was quietening down a little, Toyota went ahead and did the unthinkable- pulled out the popular Qualis and brought in the Innova at a pricepoint that was significantly higher and quality that was aeons ahead, and the rest is ofcourse history. Five years on and with the exception of the Sumo Grande which was launched last year and has got a lukewarm response, the scene has been pretty cold in the segment. And then the Xylo came along......

Mahindra have done a good job in the whole launch process of the Xylo, starting off with good teaser campaigns- er but claiming that the era of sedans is over is an overkill!. The car's design process was promoted as being inside-out with the passenger comfort being the key criterion. On hindsight I think that they came up with this campaign to divert the attention from the not to pleasing exterior with a very quirky and extremely ugly nose with the M logo stuck on a grill that appears to have survived a shearing force from a 8 + richter quake. Allright- I shall kill the sceptic in me, set aside my biases and get to the review.

The Xylo we got for the TD was a top end one- E8 as its christened and had Java brown interiors. One look around the exterior and it is one big box pretending to look hip. The squashed up grill and waistline that is not so slender does not make it a looker from any angle- but heck, you dont buy the Xylo for its looks. If you wanted a stunner at the same price- there is the Linea. The big boxy exterior sets the tone for the interior which translates to lots of space. Though the Xylo is roomy enough for 6, it will be a squeeze for 7. With a 2-2-3 and 2-3-3 seating options, the Xylo can lug around large families with ease. Dont ask me where to put those big suitcases and food dabbas, they will have to come in the 2nd car or get a luggage carrier installed. Leg room is abundant for all seats including......here is goes.....the last row. The row that has always been neglected in the SUV/MUV segement. I always wondered if it was designed to put people in thier place in the hierarchy- be it at home or in the workplace. I have travelled extensively in the last row on Qualises, Scorpios and the holy grail- Innovas. But I always ended up bruised and battered at the end of the journey. With the Xylo- those days are over. Even the underlings can now travel in comfort with thier own AC went. How cool is that.

Ergonomics are top notch in the Xylo with generous lumbar support provided on all seats, making those road trips and pilgrimages a breeze. The flat bed front seats can really spoil one and even the last row makes you feel snug and comfortable even when the bada sahib ( themiddle seat passenger) reclines his back rest. Lots of space for knick knacks, cup holders, trays for meals make the Xylo a liveable MUV. I am glad that Mahindra have done away with the "Ball Freeze" AC vents for the rear seat and made them roof lined vents that are adjustable. The 2nd row vents dont get the luxury of adjusters though. Plastics and Fabric quality can be a lot better as it screams- Budget at you. I dont even want to think how the vinyls will look, but hey you can go for the leather pack at just an additional 32k which gives steering, and gear wrap, seat covers etc etc. If the ads are anything to go by, the Xylo in the leather pack will be the one to own. 3 way adjustable drivers seat and tiltable steering make finding the sweet spot quite easy and with a ground clearance that is higher than the Scorpio, one feels like god behind the wheel- albet a lesser one than the Safari.

Now- lets get down to business, the drive itself. The 2.5L M-Eagle engine outputs a healthy 115 odd BHP and a meaty torque that is available at very low RPMs and is fed across the mid range. This makes the Xylo a sprighly performer and the vehicle sprints happily from the signal. The gear throw is midway and 60 comes up in around 6 seconds, going through the grunty gearbox, you will be clipping 120 k's in a respectable 15 odd seconds. At over 110 kmph, the Xylo is out of its comfort zone with the high centre of gravity and weight distribution making it prone to wobble. Body roll is evident around corners but one doesnt get thrown around as in the older scorpios. The NVH levels are quite controlled but the cabin is not entirely silent, the engine sound still intrudes and without the music system on, you cannot have a quiet sleep. I guess the quality of plastics and mats are partly to blame but then one doesnt expect a Mahindra give one a quiet for Zen interior. One thing is for sure- the engine and gearbox will never let you down and you keep cruising with your passengers in total comfort for hours together. Ride quality is exceptional in the middle and 2nd row of seats and one can comfortably read a book sitting in the 2nd row. The suspension does an exceptional job in soaking up bumps when travelling over broken surfaces but can be a let down over wobbly surfaces at high speeds. Unlike an Innova which you can swing around corners and hairpins while climbing hills, the Xylo will not dive into corners and come flying out,keeping that smile intact on your face but then- we arent talking about a performance car here but a people mover. Quintessential of all Mahindras, the Xylo is strongly built and tips the scale at around 1.8 tonnes. Though sturdy from the use of steel and seat belts for all seats, the Indian customer has been shortchanged again. ABS and Airbags are not even an option. I see a gaping hole there when Mahindra is targeting the uber consumer ( if thier ads are anything to go by) and repatriates who have come to expect Airbags and ABS at a 9 lac price point. Speaking to the sales rep, I gather that Mahindra does not have the required technology to develop air bags and even the ABS in the Scorpio is a very recent addition. and available only in the micro-hybrid model. Only the Logan in the Mahindra stable has Airbags and that too thanks to Renault. I hope the Mahindras are listening and fill in this gap very soon or else the new Innova will maul the Xylo in no time despite being 3 lacs more expensive ( Top Model) The UI on the dashboard also gives real time fuel consumption estimate based on driving pattern, speed governor to remind the erring driver and a directioal indicator . One really useful function that will go a long way in helping drivers back up is the parking sensor which can sense vehicles from 120 cms and will sound off the driver with the alarm tone. This should save a lot of scratches and altercations at parking lots.

On the whole- the Xylo is perhaps Mahindra's finest effort till date in improving product quality and ergonomics. No doubt these improvements will find thier way to the Scorpio and the other vehicles in thier stable which cater to the common man. They certainly have a winner on thier hands which is miles ahead of the rest of the chasing pack, i.e the Sumos, the Taveras, the Forces and the Sonalikas. But reaching the reference level set by the Toyota Innova is still a distant dream. If you have a 9 lac budget, have a family to haul around, need a real comfortable carrier and if you can live with the ugly looks, just go for the new ride from Mahindra- The Xylo.

Turnaround- Tata Nano and More..

2009-03-24T17:03:00.007+05:30

Phew- At last we get to hear some cheers in the market. The 1 trillion dollar toxic asset purchase plan unveiled by Timothy Geithner has managed to wake up the bulls and has given most of us something to cheer about. The second attempt by Geithner who has been receiving nothing but flak ever since he took over the hotspot which no one coveted in the US has managed to win the backing of the financial community and investors in general. Though the plan offers much more detail into how the Treasury and Fed plan to bring about the revival, the plan has also drawn some crticism, which is a given since we have too many jobless people on Wall Street.

Without going into the detail, the government is encouraging private investors and institutions alike to buy toxic assets by converting them as bonds. The assets primarily based on real estate will be guaranteed ( de-facto) by the govt, if it works the investors reap the benefits, if it flops the govt will pick up the tab. In either case, what the initiative will do is free up the clogged financial markets and start the monetary circulation in the hawkish and shaky market. The Fed will also earmark its share of the bail out fund from the 700 BN TARP fund which was set aside by the congress to bail out financial institutions as and when the need arises. With the Dow jumping over 400 points- its biggest day gain in months, the asian markets have followed the lead and rallied for the second day in running eliciting hopes that this might be the beginning of the turnaround. We being in India yet so intricately linked to the global economy hope and pray that this rally sustains and the economy actually comes around by the end of this year.

As the world cautiously welcomes a turnaroud, the land of a billion people- India overwhelmingly welcomed the launch of the "Nano"- the cheapest car in the world that will beselling at $ 2500 come next month. This mini wonder is seen as the next revolutionary car which is expected to put India on the roads taking after the Model T which put America on road in the earlier part of the century. Though this car will finally give the middle class indian a safer and cheaper way to haul around his family of four, it also is bound to choke up the already creaking infrastructure in India. I cant imagine Nano's jostling for space with Autos and pottering around at 50 kph on our expressways. One more addition to the cacophony that is called a road- with cows, tractors, jugaads, bullock carts, trucks, buses and cars fighting each other inch to inch signal to signal.

Though the Nano does not meet any of the safety standards in the west, its much safer than a family of four riding a two wheelers on pot holed indian roads. I just hope they dont remove the OVMs as they habitually do in thier bikes so that they can squeeze through. Though the Nano will give over 22 kmpl of petrol making it one of the cleanest cars to run, the very thought of a hundred thousand nanos replacing four stroke Hero Hondas sends shivers in the minds of the environmentalists. The Nano does not only impact the public who buy it and the debt saddled Tata Motors which sees Nano as the silver bullet for its woes, but also spawn a whole new ecosystem around it- driving schools for one will have a whale of a time. With more people flocking to learn driving these schools will buy more Maruti 800s for training the newbies. This ofcourse will immensely benefit the sales of M800 which has been the 2nd longest serving car in India. No guesses who is the first! Talk of a product strengthening a competitors product- this will last only till the driving schools can buy Nano's. So Maruti- capture this shortlived spurt in sales to the fullest. Not to mention the impact on the roadside mechanics- most of these buyers will not bother to take it to the service station and will do all the work in thier neighbourhood jack's shop. Even if the owners want to take them to the TATA service centers, the existing Tata workshops are ill equipped to handle these delicate darlings. Afterall, the service guys are used to metal on metal and not plastic on plastic.

So as things stand today, the future of- the world economy,the Tata Nano and India are at crossroads and I am quite keen to see how the it unfolds. Hoping that we have all hit rock bottom already, the only way to go from here is UP!