Book of Rev Chap:13 Verse:18

2011 Review and 2012 Plan

2011-12-31T11:49:00.002+04:00

Refer this: 2010 Review and 2011 Plan

First things first, let me review the 2011 plan, how much did I manage to achieve
1. Learn Kannada: Abandoned within two months due to lack of motivation
2. Complete 5 stories: Managed to do only 2. Hey! Atleast it’s not a duck!
3. Trading Success: A thorough, complete, unambiguous disaster.
4. Watch the Indian Grand Prix: Cancelled due to multiple reasons

The above, seen in isolation, would mean red marks crawling all over my 2011 report card. But as they say don’t judge a book by its cover, it would be worthwhile to read on the full 2011 review below, as last time, classified into The Peaks - moments of high achievement which brought great pleasure; The Plateaus - moments of no achievement no failure; The Troughs - moments of distress, pain and failure.

The Peaks
1. Remuneration finally decided to move north
2. Spotted a leopard in Bhadra
3. Travelled to a new international destination Langkawi, Malaysia
4. Travelled to 4 new domestic locations – Bandipur, Bhadra, Hyderabad and Tulunadu (Mangalore, Udupi)
5. Watched Metallica live
6. Adopted Twitter in daily life’s routine
7. Made a second big ticket real estate investment

The Plateaus
1. Professional growth
2. XYZ (personal stuff beyond the purview of publishing on this blog)
3. Completed only 2 stories
4. Last year’s real estate buy turned an earning asset

The Troughs
None!

2011 was undoubtedly the annus mirabilis of my life yet. No trough is really dream stuff. Haven’t had such sunny and balmy phase ever. But that old stock market adage looms ominously in front of me – what goes up, comes down. Hope 2012 proves otherwise. Here are my plans for 2012

1. Learn Mandarin: Sounds childish, my romances with languages never last even one full season. This time, it is different. More on this later
2. Get a promotion: yada yada yada…
3. Initiate my culinary independence: 30 years have gone by and I still rely on food not cooked by me. Hope to take some definitive, if not exhaustive steps in this uncharted, and hated direction
4. Read 5 books on Indian political, constitutional or regional history
5. Deftly manage the colossal debt I have acquired: With two home loans, the need for fiscal prudence is at its greatest. Plan is to rationalize expenses in order to boost the bottom line. Pretty important stuff, probably the single most crucial determinant of 2012 success.
6. Write 2 stories: A very modest, achievable target which I would be furious to miss
7. 24 blog posts in 2012: This is just to force some more discipline into my writing.

Travelogue - Bhadra

2011-12-13T09:37:00.010+04:00

Introduction – Lakkavalli Dam, Bhadra Reservoir, Bhadra Tiger Reserve, Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary and River Tern Lodge are different monikers to address essentially the same area (see map below). To better understand, each item needs some explanation. Lakkavalli is a small village off National Highway 206 some 40 kms before Shimoga (from Bangalore). Near this village, a dam called Lakkavalli dam, was constructed on the Bhadra river from 1946 to 1965 by Bharat Ratna Sir M Visvesvaraya and more importantly an alumnus of my alma mater College of Engineering Pune. The dam’s reservoir was hence called as Bhadra reservoir. Now this region was a huge forest area, some parts of which got submerged due to the reservoir. “The area was declared as "Jagara Valley Wildlife Sanctuary" by the Government of Mysore in 1951, covering an area of 77.45 sq. miles. After a systematic survey and census of the entire area including animals, birds and plants, it was thought to bring some more area under the Jagara Valley Forests. The adjacent area, which were rich in wildlife was surveyed and the Sanctuary was reconstituted in the year 1974, as Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary” (source –http://projecttiger.nic.in/bhadra.htm)Then in the year 1998, under the aegis of Project Tiger, the whole of Bhadra wildlife sanctuary was made Bhadra Tiger Reserve
This is a highly secluded area quite untouched by the commercialization of travel & tourism. There is just one resort in the entire region called River Tern Lodge, which is owned by the Karnataka state government undertaking Jungle Lodges & Resort. No other private resorts or even makeshift Homestays are around. If one wishes to visit the reserve he has only two options. One, stay at River Tern Lodge and accompany their authorized guides on a jeep safari into the jungle or two, approach the forest range office at Lakkavalli and try out your luck!

Why go there?
It would be more relevant to first talk of ‘Why you should not go there?’ This is not the place for you, if you are the urban city noveau riche variety. This is not the place for you, if you think 12K for a 1N/2D package stay is way too steep. If you have reached till here unscathed by the previous two impediments, then there is just about no other reason why you should not go there! Boat safari – While everyone, me included, grant a lot of attention to the jeep safari it’s smaller cousin the boat safari never gets its due. I have travelled abroad in Langkawi, Malaysia and the standard of River Tern Lodge’s boat safari is at par with international destinations. The islands which play peek-a-boo with the rising and ebbing water level as the seasons go, are covered with rich verdant deciduous to semi-evergreen forests supporting an absolutely unique ecosystem for mammals and especially birds to thrive. In the morning boat safari which we took from 7:00AM to 8:30AM, our guides and co-travelers jointly spotted a Kingfisher, Osprey, Crested Serpent Eagle, Brahminy Kite, Brown Fish Owl, Cormorants, Egrets, Bonnet Macaque, Wagtails, Drongo, Grey Hornbill, Mongoose, Spotted Deer, Jungle Fowl and a Paradise Flycatcher. In case you lost count, that would be 15 animal/bird sightings! Still wondering “Why go there?”
Jeep Safari – When you enter the reception area, you would see a white board with recent sightings written methodically by the resident naturalist of the resort. There are several books on Indian wildlife which one can soak in. All this I found really cool. Lastly, I am aware that no review about any wildlife resort in India can be complete without touching upon the Holy Grail for all wildlife enthusiasts – the Tiger. While the density of tiger population here is among the lowest in any South Indian reserves, but this can be compensated by the brilliant hawkeyed drivers and guides. For the first time in all my travels, I saw the elusive leopard. We were told it was a very, very lucky and rare sighting. Full credit to our jeep safari driver. I gave him a pat on the back:-) When to go there?
River Tern Lodge is so named due to tens of thousands of migrating river terns which nest on an island in the Bhadra reservoir during the months of April-May. These birds come here to roost and offer a noisy spectacle for the visitors in the boat safari. The water level in the reservoir is at its lowest during these summer months, exposing many more tops of hitherto submerged hillocks. The heat makes the animals drink more often and hence offering some of the best wildlife sighting opportunities. Best time to visit would be the hot summer months. Don’t worry, all accommodation is A/C

How to go there?
Drive towards Tumkur. Take the Shimoga bye-pass road at Tumkur (instead of going to Tumkur town) and cross Gubbi, Tiptur, Arsikere, Kadur, Birur, Tarikere. After crossing Tarikere, take the left that also has a Kuvempu University direction board. Travel 14Km till you reach Lakkavalli. At Lakkavalli you will find a sign board to the River Tern Lodge, which is about 4km away. Alternately you can contact the Range Forest Office at Lakkavalli for enquiries. The River Tern Lodge is 38km from Shimoga and is located by the Bhadra Reservoir.
Alternately, one could take a train from Bangalore to Shimoga. There is a very convenient overnight train which runs daily.

How many days/nights should one plan for?
If we keep the budget away, then ideally a 2N/3D stay would be perfect. There is enough to do, see or not do over a 2N/3D period.

What is the ideal budget?
All Jungle Lodges & Resorts have a pricing plan which is all inclusive and on per person per night basis. For River Tern Lodge, it is Rs 4K per person per night. This is that one thorn in the flesh which might deter someone (definitely it does deter me) from extending their 1N/2D jaunt to a more comprehensive 2N/3D itinerary. I think the pricing, although on the expensive side, is fair and correct. I would be surprised if majorities come out saying they did not see ‘value’ in that price. Having said that, I wish JLR come up with some innovative pricing which attracts people to stay longer

Testing Embedded Slideshow

2011-12-09T21:16:00.000+04:00

FDI in Multi Brand Retail

2011-12-02T18:01:00.004+04:00

Did you know that for every cauliflower that you buy at Rs 10 a piece, the farmer who grew it gets only Rs 3! Approximately 70% of the price we pay for our aloo, tamatar and pyaaz is ironically eaten up in the grossly inefficient supply chain through which the aloo moves from the farm to your shopping cart.

The debate on FDI in multi brand retail still rages on, both inside and outside Parliament. Way back in 2004-05, in B school, I and two other guys had presented a mini project titled “Should Wal-Mart enter Dubai?” Not many people know that yours truly did his MBA in Retail Management (sometimes even I struggle to believe it!). This pedantic pedigree, although of no use to me today, still offers me a vantage perch from which to objectively view Indian retail landscape and an informed base to frame my opinions on. Without any more preludes, let me unequivocally proclaim that I am overwhelming in favour of opening India to foreign direct investment in multi brand retail, with requisite riders.

Any decision making process should involve the steps 1) Gather information, general knowledge on the subject 2) Collect as far as possible accurate data 3) Convert data and information into insights 4) Synthesize insights into pros and cons 5) Consider probabilities of occurrences for these pros and cons 6) Weigh the pros and cons 7) Decide. The detractors and naysayers from the anti-FDI brigade are politicians and lobbyists who are simply playing to the gallery. Most of them are not following the simple step 1 to 7 process above, instead using unfounded presumptions to leapfrog at their decision

Let me assay an explanation (using the steps 1 to 7) how I have arrived at my unequivocal, overwhelming conclusion. In order to do this, let us see how the pre FDI and post FDI supply chains will look like.

Pre FDI (current): Farmer – Commission Agent – Govt. regulated APMC Market Yard – Trader – Wholesaler - Kirana Store – Consumer

Post FDI (future): Farmer – Wal-Mart owned/operated Market Yard – Wal-Mart store – Consumer

The argument from the anti FDI camp stems from a simple comparison of the pre and post supply chains. According to them, the middle part of the chain will be eliminated. There are about 1-2 crore kirana stores in the country. Similar magnitudes of numbers can be contemplated for the traders/ functionaries at the market yard. This is the basis of their doomsday outlook. It is not entirely wrong but importantly not totally correct either. In fact, the truth leans towards the latter.

If we try to understand what value does each step or each participant in the supply chain add, one can easily see why the anti FDI argument stands on weak ground. Let’s begin with the farmer, who in all probability adds the maximum value as an originator of the chain. He produces the crop and gets a price for it. Next in line are the commission agents. These are simply aggregators of the crop who operate under a license from the government controlled Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis or market yards. Their commissions are also decided by the government and typically varies from 6-9%. Although they may perform several other activities as well, these agents primarily add value by aggregating the crop produce from several distant villages and farms into the nodal mandi or market yard. Next in line is the market yard itself with its multitude of participants. Each market yard, apart from its organization hierarchy of betel chewing, tambakhu spitting govt. babus, also has weigh men or tola and laborers or mathadi, The weigh man’s (also authorized by the state governments) job is to simply weigh the crop accurately with standard weights and measures, certify the same and take a fee in return. That’s it! The system has engendered highly unproductive job roles. The labourer or mathadi as the name suggests, carry the sacks or lots of grains on their head for loading/unloading from trucks. As an aggregate ecosystem, however, the market yard does add immense value. It helps in collecting, grading, sorting, weighing and price discovery of the farmer’s produce. Next in line are the notorious traders. These simply buy from the commission agents/farmers and sell it at a profit to the wholesaler for onwards distribution. The plethora of malpractices which afflict our agricultural landscape e.g. hoarding happens at this step in the supply chain. Naturally this becomes the strongest link in the chain, which means a powerful lobby, which means a demanding vote bank. The political parties (namely BJP) who derive substantial support from this trader community are naturally opposed to bringing FDI.

If we stop here and try to understand the impact of FDI on each of these market participant based on the value they add, its clear the traders, commission agents, wholesalers will get hit the hardest, in that order. The weigh men, the bonded labourer by virtue of services they give, will simply get absorbed in the new world.

The last link in the chain – the ubiquitous galli ka kirana store needs special attention and discourse. What is the value proposition which the neighborhood mom & pop stores offer? Superior customer relationship, free home delivery, credit facility and convenience of being around the corner. The Wal-Marts and Carrefours of the world can not even remotely match these qualities of the kirana store. Hence, it is a foolishly obstinate argument which states foreign retailers will wipe out all kirana stores. Even from a pure marketing angle, I would disagree. The market segments which each format caters to is so distinct that they can both happily co-exist for decades till India’s growing economic prosperity finally pushes the population in the lower rungs of our income pyramid firmly upwards. Wal-Mart will never open shop in a Sadashiv Peth in Pune or Indiranagar in Bangalore or Bandra in Mumbai. They will typically locate themselves on peripheral ring roads where real estate is cheaper. While it is true that some kirana stores will loose out, but those numbers will be dwarfed by the sheer scale of employment which a Wal-Mart will generate.

That is the good side, there does exist the bad side too. One genuine concern is the fear of oligopsony. An oligopsony is a market place with too many buyers and very few sellers, something like a cartel. One scenario from the anti FDI camp which deserves merit is initially everything will be hunky dory for the farmer who will get higher realizations and the consumer who will get wide choices; but after 5 years the market will witness a cartelization and the re exploitation of the farmers. This is where the ‘rider’ part is so critical in India’s FDI policy. The Congress’ current proposal is at least an attempt to avoid such possibilities. Commerce Minister Anand Sharma even hinted at an independent regulator for retail, if the need such arises. He was pretty clear when he agreed to such a possibility and said we would have to make course corrections along the way, but we won’t know that until we do it in the first place!

There is one last point which in my language, I call – ‘aspirational benchmark’. This point has been largely ignored in all ongoing polemics on this issue of FDI. India is a poor country. Vast, unimaginable numbers of its population are still in the metamorphosis of being upwardly mobile. The process has been excruciatingly slow. If the millions of Indians cannot go abroad and see how the Wal-Marts work out there, why shouldn’t we bring the ‘foreign world’ in our back yard and show it to our people. Just a few days ago, MORE hypermarket store opened near here where I live. Owing to its location which is in close proximity to a lower middle income population, every other day I see scores of young and old take their first tentative steps on the escalator in the hypermarket. The joy on their faces from experiencing something new is priceless. I see ragamuffin schoolgirls with unwashed faces, scraggy hair squeaking in delight at their ‘access’ to a whole section of imported chocolates, even though they cannot buy it. I see poor people learn to use the shopping trolleys which they ‘own’ for the brief period they are in the shop. These are aspirational experiences for the lower rung of our population.

That is one more mouth to the already deafening din of voices on the FDI issue. These are my views; we live in a free country so everyone is entitled to one. I hope this policy gets to see the light of the day. I would love to re visit this article after 10 years with benefit of hindsight to ascertain the 2011 Manmohan Singh led Congress government’s Foreign Divine Investment or Foreign Doomed Investment

Tintin - The Secret of the Unicorn

2011-11-12T18:13:00.005+04:00

For a person like me whose primary email id is one of the most famous swear words in the history of comic books, watching Tintin - The Secret of the Unicorn was mandatory. And I absolutely loved it

While this may not be Spielberg's numero uno output till date, it still is one of the flawless paradigms of the man much celebrated craft. The entire movie is an adaptation, which means, it is a fairly unique story which draws unto itself characters, situations and most critically mannerisms from the original Tintin books. The story is a mix of two or three books namely "Secret of the Unicorn" & "Red Rackham's Treasure". One gets to see Tintin, Snowy, Captain Haddock, Thompson & Thomson, Bianca Castafiore and a few sidekicks Nester, Mrs Finch. Here I shall share my impressions of the film as a whole and each of the characters

The Film - As an entire package, it scores well. The new elements in the storyline are very interesting but crucially for purists like me, very Tintin like. What I mean by that is, it almost feels like Herge (pronounced Errzhe) wrote it himself. This is a film which the kids will adore. During the entire period of 109 mins, kids were laughing and clapping, especially towards the end, when Tintin & Co pull off an incredibly unbelievable chase sequence (seen in 3D its even better) which is where I see Spielberg's genius. There is also one more important point, this film should also appeal to the non Tintinized world. It is very simple to follow and understand. While aficionados would look for subtleties (and there are plenty!), walk in audience would love the adventure and animation. The only negative, if at all, is the lack of dearest of all dears Prof Cuthbert Calculus and the indomitable Rastapopulous. Maybe there would be a sequel.

Tintin & Snowy - Both very nicely depicted. Spielberg has taken care to visually represent Tintin as close to the print version as the freedom of film making would allow. I particularly liked the screen presence given to Snowy. He has been made as central to the plot as Tintin & Haddock. He enjoys several seconds of solitary focus on the frame, which again I liked a lot. Herge would have certainly wanted it that way too :-)

Archibald Haddock - His entry is a tad late in the film and he is not at his best. But again, since this is the relatively older story adaptation where Tintin & Haddock meet for the first time, we really wont get to see what Haddock is capable of. Having said that, the script still does ample justice to his famed drinking, lunatics and how can I ever forget swearing. Yeah! he does say Ten Thousand Thundering Typhoons.

Thompson & Thomson - I absolutely loved them. They have been given a fair bit of screen presence and as usual they hog the limelight. Again, just like Haddock, this storyline does not give enough latittude for them to really demonstrate what they are capable of. The scene with the pickpocket is hilarious. I had a riot laugh.

Bianca Castafiore - Castafiore's character and role has been very deftly woven into the script, which is what pleased me essentially. She has not been 'forcefully' introduced just to please the Tintin fans worldover. What was missing, though, was Castafiore & Haddock's jugalbandi. They dont speak to each other at all :-(

In summary, the film has my thumbs up. Go watch it. Doesn't matter if you are a kid of seven or seventy.

The Me in Metallica

2011-11-05T21:57:00.007+04:00

’Twas on one of those summer afternoons in the year of 2000, I stood on the freshly watered green lawns of my Engineering College Boat Club, when a man’s deep vocals wafted through the air and reached my senses. Over a decade has passed since that day, but the memory remains. The occasion was final year Electrical batch farewell party and I was in my first year ready to pick up new things. I tuned my hearing on direction of the speakers. The song, its music, the man’s siren like baritone had stirred my innards firmly. I noticed two seniors standing near the speakers humming the song, appearing pleased to have played it on our BC lawns. In the cacophony of voices loaded with merry farewell mirth, I picked a word which one of the two guys had said. It sounded like Metallica.

Back in my dingy hostel room later that night, I opened my big yellow VIP suitcase and took out a huge cache of dust veneered cassettes. There was a faint recollection in my mind of seeing the word ‘Metallica’ on one of these records which I had bequeathed from my brother, as normally happens when one has elder brothers. Without so much of an effort, I lay holding in my hands an album with a totally black cover and just the word Metallica written obliquely on its top portion. I quickly found my walkman, which was close to atrophy, shook it out of its lethargy and impregnated its open mouth with a cassette extracted from within the covers of that black nameless album. The gears turned, the tape unwound, and music flowed into my ears. It was loud, very loud. I grimaced disapprovingly but one of my best virtues of patience allowed me to audio scan song after song, counting them as I progressed. Then suddenly I exclaimed. I had found the same song which I had heard at the boat club. There was no mistaking it. I turned the cover and counted down the number of songs. My index finger stopped at three evangelic words. Nothing Else Matters.

… And thus a lad of 19 got baptized into the creed of rock music. No one asked him to. It was meant this way.

I look at the time. Its 2:30 PM. Time to make a move. I wear my Metallica T shirt, pull up a pair of pure blue denims, very providentially slip into my sports shoes and begin the longish drive to Palace Grounds in Bangalore. The year is 2011, the date is 30th Oct and the day is Sunday. In the morning Arka had called to confirm his and another friend’s attendance at the concert. Subsequent messaging from him alerted me to the possibility of record crowds and the risk averting need to arrive extra before time. My ticket is with Mayank, my olde friend and ‘rock brother’ who I manage to talk into moving arse early.

I hit the pedal and burn more fuel in my effort to reach as early as possible. I reach Mekhri Circle and pass straight under the overhead road and the first sight greets me; a unending queue snaking all the way to the main entrance. “Shit, this is crazy” I murmur to myself. I miss the parking towards the left and realize my mistake too late. It’s a long way now for the next U turn and the traffic is absolutely hellish. In the best of the days, Bangalore traffic is irritating; on the day of Metallica it is incorrigible. It takes me 30 minutes to cover a distance of 1 km and luckily I branch out into the several labyrinthine side roads and park my car. Meanwhile Mayank is struggling with his own parking misadventures and after some where-are-you-i-am-standing-in-front-of-metallica-banner phone calls, we finally convene at the main entrance. No marks for guessing my first words, “Hope you have got the tickets!” The last thing I wanted was a welcome home. Fortunately, two tickets flash in front of my eyes.

There was one reason which helped my love for Metallica grow, and it happens to be a rather queer one. A decade back, when I was struggling to get myself educated in a totally unappealing and unpalatable faculty called Electrical Engineering, the curriculum demanded students to write down experiments and practicals (supposedly performed with pedantic rigor during the course of the semester), bedecked with neat, labeled and artistic diagrams; some 40-50 odd pages packed, punched and parceled into a file. For the majority (me included) this unwelcome ritual was banished to the dying moments of the semester close and went under the lingo of ‘submission’. So we (like minded Fabians) used to sit awake late into the nights, gratuitously copying the completed, signed off file of a sincere friend who had taken the contrarian and morally ethical path of actually performing the experiments in letter and spirit. Now when this nocturnal printing press began, the only way to keep it running was music. Plug your ears with those tiny earphones and let there be music. One got wired to music more out of this compulsion than interest. This factor, I have now realized, was the single most important reason behind I getting inebriated with metallication. Listening to the same tape over and over again till the pencil cells died away, just unknowingly endeared these songs to me. Metallica grew on me. In just few days, it was out of interest rather than compulsion that I was reaching out for my walkman. The impact on my overall psyche was huge. I still retain in my laptop an unfinished story which I had begun writing in those days. This story was set in a sea side village in England, having an old lighthouse which was abandoned many centuries ago. On a particularly nasty night, the weather cries foul and hurls a hapless ship with fury on to the jagged rocky shoreline, wrecking it to smithereens. Suddenly the bell in the lighthouse starts to ring waking the villagers up. Such was the macabre story which I had titled for whom the bell tolls. Would it surprise if I further reveal it had a character named Hetfield?

Slowly and really slowly, I went beyond the Black album. While I do not remember the exact chronology of my purchases, but one after the one, I bought all Metallica albums. It’s just so very sad, but true that I have dispossessed myself of all these belongings

We have been standing in a sea of black, even the skies have blackened by now. The point of ticket checking and body frisking is still far away and apparently the police are controlling the ebb of people. Standing aimlessly, I observe the swarm of people with interest. Contrary to what one would imagine, the crowd is minority on college kids and majority on people in their >30s. There are women as well, even a few sindoor foreheaded ones! In my limited but sufficient experience with Indian rock concert crowds, this one appears to be remarkably well behaved. The cigarettes and dope is a given for a concert like this but I still sense it to be within limits. Suddenly the police siren sounds from behind and we look back to see a convoy approaching. “It’s the band” shrieks emerge from the crowd as the black river moves back to allow the cavalcade to pass. Off course it’s no band but just a ministerial bandwagon. Even now, there is little pushing and shoving, but the VIP’s entry lifts the blockade up front and loosens up the sardine like packed bodies in the crowd. Mayank and I seize the chance and using the peripheral boundary of the crowd, break into a brisk canter. It works and we manage to jump the middle portion of the crowd which is largely immotile. After traversing a mud sloshed field, we arrive at another waiting mass of black T shirts just outside the single file walk through security and ticket checking counters. The progress from here on is fast, off course no one wants to waiting outside. The security check my pockets, hand me the torn ticket counterfoil and let me through. I am in. It is already 5:30 so we decide to abandon exploring the stalls and head straight in the direction of the stage. After surveying any available vantage points, we lodge ourselves near the makeshift scaffolds which house the overhead projector. We are placed mid way, not too close to the stage but not too much behind either. By now I have lost any hopes of locating Arka. In this madding crowd, with evening upon our bosoms, it was the proverbial needle in the haystack trying to find him. I turn my attention towards the stage. Biffy Clyro, a Scottish band is playing…

During the heydays of my quizzing there were two questions which I answered even before the first few words were spoken. One used to be “The drummer of this band placed an ad in a local paper looking for musicians. The lead vocalist responded and the two founded one of the most influential bands in the history of rock music”. Second one was “The name of this band was originally meant to be the name of a heavy metal magazine”. The answer to both questions is rather obvious, given the context of this write up. The people and stories behind Metallica came to life. I learnt that in the year of my birth 1981, on the other side of the world, two youths started a heavy metal band. I learnt that Metallica was as old as I am. I learnt of Dave Mustaine and how his firing proved more beneficial to rock music as he went on to found Megadeth. I learnt of Cliff Burton and his tragic death. I learnt of his replacement Jason Newsted. I learnt of how the legendary song ‘Fade to Black’ had actually led to people committing suicide. Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett and Newsted became demi-gods for a 20 year old that was me.

It is 6:30 by the time Biffy Clyro wraps up their act. And now the wait begins. My legs are already paining and my back is hurting. By now, the crowd has swelled to a massive congregation of 25-30K fans. The crew members come on stage and start setting the equipment. A bald guy, presumably the band’s security chief, takes up the mike and starts requesting the crowd to move a little to the left. While he was entirely correct in his request, I thought the manner of his voice was a bit weird. He was talking as if the crowd were a bunch of illiterates who may not understand his accented English. The truth, in fact, is exactly the opposite. This supposedly master of puppets act of making the crowd take three steps to the left continued for quite some while. When I read one of the reviews of the Delhi fiasco, I had read about this same guy who had abused the crowd when they refused to listen. I hoped things did not turn the Delhi way, but honestly, full marks to the crowd here. There is definitely some merit in saying Bangalore crowd is better than other venue. The statement may not be widely accepted as gospel truth, but it definitely is not fallacious. The wait goes on, the longest I have ever had to stand for a band. Mayank and I are now breaking at the knees; it is 7:30PM more than an hour since Biffy Clyro left stage and 4 hours since I parked my car. I say to him, “Even Iron Maiden did not take so much time to come on stage. Hope these guys haven’t cancelled it and just vamoosed!”.

30 more minutes go by! The pain in my legs is unbearable and I am bending down every now and then to stretch my fatigued spine muscles. And then it happens. Metallica comes on stage! The crowd goes berserk but to its credit even such an ecstatic moment does not drive it to delirium. No pushing, shoving.

The starting song is ‘Creeping Death’. The sound quality is just unimaginable. Every foot bass that Ulrich hits with his characteristic aplomb generates such a thump that my heart muscles vibrate to its frequency. It is just incredible. They have a huge LCD screen with great clarity. Whatever few concerts I have attended before, I have never ever seen such a huge screen. One after the other they dish out their songs, a non stop avalanche of sound is how best I can describe it. The crowd sings in unison during most songs, but the ra ra ra ra ra ra during the song ‘Memory Remains’ surprises even Hetfield who stands akimbo shaking his head in disbelief. And oh! I forgot to mention about my legs, they have become ‘comfortably numb’ now.

In hindsight, another interesting fact is the way I explored Metallica’s music. I entered with the Black Album which was released in 1991 and then moved either ways. From the peg as the Black Album, when I travelled back to their earlier albums Ride the Lightning (1983), Master of Puppets (1985) a very different musical character of Metallica emerged. These albums, especially Ride the Lightning is extremely heavy, almost ferociously fast. Hetfield almost sounds like a different man altogether, his voice is torn and high pitched. On the contrary, when I travelled forward in time to their albums Load & Reload, most of the songs are slow with more melody. In my opinion Lars Ulrich’s (the drummer) genius is best reflected in the works up to the Black Album, and James Hetfield’s vocal genius really reaches stratospheric levels in the albums after the Black Album. His voice in Load & Reload is just magical. Kirk Hammett is fairly consistent throughout the years. I was just blown away by the sheer variety and experimentation these foursome or five some had managed to create. This fact alone made me to bestow the coveted all time no 1 band accolade to Metallica. If you disagree, just my tuppence

James speaks to the crowd, “I have heard you guys like your music heavy”. The crowd roars their ayes. “We will give you heavy, a lot of the older stuff”. This is followed by the number Sad but true. I get blown away with Lars drumming on this one. By now, I am standing alone as my dear comrade has heeded to the rodents running in his stomach and headed all the way back to the food stalls. After listening for about 20 mins of non-stop heavy metal hammering, my legs finally give way and I too decide to recede from the traffic jam of rain soaked bodies. It proves to be quite a task, weaving through the packed throng, with someone or the other swearing when I gently push him to make my way. At the back, the ground is in a state of complete mess. The rains have made it so muddy that people are almost skidding. Just as I reach the back, I hear Hetfield screaming “On the lead guitars, Mr. Kirk ‘the ripper’ Hammett”. Kirk starts the initial chords of nothing else matters and there is a deafening roar. I stop my recession and stand still for a moment to savour the song which started it all for me, way back on that eventful summer afternoon.

I take some grub and locate Mayank finally. We stand together speaking each other out of our reverie of being stunned by Metallica. It is 10PM by now, and I decide to call it a day. The band is also relaying their valedictions. We know they would return for the encore, but being a Sunday night there is not much bandwidth for a late outing. With one last look at Hetfield’s face on the giant screen, we get out. I locate my oddly parked car, Mayank finds his and we head homewards. I have just had the BEST musical experience of my life.

Afterword: It’s been a week since the Metallica earthquake shook Bangalore. Fortunately, no lives were lost however thousands have been deeply affected, their lives changed forever. The aftershocks still keep keeping. After I-do-not-know-how-many-days-or-months I listened exclusively to Metallica while driving home from work on Friday. For all those young men and women like me, who grew up in India listening to their songs, 30th Oct 2011 was salvation day. For those unfortunate souls who could not and for those stupid souls who did not, you may still begin. I have offered you a helpful prod by the way, just read the words italicized in the article above and you would know which songs Metallica played live in India!

My grand travel affair

2011-09-24T21:52:00.003+04:00

A few months ago I turned 30. For all the vivacious beings who call that a young and ripe age, let me be clear I coldly disagree with you without offering any lattitude for mollifying my strong views about the age vs action graph. I am a strong beleiver of the right age for the right action. Anyways, that is besides the point here. Now I am having difficulty judging whether this particular ‘landmark’ of 30 has been achieved with thumping fists, clapping encore or has it just passed by like inconspicuous, effaced milestones on an unfrequented state highway. Right now, I am inclined to believe the latter is more likely rather than the former. This disturbing inference has, in some part, forced me to relook, refocus on the transcendental goals of my life and he who seeks thus HAS to travel. Please accept this as gospel truth.

Hence I have a dream… to visit each state and union territory in India and write a book on my travails. There are 28 states and 7 union territories in India. If I were ever to achieve this dream, I would need more than just inspiration from Robert Frost’s lines ‘Miles to go before I sleep’. Maybe that could end up as the title of the book.

When George Mallory was asked “Why climb Everest?” he had a rather simple reply “Because it is there!”. Behind the simplicity of the remark, in fact, lay a profound truth. For a person like Mallory the particular question was inane, rhetoric and hence elicited that befitting response. If I were asked “Why travel to the ends of India?” should I say “Because it is there?” Not really. One, I am no Mallory and two, I do not have an irrefutable answer yet.

So much so for a rather boring (maybe esoteric) explanation to the why, let’s get on with the what, where, when and how of traveling to the ends of the country.

What do I want to do? - Travel and write. Simple :-)

Where do I want to go? – This is probably the most crucial part. India is such a vast country and getting to know which place fits my bill is exceptionally difficult. However, I have been doing some thinking and what it boils down to is really following a strict guideline of prioritizing places which not only excite me but are also conducive for story telling. The usual stuff around accessibility, safety etc would need to the ticked in the checklist off course, but that’s not a big concern anyways in the 21st century.

How do I want to do it? – My very initial estimate puts a figure of 213 days required to sufficiently cover all 28 states & 7 union territories (there is much logic to that number, its not random). This is the time spent on site and not considering the travel to and forth. Taking a 25% uplift to cover the to and fro time, it comes to 213*1.25 = 266 days or 9 months. It is very clear that under no circumstance can I get 9 months off, either from my profession or from my domestic duties as the man of a family. It has to be done post retirement.
Then there is also the budget! How can we ever forget that?. I have yet to estimate what could be the budget required, but a safe guess would be 20-25 lakhs INR, which could be the chief reason why this dream could remain subscribed to the realms of either fantasy or this blog.
If I were to assume divine benedictions on my mortal self which cause the time and money factors to turn favorable, then how would I do so much travel. The answer to this is a well thought out plan. Some initial points which could be used as inputs in making this grand plan, if the need for one arises
- The travel has to be done in phases. Best way is to club the states as per their geographic regions: North, South, East, West, Central and North East. This way, Phase I would mean spend 1 month travelling south and come back to home. Then Phase II and so on
- I am mulling over the need and justification for travel companions. Point is, if I were to write a long story out of all this travelling, continuous character are a must to help glue the shifting stories. So, depending upon people’s readiness, I should be open for one or more people joining me.
- The months need to be planned carefully. I would not be wanting to visit Kalimpong when it is frozen or Sasangir when it is closed for 6 months

I think there are some wry smiles out there. I totally accept the whole idea is exceedingly improbably to execute. But…

It is and shall be a dream to keep.
And miles to go before I sleep
Maybe I will never achieve it
But when my days are numbered, I shall be proud I tried that little bit!

Travelogue - Bandipur

2011-09-01T20:46:00.003+04:00

Introduction – Bandipur National Park is 80 kms south of Mysore, near the Karnataka border with Tamil Nadu. It is part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve stretching across the three states of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The park has an area of 872 sq km and was one of the original Tiger Reserves designated in 1972 under the aegis of the Project Tiger. It was also infamously inhabited by Veerappan during the 90’s.

Why go there?
Bandipur is a forest area inhabited by teeming numbers of spotted deer, bison, tigers, leopards, elephants, jackals, Indian wild dogs, sloth bears and birds like peacocks, serpent eagles. It is one of the better managed national parks in the country with a healthy population of tigers (about 80). The government and private resorts organize jeep and bus safaris into the heart of the jungles. They drive on mud tracks meandering across an area of 40 sq km. That’s just about the one and only reason for wishing to visit Bandipur.

When to go there?
My visit was in August when there were sporadic rains. Given my smattering knowledge about wildlife, I believe, the best time to visit would be the dry season when sightings would be relatively easy. Having said that, it really is an all year round destination.

How to go there?
This was my first ever road trip, so that way it’s special. The best way to reach Bandipur is a self drive or hired cab option. There are state government buses which got to Bandipur, so if you cannot afford the car on the road option then these buses are definitely feasible. The route from Bangalore is as follows –
Bangalore-Bidadi-Ramnagaram-Channapatna-Mandya-Srirangapatna-Mysore-Nanjangud-Gundulpet-Bandipur. There is an alternate route to reach Mysore which goes through Kanakapura. The distance from Bangalore to Bandipur is about 220 kms. Mysore is the midway point, where one can take a break. If you are unfamiliar with Mysore, then the safest option is to drive through straight and you would get out. Avoid taking the ring road, it’s easily 10-15 kms longer, roundabout route and you might get lost. Cutting straight through the city is easy; just ask for directions to the airport. The Mysore airport is en route to Nanjangud on SH 212, Bangalore Calicut highway. The first town will be Nanjangud. Sail straight through. After you arrive at Gundulpet, keep heading straight and you will arrive at a right turn which goes to Calicut via Wayanad. People wishing to reach Wayanad should take this turn. Now this is important. Both roads cut through the Bandipur forests. So, make sure where your resort is located, i.e. on which road? Ours was not on this Calicut road, so we ignored this right turn and headed straight. The Bandipur National Park entrance gate, from where the forest limits begin, is about 19 kms from Gundulpet. This road cuts right through the forest and offers an amazing chance to see herd of deer, bison and even the occasional pachyderm crossing the road. The road goes to Ooty, and during day time private vehicles are allowed to cross the forests. So people driving to Ooty would love this stretch of road through dense forest, with an almost guarantee of spotting wildlife.

How many days/nights should one plan for?
There is nothing much there to do other than the jungle safaris and morning nature walks. So a 1N/2D or a weekend getaway is perfect. However, if you desire to spot a tiger its best you give yourself a couple of forays into the forest. As a thumb rule, in a week tiger spotting occurs on 2-3 occasions. Accordingly maybe a 2N/3D could be more appropriate. Anything beyond that, to my view, is stretching it a tad too much and not value adding.

What is the ideal budget?
Staying options range from the basic dorm beds cost a couple of hundred to luxurious villas for Rs 10K. Good thing is they offer all inclusive packages – boarding, food, jeep safari, nature walk so there are no extra overheads. Bandipur being 220 kms, petrol expenses would come to ~2K even if you consider a conservative 15 km/liter mileage. All in all, a weekend getaway to Bandipur can be wrapped up in less than 10K. Pretty neat.

Anna rchy

2011-08-19T18:03:00.003+04:00

A writer’s block can and usually ends when the favorable elements of free time, inspiration and content occur at exactly the same point in time. For the writer in me, fortunately, the three came together because of the happenings at our national capital. I would be doing injustice to myself if I did not photo frame my emerging, evolving thoughts, however lame or wild, into an article. So much so for an introduction

Anna Hazare. A simple, earthy, septuagenarian from a nondescript village called Ralegaon Siddhi has all but taken the country by a viral storm which has, to my biased delight (I admit), brought a corrupt and more pertinently arrogant, high handed Govt to its knees. The events have brought to my mind a few questions, the answers to which, I believe would only help people understand the events much better and accordingly frame their thinking as per their free will. The questions are

1.What is the reason for the scale of Anna’s success? There have been protest marches in Andaman & Nagaland!!
2.How many from that sea of humanity following Anna file their IT returns religiously? I will explain the deeper logic behind this crucial question in a separate post.

I can think of four broad based reasons behind the scale of Anna’s success. Off course there can and must be other reasons as well, so please let me know. The first reason is the very cause for which they are fighting – corruption. There is no other malaise that is more pandemic than corruption. It is the fabric of our society. It is even more ingrained in our ethos than other evils like dowry. Each and every person, irrespective of age, sex, socio economic profile, caste has experienced it. Right from an honest student who gets beaten by his vile friend by bribing the peon to get the papers leaked, to the goondas who have to pay hafta to police or vice versa!! Compare and contrast this with other proposed reforms that have been in the news recently viz land acquisition bill, women’s reservation bill, and the finally Baba Ramdev’s black money stunt. Question is this, does a day laborer toiling in the wet paddy fields of Orissa care about land acquisition when he doesn’t even eat thrice a day?, does he want woman empowerment?, does he even know where Switzerland is? Answer is a clear no. These are not mass appeal causes; on the contrary these are very much the exclusive domain of the cognoscenti. Corruption hits and cuts across everything. This, I believe, is the underlying and most fundamental reason for Anna’s magic.

The second reason I see is the people behind this campaign. Even if we remove Anna from the picture, his tier two team comprises of real heavyweights. For instance look at Kiran Bedi, a lady whom my family deeply admires and respects. She was commissioner of Police at no other place than Tihar itself! There is Sri Sri Ravishankar, Swami Agnivesh, ex Lokayutka Santosh Hegde, Arvind Kejriwal, Bhushan father and son duo and the opportunist yet dashing Ramdev. If the second line of defence behind the commander is as formidable as this, the man in front can do what he is supposed to do – provide vision. Compare and contrast with the government. The captain of the warship is a man of unquestionable integrity, immense wisdom and capacity but lacks the killer instinct. Both Anna and Dr. Singh are the same age, but see the difference. The lieutenants in the likes of Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari, Digvijay Singh are conceited, arrogant and still riding on the already ebbing tide of Congress’ 2009 electoral triumph.

The third reason is Anna, Anna and Anna. The last time he went on a fast, the episode had missed me as I was busy with work or vacation don’t remember. As is natural, my first impression about this man was… must be x,y,z. And then I heard people calling him a living Gandhi. Ok, I was still skeptical. However two events just clean bowled me with all stumps broken to smithereens. First was a video of his speech taken by Kiran Bedi from her mobile and eventually uploaded to YouTube on the third night of his stay in Tihar jail. I honestly fell in love with the simplicity of the man. The way he talked, the way he smiled, his thoughts, his messages. Quoting Anna - heart attack se marne se accha, arre desh ke liye maroo. Someone who thinks like this is not you or me. Truly, truly self less. Smelt of rain on earth to me. And there are those cunning, salivating foxes in the government’s team. But this did not break the stumps. Today Anna left Tihar Jail and visited Rajghat, Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial, to pay his respects. There were thousands of people around crowding the park in every imaginable direction. After he had finished, he did something incredible. He broke into a sprint surprising everyone, including his security, police, followers and media. This 75 year old man who in his fourth day of fasting, broke into a run with that amusing boy-like mischievous grin was the defining moment in my lifelong enrollment as an Anna fan club member. He is special.

There is one last reason which has contributed to Anna’s campaign spectacular success. The exceptional and flawless execution and PR activities carried out by Team Anna. They have beaten and outwitted the government hands down with backs bent over double. Read this http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/story/anna-hazares-media-strategy-decoded/1/148483.html
Team Anna has taken the twitter world by storm it being a top trending topic. They have built a good, simple to use bilingual website. Even the team has worked smartly. When Anna left Tihar Jail in a open truck procession, Kejriwal and Swami Agnivesh accompanied Anna but Kiran Bedi was already at the venue Ramlila Maidan holding forte, singing patriotic songs, galvanizing the crowds. Clever thinking, everbody is not running after the cameras.

There is Anna rchy in India. While I have no clue how the Jan Lokpal Bill will change things if it does become a law someday, I am certain all people of my age should know a little more about Anna Hazare and his values. He is definitely the closest to someone we are truly unfortunate never to have seen in person – Mahatma Gandhi

to be continued…

Obelinux

2011-06-27T18:24:00.003+04:00

Obelinux is a portmanteau of two rather guessable words, in fact the second word is already evident. 'Obelix' and 'Linux'. For me, Obelinux is a long forgotten self proclaimed nick name of a very dear friend, who surprised me by sending a mail after like a decade. This mail was to inquire about the progress of my book. Although I had nothing positive to share, it still made me very happy. This post, then, is dedicated to the one and only Obelinux.

Where am I stuck with the book? - Darn. I set myself a rather economical target of completing 5 stories in 2011. This was a sub point in my 2011 resolutions. Against this lilliputian objective my gargantuan efforts have yielded 2 complete stories. Pathetic. But this post is not to dissect the root causes of poor productivity in my writing, but to ruminate over an alternative course of action. Public opinion (read encouragement) is always a key determinant of my go-no go, so your comments (hope you have read the parenthesis afore) all welcome. Ok ok I admit I have stretched the usage of 'public' a tad too far, given my readership is only 10 odd ha ha.

What's the alternate course I am considering? - How about trying to write a full fledged novel instead? If I am struggling with writing those oh-so-unique short stories, would it work if I eliminate all this hassle by building just one expansive plot and then just write, write till the words swell into a volume worthy of a paperback. Seems plausible to me, all the more because I already have a plot in mind, just the detailing, sub plotting and spicing is required.

What is the plot about? - Unfortunately, there is only one direction that my mind works. I have come to believe that it is more of a incapabiltiy issue rather than lack of interest behind my sticking to the genre of the supernatural. I simply cannot write thrillers or anything else. Sad that makes me feel. But hark hark, there is one more genre which I absolutely loved while growing up which happens to be whodunnit murder mysteries a la the incomparable Dame Agatha Christie. So my novel will be a murder mystery stitched with the elements from the supernatural world. A supernatural crime fiction, how does that sound. Did someone say empty vessels make the most noises? Or was that proof of the pudding lies in its eating?

Bloody I write one story in 3 months, how will I ever write a novel? - Good question. (You see, I am in a alter ego mode right now). When someone says good question, it only means the answer is not obvious. In this case, it is also not forthcoming to me. But I have a hope that it may just work out. The assessment of my writing outputs reveals to me that, unlike other fellas around, I rarely ever leave a started story unfinished. I am a good finisher. The area where my chief struggles lie are in creatively thinking and executing stories under the preamble 'No two stories should be alike'. This SWOT analysis gives me confidence that maybe once I begin the end will come, later rather than sooner!

Still thinking... but one thing is certain. If I ever get around to writing this, the protagonist will be loosely modeled around the inspiration for all this - Obelinux!

Movie Review - Haunted

2011-05-20T22:10:00.003+04:00

The only thing which I did not like about the movie Haunted is its name! Come on, what a spineless appellation to an otherwise brilliant piece of art. Imagine calling Picassa's Guernica as 'Painted'. Silly isn't it. I would have preferred calling it something like the title song 'Sau Baras Guzare'

I am writing a movie review after ages, probably years. This fact is rather straightforward, as neither do I watch movies regularly and neither do I find even the best ones worth writing anything about. However, after watching Haunted something struck me which merited some promulgation. This is regarding the immaturity of Indian audience towards the horror/supernatural genre of film making.

I have enough circumstantial and personal experience to conclusively say that in India horror/supernatural movies are viewed with two lenses. The first lens is of logic. "Kya logic hai, kuch bhi dhikhaya hai" is often the one line summary of people rushing out of the theatre after the curtain falls. The second lens is of perceived bravado. "Let's see if I get scared" or "I don't get scared" are some motives which audience take with them either for impressing the girl at hand (which is ok) or showing off among friends (which is passable) or for self gratification (which is stupid). And when people wearing both lenses watch such movies, its a complete hogwash

There is no other genre that requires as much skill, creativity and technique than the horror/supernatural. I know this because I primarily read and write about it. I wish people had some appreciation of this. The question is not wether you found it silly or scary or funny or grotesque. If you can stand and heave sighs of wow at the Taj Mahal, can you not spare a small nod of head towards such movies. After all, they are also manifestations of human art & skill.

Coming back to the movie, I found it just too good. There are some inane masala here and there to cater to the degenerated tastes of the intelligent audiences I have talked of before, but that can pass. Its a fairly long movie and hence will grow on you. The story telling is perhaps the best I have ever seen in a Hindi horror flick. Since I write stories myself, probably my degree of appreciation of the script and its plotting would certainly be much more verbose than others, so that is the qualifier which you could bear in mind while reading this hyperbole of mine. Let me try to explain nevertheless. Any horror/supernatural story will have two elements or parts in it. The first one will be the ghost, spirit, demon etc part - the concept basically. (Example - in The Ring the concept is the ghost coming out of the TV and killing whoever watches the movie). The second will be the plot which is there in almost any story (Example - The young hero, falls in love with damsel, falls in a well ...). The trick for a writer is to marry these two parts seamlessly. In my memory, never have I seen such a masterful amalgamation of the spook and the plot as in Haunted. Then, the songs and background score is really haunting. Special effects are average, one area where Bollywood is several years behind Hollywood.

I am told the reviews of Haunted are rotten. I dont know who writes these reviews but under this blog's jurisdiction Haunted gets a 4 out of 5. I shall leave it for you to decide who to listen to.

Travelogue - Langkawi

2011-05-17T15:26:00.008+04:00

Seldom do I struggle to take up my pen for writing the account of my travels. This time I am struggling, which is more surprising than frustrating. What do I write then?
Langkawi is an archipelago of 99 or 104 islands in the Andaman Sea off the west coast of Malaysia. 99 or 104 are not a geographical approximation but the effect of tides; there are 99 islands or rather islets when the tide is high and 104 when it is low. Doesn’t that, in itself, sound appealing? Normally, I would have written about the itinerary, how to go, what to see, things to do, where to stay and what to eat. In case of my current destination, these details are best gleaned from tripadvisor.com which is where I did my research in the first place. This time over, I do not want to write these things. This occlusion of items from my normal travelogue writing agenda is the chief reason for the aforementioned struggle. What do I write then?

Frankly, I am in no mood to start the ramble on how incredibly stunning the islands are, and use grandiloquent adjectives to extol the destination. It has been done over and over again by people far more capable than me, and finding one more star in a star studding sky does not improve the night’s brilliance. My ten twenty sentences of pure panegyric will not make Langkawi more astounding, more awesome and more heavenly. What do I write then?

I believe every travel should add to one’s intrinsic value else it is better to stay at home sweet home. While on the return journey from my travels, I excuse myself into a private world of deep introspection in pursuit of justifying the value addition or erosion that has occurred during the time I was holidaying. I ask myself a simple question. After spending time, effort and tons of money; what value have I added to myself? On the Air Asia flight from Kuala Lumpur to Bangalore, this was the profound question which seduced my faculties and my evolving attempt to answer the question is what I should and will write about.

There is a certain reptile which has no limbs and evokes an instant defensive or repulsive reflex in most humans. Whether I belong to the class of ‘most humans’ is an attractive argument, but the fact shall stay that I have always loved snakes. (For the purpose of this blog – love, like, admire, fascination is interchangeable!). During this trip, I finally did something which translated this intangible love into tangible action. After having seen countless programs on Discovery, Animal Planet and Nat Geo on snakes, I yearned for seeing the real thing, in its real environment. This yearn was finally quenched when the mangrove boat trip presented an opportunity to watch vipers from close range. The guide and boatman managed to spot 6 Malaysian shore pit vipers for me. Then, towards the evening came the big moment. At one of the town squares, a man was standing with his pet, adult python and offering a picture with the snake coiled around you for a sum of 5 Ringgits. I stopped and considered the prospect, not so much the monetary part but the risk involved. As expected, I chickened and moved on, but with a sense of smothering guilt; I had the opportunity to do something I always dreamt of since long and had let it go. The next 15 minutes were full of compunction, my heart not believing what its conductor the mind had ordered. While retracing the steps, I finally decided, this is the moment and carpe diem it! So there it was, the longest snake in the world, the famous Reticulated Python draped around my neck and torso, and I gently holding its neck. The snake’s handler was a funny guy, cracking jokes and scaring people. Seeing my relative ease, he urged me to leave the snake’s neck and stretch out my arms wide. Almost immediately, I could feel the snake wriggling down along my right leg. It is the most amazing sensation I have ever felt in my life. The python’s muscles are as hard as granite, and when such strong mass flexes on your neck as it moves down, you get the most brilliant neck massage ever imaginable.
The Snakes at Langkawi were the first item on my list of value added for me. An experience I will remember for many years to come, until I do something bigger, like track a King Cobra in the Western Ghats of India :-)

Driving in Langkawi in a rented car is the second item. For a person who only learnt how to confidently drive a petrol propelled quadruped a year ago, the feat of clocking 300 kms on pristine, desolate roads using maps is definitely value adding.

Are you one among many who are geographically challenged with the ASEAN region? Would you fail to differentiate between Malaysia and Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand, Borneo and Sarawak if presented an unnamed map? Is your memory of Malaysia restricted to learning its capital and currency for intra school GK quiz competition and invariably getting both wrong when you pressed the buzzer? Forgive me for this figure of speech where I am addressing ‘you’ where all these questions are basically a reflection of me!. But not any more. Increased geographical awareness towards Malaysia has been the third value I have added. If someone were to now say to me he is going for a vacation to Kota Kinabalu, his neighbor is just back from Selangor and last year his boss visited Tioman & the Perhentian Islands, I would not present my inquiring eyes arched with those clouded eyebrows.

What can be more pleasing than a fair, genuine and unexpected compliment? I take the compliment I received from a full time, licensed naturalist when he was amazed by my knowledgeable conversation about bats as the fourth and final value add from my trip to Langkawi. This small compliment has proved to be a major catalyst, so much so, I am considering enrolling for a 3 day long Naturalist Training Program just to try something different. More on that later, hopefully.

The New Style

2011-04-23T21:21:00.003+04:00

I have been reading some O Henry and Saki. The results seem immediate! Posting something I wrote in a surprisingly short time, albeit in a very different style to my usual way, a style which I so much called my original, pristine and true style. Regulars would notice how this story is 'different' from anything coming from my stable since over 2 years now!

Obviously, I am only sharing the first couple of paragraphs. Let me know if you liked it and what (if any) is new in this style? After all, the readers are the best judge :-)

~~~

It was only when he reached a fork in the road that he stopped the engine and got out. Having lost his way in the hilly, sylvan countryside for over an hour, he finally thought it wise to seek external aid; only there was none that would come his way. In the name of human imprints or vestiges, the only thing he saw was an abandoned checkpoint, which looked sullen remembering its functional years whence it harbingered the prized entry to the right hand road beyond the fork. Its ballast had disintegrated into smaller, humbler shapes and the alternating yellow, black striations on the bent pole were all but struggling to correctly convey their original hues. Still, with its archaic glory, it beckoned to him. Exasperation and impulse both found anchor in his faculties, and he heeded to the defunct checkpoint’s insinuations.

In a time lesser than what you would take from A to Z, he was in a tunnel and speeding. The subterranean conduit went on and on, it seemed to him, for eternity. Its unnerving silence, engulfing darkness and insalubrious dankness would have brought out the furrows on the most adventurous and feral foreheads; his was only a domestic, uneventful one. However, the sun did shine, literally, first as a small circle at the apogee of his vision, and then grew into that wondrous vista of verdant undulating landscape silhouetted by the tunnel’s dark walls. The exits of tunnels are always more exciting than their entrances, especially if it’s a long one and he felt relieved.

A signboard is to a lost vagabond what water is to the herbivores of the Atacama at the end of the dry season. When such a writing proclaiming ‘2 kms ahead – Brouhaha Amusement Park’ presented itself rather opportunely to the old man, one can only imagine the degree of happiness in his sigh. Even though the park was not his intended destination, its appearance in his hour of distress was more than welcome. It meant human dwellings, parking lots, hawkers, food, and people! Gladly, he dug his right foot a few inches deeper.

~~~

Mellow Melon Melodies

2011-03-28T15:53:00.006+04:00

Happiness is cutting a watermelon on a hot Saturday afternoon and finding it ripe and red. Going by the above yardstick of measuring happiness, I have been terribly unhappy since many months now. In fact, I am close to despondent. My melon futilities have become as repetitive as Shakti Kapoor’s intentions. Even now, I am a confounded owner of a yet uncut green variety (called Kiran), wondering wether even this specimen escapes the tortuous and slimy journey through my intestines, not to mention the unhealthy rectal end. Four predecessors have been pardoned; this one too has immense self belief in the ineptitude of its undertaker. Men, women and others, how do you choose a water melon? The one thing which totally baffles me is the thumping method! How on earth can someone figure out the mellowness of a melon by listening to the thumping melodies? Am I such an acoustics duffer that all sounds are similar to me? What is the secret behind all of you cochlear geniuses out there who choose the melon by listening to its thumping sound? Such are the ego shattering, Saturday afternoon destroying questions which led me to ferret out solutions from the www. I have found some interesting insights. They are 1. To pick the perfect watermelon, select one that seems to be the right size for your needs. Then hold it with one hand to a point about 2 inches from your ear. Tone is important, so make sure that you don’t rest the watermelon against your head. Once the watermelon is positioned near your ear, use your free hand to thump the watermelon. The sound will either be solid, like thumping a piece of wood, hollow like tapping a 5-gallon water jug, or thick like tapping a water balloon. When you have determined which of the three sounds you hear when thumping, you will have the information you need about the meat inside of the watermelon. If it is not ripe enough, it will sound solid. If it is too ripe, it will sound thick. The perfect watermelon is the one that resonates hollow. Thump as many as you need to find the right one 2. The underside of the watermelon should have a creamy yellow spot showing where it sat on the ground and ripened in the sun. 3. The watermelon should be heavy for its size. Watermelon is 92% water 4. The stem should be attached, brownish and dry 5. First, watermelons should be filled-out with spherical or cylindrical shape. A watermelon that has the shape of an eggplant indicates some trouble during growth---possibly a lack of water. A lack of water will have a negative effect on taste. Second, the surface structure pointed out by the arrow in the image below is a sign for sweetness. Third, if you see a watermelon cut in half, big cracks in the flesh also indicate sweetness 6. http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid271521142?bctid=1711770875

The glint of the Carini knife beckons me to my victim yonder, who has been cooling off in the freezer since I pardoned him momentarily to finish this write-up. As far as the above points are concerned, well, haven’t we heard that saying – The proof of the melon lies in its cutting.

Bura Na Maano, Holi Hai

2011-03-21T12:21:00.001+04:00

Of all festivals in India, Holi is a special one. It took me two decades to realize this! Sad

In the part of India where I grew up, the festival had lost its true meaning. Holi meant bhang, it meant rotten eggs, it meant street gang wars, it meant mud, slime, engine oil and tar, it meant tearing clothes and it meant molesting unsuspecting girls. These adulterations had meant a fear psychosis for those who did not derive the above meanings from the festival. For instance, during my early childhood at Ranchi, I never participated or witnessed a full scale Holika dhahan.

As I type this, my hands are dabbed in turmeric yellow, my face is a canvas of green and red hues and my clothes are still damp due to jets of colored water streaking from children’s ‘pichkari’. In short, for the first time, I had a ‘civilized’ Holi.

Last night, I was amazed to see the community spirit behind constructing and torching a Holi bonfire. Kids from the building had spent the day rummaging the neighborhood scouting for anything combustible – paper, straw, fallen twigs, dry leaves, golden hay and even baked cow dung cakes. They had piled these up in the form of an imperfect cone with two or three gaps along the surface to allow feeding the torches. When the night enveloped, the elders came out with pooja thalis and took over from where the children had left. A dry, husk covered coconut is offered to the fire. The burning of the coconut is symbolic of cleansing of all ills and sins. I found this rather interesting.

I think I saw a new side of Holi today.

The books which I dont read

2011-02-15T18:55:00.005+04:00

I am a terrible book reader. That's one weakness of mine which I have never managed to overcome, inspite effort and access to role models for idolatry. Sometimes it amuses me to think how can I be a so-called good writer if I dont read at all? Over the past several years I have met and known young and old who vaunt a 'I have read this' list which makes mine lilliputian in comparision. BUT majority of these populace are not great writers! So clearly the hypothesis which is evolving in my mind suggests that good reading does not necessarily translate into good writing. If there exists a correlation, it is surely positive but apparently not strong.

So what makes a person write beautifully? The key, IMHO is her/his mind. The ability to think. An arsenal of nouns, verbs, adjectives is a definite plus but not absolutely essential, as beauty in converting thought to words lies in the discerning choice of words. A good understanding of people, their mores and whims, likes and dislikes adds to the flavour of writing.

Anyways I came here to post a list of books in my rusty possession (some bought some acquired but none purloined:-). Most of these I am yet to begin reading.

2010 Review and 2011 Plan

2010-12-31T16:19:00.006+04:00

Only a few earth hours are left for our planet to complete its 2010th revolution around its sun, since the great lord was crucified. Celestially opportune moment for me to sit back and retrospect.

The year 2010 has been very positive in all departments. This blog has faithfully mirrored most of the important happenings in the year bygone. Just reading through the posts, I am reminded of the higher highs and odd lows of the year. Here are the highlights classified into The Peaks - moments of high achievement which brought great pleasure; The Plateaus - moments of no achievement no failure; The Troughs - moments of distress, pain and failure.

The Peaks
1. Travelled to two new international destinations - China & Hong Kong
2. My birthday gift to myself
3. Rejuvenation and intensification of the lost F1 fanhood
4. Good investment in real estate
5. Travelled to two new domestic locations - Pondicherry & Wayanad
6. Professional stability
7. Skilled driver in all conditions now with over 4000 kms of driving experience
8. Insured my life

The Plateaus
1. Underperformance in the stock market
2. Financial crunch
3. Poor social life

The Troughs
1. Tragic demise of my childhood friend
2. Only 2 stories completed

All in all, since the peaks are more than the plateaus and troughs combined, I would shut the 2010 chapter happily. It was a great year. But now, its history and a new year stands at the altar. I do have a couple of resolutions, which I would love to revist after one year. They are...
1. Learn Kannada. I believe there are four steps of learning a new language. These are speaking, understanding, reading and writing. My goal is to learn reading written Kannada.
2. Complete 5 stories. This area has been my nemesis, just cant write. The ideas are there, the plots are ready, the time is there, the urge is there, but the invisible force which creates words in a writers mind has gone missing. I hope to trace it inside me in 2011
3. Trading success. I have laid a annual target of earning Rs 72,000 on a float capital commitment of Rs 1,00,000.
4. See the inaugural Indian Grand Prix in Delhi.

So we shall see. All those blessed and cursed souls who often wander over to these parts of the cyber universe, me and my beloved blog wish you a happy, disease free, tragedy free and exceedingly enriching 2011. In the closing moments of 2010, I will leave you all with my dead friend's signature which he used to write in his emails.

"Life Is A Smile Of Tragedies.. Enjoy It"

India Travel - Wayanad

2010-12-30T10:17:00.013+04:00

Introduction – Wayanad is a district in the north of Kerala, bordering the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The entire district is a part of the Western Ghats mountainous range. There are two important towns in the district – Kalpetta and Sulthan Bathery which can be used as bases for sightseeing. Wayanad is an ideal destination for the outdoors freak with several challenging trekking trails, wildlife sanctuaries, prehistoric caves, raging rivers, wonderful waterfalls and misty mountains.

Why go there?
A vast majority of middle class Indians would pack their bags for the following reasons – a break from work life pressure, to utilize the annual LTA or holiday home facility, clamor of kids seeking a vacation. The question ‘Why go there’ does not apply to the above people as they are mostly location agnostic. For the few discerning wanderlusts whose modus operandi involves choosing the destination as first step, my explanations of ‘Why go to Wayanad’ would be appealing.

Here is a list of attractions in Wayanad. Against each proper noun, I will add its common noun for better understanding
Chembra Peak – Mountain Trek
Pookote Lake – Pedal Boating
Bansasura Sagar Dam – Speed Boating
Eddakal Caves – Spelunking
Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary – Safari
Tholpetty Wildlife Sanctuary – Safari
Soochipara Falls – Waterfalls
Meenmutty Falls – Waterfalls
Kuruva Dweep – River rapids
Pakshipathalam – Bird Watching Treks

Then there will always be temples and more temples. If it’s Kerala, there always will be beaches and more beaches. Such quotidian ‘attractions’ have been excluded from the above list.
The list of ten is the answer to the question ‘Why go there’. I cannot think of any other district in entire southern India which can boast of such a collection of attractions. To have all the above activities within a radius of 50 kms only is pretty rare and thus merits a travel.

When to go there?
Definitely not during the peak season. I wish to overemphasis this point as I have been victimized by the peak season spoilers. The peak season is December which touches its maddening peak on 25th and 31st. Monsoon months of July, August and summer months of May, June are avoidable as it will baking hot.

How to go there?
Applying ceteris paribus, (which means keeping the economics of getting there away) there is only one direct way to reach Wayanad from most important cities and that is by road. There is no railway or air route of reaching Wayanad. It is about 75 kms from Calicut and 300 kms from Bangalore. If you are coming from distant parts of the country then the only option is to reach Calicut or Bangalore by train or air and then proceed by road. Since I travelled from Bangalore to Wayanad, I shall share the exact specifics of this route. From Bangalore, one can take bus (state or private) directly to Wayanad and get down either at Sulthan Bathery (which the bus conductor will call Batteri) or Kalpetta. It takes about 45 mins from Sultan Bathery to Kalpetta in that order if coming from Bangalore. The problem is these towns come at odd hours in the morning and first timers would get confused. The KSRTC Volvo buses called Airavat are pretty good with reclining seats. The major problem is the chaotic bus stand. The bus for Calicut leaves from Mysore Road Satellite Bus Stand and this place gets crazy. There is no display, announcement, enquiry and it’s a dismay that inter state bus travel in India hasn’t kept pace with the parallel advancement of railways. Not knowing Kannada is also an impediment at such places. The state bus is cheaper but only marginally so my recommendation would be to use a private bus operator.

Another option is a self driven car. Many people do this but this is not my recommendation even if you are a veteran driver. The mountain roads are tortuous, narrow and can tire you down easily especially while climbing. Overtaking is outright risky, as roads are narrow and serpentine so you invariably have to honk while passing. Night driving is a strict no. Although it’s possible to haul a Maruti 800 up the steep slopes, it won’t be an enjoyable ride at all. Only an SUV or jeep is preferable under such conditions. Further, you simply cannot do the sightseeing with lower power/torque cars. The roads are pretty bad and many times non existent. Even our hired Indica was struggling at times. Small car drivers please park your baby at home when you come to Wayanad.

How many days/nights should one plan for?
Wayanad has enough to offer for the entire range of itineraries right from the compact weekend 1N/2D to the idyllic 10N/11D plan. My recommendation however would be 2N/3D for a brief holiday or 4N/5D for a long, relaxed holiday. There is also another point to bear in mind. Wayanad is a paradise for adventure lovers, so the days/nights decision should be a function of how much outdoors stuff one wants and is capable of doing. Kids and senior citizens in the travelling coterie would obviously constrain the ability of outdoor adventures. On the other side, the more sedentary travelers should not stay beyond 2N/3D. I will cover the exact itineraries for both choices later.

What is the ideal budget?
I shall tackle this important question objectively by proposing budgets for two categories – minimum and median. Also, the figure would be for two people travelling together and for decent 3 star hotels or homestay in these parts. This estimate is ex Bangalore. A rough break up of total budget into four components – reaching there, local sightseeing, lodging and food will also be given for a sample case (the way I travelled)

2N/3D: Minimum Budget = Rs 14,000. Median Budget = Rs 18,000
4N/5D: Minimum Budget = Rs 28,000. Median Budget = Rs 35,000
Sample Illustration – In my own example, the total expenses stood at Rs 15,857/- for a 2N/3D trip. The breakup is given below

What is the ideal itinerary?
The first critical decision while planning a trip to Wayanad would be which town to put up at. As mentioned before, there are three options – Kalpetta, Sulthan Bathery and Vythiri. Hotels & Homestays in their dime and dozen are scattered across these three towns. My recommendation would be chose a place in Kalpetta as it is the geographic centre of the district and all tourist attractions are within a radius of 50 km only. Moreover it’s a bigger and better town than the other two. It even has an ICICI bank & ATM.
The next thing one must be cognizant of is that all the tourist attractions are pretty far. A 15 km distance in the mountains easily takes anywhere between 45 mins to 1.5 hours. They open at 9 AM and close by 5 PM. This means you can cover only two in a day, comfortably only one!

Itinerary for 2N/3D trip
This case would require prioritizing the list of ten attractions based on individual preferences. I would anyways provide my recommendation. The underlying assumption is non peak season, as you would no way be able to cover two places in one day during peak rush. That’s what happened to me!
Day 1: Arrive early morning, check in. Quick shower and breakfast. Be ready to hit the roads by 10:00 AM, earlier the better. First stop could be Eddakal caves. I do not have any specific inputs on visiting Eddakal as it was closed for renovation. What I know is one has to climb 250 odd steep steps so by 1 PM you should be back to your waiting car in the parking lot. From here move on to Muthanga wildlife sanctuary, which is enroute just 15 kms ahead. They have jeep safaris here. Stand in the queue and get tickets. Counter closes by 5 PM.
Day 2: Kuruva Island and Bansasura Sagar Dam

Day 3: Soochipara Falls and Pookote Lake (if time permits)

Travelling in India

2010-12-28T17:38:00.001+04:00

My bias towards international travel has thrived at the expense of domestic travel. I intend to correct this.

The realization that travelling to international destinations is unaffordable for atleast the next ten years made me sit up and pay more attention to what I can and have already achieved with decent success - travelling in India. My traveller profile is the middle-of-the-road wanderlust, neither splurging in 5 star hotels nor roughing it out in shady bylane lodges. With this blog, I am initiating a 'India Travel' compilation. The idea is to use the lens of my experience to systematically document travel experiences in India so that they can be compared, referred to by me and others and eventually, who knows, maybe culled into a book! An important disclaimer here would be that these experiences are totally and completely prejudiced as they are mine. Although the tone will be that of recommending, its up to the reader to accept or rubbish it. Further, they would be written with Indian upper middle class as target audience. Even if there are no readers, no problem, I am the writer cum reader all rolled in one.

So much so for the obligatory introduction. Moving on to the meat.

Each location which I travel to will be reviewed under 7 sections namely
1. Why go there?
2. When to go there?
3. How to go there?
4. How many days/nights are ideal?
5. What is the budget @3 and 4 above?
6. What is the ideal itinerary @4 above?
7. What you must know before travel?

Coming up soon is the first installment. Wayanad

Somu - Part III

2010-10-30T19:58:00.003+04:00

Foreword: This is the third and final part of the obituary. Read previous parts (Somu - Part I), (Somu - Part II)

In the beginning of 2005, I left India to steeple chase my MBA. This happens to be that second epoch, albeit lasting only 3 years from 05-08 where I was not in touch with my friend. Now and then, a mail or a fortuitous online chat was all that occurred between us. So herein again, some one else would be a better candidate for continuing the remembrance

When I returned to India in Aug 2008, the communication was re initiated. He had ventured out into entrepreneurship, much to my amazement. At first, my MBA infested mind all but laughed at this. “How would he do the kind of work he was attempting without an MBA?” But as always, I ate humble pie. When he used to talk, I saw that he had more gumption and understanding than majority of my Spjain batch mates.

As I access his linked in page, it reads Co-Founder of Unileap Associates. Some time ago, I recall he had sent me a draft webpage of some other startup which he had been incubating. I had reviewed it and provided my feedback. In all, he never appeared hapless to me. Success was in his blood which unfortunately stopped circulating way too early.

My friend got married in the month of Jan in the year of 2009. In a few months time, even I towed down the marriage lane. Although I could not attend his ceremony, my friend did not disappoint me, in fact he astonished me. The couple unexpectedly (he and Madhura) drove down all the way from Pune on his bike, with Madhura bedecked in a sari. It is also a personal footnote for my consideration that none of my other friends managed to attend the function. Not that it is of any importance to me, but if one among many friends does take the effort to attend then it does assume significance. The two stayed till the end and left for home, a 2 hr ride to Pune at 11 in the night!

I approach now the end. On my birthday, i.e. 28th Aug, I heard my phone ringing for the nth time during the day. To my utter surprise, my friend’s name flashed on the screen. This was the last time we spoke. In another month, he became history :-(

This one event gives me the creeps. Since the nineties, my friend never called me on my birthday. Forget calling, I can’t recall even an email or scrap or sms from him on the backdrop of my birthday. WHY THEN DID HE CALL ME THIS TIME? Am I sounding crazy when I say that his sixth sense gave him a premonition of his impending death? Did his mind direct him to speak one last time to me? I am no stranger to the often repeated stories of how people nearing their death get about doing strange things, which they normally would not have.

He spoke as he always spoke. He spoke of his plans at Unileap. He spoke of general gyaan he had recently acquired. He spoke of Madhura and her job. He spoke of planning to visit Bangalore someday. He spoke as he would not speak again.

There now remains one last chapter in my narration. On the day I got the dreadful news, one of my immediate concerns was to know whether my friend would be ‘happy’ in his afterlife. The only way to know that was if he ever appeared in my dream, so I was awaiting his appearance in my nightly slumbers. It did not happen, much to my consternation, for a long time. And then, finally, on the night of 28th Oct, some 20 days after he died, it happened. My friend visited me in my dream. On a side note, there is a rather queer coincidence here, I last spoke to him on the 28th and he appeared in my dreams on the 28th again.

My dreams are always weird and have never ever been happy shappy. I remember this segment of the dream very clearly in which he appeared, but I shall not disclose the contents here as they border around controversial. Was it a veiled message that my unconscious brain was trying to accentuate by creating my friend’s image and making him say those things to me, I wouldn’t know?

Whatever, but I am very glad he visited me in my dreams. If I were to hold the explanations given in the book “When Ghosts Speak” by Mary-Ann Winkowski (reviewed here) as gospel truth, then that would mean my dear friend has passed through the white light and moved on with his after life. His spirit does not lurk around, wander or haunt, unable to leave this material world still holding his near and dear. Mary-Ann says that those who cross over can only ‘return’ to our world through dreams. Since my friend came in my dream, he has crossed over into the world yonder. As I used to write it in maths papers “Hence Proved”.

Somu has moved on. One day my time will come, hopefully later rather than sooner. If ever any one of us established contact with his spirit, I am certain what it would spell out on the Ouija board…

“There I Go .. Turn the Page”

Somu - Part II

2010-10-21T20:55:00.006+04:00

Continued from here... (Somu - Part I)

As and when the teenage began, our fellowship waned, although only circumstantially. By now we had grown into quite distinct personas, the initial subtle differences of boyhood getting magnified with passing age; I became an introvert, not-so-well-known, shy, unimpressive guy with select or no friends. He was the all popular, friendly, affable guy with a huge gang of buddies. When I reflect at these times, from Class IX to XII, it now appears to me that although destiny had set us rolling on different paths but it still had failed to deliver the ultimate coup de grace. The invisible umbilical cord which ran from him to me and me to him remained intact.

I really don’t have much things to say about my friend during this phase. There occurred two such phases of 2-3 years each wherein we were not greatly associated with each other, and accordingly I shall let these phases pass in my narrative. Some of my other good childhood friends who were close to him would be ideal candidates for taking over my pen for writing these phases. So, I fast forward into the year 1999.

It must have been the month of August ’99 when my mother’s voice on the phone informed me that my friend would be coming to Pune. He had taken admission in architecture. I had arrived a month back to pursue some devil called engineering in a city which I had never even heard of before (surprising?) and was nothing short of lonely. Our life in Pune marked the phoenixation of the moribund fellowship. This renewal of friendship lasted till 2005

On my own admission, I had all but frowned at his choice of architecture at that time. “What will he do becoming an architect?” my myopic view had questioned. At a time when every Tom, Dick, Harry and their pet poodles went to do engineering, my friend had chosen something unique. He was unique, didn’t I tell you? Today I stand humbly corrected. I have completely failed at living my life on my own terms and those select few who manage to break the archetypical boundaries of societal obligations, what-will-people-say etc evoke the deepest appreciation, praise and respect from me. How silly of me to have overlooked my own friend! What he did at that tender age required going against the grain, required guts, courage, gand mein dum. Attributes which I still struggle to find in the vast majority of our population, including myself. My friend… You are and will forever remain my inspiration.

It was the month of September (not sure) when I bumped into him during ‘Verve’ – intercollegiate cultural festival of Pune (wonder if it still survives?). He was surrounded by agreeable young women, apparently a choreographer cum make up artist cum man-of-the-harem for his college’s dance competition. His popularity had taken a new direction, and as later years would tell me, it would only grow.

During the difficult years of engineering, which were unfortunately marred due to my father’s demise, my friend supported me a lot. He visited our hostels as often as practicality would dictate. Today, as my hostel mates read this and call me saying, “Hey, I recall this guy, he used to come often” I realize the help you offered to me.

For the next years, I can remember disjointed events, things varying from sitting behind his scooter to listening to his unending stories of college Profs, all night stand while making those architect drawings on sheets. It was during this time that Madhura happened to him and vice versa. The contours of the first meeting, how, where, when etc I got to know only several years later when they were summarily committed. And for reasons of privacy, I shall skip drawing these contours any further and move on.

I passed out in 2003 and soon left Pune for a nationwide crazy vagabond lifestyle which, I admit, marked the metamorphosis of my manhood. After spending a year in various states, I was back to Pune in 2004. The 04-05 period was the time when my friend introduced me one of the best things I have had the fortune and honor of experiencing. “The Remand Home” as we called it.

A brief about the remand home is here, taken from a poster dated 2005 – “We, a group of youngsters, have come together to work for the betterment of underprivileged in our society. Our main activities are centered on the “BOYS REMAND HOME” in Shivajinagar, Pune where we carry out various activities during the week to develop these children and gather every Sunday to conduct various workshops and spend quality time with the children”. (Suggested reading: http://sixsixsixx.blogspot.com/2007/05/revelation-1-chap-13-verse-18.html )

On a warm Sunday afternoon, my friend knocked on my door. I was sleeping. He had come to meet and talk, among other general things, he had come with a specific request. That afternoon he ‘sold’ me the concept of what his group of friends was doing at the remand home, which housed child delinquents as well as lost boys from as far as Bihar, Assam. The group was looking for some contribution to fund their posters or something I don’t recall. I had willingly agreed to help out and was also invited to attend a Sunday session. Next Sunday, riding back seat on my friend’s scooter, I did go. That was it.

The one year I spent with the men and women (not boys and girls, they were too mature to be called B & G) at the Remand Home was one of the most influential experiences of my life. Having introduced me to such wonderful people and their thoughts is the single most important contribution of my friend towards my drab, purposeless life. My friend helped reunite quite a few kids with their families, many times going as far as shady slums to find out the child’s father! If only that kid knew today what hath become of the uncle who restored happiness back to his life, how would the kid feel? I wonder. Here I reproduce one vintage but apt photograph of my friend among the remand home kids. This photo, for me, sums up this extraordinary man’s life who I feel honored to call ‘my friend’ (centre in blue T shirt with the boys from remand home)

Then there were the lighter, fun moments too. I would credit my friend with initiating me into the company of the fairer sex, which hitherto, had completely escaped me. The age of early twenties consisted of brand building activities like having a girlfriend or as the purists would say having a “friend who is a girl”, going to discotheques and etc. My friend had exemplary skills in this department. He was already committed to Madhura (eventual wife many years later) so he used to play more of a ‘big brother’ or bouncer role. The babes of town felt safe with him. Looking back, I had my unfair share of disco parties which were in vogue back then and one memory amuses me a lot. I recall whenever me and some other ‘stags’ felt the urge to shake our ass in the disc, I used to turn to my friend for directions and more importantly gathering the fairer company. We needed entry and relied on him to collect single females for pseudo pairing. Incidentally, he almost never found any babe in town willing for a disc night whenever I found the urge to discofy myself. “Saale, jab mereko jaana rehta hai, tabhi tujhi ladkiyaan nahi milti”, I used to curse. He used to laugh his heart out.

to be continued...

End of Part II

Somu - Part I

2010-10-09T07:42:00.002+04:00

I hate writing R.I.Ps. To sing like Bob Dylan, “How many R.I.Ps will I have to write, before one writes mine? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind…”

I don’t remember when or where I first met him. A rough estimate should be around twenty two years ago circa 1988.

My earliest memories of my friend are very vague due to two decades of silting of the memory. But I shall still dig down deep to disinter them. His house was across the road. For a small boy of 7 years, this was a major challenge for me. Getting to his house meant crossing the busy road. The house was big, old with a porch and garden. My earliest recollections are centered around this garden, wherefrom he had once picked up a snake mistaking it as a dry twig and brought it inside the house. In the years to follow, this act of bravado would remain his insignia among young boys trying to outsmart each other. Another early first encounters were our discussions on his name! He had a rather long and unique name, 12 letters long. Appended with his father’s name and surname the whole long train would have as many as 35 letters!

During the late 80’s we used to live in Kilburn Colony and he used to live across the road in (I think) Shukla Colony. I remember how he used to be one up on everything. That was the age of learning how to ride a bicycle. My friend could flawlessly ride even adult cycles while I had failed to progress beyond one sided riding (keeping one leg on one pedal and pushing the ground with the other leg). It was also during these times that he did something which only the ‘brave’ lads would venture out to do. He brought home a pup. The initial resistance of his family was of little use towards the boy’s resolve and Tony became an inseparable part of the family.

It was early 90’s that we shifted to Satellite Colony. After living for 2 years in a 900 sq ft apartment, we were desperate to move in the plush 1500 sq ft 3 BHK flats which the company was building for its officers. The flats were allotted at random. My dad’s draw came out at A-16. My friend’s dad got A-18. It was destined that we would be next door neighbours for the next 12 years. Our flat was the first floor; his was the top floor with a common staircase. Stairway to heaven?

No amount of writing can cover these 12 long years. During the years when we were in class IV to X, surely, I must have seen or spoken or referred to him EVERY DAY. Our moms became best buddies, almost like sisters. Our families got intertwined to the extant that we were inseparable. My friend’s elder sister tied rakhi to me every Rakshabandhan. His uncle, aunt, relatives dropped by our house, ours visited theirs. Special dishes, sweets, a unique cuisine prepared on the 3rd floor apartment often found its way to the dining table on the 2nd floor flat, and vice versa. Although, it’s impossible to remember all things which we as kids did together, I shall still cull out a few from this golden era of our lives. It was the best of the times.

During the early years at school, our mothers discussed and implicitly compared every single angle possible to their maternal instincts. Things from shoe sizes to marks obtained in the last Monday Test to the time taken to empty a glass of milk were compared. Almost on all fair comparisons, he outperformed me. “Look at him”, my mother used to scold, “…and look at yourself!!”. He especially beat me fair and square on extra curriculars. I was an extraordinarily dull, undecorated child with no feathers in my cap to be proud of, while my friend played the tabla, was good at sports among other things. However, the memory which is particularly painful is the reading of palms. As young boys, we used to every day invent a new meaning of some line. This line means denotes the number of children you would have! My friend’s palm was full of lines, a most unusual combination of tens of tiny strokes. In fact, whenever he presented his palm for reading, even the most ‘renowned’ soothsayers would frown. His lines were unique, just like him. After learning of his demise, I checked some pics on his social networking page. One snap struck me like Indra’s thunderbolt ripping through my heart. It was a self photograph of his left palm, all five fingers outstretched against the pristine blue backdrop of a lake. What really melted my resolve into tears was the caption beneath which read “Bright Prospects:-)”. The smiley hurts the most.

One particularly interesting episode dates from around Class V or VI days. It was on the occasion of Holi when he earned the famous nickname ‘Chandul’. Talking of names, it surprised me and even made me jealous sometimes at the number of pet names the lad had! His dad called him Shaheb, mom called him Bubla and granny called him something else! Goes to show he was indeed the apple of their eyes, the scion of the bloodline, his father being the only son. Coming back to the incident, some days before Holi my friend had shaved his head for his threading ceremony. On Holi, while we were gamboling in the colors and water, our group was ‘attacked’ by a mad, inebriated hooligan gang of adivasi boys intent on tearing our clothes and playing dirty. In the melee that ensued one of the marauders saw my friend fleeing and gave out a war cry. “Chandul, chandul… chandul ko pakdo” Although dear ‘chandul’ escaped, the name stuck with him :-). We boys discovered later that ‘chandul’ was a local adivasi word for a bald person.

My friend loved Karate and I chugged along with him albeit without the energy or interest or capability to pursue such an avocation. It meant getting up really early, taking out the cycle and pedaling hard in the chilly morning over dew laden barren fields to this drab hall and twisting, jerking, kicking, rolling the body in ways extremely distasteful. No surprises, but I quit within days, even before I got to wear the beginners’ white belt. My friend, in contrast, went the whole hog and was a 2nd dan Black Belt by the time he hung up his Karate shoes.

…to be continued

End of Part I

My eyes are pledged

2010-10-03T10:33:00.008+04:00

This birthday, I gifted myself something very special. A donor card from Sankara Eye Bank bearing a pledge to donate my eyes after my timely or untimely demise. It reads

"I am an Eye Donor. My eyes are pledged to the Nation. Kindly inform Sankara Eye Bank immediately on my demise and help them fulfill my desire. Thanks"

I have been receiving many queries from friends 'How did you do this?', 'Where did you do this?' etc etc. To be honest, this ignorance level among the otherwise erudite, nouvea riche friends of mine is quite shocking. To me, its simple. If you really wanna do something you WILL find the answers to all questions. Anyways, what I can do is document a list of FAQs based on my incumbent knowledge about eye donation in India. Hope this is helpful.

Q. Why should I donate my eyes?

A. Blindness is the single most debilitating handicap that one can be cursed with. However not all blindness is incurable. In blindness of the cornea, which is nothing but a lens in the eye, the cornea becomes clouded and eventually opaque. To understand this, think of your glasses getting murkier and then one fine day completely opaque. There is nothing wrong with your eye only the 'lens' which permit light in have become solid. There are thousands of people in India who suffer from blindness of the cornea. Your donated cornea can be easily replaced with a simple, cheap surgery. Many times these surgeries are done for free!

Q. Can I donate my eyes while I am still alive?

A. No

Q. I am a devout and orthodox Hindu Brahmin. My religion does not permit the mutilation of the body after death. Would my eyes be removed completely?

A. When you donate your eyes, you actually donate only the cornea. The medical team will remove the eyeballs but will replace lookalike marbles. So you will still look dignified as a corpse. Technically speaking eye donation is not for you. But dear sir, wouldnt your God grant you heaven for mutilating your body for such a cause?

Q. After death how early should the eyes be removed from my dead body?

A. Very important question. The eyes MUST be removed within 6 hours of death. Beyond this time, the delicate tissues of the eye begin to decay.

Q. How are the eyes removed and by whom?

A. Upon death, an immediate family member or friend must call up the eye bank to inform of the death. The team will swiftly make arrangements and reach the house/hospital where the dead body is kept. The medical team will check the eye donation testament and ONLY after explicit permission from the nearest family member will proceed to remove the eyes. They would carry out some quick tests to check whether the eyes are in good condition. It would take not more than 15 mins. Generally, they are sensitive of the situation and conduct themselves appropriately so as to not cause any further grievance or delay in the cremation proceedings.

Q. Will I get to know whom my eyes will be donated to?

A. According to Indian government law, eye banks must maintain complete anonymity. Donors and recipient's identities are never disclosed. So if you wish to donate your eyes after your death to your blind cousin, unfortunately it would not work (unless maybe through a will?, I dont know)

Q. Will my family get paid for my eyes donation?

A. No. this is entirely an act of generous humanity.

Q. I am a registered eye donor with Sankara Eye Bank in Bangalore. If I die in Darbhanga, can I still donate my eyes?

A. Yes, you can donate eyes anywhere in India. However, if you die abroad, it may not be possible (depends on the country's laws). Best alternative would be to take a eye donor card from that country.

Q. I am HIV +ve. Can I also donate my eyes?

A. Unfortunately, you cannot :-( People with unexplained cancer, AIDS and some specific eye diseases should not donate.

~~~~

Although my eyes are pledged, I doubt whether they would actually be donated. The window of opportunity is too narrow at 6 hours from the time of death. What is the chance that my immediate family member would call an eye bank, give them directions and assist them all within 6 hours of my end? Very slim. Sadly. But while I live, let me put up for public display one of the better sculpted parts of my anatomy. My eyes :-)

NA

2010-09-08T10:56:00.002+04:00

My love affair with the soothingly named “N.A.Tax” began a few days back when a visit to my hometown for the purpose of selling a piece of land which my father had purchased in 1987-88 brought me face to face with this mysterious tax. They say beauty is only skin deep. This becomes evident with the knowledge that N.A. stands for Non Agricultural rather than Not Applicable, as common wisdom would suggest. So on a rain soaked morning, I found myself negotiating narrow by lanes planted by jobless on lookers seeking to amuse themselves by bantering on my presence and its purpose. The trail ended at the ‘talathi’s office’. I learnt a talathi is the name for a government babu from the revenue department in Maharashtra (other states would have local names). The tale of the talathi merits a separate post in itself and I shall give it that honor!

Rs 37,456. The talathi wrote in Marathi and accentuated it with an ellipse drawn around the figure, as if the emphasis would deliver more fuel to the fire. That was the accrued amount of tax which was due since 1987-88. After some inquiries, the light of dismay shone bright on this Houdini tax which, it now appears, has evolved a unique survival trait wherein it lays hidden for decades waiting for the right moment to spring up (has it got anything to do with the fact that Tolkien was writing his tome during the same time this legislation was being constituted?). It is called N.A. Tax or Non Agricultural Tax.

After several painstaking albeit eager googling, I succeeded in figuring out what is this tax for? May I invite you to read ahead and be amused with this great country and its even greater taxes!

Firstly it is pertinent to know that it is a state level tax and I found instances only in Maharashtra. Why only one state, I do not know. The tax traces its ancestry to the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code (MLRC) of 1966. Section 42 of MLR Code 1966 states that, "No land used for agriculture shall be used for any non-agricultural purpose; and no land assessed for one non-agricultural purpose shall be used for any other non-agricultural purpose without the permission of the Collector." However, the same act got amended from 1st August 2008 stating no non-agricultural permission is required to obtain in the area other than city if person is constructing residential building for personal use. The development (residential building) should be falling outside the limits of
1. Eco-sensitive Zone,
2. The area within eight kilometres from periphery Greater Mumbai,
3. The area within five kilometres from the periphery of each of Cities of Pune and Solapur,
4. The area within one kilometre from the periphery of the Cities of Nagpur and Kolhapur,
5. The area within one kilometer from the periphery of each of `A' Class or 'B' Class municipal areas,

In simple words, for most areas in Maharashtra, you would be obliged to pay an annual non agricultural tax. Ok so where does the story get spicy?

In the years of 2002 and as recently as 2008, residents of western suburbs in Bandra, Santa Cruz, Khar as well as in Navi Mumbai were shocked when they received a notice to pay 30-40K N.A.Tax. There was no reason attributed, no transparency as to how the figure was calculated. And herein lies the spice! CIDCO (Maharashtra’s city development organization) apparently forgot that such a tax needs to be collected! This loss of memory lasted for over two decades. The housing societies which sprang up in the 80’s and 90’s remained unaware of the tax. Then, one fine morning, someone in CIDCO apparently woke up from this Rip Wan Winkle slumber and sent thousands of notices.

The BJP-Shiv Sena government during the early years of 2000 had actually abolished this tax. But the successive Congress-NCP regime recalled it, its anybody’s guess as to why they did that. This is not all; the tax rate itself is another story in itself. It used to be a modest 50 paisa per sq ft or thereabouts. While no one really knows what is the current prevailing rate, but while conversing on the phone directly with the Talathi, a figure of Rs 3.75 per sq ft was told. So not only is this archaic, confusing tax living its extended life but the government is increasing the rate in multiples and not percentages.
As we agreed to pay the amount, I smiled and shook my head at our country’s way of life. What would the tax reforms of DTC and GST do when states have weird taxes like N.A. Will we ever see Non Agricultural Tax become Non Applicable Tax? I hope so

Source-
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Travelogue China - Part II

2010-08-01T20:25:00.002+04:00

5 days in the capital of the world’s most populated country are grossly inadequate. When they get dispensed in plush hotel rooms, AC taxis, client premises and famous dining places the real China has been conveniently bypassed. Such should be the qualified introduction for my travel experiences in Beijing. In others words, what follows is the just the tip of the iceberg from my bird’s eye with dark shades to protect from the glare.

Weather – Beijing is pretty up north latitude and is swathed with harsh winters. Apartments have central heaters which are switched on for 6 months. Thankfully, it was prefect weather when I went. However most notable was the air pollution in Beijing. The worst I have ever seen in my life. The smog is so thick that visibility is restricted to about 50-100 meters only. It really makes it very gloomy. In fact, for Beijing 2008 Olympics the government had enforced several measures over 2-3 years to reduce the pollution levels in the city.

Transportation –This is one area where I got more than what was expected. Let me start first with the roads. The city is basically a horizontal city and hence it’s huge. 10kms is nearby for Beijing. There are 6 ring roads, all concentric and fast expressways with no signals at all. In the centre is the famous Tiananmen Square. This ringed design makes every area very easily accessible. I wondered how they managed to build these ring roads so systematically; given the fact Beijing should be a very ancient city.
Talking of traffic, it’s pretty smooth. And regulation is a significant facilitator for this. Odd and even numbered cars are allowed to come out on roads on alternate days. Only on Saturday & Saturday it’s free for all. One important thing worth mentioning is that Beijing has no market for small cars. The superfast ring road design has rendered it a market for the big, swanky, fast cars. However, my guess is the Tier 2 and 3 cities must be where the small cars may ensconce.
I could not expose myself to the other forms of transportation viz bus, train, underground rail so have no observations in that area. Taxis and cabs are pretty good. One thing I did not understand was the no. of receipts the cabbies handed. Since they do not speak English, it was a challenge even figuring what had been the fare! First they print out the total fare as per the meter, then they eject a small square shaped paper with government stamp on it and once we received even a third addendum to these bills.
Then there was the Beijing International Airport. As expected, huge and awesome. But not quite of the same scale like Hong Kong. One new stuff here was a push button for entering feedback for the immigration staff. So when they finished their stamping, they would enable the device and you could choose one of the 4 buttons ranging from a wide smiley to a morose face.

People & Living – I asked my Chinese colleague one question. Sometimes, names are same for men or women for example Li. How do you distinguish wether it’s a man or a woman? The key to this lies in a subtle difference in the way the names are written in the Chinese script. Also, many Chinese have English names, atleast the first name. This is more a personal choice rather than something obligatory. The custom which began in Hong Kong has spread to the mainland and is one of the tangible signs of globalization on Chinese ethos. The Chinese have a lot of names and words beginning with x, y and z. I was also interested in knowing the education system. The best engineering college is Tsinghua University in Beijing which conducts national examination for entrance. There are reservations by province presumably accordingly to population of that province. Doesn’t that make more sense than reservations on caste in India? Point to ponder. Well it’s a no brainer actually. We Indians have inherited something catastrophic since our civilization began flourishing on the banks of the Indus. That would be religion. There is no official religion in China. Hans which form 90% of the population do not have a religion. So shall it be, religion will continue to be the opium of Indian masses.

Script – The one thing that fascinated me most was the Chinese script. Native English or even Hindi speakers will find reading Mandarin something similar to those rebus games we used to play in college. It’s really like unraveling a puzzle which has a coded message. Basically, the Chinese do not have an alphabet set. They use pictures or symbols to depict objects, then combine these symbols, or modify them to make new meanings. That is something similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics but that was ancient! Hence, The Chinese writing system is the oldest surviving writing system in the world. There are about 45,000 symbols out which mastery over 3k-4k is enough to know Mandarin thoroughly. The Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese also follow the same script. Although Mandarin and Cantonese use the same script they are completely different, to take an example from back home – Gujarati and Bengali. Mandarin is spoken in Mainland China, while South China (Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau) is referred to as Canton. I suspect learning Mandarin would be easier for a native English speaker than learning French, because one does not have to adjust to spellings, pronunciation that what his eyes see.

Food - :-). The prime urge for me when I travel is to get exposed to new things and also dispel my misconceptions about the place I am travelling to. On this trip, one of the areas where a great misconception got disabused was food. I went to Beijing expecting terrible food. But I was proved wrong. If you are a non rigid non vegetarian, you would love Chinese cuisine. The taste is quite close to our Indian masalas. They eat a lot more garlic though. So let me list the animals which I ate, in decreasing order of bizarreness – Sea Cucumber, Peking duck, Pork, and Chicken. On one evening, a Director level guy took us out for dinner to Da Dong Roast Duck restaurant, one of the most popular eating places in Beijing. If waiting time has a direct correlation to popularity, then please be advised that we waited 1 hour for a table! The Chinese custom of eating I have explained in my previous post, only thing to add is that they taste rather than eat. What I mean by that is, they don’t really eat one or two items in a meal fulsomely, rather they eat 10-15 items in small quantities. Having said that, its common sense that such may not be the case in everyday meals.

Corporate Culture – My observations on corporate culture is strictly limited to one company which I was consulting to. But there are some generalizations which can be extrapolated, I believe. The culture appears to be just an extension of their political ideology. It must be noted that below the ministers there is some sort of industry forum which is comprised of about 300 odd CEOs. This body is the de facto engine for policy formulation, giving ground level pulses to the political heads. Talking specifically of my own client, the CEO was a very weird man. First, he did not look like one from any angle. He had a very queer way of talking by looking straight ahead and not turning his head to point towards the person with whom he was conversing. But he was a sharp guy and pretty successful in his short stint at the helm too, so nothing to take away from him really. Also when we were at the lunch table, I observed he served food for my company leaders seated next to him. So he is not that crude after all. Just his style. Another point on culture, when he spoke nobody else spoke.

To sum up, I have just begun the preface to what should pullulate into a deep understanding of a country which is going to dominate the globe in not so long future. Hope to pack my bags soon!

Travelogue China - Part I

2010-07-26T06:38:00.001+04:00

I got invited for a private executive lunch for select ‘important’ people by the CEO of a big company. Tathastu.

But then I shuddered at the lunch. We were escorted to the second floor of Loong Palace Resort where a special lunching area was being prepared. The entrance had huge aquariums with all marine life swimming. With my experience in Hong Kong I was wiser this time to understand their purpose. I entered gingerly. Our company’s leader was assigning places. I waited for my assignment to be delivered, wishing I get to sit next to my senior Indian colleague. “You sit there” came the verdict and I was sandwiched between two client guys but worst of worst straight facing the CEO who arrived like a Mughal emperor in the heydays of the seventeenth century. Just how powerful and influential this man is in China can be imagined by the fact that when German chancellor Angela Merkel visited China, he was one of the member of the delegation to be invited to meet her. More on him later. All chitter chatter stopped immediately and we sat still waiting for his highness to begin the proceedings. However before the story proceeds, I must mention here the table and Chinese custom of eating. There is generally a round table with a movable circular glass of smaller diameter in the centre. The dishes are places equidistant on this moving platform. As it rotates you pick up your stuff with the chopsticks and put it on a small plate. I discovered after my recent dining experiences that one needs to eat from this small plate and not put the food on the larger plate which is given to hold the small plate. Not so elementary, my dear friend!

The guy on my left, who was a very senior guy, almost jumped with his conversation as if he had been dreaming of this once in a lifetime opportunity of sitting beside me. He began asking me my opinions on the Jaguar Land Rover acquisition done by Tata Motors. I gave him a high steroid dose of unadulterated gyaan sprinkled with confidence which would make even Ratan Tata frown. However, he turned out to be a nice chap, English speaking thankfully. I explained to him why Indians do not eat beef and he said no problem and very willingly pointed to the beef plate on the rotating disc which I should avoid. So I ate or rather tasted most of the other creatures which looked agreeable. I did not want to be embarrassed and asked question why do u not eating? So first serving was the sea cucumber soup. Gosh! Never in my living life would I have even read it in the menu card of any restaurant. My very first hesitant sip and some while resin like jelly stuck to my mouth which by desi instinct I tried to pull away with my bare hand. The young Chinese to my right (we exchanged cards and he turned out to be director of Latin American operations) saw this and offered the towel. I was a bit ashamed of my lack of punctuality and decided to either avoid that white jelly or gulp it down if it unabashedly slipped in my soup spoon.

So over the next hour, down in my stomach went some pieces of roast duck, chicken & pork. The chicken.. ohh shit. No wait, it was delicious and I enjoyed it but on my third helping I suddenly saw something in the plate which did not quite blend with the same color, texture of other chicken pieces. On closer examination, I figured it was the chicken’s head with its crown, lips & shut eyes. Fuck. Awful. I stared at it for a moment maybe feeling a bit sorry. Only for a moment. Eat. Was the command in the head. One look up front made me realize my discomfit position and I hastily sorted the pieces and chose the most non-controversial looking anatomical part.

But many more animals passed by me which I could not muster courage to put in my mouth for one reason or the other. These are mentioned as below
a. Alaskan King Crab claws – I don’t mind crabs.. but too much of a hassle negotiating the calciferous undulations searching for that prized morsel of flesh. The variety is further suggestive of the much larger challenge in this case!
b. Shrimps – I like these but these guys bloody cook the entire shrimp along with its eyes. I am a non vegetarian not a carnivore. Also since I would have probably eaten only the soft flesh inside, I did not want to try the adventure of hacking off its shell either by hand or teeth or otherwise. Least of all chopsticks!
c. A huge fish which still looked like a fish and had some yucky paste or gawd-knows-what-was-that sautéed over it. Again I have still not become a carnivore and prefer the meat in an unrecognizable state. Fair expectation, isn’t it?
d. Oysters (my guess) – Well I wanted to taste that but really needed some guidance what, how to eat. This was certainly not the occasion to experiment.

What happened next was my greatest fear. I only thanked god it wasn’t dinner time. The staff brought red wine, some marquee brand. Me and my colleague at the farther end of the table quietly sign languaged the waitress ‘I don’t want’. She obliged by pouring in coke. Then came the cheers moment. Our man of honor raised his glass to everyone’s cheer and commented (in Chinese, there was a translator) – Why aren’t the Indians drinking wine, with so much globalization what stops them from adopting this social culture. Bomb. I had a feeling this thing would come. Since the translator directed the question towards my senior colleague he tackled it. There was no rebound to me. Phew!

This was one memorable experience. There are situations in life when no is not an option. One must evolve to prepare for such exigencies. I am still learning.

This time for Africa

2010-07-15T17:48:00.015+04:00

The world cup has ended. We have a new champion. Only the eight country ever to win the prestigious Jules Rimet Trophy.

I had been wanting to collect my thoughts on the month long festival which had changed my life recently. The hours spent watching TV shot up drastically and most notably late nights had begun. This world cup was special in another way. This is the first world cup after 1998 in France which I actually saw, actually followed, actually enjoyed. The world cup is not about randomly sitting on a night in front of the tube and watching the final between two European countries. The real joy is watching those two last teams alive wade their way through 32 other contenders. I am happy I experienced real joy. So lest this joy fades away into obscurity, let me condense some key moments which left me impressed.

Best Match: Uruguay Vs Ghana, Quaterfinal. I loved watching this match. It went on till 3 AM in the night and even after getting into bed sleep did not come for hours. The drama had just mesmerized me. Suarez' hand of god. Asamoah Gyan missing the penalty in the 29th minute of extra time. Uruguay winning on penalties. One entire continent heartbroken.

Second Best Match: Spain Vs Netherlands, Final. The best final since I knew what the world cup was. I hate penalty shootouts to decide a winner and love to see goals after the group stages. France 98 final between France & Brazil was great in that regard but it was one sided. However, El Matador against Oranje turned out as expected. Two extremely strong midfields cancelling each other out, resulting in either side having numerous opportunities to score. I cant remember how many times Netherlands or Spain should have scored. The tempo and intensity of the game was also high. 8 Dutch players and 5 Spanish given yellow cards! Throwing caution to the wind of fair play just to get that prize. In the end, it was a wonderful strike by Andreas Iniesta that sealed Spain's place in the history books. Loved it.

Best Player: Diego Forlan. 5 goals all at crucial moments when his team were usually trailing 1-0. He reminded me of the legendary Davor Suker of Croatia in 1998. Maybe it went unnoticed that Forlan was injured in the semi final clash against Netherlands but still played since Suarez was out suspended after his Hand of God. Even being unfit, he produced that spectacular equalizer, the long range curling kick. Pure individual brilliance.

Best Team: Germany. Best team at this world cup. One bad match is all it took eventually. A very young side with unknown names who are now world famous stars. Thomas Mueller, Mesut Oezil, Sami Khedira to name a few. But the cherry of the German cake was the great Miroslav Klose. I enjoyed this young team's attacking and free flowing football. The 4-0 demolition of Argentina was a treat.

Best Goal: Ahh this is a tough one aint it? Personally, I love goals which were executed with finesse, skill and technique dashed with individual brilliance. To be honest, I cant remember too many goals which fitted my criteria. But let me still try. One that comes to mind was the Diego Forlan strike against Germany, his fifth goal.

2014 the world cup will travel to ..guess where... Brazil! Anyone betting against Brazil to win the world cup '14? What does Paul say?

Travelogue - Hongkong

2010-05-14T12:34:00.012+04:00

Almost 2 years of futile attempts at international travel got erased finally. 4 days got spent at the fragrant harbour, as the natives call it. We know it as Hongkong. 1 day got spent at the world's top gambling destination. Not Vegas, but the tiny ex Portuguese settlement with a very avian name Macau.

With my past international travel, I often had a day wise travelogue (read Saudi Arabia) however this time the approach to collect my thoughts shall be different. Since I am still a very less travelled man (6 countries out of 200 odd makes it less than 3% of global coverage) it would be presumptious to comment of how good, bad, ugly Hongkong is. What could be more warranted would be an apple to apple comparision with another destination I have had the fortune of knowing at close quarters. So two super cities of the world seen through the same lens.

Climate - Hongkong climate (and weather) is way, way better than Dubai (DXB). Although both are ports, the latter is a desert. Hongkong's (HKG) peaks and hills offer a fascinating landscape. Its an all year round destination. There really are no best-time-to visit constraints here unlike Dubai, which is best seen during the winter months only.

History & Tradition - Dubai is very bad on this parameter. Most foreigners can conveniently spend years living there without as much knowing anything about the emirate, its culture, its evolution etc. This is quite unlikely in Hongkong. A foreigner will invariably get entangled with the Hongkongness of Hongkong, wether she likes it or not. Also, I doubt whether whatever history Dubai has can be really called as history? The museum of Dubai only manages a faint squeel for attention in the din of malls and malls and more malls. Contrast this with HKG, and Hongkong museum of history is the top ten attractions among 140 odd listed on tripadvisor.

Food - My judgement on this parameter shall be carefully qualified. From an Indian alimentary canal perspective, Hongkong food is yucks, eeeks, grose and can't-even-enter-a-restaurant. This was indeed my experience as has been every Indian's. But if we zoom to see the big picture then I would be left incapable to judge whether the Arabian Shawarma beats the Pekingese roasted duck. Here I shall narrate a small anecdote. On one of Hongkong's bylanes I stood admiring a roadside aquarium. It had these huge glass tanks filled with water and was brilliantly lit up. In the water were swimming and floating acquatic creatures with or without spines whose names I would never know. As I admired this wonderful marine spectacle, I was shocked to be approached by the man on the shop's door. He offered me the menu card! Turned out I had mistaken a restaurant for an aquarium.

Global Outlook - Dubai is hands down the winner. Hongkong's economy may have capitalist foundations but they havent managed to de Chinatize themselves at all. There is no Wal Mart or Carrefour. English is an official language but is understood by few and spoken by even fewer. I would guess globalization of Hongkong has been limited to Japanization and a little Koreanization.

Public Transport - The best way to opine on this would be alloting scores on a scale of 0 to 10. The rest will be clear. Bangalore - 0.5 Mumbai - 3 Dubai 4 Hongkong 9. The Mass Transit Rail (MTR) of Hongkong just took my breath away. Truly, truly awesome. I havent seen the New York Subway or the London Tube but using Hongkong's public transport was the best experience of my commuting life so far. On this note I must shower encomiums on Hongkong to have mass adopted the cashless way of travel. They have an Octopus card there which is basically a smart card. Within just 5-6 years of introduction, every single individual has one of her own. Right from school children to retired gentlemen, one card which they use for the railways, the buses, the trams, the mini buses and the ferries. But what left me amazed was they have now extended its use as an card for entry into schools, residential societies and even offices!! Seeing the mass adoption, retail chains like McDonalds, 7/11 installed Octopus Card Readers. Incredible isnt it. Imagine you get into the tram near your house by tapping your card, alight at the rail station and use the same card to complete your journey. After you alight from the train at your destination you feel the need for a snack. You go to McDonald's and buy your grub using the same card, then drop into a 7/11 and buy mineral water with the same card. Enter office with the same card. Movie with girlfriend at night.. book tickets using the same card and get back home in time to change by tapping the same card at your residential security entrance. Do it to know it, really. One last thing. I walked up the counter at the airport and asked for what docs I need to submit to buy a Octopus card. He said nothing, just give HKD 100. After the trip when I went to cancel the card, it took less than 2 mins to get my entire refund back. Efficiency in civil service has found a new benchmark for me after all this.

Shopping - Well, well an area which I deeply abhor :-) but have some insights to share nevertheless. If you are the mall shopper then Dubai is THE place on earth. If you prefer a balanced mix of street markets and malls then Hongkong is better though crazily expensive. Hongkong is arguably the second costliest city in the world after Tokyo. So mind the wallet!! The street markets though allow huge scope for haggling. Those who derive great satisfaction in this convergence to the arithmetic mean art of haggling would love Hongkong's streets. Dubai also has its bland share of flea markets like the gold market and Meena Bazaar area, however you cannot bargain too much. So the 'joy' of shopping is absent.

Night Life - Hongkong wins over Dubai. Dubai does have a decent night life or rather after day life but still I am a little biased over Hongkong because of its superior public transport which runs till early morning 1-2 AM. This makes night life there more exciting. Plus stuff like drinking, bars, night clubs, casinos would all be absent due to Dubai's cultural censure.

Entertainment - As far as my prejudiced opinion is considered. Dubai - 0.5, Hongkong 9. Its that big a chasm. Skiing down artificial snow covered slopes in a concrete and steel air conditioned mall just does not register as true entertainment to me. Thats Dubai for you. A fake, artifical concrete, glass and metal jungle which is straight out of George Lucas' film. Contrast this with Hongkong thousands of miles away. The cable car climbing noiselessly into the clouds giving its inmates a breathtaking view of land, sea and sky is real. The rising smoke swirls of incense sticks from temples on the sea shore is very much earthen. I have a great dislike for Dubai due to this. A desert should act like one, creating artificial islands mimicing the world would only call for the befitting debt crises like the one it has landed up in.

Loved Hongkong, but would struggle to live for an extended time frame due to food & Cantonese incapacitance.

Please lizzen to my sexplanation

2010-04-23T21:43:00.006+04:00

Of all news items, there is one genre which seems to have a recurrent ability for getting maximum share of voice. This is the genre of scandals. Now among all scandalous gossip on media, scandals of the lecherous kind get me disgustingly amused. I am peevingly amused to know the depravity, immorality of men and their actions. And when such episodes have a baba or swami or godman as the protagonist then it really gets the cake. Swami Nityananada Paramhansa gets the cake and the cherry too. Why the cherry? If I borrow Captain Kirk's sentence, 'The swami has gone where no sex guru has gone before'. The guy got volunteers to sign sex contracts clearly stating him inculpable in event of a lawsuit! What a guy. Innovation in debauchery of hitherto unparalled level. Reproduced below are some clauses taken verbatim from a Non Disclosure Agreement classified confidential which female devotees were obliged to sign.

Volunteer understands that the program may involve the learning and practise of ancient tantric secrets associated with male and female ecstasy including use of sexual energy for increased intimacy/spiritual connection, pleasure, harmony and freedom. Volunteer understands that these activities could be physically and mentally challenging and may involve nudity, assess to visual images, graphic visual depictions and descriptions of nudity and sexual activity, close physical proximity and intimacy, verbal and written descriptions and audio sounds of a sexually oriented and erotic nature, etc.

By reading and signing this addendum, volunteer irrevocably acknowledges that he/she is voluntarily giving his unconditional acceptance of such activities and discharges the Leader and Foundation and anyone else not specifically mentioned here but directly or indirectly involved in the organization, management or conduct of any such programs from any liability, direct or indirect, arising from such activities.

So when he will step up to his defense in front of the jury wearing his saffron robes, glistening teeth and rockstar hairstyle, the speech will go like thus

Aanrable Jury myembers, aai or maai yeny organization is naat invalved with yennny seggs scyandull. Please lizzen to my sexplanation. My female valunteeyurs have signed a legal contract vaaluntarily. Many rizpected veemen from aaal wax of life gaat themselves yenrolled. They gaat healed due to my tantric seggsual powers.

Strawberry cheesecake with a ripe plum cherry please.

The bug hasnt bitten me yet

2010-04-18T18:22:00.002+04:00

Of all bugs which bite, the bite of the 'entrepreneurial bug' is the most long lasting. Till date, I have managed to live in a protected environment and denied myself getting bitten. Lately, one question has been knocking in my head - how long can I remain without getting bitten. Yeah once bitten, twice shy, but the once should happen. Or not?

My recent book purchases are an effort in answering this question. As history suggests, I am a good buyer of books, but terrible with reading them. So cannot say for sure the books will be digested or even tasted for that matter. Anyways here are the two books which I bought.

1. "The High Performance Entrepreneur" by Subroto Bagchi.
1.1 When do I know I am ready?
1.2 Profile of an entrepreneur
1.3 Sensing the right opportunity
1.4 Choosing the team
1.5 DNA, mission, vision and values
1.6 How are u different?
1.7 Writing the business plan
1.8 Choosing the right investor
1.9 Getting good people and keeping them
1.10 Building the process focused organization
1.11 A company is known by the customers it keeps
1.12 Managing your money
1.13 Building your brand
1.14 Emergence and willingness to change
1.15 Managing adversity
1.16 From idea to IPO
1.17 Reasons start ups fail
1.18 Lessons in entrepreneurship from the Indian IT Industry

2. "Cases in Entrepreneurship - The Venture Creation Process" by Eric A. Morse & Ronald K. Mitchell
2.1 Searching for venture opportunities
2.2 Screening venture opportunities
2.3 Planning and financing the venture
2.4 Venture setup
2.5 Venture startup
2.6 Ongoing venture operations & growth
2.7 Venture analytics: Beyong venture creation

I hope one day I get around reading these and blogging about the 'so what'.

Mixed Veg of Updates

2010-04-04T08:27:00.002+04:00

An assortment of updates albeit lacking required flavours or condiments
1. Drawn deeper into F1 fanhood. Have lately started following Fri practices as well! Great sport to spend time on. Force India doing very well, Chandhok also looking promising. Come 2011, India will host its maiden race at Delhi. Hopeful of attending it.
2. Have been flipping Nat Geo mags from past few months. There was a cover story on Gold which I found quite interesting. Hows this for a fact. "In all of history, only 161,000 tons of gold have been mined, barely enough to fill two Olympic pools. More than half has been extracted in the past 50 yrs"
3. Just did this 'Cities I have visited' on tripadvisor via facebook. Realized my weak footprints in the Hindu heartland MP, Chatisgarh, UP. Surprisingly, Kerala has been covered comprehensively!
4. The markets have become very boring. Havent been checking them. Disinterested in reading market, economy, business related news.

Facebook and Twitter

2010-03-05T07:40:00.004+04:00

Recently, I realized that my absence from social networking sites (SNS) was costing me more than my presence would have. Since the birth of SNS in its first successful avatar of orkut, I have been the most vocal critic of this concept. My vituperation has engendered many cussed blogposts too. (Read what I wrote in 2006, 2009). So under great coercion did I agree myself to open accounts in facebook and twitter. My observations from the first few months.

What I like about Facebook:
1. Universal acceptability - Almost everyone is there.
2. Enhanced utility - Perhaps the best. The real use (for me atleast) is that Facebook hosts events. For example - I am sure there must be a Commonwealth Games 2010 group or some cricket related group or religion or politics or literature.

What I dislike about Facebook:
1. Too much unwarranted crap delivered at my doorstep. I dont care what X is saying to Y. I think its called wall or something like that (the homepage), and it is always full of someone whom I dont know commenting something which I am not concerned with on someone's page who is my dormant contact. If there is a way to disable this wall, can anyone please advise? Or is the wall Facebook's core competence?

What I like about Twitter:
1. Great concept. Much more meaningful than Facebook.
2. The new age media. Twitter became powerful (and caught my attention) during the Iran presidential elections episode. When the country banned all correspondents, news channels, networking sites it was through Twitter that Iranians communicated with the rest of the world. I think this 'news as it happens' utility of Twitter has taken the media world with a storm.
3. Access to celebrities. High profile politicians, media magnates, corporate honchos, bollywood superstars, sporting legends.
4. Tweeting from mobile. This gets the cake really.

What I dislike about Twitter:
1. Following friends and especially dormant contacts is absolutely useless. The scale is so micro that it does not add any value to me when a dormant contact tweets a few words 'Stuck in traffic.. maddening'. As a matter of fact, I only follow Formula 1 drivers and who's who.
2. If you are not getting the tweets on your mobile then its pretty inane to log in to the site and read 'Stuck in traffic.. maddening' two days later!
3. 150 odd words is too less for my appetite.

Overall, Twitter is better than Facebook. I am trying to soften my causticness towards SNS in general. Lets see.

Review - When Ghosts Speak

2010-02-25T13:53:00.003+04:00

Foreword: When it comes to ghosts, people can be imprecisely segregated into three blurred groups.
a. Ghosts and Spirits are bullshit.
b. I don’t know what to think or say.
c. They are out there! Let me get my Ouija board out tonight
I fall into category b. This post is meant for category b and c readers only. May I request the vast majority of a. category denizens to please skip this post and check Facebook instead.
~ ~ ~
I recently finished reading “When Ghosts Speak” written by Mary Ann Winkowski. In this book, Mary Ann – now a paranormal investigator – tells her incredible story. She reveals the difference between earthbound spirits and those who have crossed over, why ghosts stay on the earthly plane and the importance of the “White Light” that appears when any creature dies.

I loved reading this book. In fact, I am a self confessed loser when it comes to books and reading (which has surprised me a zillion times, as I claim to be a writer. How can you write well if you do not read well!). As soon as I read the first page of this book, I was hooked. This book (irrespective of how much is believable) has managed to satisfy my long felt peeve of applying some crude structure or framework to this pseudoscience of afterlife, occult or whatever term your lexicon hosts. I am very much a charts guy. Anything and everything should and must be categorized neatly or roughly into a chart showing groups, then sub groups then sub sub groups. For example - lets take God. My limited influences still yield me a stucture as follows - Group1: Religion; Group2: Non Religion. Under Group1 we can have Monotheism (only one deity) or Polytheism (many dieties). Under Monotheism we can say idol worship (Christianity) and non idol worship (Islam, Sikhism). So on and so forth. I hope you get the drift of my everything-should-fall-in-order view of this world. Now, there is an absolute innundation of ghostly material around us, in literature, television. Hitherto it was unclear how to make a chart and group logically all things related to 'afterlife world'. Namely - demons, exorcism, satan, spirit, poltergeist, wicca, witchcraft, black magic, ouija, seances, mediums, automatic writing, curses and spells, pentagrams the list just goes on and on.

After reading 'When Ghosts Speak' I must say I have achieved the first logical grouping. Group1: Pre Crossover; Group2: Post Crossover. ALL that long laundry list would fall into either of these two master groups. How exactly, I still am unable to figure :-). Let me leave you with the table of contents of the book. I strongly recommend this for anyone serious enough in this field. Otherwise avoid.

Part 1 – Listening to Spirits
1. My Story – Discovering a gift

Part 2 – Understanding Earthbound Spirits
2. The Truth About Ghosts – Separating fact from fiction
3. The White Light – An opportunity to cross over
4. Why Some Souls Stay Behind – And how I convince them to cross over
5. Funerals – Expect to attend your own
6. Murders and Suicides – When spirits stay after unnatural deaths
7. Children – How young spirits are different
8. Animals – Loyal after death
9. Evil Spirits – Rare but real

Part 3 – Living with Ghosts
10. Asking For Trouble – How people attract earthbound spirits
11. Signs That You Are Not Alone – Identifying the presence of spirits around you
12. How To Deal With Ghosts – Protecting yourself from the influence of earthbound spirits
13. Curses And Other Negative Energy – What you can do to prevent, remove or weaken negative energy

PS: Some people would be receiving this post as an email in their inbox. Since you guys don't visit my blog often AND i want you to, hence you have been chosen to forcefully read my blogposts now delivered snugly in your inboxes.

The Irumbai Legend

2010-02-16T11:42:00.005+04:00

I recently completed a long cherised dream. Today, I can claim to have set foot on all geographic corners of India. Delhi in the North, Mumbai in the West, Kolkata in the East, Chennai in the South and Nagpur in the Centre. Interestingly, it took a staggering 20 years to achieve this seemingly easy objective. Nagpur was first off the block, when I was a toddler. Next was Kolkata when I was in 7th standard. Mumbai followed in my engineering 2nd year. I conquered Delhi when I was 22. Finally, Chennai happened just a few days back!

To celebrate this achievement, I thought of sharing one very interesting legend that I came across while on a visit to Auroville at Pondicherry. Its called the Irumbai Legend.

The people who live in the villages around Auroville have shown warmth and hospitality in welcoming people of different races, cultures and countries to their area. The ancient legend of Kaduveli Siddha, a famous yogi, can perhaps explain partly why the villagers have shown such grace.
The story of Kaduveli Siddha begins some 500 years ago in Irumbai, a small village on the edge of Auroville. According to the legend, the yogi was performing harsh penance sitting under a peepal tree. The heat of his body was so intense that the rain gods suffered and the villagers were exposed to hardships and drought, yet nobody dared disturb him. Thus sitting undisturbed, an anthill began to form around him. Valli, the temple dancer and devotee of Lord Shiva, decided to do her best to rescue the local King and his people from the adverse effects of the yogi's penance. Observing that Siddha would put out his hands to catch and consume the falling peepal leaves, she prepared some thinly fired food which she started placing in his hands. Soon he began eating and slowly grew fatter until finally the anthill broke and he was once more exposed to the rays of the sun. The god of rain was relieved from the torture he felt from the heat of the yogi's penance and the rain fell in plenty. The people were happy once again

In order to celebrate this event, the King ordered a large Puja to be held at Irumbai's temple. The Puja was followed by a classical performance in which Valli would act out the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. During her performance, however, one of her anklets fell off causing her to lose her balance and rhythm. Kaduvelli Siddha, who saw Lord Shiva in Valli, picked up the anklet and put it back on her feet. This act exposed him to the ridicule of the King and the court for having touched the feet of a dancing girl and he was heckled. Furious, he invoked Lord Shiva to come out of his temple and prove his righteousness by causing a rain of stone. Immediately, the lingam in the temple’s sanctum sanctorum exploded, and wherever its fragments fell became desert. The King, frightened, begged the pardon of the yogi and pleaded with him to end the curse. This appeased Kaduvelli Siddha, who said that what was done could not be undone, but that in the future, people from far off lands would come and make the desert land green and fertile again.

Today there are villagers who feel that the Aurovilians are the people from far-off lands mentioned by the yogi and the curse is now being lifted.

Marketing Tip

2010-02-07T07:21:00.002+04:00

There are no better places to observe the sea of humanity than Indian temples and Indian railway stations. My preference is clearly with the latter. Lately, I deliberately shun other modes of transport, as much as possible. However, if your tastes lie in observing seas of inhumanity then city or town bus stations and public urinals would be better choices, in that order.

Some days back, a circumstantial need made me visit the ISKON temple in Bangalore. My religious inclination is best described as agnostic. In simple words – don’t really bother myself with anything to do with god. God is as inconsequential to me as my Orkut friend’s status. Having said that, note that the word ain’t atheist. So now and then I do venture into temples of fame. My time is spent in photographing the temple architecture, reading whatever I can lay my eyes to and observing people, apart from waiting for my troupe to finish their diligent prayers. This routine was again adhered to when I visited ISKON.

As explained in the obligatory introduction above, I have very little comments to offer on the ‘core competence’ of ISKON. I noticed many individuals completely immersed in a self realization of happiness, completely unaware of my prying eyes, so I guess it’s a great place for the religiously bent. But you would be sure if I have ventured to write a blog on my experience, there must be something about ISKON that impressed me. Very true, I was.

ISKON is very very well organized. They almost treat the line of devotees as an assembly line. As the line progresses, services are offered at intervals, without necessarily ebbing the movement of people. That’s critical. This ‘assembly line’ begins at the entrance then come, in order – shoes stall, legs cleaning by walking on flowing water, first temple, second temple, final temple darshan, book stall, charity donations self help kiosks, godly merchandise, life story of Srila Prabhupada ISKON founder in charts, upcoming ISKON project, employment desk, food!, more godly merchandise, exemplary ISKONians names engraved on walls, Prasad distribution, restaurant, shoe stall, exit. You can do this parikrama without having to spend undue time at any pit stop. Neat, isn’t it?

However, as is suggestive of this blog post’s title, what really bowled be over was an ingenious marketing concept. Notice I mentioned above the book stall. Suppose you were given a task of making the book stall sales skyrocket. How would you do that? Listen to what these guys do!, something which I would loosely fit in the 3rd P in the 4Ps of marketing. Promotion.

As the assembly line begins, the first stop is the shoe stall. Here, a polished English speaking devotee volunteer culls out English friendly constituents in the assembly line. I presume he does this by looking at the dressing sense and a cursory sense of wealthiness. Then he explains that to avoid the mad rush, one can pay Rs 108 and get a special pass. This wild card enables faster moving line, special darshan along with aarti, Prasad and Rs 20 off on any purchase made in the book stall. For most upper middle class, the opportunity cost (rubbing bodies with men, women and inhaling sweat + fart combine) of that Rs 108 is prohibitively expensive. I was no exception. Without blinking an eyelid I bought the special pass.

That’s the ingenuity! By bundling the Rs 20 off with the blanket special pass instead of offering the discount on the book stall per se, ISKON has achieved a remarkable marketing coup. Its human tendency to utilize that discount (which in reality is not a discount since you have paid for it!) when your assembly line winds up its way to the book stall. The rush at the book stall was in equal concentration with the main temple darshan. I saw all sorts of books in all sorts of Indian languages getting sold like hot cakes. At no other place of religious worship, have I seen this.

This helps ISKCON in two ways. One is, off course, the revenue. The other, perhaps more important than money, is their overarching vision of increasing awareness. Super.

10 completed

2010-01-17T08:53:00.003+04:00

I have recently finished my 10th story. Writing has been extremely difficult. The proverbial writer's block is somewhat accentuated in my case due to the genre which I want to specialize. Anyways I am halfway there. Need another 10 stories to take the process ahead. What process - The act of publishing my book and attaining authordom.

I shall leave you guys with a small teaser from the latest story. If you wish to read the full story you have but two choices -
1. Force me (on gunpoint, if required) to finish and print my book ASAP
2. Wait and sing Guns 'N' Roses 'Patience'

...That night, they spoke in hushed voices around the fire, almost expecting to see or hear something jump from the shadows. Gonjo had been spotted dancing on the railway station on last two consecutive nights. Such an innocuous act as dancing could surely have been ignored but the gravity of the matter lay in the chilling fact that Gonjo had died a week back. Those hushed voices were only adding more fuel to the fire, not the one which kept them warm, but the wildfire of ghostly hauntings by the Begunkodor railway station. What happened at the station this particular night, however, would clearly disabuse any misgivings towards the ghost of the dancing woman...

NEAR yet so FAR

2010-01-12T16:42:00.006+04:00

The other day while chatting with my friend Shreerang, we 'invented' two new ratios. The first one is his invention, the second one I shall law claim to.

The first ratio is what he loosely described as 'Network Adoption Ratio' or NEAR in short. Now, he did not offer any definition but I shall attempt one nevertheless. This ratio measures the quickness or tardiness of an individual's response to a new fad on social networking sites. For example, I am insouciantly aware of some what-color-is-my-bra-today stuff doing the rounds of Facebook. Lets call this the fad. Something which is spreading at a phenomenal speed. Lets further hazard an estimate to its lifecycle period. Assume it began on 1st January, reached it peak on 7th January and will fade off people's memory by the 15th. So this fad's lifetime is hypothesized as 15 days. Now assume two men named Pervert and Divert. Pervert gets hooked on to bra-gazing on 2nd Jan while Divert, true to his name, is finally captured by the fad on 11th January. Now, Pervert's adoption ratio is 1/15 = 6%, while Divert's adoption ratio is 10/15 = 66%. Thats the concept. As I see this, the NEAR ratio can be a useful metric in evaluating the efficacy of social networks. More importantly, it can give useful insights of consumer behaviour for viral marketing on the internet.

The second ratio which we discussed, is what I have called 'Friendship Attrition Ratio' or FAR in short. This is has been imagined by me, because as they say, necessity is the need for invention. I had been wondering for a long time about a major flaw in me, and to construe this shortcoming I came up with the FAR ratio. This is what it means...
Over a period of 5 years, count the number of people whom you got pleasantly acquainted with. In my case lets say 500. Now, estimate the number of people out of these with whom you are in touch with at the end of 5 years. Again, in my case this number would be around 50. (best case estimate!). Then the FAR will be calculated as (500-50)/500 = 90%. In simple terms, if I meet someone today and befriend him/her, there is a statistical probability of 90% that I shall forget him/her! How does that sound now :-)

Note: I am given to understand the color-of-my-bra was a social awareness campaign for breast cancer. So please train your guns while rebuffing my sarcasm above. I appreciate the underlying cause and if people get educated this way! who am I to ridicule. Lage Raho.. Jai Social Networking.

Remembering...

2010-01-08T16:03:00.001+04:00

A very gutsy girl. May god blesss her.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Love-triumphs-26/11-bullets/articleshow/5422142.cms

Refer this post to relate

FIFA 2010, Technical Analysis, Copernhagen

2009-12-05T14:53:00.003+04:00

Assorted updates…

1. The world cup is around the corner, well almost. That's soccer world cup. Cricket does not even evince a semi digested burp from me. Here are the groups (FIFA rank).
Group A – South Africa (86), Mexico (15), Uruguay (19), and France (7)
Group B – Argentina (8), Nigeria (22), South Korea (52), Greece (12)
Group C – England (9), United States (14), Algeria (28), Slovenia (33)
Group D – Germany (6), Australia (21), Serbia (20), Ghana (37)
Group E – Netherlands (3), Denmark (26), Japan (43), Cameroon (11)
Group F – Italy (4), Paraguay (30), New Zealand (77), Slovakia (34)
Group G – Brazil (2), North Korea (84), Ivory Coast (16), Portugal (5)
Group H – Spain (1), Switzerland (18), Honduras (38), Chile (17)

More on the above in later posts. I need to do a lot of reading before the summer. But the above list looks really exciting especially countries like North Korea, Slovenia, Ivory Coast, and Honduras.
----
2. I have been dabbling with an animal called Technical Analysis. For the uninitiated, technical analysis is the study of stock prices and charts which is different from fundamental analysis which involves studying the company’s financial statements, annual reports, management quality etc. Why am I learning technical analysis? One, because I want to experiment trading short term. Second, too much of free time courtesy my employer. So, nowadays I swim among aquatic beasts like moving averages, oscillators, RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands, Slow Stochastics, Elliot Wave Analysis. Yeah they all sound scary, don’t they? But a little persistence with these marine wildlife can bear results. I understand them, know how to use them, however, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating!
----
3. Another latest catch on my antennae has been the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference scheduled this December. This is a next round of diplomatic parleys among 180 countries after the Kyoto Convention held in Japan. Basically, the developed countries have pledged to reduce their toxic gas emissions by fixed percentage targets. Earlier the US, which accounts for ~36% of the world’s emissions had refused to accept a limit on itself. However, it is now known that the US along with China have declared a % reduction level as accepted target. Now the focus is on the only wild sheep left in the herd. India.

26/11 What Else...

2009-11-25T12:08:00.006+04:00

On the anniversary of 26/11, I shall try to collate as many "positive" developments and post links here. Please feel free to direct me to anything which has improved from 26 November 2008. This could be improved security infrastructure, upgraded intelligence, common man's attitude towards terror, Pakistan's stance, state government, police force; anything which points to a possibility of a terror ridden peaceful life for all Indians. Heres the first on the list..

1. A smart anti-terror force for Mumbai now http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/25/stories/2009112561591800.htm
2. Idea tribute to 26/11, will donate revenue http://www.hindustantimes.com/Idea-tribute-to-26-11-will-donate-revenue/H1-Article1-476112.aspx
Update (26/11)
3. Pakistan indicts Lakhvi, six others. http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/26/stories/2009112658470100.htm
4. Government recounts steps taken post 26/11 http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/26/stories/2009112655481000.htm

Note: I urge readers to refrain from commenting negative opinions. If you think we are worse off than one year ago, please let your silence be your dissent. Thank You.

Raj

2009-11-09T18:31:00.003+04:00

Raj as in Thackeray and not the erstwhile British Raj or the rural Panchayati Raj. The undisputed, unparalleled villain of Maharastra state politics, slowly spreading his fame beyond the state boundaries. But this is not an addendum to the constant diatribe against the 41 yr old Thackeray scion. It's quite the opposite.

My fingers have been itching sinces a very long time to debut my blog posts on this phenomenon called Mr. Raj Thackeray. He caught my eye during the North Indian attacks for which he was ceremoniously imprisoned. No, what caught my eye was the gait, the ruthlessness in his confident walk, the duniya-jaye-tel-lene attitude when he got ceremoniously imprisoned. Since then I have made myself available to listen to all happenings coming from Rajville. And I do not dislike the man at all.

In a rare defence offered for him (entirely my personal thoughts), the man's one of a kind. Its just that he has the wrong end of the stick in his hand. The day he learns to raise himself above meagre issues like 'Marathi Manoos' and espouse a far widespread, all encompassing, holistic and national issue, I am certain he will make a difference. He is a very very right man currently doing the wrong thing.

In the Maharastra assembly today, MNS MLA's physically abused SP MLA Abu Azmi for taking the oath in Hindi. MNS gang insisted that all MLA's should take oath in Marathi. I was amused at this event only because of the particular victim. I will leave it at that! Go figure yourself. Now, getting back to Mr. Enfant Terrible, if all the MLAs in the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra take oaths in their state language, why should Maharashtra be different. Let's keep the cosmopolitan shit argument aside. If Raj Thackeray was completely insane with wrong issues in his plate then he would not have achieved the kind of electoral success MNS showed. 13 seats on debut is rockstar performance. And numbers are everything in politics. Inspite of the whole wide world hating him, he has performed. He is like Che Guevara, ruthless.

I wait for the day when the stick is turned in his hands.

Naxal Bad

2009-10-06T17:39:00.003+04:00

One more bad news. Dont blame me for posting depressing R.I.P items. I do my tuppence bit by making the good guys know the bad things. One such atrociously absurd movement is the Naxalite or Maoist. Are these guys mad or something. I am willing to reads tomes on them, because I completely fail to fathom their logic or lack of thereof!
Anyways.. I wanted to talk about this horrendous act by the Maoist. Three things made me post this here
1. It happened at the place where I was born
2. My irritation with Naxalites in general
3. The Talibanesque leanings of this heinous act.

R.I.P

A Lone Bison?

2009-10-01T10:11:00.009+04:00

A lone bison did this? Unfortunately that appears to be the reason.

I woke up today with this news which shocked me and saddened me a lot. Read the whole story here. What makes this tragedy more macabre, I was exactly on one of those boats you see in the pics only a few months ago! Its like visiting the Taj a few days before Kasab & Co. let loose their Assault Kalashnikovs. Such is the feeling whichs gnaws at you from inside. I can very graphically imagine the exact details of the boat, the lake, the surrounding and even the bison! (I had seen one as well and had clicked photographs). This tragedy would have a very negative affect on Periyar's image. I must add here that I am not compeltely surprised about the accident. Even when I visited there was complete chaos. There were like hundreds of tourists all flocking near the dock to get into one of those boats. The scant few officials were not even checking tickets. In fact, about 50 odd people boarded a huge double deck boat (like the one which capsized above) only to be forced to alight and board another one. Utter chaos. Bad. Sad.

Anyways, life will go on. I shall, as always, pause fleetingly to wish all deceased a great afterlife. One day I shall be dead as well. But till that happens, I shall check out a few more wobbly boats on deep lakes in verdant wildlife sanctuaries :-)

R.I.P

A click too many

2009-09-25T11:48:00.004+04:00

Before I begin this post, I want to pay obeisance to the living goddess of photography. Her name is Moi the Great, a source of unparalleled & perpetual inspiration to me for leading a ‘click’ life behind the constricted world of a photographic lens.

Photography is new to me. In fact, my first purchase was as recent as a few months back! Off course I sought the goddess’ blessings, touched her feet and smeared turmeric on my forehead before stepping out to make the purchase. I bought the most base model available in the market (and pssst.. one of the cheapest). Point and shoot, khallas! For the technically unchallenged hoi polloi (does that rhyme with moi?), it would imply 3x optical zoom, 6 Megapixel. That’s it. I can assure you my cute ass barbeques from the inside when I see pot bellied thickly mustachioed men wield huge SLR cameras up to 12 Megapixel.

However, that is exactly the point! You don’t need a baby worth 30K to shoot those blinding pictures with which you can run up to the goddess’ altar and show your grinning teeth. What you need (apart from the goddess’ blessings) are these four things –

1. A software to digitally retouch your images. I use Picasa. You are free to pluck your favorite flower from the jungle.
2. Go places. And don’t forget the camera! I, for one, haven’t reached that elevated state of the goddess to be able to sit in my morose house and shoot pics pointlessly.
3. Shoot pics pointlessly!. Left, right and centre. The single measure of this parameter is the degree of indignance of your co-travelers. If they are comfortable with your indulgence in the lens – mate, you have a problem. If they are annoyed – yeah yeah yeah. If they are seething red and two way communication breakdown has occurred – BINGO you are on your way to getting those Nat Geo award winning shots!
4. Lastly, a thinking mind. A static, dull, uncreative or disturbed mind will inhibit conjuring ideas and angles and vistas which can prove to be a great shot. In the end, the photograph is just the manifestation of what you thought! So keep thinking.

Just a case in point, on my long weekend I clicked approximately 200 times, which is indeed on the lower side. Out of those 200 pics, about 160 made it to my laptop. Around 80 were digitally retouched in Picasa and form part of my private collection, rest were shift deleted. Then, 35 were selected for public dissemination and finally ONLY 7 made it to this blog (which is obviously my pinnacle platform for self aggrandizement). So let your view of these 7 not occlude the 194 odd gentry.

It’s the classic one in a million sperm analogy.

A Long Weekend

2009-09-22T10:49:00.014+04:00

Halebid-Belur-Chikmaglur-Kemmanagundi

En route passed a deliciously named signboard 'Hagare - 70 kms'; but after 2 hrs passed a village which transgressed all limits of creative nomenclature - a village called Goregandi. After such an excreting errr.. excruciating trail, I arriveth at Eagle Eye Holidays Home Stay, amidst a coffee plantation cut out from the mountain's bosom betwixt Bhadra & Muthodi Wildlife Santuaries. A long weekend spent amist 11th century temple complexes, cloud kissing on misty mountains, enchanting waterfalls and an inordinate amount of burning the rubber on ramshackled roads serpenting through deep, deep forests on high, high mountains. Over 900 kms! The rest of the story can be best judged from these pics. Touche'

Best Online Banking

2009-08-20T19:17:00.003+04:00

I am in a sermonizing mood nowadays. Gyaan baat raha hu mein aajkal :-)

So here is the latest tip. If u are working in India, please please open your salary account with ICICI Bank. This advice comes from someone who currently holds accounts with 3 leading Indian banks and has dabbled with PSU animals in the past. ICICI is hands down, legs up no. 1 in terms of customer ease, service and security.

Following the Tag

2009-08-14T09:20:00.003+04:00

Jas mentally challenged me with a tag. She sometimes suffers from this urge to dare others with 'who is a bigger maniacal muse'. 9 out of 10 times I would have obstinately removed the tag from my neck. However this time I decided to be an obedient cuddly dog. Bow bow..
So basically this passing the parcel shit works like this. You get tagged, gagged and dragged into acquiescing to write something phenomenal about yourself based on some rules set by some wonderful nerd sitting somewhere in the middle of the Kalahari Desert. So the rules of the game are - "Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real- nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question" . So here I roll
1. What is your name: Sixsixsix
2. A four letter word: soul
3. A boy's Name: Sriparvatheeramsivasahasthrabuddhi Sethusubramanian
4. A girl's Name: Suaathi Burma
5. An occupation: Sex Worker
6. A colour: Silver
7. Something you wear: Silk Stockings
8. A food: Sautéed Potatoes
9. Something found in the bathroom: Shit
10. A place: Sulabh Shauchalaya
11. A reason for being late: Sum of 9 and 10 above
12. Something you shout: Saala Ch**iy*! (when asked about 11)
13. A movie title: Sita aur Gita
14. Something you drink: Soup
15. A musical group: Skid Row
16. An animal: Spotted Deer
17. A street name: Sadhu Phakarchand Galli (from where this tag traces its origin)
18. A type of car: Sedan
19. Something scary: Spirits Returning from Hell
20. Ice cream flavour: Sitafal flavor (Strawberry is a boring answer)

The Great Indian Passport

2009-08-13T10:43:00.005+04:00

There are times in life when one gets helpless and is drowned with an frustration with overwhelms any scope for shrugging the shoulder. I am currently in that state. The reason being my continuous failures in renewing my passport. Instead of overburdening my poor blog with my litany of woes, let me educate whoever cares to be enlightened.

Scenario: You were happily or unhappily living abroad. Now have returned to India(<1 yr completed). Your passport has/is expiring
Congratulations. Now you have a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience the shenanigans of GoI. That would be Government of India. In order to renew your passport, you should show evidence of 1 continuous year stay anywhere in India. Simple eh? ever heard of reading between the lines? You can only submit the following as proof of this remarkable achievement.
1. Ration Card
2. Voters ID Card
3. Electricity Bill or Water Bill
NO driving license or rental agreement. So, dear phoren return dude and duddettes please keep in mind that when you take a house on rent, make sure the electricity or water bill IS IN YOUR BLOODY NAME CORRECT TO THE LAST ALPHABET. Second, the bank statements are more precious than those 14 Feb greeting cards which adorn your cupboard. AND DO NOT GIVE YOUR OFFICE ADDRESS AS COMMUNICATION OF BANK STATEMENTS.

Alas. Maybe the best thing is to turn the scenario itself. 'You were happily or unhappily living abroad' - please continue doing so! It is exasperating to think that an Indian living abroad can get his/her passport renewed without asmuch moving the posterior (in some case, a jaunt to the embassy is solicited). As far as me goes, let me just indefinitely postpone the idea of placing my ass on an international flight. After all, I choose to come back AND made the above mistakes. Is dharti pe janam liya hai, isi par shaheed hoonga. Jai Hind.

My Stand on SNS

2009-07-25T21:51:00.002+04:00

SNS is not a hurried neologistic adventure of mine, and does not stand for sinusitis, perhaps worse: Social Networking Sites.

I have resisted the age old desire of vomiting my vituperations against this new age phenom, but only had ignored for the larger interest of civility. However, when a good friend of mine went about elaborately explaining the benefits and advantages of Facebook over Orkut, I thought the bell for regurgitation hath been rung. So I shall. Cover your noses please.

Firstly, let me admonish and ridicule the concept of social networking. We have two words there - Social and Networking. Each one means something in itself. Being social means here, and networking means yonder. So I still lack perspicuity in fathoming this juxtaposition called 'social networking'.
Second, using the internet to facilitate social networking is the primary cause of my stomach troubles. I strongly expound that the one and only medium for social networking should be the physical self in flesh and bones. The body, the skin, the voice, the emotions and not animated avataars or emoticons.
Third, I have got more friends than X. Y has added Z to her network. Hey X and Z have been interacting a lot with each other nowadays. Blurp!
Fourth, SNS are simply cheap surrogates for allowing lesser mortals achieve vanity which they could never manage in flesh and bones.
There are many more vitriolic blurps, but I am just tired of writing really. So for the illuminated cognoscenti which forms the readership of this blog, if they still wish to convince me of the wonderful merits of SNS, I am obstinately sorry. Please go ahead and enjoy the social networking and let it festoon your mental faculties with garlands of marigold. I prefer to be left out of this vaudeville.

P.S. - I have disabled comments on this post. This is just a precautionary measure, lest some SNS Don Juan start outpouring his acrimony!

State wise investment trends

2009-07-23T10:22:00.003+04:00

I have been doing some stuff lately which would normally have found their way on this blog, but lack of time balked me. Last saturday, while roaming langurously in the by-lanes of Bangalore's M.G.Road, I discovered this. With nothing better to do, I explored the basement of Midford House where they had displayed cartoons by leading Indian cartoonists. I liked a couple of them.
Anyways, that's not why I wrote this post..
What got me on to blogger.com was a good article on investment trends into Indian states over the years. I am quite thrilled to have laid my hands on this. Have a look, in case it offers any scope for stimulating reading :-)

Budjettison it

2009-07-07T08:06:00.002+04:00

So the famed Union Budget 2009-2010 is out. For the first time in my life, I 'followed' it minute by minute and must say my understanding is a tad better. Since I really dont understand a great deal, it would be bordering insolence if I venture a comment on how good or bad it is. Instead, I have been trying to assimilate all the shenanigans shooting out from that legendary suitcase in the pic.
The markets have crashed, boomed and tanked. Yesterday was the largest ever budget day fall, with the Sensex shedding a whopping 850+ points. I can sum up the market sentiment in U2's song 'But I still havent found what I am looking for'.
Interestingly, many industry leaders have welcomed the budget proposals. As I continue to sieve through the innundation of budgetary articles, analysis, reactions, comments what appears to be coming out summarily is that it is a neutral budget with some black boxes. These black boxes are 1. Silence on how to fund the huge fiscal deficit 2. Silence on a clear disinvestment roadmap and 3. Complete bypass of FDI roadmap
For me and you, there is hardly any difference. (Btw I realize most of my readers are not based in India:-)). The exemption for personal income tax has been raised by Rs 10,000. I doubt how much is that going to help?
But I still hold one opinion of yesterday's financial treatise. And this view is backed by months of diligent interest of the Indian political backdrop which pummelled the BJP and Left out ushering in 5 years of unfettered rule by the Congress. This budget is a big THANK YOU to the voters who made this victory happen. NREGA allocation up by 144% (!!) speaks volumes, and any informed observer would know that NREGA was the biggest factor behind the Congress' victory in May 2009

That Confounding Question..

2009-07-03T07:38:00.003+04:00

Mamata Didi will deliver the railway budget sometime today. But my age old peeve resurfaces yet again. WHY THE HELL IS THE RAILWAY BUDGET ANNOUNCED BEFORE THE UNION BUDGET???? This question has been haunting me since years now. Help me someone!

Formula 2?

2009-06-22T17:24:00.005+04:00

I have started following Formula 1 again. Again? if thats a justification at all.
Formula 1 was the second passion (first was soccer) in my life, which I had 'discovered' way way back when I was around here. I was in class XI and my life revolved around studies, studies. For the uninitiated majority who grew up in India's western region, class XI and XII are probably the most wasted years from a 'life' perspective for anyone growing in the states of UP, Bihar. They, their parents, their pets and their maid servants eat, drink and shit IIT. I was no different.

But a beacon from those days over 10 years yore, was the unsupressable passion I cultivated for this sport which no one around me had even heard. Nowadays, Formula 1 is a more of a status symbol of the Gen X. The 'hi fi' junta watches it, follows it, wears Ferrari and McLaren T shirts. When I got hooked, I had no influences or impressions to lay claim to.

So it feels 'strangely great' to be back following the season races, qualifying, race days. What's changed? To tell you the truth.. only one thing. ME.

There is no adrenaline rush, there are no fist thumping, there are no screams. I just watch it like a dud!! This weekend at Silverstone, Sebastian Vettel of the Brawn GP won his second title of the season. He is a young chap, a German (incidentally, those who remember another illustrious German). I guess when I was 17, these drivers were sort of inspiration, role models on the age vs achievement curve. Now, ten years hence, my point of view has shifted forwards and my old ass doesnt see any role models :-(

WTF

2009-06-12T19:05:00.004+04:00

I just lost all pictures on my blog. Damn.. I deleted the albums on picasa not knowing thats where all pics are hosted. W.T.F :-(
Sad sad day for me. It looks so barren and lifeless. Hang on my dear alter ego, I may not be able to restore you back to the pink of your health, but some cosmetic surgery can get you breathing again.

Update: There you go! now atleast I have a face. While you continue to gaze at my fair and lovely face, any takers what is that symbol called and what does it signify?

Hatia

2009-06-03T08:11:00.003+04:00

Today on my way to work, I was stopped at a railway crossing which is rarely closed. These are a few things which I love here in India, something which is absent abroad. The wait was not too long and I heard the crescendo of the approaching train. (My thoughts drifted to school when we were taught the 'Doppler's Effect':-)). As the train whooshed past, my straining eyes managed to catch the writings on the nameplates.. "Hatia-Yeshwantpur Express".
.... and I was swathed with this tsunami of redolent nostalgia. I would be surprised if any of my readers know where is Hatia. Just one of those things which were left behind in my relentless march of 'move on with live'. Unfortunately.

Bitten

2009-05-26T18:53:00.004+04:00

Have you ever been bitten by a leech. I recently got bit by not one but six!. Leeches are super blood suckers and I know that bloody well now:-). Ticks, fleas, bedbugs and leeches constitute the supreme four. Here are a few you-should-know facts about leech bites

1. You would never get to know when a leech bites. With mosquitos, bedbugs one can feel the pin pricking sensation. But the saliva of leech is a great anaesthetic which effectively numbs the skin.
2. It bleeds. It bleeds horrendously. My legs were covered with blood with absolutely no sensation. No pain, not even a itch.
3. Most leeches (atleast the ones found in Asia) curl their bodies after they bite and attach themselves by hooks. In 15 mins they swell up like balloons many times their body weight. They tenacious blood guzzlers only let go once they cant hold their own weight! Finally satiated, they simply drop off and digest. No need to feed for weeks now:-)
4. Dont panic if the blood flow doesnt stop or the wound does not clot. It wont! Leeches inject some enzymes in their bite which prevent blood from clotting. So the only sensible thing to do is stanch the flow of blood using bandages.
5. The itching starts after 1 day when the wounds begin to clot and skin becomes dry. Obviously dont scratch but hey.. easier said than done:-)
6. One should be careful while removing the leech. The recommended procedure is to scrap it gently with the finger nail at both its anterior and posterior mouths. After that flick it away. Any other revengeful means like 'I will burn you alive' by a lighter or throw salt on it is not advisable. Your leech might just regurgitate all the contents of its stomach back into your body, increasing the chances of an infection. So handle with care:-)
7. There is really no sure way of preventing leech bites while trekking through leech infested areas. But a prudent action could be to frequently keep glancing the legs for any yeeeeks creatures! And lastly.. always carry a first aid kit.

Wishing everyone a leechless life!!

Here is my bandaged leg 24 hrs after they attacked!

India Unbound

2009-04-26T16:52:00.003+04:00

Currently reading .. India Unbound by Gurcharan Das. I have been swathed by this nationalist fervor since some days now. Till date I have held a humiliating record of reading books. I just cant read, thats my problem. So I want to change that now, and the best start would be to read what you want to read! Lets hope I manage to finish this one :-)

The primary urge behind such a choice of reading comes from a deep realization. Watching the endless polemics of Indian Elections 2009, I got a sense of helplessness. Here are luminaries debating, mudslinging on issues (or lack of) but I cannot judge them! It is MY failure to comprehend rather than their ability to elucidate. Then it was clear to me. I was attempting to catch my nose from the wrong side. The solution is not understanding our politicians or political manifestos, but understanding India in the first place.

So if I ever to manage to read this .. the next one is the ultimate tome by Ramchandra Guha called India after Gandhi

Economic Impact

2009-04-17T18:22:00.004+04:00

I came across a good report from BNP Paribas titled 'India Strategy - Elections 2009'. This had a analysis on the markets based on various post poll government formation scenarios. I liked a particular table so much, that couldnt resist putting it up here. Have a look. (Hope its legible when expanded by clicking)

A de'vote' citizen?

2009-04-17T14:17:00.000+04:00

I am hugely disappointed. There is a gnawing sense of guilt in me. After all my attempts, I still would not cast my vote come 23rd April when polling happens here. :-(

Damn it, or should I say damn myself. This is touching hypocrisy. On one side I proclaim myself a jingoist, a person who loves anything and everything about India. The flip side - has never ever cast a vote! Maybe ashamed is a better word huh

In college, I was the typical iconoclastic rebel. The young blood who believes everything around him is erroneous and rebellion or being different is the solution. So I did not care to vote during 1999. Come 2004, I was travelling all over the country hence just spent my time looking at long queues of voters braving the heat just to make their infinitisimal voice heard. Come 2009, I again missed the voter registration due to failure in qualifing the eligibility norm of at least 6 months of continuous stay. Maybe exasperated is a better word huh

I dream of a utopian change, whereby ALL citizens whether they are in Chhapra in Bihar or Sharm Al Shaikh in Egypt can vote. I know its beyond me to figure out the national logistics, warehousing and co-ordination to effect this, but I am hopeful. One day all the righful citizens would be able to vote irrespective of their perambulations. Maybe optimist is a better word ..huh :-)

The BJP Manifesto

2009-04-04T07:29:00.005+04:00

BJP released its Election Manifesto 2009 yesterday on the occasion of Ram Navmi. I downloaded the entire text and printed it, otherwise really cumbersome reading the tome online. (Full text here). Now I felt it a necessary and interesting exercise worth the effort and time for two reasons - 1. My political alignation with BJP 2. To find an answer to the overarching question 'Define India'.

Now this post is not meant to highlight the key points in the manifesto. For anyone interested in that, more qualified and erudite psephologists are dissecting and trisecting it all over the media. My intent here is to focus on point no. 2 above. Being a nationalist that I am, I am happy to have found a beautiful document which captures India at 30,000 ft level. The adrenaline content in my bloodstream shoots up just reading the scope, the magnitude, the diversity, the spellbinding richness of something which has been sadly pedestrianized in the 21st century - 'Mere Desh Ki Dharti'

To all the cynics of Indian democrary, I make out a earnest, resounding yet humble appeal. There might be corruption, depravity, debauchery all over the Indian ethos - in its people, in its polity, in its corporates; but there is a remarkable method to the madness!! Please appreciate that. Please acknowledge how over 1 billion people use their fingers to collectively resolve their destiny. Please avoid lambasting the system when you yourself are a part of it. Please live and let live.

Here are the professionals

2009-03-29T19:48:00.002+04:00

I have been watching TV since over 4 hours at stretch today, a really langurous Sunday. The constant din surrounding Varun Gandhi completely put me off, however I did manage to watch Barkha Dutt's "We the People". The topic of discussion was interesting. 'Can professionals make able netas?'. This is with reference to a few professionals with no prior association with politics announcing their candidature for contesting Lok Sabha Elections. These are Mallika Sarabhai from Gandhinagar, Meera Sanyal from South Mumbai and Captain Gopinath from South Bangalore. The latter two were on the show.

Goes without saying that each of the three are luminaries in their respective 'circle of competence', but I do not endorse their candidature from the perspective of consituting the 15th parliament of my country. India is already reeling and writhing under fragmented politics with over 100 political parties contesting elections, these Don Quixotes (if I may call them that) are really unwanted. What I cannot figure out is why do they want to become a member of parliament when they are so called 'independents' with no alignation to either Congress, BJP or the Left?. Are they gonna sit in the Lok Sabha and cast their 1 vote and hope for miracles?

If I were of the stature of any of those three AND I wanted to contest Lok Sabha elections for whatever reasons, I would force fit myself to joining either the Congress or the BJP. Going solo is senseless.

I shall keep a eye on these three on 16th May, when the results are announced. As a side note, Mallika Sarabhai is contesting from Gandhinagar.. yep you guessed it against Mr. Lal Krishna Advani of BJP. What to say!! But I was mighty impressed with Meera Sanyal. Super woman.

Elections Roundup

2009-03-24T21:40:00.003+04:00

NDA – Not looking good. I want BJP to get a thumping absolute majority, and wish Mr. Venkaiah Naidu’s statement that NDA will win 200 seats comes true but off course that’s wishful thinking. First BJP itself appears to be a shadow of its heyday Vajpayee times with routs in Rajasthan and Delhi. Second, the alliances are gone. An almost quisling act by Naveen Patnaik of Orissa has in one swoop reduced 10 to 12 numbers from the NDA final tally, unless if post poll negotiations pull back Patnaik in NDA. States where I expect BJP to show strong performance – Gujarat, MP, Karnataka. That’s it. Yep, so fragmented it appears. In Maharashtra, the alliance with Shiv Sena might just strike the chord this time round, with an almost certain rout in Mumbai expected after 26/11. But Pawar Power is the dominant factor in Maharashtra. In Bihar too, they might just break their neck ahead the Lalu-Paswan duo with strong alliance partner JD-(U). In UP they will be decimated.

UPA – Not looking good either, but still a touch better than the NDA. The Congress was stabbed in the back with two important allies Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan joining hands in Bihar. The duo ‘humiliated’ Congress by leaving only 3 seats from the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar for the Congress. Even in the kurushetra of all battlefields Uttar Pradesh, trusted comrades of Samajwadi Party decided to go solo. However, their other tie ups with Sharad Pawar’s NCP, Mamata Bannerjee’s Trinamool are mostly in place.

Third Front – Hata sawaan ki ghata.. well almost :-). The towering presence of one of the most remarkable women India has ever seen can upset the apple and orange carts of NDA and UPA. Her name is Mayawati. From school teacher to UP chief minister, the saga of this woman’s political career impresses me. She might just make it to the hot seat. But apart from her, the third front is truly a ‘parking lot’ of all the parties which cannot fall into the above two camps. As many prime ministerial hopefuls as parties.

Battlegrounds - You don’t wanna miss the fierce battles here!
Uttar Pradesh – 4 way dog eat dog competition between BSP, SP, Congress and BJP. One helluva contest this shall be
Bihar – BJP-JD(U) against RJD-LJP with Congress playing match referee
Maharashtra – BJP-Shiv Sena against Congress-NCP. This shall go down to the wire as well

A good blog to remain hooked during these exciting times - Lok Sabha Election 2009

Six word autobiography

2009-03-16T09:50:00.004+04:00

Radha has this 'write your autobiography in six words' post, apparently inspired from Facebook. I normally detest such exercises specially if the source is a social networking site, however this particular activity appeared interesting. The idea is to use exactly 6 words to describe yourself as best as you can. I finally settled on final two choices and am unable to decide which out of the two. Biased towards 1

1. My name is Maximus Decimus Aurelius
2. 666, the number of the beast

Other options which were rejected

3. I me mine myself and fate
4. Dark memoirs of an extraordinary man
5. DPS, COEP, Telco, Spjain, Cedar, IBM
6. Kya pata, Kal Ho Naa Ho

Movie Review - Valkyrie

2009-03-14T19:24:00.002+04:00

Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise is a World War II era movie. It is based on a true life event, an assasination attempt of Hitler. I liked watching a Nazi, WWII movie after a really long time.
In the credits, was mentioned that this was just one of the 15 known attempts to kill the Fuhrer ! Astonishing, made me deeply wonder how the world would have been almost a century ago.

The plot to assassinate is during 1944, just 8 months before Hitler commits suicide. Its a good movie, for those who like history. Go watch.

Kaun Banega Pradhan Mantri

2009-03-11T21:36:00.002+04:00

I somehow dont get good vibes about Mr. L.K.Advani and BJP's chances at the hot seat. The BJD debacle in Orissa is going to hurt a lot. Naveen Patnaik has called off the decade long alliance with BJP and he sure has the muscle power now in his fiefdom. If we recall, BJP lost the 2004 polls primarily because of wrong coalition partners, and I see history repeating itself. It may well be 'not in this life' for Mr. Advani.

Lankans Attacked

2009-03-05T13:20:00.006+04:00

The news of the past few days is the terror attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. Astonishing. I am baffled at the terrorist framework in Pakistan. They appear to have perfected a system of planning and implementing focused attacks. Left me wondering what would have happened had that rocket not missed the bus or the grenade thrown below the bus exploded or one of the terrorist got on board the bus!!

This attack was copy of Mumbai attacks of Nov. Whats frustrating is not even one terrorist was wounded and all fled in the bylanes of Lahore. How disgusting and shameful. Wake up Pakistan.

I am not a cricket fan and dont even know the Sri Lankan cricketer names, but its clear the terrorists mean business. Attacking an international sports team should be deeply condemned and I would be happy if this leads to complete sporting isolation of Pakistan. What's wrong with you guys, one day entire Marriott is blown to smithereens, the other day sporting guests are attacked. Pathetic.. if its in the name of religion. Dont know what's the motif.

Update: AND it appears the blame is being put on India !! ha ha ha .. oh my gosh .. listening to Pakistani logic is more funny than watching Mr. Bean. Ha ha ha.. haa aaa
( More here )

Wake Up!!

2009-02-20T18:18:00.003+04:00

Found this site. I tried to register myself but did not qualify as I havent completed 6 months of continuous stay at current place of residence. I am praying by April I can get to register. This time I want to vote. Thats it.

Valentine's Day Shopping

2009-02-11T18:43:00.003+04:00

This saturday I am planning loads of shopping. For my sweatheart. Yeah (sheepish grin) thats her above. Btw.. one secret, people say we dont make a perfect couple, coz she looks too good for me. Lucky me!

So I wanna impress her this Sunday at Palace Grounds, Bangalore when her parents Bruce, Steve, Dave, Adrian, Nicko and Janick set the night ablaze. My saturday shopping list looks like this -
1. An Iron Maiden T-shirt/Sleeveless jacket . Size does matter. :-)
2. Definitely a bandana. Preferably an Iron Maiden one
3. Maybe body art, tattoos .. let's see

Damn I cut my hair :-( But who cares, as long as we all UP THE IRONS!

The efficacy of that word!

2009-02-08T18:39:00.003+04:00

This happens in India. I just cant help getting astonished by the wonders and quirkiness of this great great nation :-)

Scenario 1
Customer: "Bhaisahab, ek chammach dena"
Vendor (Busy with other customers): No response
C (earnestly): "Bhaiya, ek chammach doge zara"
V (hears but ignores)
C (now irritated): "Arre bhai, chammach doge kya"
V (looks at him): "Kya?"
Scenario 2
C: "M*******d, ek chammach dena to"
V (smiles affectionately as if he has been awarded the President's medal): "Yeh lijiye"

Slumdog and Rock

2009-02-01T11:12:00.003+04:00

I saw two movies yesterday. Slumdog Millionaire and Rock On. I shall not get into reviews about how good they are. Its been proven. Let me share some personal reflections over and above the brouhaha.

Slumdog Millionaire -
Of all the adulation and worthy praise being flowered on this movie, I felt one angle has not been adequately extolled; that of the tenderness and purity of love. One of the prime reasons why I generally avoid Bollywood flicks is this reason. Some movies which our industry makes are remarkably successfull in portraying this form of pure, unadulterated love. Case in point - Kal Ho Naa Ho, Tere Liye, Tere Naam, Qayamat se Qayamat tak, Saajan so on .. These bring me immense pain for reasons of my own being. So, I was very uncomfortable watching Slumdog from this point of view. Rest all off course, super movie.

Rock On -
Wow. A million times over. I rate this one certainly one of the best Hindi movies I have ever watched. 'I have ever watched' .. please dont jump on my neck, coz you first need to understand the 'I' there to appreciate the statement. If Dil Chahta Hai were 5 on 10 for me, Rock On is a 8. It is so so 'real'. Thats exactly what happens! Thats exactly how breakups happen - of rock bands, of best friends and of relationships. Thats exactly how rock bands are made up of. Super!

The fun of interviewing

2009-01-29T19:43:00.003+04:00

Foreword: Interviewing and officiating can be immense fun, as I found out at IMS Achievers Workshop 2009. To all the students who I screwed, my friends, remember even a fool can ask a question which the wisest of men cannot answer. So there! no points for guessing who was the fool around :-)

Amusement 1: I and another panellist were moderating and evaluating a GD whose topic was 'Black and White'. Abstract thinking required types. One smart alec took abstract to a new level altogether. He said with confidence ' Bipasha Basu is black'!!. He looked at me for approval. I replied with greater confidence, "If Bipasha Basu is black, I am very very fair". (plenty of giggles from female students)

Amusement 2: We were asked to conduct these stress interviews. License to rape types. So during one such grilling session, I had managed to ruffle a candidate to a fair degree. Then I asked him, "Ok, tell me how many hair are there on your head". He thought for 2 secs and replied "Billions". I exclaimed 'Billions!!'. On hindsight, I should have screamed 'Billions of blue bilious blistering barnacles'.

Amusement 3: This one had me cracking, literally. Again during those stress sessions, one candidate with IIM B,L,K,I calls came to us. A super guy.. sharp and intelligent.. however a tad conceited. So I went about my routine of bringing him down to dear terra firma. After quite a lot of grilling, I finally asked him in a rather screwing voice "Go to the board, take the chalk and write asshole". Point was to check his response to this unwarranted diktat. But the guy, confidently strode to the board, took the chalk and without hesistation wrote 'Arsehole'. Oh my god.. I actually started laughing aloud. Ha ha 'Arsehole'. When he came back, we grilled him on British v/s American spellings of Arse/Asshole. Poor chap, replied this is the only spelling he knew of. Ha ha it was damn funny.

Anyways, my best wishes to all those very very worthy candidates. I sincerely hope I could contribute to their preparations. Amen.

King of the worrrrlld :-)

2009-01-24T10:16:00.003+04:00

Dear Manish
Greetings from IMS!

We would like to invite you to officiate as Facilitator at our Achievers' Workshop, 2009, to be conducted on 25 January 2009 and 26 January 2009. If you accept this invitation, you will be required to orient and observe students who have received calls from the IIM's or Premier B Schools of India, in the preparatory GD & PI exercises that they will be taken through with the objective of enhancing their chances at the selection processes of the B Schools.

You will be expected to participate in the proceedings for the duration of 9 hours on each day of the 2 day workshop. Lunch and refreshments will be provided by us. Remuneration for the services of Facilitators for the 2 day workshop has been fixed at a consolidated amount of ___

Members of the Faculty team are requested to arrive at the venue, St. Joseph’s Commerce College (Map attached) by 9.30 am on both days of the Workshop (the 25th and 26th of January,2009) so that they may be directed to their respective classrooms.

Please note that while our students need to be provided with an honest and comprehensive assessment of their performance in the GD and PI, they should also be motivated to face the real challenge. Faculty members are humbly requested to desist from making any statements or comments that may accrue as damaging to the self-esteem of students.

Looking forward to a fruitful interaction on Jan 25th and 26th,

Regards,
IMS Team

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you so much Nilya for recommending me. You are THE BEST.. :-)

Munna Bai

2009-01-24T06:41:00.003+04:00

Lucknow
Candidate from Samajwadi Party - Sanjay Dutt (Manyata 'Who' Dutt as surrogate)
Candidate from Bhartiya Janata Party - Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Man, I cant stop laughing.. thodi hawa aane do .. ha ha ha ha..

Ha ha ha ha .. (a laughter borrowed from those black rakshas in Indian mythological serials)

Chaooda Hajaar ka Mobile

2009-01-15T20:10:00.007+04:00

Just a few paces from where I live, is a chat and paani puri (pucchka for the purists) stall. A small boy of around 10-12 years makes things like tikki chat, samosa chat, dahi puri and others in that kinship. I haunt this place regularly during evenings, and the boy knows my instructions (thoda dahi maar ke, imli paani zyaada). This is what happened today :-

He prepared my usual order and I began savoring it. He asked "Bhaiya, aapke paas mobile hoga" (god bless him for calling me bhaiya and not uncle!). I replied, with the chaat slurping in my mouth "Hai, kahe ko chahiye tereko". "Samosa khatam ho gaya hai, phone kar ke ...." something he said which escaped me. I took out my cell and opened it for him. He took it from me and deftly dialled the number. It rang and he spoke into the live phone in a tongue which I did not comprehend. After hanging up, he asked me with a humble smile, "Bhaiya, kitna hua call ka". I replied "Nahi, rehne do" and pocketed my instrument. The sensuous delight of the chat engulfed me.
I then asked him, "Bihar se ho?". "Nahi, UP". I smiled at him. He looked at me and sheepishly asked, as if he had been wanting to ask for long "Bhaiya, aapka mobile kitne ka hai?". His voice was incoherent, I guess because of the shyness and I blurted a "Kya" ; repeated he, "Aapka mobile kitne ka hai?". By this time I had paid him and was turning to leave. I replied "Chaooda Hajaar" in an affected Bihari accent. Instantly his face lit up and he exclaimed, pleased with himself and the eyes twinkling with excitement "Aaj maine chaooda hajaar ke phone se baat ki!". I didnt say anything, but if anyone would have captured my face, a beatific smile would have landscaped my otherwise desolate facial geography.

As I walked away, I looked back and saw him mashing the tikki, sprinkling the masala, crushing the pucchka into an assemblage of scrumptious snack in a practiced, error free routine. However, the ear to ear grin on his face as he went about this mundanity was something new. I had left him happy.

The chaooda hajaar ka mobile lies here in front of me as I write this. It has failed to ring happiness even once. Such is the sting called Life.

Sat yamraj u

2009-01-10T17:18:00.004+04:00

Perhaps no one noticed it! Satyam + Raju = Satyamraju. Everyone failed to see the 'yamraj' nestled comfortably in such a juxtaposition.

B. Ramalinga Raju chairman and founder and brother Rama Raju, Managing Director of Satyam Computer Services have pulled out the most brazen fraud in corporate India's history. Raju should write a book "7 habits of highly corrupt people" and "How to manipulate financial statements". Crossword bestseller within hours of hitting the racks. It can usurp Nilekani's 'Imagining India' hands down.

Financial statements (for the uninitiated.. dont worry I am no expert either) are very difficult to understand in the first place. Cooking them with ample flavouring of condiments for a company of the size of Satyam deserves a corporate misgovernance award. Doing that repeatedly year after year deserves Padma Durbhushan. While it's early days to understand the repercussions of this 5000 crore deception, I engaged myself with Nilesh to figure out the fundamentals of this book cooking. This is what, we surmise, was Raju's game plan.

Background: After multiple quarters of bloating numbers, the cooking has attained unsustainable proportions. Or someone has unearthed the chicanery and confronted Raju. He decides to act fast

Act 1: Cleaning up Satyam books. He decides to convert his fictitious assets into real assets by a wonderful stratagem. "I will reduce the fictitious cash on Satyam's balance sheet by buying out my sons companies Maytas Properties and Maytas Infrastructure", Raju thinks. "This way cash will come down to reflect the actual levels and assets will go up by the same number. All other line items in the P&L and Cash Flow Statements accordingly adjusted to reflect this transaction. Satyam balance sheet cleaned", he grins at himself. Pleased he selects the song "Raju ban gaya gentleman" from his IPod.

Act 2: "Hmmm.. now the mess has been transferred to Maytas books", a frown breaks on Raju's forehead. "Ok this is what should be done to clean that mess". "The cash in Maytas book will increase by the amount it went down in Satyam book due to the buy out. Careful, boy, this inflated no. is again fictitious, so you need to tweak other line items to adjust for this swell. Umm let's me see what I can fudge". Raju carefully studies Maytas balance sheet. "Eureka! he exclaims" (Archimedes turns in his grave). "What needs to be done is", he speaks in a drawl "the creditors number can be appropriately inflated on the liabilities side to balance this swell on the asset side. Revenues would need to be jacked up in the P&L (we can tell those investors credit sales have gone up or something). Then slowly, perhaps after a few quarters we can clean up the mess by filling the fictitious cash by actual cash either by Maytas increasing CFO (though I doubt my son's ability, idiot) or by selling Satyam stake to some PE/FII/DII bumpkin at premium.

The curtain falls. As the light dims, we can see Raju strumming his imaginary guitar and head banging on the song "Money for nothing" by Dire Straits.

Thunderous applause by the Raju family.

Finally..

2009-01-08T09:25:00.004+04:00

At last, the great denial appears to be showing signs of cracking, Pakistan confirms that the lone captured terrorist of 26/11 is a Pakistani national. (Link to Dawn, Pakistan's widely circulated daily). Also read this post regarding the dossier of evidence prepared by Indian authorities which has transcripts of verbal talk between the gunmen and their handlers.

So there is progress, finally. I was afraid President Zardari would seek Kasab's class X & XII passing certificates, Income Tax returns, original of driving license (duly attested by gazetted government official) as proof for establishing his nationality. Also, (he could have said) "Only if all four years marksheets for graduation and provident fund details were available could Pakistan consider him culpable under its jurisdiction". It appears this might not be required.

Over one month has transpired since 26/11, and I am exasperated with Pakistan. I completely fail to understand the collective conscience (or lack of) among the common people. I have just one word to describe the seriatim of responses from our estranged cousins - immature. The hyperbole of naivete was blaming India for Lahore blasts. I had laughed at this, really.

I have just one complaint from Pakistan. Its adamant refusal to accept reality. Before I point a finger to my neighbour, I know that four fingers point back to me. I am appalled, shocked and ashamed with B Ramalinga Raju, dishonorable chairman and founder of Satyam. I absolutely denounce any stratification of society based on caste, sub caste, sub-sub-caste which currently finds currency in India's ethos. I fail to understand what the Maoists and Naxals are trying to achieve. I hate dynastic politics and have strong aversion to coalition politics. I am aghast at the objectives of home grown terror groups like SIMI, Indian Mujahideen and Hindu extremists. All these and thousand more, are the chronic epidemics crippling India and its citizens future. I so much hope such frank acceptance like mine also echoes in the lands across Wagah. Unfortunately, in my reading of Pakistan media I found overwhelmingly few articles of soul searching. Too few to build up decible levels for drowning the constant jingoist anti India din. I would love to be wrong, but that needs to be proved. And proof does not mean Zardari's definition.

The Year That Was

2009-01-05T10:18:00.002+04:00

Hmm.. one of my very good friends recently put up a post on all his achievements in 2008. Thats a good idea actually. A new year (better than a birthday or anniversary) serves as a peg in our life from which we can measure our journey ahead. So I reasoned it to be prudent enlisting down my hits and misses in the year that was..

My successes
1. Travelled to Egypt
2. Changed job
3. Changed country
4. Started investing and managing my portfolio
5. Attented live concert of Iron Maiden
6. Saved lives
7. No major illness

My failures
1. Whatever... you know what I am talking about
2. Collossal financial losses (unavoidable, unfortunate)
3. My current work profile vis a vis previous
4. My current remuneration vis a vis previous
5. Deplorable lifestyle

Summary: I would be dishonest to myself if I say 2008 was a great year. It was outright disaster, yet again continuing from 2007,2006,2005 ..zzzz. However, steps like 2,3,4 from the success list have begun bearing fruit now and 2009 holds promise. Let us see if history really repeats itself!

New Year Wishes

2009-01-01T09:16:00.003+04:00

Dear Friends
Wishing you and your families (or surrogates of importance) a healthy and prosperous 2009

My Dear Country
Wishing you a stable central government in the 15th Lok Sabha General Elections. Wishing you a terror-free environment. Wishing you a speedy and resilient economic recovery. Wishing you more FII inflows.

Dear Me
Stay Alive!

Dearest Blog
Thank you for being there :-) Your allegiance to me is the stuff legends are made of.

Haircut!

2008-12-25T17:20:00.002+04:00

It had been almost 4 months since I had cut my hair :-) This may well be the longest duration I had let them grow. Last time was in undergrad college, but that was 3 months I guess. I love long hair and if you have seen me, mine is not the boy next door hairstyle which mamma can neatly comb every morning before the school bus. In fact, while growing up as a kid I was famous for two things - how thin he is, what kinda hair is that?. Aunties had sometimes in jocular zing crossed the acceptable limits of teasing, calling it a crow's nest.

So, I felt bad when chop, chop went the barber's scissors on my long locks. I dont really know what made me have a haircut, they hadnt grown objectionably or disproportionately. I had acquired that Farhan Akhtar in Rock On type of look. Though his are curls, mine are straight non kinky types. I liked them. They are gone :-(

Interestingly, I have figured if I want the Arjun Rampal hair look it would take one full year to grow that length. Unfortunately, my profession does not permit rockstar hairstyles. That was one reason why I wanted to head to the US after engineering. To grow my hair loooong. Surprisingly, I had found support in this from my mother!

But I shall rest the case now. With my prominent widow's peak (frontal baldness) those shall remain childhood 'What I want to do when I grow up' memories. Now, bald is in. Havent you seen the Bald and the Beautiful?

Mumbai Attacks V

2008-12-08T19:43:00.004+04:00

My good friend and blogger extraordinaire Equinox has an excellent post (yet again). Please read this. I think all must read what he has written.

Mumbai Attacks IV

2008-12-07T08:18:00.003+04:00

I am quite amused by the recent hoax call to President Zardari. In fact, it was just the bit of ass kicker injection which the doctor had ordered. Whoever did that, good job buddy.

Although I had planned to write about what I think should be done to free us from the scrouge of terror, I understand that this may not be a task which I can do justice to. I frankly dont know much to comment on the NSG, intelligence failure, constitutional amendments. All around me, each and every intellectual is talking about 'What should be done'. In a true Lincolnian democracy, there can be no talkers without listeners. So I choose to serve my country by listening to all arguments, criticism, plans, call for actions being voiced around. Someday, when I mature enough to understand the complexities of my country I shall surely speak out.

Having said that, I do see one area where I have a relative edge over my fellow citizens. Having lived in the UAE for over 3 years and travelled across other Islamic countries, I possess a outsider non US view to India. I have worked closely with executives at all levels in a leading bank in Pakistan. Further, I have spent half a day with the head of Private Banking/Wealth Management of this particular bank. So, I have a perspective towards Pakistan and Pakistanis which most Indians might not have yet seen. I was completley confused by the anti India propaganda being aired on Paki television shows. I mean, till how long will our friends in Pakistan live in a state of denial. Even after this, which happened only a few days after the Mumbai attacks. Doesnt the Pakistani conscience ever knock twice?

While on this issue, I came across the most audacious and incriminating article I have read during the last week. It ostensibly blames the ISI and talks of a shocking revelation that the Al Qaeda + Lashkar combine highjacked a low key terror strike on J&K from the ISI's drawing board and developed it into the Mumbai Attacks. Regardless whether this is fact or fiction, its a compelling read. Leave your household chores and please read this.

Mumbai Attacks - III

2008-12-02T20:36:00.004+04:00

continued from here. My take on the most important W of all - WHY?

A lot has been said. A lot more will be said, done and undone. But this shall go down in the annals of Indian and world history as one of the most successful terrorist operation ever executed by the terrorists. They have won, this once. Let us be gracious in acceding defeat, this once. But let us firmly resolve to buttress this grace into a ricochet movement so massive that it effaces out the entire terror ecosystem. I would be more than happy to empty a full 30 rounds magazine up the terrorist's arse and another 30 down his throat as insurance to the previous 30, but that only John Rambo can do. And he does not exist.

If I attempt to envisage the charter or the vision document behind these attacks, it would roughly constitute the following directives -

1. Rekindle Kashmir issue by derailing the quasi warm relations between India and Pakistan

2. Debilitate Pakistan's attempt towards moderation by adopting a democratic framework

3. Support the Taliban in Afghanistan

4. Spread fear, panic among Indians by maximum destruction of life and property

5. Fight and kill westerners specifically US, UK and Israel

6. Garner worldwide attention and media share of voice

I think they have scored a perfect 10 with their 10 fidayeens. If we carefully retrospect, all the above 6 broad objectives have been met except probably no. 3 (which is a larger game plan, my surmise being its a corollary of achieving points 1 and 2) Whoever is behind this heinous, inhumane, barbaric act has succeeded in killing three or four birds with one stone. India and Pakistan are at loggerheads again (point 1 achieved). There is complete chaos in already chaotic Pakistan. Religious fundamentalists are playing demagogues to the people who want to hear that their country has absolutely nothing to do with all this. (point 2 achieved). A threat of Indian military response would be enough fodder for Pakistan to mobilize its troops away from the western border to its eastern border (point 3 achieved). I dont think there is any clarity required on how point 4 has been achieved!. Picking foreign targets and attacking the Chabad House (point 5 achieved). My earlier post shows the number of stories on Google News (point 6 achieved)

So that is my understanding of the 'Why was Mumbai attacked like this?'. I am off course looking at more debate and thoughts on this. I personally feel before anything, we should all first understand the problem. Sacking ministers, overhauling national security, amending constituition, firing radar guided missiles at Muridke may/may not follow. In fact, I shall now move to the more complicated task of framing my wish list on 'What needs to be done now'. Next post by weekend.

Live and Let Live

Mumbai Attacks - II

2008-11-30T06:34:00.004+04:00

Epitaph

My Maker, when I meet thee

Shalst thou answer 'Why Me?'

Name - Malayesh Bannerji
Born - 1981
Murdered - 26 Nov, 2008
Survived By - Two parents, One fiancee
Cause of Death - Shot at close range from AK 47. Flesh & Bone ripped apart.
Place of Death - Leopold Cafe, South Mumbai

Malayesh, the only son of my all time favourite teacher, Prof Manavendra Bannerji; a gentleman whom I am greatly indebted for teaching me Chemistry in class XI & XII. As I move my memories back over 11 years, they slowly crystallize into the face of a chocolate boy, the darling of girls at school. An IIT KGP + S.P.Jain alumnus, he was to marry his 7 year long sweetheart on Dec 6, 2008. But someone I know very very well, who goes by the name 'Fate' had other plans. So be it mate. What you have left behind is far more worse, hideous, unfair and horrendous as compared to the eternal peace which shall envelop you now. And, may you feel lonely ever, just be patient. All those you have left behind live today only to die another day. Till that happens, requiescat in pace. R.I.P

Mumbai Attacks - I

2008-11-29T20:43:00.003+04:00

In the past 3 days, I have read official condemnation statements from countries including US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, Uruguay, Panama, Chile and Bangladesh. These I can recall reading, others I may have missed given the deluge of news to digest. Goes without saying I havent worked a wink.

From a high level, any issue needs the following answers. Who, Why, When, What and How. Of the Mumbai attacks, we definitely know When and What. Speculations exist on Who and How. That leaves us with the most fundamental of all Ws unanswered - Why. And this shall be the focus of my blogging in the days to come. Till then, I shall gather my thoughts below -

Things which shook my foundation -
1. The tragic gunning down of a school mate cum B school alumnus at Leopold Cafe, and the story of his fiancee scrapping deliriously on Orkut, 'Come baack'

Things that inspired me -
1. Top cops dying on duty. Live by the bullet, die by it. Do I have such dedication towards my work. No.

Things which peeved me -
1. Blame game of 'This is a complete failure of intelligence' -
2. '300 NSG and 400 police personnel required for 10 terrorists' - So?
3. The siege began at 9:30 PM, the NSG arrived only at 2:30 AM

Flash Fiction

2008-11-23T17:57:00.003+04:00

I have been away for a while from these lands. Have 'thankfully' kicked my arse and begun writing again. And for the umpteenth time in my writing life, 'I am serious this time :-)'

Firstly, I have decided to stop publishing my stories on this blog. For the simple reason that I know my audience extremely well. How their reader minds work. So I might as well save the thunder for a later day, when they all get to see the stories in print.

My style would mostly be flash fiction - very short stories (300 to 1000 words). Prolixity requires dedication, which I am short of. In a bid to meet fellow writers, I have joined the writers networking forum Caferati. Also have resolved to participate in all online story writing contests. A writer needs just one thing - audience. Further, I would be employing the services of a trusted friend to design, create and maintain a webpage, an online repository of all my writings. I shall purchase a domain name and since the larger idea is 'pay to read' it might well be a dot com.

So much for my grand plans. But didnt Kipling say 'All successful writers started as amateurs who did not give up'

Irish Music

2008-11-13T20:53:00.005+04:00

I have been wanting to post this since many months now. I was blown away in Bob Dylan's wind when my friend who has lived in Ireland directed me to the following performances of The Corrs. Check them out. Both are the same but the second is an improved, faster vaudeville. Absolutely loved it. Watch the top video first and then the one below. Sway and sashay to Irish music!

First watch this..

And now watch this..

The Girl Who Sells Roses

2008-11-09T18:55:00.005+04:00

She is not yet in her teens. Always appears at the same place every Sunday, always wearing the same skirt and jacket. Her face presents a panaroma of a tough, unforgiving life. There is a humility in her voice which is not too hard to percieve. Her hair is plaited perfunctorily, perhaps no one has told her how to do her hair to attract the boys. But wait, she is the girl who sells roses. Red Roses.

On one wet Sunday afternoon, this little angel ran up to me and beseeched, "Sir, please buy a rose. Only for Rs. 15". And .... with a slight shake of the head, I smiled... at myself. An act which had eluded me since ages now. Its tiring smiling for others, you see.

I am no stranger to roses and their colors. Now, I wish I could explain to her some selling tips. She has her target segment correct. Men. What she really lacks is a critical understanding of an intrinsic feature of the product she is selling. When men want to buy red roses, they never find any; and when red roses find them, men dont want any.

If I speak to her, "Darling, what do I do with your lovely red roses?" will she understand me? I would be alarmed if she does. Its not her age to understand. Innocence is the most precious bounty that experience snatches away as we grow old. But what if she has 3 young siblings to educate, what if she has a terminally ill mother to take care of, what if she has a drunken father to escape from? "Darling, what do YOU do with your lovely red roses?" will I understand her? I would be alarmed if I dont. It's my age to understand.

If I see her again, I shall buy a red rose bud with a long stem and two leaves. And I blesss this little girl tonight, as I remember her. For she made me smile. For she should grow up one day to sheepishly accept a red rose bud with a long stem and two leaves from a nice, worthy lad. For she shall always be to me the girl who sells roses.

May God Blesss Her.

Yes Prime Minister

2008-11-09T13:03:00.005+04:00

I happened to stop by this.
Although I may have been 'a keen impartial observer' to the US Presidential Elections, let me lay the sticks straight when it comes to Indian Lok Sabha General Elections. I was, am and will be 'a passionate, supremely biased participant'. There. :-)

My love (and the above mentioned bias) for Indian Politics germinated during the 14th Lok Sabha elections which saw the defeat of the NDA in the most distasteful manner. The year was 2004, the best year of my epic life. Me and friend were stationed in Kerela 'working' but actually living a junket. During these months, days and nights were spent watching NDTV's electoral coverage and getting introduced to the fascinating kaleidoscope of Indian Politics.

Keep watching this space. I am planning to cover the 15th General Elections closely. And any readers in India, PLEASE vote. Unless you are happy with our beloved Behenji from UP taking on the mantle of Indian Prime Ministership!

Yes We Can

2008-11-05T21:29:00.004+04:00

Its worth watching this. Super.

I have been a keen impartial observer of the American Presidential Elections for almost an year now. My congratulations to Mr. Obama on a thumping landmark victory.

Watching his family on podium, my thoughts wandered in another direction (maybe consciously). My attention fell on the next First Lady of US Mrs Michelle Obama. Now I dont know anything about her except what I have written already above. So what has she done to deserve this night? My answer - She just married the right guy! (the unstinting support, iron pillar of strength, better half, lodestar, beacon in a dark night metaphors come later right??)

Since this blog's readership is overwhelmingly women (quite a few married), I am sure my question and my answer above would evince varied, argumentative responses. Ladies, do spare a moment and drop in your comments. And may I pray for your night to come as well :-)

Diwali Wishes

2008-10-28T20:02:00.005+04:00

Some days back, I met a girl from my school. This was after some 11 years or so. The lady (she has grown up now :-) has a refined, erudite taste and judgement. I was pleasantly surprised to know she had perused my blog some time back. She said, 'I found it D A RR KKK'.
Merci Beaucoup, Madame. I am much honoured. On a 'lighter' vein let me do some damage control to my reputation.

Here's wishing you all a mirthful, uneventful, safe and prosperous Diwali. May the sparkle of lights drive out all the darkness around you. For the darkness within, you would need enlightenment, which shall eventually come. You need to wait for it. Want to check wether it has already dawned upon you? Use my litmus test. Read the line below -
'Would not a speck of dust so close to the eye, blot out the entire glory of the world'
Ok.. so what do you think. If your mind has begun singing 'Kya karu hai, Kuch kuch hota hai' AND if your ears are picking the chords of the background music clearly ... Congratulations. Oh Enlightened One.

Stay Alive people. Sincere wishes for a Happy Diwali. I am not as DARRKKK as I may appear!

My Art Will Go On....

2008-10-21T19:21:00.005+04:00

My Art Will Go On.....that's what Peter Paul Rubens (1577 - 1640) would have sung were he alive today. I chanced upon his painting 'Massacre of the Innocents' and I ended up with full 15 minutes trying to figure what's it all about. At the end of it, I was mighty pleased with two people. Rubens and myself.

I confess here the title of the painting was the beacon which guided my traversal through Rubens' mind. Without knowing that its something to do with a massacre of innocents, I seriously doubt wether I would have been pleased with myself. So let me write out the ruminations of my mind in that intense 15 min period..

First thing I observed was that Arnold Schwarzeneggar on the right with that blue cloak protecting his dignity, holding a baby high up in his hands. He appears to be quite a babe smasher, as I saw three victims lying below. After this, I was completely at a loss about the rest. It took me a lot of time to figure out whats that big red robe doing there. Only on straining my eyes, I saw it all. I saw a woman's breast! Lo and behold.. things fell in place. So the woman is wearing that red thing, probably torn by Arnold no. 2. Closer inspection showed that Arnold no. 2 is tugging the baby's white 'diaper' (or whatever babies wore during those days to achieve that purpose). Another man with a sword or equivalent is wonderfully posed to strike at this babe. Now here I still can't figure out whats that green thing there trying to restrain this man. I can see two hands, but no torso. Further behind, is a greek soldier wearing a helmet pulling a woman's hair. And further behind, there is something in white robes.. cant figure that out either.

All in all, I am blown away by the profundity of Rubens. Will this be the match to light/ ignite/ blaze my artistic fire? Or will I suffer from a massive art attack?

Recession

2008-10-09T16:24:00.003+04:00

Here it comes.. hang on!
All, tighten your seatbelts, approacheth the bad bad times. Start saving ( stay away from stock markets unless you are a long term investor). Hold on to cash, make fixed deposits for 1, 2 and 3 yrs. Avoid job hopping unless absolutely essential. Prepare yourself for <10% annual increments. This is looking really really B.A.D specially if you are in the US or Europe. Trust me, I am perfectly jobless to be following the events very indulgingly, go collect the woods and keep 'em dry.

She's a'pallin'g

2008-10-05T12:26:00.004+04:00

That my joblessness drove me to check out Governor Sarah Palin confirms two things - Either Pakistan's Asif Ali Zardari is correct or there is some short circuit in my cranial innards. I shall risk the latter!

I happened to check out the US Vice Presidential debate between Biden and Palin. Incidentally, it was the most watched vice presidential debate in US history. I am sure someone in Pakistan would have been glued to the screen as well. However, I left it after 20 mins coz I had found what I really wanted to know. That brings me to the title of this blogpost. I saw in Sarah Palin a reflection of myself some years back in B School.

Me: (presenting a business plan) So you see, the company needs to increase revenue. It also needs to be ahead of the competition by introducing new products.
Professor: So what is the amount of capital budgeting you suggest and how much leverage?
Me: (ants in my pants) Well I would like to draw your attention to the distribution network of the company...

Now, I am not a stakeholder in the American Presidential elections so it really does not matter wether unilateral trade from Pakistan to the US increases ten folds as a result of Sarah Palin's ascension as deputy to the most powerful man on earth. But if that really happens, I am glad for the future of Indian politics, which until now enjoys the global benchmark in quirkiness.

How I dearly wish back here in India, we citizens could have the joys of a nation wide open debate between the job hopefulls. Imagine a Mayamati vs Mulayam, a Lalu vs Uma Bharti open air amphitheatre performance. Sadly, we shall have to be content with the American politickle scene and errrr... guest appearances from Pakistani Don Juans.

Death Magnetic

2008-10-01T19:01:00.002+04:00

Friends, Romans and Countrymen.. Metallica has just released their latest album called 'Death Magnetic'. Heres the first month response -
Death Magnetic debuted at number 1 in several countries to make it top the Australian, Canadian, and European album chart. Selling 490,000 units in the United States to debut at number 1, making Metallica the first band to have 5 consecutive studio albums debut at number one in the history of the Billboard 200. After a week of its release, Death Magnetic remained at number 1 on the Billboard 200, the European album chart, and became the fastest selling album in Australia for 2008
The single "The day that never comes" is .. well you gotta see it for yourself.

Also is the song 'Unforgiven III'. Two lines from the song which I have been humming since the past few hours
"How can I be lost, when the memory remains inside
How can I blame you, when its me I cant forgive!!!!"

Financial Tsumani

2008-09-29T23:18:00.004+04:00

Rampage, Carnage, Bloodbath.. all that on global markets as country after country falls. The cancer of the mortgage meltdown has subsumed banks in UK,Germany, Belgium, Iceland. And let me not be not be melodramatic, but ICICI Bank Ltd lost 12% in a single day on the Indian bourses. Its lost a staggering 65% and is at its 52 Wk low. And and, heres what I read on a blog about ICICI's health..

"At the same time there has been a rise in the Gross NPA from 4850 Crs to 8350 crs. This increase is more important for the bank and its valuation as retail assets account for around 60% of the bank’s assets. However the market did not react strongly to this important change as it is hidden in the Balance sheet. The NPA have increased further in the current quarter. In addition the provision are around 55% of Gross NPA. So there is still an exposure of around 3500 Crs, which could hit the P&L in the future"

If Washington Mutual, Wachovia could capsize, technically so can ICICI. Anyways what matters is all our money in ICICI and other Indian Banks. I did some research and found that RBI offers only up to Rs 1 Lakh as insurance against deposits in one bank. So those of you who are financially challenged and have no clue whats happening... simple, keep a very tight vigil on your hard earned money in whichever bank it is. Coz Mother India will only return Rs 1 Lakh, if misfortune french kisses you.

Masoom

2008-09-26T18:28:00.003+04:00

In 1983, was released a masterpiece called 'Masoom' featuring Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi and the now grown Jugal Hansraj and Urmila Matondkar. Most of us would have been kids at that time. We all remember growing up with that song 'Lakdi ki kaathi, kaathi pe ghoda'. I absolutely adored it and used to be wild with euphoria whenever it appeared on Chitrahaar. Remember Wednesday and Friday at 8:00PM :-)

Fast forward two decades, there is another song albeit from the same movie which brings a smile on my face. Its that classic 'Tujhase naraaz nahi zindagi, hairaan hu main'.
"Jeene ke liye socha hi nahi, dard sambhalane honge
Muskuraye to, muskurane ke ... karz utarne honge
muskuraoo kabhi, to lagta hai, jaise hotho pe karz rakha hai"

Beautiful. If you know what its means!
:-)
Yes.. that smiley has a 1% interest on it

On my debt bed

2008-09-23T20:08:00.003+04:00

Yeah.. I finally succumbed to the need for adding some fixed income flavor to Amun Ra. Helps it to balance the testing times around. I have added three debt mutual funds - Franklin International Fund, Birla SL MIP II Saving 5 and ICICI Pru Investment Plan to the already existing 9 funds in Amun Ra. That takes the tally to 12.. Maybe thats too much diversification. Lets wait and watch.. I am still learning these things. Amun Ra has been sealed and closed for a period of 3 years. No more capital infusion or liquidation.

Layman Bothers

2008-09-20T20:14:00.006+04:00

That my mother should mention on the phone 'some companies in America are falling' truly establishes the greatest financial crisis US has seen since the Great Depression of 1929! I have been reading the views, reactions, anguishes across blogdom so thought of contributing with my tuppence. After all thats what Lehman is worth now? Not really...

I remember reading the dramatic news articles during 11-16 Sept how the 62 yr old Chairman & CEO of Lehman Brothers Richard Fuld had not stepped out of his office on the 31st floor since a couple of days, desperately trying to save Lehman. He was trying to find a buyer to save the company he joined in 1960's from going belly up. I recall going to bed with my head trying to visualize the heat and tension on that 31st floor of Lehman's HQ. Next day, I got the most astonishing news of Merill Lynch bought out by Bank of America, and I was like where did that come from?? That was indeed a nasty surprise. More so coz I have had the fortune of visiting Merill's office in Dubai, and the experience had left me absolutely awestruck. And the same day, Lehman filed for Chapter 11. As some Hedge Fund owner remarked, 'In my 30 yrs I have never seen such extraordinary events'.

Now that the intial sting of the events have subsided, I find the fallout pretty amusing. Some people are deriving sadistic pleasure.. 'Those bloody high paying I-Bankers, good ego bashing for them'. The most amusing was Mr. Manmohan Singh's cabinet committee meeting wherein his FM gave a presentation (slides and all haha) to the UPA members about the global financial crisis and what it means to India. As expected, no minister raised any question!!. Then there are the reactions from B school aspirants. No guesses what the Group Discussion topics are going to be during 08-09. Then from the men on ground.. I asked my friend who is an I Banker in India, hows the sentiment. "Very very bad.. Lehman resumes are floating all around". In fact J.P.Morgan had organized a walk in recruitment drive for only Lehman employees last week.

My take - Well, although I myself am overwhelmed with the magnitude of destruction, if I may call it thus, some reactions like that of B School aspirants shying away from I Banking jobs are unfounded. The herd will now head towards private equity and management consulting jobs, which fall in that order of payscales. This is not what I would really advise any one. Lets realize that Investment Banking per se has not gone bonkers. The core practices of both Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers are still very prized businesses.

As an aside, this global turmoil bodes well for management consultancies. Lots of sleep deprived, frantic, confused CEOs means more business for consultants. One man's bane is the other's boon.

The Lal Street

2008-09-17T20:48:00.003+04:00

This was due for quite some time now. Today is an important day. I got my ICICIdirect online trading account. Yeah I know.. I am late, but still all my reading and research confirms however hard I may banish myself to senescence, I am still very young in the investing world. So as they say during the yagna .. swaha ! Who knows, you may be witness to the new Fischer, Lynch and Buffet all rolled into one. Ha ha just trying to pep myself up.

Off course my best friend in this world... my blog will silently witness my experiences in this domain akin to Laxman's common man. The posts would be tagged as 'The Lal Street'. Let me start with the basics. I would be disclosing my investments, rationale (or lack of it :-)), performance, sentiments, et al. Nopes not the amount invested. I am sure all my readers know I take discretion to its quintessence. So lets start with my latest crush .. my mutual fund portfolio. Lets give it a nice name.. umm.. some Egyptian god ... Amun-Ra. Let that be a trend.. I shall name all my investments after Egyptian God names. I know, I know I am maaaad.

Let me tell you more about Amun-Ra. Amun-Ra is a sophisticated fund of fund which I have carefully constructed by buying various mutual funds. Namely - Reliance Diversified Power Sector Fund, DSP-ML Equity Fund, Franklin India Prima Fund, IDFC Premier Equity Fund, Lotus India Contra Fund, HDFC Arbitrage Fund, ICICI Prudential Infrastructure Fund and HDFC Top 200 Growth Fund. The whole rationale here is wealth preservation. I dont see Amun-Ra appreciating more than 15% even in bullish times, but I think (hope!!) the downside risk is also 10-15% only due to that arbitrage fund which should provide some hedging. Amun-Ra has been constructed after careful detailed analysis including simlations on moneycontrol.com Things I have considered are performance over 3 years or more, fund manager track record, sector & cap exposure and compatibility with other brothers & sisters chosen in Amun-Ra. I am yet to buy into the efficacy of debt funds, so they will have to wait for offering obeisance to Amun-Ra. One certain addition expected is an ELSS for tax saving purpose. I am looking at a long term relationship with Amun-Ra min 3 yrs. Lets see wether it bears fruit.

Ohh I forgot Ben Franklin above :-)

My Share Price

2008-09-13T13:45:00.003+04:00

The graph above is the historical share price of a fictitious company called 666. Lets say if I were a company listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, and if an investor would have searched for me, that is what she/he would see. But what does the intelligent investor infer?

For anyone who has followed the company (read me) since its incorporation in 1999 (I leave home for engineering hostel life), the graph is as plain as pikestaff. As you can see, the company (read me) is falling continuously since 2004. Is it a bottomless pit? Who knows.. but for sure the intelligent investor would reckon the company (read me) is extremely undervalued by the market. PE anywhere <>

Corrigendum (15/09/08): Someone pointed out a lacuna in the graph. The corrected graph stands below, red line being the revision. I stand corrected here and the faus pax is deeply regretted. And thanks for those who want to invest!