Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
Those were annoying waitlists. Here are some that will impact life in a big way.
The year began with great expectations to join one of the top business schools in India; in full time business (Exec) programs offered by IIMA, IIMC and ISB; in that order, for my own reasons.
By the time Ahmedabad opened its online applications in April, I was ready to register; was among the first few of 1350 to do so. But the journey ahead would prove to be a long one.
In the next three weeks, I had to complete the forms for IIMC, get recos from across multiple time-zones and send the docket out to Calcutta. "If things have to go wrong, they will. If they do not have to, they still will". Cutting the long story short, my application reached on the day after the last date. Between the time I sent out the application and I was shortlisted to the interviews, I moved back home. In mid-August, the interview happened. It went well, by most standards. Regardless of that, the bottomline was that I was not yet in. I was on the fourth waitlist this year.
Meanwhile, the Ahmedabad application was submitted and interview date announced. As luck would have it, the interview was in the same location as the Calcutta interview has been. I put aside any thoughts of destiny around the coincidence of interview location. If the interview has opinions flying back and forth , a few moments of laughter and a smiling panel at the end, I think I am allowed to think it went well. But I would not know for another month.
While waiting for the Ahmedabad results, the most practical thing to do was to apply for Round 2 of ISB. ISB application process is perhaps the most technologically mature one, much like that of INSEAD and a couple of tier-1 schools in the US (I have filled my share of recos for a few folks). Every part of the process, including recos is online. It makes life much easier in one way. But automation also requires you to follow the instructions to the T. It would be a cakewalk I had been told, by a friend of mine who had studied at ISB. So, I was taken aback when ISB sent me a regret mail a few weeks after that.
Since then, I have thought a little more about it. What stood out is the fact that I was not even shortlisted for the interview. (Without leading you to any conclusion, I would like to add that later I was to find out that many others with my profile or more experience had been in the same predicament). So, while this did not put me in a waitlist, my being on the waitlist of Calcutta gained more significance. More so because it was a little over a month before the term at Calcutta would begin. Chances were getting slimmer by the day.
So, while I was nursing the regret message and the vacuum of Calcutta waitlist and IIM Ahmedabad results, I started making enquiries about the waitlist mechanisms in the latter schools. It turned out that Ahmedabad waitlist had gotten fully used last year. That was good news, but each year is different. So, I braced myself just in case some surpise were to be awaiting around the corner.
No surprise (not no regret) then, that Ahmedabad put me on the waitlist. Those were undoubtedly the most harrowing days of the year. Much of November was not sweet at all. Fifth waitlist of the year had me in its grip.
No one said life was easy, but one has to be ready. It was I then sent out my scores to INSEAD, the first school I thought about outside India, in such case that the India story did not work out. I had already sent my scores to another British school earlier.I was getting reminders from them about application deadlines. I repeat, those were the most harrowing days of this year.
In the middle of the last week of November when the first set of waitlisted folks were bumped up by Ahmedabad, came the most gratifying email I have received this year, or life maybe? I think I need not say more.
Looking back, all's well. But this has been a year of waitlists, down to the penultimate month. With this, I will end this note, this year, and the waitlist saga.
Wish you a very Happy New Year 2008!
2007-12-28
2007: A year of waitlists: Part 2
If not already done, read Part 1 here.
After touchdown at Miami and arriving 15 hours too late to our 4-Star Hotel, we were in for a bigger surprise when at the swank reception of the hotel, we were told that our reservation stood cancelled. What the heavens was happening?
Earlier, the previous evening, I had called up The Hotel and told them that we would be arriving half-a-day late, and had grudgingly consented that half of our two-night charges would be flushed away. Apparently, after talking to me, the night operator, off duty then, had messed it all up.
Budget travellers have quite a few options in the American travel 'system'. One of them is a service called Hotwire.com. Basically, you provide your budget range for a nightcap and the system sets-up a 'blind reservation' with a multi-star hotel. This means that until you make the payment, you are privy to only the facilities offered at the location; it is not easy/possible to guess the exact hotel they are offering you. But the promise is that you will not be disappointed. We were not.
Such services exist for two reasons. One is the proliferation of e-commerce in tourism makes way for creative business models. The second is the fact that doing this allows hotels to fill rooms for a cheaper rate, especially during lean periods of the year. If you will, it is an effective yield management strategy, much like how airlines sell $25 air tickets. It works well for all hotels in such consortia, since people are allocated hotels in a category ,probably, in a round-robin fashion. It works well for the travellers.
The problem happens when a problem happens. What I mean is that when there is a change in plan, you are now required to deal with two parties- Hotwire.com and The Hotel in this case. I had talked to The Hotel. They never told me I had to talk to Hotwire. But yet, the night attendant confirmed the change of plan.
Two things helped me resolve the quandary. Firstly, when the manager refused to acknowledge the fact that we had called, I showed him the call record on my cellphone. It showed that I had been on the call for all of three and a half minutes.
Secondly, the Hotwire.com services work like an open-market. Democracy is supreme here, since the services thrive on user-feedback, much like e-Bay. A brief mention this fact brought new perspective to things, endingour second waitlist of the year.
Knowing the lie of the land is important for any traveller. Yahoo! Maps and Mapquest are definitely up there when it comes to accuracy and reliability. But traffic patterns are another thing altogether. Then again, Florida is a pensioners paradise, despite the glamour and youth thronging the place. The speedlimits are lower than in other states to cater to the majority senior population. This was something to be expected but came as a surprise to us.
Additonally, the drive through The Keys to reach Key West is on several narrow several-miles-long bridges separating the Gulf of Mexico from Atlantic Ocean. These bridges have long stretches of no-passing zones. All this added up to our reaching the rendevous point of water-adventure cruise at Key West, less than 10 minutes before yacht took off. Thus ended third waitlist this year.
I will end the chronicle of our Florida trip by saying that in the midst of this canonball run, my wife and I had the best time of our life, or should I just say 2007.
The waitlist saga continues in Part 3.
After touchdown at Miami and arriving 15 hours too late to our 4-Star Hotel, we were in for a bigger surprise when at the swank reception of the hotel, we were told that our reservation stood cancelled. What the heavens was happening?
Earlier, the previous evening, I had called up The Hotel and told them that we would be arriving half-a-day late, and had grudgingly consented that half of our two-night charges would be flushed away. Apparently, after talking to me, the night operator, off duty then, had messed it all up.
Budget travellers have quite a few options in the American travel 'system'. One of them is a service called Hotwire.com. Basically, you provide your budget range for a nightcap and the system sets-up a 'blind reservation' with a multi-star hotel. This means that until you make the payment, you are privy to only the facilities offered at the location; it is not easy/possible to guess the exact hotel they are offering you. But the promise is that you will not be disappointed. We were not.
Such services exist for two reasons. One is the proliferation of e-commerce in tourism makes way for creative business models. The second is the fact that doing this allows hotels to fill rooms for a cheaper rate, especially during lean periods of the year. If you will, it is an effective yield management strategy, much like how airlines sell $25 air tickets. It works well for all hotels in such consortia, since people are allocated hotels in a category ,probably, in a round-robin fashion. It works well for the travellers.
The problem happens when a problem happens. What I mean is that when there is a change in plan, you are now required to deal with two parties- Hotwire.com and The Hotel in this case. I had talked to The Hotel. They never told me I had to talk to Hotwire. But yet, the night attendant confirmed the change of plan.
Two things helped me resolve the quandary. Firstly, when the manager refused to acknowledge the fact that we had called, I showed him the call record on my cellphone. It showed that I had been on the call for all of three and a half minutes.
Secondly, the Hotwire.com services work like an open-market. Democracy is supreme here, since the services thrive on user-feedback, much like e-Bay. A brief mention this fact brought new perspective to things, endingour second waitlist of the year.
Knowing the lie of the land is important for any traveller. Yahoo! Maps and Mapquest are definitely up there when it comes to accuracy and reliability. But traffic patterns are another thing altogether. Then again, Florida is a pensioners paradise, despite the glamour and youth thronging the place. The speedlimits are lower than in other states to cater to the majority senior population. This was something to be expected but came as a surprise to us.
Additonally, the drive through The Keys to reach Key West is on several narrow several-miles-long bridges separating the Gulf of Mexico from Atlantic Ocean. These bridges have long stretches of no-passing zones. All this added up to our reaching the rendevous point of water-adventure cruise at Key West, less than 10 minutes before yacht took off. Thus ended third waitlist this year.
I will end the chronicle of our Florida trip by saying that in the midst of this canonball run, my wife and I had the best time of our life, or should I just say 2007.
The waitlist saga continues in Part 3.
2007-12-27
2007: A year of waitlists: Part 1
This has been a year of waitlists. A turn of a New Year is a good time to recall our escapades, remembering that, while planning anything can be fun, seeing it go haywire and then unravelling the mess and coming out gleaming can be more fun.
It all began with booking tickets to visit Florida. Having taken over the portfolio of managing all our travel plans (and more), my wife booked 'special price' tickets to Miami around 120 days in advance.It saved us quite a few greenbacks and I, though wary of perils of nonrefundable tickets, was optimistic of local weather conditions in future(!). Choreographed to perfection - we even had decided on places for dinner and lunch in Miami and Key West, a couple of months before the travel date- we thought nothing could come in our way (somewhat).
Weather gods, meanwhile, had been planning their own little thingy. Six hours before ETD, our flight to Miami got delayed. Two hours later it got cancelled. 30 minutes later United Airlines dumped us, literally, on to the next day, Friday, morning flight at Six with American Airlines. We left home at 3:45 AM to be there ahead of everyone, only to realize we had undermined everyone else's determination. An hour of hoarse shouting at UA and AA, who kept shirking the responsibility about why we were being treated like a football at FIFA, intensely kicked around, only yielded that everyone was helpless; and we were 11th down the waitlist of passengers who could just make it to the 8 AM out of O'Hare.We had an option of taking the 1 PM confirmed seat. In the face of the fact that we had already lost a night's prepaid stay at a 4 star hotel in Miami, the choice was easy.
Being in the thick of things brought us face to face with how airline companies do yield management. They have a few very important tools to beat the holiday season nightmares. One of them is overbooking. Some passengers cancel out (not a statistical impossibility that) and those tickets are sold at a premium. Some passengers don't mind selling their tickets back to airlines in exchange for travel vouchers at the same time delaying their own travel to any of the next few flights out. Lastly, the most important 'investment', a passenger realizes, is to be on the loyalty programs of airlines. Because, when a flight is cancelled, or when overbooked people are moved around Loyalty card holders make it to the top of waiting lists. I will not argue with that, since if I were running the business, I may just run it the same way.
In the next two hours we would count our chances of getting on that plan a hundred times, confirming with each other, every time the boarding gate attendant announced a name cleared for boarding. We were willing to forgive them for mis-pronouncing our names, as long as we made it on board. Not until Six minutes before the plane doors would close, were we told that we were cleared. That was the end of our first waitlist.
But wait, the story has only started!
It all began with booking tickets to visit Florida. Having taken over the portfolio of managing all our travel plans (and more), my wife booked 'special price' tickets to Miami around 120 days in advance.It saved us quite a few greenbacks and I, though wary of perils of nonrefundable tickets, was optimistic of local weather conditions in future(!). Choreographed to perfection - we even had decided on places for dinner and lunch in Miami and Key West, a couple of months before the travel date- we thought nothing could come in our way (somewhat).
Weather gods, meanwhile, had been planning their own little thingy. Six hours before ETD, our flight to Miami got delayed. Two hours later it got cancelled. 30 minutes later United Airlines dumped us, literally, on to the next day, Friday, morning flight at Six with American Airlines. We left home at 3:45 AM to be there ahead of everyone, only to realize we had undermined everyone else's determination. An hour of hoarse shouting at UA and AA, who kept shirking the responsibility about why we were being treated like a football at FIFA, intensely kicked around, only yielded that everyone was helpless; and we were 11th down the waitlist of passengers who could just make it to the 8 AM out of O'Hare.We had an option of taking the 1 PM confirmed seat. In the face of the fact that we had already lost a night's prepaid stay at a 4 star hotel in Miami, the choice was easy.
Being in the thick of things brought us face to face with how airline companies do yield management. They have a few very important tools to beat the holiday season nightmares. One of them is overbooking. Some passengers cancel out (not a statistical impossibility that) and those tickets are sold at a premium. Some passengers don't mind selling their tickets back to airlines in exchange for travel vouchers at the same time delaying their own travel to any of the next few flights out. Lastly, the most important 'investment', a passenger realizes, is to be on the loyalty programs of airlines. Because, when a flight is cancelled, or when overbooked people are moved around Loyalty card holders make it to the top of waiting lists. I will not argue with that, since if I were running the business, I may just run it the same way.
In the next two hours we would count our chances of getting on that plan a hundred times, confirming with each other, every time the boarding gate attendant announced a name cleared for boarding. We were willing to forgive them for mis-pronouncing our names, as long as we made it on board. Not until Six minutes before the plane doors would close, were we told that we were cleared. That was the end of our first waitlist.
But wait, the story has only started!
2007-12-05
Review of 'Snapshots from hell- The making of an MBA':
Set in the recent past,1988-1990, this book published in 1994 is a very funny, honest and absorbing take on the life of a Stanford MBA student. The author, Peter Robinson, does not spare himself or the college in describing his emotional roller coaster ride of realising his ambition to be a business graduate. With brutal honestness Robinson recounts, in first person narrative, his fears, failures and successes in overcoming the natural Poet (In Stanford lingo, a person who has no significant engineering, mathematical or financial educational background) in him while grappling with the quantitative-heavy Stanford syllabus.
This is a fictionalised autobiography in that the incidents in the story are all true and the protagonist or the observer is the author himself while the names, which could feasibly be changed have been masked. The author admits that 'there was no point in masking popular personalities' and so some of them from his friends' circle or faculty have been retained. Focussing primarily the first year and the summer internship period, Robinson traces his daily life with quotations from his personal journal. The natural flair of rhetoric that the author possesses is quite evident in three places: his pre-Stanford position as a speech writer for President Reagan; Robinson's own journal entries (no doubt written under heavy B-school-pressure) and the wit in storytelling itself.
The book is useful to any b-school student. But, it is especially required to be read by any student who is entering a well-placed or top b-school anywhere, as the philosophy or pedagogy of Stanford (like that of other global top b-schools) is bound to have influenced his or her school's didactics. What make this book timeless are the principles of selection and teaching of Stanford that are only pioneering and not transient, meaning that with time the best practices will only spread globally. The pedagogy and rigor influence a student's life significantly and therefore the experiences are bound to be similar. Today, this is especially true to India because we are witnessiing a globalisation of b-school education here, not suprisingly due to the free-market capitalisation being attempted by India, the growing demand for globally-experienced b-school graduates in Indian mainstream economy and the rise in ambition owing to affordability of quality b-school education. Of course, there are also more than ever Indian students who are able to afford and embrace international business schools.
The reader, especially, if he is in the target audience described earlier will instantly empathise with the author since within the first few pages, the author gives examples of various types of questions and analyses (and answer with diagrams) discussed in the class that added to the latter's misery. The reader thereby gets the benefit of learning about the mindset expected of a b-school student. The author describes with a natural sense of humour, his tribulations in mastering the apparently simple concepts (for the non-Poets) all along doubting his fitment in the Stanford's scheme of things.
During the course of the story, one also gets a glance at the recent history of the school and an understanding of the factors that challenged and led to the evolution of some of the top schools in the US. In the process of understanding the author's student-life, the readers are bound to get satisfactory answers to whether it was all worth it for the author and by extension lead to an introspection of their own motives. Of course, everything is relative and situational and then the book itself is not instructive; but, the subtle impact is lasting.
Wit, honesty and brevity are the key take-aways from Robinson's style.This is an unputdownable book and a must read for all b-school aspirants; an almost 'rite of passage' as I had been told.
Set in the recent past,1988-1990, this book published in 1994 is a very funny, honest and absorbing take on the life of a Stanford MBA student. The author, Peter Robinson, does not spare himself or the college in describing his emotional roller coaster ride of realising his ambition to be a business graduate. With brutal honestness Robinson recounts, in first person narrative, his fears, failures and successes in overcoming the natural Poet (In Stanford lingo, a person who has no significant engineering, mathematical or financial educational background) in him while grappling with the quantitative-heavy Stanford syllabus.
This is a fictionalised autobiography in that the incidents in the story are all true and the protagonist or the observer is the author himself while the names, which could feasibly be changed have been masked. The author admits that 'there was no point in masking popular personalities' and so some of them from his friends' circle or faculty have been retained. Focussing primarily the first year and the summer internship period, Robinson traces his daily life with quotations from his personal journal. The natural flair of rhetoric that the author possesses is quite evident in three places: his pre-Stanford position as a speech writer for President Reagan; Robinson's own journal entries (no doubt written under heavy B-school-pressure) and the wit in storytelling itself.
The book is useful to any b-school student. But, it is especially required to be read by any student who is entering a well-placed or top b-school anywhere, as the philosophy or pedagogy of Stanford (like that of other global top b-schools) is bound to have influenced his or her school's didactics. What make this book timeless are the principles of selection and teaching of Stanford that are only pioneering and not transient, meaning that with time the best practices will only spread globally. The pedagogy and rigor influence a student's life significantly and therefore the experiences are bound to be similar. Today, this is especially true to India because we are witnessiing a globalisation of b-school education here, not suprisingly due to the free-market capitalisation being attempted by India, the growing demand for globally-experienced b-school graduates in Indian mainstream economy and the rise in ambition owing to affordability of quality b-school education. Of course, there are also more than ever Indian students who are able to afford and embrace international business schools.
The reader, especially, if he is in the target audience described earlier will instantly empathise with the author since within the first few pages, the author gives examples of various types of questions and analyses (and answer with diagrams) discussed in the class that added to the latter's misery. The reader thereby gets the benefit of learning about the mindset expected of a b-school student. The author describes with a natural sense of humour, his tribulations in mastering the apparently simple concepts (for the non-Poets) all along doubting his fitment in the Stanford's scheme of things.
During the course of the story, one also gets a glance at the recent history of the school and an understanding of the factors that challenged and led to the evolution of some of the top schools in the US. In the process of understanding the author's student-life, the readers are bound to get satisfactory answers to whether it was all worth it for the author and by extension lead to an introspection of their own motives. Of course, everything is relative and situational and then the book itself is not instructive; but, the subtle impact is lasting.
Wit, honesty and brevity are the key take-aways from Robinson's style.This is an unputdownable book and a must read for all b-school aspirants; an almost 'rite of passage' as I had been told.
2007-11-26
Review of "creEper":
A guy and girl and a box. A narrator, a Sutradhar (puppeteer) and a story. Any which way, the one hour performance of creEper at the Rangashankara ( here) is worth a watch. The narrative style is impressive and the message well emphasized, even if it is not new. The play connected with the audience with its familiar theme of loss of soul in an imploding city with what better example for Bangaloreans than that of Bangalore.
The performance by the two protagonists (this is the entire cast, by the way) was intense at moments but overall touching. The play had its moments of 'I know what you mean' and 'let me finish your sentence' with a third of the audience that comprised of a college-going crowd, and therefore involving them. Because, many of the juvenile fears and indulgences of the young (and some of ours) found their way into the script, which was supposed to look like an impromptu one. The 'extemporary' goal well achieved while trying to tell a story all the while agreeing to disagree on how they would tell it.
The first part of this play, which is based on the 'Vikram and Betal' lore, 'generally screws around with the audience' (as also conceded by the Sutradhar at halftime) as the storytellers confuse the audience with their bipolar approach to narration, confide with them their fears and demons and while not convince the audience, set an open platform to put on it whatever they want to achieve in the second half. One of the story tellers is a rationalist while the other is a sentimentalist and very dramatic, just enough to keep the audience interested and sometimes agitated.
The impact of lighting on a low-key (photographically, one that involved less exposure to light) stage performance such as this is lasting. The shadows added the key ingredient of proxy-characters while the two actors played out their moves on the stage.During some moments of musing by the characters in the story-inside-the-story , one could see the third and fourth characters in shadows. The interplay of characters and shadows aided by the lighting kept me interested throughout the play with eyes and ears overwhelmed by the effect. That way, there was a lot to see in the play.
So, at the end of first half, by when the audience know that the story is about memories, loss and separation of two souls (not two people) born in Bangalore, the story unfolds itself into one that gives snapshots of same experience that could have been had by a middle-class couple at different times in Bangalore. First one at the turn of the 80s decade of the last millennium, another that happened at turn of the millennium and the last one 'yesterday', if not 'today'. The experiences are no doubt accompanied by the dreads that lurk around them. With quotidian samples to indicate the timeline, someone who has lived in Bangalore for, say, even 15 years (if attentive, even so much is not required) will relate to the game played out by the two and catch on to the fears that gripped, or still grip, Bangaloreans in their daily life, because 'people are being ripped apart for everything'.
You are reminded in the end that 'where grows a tree, a creEper grows', leading the audience to the moral of the story (Not so sure about the camelback used in the name). The end is supposed to be full of hope, but the audience is left unsure of it, because the 'rational and detached' narrator herself succumbs to the dark forces. At a very basic level this play could be construed as a reality-check, if one agrees that doing so does not take the juice out of it.
By the way: This article was posted using w.blogger (here), a first for me. I am quite pleased with the result, while I am still confused over whether or how I can include labels from my desktop.
A guy and girl and a box. A narrator, a Sutradhar (puppeteer) and a story. Any which way, the one hour performance of creEper at the Rangashankara ( here) is worth a watch. The narrative style is impressive and the message well emphasized, even if it is not new. The play connected with the audience with its familiar theme of loss of soul in an imploding city with what better example for Bangaloreans than that of Bangalore.
The performance by the two protagonists (this is the entire cast, by the way) was intense at moments but overall touching. The play had its moments of 'I know what you mean' and 'let me finish your sentence' with a third of the audience that comprised of a college-going crowd, and therefore involving them. Because, many of the juvenile fears and indulgences of the young (and some of ours) found their way into the script, which was supposed to look like an impromptu one. The 'extemporary' goal well achieved while trying to tell a story all the while agreeing to disagree on how they would tell it.
The first part of this play, which is based on the 'Vikram and Betal' lore, 'generally screws around with the audience' (as also conceded by the Sutradhar at halftime) as the storytellers confuse the audience with their bipolar approach to narration, confide with them their fears and demons and while not convince the audience, set an open platform to put on it whatever they want to achieve in the second half. One of the story tellers is a rationalist while the other is a sentimentalist and very dramatic, just enough to keep the audience interested and sometimes agitated.
The impact of lighting on a low-key (photographically, one that involved less exposure to light) stage performance such as this is lasting. The shadows added the key ingredient of proxy-characters while the two actors played out their moves on the stage.During some moments of musing by the characters in the story-inside-the-story , one could see the third and fourth characters in shadows. The interplay of characters and shadows aided by the lighting kept me interested throughout the play with eyes and ears overwhelmed by the effect. That way, there was a lot to see in the play.
So, at the end of first half, by when the audience know that the story is about memories, loss and separation of two souls (not two people) born in Bangalore, the story unfolds itself into one that gives snapshots of same experience that could have been had by a middle-class couple at different times in Bangalore. First one at the turn of the 80s decade of the last millennium, another that happened at turn of the millennium and the last one 'yesterday', if not 'today'. The experiences are no doubt accompanied by the dreads that lurk around them. With quotidian samples to indicate the timeline, someone who has lived in Bangalore for, say, even 15 years (if attentive, even so much is not required) will relate to the game played out by the two and catch on to the fears that gripped, or still grip, Bangaloreans in their daily life, because 'people are being ripped apart for everything'.
You are reminded in the end that 'where grows a tree, a creEper grows', leading the audience to the moral of the story (Not so sure about the camelback used in the name). The end is supposed to be full of hope, but the audience is left unsure of it, because the 'rational and detached' narrator herself succumbs to the dark forces. At a very basic level this play could be construed as a reality-check, if one agrees that doing so does not take the juice out of it.
By the way: This article was posted using w.blogger (here), a first for me. I am quite pleased with the result, while I am still confused over whether or how I can include labels from my desktop.
2007-11-21
There is no such thing as guilt in politics
"The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion."-Molly Ivins (here)
"In, out. In, Out." But not quite like how Stanley Kubrik's protagonist in 'A Clockwork Orange' meant it. Still, the desperation shown by the ex-coalition partner of the JDS-led government of Karnataka, BJP, following 'betrayal' from JDS in mid-term is equally vulgar and irritating.
That it did not even pay off - couldn't have expected it to, knowing Gowda Sr.'s long term 'vision' for HDK's political career- was a bigger showdown in the form a un-dream-like seven-day stint of hurried announcements and juvenile excitement following a lifelong pursuit of CM-ship for Yedi; and a regional win for BJP. The BJP high-command concurs that Yedi's was a puerile I-wanna-be-CM display and has publicly accepted that local BJP ownership showed how desperate it had gotten to get the ruling post and in the process lost it all. Isn't it a simple truth that what is easily got is easily lost? After once refusing support, JDS's internal differences (a farce? But a spun-off party by HDK seems to be on the cards. It may be about damage control, it may be genuine. Only time will tell.) led to a sudden rush of support from JDS to BJP, lest public be turned against JDS's untrustworthiness. There is is nothing like guilt in politics, you know? And then came the withdrawal of support when the floor strength was to be tested. But not all hope is lost for BJP. In a wave of sympathy , a mid-term poll is bound to turn tables in BJP's favour.
But for now, the people have been failed. 41 months, 2 broken alliances, 3 turns of governments and lot of development work delayed or (will be) undone. Not the least, is the beating the image of 'IT State' of India has taken.Business relies on political stability and infrastructural growth. Bangalore's NICE and Peripheral Roads, Bangalore-Mangalore train and roads, approach highway to Bangalore's international airport, and a-pothole-for-every-star-in-the-sky waiting seeking attention, the list of things endlessly waiting is endless.
People get the government they deserve. The current jugglery may just be the best lesson for Karnatakans to remember everytime they punch the touch-buttons on voting machines; a lesson they ought not forget, as mid-term polls have been beckoned. The urban population, especially those in IT dominant cities of Mysore, upcoming-Hubli-Dharwad and, definitely, Bangalore have been for long fed up of Sr.Gowda's anti-development antics. It had far exceeded the limits set for devil's advocates who are an essential part of the democratic set-up. Hopefully, all that communication and media penetration in the state would have enabled the semi-urban and rural population into tracking the (un)developments closely and would elicit wise voting choices from them. By now, they ought to know that those who 'betray twice' would be predictable at doing so in future.
A fractured verdict from the state clearly shows that, collectively, everyone thinks that no single party is good enough for the job. JDS, on the dint of its 70 odd assembly seats got the room for arm-twisting its coalition partner BJP. With HDK at the helm and an as-of-then unknown elder son Revanna on the sides, it has been a cannon ball run for the Mannina Magaa, who has been piggybacking on HDK's young-and-progressive-CM image but in the process also frustrated the ex-ex-CM, HDK himself, with his capers.
While it is fair to protect one's progeny's political interests (JDS has been miffed at the criminal charges on HDK made by BJP MLAs when the latter was a sleeping partner and therefore Sr Gowda saw long term risk to Jr's political career in handing power to 'an accusing party'), it is a mockery of public opinion to try and turn a power-sharing arrangement into a puppet show. JDS wants to keep its coalition partner in charge of all but the lucrative ministerial positions for 'all well known reasons' as ex-CM (a circumstantial title accruing from a 'woh sath din' stint at the helm) Yedi has proclaimed to the media. This was a part of the 12 point charter drafted by Gowda Sr. About 20% of Karnataka gave the verdict in BJP's favour in the last election. Is there no regard for that? Why do such charters pop-up 21 months into a ruling term?
The last 45 days in Karnataka have seen drama worthy of an Emmy nomination. Many a dinner has been spent dissecting the convolutions lent out to us by those presiding over Vidhana Soudha. There have been allegations that trunkfuls of money have changed hands and it is known that several resorts have hosted MLAs in forced isolation.Probably, the game goes like- Get them drunk hard. By the time they recover, it would too late or they just wouldn't mind. Horses don't have minds, you see!
Signing off with the hope that people will get the government they deserve! Because, as Aesop quotes, "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office."
"In, out. In, Out." But not quite like how Stanley Kubrik's protagonist in 'A Clockwork Orange' meant it. Still, the desperation shown by the ex-coalition partner of the JDS-led government of Karnataka, BJP, following 'betrayal' from JDS in mid-term is equally vulgar and irritating.
That it did not even pay off - couldn't have expected it to, knowing Gowda Sr.'s long term 'vision' for HDK's political career- was a bigger showdown in the form a un-dream-like seven-day stint of hurried announcements and juvenile excitement following a lifelong pursuit of CM-ship for Yedi; and a regional win for BJP. The BJP high-command concurs that Yedi's was a puerile I-wanna-be-CM display and has publicly accepted that local BJP ownership showed how desperate it had gotten to get the ruling post and in the process lost it all. Isn't it a simple truth that what is easily got is easily lost? After once refusing support, JDS's internal differences (a farce? But a spun-off party by HDK seems to be on the cards. It may be about damage control, it may be genuine. Only time will tell.) led to a sudden rush of support from JDS to BJP, lest public be turned against JDS's untrustworthiness. There is is nothing like guilt in politics, you know? And then came the withdrawal of support when the floor strength was to be tested. But not all hope is lost for BJP. In a wave of sympathy , a mid-term poll is bound to turn tables in BJP's favour.
But for now, the people have been failed. 41 months, 2 broken alliances, 3 turns of governments and lot of development work delayed or (will be) undone. Not the least, is the beating the image of 'IT State' of India has taken.Business relies on political stability and infrastructural growth. Bangalore's NICE and Peripheral Roads, Bangalore-Mangalore train and roads, approach highway to Bangalore's international airport, and a-pothole-for-every-star-in-the-sky waiting seeking attention, the list of things endlessly waiting is endless.
People get the government they deserve. The current jugglery may just be the best lesson for Karnatakans to remember everytime they punch the touch-buttons on voting machines; a lesson they ought not forget, as mid-term polls have been beckoned. The urban population, especially those in IT dominant cities of Mysore, upcoming-Hubli-Dharwad and, definitely, Bangalore have been for long fed up of Sr.Gowda's anti-development antics. It had far exceeded the limits set for devil's advocates who are an essential part of the democratic set-up. Hopefully, all that communication and media penetration in the state would have enabled the semi-urban and rural population into tracking the (un)developments closely and would elicit wise voting choices from them. By now, they ought to know that those who 'betray twice' would be predictable at doing so in future.
A fractured verdict from the state clearly shows that, collectively, everyone thinks that no single party is good enough for the job. JDS, on the dint of its 70 odd assembly seats got the room for arm-twisting its coalition partner BJP. With HDK at the helm and an as-of-then unknown elder son Revanna on the sides, it has been a cannon ball run for the Mannina Magaa, who has been piggybacking on HDK's young-and-progressive-CM image but in the process also frustrated the ex-ex-CM, HDK himself, with his capers.
While it is fair to protect one's progeny's political interests (JDS has been miffed at the criminal charges on HDK made by BJP MLAs when the latter was a sleeping partner and therefore Sr Gowda saw long term risk to Jr's political career in handing power to 'an accusing party'), it is a mockery of public opinion to try and turn a power-sharing arrangement into a puppet show. JDS wants to keep its coalition partner in charge of all but the lucrative ministerial positions for 'all well known reasons' as ex-CM (a circumstantial title accruing from a 'woh sath din' stint at the helm) Yedi has proclaimed to the media. This was a part of the 12 point charter drafted by Gowda Sr. About 20% of Karnataka gave the verdict in BJP's favour in the last election. Is there no regard for that? Why do such charters pop-up 21 months into a ruling term?
The last 45 days in Karnataka have seen drama worthy of an Emmy nomination. Many a dinner has been spent dissecting the convolutions lent out to us by those presiding over Vidhana Soudha. There have been allegations that trunkfuls of money have changed hands and it is known that several resorts have hosted MLAs in forced isolation.Probably, the game goes like- Get them drunk hard. By the time they recover, it would too late or they just wouldn't mind. Horses don't have minds, you see!
Signing off with the hope that people will get the government they deserve! Because, as Aesop quotes, "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office."
2007-11-02
Side-effects of globalisation
In the book 'The World is Flat", read short review here, Thomas Friedman illustrated globalisation via scores of, well, global firms, and one of them was Dell Inc. The supply chain intricacies at Dell lent themselves to the emergence of 'Dell Theory of Conflicts'. Like the book, my experience with Dell, albeit post-purchase, is no less speckled with side-effects of globalisation.
The story begins with the occurrence of a problem that turned my laptop into a lemon, defined here. I have been using a Dell Inspiron 5160 for close to three years now.This should tell you that with the basic warranty long expired and without extended or global warranty I am vulnerable. And until recently, I was oblivious to the existence of #M1004. This is the error code Dell-ians see on the BIOS screen after their laptop is 'preventively shutdown to avoid damage due to overheating'.
I saw this error for the first time few months ago,soon after I upgraded the RAM four times over to 2 GB. I was hoping to get more out of my laptop. I was getting more heat out of it, alright! This paralysed my normal usage of the laptop, since the preventive shutdown happened at 70 degree C, which was reached within 40 minutes of operation. Thus began my research on the problem that had fortunately or unfortunately eluded me since the laptop had arrived at my doorstep. Googling #M1004 gave me more than I had expected. Dell 5150 and 1150 were doomed as far as I could see in online forums.5160, though an evolved version of 5150 with 'fixes to avoid overheating' and at least did not 'melt' or 'explode', still suffered from bad ventilation design. More research told me that the motherboard-heat-sink combo were defective and there were class action suits in Canada and the US. Apparently, even the devout Dell-ians were peeved.
Recently I learnt that, since early 2006, Dell had been replacing the defective hardware for free (one time only). Wow and Oops!"Wow!" because the combo hardware costs close to Rs 25K (half the cost of laptop) and it requires substantial commitment from Dell to replace it for hundreds of thousands of laptops sold out of the Inspiron lot. while I also know that from Dell's point of view a case-by-case replacement would be cheaper than a recall. "Oops!" because I m now living in India and my laptop has a US warranty which has expired.
So, I started tracing the steps followed by many to gain temporary or in some cases permanent relief. BIOS upgrade came first. Version 8 of the BIOS cought to optimise fan operation. But it did not help. Cleaning the vents and heat sink was the next possibility. With more research, I learnt to open a Dell Laptop and was amazed at how neatly so much is packed in 1.5 inch thickness (5160 has older design). I stopped short of opening the heat sink assembly. My gut told me that I should contact Dell India and find out what they can do; give me some the minimum coverage at least.
I was surprised by the support Dell gave me. I placed an online request, to which I got a response within 10 hours. As far as the US ownership was concerned, I was told that I could initiate a transfer to Dell India. That would eventually happen, but meanwhile I could run hardware diagnostic tests (I had told Dell India that I am an advanced computer user, hadn't I?). After sharing the results with Dell India, I not only got a phone call confirming the problem but was also , hold your breath, told that Dell would replace the motherboard and heat sink for free!
That I got such good service ought be a side effect of globalisation. Of course, with significant Indian operations, offering service to Indian customers is but imperative. Having made the original purchase in the US probably gave me some edge for getting prompt service; but I have a feeling I would have got it even otherwise. I am saying this based on the fact that last year Nikon India had replaced a defective power module, post warranty, in my digital camera. (They did charge me a service and shipping fee). Nikon USA had at that time made free replacement for cameras within warranty period. Both the pieces of equipment had been widely acknowledged as being defective; in case of Dell, leading to class action suits in North America. But to benefit from an America lawsuit sitting in India?
The ease with which all transactions happened tells a lot about the CRM commitment global companies ought to provide, irrespective of customers' global location. Global companies have to put more effort in giving one face to their brands. They cannot discriminate, because an Indian customer today can be a customer in the US tomorrow or, the day after, one in Japan. American regulatory system ensure compliance to frameworks for resolving to conflicts between sellers and buyers. Be it in the BRIC or other emerging economy nations, buyers are more aware and more enabled, not just by information, read as Internet, but also by the expectations they have from brands. They have the money to buy top brand items. If you are paying top dollar, literally, you deserve top dollar service. This is evident in other popular examples such as the Dell's global replacement of laptop batteries and more recently Nokia's worldwide replacement of certain cellphone batteries.
Hopefully the new heat sink and motherboard will perform better. Whatever the side effect, I am happy Dell customer now. #M1004 anyone?
The story begins with the occurrence of a problem that turned my laptop into a lemon, defined here. I have been using a Dell Inspiron 5160 for close to three years now.This should tell you that with the basic warranty long expired and without extended or global warranty I am vulnerable. And until recently, I was oblivious to the existence of #M1004. This is the error code Dell-ians see on the BIOS screen after their laptop is 'preventively shutdown to avoid damage due to overheating'.
I saw this error for the first time few months ago,soon after I upgraded the RAM four times over to 2 GB. I was hoping to get more out of my laptop. I was getting more heat out of it, alright! This paralysed my normal usage of the laptop, since the preventive shutdown happened at 70 degree C, which was reached within 40 minutes of operation. Thus began my research on the problem that had fortunately or unfortunately eluded me since the laptop had arrived at my doorstep. Googling #M1004 gave me more than I had expected. Dell 5150 and 1150 were doomed as far as I could see in online forums.5160, though an evolved version of 5150 with 'fixes to avoid overheating' and at least did not 'melt' or 'explode', still suffered from bad ventilation design. More research told me that the motherboard-heat-sink combo were defective and there were class action suits in Canada and the US. Apparently, even the devout Dell-ians were peeved.
Recently I learnt that, since early 2006, Dell had been replacing the defective hardware for free (one time only). Wow and Oops!"Wow!" because the combo hardware costs close to Rs 25K (half the cost of laptop) and it requires substantial commitment from Dell to replace it for hundreds of thousands of laptops sold out of the Inspiron lot. while I also know that from Dell's point of view a case-by-case replacement would be cheaper than a recall. "Oops!" because I m now living in India and my laptop has a US warranty which has expired.
So, I started tracing the steps followed by many to gain temporary or in some cases permanent relief. BIOS upgrade came first. Version 8 of the BIOS cought to optimise fan operation. But it did not help. Cleaning the vents and heat sink was the next possibility. With more research, I learnt to open a Dell Laptop and was amazed at how neatly so much is packed in 1.5 inch thickness (5160 has older design). I stopped short of opening the heat sink assembly. My gut told me that I should contact Dell India and find out what they can do; give me some the minimum coverage at least.
I was surprised by the support Dell gave me. I placed an online request, to which I got a response within 10 hours. As far as the US ownership was concerned, I was told that I could initiate a transfer to Dell India. That would eventually happen, but meanwhile I could run hardware diagnostic tests (I had told Dell India that I am an advanced computer user, hadn't I?). After sharing the results with Dell India, I not only got a phone call confirming the problem but was also , hold your breath, told that Dell would replace the motherboard and heat sink for free!
That I got such good service ought be a side effect of globalisation. Of course, with significant Indian operations, offering service to Indian customers is but imperative. Having made the original purchase in the US probably gave me some edge for getting prompt service; but I have a feeling I would have got it even otherwise. I am saying this based on the fact that last year Nikon India had replaced a defective power module, post warranty, in my digital camera. (They did charge me a service and shipping fee). Nikon USA had at that time made free replacement for cameras within warranty period. Both the pieces of equipment had been widely acknowledged as being defective; in case of Dell, leading to class action suits in North America. But to benefit from an America lawsuit sitting in India?
The ease with which all transactions happened tells a lot about the CRM commitment global companies ought to provide, irrespective of customers' global location. Global companies have to put more effort in giving one face to their brands. They cannot discriminate, because an Indian customer today can be a customer in the US tomorrow or, the day after, one in Japan. American regulatory system ensure compliance to frameworks for resolving to conflicts between sellers and buyers. Be it in the BRIC or other emerging economy nations, buyers are more aware and more enabled, not just by information, read as Internet, but also by the expectations they have from brands. They have the money to buy top brand items. If you are paying top dollar, literally, you deserve top dollar service. This is evident in other popular examples such as the Dell's global replacement of laptop batteries and more recently Nokia's worldwide replacement of certain cellphone batteries.
Hopefully the new heat sink and motherboard will perform better. Whatever the side effect, I am happy Dell customer now. #M1004 anyone?
2007-10-18
Transforming India with a Reality Show
Since the last anniversary - the diamond jubilee - of Indian Independence, readers of a leading Indian tabloid have been cajoled, enthused and shaken-to-be-awakened to the reality of 'Indian system'. Those with sincere (as in willing work full-time) intentions of bringing about a transformation in Indian system have been challenged to come forward and spearhead the 'Lead India' campaign. At the end of a process that was a mix of job-or-B-school-interview and election campaign and which generated excitement a la American Idol with its SMS polls, city-level winners were announced today.
All is good, so far. A company, and quite ably in the publishing and visual media domain, has taken this up. A media firm of its size is apt for this type of initiative simply because it has the muscle and the means to garner sponsorship, information and publicity that the initiative would need. At least someone is doing something about it! With the tabloid's existing readership demographic, the campaign will probably reach the right people who ought to and may care - the youth.
A report card, in the paper today, then stated the next steps of this process. Apparently, the next part of the selection process will be a TV program where in the winners of the city-level competitions will compete in a 'live reality show'. Now, why did I not see this coming?
Reality Show is the order of the day.You give some and you get some. And the media company in questions makes no claims about 'Lead India' venture (that should be the correct term, it is not just an initiative) being a charitable one. No problems with that. It would make no business sense for the tabloid to invest crores of rupees in dedicating hundreds of square inches of advertising space over several weeks to 'jagao' the public about this venture and invite dedicated individuals into this mission.
The keen sense of marketing used behind this is worth noting . They identified the right theme-transform India, they chose the right time- the diamond jubilee, they chose the right medium -a tabloid popular with the youth, and now in a symbiotic operation the group will use print and visual media together to propogate, provoke and prompt the citizens to stand up for themselves and be led by the chosen one. I hope the intentions and the drive can be sustained.
Until a critical mass is reached, any transformation of almost a revolutionary scale is not possible. NGOs and other social activists have been trying to do what 'Lead India' is attempting. The difference is that the former groups' voice did not reach as far what Lead India campaigners have managed to cross (?). So, commercialization (Priyanka Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan are two of the public faces of this campaign) is the way forward. Mass movements require mass communication and today television is no doubt the best mass influencer. The reality show show that will identify the champion for Leading India will probably also find the TRP ratings the network is looking for. After all, we all want India to improve and we all want to have a say in who will do it on our behalf. And if you can involve everyone through their TV sets, it is a win-win-win (sic) for the people, the network and the sponsors.
How for will this go?
Cliched it may be be, but it needs to be said that one needs to have political clout as politicains call the shots at the administrators and bureaucrats. I think 'Lead India' campaign will lead to the emergence of a political party in the next few years, if the initiave- sorry, the venture- finds people's accpetance. One that will have a secular, progressive, anti-corruption based mandate (I can join a party with this jargon!).
While the 'Lead India' campaigners have hit upon a great idea and will probably see it through (over many years, if not decades that it will require), one can almost expect opportunistic businessmen build around this idea to set-up similar ventures to exploit the let's-change-India-weakness of the educated masses and to rake in moolah in the process. It could then become a ropeway for the publicity-hungry and wannabe-but-don't-have-it-to-be publicity mongers. The contribution of such people would be as much as those of item numbers to classical dance.
Anyway, this is a beginning. What seemed like a publicity stunt is increasingly seeming to be a genuine effort to identify true leaders who have it in them; this going by the profiles of those shortlisted. But it may be too soon to talk about the efficacy of the operation.
But will they be able to change India? I cannot say, but I do hope. A reality show may help get the balls if not the hearts to achieve this.
All is good, so far. A company, and quite ably in the publishing and visual media domain, has taken this up. A media firm of its size is apt for this type of initiative simply because it has the muscle and the means to garner sponsorship, information and publicity that the initiative would need. At least someone is doing something about it! With the tabloid's existing readership demographic, the campaign will probably reach the right people who ought to and may care - the youth.
A report card, in the paper today, then stated the next steps of this process. Apparently, the next part of the selection process will be a TV program where in the winners of the city-level competitions will compete in a 'live reality show'. Now, why did I not see this coming?
Reality Show is the order of the day.You give some and you get some. And the media company in questions makes no claims about 'Lead India' venture (that should be the correct term, it is not just an initiative) being a charitable one. No problems with that. It would make no business sense for the tabloid to invest crores of rupees in dedicating hundreds of square inches of advertising space over several weeks to 'jagao' the public about this venture and invite dedicated individuals into this mission.
The keen sense of marketing used behind this is worth noting . They identified the right theme-transform India, they chose the right time- the diamond jubilee, they chose the right medium -a tabloid popular with the youth, and now in a symbiotic operation the group will use print and visual media together to propogate, provoke and prompt the citizens to stand up for themselves and be led by the chosen one. I hope the intentions and the drive can be sustained.
Until a critical mass is reached, any transformation of almost a revolutionary scale is not possible. NGOs and other social activists have been trying to do what 'Lead India' is attempting. The difference is that the former groups' voice did not reach as far what Lead India campaigners have managed to cross (?). So, commercialization (Priyanka Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan are two of the public faces of this campaign) is the way forward. Mass movements require mass communication and today television is no doubt the best mass influencer. The reality show show that will identify the champion for Leading India will probably also find the TRP ratings the network is looking for. After all, we all want India to improve and we all want to have a say in who will do it on our behalf. And if you can involve everyone through their TV sets, it is a win-win-win (sic) for the people, the network and the sponsors.
How for will this go?
Cliched it may be be, but it needs to be said that one needs to have political clout as politicains call the shots at the administrators and bureaucrats. I think 'Lead India' campaign will lead to the emergence of a political party in the next few years, if the initiave- sorry, the venture- finds people's accpetance. One that will have a secular, progressive, anti-corruption based mandate (I can join a party with this jargon!).
While the 'Lead India' campaigners have hit upon a great idea and will probably see it through (over many years, if not decades that it will require), one can almost expect opportunistic businessmen build around this idea to set-up similar ventures to exploit the let's-change-India-weakness of the educated masses and to rake in moolah in the process. It could then become a ropeway for the publicity-hungry and wannabe-but-don't-have-it-to-be publicity mongers. The contribution of such people would be as much as those of item numbers to classical dance.
Anyway, this is a beginning. What seemed like a publicity stunt is increasingly seeming to be a genuine effort to identify true leaders who have it in them; this going by the profiles of those shortlisted. But it may be too soon to talk about the efficacy of the operation.
But will they be able to change India? I cannot say, but I do hope. A reality show may help get the balls if not the hearts to achieve this.
2007-10-15
The art and math of tipping
A tip is a bribe, a tip is a token of appreciation, they deserve it, they are only doing their job, a tip should not be a norm instead be left as an individual's prerogative...these are few of the mixed impressions I heard over a radio channel during a 30 minute drive back from work. For those traveling abroad, I can talk specifically about the States, tipping is not an option but a dimension of acceptance of local norms. Just as you cannot go to an upscale dinner place, some lounges or even the theater (Broadway/off-Broadway) wearing anything less than a 'dress', you cannot get away with leaving just any tip. You will be judged or at least stereotyped.
A recent article in the Economic Times,here, says Bombay High Court has decreed that tips can be shown as a legitimate business expense. This is good in a way since business travellers will be inclined to be more benevolent towards service-providers. Those who lack appreciation for tipping may now do good at companies' expense. I am assuming that the company policies will accommodate this, and why not.
The US thumb rule is that one has to tip around 15 % of the billed amount. As the article points out, one of the contemporary reasons for this norm is the fact that most workers in restaurants are paid minimum wage. But other reasons could be the basic fact that human labor is involved in activities that make up a dining experience. Human labor does not come easy or cheap in the US, given rampant automation again owing to low population levels. You can see this in a drive-through (no tips here), which is a quickie, but is not satisfying as an experience since a human being, typically bearing a scowl, is seen only at the fag end of the process when food is exchanged for money. Additionally, most people who work at just-any-eatery or chains are mostly 'fighting it out' for a larger pursuit in their life, such as education (just one of the many possibilities). Many are also young people in their rite of passage to work life. A combination of all this leads to a greater appreciation, in the basic sense of it, for labor. Hence, the requirement or inclination for generous tipping as you may want to see it.
Much has also got to do with faith, social history and demographic. In an ex-fuedal system or a caste-based system, and to top it in a society where memories of colonial subjugation are still lingering, the 'privileged feeling' of being serviced does not go away easily. Otherwise, why do you need an army of people to clean trays and leftovers at self-service food courts in Indian malls? Patrons do not think that self-service includes leaving a table as clean as they left it (assuming they got it clean). People pay upwards of Rs.200 per head to watch a weekend show at multiplexes, but what they leave behind resembles nothing less than a rampage. Surely, some amount of common sense must come with the ability to patronise an expensive theater.
That on an average Indians are not the best tippers is common knowledge. That 10% of Indians in the US live below poverty line may be a remote consequence of this. If the expat brethren tipped better at the several 'Indian streets' spread across the American geography, the BPL number might slightly improve(several assumptions need to be in place including legal employment). I have seen that Indian restaurants in the US have worked around the Desi resistance to 'proper' tipping by mandating at least 18% gratuity for eating groups of 5 or 7 or more depending on the scale of the place. As it is, this is a norm in non-Indian places.
Tipping is a host's prerogative, but if you are in a smaller group and your host turns out to be a bad tipper, you are in a dilemma whether to disrespect the host by adding to the tip or be unfair to the keen waiter; worse still, if you like the place and plan to come back. I have heard horror stories from friends who have been embarrassed in such situations. One story has the host leaving just a dollar for a $100-odd 'cheque', for an uneventful (read as normal service) dinner at a Thai place in Los Angeles.
Then there is the question of where your tips go. I remember talking to a friendly waiter at the Pizza Corner on Brigade Road. They apparently have a socialist framework for tips. Everything that anyone earns goes into a common box, spoils of which are shared by all at the end of the week. Even if getting a generous tipper is a matter of small chance for any waiter in India, in my opinion, this is a corrupt system, where the inefficient live off the productive ones. At a restaurant, attitude of the servers is what matters and can be easily controlled. So, why should everyone get the same share if some have better attitude than others? This partly why I never tip on my credit card receipt. If the money goes to the cash box, it may not reach the gent or the lady who attended us. Instead, I leave cash behind, hoping it goes to the rightful owner.
To tip or not tip is your own prerogative, but if you will appreciate, as the cliched acronym stands, TIPS are given 'To Insure Prompt Service'.
A recent article in the Economic Times,here, says Bombay High Court has decreed that tips can be shown as a legitimate business expense. This is good in a way since business travellers will be inclined to be more benevolent towards service-providers. Those who lack appreciation for tipping may now do good at companies' expense. I am assuming that the company policies will accommodate this, and why not.
The US thumb rule is that one has to tip around 15 % of the billed amount. As the article points out, one of the contemporary reasons for this norm is the fact that most workers in restaurants are paid minimum wage. But other reasons could be the basic fact that human labor is involved in activities that make up a dining experience. Human labor does not come easy or cheap in the US, given rampant automation again owing to low population levels. You can see this in a drive-through (no tips here), which is a quickie, but is not satisfying as an experience since a human being, typically bearing a scowl, is seen only at the fag end of the process when food is exchanged for money. Additionally, most people who work at just-any-eatery or chains are mostly 'fighting it out' for a larger pursuit in their life, such as education (just one of the many possibilities). Many are also young people in their rite of passage to work life. A combination of all this leads to a greater appreciation, in the basic sense of it, for labor. Hence, the requirement or inclination for generous tipping as you may want to see it.
Much has also got to do with faith, social history and demographic. In an ex-fuedal system or a caste-based system, and to top it in a society where memories of colonial subjugation are still lingering, the 'privileged feeling' of being serviced does not go away easily. Otherwise, why do you need an army of people to clean trays and leftovers at self-service food courts in Indian malls? Patrons do not think that self-service includes leaving a table as clean as they left it (assuming they got it clean). People pay upwards of Rs.200 per head to watch a weekend show at multiplexes, but what they leave behind resembles nothing less than a rampage. Surely, some amount of common sense must come with the ability to patronise an expensive theater.
That on an average Indians are not the best tippers is common knowledge. That 10% of Indians in the US live below poverty line may be a remote consequence of this. If the expat brethren tipped better at the several 'Indian streets' spread across the American geography, the BPL number might slightly improve(several assumptions need to be in place including legal employment). I have seen that Indian restaurants in the US have worked around the Desi resistance to 'proper' tipping by mandating at least 18% gratuity for eating groups of 5 or 7 or more depending on the scale of the place. As it is, this is a norm in non-Indian places.
Tipping is a host's prerogative, but if you are in a smaller group and your host turns out to be a bad tipper, you are in a dilemma whether to disrespect the host by adding to the tip or be unfair to the keen waiter; worse still, if you like the place and plan to come back. I have heard horror stories from friends who have been embarrassed in such situations. One story has the host leaving just a dollar for a $100-odd 'cheque', for an uneventful (read as normal service) dinner at a Thai place in Los Angeles.
Then there is the question of where your tips go. I remember talking to a friendly waiter at the Pizza Corner on Brigade Road. They apparently have a socialist framework for tips. Everything that anyone earns goes into a common box, spoils of which are shared by all at the end of the week. Even if getting a generous tipper is a matter of small chance for any waiter in India, in my opinion, this is a corrupt system, where the inefficient live off the productive ones. At a restaurant, attitude of the servers is what matters and can be easily controlled. So, why should everyone get the same share if some have better attitude than others? This partly why I never tip on my credit card receipt. If the money goes to the cash box, it may not reach the gent or the lady who attended us. Instead, I leave cash behind, hoping it goes to the rightful owner.
To tip or not tip is your own prerogative, but if you will appreciate, as the cliched acronym stands, TIPS are given 'To Insure Prompt Service'.
2007-10-01
O' DBC, thou art great!
Sometimes people tell you. Sometimes you see it yourself, And sometimes you just know it.I know, now, I am really over the hill.
Corner House has been a part of growing up in Bangalore for at least a few decades. People who went there during their days at school and college return to try and capture a whiff of their own youthful exuberance. Well,that may be a tad too romantic for a few. But the fact remains that the place serves an amazing variety of no-frills ice cream based delectable goodies. Boys, girls, men and women, kids and seniors throng these parlours.
We -many of my family and friends- have been enamoured by the sensual pleasure of the creamy, chocolaty and dewy treats of this small but growing chain of ice cream parlours. The pièce de résistance of Corner House is 'Death By Chocolate'. The name says it all. One serving of this sundae is one too many. A couple of scoops of vanilla, two slices of warm chocolate brownies, oodles of chocolate sauce, a few soft sweet cherries and tablespoon of assorted nuts. The simple combination is too chocolaty for even the best fans of chocolate. The sweetest tooths (sic) of the world could be humbled by the deadly concoction that goes by the nickname 'DBC'. Not any kind of preparation can ready you for the DBC. Half-way into the chocolaty binge, you feel you have had enough chocolate for a lifetime. Your pride takes you a couple of spoonfuls further. Your determination takes you ahead a little more and only the strongest can claim to have downed the full serving of the cocktail.
After almost five months, the yearning for some tasty ice cream at the good ol' parlour brought a smile on me and a smirk on my wife's face. Battling a sudden downpour to which even visitors to Bangalore have gotten used to, we drove eagerly towards the local mecca of ice cream desserts. I had not tried my hand at DBC in over two years. The last time I had was during our courtship, when I was familiarising S with Bangalore's hidden charms. S had failed miserably at the DBC challenge. I had had to finish the serving then. My eagerness and determination to overcome the DBC challenge was growing, as we parked the car.
At half past nine, even in a rainy evening, the place was busy. We were greeted by the chatter and laughter that thrives in this place. Surely, people don't visit a dessert place if they have nothing to celebrate, however small. I remembered the many visits to this place even as S was finding it difficult to make up her mind. I kept pointing at DBC even as she kept ignoring the direction of my fingers. But DBC it had to be for me. While S started on her Black Forest and mocha combination, I chatted up with the owner. He asked if I wanted DBC packed. NO! I will have it here, I said pompously. S shook her head in revulsion, when I placed the half-liter bowl on the table.
I will not delve into my scrambles...But a few minutes later I was at the counter asking the tender to give me a lid for the ice-cream bowl he had given me. He nodded and turned around to pick one up. 'I could do this in college, now it is too much' I said shaking my head. A couple of other guys and the owner just laughed. He knows what DBC stands for. He has seen many whimper down to their knees in their fight with DBC. It's a fight they invite themselves too. Only a few prevail.
Earlier, when I was at the counter DBC, a geeky chap in his early twenties had been placing an order for a DBC. The fellow had proudly exclaimed to his friends 'Come on guys, I have ordered DBC. Let's attack!'. I could see this fellow happily winning his challenge today. I remembered such days when DBC would have had a predetermined result; my win. I could have done that then, but not anymore, I thought as I carried home an almost full serving of DBC. A couple of spoonfuls or three and I had had it. I needed help or time or both. This is what I mean when I say that I know I am over the hill.
DBC has taken a new meaning for me- 'Duped by chocolate' or 'Defeated by Chocolate'.
O'DBC, thou art great! I secede.
S had the last laugh today.Yours truly went home sad but wiser.
Corner House has been a part of growing up in Bangalore for at least a few decades. People who went there during their days at school and college return to try and capture a whiff of their own youthful exuberance. Well,that may be a tad too romantic for a few. But the fact remains that the place serves an amazing variety of no-frills ice cream based delectable goodies. Boys, girls, men and women, kids and seniors throng these parlours.
We -many of my family and friends- have been enamoured by the sensual pleasure of the creamy, chocolaty and dewy treats of this small but growing chain of ice cream parlours. The pièce de résistance of Corner House is 'Death By Chocolate'. The name says it all. One serving of this sundae is one too many. A couple of scoops of vanilla, two slices of warm chocolate brownies, oodles of chocolate sauce, a few soft sweet cherries and tablespoon of assorted nuts. The simple combination is too chocolaty for even the best fans of chocolate. The sweetest tooths (sic) of the world could be humbled by the deadly concoction that goes by the nickname 'DBC'. Not any kind of preparation can ready you for the DBC. Half-way into the chocolaty binge, you feel you have had enough chocolate for a lifetime. Your pride takes you a couple of spoonfuls further. Your determination takes you ahead a little more and only the strongest can claim to have downed the full serving of the cocktail.
After almost five months, the yearning for some tasty ice cream at the good ol' parlour brought a smile on me and a smirk on my wife's face. Battling a sudden downpour to which even visitors to Bangalore have gotten used to, we drove eagerly towards the local mecca of ice cream desserts. I had not tried my hand at DBC in over two years. The last time I had was during our courtship, when I was familiarising S with Bangalore's hidden charms. S had failed miserably at the DBC challenge. I had had to finish the serving then. My eagerness and determination to overcome the DBC challenge was growing, as we parked the car.
At half past nine, even in a rainy evening, the place was busy. We were greeted by the chatter and laughter that thrives in this place. Surely, people don't visit a dessert place if they have nothing to celebrate, however small. I remembered the many visits to this place even as S was finding it difficult to make up her mind. I kept pointing at DBC even as she kept ignoring the direction of my fingers. But DBC it had to be for me. While S started on her Black Forest and mocha combination, I chatted up with the owner. He asked if I wanted DBC packed. NO! I will have it here, I said pompously. S shook her head in revulsion, when I placed the half-liter bowl on the table.
I will not delve into my scrambles...But a few minutes later I was at the counter asking the tender to give me a lid for the ice-cream bowl he had given me. He nodded and turned around to pick one up. 'I could do this in college, now it is too much' I said shaking my head. A couple of other guys and the owner just laughed. He knows what DBC stands for. He has seen many whimper down to their knees in their fight with DBC. It's a fight they invite themselves too. Only a few prevail.
Earlier, when I was at the counter DBC, a geeky chap in his early twenties had been placing an order for a DBC. The fellow had proudly exclaimed to his friends 'Come on guys, I have ordered DBC. Let's attack!'. I could see this fellow happily winning his challenge today. I remembered such days when DBC would have had a predetermined result; my win. I could have done that then, but not anymore, I thought as I carried home an almost full serving of DBC. A couple of spoonfuls or three and I had had it. I needed help or time or both. This is what I mean when I say that I know I am over the hill.
DBC has taken a new meaning for me- 'Duped by chocolate' or 'Defeated by Chocolate'.
O'DBC, thou art great! I secede.
S had the last laugh today.Yours truly went home sad but wiser.
2007-09-03
Review of 'The Invasion'
A powerful bug enters the world somehow and creates havoc in the US and subsequently spreads to the rest of the world. '28 Weeks Later' and before that '28 Days Later' have previously inquired into the theme of 'The Invasion'.
The similarities between the plots of the movies are uncanny. While the '28' movies had people going irrational and brainsick, the Invasion plot has people going super cool, as in unemotional. The movies are similar in this simple difference. The mobbing of the unaffected by those infected is another similarity.
This first movie, '28 days later' had a shock affect equal to those of if not more than the Texas Chain Saw massacre or Jaws in their generation. The shock was due to the sheer rawness of violence exhibited by those infected by the 'rage virus'. Tracing a group of people on the run, away from the reach of the rage virus thriving inside the victims and causing the latter to go berserk with maddening fury, the film ends with a note of hope.
'28 weeks later' improvised on the open-ended-ness of '28 days later' to evolve situations demanding difficult choices. Would you choose your own life over a dear one's (say, wife's) when in a dilemma? In this movie, the husband exposes his weak side, even as the audience empathises with him in the moment. In a storming twist to the story, there's requital for the wife. 28 weeks later is set in London and the ruined state of the imperial city is well brought out by the set designers. The acting by primarily a UK cast was impressive.
Invasion, obviously, has exploited this theme and combined threads from both the '28' movies into one, but any significant differentiation is lacking. Carol and Ben played by sylphlike Nicole Kidman and poised Daniel Craig respectively fail to show chemistry. While their acting may not be lacking, the plot fails to impress with its predictability. There is nothing new in The Invasion. The background score of 28 weeks later is haunting and permanently associative; much like how one would instantly pick up the notes of X-Files anywhere. The special effects are not great, even if there are a lot of stunts. One can see this cadre of stunts in all variation of "CSI:" and Law and Order. The effects of the bug on the skin have been better shown in the TV series X-files. There's little else to carry home from The Invasion, than a lingering sense of deja vu from 28 weeks later.
There are several loose ends left in the movie. (If you have not watched this movie and {still!} plan to, skip over to the last paragraph. The next one could divulge the plot.)
There is no mention of the deceased astronauts after the space shuttle crashes (a la Columbia). Would this happen in real world US? The epidemic does not raise its head until after a few days. Why is everyone so cool about the crash in the meantime? The virus-like organism apparently affects the genes of the infected and causes damage to the grey matter in their brains. Would such affect be reversible? There is no rational (even quasi-rational would help in a movie) explanation given about how the cure for the virus attack was found. The movie is focused on how Carol is rescued (foresee-ably). It is shown that the mass-inoculation 'drug' is showered down from helicopters. How can this be so simply achieved given that people have natural resistance need to have been affected, in the past, by a particular strain of chicken pox? Kidman is shown to have been waiting for Ben between 11 PM and 3:30 AM. This, even as Ben is supposed to be already in Baltimore. He does not arrive at the pharmacy until after the 4 hours. What was he doing, sleeping, in order to be taken over by the bug? If he could get affected, how does Carol escape the affects of the bug? She is shown have gone into sleep for a similar amount of time.
If one has watched the '28' movies, The invasion will fail to impressive in any way. One can guess there would be a sequel to this movie. I would rather spend my money and 2 hours on the third part of '28 Days Later' than the sequel of 'The Invasion', if there were to be one. 'The Invasion' can be avoided, unless you have sworn to watch every movie by the lead actors.
The similarities between the plots of the movies are uncanny. While the '28' movies had people going irrational and brainsick, the Invasion plot has people going super cool, as in unemotional. The movies are similar in this simple difference. The mobbing of the unaffected by those infected is another similarity.
This first movie, '28 days later' had a shock affect equal to those of if not more than the Texas Chain Saw massacre or Jaws in their generation. The shock was due to the sheer rawness of violence exhibited by those infected by the 'rage virus'. Tracing a group of people on the run, away from the reach of the rage virus thriving inside the victims and causing the latter to go berserk with maddening fury, the film ends with a note of hope.
'28 weeks later' improvised on the open-ended-ness of '28 days later' to evolve situations demanding difficult choices. Would you choose your own life over a dear one's (say, wife's) when in a dilemma? In this movie, the husband exposes his weak side, even as the audience empathises with him in the moment. In a storming twist to the story, there's requital for the wife. 28 weeks later is set in London and the ruined state of the imperial city is well brought out by the set designers. The acting by primarily a UK cast was impressive.
Invasion, obviously, has exploited this theme and combined threads from both the '28' movies into one, but any significant differentiation is lacking. Carol and Ben played by sylphlike Nicole Kidman and poised Daniel Craig respectively fail to show chemistry. While their acting may not be lacking, the plot fails to impress with its predictability. There is nothing new in The Invasion. The background score of 28 weeks later is haunting and permanently associative; much like how one would instantly pick up the notes of X-Files anywhere. The special effects are not great, even if there are a lot of stunts. One can see this cadre of stunts in all variation of "CSI:" and Law and Order. The effects of the bug on the skin have been better shown in the TV series X-files. There's little else to carry home from The Invasion, than a lingering sense of deja vu from 28 weeks later.
There are several loose ends left in the movie. (If you have not watched this movie and {still!} plan to, skip over to the last paragraph. The next one could divulge the plot.)
There is no mention of the deceased astronauts after the space shuttle crashes (a la Columbia). Would this happen in real world US? The epidemic does not raise its head until after a few days. Why is everyone so cool about the crash in the meantime? The virus-like organism apparently affects the genes of the infected and causes damage to the grey matter in their brains. Would such affect be reversible? There is no rational (even quasi-rational would help in a movie) explanation given about how the cure for the virus attack was found. The movie is focused on how Carol is rescued (foresee-ably). It is shown that the mass-inoculation 'drug' is showered down from helicopters. How can this be so simply achieved given that people have natural resistance need to have been affected, in the past, by a particular strain of chicken pox? Kidman is shown to have been waiting for Ben between 11 PM and 3:30 AM. This, even as Ben is supposed to be already in Baltimore. He does not arrive at the pharmacy until after the 4 hours. What was he doing, sleeping, in order to be taken over by the bug? If he could get affected, how does Carol escape the affects of the bug? She is shown have gone into sleep for a similar amount of time.
If one has watched the '28' movies, The invasion will fail to impressive in any way. One can guess there would be a sequel to this movie. I would rather spend my money and 2 hours on the third part of '28 Days Later' than the sequel of 'The Invasion', if there were to be one. 'The Invasion' can be avoided, unless you have sworn to watch every movie by the lead actors.
2007-08-22
'Life in a Metro' review
Full entertainment in the middle of the week. This is how I would describe my experience with this movie.
The theme explored in this movie is not new. Rajat Kapoor's 'Mixed Doubles' dealt with the emotions and feelings related to adultery in married life in a largely comical way. Anurag Basu has taken this a step further in dealing with adultery in married life, in work life and in alternative lifestyles all put together in one story.
The Indianness of characters is very evident from the first few minutes of the movie, starting with Monty's (later we find out, harmless) leching. 'Passing the apartment key' (though I remember this from a Hollywood flick I cannot recall) is another facet of Indianness when it comes to the sheer number of people using the key and the efforts put in by Rahul in managing everyone's 'needs'. The use of a BPO company, where Rahul works, for the background of the movie, may be not coincidental after all, since this group of people is the young upwardly-mobile face of Indian society. Without being judgemental about it, this group of people does have the benefit of opportunity as well as means when it comes to 'enjoying life' as shown in the movie.
The storyline has very intricately woven into it, two complex yet relevant issues faced by young working adults. First is that of that of marriage - a pull between love marriage and the arranged one and the confusions surrounding the choice of a partner. Second is that of hassles faced by gay people in leading their lives
normally. Basu has dealt with them lightly but without losing focus.
I would personally call this a practical film, in that the situations shown in the movie are close to real life. That a parody has been constructed out of multitudes of such situations including that of revival of lost love (Amol and Shivani) demonstrates Anurag Basu's skill in putting together an enjoyable adult movie. Tracing nine intertwined lives leading to a rather preditable ending, this movie entertains with inanities of young work life, lightsided portrayal of insecurities of the youth and gays and significantly the pointlessness of the search of perfect partner by young men and women. Shikha's character balances the film by raising (and partly answering) serious questions about guilt, fidelity and responsibility in married life.
Irfan Khan, playing the ever-eligible bachelor shows class in acting. One moment a lech another a valued friend to Shruti has played his part in style. Konkona Sen Sharma playing the traditional-wannabe-modern-but-confused-30-year-old-bachelor searching for the 'right partner' does justice to her role with her sensitivity; sometimes reminding you of Bridget Jones with her reliance on chocolate. Kangana Ranaut, Shilpa Shetty, Dharmendra, Nafisa Ali, Sharman Joshi and Shiny Ahuja are memorable.
If a message has to be taken out, then it would be 'reconciliation'- Shikha's with realities of her married life, Amol's with loss of loved one, Shruti's with practicality of finding love and Neha's with recognising love.
Some of my friends who watched this movie stressed on the exploitation in BPO industry. May be they are overly sensitive about the issue. This is a light-hearted movie and aptly certified 'A' since it deals with complex issues appreciable by adults. And this list of issues does not include exploitation in BPO industry, unless I missed by miles the point of this movie. My advise to them would be to focus on the fun element, sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
Parting note: I liked the music in the movie and the situational appearance of the band while the story is running. Thanks to 'no running around the trees approach'(director gave no scope for such inanities), I found the songs light and relevant to the story. The music would be quite enjoyable while driving, if you ask me; Silk-Route-ish.
All in all, two hours well spent after dinner!
The theme explored in this movie is not new. Rajat Kapoor's 'Mixed Doubles' dealt with the emotions and feelings related to adultery in married life in a largely comical way. Anurag Basu has taken this a step further in dealing with adultery in married life, in work life and in alternative lifestyles all put together in one story.
The Indianness of characters is very evident from the first few minutes of the movie, starting with Monty's (later we find out, harmless) leching. 'Passing the apartment key' (though I remember this from a Hollywood flick I cannot recall) is another facet of Indianness when it comes to the sheer number of people using the key and the efforts put in by Rahul in managing everyone's 'needs'. The use of a BPO company, where Rahul works, for the background of the movie, may be not coincidental after all, since this group of people is the young upwardly-mobile face of Indian society. Without being judgemental about it, this group of people does have the benefit of opportunity as well as means when it comes to 'enjoying life' as shown in the movie.
The storyline has very intricately woven into it, two complex yet relevant issues faced by young working adults. First is that of that of marriage - a pull between love marriage and the arranged one and the confusions surrounding the choice of a partner. Second is that of hassles faced by gay people in leading their lives
normally. Basu has dealt with them lightly but without losing focus.
I would personally call this a practical film, in that the situations shown in the movie are close to real life. That a parody has been constructed out of multitudes of such situations including that of revival of lost love (Amol and Shivani) demonstrates Anurag Basu's skill in putting together an enjoyable adult movie. Tracing nine intertwined lives leading to a rather preditable ending, this movie entertains with inanities of young work life, lightsided portrayal of insecurities of the youth and gays and significantly the pointlessness of the search of perfect partner by young men and women. Shikha's character balances the film by raising (and partly answering) serious questions about guilt, fidelity and responsibility in married life.
Irfan Khan, playing the ever-eligible bachelor shows class in acting. One moment a lech another a valued friend to Shruti has played his part in style. Konkona Sen Sharma playing the traditional-wannabe-modern-but-confused-30-year-old-bachelor searching for the 'right partner' does justice to her role with her sensitivity; sometimes reminding you of Bridget Jones with her reliance on chocolate. Kangana Ranaut, Shilpa Shetty, Dharmendra, Nafisa Ali, Sharman Joshi and Shiny Ahuja are memorable.
If a message has to be taken out, then it would be 'reconciliation'- Shikha's with realities of her married life, Amol's with loss of loved one, Shruti's with practicality of finding love and Neha's with recognising love.
Some of my friends who watched this movie stressed on the exploitation in BPO industry. May be they are overly sensitive about the issue. This is a light-hearted movie and aptly certified 'A' since it deals with complex issues appreciable by adults. And this list of issues does not include exploitation in BPO industry, unless I missed by miles the point of this movie. My advise to them would be to focus on the fun element, sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
Parting note: I liked the music in the movie and the situational appearance of the band while the story is running. Thanks to 'no running around the trees approach'(director gave no scope for such inanities), I found the songs light and relevant to the story. The music would be quite enjoyable while driving, if you ask me; Silk-Route-ish.
All in all, two hours well spent after dinner!
2007-08-19
Rare encounters of the honest kind
A sumptuous dinner of favourite cuisine was what S and I had needed to make the weekend utile. It had been a tiring day, with the usual weekend capers. Overall, the weekend had been going on well. Having gone to bed on Saturday night, I had no intention of rolling off the bed before propriety demanded it. Thus, a wake-up call at nine on a Sunday morning was unsought. Hoping it would be a wrong call, not needing any mental energies to be pulled up, I picked up the phone to face the voice of a woman haltingly speaking in Kannada.
"Am I talking to..."
"Yes, what is this about..." (Some courtesies are lost in translation)
"Do you live at the address..."
"Yes!"
I was getting more confused than frustrated. Then, she delivered the biff that kicked out any remnants of sleep from my eyes and drooped shoulders.
"Do you know that you have lost your wallet?"
A flurry of images speedily rushed past me. What the ...? What? When? How? The consequences of losing a wallet are new, but not unknown to me. I have never lost my wallet, more out of diligence and the knowledge of pains associated with losing one than out of luck. I have been carrying wallets for at least 17 years. I was already visualising myself making scores of phone calls, going over pages of statements, getting new cards, disputing charges, getting a new license card from the RTO, loss of a few hundreds in Indian currency and the 'just for kicks' carry-ons in my wallet-20 Euros, a ten dollar note and an each of the extinct one and two rupees notes.
As she continued, realisation descended on me that she would not be calling me if my wallet were merely lost. This telephonic transaction was consequent to the occurrence of the logical next step of 'lost', 'found'. OK, then I knew what all this was about.
"Thank you! Can you please tell me where you are calling from?" was all I could muster, still trying to recover from the agnition that my wallet had been, fortunately for me, found by someone responsible.
"We live near your house. I am calling from house number ... on 12th Main". Aha, a neighbor!
"My brother found your wallet last night on the street near your house", she continued,"We tried to call you up soon after, but no one picked up the phone". In blissful ignorance, I had been lolling in the bed for more than 10 hours, while my billfold, which had never before been away from me was being cared for by some stranger.
I threw some water on my face and dressed-up and I was at the gates of this good Samaritan in less than three minutes. I was greeted by a short man in white mundu and a white vest. He ushered me in, even as another younger guy with wavy hair and thick moustache waved to a young lady in a gown. They must have started their day just now, I thought, since she was just wiping off traces of toothpaste from her chin.
I said 'Hi, my name is... I think you spoke to me over the phone'.
She handed me the wallet as I was shaking hands with the others and asking their names. I had guessed by that time that I was with a Malayalee family .
"My brother Anish found your wallet when he was walking past the new apartment building. He said he had seen some labourers around, but he picked up the wallet before they did. He is at the church now. "
I took the wallet and was about to put it in my pocket, when she said "Please check the contents". My gut was telling me there was no need to. Their intention was clear. A wallet had been found, it was being returned. However, there are reasons why people would ask you to do this. It is a reasonable thing to do lest there be disputes in future. I gave the insides of the wallet a cursory glance and confirmed that everything was fine.
"I do not know how to thank you for this! Please thank Anish on my behalf", I urged them. I really do not know how to reciprocate this action. My friends and I have found things in the past - it especially happens with debit cards at the many ATMS in our office campus- and returned them to the rightful. But this is the first time that I have been at the receiving end. Quantifying something as gracious an action diminishes its sanctity. I could not embarrass them with a monetary reward. All I could do was invite them over to our home for a tea and offer help if they needed any in settling down (they had moved in a few weeks back).
In an attempt to pen this seemingly mundane, but quite a significant if you think about it, event , I tried to look for synonyms for the word 'honesty'- as in what I would want to describe what the finder of my wallet did. I find that there is no other single-worded-term that perfectly fits. Truthfulness, integrity, guilelessness, honour- they all come close but are nuances of character not same as honesty. It is definitely something basic.
So, why is it rare?
2007-08-17
Would you buy a OneLakhCar? (Part-2)
What if the OneLakhCar were to become popular?
Nightmare! I am not saying everyone should not have a car. I am just surmising about what will happen if they do. Are were prepared for it at any level? There are several ways to slice this issue. Here are some that came to my mind.
Roads: Indian cities are not built to accommodate so many cars, not so soon at least. And cities like Bangalore, definitely not, with chock-a-block two-lane roads, piled-up four-lane ones. Mayhem will be an understatement for what we will witness. As if autorickshaws are not a menace enough that we need more of such devilish vehicles. Come to think of it, the economy of a OneLakhCar (A Bajaj 3-wheeler costs 1.75 lakhs on road) combined with the promise of a 5-seat capacity, might just mean we will see the end of these reckless rattlers which are nothing but necessary evil. This is probably the only positive outcome of the OneLakhCar.
Traffic Indiscipline: Not all people who drive cars can ride bikes, probably because they never learnt to ride a bicycle (basic reason, reasons of relative safety keeps many off the roads). People who might otherwise not have driven because they could only afford a bike they could not ride, will be more inclined to drive. So, we will see more new drivers. For Indian drivers 'Driving is a privilege not a right' are words lost in the din. One can get a license to drive a car if he has a couple of hundred bucks in his pocket. With such abysmal regulation on who is given license to drive, the potential havoc caused by millions of more car drivers on roads leaves little to imagination.
Parking space and its effect on real estate: Go to the 'downtown' areas in any of the cities and you will notice that we just do not have the space to keep these cars. Even now, parking is not very economical, if available at all. Not just commercial parking, but personal parking too is important. How many of the builders with 600 apartments or more in a compound have actually planned for a car in every family? With such need for parking space, real estate prices will move north.
Environmental concerns: Emission levels will probably be low for a small engine like that of OneLakhCar's but only if the right fuel is used and the car is regularly tuned and maintained. What if adulterated and mixed (for economic benefit) fuel is used? People do it with a 1.75 Lakh rickshaw. Will they refrain from experimenting on a 1 Lakh Car? Pollution control is not as strictly enforced as required, except probably in the National Capital Region.
How will these cars be recycled (they will need to be at some point in time)? Most of the junked cars end up being cannibalised for spare parts (legal only in some cases) or their metal parts being melted and recycled. What will you do with millions of tonnes of composite frames and bodies of the OneLakhCars? Bio-degradable waste is itself difficult to dispose (for reasons of volume), where will we find space to dump composite bodies?
More cars, more green house emissions, more global warming. This outcome was always expected, but the OneLakhCar will only accelerate this process. No, I am not saying people should stop buying cars. Technologically advanced those maybe, but five times as many cars as in India are sold in the US itself. Why should Indians not be buying them? Fair, if India were not per-capita a 9th the size of the US. The thought that one million cars will be sold every year is mindboggling. Current annual car sales in India stand at about 600,000; there will be three times as many cars getting into Indian roads every year, if the TATAs meet their target.
Two-wheeler business will be worst hit, as repeat bike buyers are expected to be converted in to car buyers. Heavy pressure to push prices and costs down will only lead to planned declines in production of bikes and it will be no surprise if other companies too convert their facilities to make variants of the OneLakhCar. Renault has plans to bring out the $3000 car with Bajaj auto (talks with M&M fell through). The Renault car will be probably be more advanced than OneLakhCar in terms of safety as it has a higher tag.
In principle, Ratan Tata's dream of getting a car into every home may turn out to be a pyrrhic victory. The economical car may come at a big price for India in the long run. Rise in standard of living of socio-economic categories, as my untrained-in-economic-theories-mind perceives happens when the affordability of goods increases based on true increase in income to reach that level of affordability not when the level of affordability is brought down to existing levels of income. Commoditisation happens when the latter phenomenon is brought about. In a gimpy infrastructure, only the load on the system increases when commoditisation happens in items such as cars.Were these cars special in terms of environment-friendly technology such as electric or solar, the argument could have been reversed. Apparently, they are not.
Maybe I am being simply too biased against this car for some paranoia I cannot explain. Maybe it will not be so bad after all. Maybe I have not fathomed the adapting power of the Indian system. Then maybe, I am just dreaming!
What if the OneLakhCar were to become popular?
Nightmare! I am not saying everyone should not have a car. I am just surmising about what will happen if they do. Are were prepared for it at any level? There are several ways to slice this issue. Here are some that came to my mind.
Roads: Indian cities are not built to accommodate so many cars, not so soon at least. And cities like Bangalore, definitely not, with chock-a-block two-lane roads, piled-up four-lane ones. Mayhem will be an understatement for what we will witness. As if autorickshaws are not a menace enough that we need more of such devilish vehicles. Come to think of it, the economy of a OneLakhCar (A Bajaj 3-wheeler costs 1.75 lakhs on road) combined with the promise of a 5-seat capacity, might just mean we will see the end of these reckless rattlers which are nothing but necessary evil. This is probably the only positive outcome of the OneLakhCar.
Traffic Indiscipline: Not all people who drive cars can ride bikes, probably because they never learnt to ride a bicycle (basic reason, reasons of relative safety keeps many off the roads). People who might otherwise not have driven because they could only afford a bike they could not ride, will be more inclined to drive. So, we will see more new drivers. For Indian drivers 'Driving is a privilege not a right' are words lost in the din. One can get a license to drive a car if he has a couple of hundred bucks in his pocket. With such abysmal regulation on who is given license to drive, the potential havoc caused by millions of more car drivers on roads leaves little to imagination.
Parking space and its effect on real estate: Go to the 'downtown' areas in any of the cities and you will notice that we just do not have the space to keep these cars. Even now, parking is not very economical, if available at all. Not just commercial parking, but personal parking too is important. How many of the builders with 600 apartments or more in a compound have actually planned for a car in every family? With such need for parking space, real estate prices will move north.
Environmental concerns: Emission levels will probably be low for a small engine like that of OneLakhCar's but only if the right fuel is used and the car is regularly tuned and maintained. What if adulterated and mixed (for economic benefit) fuel is used? People do it with a 1.75 Lakh rickshaw. Will they refrain from experimenting on a 1 Lakh Car? Pollution control is not as strictly enforced as required, except probably in the National Capital Region.
How will these cars be recycled (they will need to be at some point in time)? Most of the junked cars end up being cannibalised for spare parts (legal only in some cases) or their metal parts being melted and recycled. What will you do with millions of tonnes of composite frames and bodies of the OneLakhCars? Bio-degradable waste is itself difficult to dispose (for reasons of volume), where will we find space to dump composite bodies?
More cars, more green house emissions, more global warming. This outcome was always expected, but the OneLakhCar will only accelerate this process. No, I am not saying people should stop buying cars. Technologically advanced those maybe, but five times as many cars as in India are sold in the US itself. Why should Indians not be buying them? Fair, if India were not per-capita a 9th the size of the US. The thought that one million cars will be sold every year is mindboggling. Current annual car sales in India stand at about 600,000; there will be three times as many cars getting into Indian roads every year, if the TATAs meet their target.
Two-wheeler business will be worst hit, as repeat bike buyers are expected to be converted in to car buyers. Heavy pressure to push prices and costs down will only lead to planned declines in production of bikes and it will be no surprise if other companies too convert their facilities to make variants of the OneLakhCar. Renault has plans to bring out the $3000 car with Bajaj auto (talks with M&M fell through). The Renault car will be probably be more advanced than OneLakhCar in terms of safety as it has a higher tag.
In principle, Ratan Tata's dream of getting a car into every home may turn out to be a pyrrhic victory. The economical car may come at a big price for India in the long run. Rise in standard of living of socio-economic categories, as my untrained-in-economic-theories-mind perceives happens when the affordability of goods increases based on true increase in income to reach that level of affordability not when the level of affordability is brought down to existing levels of income. Commoditisation happens when the latter phenomenon is brought about. In a gimpy infrastructure, only the load on the system increases when commoditisation happens in items such as cars.Were these cars special in terms of environment-friendly technology such as electric or solar, the argument could have been reversed. Apparently, they are not.
Maybe I am being simply too biased against this car for some paranoia I cannot explain. Maybe it will not be so bad after all. Maybe I have not fathomed the adapting power of the Indian system. Then maybe, I am just dreaming!
2007-08-16
Would you buy a OneLakhCar? (Part-1)
TATAs are not blusterers and they have delivered in the past. Making it the 3rd largest player, TATA Motors has 17% marketshare in passenger car segment. Tata Motors has never had it this good in the last few years despite general declining sales in auto industry, commercial included. TATA Ace has bridged the gap of the 'perfect vehicle' for last-mile logistics, with its 1-tonner 'tempo' which is selling like hot cakes. Ace's commercial passenger cousin 'Magic' is similarly expected to set tracks on fire . One last tidbit: in commercial segment, TATAs have a whopping 65% share. Having put them in this perspective, it would be goosey to say TATAs have not read the market.
But in an upwardly mobile middle class, would a 1 Lakh Car be popular?
There are many dimensions one must consider before answering the question. Living in a city and seeing more and more newly-introduced models from Hyundai, Honda, Corolla, GM, Ford and MUL swoosh by on urban roads (I believe there is deep but random penetration in villages too), I have my reservations about this car. Rural market might be the target, but if the OneLakhCar is competing with Maruti800, one must take into consideration that the latter has seen steady decline in sales even in rural markets in the last two years.
When MUL came out with the original Maruti-Suzuki in the 80s, indeed, the objective was to bring home an affordable car for the common man and a 1 Lakh (or so) tag was acceptable at the time. And what a car it was with original Japanese engine and know-how! The bean car brought in a technological leap in auto industry. None of the indigenously built cars could match up to what Maruti-Suzuki offered. Be it size-wise performance, maintenance or economy of ownership. There is little that needs to be said about MUL's success. So, the idea behind Maruti was a noble one, if you know what I mean.
In principle, the intent behind the OneLakhCar seems to be less nobler (for lack of another term). Affordability seems to be the only criterion for this car. Of course, the TATA quality and brand will assure that the car is not made with cheap parts (brand equity based assumption), but price seems to be the only basis for differentiation, something that will not incite enthusiasm in every buyer.
To push down costs, there are bound to be compromises (within the realm of TATAs brand equity). Component manufacturers have invested capital hedging on the success of the car. Metal costs only rising, the body of the car is said to be of composite material rather than steel or aluminium. (This has been done before- the most elegant example being the sexy Corvette. But hey, they may not use the same stuff here!)Unofficial estimates put the margin-to-manufacturer at Rs.5000 per car. Further, based on work done by analysts, having invested Rs.6000 Crores, TATAs have to sell 1 million cars every year (and they plan to) for four years to break even. Is this possible?
Recent announcement that by year 2009, air-bags in new passenger cars will be no more optional but factory-fitted-mandatory, it is worth asking if the OneLakhCar has this cost built in. Or will it only be 1 Lakh ex factory? Costs toward Bharat IV and EURO III norms would no doubt have been built in.
What about the design? Speculation is rife on whether the car will be a Reva look-alike, Mini-Indica(!) or the Lankan MiniCar (a rounded Reva, I found out after some Googling). Whatever it is, on a 600cc engine, one cannot expect a huge frame. Then how will it be a four or five seater? I secede, I am not design-savvy.
There is a growing need for mobility given the changing lifestyles and lame public transport. The culture of using public transportation is slumping for several reasons, affordability not being the least of them. Mobikes and scooties if not cars fill parking lots of colleges and sometimes schools. The average price of mobikes has crossed Rs.50K, and that of high end indigenous bikes is closing in to Rs. 1 Lakh. Relative safety considerations and the aspirational value of a car would thereby sway a first time buyer or a two-wheeler owner toward the OneLakhCar.
So, there is a reasonable chance that the car will be popular since there is a huge market out there. And there is no offering in this segment right now.
(Coming up...what will happen if the OneLakhCar does its magic.)
TATAs are not blusterers and they have delivered in the past. Making it the 3rd largest player, TATA Motors has 17% marketshare in passenger car segment. Tata Motors has never had it this good in the last few years despite general declining sales in auto industry, commercial included. TATA Ace has bridged the gap of the 'perfect vehicle' for last-mile logistics, with its 1-tonner 'tempo' which is selling like hot cakes. Ace's commercial passenger cousin 'Magic' is similarly expected to set tracks on fire . One last tidbit: in commercial segment, TATAs have a whopping 65% share. Having put them in this perspective, it would be goosey to say TATAs have not read the market.
But in an upwardly mobile middle class, would a 1 Lakh Car be popular?
There are many dimensions one must consider before answering the question. Living in a city and seeing more and more newly-introduced models from Hyundai, Honda, Corolla, GM, Ford and MUL swoosh by on urban roads (I believe there is deep but random penetration in villages too), I have my reservations about this car. Rural market might be the target, but if the OneLakhCar is competing with Maruti800, one must take into consideration that the latter has seen steady decline in sales even in rural markets in the last two years.
When MUL came out with the original Maruti-Suzuki in the 80s, indeed, the objective was to bring home an affordable car for the common man and a 1 Lakh (or so) tag was acceptable at the time. And what a car it was with original Japanese engine and know-how! The bean car brought in a technological leap in auto industry. None of the indigenously built cars could match up to what Maruti-Suzuki offered. Be it size-wise performance, maintenance or economy of ownership. There is little that needs to be said about MUL's success. So, the idea behind Maruti was a noble one, if you know what I mean.
In principle, the intent behind the OneLakhCar seems to be less nobler (for lack of another term). Affordability seems to be the only criterion for this car. Of course, the TATA quality and brand will assure that the car is not made with cheap parts (brand equity based assumption), but price seems to be the only basis for differentiation, something that will not incite enthusiasm in every buyer.
To push down costs, there are bound to be compromises (within the realm of TATAs brand equity). Component manufacturers have invested capital hedging on the success of the car. Metal costs only rising, the body of the car is said to be of composite material rather than steel or aluminium. (This has been done before- the most elegant example being the sexy Corvette. But hey, they may not use the same stuff here!)Unofficial estimates put the margin-to-manufacturer at Rs.5000 per car. Further, based on work done by analysts, having invested Rs.6000 Crores, TATAs have to sell 1 million cars every year (and they plan to) for four years to break even. Is this possible?
Recent announcement that by year 2009, air-bags in new passenger cars will be no more optional but factory-fitted-mandatory, it is worth asking if the OneLakhCar has this cost built in. Or will it only be 1 Lakh ex factory? Costs toward Bharat IV and EURO III norms would no doubt have been built in.
What about the design? Speculation is rife on whether the car will be a Reva look-alike, Mini-Indica(!) or the Lankan MiniCar (a rounded Reva, I found out after some Googling). Whatever it is, on a 600cc engine, one cannot expect a huge frame. Then how will it be a four or five seater? I secede, I am not design-savvy.
There is a growing need for mobility given the changing lifestyles and lame public transport. The culture of using public transportation is slumping for several reasons, affordability not being the least of them. Mobikes and scooties if not cars fill parking lots of colleges and sometimes schools. The average price of mobikes has crossed Rs.50K, and that of high end indigenous bikes is closing in to Rs. 1 Lakh. Relative safety considerations and the aspirational value of a car would thereby sway a first time buyer or a two-wheeler owner toward the OneLakhCar.
So, there is a reasonable chance that the car will be popular since there is a huge market out there. And there is no offering in this segment right now.
(Coming up...what will happen if the OneLakhCar does its magic.)
2007-08-15
6 things that will make India an icon in the next 60 years:
India's Diamond Jubilee of independence is no small occasion. 'Life starts at 60', '60 and sexier' are themes newspapers and other media are enthusing people with. So, what will happen in the next sixty (any other number misses the point) years is a fair question.
We do not like to think about future, as in really think; own much less our country's. This is just the reason why national events incite thought on futurity. I should not miss out on riding this wave lest my daily pursuits subdue my enthusiasm to express what my mind is able to grasp in this festivity.
Enough has been written about achievements of and lacunae in The Great Indian system, but it needs to be noted that India has reached certain high stratum of economy, industrialisation and quality of living. Of course, we (much less all of us) are not 'there' yet, but we have come a long way. Compare with various other countries that have achieved independence with or after India and you will see how much Indian Democratic principles have stood the test of 60 years; all this is given.
To get 'there' and become an icon, there are certain things India needs to refocus on. In my opinion:
1. REDEFINE LITERACY: The current numbers are enough to make us look good in surveys, but they serve no practical purpose. Choosing leaders based on their mandate is unheard of in India. There are a handful of popular, dynastic, and historic political parties in the limelight and rest is all horse-trading. The power to swing numbers lies with the rural and semi-urban population, but majority of it is not truly literate. People we elect are not true leaders. So, what we get as a government is a group of compromised political players. Political debate as a part of election campaign in this scenario is reduced to a farce, not that it even happens. It all comes back to literacy or the lack of it.
2. RURAL UPLIFTMENT: Today, the PM announced a Rs 25000 Crore benefit package for farmers. This is a great gift, if it reaches those who need it. Late Rajiv Gandhi said that out of every rupee allocated to rural benefit, only 40 paisa reaches those who need it. The focus needs to be intensified on inclusivity of the poor into mainstream economy. When the poorest of the poor have subsistence as a daily goal, education, better health and growth lose relevance. Rural health centers and rural school system need to be revamped decentralised for execution (IAS, Civil services, alliances with NGOs).
3. INFRASTRUCTURE: There is nothing required to say here.
4. DEMOLISH RESERVATION not related to economic status: The Gujjar agitation earlier this year is the worst example of what reservation system has become. That apart, the government is not able to explain the basis of the new magic-number 27. Those who need opportunity are not those who belong to a particular caste or tribe, but those who do not have the money to enable them to come within reach of such opportunities. Yes, most of such people do belong to certain communities, but then those who reap benefits from the existing system (the rich among those communities) are not exactly those who need them (your guess). And the current system also marginalises the poor in communities not on the list of beneficiaries.
5. EMPOWER PEOPLE and bring accountability: Right to Information Act is one of the most significant policies India has adopted since that of liberalisation. What is still lacking is the accountability with someone to act on the information that could be sought. Much is also directly linked to corruption. In the lack of a judicio-legal system that is accountable to punish the guilty, there is not much one can expect from administrative perspective; it is a vicious cycle. To begin with, the Home Ministry and the allied bodies should publish annual reports on benefits accrued from ongoing efforts on e-governance efforts etc.-much like what corporates do at AGMs. But who will watch the gatekeeper?
6. ABOLISH REGIONALISM: India can wish forever to be a true 21st century icon in business and global politics and further even to be a part of the UNSC, but there will no realisation of it until regionalism and caste politics (reservation system too) exist. Particularly, regionalism as on lines of national integration has taken big strides since liberalisation (e.g. many techies, students and other migrants from rest of India are comfortable living in Bangalore, Pune or Hyderabad to name a few cities not withstanding specific infrastructure issues), but naxalism with different names is rampant in most states of India. Unless such sentiments are put to rest, India's efforts at becoming an icon will be cheapened.
Given that Indian population is only growing younger, I think India will not need something as draconian as China's one-child-policy for the next couple of decades, so I am not putting it in this list.
The above are high-level themes on which focus is needed. Action-ising them is the need of the hour. And the more literate, technocratic and academic leaders we have sitting in the Parliament House the better. Unless there is greater political debate antedating elections, my sole objective during next elections would continue to be to topple the incumbent as I will continue to have no idea what he has done or others are planning to do.
There is hope, because despite everything India as she enters the 'sensational sixties' is a thriving globalised democratic young nation with an enviable (economic) growth rate.
Be sure to gain more perspective on this subject at Kiran's blog with his post.
India's Diamond Jubilee of independence is no small occasion. 'Life starts at 60', '60 and sexier' are themes newspapers and other media are enthusing people with. So, what will happen in the next sixty (any other number misses the point) years is a fair question.
We do not like to think about future, as in really think; own much less our country's. This is just the reason why national events incite thought on futurity. I should not miss out on riding this wave lest my daily pursuits subdue my enthusiasm to express what my mind is able to grasp in this festivity.
Enough has been written about achievements of and lacunae in The Great Indian system, but it needs to be noted that India has reached certain high stratum of economy, industrialisation and quality of living. Of course, we (much less all of us) are not 'there' yet, but we have come a long way. Compare with various other countries that have achieved independence with or after India and you will see how much Indian Democratic principles have stood the test of 60 years; all this is given.
To get 'there' and become an icon, there are certain things India needs to refocus on. In my opinion:
1. REDEFINE LITERACY: The current numbers are enough to make us look good in surveys, but they serve no practical purpose. Choosing leaders based on their mandate is unheard of in India. There are a handful of popular, dynastic, and historic political parties in the limelight and rest is all horse-trading. The power to swing numbers lies with the rural and semi-urban population, but majority of it is not truly literate. People we elect are not true leaders. So, what we get as a government is a group of compromised political players. Political debate as a part of election campaign in this scenario is reduced to a farce, not that it even happens. It all comes back to literacy or the lack of it.
2. RURAL UPLIFTMENT: Today, the PM announced a Rs 25000 Crore benefit package for farmers. This is a great gift, if it reaches those who need it. Late Rajiv Gandhi said that out of every rupee allocated to rural benefit, only 40 paisa reaches those who need it. The focus needs to be intensified on inclusivity of the poor into mainstream economy. When the poorest of the poor have subsistence as a daily goal, education, better health and growth lose relevance. Rural health centers and rural school system need to be revamped decentralised for execution (IAS, Civil services, alliances with NGOs).
3. INFRASTRUCTURE: There is nothing required to say here.
4. DEMOLISH RESERVATION not related to economic status: The Gujjar agitation earlier this year is the worst example of what reservation system has become. That apart, the government is not able to explain the basis of the new magic-number 27. Those who need opportunity are not those who belong to a particular caste or tribe, but those who do not have the money to enable them to come within reach of such opportunities. Yes, most of such people do belong to certain communities, but then those who reap benefits from the existing system (the rich among those communities) are not exactly those who need them (your guess). And the current system also marginalises the poor in communities not on the list of beneficiaries.
5. EMPOWER PEOPLE and bring accountability: Right to Information Act is one of the most significant policies India has adopted since that of liberalisation. What is still lacking is the accountability with someone to act on the information that could be sought. Much is also directly linked to corruption. In the lack of a judicio-legal system that is accountable to punish the guilty, there is not much one can expect from administrative perspective; it is a vicious cycle. To begin with, the Home Ministry and the allied bodies should publish annual reports on benefits accrued from ongoing efforts on e-governance efforts etc.-much like what corporates do at AGMs. But who will watch the gatekeeper?
6. ABOLISH REGIONALISM: India can wish forever to be a true 21st century icon in business and global politics and further even to be a part of the UNSC, but there will no realisation of it until regionalism and caste politics (reservation system too) exist. Particularly, regionalism as on lines of national integration has taken big strides since liberalisation (e.g. many techies, students and other migrants from rest of India are comfortable living in Bangalore, Pune or Hyderabad to name a few cities not withstanding specific infrastructure issues), but naxalism with different names is rampant in most states of India. Unless such sentiments are put to rest, India's efforts at becoming an icon will be cheapened.
Given that Indian population is only growing younger, I think India will not need something as draconian as China's one-child-policy for the next couple of decades, so I am not putting it in this list.
The above are high-level themes on which focus is needed. Action-ising them is the need of the hour. And the more literate, technocratic and academic leaders we have sitting in the Parliament House the better. Unless there is greater political debate antedating elections, my sole objective during next elections would continue to be to topple the incumbent as I will continue to have no idea what he has done or others are planning to do.
There is hope, because despite everything India as she enters the 'sensational sixties' is a thriving globalised democratic young nation with an enviable (economic) growth rate.
Be sure to gain more perspective on this subject at Kiran's blog with his post.
2007-08-10
The flip side of organised retailing
"9th Aug celebrated as 'Quit Retail Day'".This day was famously known as Quit India Day (circa 1942). But "FDI Watch India" and "Vyapaar Aur Rozgar Bachao Andolan" have given it their own flavour. Even if this was expected, the creativity and the intensity of the message sent by juxtaposing the two events is surprising.
The biggest fear among those resisting the Indian Retail Revolution is that of loss of jobs or displacement. The 200 Billion Dollar retail industry in India is highly segmented right now. Only 4%, expectedly, of this is truly organised in the way we see Foodworlds, Fabmalls, Monday to Sundays, Ahmed Bazaar (Bangalore), Shopper Stops, Westsides etc which are chains or corporation, sometimes even listed. The number might also include goverment-run Janatha Bazaars. The remaining share includes the gamut of sellers at all levels who are located near your home or street. I am not sure if the Sabjiwala who rings your door bell is counted at all. Nevertheless, selling remains the biggest occupation in India with 11 stores per 1000 persons. This is a huge number considering that China has 6 and USA 3.8. "What will happen to all these people?" is a question that cannot be ignored and is a common refrain today.
In the past, India has seen huge displacements, be it during industrialisation during the early Five Year plans or urbanisation that followed it and which continues today, or the IT and ITes revolution that is gripping youth today. Of course, the challenge of displacement from ITeS is at a different level altogether (acedemia and R&D bodies fretting the trend involving loss of qualified engineers and science graduates to high-paying jobs) while that in question is in a more basic stratum.
But one must not ignore the fact that these changes have happened over the years, if not decades and Retail Revolution will be no different, even if technology enables it to bring about changes faster. In addition to technological enablement, acceptance and inertia to life style changes play a great role in moulding mindsets.
Organised retailing will create its own opprtunities. To fill the boardroom-to-field gap, companies always look for local subject matter experts. Who better than middlemen can fill this gap? Sure, one can follow the principle of 'try to beat 'em, if you don't want to join them', but that is a diffent argument. Contract farming will provide farmers opportunities with ensured income. New job streams are already cropping up what with Retail Sales executive diplomas and Degrees in Store planning making rounds in newspaper classifieds. People With a little sensitivity, interest (or need) and attitude can easily find avenues in in-store salesmanship. With growing organisation in retail will come more back-end operations. Employment opportunities in the bottom layer will see the most growth.
There are other long term effects one can foresee changing the way we live in the next decade or so, as a direct consequence of the type of set-up organised retailing will require. Since food, especially seasonal, will slowly become independent of local climatic conditions (already happening for some items) with perennial supplies planned for and achieved, food processing will gain prominence. Food processing and preservation is what will help corporations maintain their stock levels and meet demands across geographies.
Almost all of us eat fresh produce, today. It may not be so easily available once processed foods become a norm. Canned-everything is what most American families shop for and live on (emphasis on organic and fresh produce is the reaction to this phenomenon). Today, we can find Rasgulla's and baby corn with Indian labels. These cans will more and more commonly hold tomatoes, spinach and carrots to name a few, something that we would find too convinient to ignore. Talk to DINKs and SINKs living in nuclear families and you get a perspective on how consumption of ready-to-eat foods is gaining prevelance.
All these changes are inevitable. How the Indian system adapts to it is the area of concern. India will move forward, urban Indians will move faster. Only a good system-social support, health, judicial, legal- will ensure uniform growth in all socio-economic categories . Government should enforce policies that bring accountability for and quick addressal of genuine concerns people could have out of corporatisation of retailing. Vocational training programs will ensure that opportunities flow equally to all geographies of India and strata of society.
There is little point in being protectionist about the Retail Revolution. Energies need to be focussed on enabling the Indian system to handle the inevitable changes which have the potential to transform the way we live now.
"9th Aug celebrated as 'Quit Retail Day'".This day was famously known as Quit India Day (circa 1942). But "FDI Watch India" and "Vyapaar Aur Rozgar Bachao Andolan" have given it their own flavour. Even if this was expected, the creativity and the intensity of the message sent by juxtaposing the two events is surprising.
The biggest fear among those resisting the Indian Retail Revolution is that of loss of jobs or displacement. The 200 Billion Dollar retail industry in India is highly segmented right now. Only 4%, expectedly, of this is truly organised in the way we see Foodworlds, Fabmalls, Monday to Sundays, Ahmed Bazaar (Bangalore), Shopper Stops, Westsides etc which are chains or corporation, sometimes even listed. The number might also include goverment-run Janatha Bazaars. The remaining share includes the gamut of sellers at all levels who are located near your home or street. I am not sure if the Sabjiwala who rings your door bell is counted at all. Nevertheless, selling remains the biggest occupation in India with 11 stores per 1000 persons. This is a huge number considering that China has 6 and USA 3.8. "What will happen to all these people?" is a question that cannot be ignored and is a common refrain today.
In the past, India has seen huge displacements, be it during industrialisation during the early Five Year plans or urbanisation that followed it and which continues today, or the IT and ITes revolution that is gripping youth today. Of course, the challenge of displacement from ITeS is at a different level altogether (acedemia and R&D bodies fretting the trend involving loss of qualified engineers and science graduates to high-paying jobs) while that in question is in a more basic stratum.
But one must not ignore the fact that these changes have happened over the years, if not decades and Retail Revolution will be no different, even if technology enables it to bring about changes faster. In addition to technological enablement, acceptance and inertia to life style changes play a great role in moulding mindsets.
Organised retailing will create its own opprtunities. To fill the boardroom-to-field gap, companies always look for local subject matter experts. Who better than middlemen can fill this gap? Sure, one can follow the principle of 'try to beat 'em, if you don't want to join them', but that is a diffent argument. Contract farming will provide farmers opportunities with ensured income. New job streams are already cropping up what with Retail Sales executive diplomas and Degrees in Store planning making rounds in newspaper classifieds. People With a little sensitivity, interest (or need) and attitude can easily find avenues in in-store salesmanship. With growing organisation in retail will come more back-end operations. Employment opportunities in the bottom layer will see the most growth.
There are other long term effects one can foresee changing the way we live in the next decade or so, as a direct consequence of the type of set-up organised retailing will require. Since food, especially seasonal, will slowly become independent of local climatic conditions (already happening for some items) with perennial supplies planned for and achieved, food processing will gain prominence. Food processing and preservation is what will help corporations maintain their stock levels and meet demands across geographies.
Almost all of us eat fresh produce, today. It may not be so easily available once processed foods become a norm. Canned-everything is what most American families shop for and live on (emphasis on organic and fresh produce is the reaction to this phenomenon). Today, we can find Rasgulla's and baby corn with Indian labels. These cans will more and more commonly hold tomatoes, spinach and carrots to name a few, something that we would find too convinient to ignore. Talk to DINKs and SINKs living in nuclear families and you get a perspective on how consumption of ready-to-eat foods is gaining prevelance.
All these changes are inevitable. How the Indian system adapts to it is the area of concern. India will move forward, urban Indians will move faster. Only a good system-social support, health, judicial, legal- will ensure uniform growth in all socio-economic categories . Government should enforce policies that bring accountability for and quick addressal of genuine concerns people could have out of corporatisation of retailing. Vocational training programs will ensure that opportunities flow equally to all geographies of India and strata of society.
There is little point in being protectionist about the Retail Revolution. Energies need to be focussed on enabling the Indian system to handle the inevitable changes which have the potential to transform the way we live now.
2007-08-08
A case for Organized Retailing:
The Bhart-Walmart Cash 'n' Carry alliance with a 50-50 joint venture arrangement is now official. There are mixed emotions around this announcement with traders crying foul and FMCG people welcoming the move. While the traders will be affected on grounds of relative combined buying power of the duo and consequent fall in their own profitability, FMCG players like HUL are optimistic about the huge volumes this organization will generate.
While doubts have been widely cast on whether Wal-Mart-like retailing would work in India, it is altogether another question whether dewy-eyed Indian players are not already showing ambitions of emulating the US retail behemoth. Subhiksha and Reliance Fresh are only waiting to see the results of their low-hanging-fruit experiments with retail models, before launching off on bigger formats. APMCs in Bangalore protested earlier this week, governments move to amend APMC act to accommodate contract farming. Reliance collection centers in proximity to farmers have already induced a lot of fear in the traders. Indian retailers can play but foreign players cannot? Seems like we are deliberately un-leveling the field here.
While Kerala has announced on national television that it will do anything to prevent Reliance from entering God's own country, new models are being experimented in parts of Mumbai and some towns in Gujarat. In order to beat Reliance at its game, scores of store owners have formed clusters within parts of towns in order to increase their buying power. Each of these clusters will ensure similar formats so that locals in a part of the city get same price, assortments and layouts in all stores in a cluster. On closer look this is nothing but the bottom-up evolution of a chain. If the likes of Reliance pump money from their coffers and roll out store designs from their boardrooms, local merchants are pooling in together to form their own little corporation (co-operative?). If the clusters have a uniform design and operations are directed by a group of cooperative-heads, the personal touch of the local kirana owner is anyway lost. To maintain their cash flows (cooperatives can be assumed to have no huge caissons); the kirana owner's personal credit policy disappears. With the corporatisation of the local cluster (bound to happen), the individual kirana owners will lose their ownership. They would be encouraged to sit and home and count their share of the profits. Whether this model is sustainable, only time can tell.
The current times can lead to germination of Indianised models of organized retailing. It is possible that something innovative may come out of the churning happening right now. Kerala's might be a knee-jerk reaction and in time laws might be amended when the success of oragnised retailing generates happiness in the public in the rest of the country. But, these are early times and it may be several before any such things happen.
Now coming to a basic question...will organized retailing succeed in India?
Firstly, the need for organized retailing will keep the ball rolling. Not as self-defeating a statements as it seems, since India is probably one of the few countries where in one corner farmers kill themselves unable to make profits from their surplus (causing too low selling prices), while people in another die waiting for rations to arrive. FAO has capacity to store, but not the capability to maintain its storages. Public distribution system is a shame, what with kerosene, sugar and grain mafia degrading local distribution efforts. More than 35% of the produce, especially in grains and staples rots and gets wasted. There is a dire need for better mechanism to move food grains from source to destination. Oraganised retailing can provide just this bridge.
Secondly, the prices of commodities can be more controlled with better facilities and distribution systems that will be set-up by the big players. Investments made by such retailers in storage facilities will ensure constant supply of goods, especially foods, throughout the year. Fluctuations in prices (typically, they shoot up in monsoon) will be reduced and more uniformity in price and quality can be achieved. This may not happen overnight, but some form of stability in each of these dimensions can be achieved with a sustained effort of organized retailing.
APMC regime is largely hierarchical. Between the farmer and the consumer, one can expect at least 4-5 levels of agencies or middlemen, who add to the cost of goods- especially grains and fruits. To both the ends- farmer and consumer- there is little benefit. Reliance Retails has set-up collection centers in proximity to producers. One must remember that farming in India is not land intensive as in North America and some other parts of the world. In India, it is labor intensive with large number of farmers owning small patches of land producing, in some cases, largest quantities of fruits and grains in the world. To an average farmer, a reduction in the cost of transportation will make a large difference. So, instead of going a longer distance to an APMC Mandi and auctioning his produce, he would prefer to go the short distance to a predictable-price-offering at a nearby Reliance Collection Center. This ploy may already be smelt by APMCs and they may (being a government-run agency? But, let's give them the benefit of the doubt) set-up their own proximity mandi's or react by providing predictability in pricing, but in the end it will be only competition where consumer and farmer would benefit. This can be third benefit of the organized retail network.
Private sector players, and not in the least foreign chains, have the muscle and the know-how to set-up efficient supply chain systems, invest in forecasting and logistics systems to make 'all that' happen. The crawling and creeping corrupt public system has not done much in this regard in the last half-century of its existence. Yes, the e-governance is just taking off, but the attitudes and motives of those who run the system require a lot of overhaul, before any sweetness can be derived from the e-governance efforts.
Lastly, an economic benefit of allowing foreign retail chains in India is the increase in volume of exports. Currently, Wal-Mart sources about $600M from India. Compare that with USD 27B that China exports to only Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart opens stores in India, the giant's India sourcing would grow multiple folds in a couple of years. And Wal-Mart is only the most significant example.
Flip side of the coin... (Next time).
The Bhart-Walmart Cash 'n' Carry alliance with a 50-50 joint venture arrangement is now official. There are mixed emotions around this announcement with traders crying foul and FMCG people welcoming the move. While the traders will be affected on grounds of relative combined buying power of the duo and consequent fall in their own profitability, FMCG players like HUL are optimistic about the huge volumes this organization will generate.
While doubts have been widely cast on whether Wal-Mart-like retailing would work in India, it is altogether another question whether dewy-eyed Indian players are not already showing ambitions of emulating the US retail behemoth. Subhiksha and Reliance Fresh are only waiting to see the results of their low-hanging-fruit experiments with retail models, before launching off on bigger formats. APMCs in Bangalore protested earlier this week, governments move to amend APMC act to accommodate contract farming. Reliance collection centers in proximity to farmers have already induced a lot of fear in the traders. Indian retailers can play but foreign players cannot? Seems like we are deliberately un-leveling the field here.
While Kerala has announced on national television that it will do anything to prevent Reliance from entering God's own country, new models are being experimented in parts of Mumbai and some towns in Gujarat. In order to beat Reliance at its game, scores of store owners have formed clusters within parts of towns in order to increase their buying power. Each of these clusters will ensure similar formats so that locals in a part of the city get same price, assortments and layouts in all stores in a cluster. On closer look this is nothing but the bottom-up evolution of a chain. If the likes of Reliance pump money from their coffers and roll out store designs from their boardrooms, local merchants are pooling in together to form their own little corporation (co-operative?). If the clusters have a uniform design and operations are directed by a group of cooperative-heads, the personal touch of the local kirana owner is anyway lost. To maintain their cash flows (cooperatives can be assumed to have no huge caissons); the kirana owner's personal credit policy disappears. With the corporatisation of the local cluster (bound to happen), the individual kirana owners will lose their ownership. They would be encouraged to sit and home and count their share of the profits. Whether this model is sustainable, only time can tell.
The current times can lead to germination of Indianised models of organized retailing. It is possible that something innovative may come out of the churning happening right now. Kerala's might be a knee-jerk reaction and in time laws might be amended when the success of oragnised retailing generates happiness in the public in the rest of the country. But, these are early times and it may be several before any such things happen.
Now coming to a basic question...will organized retailing succeed in India?
Firstly, the need for organized retailing will keep the ball rolling. Not as self-defeating a statements as it seems, since India is probably one of the few countries where in one corner farmers kill themselves unable to make profits from their surplus (causing too low selling prices), while people in another die waiting for rations to arrive. FAO has capacity to store, but not the capability to maintain its storages. Public distribution system is a shame, what with kerosene, sugar and grain mafia degrading local distribution efforts. More than 35% of the produce, especially in grains and staples rots and gets wasted. There is a dire need for better mechanism to move food grains from source to destination. Oraganised retailing can provide just this bridge.
Secondly, the prices of commodities can be more controlled with better facilities and distribution systems that will be set-up by the big players. Investments made by such retailers in storage facilities will ensure constant supply of goods, especially foods, throughout the year. Fluctuations in prices (typically, they shoot up in monsoon) will be reduced and more uniformity in price and quality can be achieved. This may not happen overnight, but some form of stability in each of these dimensions can be achieved with a sustained effort of organized retailing.
APMC regime is largely hierarchical. Between the farmer and the consumer, one can expect at least 4-5 levels of agencies or middlemen, who add to the cost of goods- especially grains and fruits. To both the ends- farmer and consumer- there is little benefit. Reliance Retails has set-up collection centers in proximity to producers. One must remember that farming in India is not land intensive as in North America and some other parts of the world. In India, it is labor intensive with large number of farmers owning small patches of land producing, in some cases, largest quantities of fruits and grains in the world. To an average farmer, a reduction in the cost of transportation will make a large difference. So, instead of going a longer distance to an APMC Mandi and auctioning his produce, he would prefer to go the short distance to a predictable-price-offering at a nearby Reliance Collection Center. This ploy may already be smelt by APMCs and they may (being a government-run agency? But, let's give them the benefit of the doubt) set-up their own proximity mandi's or react by providing predictability in pricing, but in the end it will be only competition where consumer and farmer would benefit. This can be third benefit of the organized retail network.
Private sector players, and not in the least foreign chains, have the muscle and the know-how to set-up efficient supply chain systems, invest in forecasting and logistics systems to make 'all that' happen. The crawling and creeping corrupt public system has not done much in this regard in the last half-century of its existence. Yes, the e-governance is just taking off, but the attitudes and motives of those who run the system require a lot of overhaul, before any sweetness can be derived from the e-governance efforts.
Lastly, an economic benefit of allowing foreign retail chains in India is the increase in volume of exports. Currently, Wal-Mart sources about $600M from India. Compare that with USD 27B that China exports to only Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart opens stores in India, the giant's India sourcing would grow multiple folds in a couple of years. And Wal-Mart is only the most significant example.
Flip side of the coin... (Next time).
2007-07-26
Dying from denial:
'Youth dies due to medical negligence'- cried the local headlines in the newspaper this morning. In recent days, infamy has become the doctors' friend , while death is befriending the lesser mortals. And the lower in the SEC-pyramid one is, the lesser are the odds that he or she will cross the average life expectancy of an Indian. The unfortunate death of Shivaraj (Read the story here.) is just another example of how much the socio-economic system is lacking in accountability (what is that!) and social responsibility (ouch, not that nerve again!).
Either some of us keep running into the wrong set of people or it has now become a habit for doctors to act pricey-and-stately for no reason. A smaller example of this- minor in significance but chafing none the less under the circumstances- is that of a relative of ours who recently lost her mother and had to call-up as many as four doctors in vain, before my father requested our family doctor on the relative's behalf, to provide a death certificate for the departed woman. One 'nieghbourhood doctor' refused to even speak on the phone, let alone decline a visit, when called up for the request.
Such callousness as shown at Bowring should not go unpunished, for there is absolutely no reason why doctor should deny service to anyone. One can look at it in several dimensions. As pointed out in the article, there is no legal impediment to providing service. Medical negligence of the popular kind (misdiagnosis, failure to exercise diligence during procedure etc) comes later. One must first ask the question- Can a doctor be punished for providing service. Obviously no! Additionally, there ought to be no economic impediment, at least not in Shivaraj's case, as he was brought into the hospital by his father to a government hospital. In any case, the responsibility of the cost of the treatment in an emergency cannot and should not be the doctor's responsibility. The doctor is expected to skillfully do that which is technically apt in his judgment based on his training. Economic responsibility lies with the patient or his kin as the case may be. Denial of service on grounds of economic status certainly is unconstitutional. There is no evidence of procedural impediment either, because the patient in this case was not a victim of crime. Typically, one requires an FIR or some police report for an unaccompanied or unidentified patient where foul-play is suspected. Shivaraj's case is plainly that of a one-party road accident and moreover the police themselves shifted Shivaraj from one hospital to the other.
Come to think of it, basically, it makes no economic sense for a doctor to behave this way. Thousands of doctors pass out every year from greater Bangalore given the plenteous harvest of doctors from medical colleges in the region. Good doctors might be in short-supply but medical graduates are not. How can a doctor think he can grow by turning away or turning off patients in this demand-supply situation?
That the accused doctors shouted at the grieving party and refused to read the report given by NIMHANS, let alone admit the victim, itself tells that they are not fit to be doctors. Of course, suspension of the doctors has been issued and a 'departmental enquiry' ordered, but this will not help the dead man's family, for whom he might just have been the sole bread-winner. It can be fairly estimated that after having paid tons to get into the medical education-and-profession the doctors will try to buy their way out of the death on their hands. If the case goes judicial, all hope is lost for the survived, who might find themselves in a dilemma to choose between survival and legal (and moral) victory.
Treating this as a second degree murder (their action directly lead to the patient's death, did it not?), the doctors should be stripped of privileges to practice, barred from IMC and made to compensate the Shivaraj's family financially.
This may be an odd case that has made it to page-2 of a popular tabloid, hundreds more may not even be noticed. But this should be made a precedent for other doctors who consider themselves as human gods and take their roles for granted.
After that, the doctors might not live in and patients not die out of denial.
'Youth dies due to medical negligence'- cried the local headlines in the newspaper this morning. In recent days, infamy has become the doctors' friend , while death is befriending the lesser mortals. And the lower in the SEC-pyramid one is, the lesser are the odds that he or she will cross the average life expectancy of an Indian. The unfortunate death of Shivaraj (Read the story here.) is just another example of how much the socio-economic system is lacking in accountability (what is that!) and social responsibility (ouch, not that nerve again!).
Either some of us keep running into the wrong set of people or it has now become a habit for doctors to act pricey-and-stately for no reason. A smaller example of this- minor in significance but chafing none the less under the circumstances- is that of a relative of ours who recently lost her mother and had to call-up as many as four doctors in vain, before my father requested our family doctor on the relative's behalf, to provide a death certificate for the departed woman. One 'nieghbourhood doctor' refused to even speak on the phone, let alone decline a visit, when called up for the request.
Such callousness as shown at Bowring should not go unpunished, for there is absolutely no reason why doctor should deny service to anyone. One can look at it in several dimensions. As pointed out in the article, there is no legal impediment to providing service. Medical negligence of the popular kind (misdiagnosis, failure to exercise diligence during procedure etc) comes later. One must first ask the question- Can a doctor be punished for providing service. Obviously no! Additionally, there ought to be no economic impediment, at least not in Shivaraj's case, as he was brought into the hospital by his father to a government hospital. In any case, the responsibility of the cost of the treatment in an emergency cannot and should not be the doctor's responsibility. The doctor is expected to skillfully do that which is technically apt in his judgment based on his training. Economic responsibility lies with the patient or his kin as the case may be. Denial of service on grounds of economic status certainly is unconstitutional. There is no evidence of procedural impediment either, because the patient in this case was not a victim of crime. Typically, one requires an FIR or some police report for an unaccompanied or unidentified patient where foul-play is suspected. Shivaraj's case is plainly that of a one-party road accident and moreover the police themselves shifted Shivaraj from one hospital to the other.
Come to think of it, basically, it makes no economic sense for a doctor to behave this way. Thousands of doctors pass out every year from greater Bangalore given the plenteous harvest of doctors from medical colleges in the region. Good doctors might be in short-supply but medical graduates are not. How can a doctor think he can grow by turning away or turning off patients in this demand-supply situation?
That the accused doctors shouted at the grieving party and refused to read the report given by NIMHANS, let alone admit the victim, itself tells that they are not fit to be doctors. Of course, suspension of the doctors has been issued and a 'departmental enquiry' ordered, but this will not help the dead man's family, for whom he might just have been the sole bread-winner. It can be fairly estimated that after having paid tons to get into the medical education-and-profession the doctors will try to buy their way out of the death on their hands. If the case goes judicial, all hope is lost for the survived, who might find themselves in a dilemma to choose between survival and legal (and moral) victory.
Treating this as a second degree murder (their action directly lead to the patient's death, did it not?), the doctors should be stripped of privileges to practice, barred from IMC and made to compensate the Shivaraj's family financially.
This may be an odd case that has made it to page-2 of a popular tabloid, hundreds more may not even be noticed. But this should be made a precedent for other doctors who consider themselves as human gods and take their roles for granted.
After that, the doctors might not live in and patients not die out of denial.
2007-07-17
Games Indians Play
If your mind is running in the direction of the popular transactional analysis book of similar title, you are not too far from the truth this book has to tell you. An interesting take on 'Desis in their own Des' , this is the name of a book by (erstwhile) Prof.V Raghunathan of IIM Ahmedabad.
Most of us would have argumentatively discussed at length, albeit with a pinch of self-righteous exclusivity, about why we are 'like that only' but without questioning why not? When I discussed this book with a couple of my friends, the system came out at the cause rather than the effect, a stance that is opposite of what this book takes. Just so you know the book is not passionate about reformation, but the cold logic of it is bound to leave a whiff of reason on you.
Offering umpteen Indian-way-of-life examples which all of us have lived through, the author sets the context for his analysis of this drama that we play in daily social life (read as behaving as a community). The message is clear- social life is what we fail at. Ironically, while we are, and not without reason, rational individuals, we are victims of our own over-rationalisation. Artfully, Prof VR tells the reader why Indians are some of the brightest somebodies but a miserable community living with their self-created acceptance of norms. He explores Why spitting, relieving,shoving, queue-jumping and many other "-ings" in public that have impacted all but bothered the more reasonable of the lot, are not just hangovers of pre-freedom era, but realities of post-60-year-freedom age.
We may have argued passionately about what can be done to improve it, only to conclude by questioning how much can one-in-a-more-than-billion person's action change the system.It is this 'what can just one do' premise that Prof.VR skillfully counters through the applications of Game Theory to social life. Taking the uninitiated reader through basic of GT, the author pushes it to the next level by explaining work done by various award winning elite researchers in applying GT to real-life situations and war strategy (Life in India is a big fight? Touche!). Then taking the book to its logical crecendo, Prof VR guides us into his perspective of what strategis in social life can reduce dissonance in person to society transactions. A small relief that I had been not wrong in playing this game right myself.
The intent of the book is quite clear, to give a logical basis for the Great Indian Drama and then, atleast, telling the reader that his action can indeed make a difference. Again, the intent is just to educate the user of the option he has to keep in mind the 'larger good' while deciding his next action. Author leaves it at that and makes no lofty pursuasions for a better India.
It is possible that the book will be read by a portion of the reading urban community. Even if they, if not already, start following the 'tit for tat' strategy in life ***in its true spirit***, I think my life will be a little easier, and so will theirs from my point of view.
I would recommend this book. At 150 pages you can breeze through this hard-bound book over a Sunday afternoon. The other 25 pages comprise bibliography, but has some interesting extracts too. The language is concise and the author makes his point quickly and crisply. A foreward by Mr. Narayana Murthy is an added shine for NRN's fans given that his writings are rarer than his speeches.
If your mind is running in the direction of the popular transactional analysis book of similar title, you are not too far from the truth this book has to tell you. An interesting take on 'Desis in their own Des' , this is the name of a book by (erstwhile) Prof.V Raghunathan of IIM Ahmedabad.
Most of us would have argumentatively discussed at length, albeit with a pinch of self-righteous exclusivity, about why we are 'like that only' but without questioning why not? When I discussed this book with a couple of my friends, the system came out at the cause rather than the effect, a stance that is opposite of what this book takes. Just so you know the book is not passionate about reformation, but the cold logic of it is bound to leave a whiff of reason on you.
Offering umpteen Indian-way-of-life examples which all of us have lived through, the author sets the context for his analysis of this drama that we play in daily social life (read as behaving as a community). The message is clear- social life is what we fail at. Ironically, while we are, and not without reason, rational individuals, we are victims of our own over-rationalisation. Artfully, Prof VR tells the reader why Indians are some of the brightest somebodies but a miserable community living with their self-created acceptance of norms. He explores Why spitting, relieving,shoving, queue-jumping and many other "-ings" in public that have impacted all but bothered the more reasonable of the lot, are not just hangovers of pre-freedom era, but realities of post-60-year-freedom age.
We may have argued passionately about what can be done to improve it, only to conclude by questioning how much can one-in-a-more-than-billion person's action change the system.It is this 'what can just one do' premise that Prof.VR skillfully counters through the applications of Game Theory to social life. Taking the uninitiated reader through basic of GT, the author pushes it to the next level by explaining work done by various award winning elite researchers in applying GT to real-life situations and war strategy (Life in India is a big fight? Touche!). Then taking the book to its logical crecendo, Prof VR guides us into his perspective of what strategis in social life can reduce dissonance in person to society transactions. A small relief that I had been not wrong in playing this game right myself.
The intent of the book is quite clear, to give a logical basis for the Great Indian Drama and then, atleast, telling the reader that his action can indeed make a difference. Again, the intent is just to educate the user of the option he has to keep in mind the 'larger good' while deciding his next action. Author leaves it at that and makes no lofty pursuasions for a better India.
It is possible that the book will be read by a portion of the reading urban community. Even if they, if not already, start following the 'tit for tat' strategy in life ***in its true spirit***, I think my life will be a little easier, and so will theirs from my point of view.
I would recommend this book. At 150 pages you can breeze through this hard-bound book over a Sunday afternoon. The other 25 pages comprise bibliography, but has some interesting extracts too. The language is concise and the author makes his point quickly and crisply. A foreward by Mr. Narayana Murthy is an added shine for NRN's fans given that his writings are rarer than his speeches.
2007-05-09
Fast Food Nation
"If economy in the last part of the 20th century depended on how internet redefined the way business is done , economy of the 21st century would be based on how businesses bring a balance between their profitability and amorality."Erich Schosser makes this assertion toward the end of his book 'Fast Food Nation' a tome about the dark side of American fast food culture.
This very engrossing book by Eric Schlosser is unputdownable. The book came out in 2001, but I read it recently. Ironically, I first saw the Indie movie 'Super Size me!' which was based on the findings of this book, and which drove me to buy this book from Amazon.com after failing to find it in several bookstores.
In this book, Schlosser has very interestingly told the story of evolution of American fast food industry and everything else associated to it. Startling the uninitiated, facts keep rolling out page after page while the author assesses the social, economic and emotional impact of current or recent practices in the food industry. Touching every aspect of the fast food revolution, the book skillfully relates the inhuman practices in slaughter houses and rendering shops to policy making over the last several decades.
The author uses real stories of ranchers and potato growers in the USA and elsewhere to make his point about how industry consolidation has impacted smaller 'farmers' and how discouragement of unionisation and deskilling of food-processing has led to the sorry state of workers involved. From there the writer goes on to illustrate the link between deskilled processes using unskilled immigrant labour and the spread of food risks from unhygenic ground meat. Schlosser also touches upon the challenges and risks posed by use of animal protein to feed poultry and cattle. In the 2004 reprint version that I read, more content has been added acknowledging the impending threat of 'mad cow' disease or BSE.
Some sections on how fast food is flavoured and colored provide insight into the huge yet less known industry that synthetic and 'natural' flavouring has become. Trivias such as those about what goes into the likes of Dannon Strawberry yogurt (almost a staple to me at the time of writing the draft) are especially suprising. These sections also provide light moments to the reader, even if it is disturbing to know that the term 'natural flavours' does not really mean that.
Schlosser also examines the international proliferation of American fast food giants, notably KFC and McDonalds and the impact of their practices on local economies and cultures. The lure and influence of fast food and pop-culture is exemplified in the episodes recounting the establishment of McDonalds in different countries. One of the qoutes by Den Fujita, the billionare who brought Mcdonald's to Japan is quite memorable and encompasses in it adoration, blind or otherwise, and the aspirational value of fast food in developed and developing countries alike.
Coming back to the qoute at the beginning of this passage- Schlosser raises the evergreen question about the role played by indutry leaders in shaping the ethics of doing business. The clout of giants makes them easy influencers on shaping of accepted processes and human resource policies.
Whether the power weilded by companies like McDonalds will be put to enhancing only the company bottomline or also be used for betterment of industry workers at large is something that only time will tell, Schlosser concludes.
"If economy in the last part of the 20th century depended on how internet redefined the way business is done , economy of the 21st century would be based on how businesses bring a balance between their profitability and amorality."Erich Schosser makes this assertion toward the end of his book 'Fast Food Nation' a tome about the dark side of American fast food culture.
This very engrossing book by Eric Schlosser is unputdownable. The book came out in 2001, but I read it recently. Ironically, I first saw the Indie movie 'Super Size me!' which was based on the findings of this book, and which drove me to buy this book from Amazon.com after failing to find it in several bookstores.
In this book, Schlosser has very interestingly told the story of evolution of American fast food industry and everything else associated to it. Startling the uninitiated, facts keep rolling out page after page while the author assesses the social, economic and emotional impact of current or recent practices in the food industry. Touching every aspect of the fast food revolution, the book skillfully relates the inhuman practices in slaughter houses and rendering shops to policy making over the last several decades.
The author uses real stories of ranchers and potato growers in the USA and elsewhere to make his point about how industry consolidation has impacted smaller 'farmers' and how discouragement of unionisation and deskilling of food-processing has led to the sorry state of workers involved. From there the writer goes on to illustrate the link between deskilled processes using unskilled immigrant labour and the spread of food risks from unhygenic ground meat. Schlosser also touches upon the challenges and risks posed by use of animal protein to feed poultry and cattle. In the 2004 reprint version that I read, more content has been added acknowledging the impending threat of 'mad cow' disease or BSE.
Some sections on how fast food is flavoured and colored provide insight into the huge yet less known industry that synthetic and 'natural' flavouring has become. Trivias such as those about what goes into the likes of Dannon Strawberry yogurt (almost a staple to me at the time of writing the draft) are especially suprising. These sections also provide light moments to the reader, even if it is disturbing to know that the term 'natural flavours' does not really mean that.
Schlosser also examines the international proliferation of American fast food giants, notably KFC and McDonalds and the impact of their practices on local economies and cultures. The lure and influence of fast food and pop-culture is exemplified in the episodes recounting the establishment of McDonalds in different countries. One of the qoutes by Den Fujita, the billionare who brought Mcdonald's to Japan is quite memorable and encompasses in it adoration, blind or otherwise, and the aspirational value of fast food in developed and developing countries alike.
Coming back to the qoute at the beginning of this passage- Schlosser raises the evergreen question about the role played by indutry leaders in shaping the ethics of doing business. The clout of giants makes them easy influencers on shaping of accepted processes and human resource policies.
Whether the power weilded by companies like McDonalds will be put to enhancing only the company bottomline or also be used for betterment of industry workers at large is something that only time will tell, Schlosser concludes.
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