'ASIR'

Like the School, Like the FB !!

2011-10-06T01:25:00.003+05:30

I’ve learnt in last 2 years that Facebook is like a school.

The first reason is that all the lessons go over your head. More often than not an average student like I am completes a session confused ki aaj ka lesson tha kya !!

Secondly, like exams in school are never straightforward so also communications of some in FB are always shades of grey. Only God knows why their communications continue to be like puzzles which only the creator can phrase and interpret.

Thirdly, as teachers come uninvited (from the perspective of a poor student like I have been) one by one in a class, unknown people send friend request on FB and then assume role of preachers- and sermon in cohesion/ succession, completely unwarrantedly. I know this is a tricky point because education is important in life, but with communication style as mentioned above, the lessons are all lost in waste.

Lastly, teachers in schools and bin bulaye friends on FB believe in adopting violent means for teaching pupils ‘a lesson or two’. And more often than not when one finds some furious aggressors, one may be completely unaware as to what was the cause of their hostility.

Maths on/ and FB

Have you ever noticed that in a subject like Maths, where most of the problems revolve around finding ‘x’s’ and ‘y’s’, finding that ‘Ex’ does not exist is not the tough nut to crack; it is the ‘why’ that remains the non-solvable part- both in school and in FB.

For example, if x assumes the value x, and x (still) = gloomy faced then finding ‘y’ is the complication; since the value ‘x’ assumes is by its own making, a smiling happy face should not be too much to hope for; or is it? But when that does not happen, you only end up searching y, y, y?

Besides Algebra, FB user also has a fondness for statistics. Messages like, 97.48% users will not post it on their wall, but if you care for Cancer patients- post it on your wall, are offensive. Firstly, these are no genuine statistics and by evening the same person would have put the same statistics for another disease and/ or something totally unconnected. Secondly, these are non-sensitive comments of non-serious people towards the disease, those who are suffering from the same and those working for the cure. Thirdly, such smart @$$&$ try to do some sort of a psychometric test for their fun which is disrespectful to those who genuinely want to support the cause and respond to their posts.

However, while there are a lot of similarities between school and FB, there is also a large difference in the school environment with respect to the FB. While in schools most of the time there is a discipline and code of ethics, the same is absolutely missing in FB. And if you recall, a lot of issues got settled during the recess time in school, the same option is not available on the FB :)

But despite all the handicaps, schools and FB are good social networking institutions. What says you?

Change of Station

2011-10-01T22:18:00.006+05:30

I lost all the numbers in my mobile phone along with the phone, once I shifted from Delhi to Kolkata. And my favourite pastime sending SMSs has become more difficult under the changing Government policies.

Now in case, if you are a friend with whom I couldn't talk, while you didn't care to, I can safely say "Looooong Time"

Just to add, if you are doing well and are so happy about it, I am really very happy to hear that; and that comes from the depth of my heart.

And in case if you are not so happy, I am rather sad for two reasons: firstly, that you are sad and secondly, that you did not share if with me.

And so life goes on !!

I'll be in Kolkata during the Durga Puja since a small kid, my junior in service, has happily transferred his protocol related charge to me for these 10 days and left for this long vacation. Happy Durga Puja, May Gods and Goddesses Bless All !!

Memoirs of a lost World

2011-03-10T23:04:00.002+05:30

In the morning he woke up by the call of the door bell and sound of someone knocking on the door. He opened the door and found one of the home guards standing along with two boys, one 15-16 years of age and the other around 12 years of age.
‘Saar, I didn’t want to disturb you’, said the homeguard.
‘Ok, but you probably did’, Amit replied.
‘Saar, these boys use to sell milk to Mr Goswami’s phamily’, the guard said.
The boys smiled proudly in a sense of achievement.
‘Ok, then you can continue to sell milk to me also. But what is the rate?’ Amit asked.
‘Sir, Rs 16 a kg’, the elder boy replied.
‘You think I will believe it. You are charging too high’, Amit asked, ‘Sell it at Rs 12 a kg and I will buy it or I will get the packet milk’.
‘Saar, we buy milk at 13 Rs a kgfrom our uncle. And Goswami Sahib used to pay that much only. He didn’t raise the rate even once in last three years. Our uncle gets Rs 14 a kg in the market and the quality of that milk is not as good as we have to supply to the SDO Sahib’, the elder boy gave all his trade secrets innocently.
‘Then I will pay you Rs 14 a kg and nothing more’, Amit said.
‘Sir, my uncle has declined giving milk at Rs 13 a kg any further. Please pay us more otherwise I will lose everything’, the little kid was almost in tears.
‘Ok, tell me honestly, how much you will have to pay your uncle’, Amit said in a stern voice.
'Sir, Rs 14 a kg’, the younger kid replied for the first time.
‘Ok, then I will pay you Rs 15 a kg’, Amit replied.
‘Saar, just think we have to come all this far from that village in the rains. Our slippers get spoilt faster than the money we will save in one month’, the elder one argued.
‘No! You make Rs 30 a month from one house. I will buy a litre of milk every day. At your age I didn’t make that much money. And I hope you study after the morning work’, Amit asked.
‘Yes Sir, but the master rarely comes to the school. We do go to school to play. But how can you drink 1 kg milk alone. How many people are you?’, the smaller kid expressed his concern.
‘’Well I am alone. But if you give good quality milk, I can buy more’, Amit replied.
‘The previous SDO’s family used to buy half a kg of milk for all of them and this Sahib will buy 1 kg milk’, the smaller boy asked the elder boy in disbelief.
‘Don’t waste my time. I will buy more milk if it is good. And I don’t eat fish so I have to drink more milk’, Amit tried to quell his doubts.
‘How can you have your lunch without fish?’ the younger boy was becoming more suspicious of the credentials of the animal he was talking to.
‘Let’s go! Let’s go!’ The elder boy said, ‘Sir, please see that you raise the rate of milk to Rs 16 after one month. You can check that I will bring the best quality milk’,
‘Let me see first and I will measure the quantity of milk myself. I have a measuring litre in the kitchen’, Amit threatened.
‘Throw us out if you get a gram less’, the younger one said taking up the challenge.
Amit realized he had wasted a lot of time in those discussions. In any case, he had nothing else for the breakfast so he boiled the milk and had a glass of it as he got ready for the office. He had no idea what would await him next.

Memoirs of a Lost World

2011-03-07T00:10:00.001+05:30

‘You didn’t notice SDO Sahib, that Mahato Sahib did not come back because he has been offended by you’, Dutto said in a hush hush tone as if he was discussing some conspiracy.

Amit, however, was amazed as to how he had offended Mr Mahato; they had been just one or two lines of communication between them.

Possibly, if was that disbelief written on the face of Amit that Dutto could read and explained, ‘See, when you called Mr Mahato as Naren Babu, he was very much taken aback. In Government, Officers are always called ‘Sahib’, the clerks are called ‘babu’. You called a Magistrate as Babu, they could make this an issue with their union. I am telling you this because I know that you are new to this place and I love this subdivision, I don’t want any problem to start here immediately after I leave’.

Amit was aghast with those allegations. He hardly had any intention to offend anyone. But Dutto’s input seemed well intentioned.

Amit was feeling disturbed by that incident. It almost looked as if he had intentionally hurt an old gentleman who had suffered terrible loss of respect by being called a ‘Babu’. All this while Amit had believed that Babu was used to show respect for others; as it looked almost worthless to continue further, Amit decided to take a small round of the building.

Mahato’s room was two rooms next to SDO chamber in an adjoining corridor facing SDO’s chamber,

Amit knocked at the door of Mahato’s chamber. The gentleman looked a bit surprised, and then beamed up after a moment, and said ‘Sir, sir, please come! What may I offer you- tea or coffee?’

‘Mahato Sahib, I thought we would be starting for that visit to the Training Centre’, Amit said trying to make the person feel happy by the use of word ‘Sahib’, just in case if he had some apprehensions by the usage of word ‘Babu’ for him.

‘Sir, sir, I just got delayed for my lunch and these people are here for a hearing in land dispute’, he said, ‘Sir, I will check with Mrs Chakraborty if she is ready to take us to the Literacy Training Centre. As you know sir, these centres are hardly functional, she might have to make some arrangements for your visit’, he said cursorily as he dialed some number of the extension phone.

They had some discussion and then Mahato remarked, ‘All the arrangements are made, she is just coming’.

The lady was already there by then from her adjacent room.

‘Sir, I just got delayed. I had to pull the trainees and trainers out of their residence’, she said with a sense of achievement.

Memoirs of a lost world

2011-01-02T12:10:00.004+05:30

The driver had slowed down the car in front of a two storey building, which stood in isolation after a U turn from the main road. However, there was a lot of green around the place and a large part of the building remained hidden behind that. The building was not a huge one, it almost resembled a large house instead of a guest house from outside and the “good caretakers” were taking all the time of the world to open the main gate.

Having received no response to the honking of the horn, the Nariz got down from the car and opened the front gate and the car slowly crawled on the semicircular path between the entrance and the exit gates.

A sleepy looking creature opened the door of the house as Amit entered the drawing room along with the Nazir and car driver.

‘Bishu, saub theek aachhe to?’ Nazir asked the caretaker if everything was fine.

‘Ghaar kaun taa diyecho Sahib ke?’ was the next question as to which room had been allotted to Amit.

The caretaker told that it was room number 3 on the first floor. The next room was allotted to a Secretary who was to come in the evening.

The Nazir was all praise for the building, ‘Sir, this building was to be the residence of the CEO, but he did not come to stay here। So it is used as a guest house- newly built, all new furniture, gates and fittings in perfect shape, neat and clean mirrors…….’

The building almost fitted the bill, but something was missing. That was for sure but somehow Amit could not catch it, so he asked, ‘Why did the CEO not come to stay here?’

‘Sir, this is a lonely haunted place, CEO is a phamily man and so he did not come here. There is no shop in the vicinity, no store; you don’t even get fish and vegetables here. Hardly anyone stays here so there is no functional kitchen in this building’, he informed.

The middle aged man with his teeth all red and decayed by chewing tobacco smiled pleasantly in anticipation of what impact ‘no functional kitchen’ would have on Amit, who preferred to stay quite since he was not sure what impact that would have on him.

As the care taker served the tea to Amit, he murmured in Amit’s ear, ‘Sir, Please tell the Nazir babu to get the dinner sent here as there is no hotel or transport around this place. At night it is even scary to go out’.

That was worrisome, so Amit asked ‘Nazir Babu, how do the guests get the meals here?’

‘Sir, this boy Bishu is very hard working. He will get you whatever you ask him- meals, snacks, bisleri, wine’, Nazir Babu again gave a naughty smile, for he had forsaken any task which could have come his way while Bishu looked in despair towards Amit.

Scribbling on a Lazy Saturday Night !!!

2010-12-05T03:06:00.004+05:30

Slept till late hours in the morning . That was the beginning of a much pleasant weekend after spending last one in Office.

With the Corp filing figures’ surpassing last year’s by over 2 lakhs in the Peak Filing months of Oct and Nov, we’ve had a perfect filing spread over these two months which is a great satisfaction.

More importantly, the Project team is great and we have just delivered a perfect text book performance with the system- and the figures justify that. Everyone is gung-ho that nothing untoward happened as in the last 3 years and all the previous filing records have been shattered.

It was a physically exhausting period though, and that is more to do with daily driving and metro travel accounting for over 3 hours a day. Sometimes I worry about the driving part- I believe in safe driving but hate it most when someone breaks the rules and tries to speed past me when I am not in a good mood. A car from the stable of ‘Mustang’ makers and a mad man behind the steering is a terrible combination, unluckily in recent times which has been a routine.

In between, I also suffered from high temperatures and viral fever which resulted in my father land in Gurgaon and I was packed back to home in Agra for a couple of days. Stumbled across an old batch booklet and noticed someone toasting a right turn; sadly we can’t carry the track on the left and people there with us in time, after having taken a right turn.

Also made a small resolution to self (Jan is only a month away) - will not spend as much time on Facebook; and have also started following it.

It was good to see so much happiness come in last few months in life of some of the people I have known- their bundles of joy, their houses, their cars and their better halves.

Professionally, another great project proposal is being worked upon at the very top level and I am making my bit of contribution- keeping fingers crossed and mouth shut at the moment. At least one half of my life is in a picture perfect condition.

Regarding the other half, am learning from others’ actions (Too stubborn to learn from my own). There is a point of time in life when someone else is all yours to lose and often people do manage to achieve that. Sitting beside a storm, only some voices get heard; maybe you are lucky !!!

Memoirs of a Lost World

2010-01-19T01:31:00.003+05:30

The interval in the school was over. That is as low a point in a day in School, as any other.

But that day, it was worse! The reasons being, firstly, the Recitation examination was lined up in the next class and secondly, in an unfriendly bout with the rival group, Amit had lost one of the buttons of his shirt, and the shirt was more brown than white now.

People were coming and reciting any one poem out of the three selected for the exam. Amit was fervently trying to learn the smallest poem as the exam continued. His Sir Name had many advantages, to appear last for reciting the poem - as per the alphabetical order- was one of them.

Boys will be Boys!!! Even the person who used to come first in the class was miserable in reciting the poem. English poems were a torture for most, as their vocabulary in that language was THREE strong- a yes, a no and third their own name (which was language "insensitive", we noticed).

We hated girls on the Recitation day; somehow they managed to learn poems too well.

That Recitation Exam day was no different. Little boys were running here and there for protection, which did not exist, until the roll number proceeded and their name was called. However, they were all lucky in a way that the teacher was not asking them to recite the longest poem- a full one pager, until the tragedy fell from the hell.

A young lady had walked down the aisle to the teachers table. She held her palms together at her chest height, bowed before the teacher and before a stunned class started reciting the longest poem. The poem only stopped when the last word had been spoken, without a single error and then she completed the poem with an AMEN.

The entire class was zapped, one full poem!!!! One full poem and AN EXTRA WORD! AN EXTRA WORD, where the hell did she get to read that extra word????

All the little boys were shattered. Their worst fears had come true. The teacher had a mighty praise showered on that girl and then she started asking her other class 3 kids to recite that voluminous poem.

The girl who had completed that poem was a permanent heart burn for the gang of boys. She had also been made the class monitor for one day, just one day. The reason was that the teacher had got too suspicious that the class that made most noise in the school was hers. She had been arguing with the other class teachers that her class monitors, Mr Aziz, one Mr innocent and One Mr Kolhi were the best of all monitors.

We on our part had one of the three of us peep out religiously- out of the class door, and alert the class as soon as the teacher appeared on the turn of the corridor and the thunders would die down immediately. But the teacher decided that it was time she also tried three young ladies for the job.

Somehow, with my limited experience, I have a feeling that the girls have a strong desire to set the things in order and in discipline at the word go. Our new monitor had been too excited at her role and right after the first period of the day when the class awaited the next teacher, she had threatened someone to sit down as he had stood up settling his books.

The poor guy was not even talking and so could not realize that the warnings hurled were directed at him. The monitor had then angrily hurled the wooded blackboard duster at the boy, who being a good player of our team had nimbly shifted aside. The speeding missile had hurt someone else’s head, bounced from there and shattered one of the classroom window panes.

The boy who had ducked was all smiles and stories as to how he had seen hundred enemy horses coming and killed them all. The guy who was hurt and bleeding was cool and calm for the obvious reason that he had a story line and evidences and witnesses to produce before his mother that he didn’t deserve another bashing at home for being punished in the school.

And of all the people on earth, who was crying and raising the sky on her head?? The monitor!! Two neglected boys were comforted by their few team members, ‘well done buddies’ as the whole class saw a yelling young lady being cajoled by half a dozen teachers.

Three monitors lost their first job within hours of acquiring it.

But a Recitation Exam is not a place to take revenge!!! What if eight years from then you would be able to mug up the whole Julius Ceasar and our Hinglish vocabulary would still be three strong, a ‘yes’, a ‘no’ and our name. But we would still deserve mercy and respect! And for sure hitting a man below the belt is unethical.

The boys were hurt, emotionally hurt. One Long poem recited correctly, folded hands, a bow and ONE EXTRA word, it is almost blasphemy.

Amit had lost all hope that day. He had, on that rare occasion, even given up hope of being able to learn a couple of paragraphs of the smallest poem to manage a 4 or 5 out of ten.

That day, his roll number had finally come. The teacher had also given him a choice to recite ‘ANY’ poem, but the colour of his shirt and the missing button had diverted her attention.

‘Ye kisne kiya’, she had asked.

‘Us kutte ne’, the student had eagerly replied pointing to someone, expecting some justice from the teacher.

The teacher had just slapped ‘DO futte’ at his bottom and asked him to go and sit back on his chair and speak no further (Lucky Naa) .

The boys were confused as to what had gone wrong for their friend to deserve those ‘Do futte’. But they were intelligent boys, so they had concluded that it was clear that the teacher was Mommy of that ‘&*%’ who had broken the shirt button otherwise why should she beat Amit instead of her own son.

They were so happy with that discovery. If your biggest enemy has your class teacher as his mom, how miserable his life would be.

So they had decided, they were all winners at the end of the day!!!

Gwalior visit

2010-01-01T23:32:00.016+05:30

From Jai Vilas Palace

Sun Temple Gwalior

What should someone who is outstation and travelling 20 days in a month do when he gets a 3 days break for Christmas?

I think he should travel some more. Hence, this vist to Gwalior and a few photographs from there.

The Archeology Museum in Mriganayani's Palace

Buddhist and Jain Rock cut caves in the hill

Gujari Rani (Mrignayani) Palace and fort above.

Man Singh met Mriganayani (his ninth wife) in a hunting expedition, where she saved his life. One of the terms of the marriage from the lady was that she would drink water from her forest river only. A canal was dug till the foot hill and hence her palace here while the main fort is visible at the hill top.

View of Gujari Rani's Palace from the Fort above.

Open Air Hall in Man Singh Palace.

The Pillars behind had oil lamps lit for the night, the screens had hundreds of glasses stuck and so the place would brighten up due to reflections in the night.

Music Hall (8 Screens above for 8 Queens)

Man Singh Palace

From Jai Vilas Palace

From Jai Vilas Palace

Rani Laxmibai's Samadhi

Tomb of Gaus Mohammad

Tomb of Tansen

One has to visit the Gwalior Fort and the ruins that lie therein with a learned guide to feel the pulsation and vigor of the love story of Man Singh with his ninth wife, the rustic ‘Mriga Nayani” who had killed a wild buffalo to save a stranger who happened to be the king.

Love, War, Jauhar- It’s all written there in these buildings, which themselves are in a most undesirable state of preservation under the ASI.

Despite being only about 120 kms from Agra, I had not been to Gwalior city before. I discovered it to be a must visit place with its beautiful buildings and sad stories around those.

Rebuilding the structures

2009-11-16T01:50:00.003+05:30

There was a new arrival in their Colony and also in their team. But he was irritating at times. He could never stop comparing Amit with some Sikandara from his previous place, Nai Ki Mandi.

He plays Cricket like you, so also foot ball, and also Badminton………. And also ……..

These issues need to get sorted out fast. A match got fixed and the teams clashed. Sikandara was valiant on the football field but he lost as a leader. He was the only good player in his team and they got slaughtered in no time.

His team got added to the list of the defeated teams that included boys from the refugee Colony, the teams next to the big field (which were perennial competitors to get the central pitch of the field), team from the back rows in the colony, team from the double storey quarters and so on.

One of the team was difficult to beat. They lived close to the police lines; they played as reserves to the training policemen and had bigger boys on their roll. That football match was played over 90 % in Amit’s half. The Center forward was playing in the defence, just to stop that flood gate to open on their goal post. They ran and ran like dogs in the first half and were down 1-2. The second half would have been a massacre.

But there were two saving graces. First, two teams had only one watch, and the person from Amit’s team who had the watch was also the extra player they had, so he was made the unwilling referee. Second, the opponent’s 10 men were in Amit’s half- each realizing an opportunity to become a hero by shooting into the goal. Even 10 men in Amit’s team were defending the goal, the eleventh standing in front of the rival goal- too tired to run back to defend his goal post.

OK that should be an off-side, but if the referee is yours and too busy in your half- the match moves on. In a span of three to four minutes, the football was kicked full blooded from the defending side to the other side and twice, the dead man kicked the ball and beat the goalie both times.

The referee was smart and soon blew the final whistle. The loosing team kept complaining that the second half was too short but who cares, the match was won. The winning team kept lying all over the field, too happy and too exhausted to walk back.

Growing boys, atleast some of them, are like warriors. They want to increase their territory, their area of dominance. When the leader of the other area gets beaten, the whole team surrenders. If their best can’t fight they can’t even stand.

But that was a different age when boys got worried, if they read that Bruce Lee had strong muscles when he was 12 and wondered if 14 years is too late to be not that strong. So they doubled their pushups.

Though some people grow up planning to be all conquering emperors, their teachers would blandly disagree, “His bother getting into IIT is fine. But him!!!! Hmmm………….Every child is different!!!”

But accidents occur in life. Amit never realized how he got the third rank in School in Board- a decent recognition. He changed his school as he did not take registration fee and then everything changed.

But, that desire to expand the dominance keeps burning. People may get into the civil services, just with the belief that they would fight everything wrong and change the systems. They could take a strange job in a B-School, believing they would build a new corporate empire where their friends could join them.

But time teaches the futility of the desire to grow beyond reach. It takes time to realize that it is not their fault if they couldn’t make an empire; this is a different age, a different time. No more when 14 years old were taken as kings- for a 5,000 strong city town to become part of history- because they were the best or atleast good.

But the lost years do teach a lot. The value of a vacation spent with parents in hill station during the summer vacations, which never came back in mighty offices and positions. And the immeasurable wealth of being close together as a family during the festivals; of having someone next to you when you are unwell, sad, lonely or disheartened. One gets to start loathing the fights fought all alone, for things no more important.

And then having already walked a long way on that road one could feel it just worthwhile to search for a true friend and nothing else; someone who could be close in every moment of life. One who could plan a track for the next summers, someone who could discuss the rhyme of the next lines in the poem, or prepare a new album of the stamps and coins collected over years, or prepare a cup of hot coffee on a winter evening as they watch the lights in the city from the balcony while the light music plays, or maybe even help focus the star correctly in the telescope.

For no money can buy joy as much, no conquest could be as powerful. Only experience tells what to fight for and what to let go; and when the horizon of action tries to touch the sky and when it tries to fit in a small home.

A Long One but Blame it on the Rains

2009-08-31T01:13:00.003+05:30

Wonder if someone questions you about the merit of the decision to pursue a course in a B School. Will you feel hurt? Terribly disappointed to hear it from ‘that’ person and decide to change the course itself.

Blame it on emotions or that particular rainy afternoon. Some people get too emotional about small things. No wonder that ends up changing their life quite a bit- because outcomes of Rainy days are never known. But for good or for bad- rains are special.

As a kid I remember reaching the school on a rainy day with barely 5-6 of my classmates present. It was such a sad feeling, the school was not declared closed on the rainy day. I remember, I had ran out of the rear gate of our school, bluffing Peter who used to guard it, shouting “Mera Tiffin rikshe pe rah gaya! Mera Tiffin rikshe pe rah gaya!” As if I was going to get my Tiffin back.

‘Hurrah!’ Full six hours of roaming around the streets in a torn raincoat, which prevents your identification and creating one of the most relished days of your life.

Some people have this travelling bug in their horoscope, some say ‘Chakra on the feet’. Mine is such.

I remember having once accompanied my elder brother to ‘Nai ki Mandi’, to buy some vegetables. I was about two years old and still a liberated soul. This area of Agra is the first (and the worst) to get affected in communal riots. We had to buy vegetables from shops right at the entrance of the market and the reward was a kite we had bought from the adjoining shop.

As true and responsible siblings would do, I was warned never to go beyond in that market.

Everything had been fine until one day, ‘Nitu Ki Dadi’ saw me, may be a two and a quarter year old- all on his own- buying kite from the “Ustaad Patang Wala” - a kite shop in the most interior and dreaded area of that market. One would need to cross numerous crowded crossings and innumerable lanes to reach there, over two and a half kilometers from home.

While the old lady had kindly ‘escorted’ a ‘small’ kid ‘safely’ to his home, what could a weeping mom say? I used to take permission to buy kite from the shop in front of our house :). At that point of time Mom used to co-author text books for Agra University with Papa, giving good opportunity to me to escape her attention.

Her getting the job of a lecturer in the university and the follow up admission of mine in the School had occurred as a chain of events soon after.

In the kindergarten, when I was still amongst the shorter kids, I remember having taken a ‘knife’ to the school to impress the girl who sat next that I was also a grown up. As not expected, the young lady had informed the teacher about it. ‘Bechara Romeo pita to koi baat nahin’, the teacher had also confiscated the knife.

It could only be recovered after the teacher realized that this student of hers will not let her go back home after the school was over without taking his knife back. That knife, forever used as a paper cutter by Papa, still occupies its respectable place on dad’s reading table.

Moral of the story is- This event had also occurred on a rainy day :)

It was class one when I had run away from the school on the rainy day. And why from school alone?

In those days, during the rainy season with the falling of first drop of rain from the heavens, the city electricity would go off creating a black out (Generators and Invertors were not common then).

As ‘wise’ the elder kids normally are, in our family too, they had managed to let the lit candle fall on the newly purchased dining table, got an edge of the table burnt and merrily blamed it on me.

In the follow up of events a class one kid was rescued by his father far off from the house on a pitch dark rainy night, surrounded by a lot of angry street dogs, as he was leaving that house ‘forever’ for being wrongly blamed for damaging the table.

I wonder what could have happened had not Papa heard a lot of barking dogs that night from one direction and rightly thought I could be with my best buddies.

In class first, I had scored a “perfect zero” in “Recitation” in the first term exam. The second term recitation exam was even better; the nun was naming one poem after the other if I knew how to recite those.

Recite those??? I had never heard of those. And then the poor teacher had asked if I remembered any poem on earth. I had responded happily that I had learnt one of the poems from the first term because during the first term examination she had told me that she would make me recite the same poem again in the half yearly exams.

With the combined effort of the teacher and the pupil, the poem was completed and the student was given 6 marks out of 10.

Teachers are magicians; they can draw rabbits out of hats. Atleast I was never sure if I would come first in the class or flunk in half a dozen of subjects. Ok, you got it ......... I was ever so inconsistent.

But first time I had hit the Jackpot was in Class Two, first term exam and I had got second rank in the class.

I was the only one in the class who was collecting his report card himself and had to wait till the time my parents came from college and pick me up, so I had luxury of time to ‘flaunt’ my achievement to every newcomer. And that too happened to be a rainy day, so in a way I was trapped in the school.

The boy who had come first had committed a tactical blunder of sitting next to one Mr Aziz (who was bossing around there), by far the richest person in the class, and also the most ancient sculpture of class II. The Mom of the first ranker was also there and was more than keen to welcome every mother that entered the class and enquire how well her child had performed.

In the situation so generated and the cocktail that thus got prepared, every mom and her child that entered would run away from that boisterous lady. All the duty bound moms would desperately look for some ‘bright’ student who could help their child, so that she could get them to shake hands and seek atonement.

In the unfolding events someone conducted massive recruitments in his ‘TEAM’ and by the end of which half of the team of Mr Aziz had been shifted to a new team. And all this was taking place ‘officially’ under the supervision of the mothers of the new recruits.

No doubt the recruitment was about 50% of the class size. Mr Aziz was phenomenally rich; he used all imported stationary and was known for his generosity, he could organize large Ice cream treats. Obviously, the fairer sex did not shift loyalties.

All big things in life happen on rainy days. The team formed that day was to rock the school for the years to come.

Memoirs of a lost world

2009-08-16T17:50:00.002+05:30

It is raining heavily in Gurgaon.

Had it been in Agra and 10 years back, in such conditions in the Hindu calender month of 'Shravan' or 'Saawan' we would travel to Mathura, some beautiful song playing in the car, to see some of the temples, to roam around in those “Kunj Galis”, to eat some of the best prepared milk sweets along with the Samosas, then to get geared to start for Vrindavan, visit the temples there, have lunch under some tree, watch monkeys play around you, the elder ones waiting patiently for their share of food while the impatient younger ones unable to resist the aroma would sit on your lap and eat from your hand, they are gods and we would all love that, then couple of people would prefer to lie down under the tree for a nap while some would prefer the car seats, papa would walk down some alley to meet some of his old friend, one need not walk more than a few steps to reach the destination in a 2 sq km town, two kids- one boy wearing a loose knickers and un-tucked shirt and one girl wearing a frock with the torn lower frill touching the ground- will run down the road from that house holding a tray each with glasses of lemon water, they would communicate in a threatening tone how upset their grandmother/ mother is that you are sitting in a temple complex and not in their drawing room, by then papa would come with his friend, his face telling all that he has been given a nice scolding by his bhabhi, his friend would explain that he would not get his dinner if we would not go to his house, we would all talk and happily walk to his home, we would happily observe papa being scolded by his bhabhi like a small boy ‘lallu bahut bada ho gaya hai jo ghar nahin aayega’ and see him stand with his head held down, you know after your grandparents were not there the distant bhabhis had taken care of your then small papa as mother, and part of the ritual of a Vrindavan visit is that papa wants to get scolded by his senior friends because he knows the value of having elders to scold you, because they will not always be there, and these visits and getting scolded are counter intuitive and are also meant to assure the elder people that we are there and they need not worry, that the small orphan boy whom they helped grow up has his children grown up and they have got into the biggest jobs of this country, all the hard work of the friends and seniors has paid rich dividend, the dog in the house would have done all the tricks by then to flatter you, rolling on the ground, trying to catch his tail and running away with one of the shoes just to tell you that he is happy that you are there and he wants to play with you, grown up dogs are very similar to grown up men, they are very much like boys, they will never grow up and would always be like the best pal they were as a pup, he would take you to meet his best friend- the old cow standing in one corner of that house and she has a beautiful name too, then two three or four families would walk towards the ‘Banke Bihari Ji’ wishing every one along the road ‘Radhe Radhe’ and in the next hour or so everyone would be lost with Krishna in one of the most awakened temple, then the shopping spree would start, from the latest framed pictures from ISKON of the child Krishna or the Radha Krishna, of the smallest pocket copy of Hanuman Chalisa, or a new publication from Motilal Banarasi das on palmistry, and after the farewell we would start back, and time permitting one could stop at some old bawdi, or at the Siva temple remains on the back of Yamuna or at Sikandra- Akbar’s Mausoleum, you would pray that the railway crossing should be down and the car gets to stop at the road side pakori shop there- this shop is more than two hundred year shop with no brick structure, just a small shop on the road side which prepares what could be the cleanest, freshest and purest pakori- just amazing , and finally we would be back home, each excited by his day’s purchases and they never disappointed.

I wonder how much I have lost in last ten years, the insecurity and hard work that one generation puts in earning an honest living transmits to the next one. We went for making what was the most easily earned thing on earth- MONEY. What we seemed to have lost in the bargain are much more valuable- more difficult to find and acquire- true friends, true relationships, trust, faith, honesty, time and values- on which a happy life could easily be build.

There could be no balancing act, atleast I failed: ‘Kabhi kisi ko mukkammal jahaan nahin milta’.
Or as I always tell myself, I can take a lot of U-turns successfully and make up for the lost. One day, I will be back in my own world.

Nomads on the Road- 3

2009-07-19T23:46:00.001+05:30

I just completed another tour covering a couple of states.

I had to spend a night at the Mumbai Airport because of a late night flight reaching from Bangalore and early morning connecting flight to Nagpur. This airport is less clumsy now than it was a few years ago when I had missed my flight from Mumbai to Ahmadabad. But every visit to Mumbai is special, because it reminds me of the good old IIT days and one of my most memorable stay in any one city in India.

I wish I could write about some of the old memories about Mumbai, from the Year 1996, when I had come from IIT Delhi as a summer trainee for duration of three months. The Mumbai rains and the football matches in the Hostel Lawns (mud fields flooded with water) are still fresh in the memory. And so is the ORKAY mill, once a rival to Reliance and which was possibly in the last year of its existence when I had received my training there.

The thoughts of the first job offer that I had received, during the last days of my training, still create a sensation. Obviously the job was not from ORKAY that it should be so memorable to me but it was on behalf of some BHAI in Dubai. Now, if that sounds interesting, the real story would be even more interesting. For years I have been thinking to write it sometime, but have desisted for the fear of few people believing it.

Bombay or Mumbai, is the place one has to be- to succeed in life. Though I am not so gung ho about working in Mumbai now, a small win in the west this time means I could be travelling to Maharashtra more often.

And as the horoscope says that it is the time to see the results of the efforts of past few months, so shall one wait and see.

Nomads on the Road- 2

2009-06-28T20:43:00.002+05:30

It is a small world and a big one too.

Last time when I had come to Bihar that was in 1999 and when our team of probationers from LBSNAA had arrived, we were welcomed by a huge contingent of helpers, care takers, guides and Nazirs.

This time around, it was different. As I parted with the other team members, who were to go back after a presentation- I had to search for a hotel for accommodation. Being economical in these times is not a compulsion but definitely a better idea. And if one has to go to the next lane, hiring a taxi is not the best idea.

The age old rickshaws, which took me to school right from half a year in nursery till a quarter of class seventh- when I shifted to bicycling- looked so curious and attractive with all that stuff of providing some easy earning to a poor man.

This long gap of time, since then, only occurred when I sat on the rickshaw. The relative size of that vehicle was still the same in my mind for all these years; something where two rows of kids were seated facing each other- one on the seat and the other on the wooden plank and had luxurious space to fight, play, scream and pass years of innocence and joy.

This time around when the knees touched the rickshaw pullers seat, the reality of time struck and shattered the fixed images of the past. But it was beautiful and I tried to hire that conveyance as often as I could.

Then a visit to Ranchi followed. I could not agree more to it now what was told by my senior; this job is extremely entrepreneurial (unlike the highly glamorous image associated with it).

After having worked till late night to prepare some documents, I had to get some 600 plus prints taken in colour and B/W, get 4 hard copies bound and seal the docs and had to submit them before the prescribed time. At every stage and having done each step, I had to explore a new market and had very little time before submission of docs.

And then the hotel staff gave ugly looks when I asked for a taxi. Small cities still don’t have a large enough demand for such ‘luxuries’ and so business doesn’t develop around that. On a summer afternoon, it became a torture to search for an auto or taxi and all the efforts seemed to be going down the drain.

I had to go to an office which was clearly out of the main town and considered as ‘very far’ by the local definition. While it was certain that I would be delayed on a shared Tempo, I asked the driver of one of the tempos which had just completed one way of its circuit, if I could hire his full auto for my own use. After the customary bargain on the rates, which either side does for the fun they derive out of it and hardly for the value, the deal was made.

The Tempo became the Ferrari and the driver became its chauffer, clearing pleased with the deal he had just completed and he started racing the vehicle on the narrow Ranchi roads against the private cars. It raced and crossed the stands with the regular commuters waving to stop the vehicle and the driver determined to tell everyone around, ‘People this is a Ferrari’.

Finally the document got submitted on time and then those feelings of relief; almost tons of load off the head!! After a couple of days of stay in Ranchi, I started for Kolkata; making it six stations in six days.

Do I like this? Definitely I don’t mind this. For a Gemini, travel means the ether in excited state- the way they are, the way they prefer it.

But for certain I look forward to the shift to Gurgaon now. Last time, I had to start before the search for a house could begin. But being close to Delhi, I need badly, and I look forward to it. After all, it is a small world to travel around, but it is still a big world and one wants to be close to his roots at some point of time.

Since Graduation Day

2009-05-04T01:07:00.005+05:30

This is neither the Calendar year closing nor the Financial Year closing but amidst discussions, blogs and elsewhere some of us have been discussing the ‘year gone by’ around this time. Just to clarify, the reference point is our graduation from ISB.

In general, one year is a good time for introspection of one’s progress or the lack of it; I also want to discuss my last one year because, I know, I have left a few things unexplained for some.

But that needs a background, for like everyone else I too had gone to ISB with so many dreams. But in the first sem itself to see some 400 students work together over a weekend to crack a take home ‘quiz’ was shocking. Only the courses and the ‘experts’ changed over the whole year but the approach was mostly the same. When most people scored 120 on 120, with all my efforts I managed 114 or 116, spoiling the otherwise “class average” of 120.

I remember during the first week of our joining in IIT Delhi in 1993, someone had asked what percentage of marks I would have scored in JEE. I had guessed ‘around 35%’ and the senior- a JEE 10 types- had politely told that my rank would have been better in that case. An eye opener of an incident which I would never forget all my life; getting 35% is not easy in life! In Civil Services Exam, we knew one had to touch 50-55% marks to reach the end of the world, The Limit! And I had breached some of those limits.

I remember in IIMA, the top ranker of IITK Computer Science department struggling for an hour to find the head or tail of a Finance case. The solution of the same case was being exchanged on mails (courtesy last year’s available solution), one year later in ISB the day the case was given by the Prof. And again people scored 100% without understanding a single line of the case.

Battles were fought and won in Quads, in unofficial sub groups where hard work of one of the group mate was bartered and bargained with other groups, without the information of the author of the solution.

All my communications on such issues had fallen in deaf ears of people riding a ‘market high’. And this was the background where we had entered our graduation ceremony, almost a year back, disillusioned and dying to bid adieu.

Why a Hospital Group instead of real estate or consulting, then? Real estate, honestly speaking, I was worried after hearing prophesies in the Real Estate course in the last term at ISB. And no doubt, the bubble in the housing prices was evident even at a cursory look. And best still, someone in the PlaCom did not let the appointment letter reach me.

Consulting, due to my background in Government was a natural choice at the start of the year. But unfortunately, as the time proceeded, it was becoming more of sycophantic exercise led by a year or two old consultants rather than a matured interaction driven by senior people. For people with one to two years of experience, may be, that was a fair selection process. I badly wanted some of them to succeed and was wary of my developed apathy influencing their case preparations. So I had to quietly back off, may be making people wonder ‘what happened to him, yesterday he seemed to be OK’.

I would say, going back to the Government was probably the best option but that doesn’t make one “And Very Rich!!!”

Sadly we live in a world where honesty, integrity and commitment are low on priorities of most people.

At the end of the day in ISB, I believe I was lucky to manage a few respectable opportunities; yet some of the most deserving people were not in the place they deserved. In joining the Hospital Group, I saw a silver lining that if I managed to create the company as I had been recruited for, I would be able to make my own team of best people in six months or so. A dream that I wanted to keep to myself, at that point of time.

The deal: For a thousand crore investment, to keep the interest liabilities low, the deal was split in two halves. In the 500 crore, first half, equity would be a third and remaining debt, both at same rate of interest at 10%, an amazing rate for a pure real estate project in Healthcare. Remember, some of the top I-banks collapsed in a couple of months and the interest rate shot to 25-30%. But even when the deal was being worked out, the writing was clear on the wall and experts in Finance were advising to not delay it even by a day- if the offer was there. And the offer came.

The investor wanted some contribution of equity from the ongoing firm, however nominal. They had offered a five crore investment in the existing business, as a share, which could be reinvested by the existing partners in the new venture as equity. This would have done less than a percent of dilution in the present business; so even that protection was ensured.

Just 1 signature would have created a business beginning with a 500 crore, with about 65% ownership of a middle sized hospital group and the rest of the largest Indian investment bank of sorts. Five hospitals would have been created in a year and rest over the next three years. The interest was low and repayment terms lenient, but someone believed that the rate of interest was high and it should be offered at LIBOR-------

That never happened and the deal failed. It is good that Doctors don’t understand finance or someone would have a lifetime to repent. People there and I still share respect for each other, only they took a long time to realize what I was telling them.

Since then and with the unfolding of the financial crises across the globe, this was a year of revelation. The bright and jazzy world of corporate has been much humbled. From the top man to the last one in any organization, everyone seems to be protecting his existence.

A visit to ISB during the Solstice was sad and we didn't want to see the current batch shaken and confused. They had so much to ask for as they welcomed the warriors on a home return, but we had nothing to offer. A mostly bare field welcomed a small band, quite a contrast to the Indian Ocean and our cocky batch, which crowded even the stage.

The bloated salary figures have been busted in a years’ time. The economy has blasted quite a bit of our arrogance too. I know what some of my friends would be going through during this recession, considering I had myself taken a big risk of changing the job when the financing deal for the hospital project did not move at expected pace.

Considering there is a lot of noise and confusion in how we interpret each others’ communication, we over or under react at times. I might have faced a number of over reactions in this year, I might have appeared behaving unreasonably to someone but I am sure one soon realizes his or her folly.

But this year also augured well for some people. They say, now a 2 BHK house would cost 15- 20 L and 3 BHK house would cost 25- 30 L, so housing would be affordable. Blind competition driving an unsustainable consumerism would decline. Even honest officers would be able to buy their own car now, welcome Nano! A perfect match for small cities, it seems very cute and I doubt if in this market people would be enjoying the installments for the large cars. So please don’t smile with contempt on mention of Nano, if you believe it is for poor people. I believe it is a car for an honest family.

Amidst these major woes and minor smiles, things seem to be in a state of flux now as we wait for the dust to settle down and a clear picture to emerge.

Any timelines? You know the best :-).

Nomads on the Road

2009-02-28T23:36:00.003+05:30

Shifting gears to the Industry and some thought leadership conferences.

I travelled through six states in last month and got to attend three Conferences- First in Hyderabad on e Health in India. Some of the subject leaders were participating and I also got an opportunity to address the gathering.

Healthcare IT in India, as I have seen, is more than the latest Technology. It has to do with change management (no cliché) especially in Government sector as the institutions are moving towards large changes being superimposed on much different and firmly entrenched system. May be the published report will carry my article as well.

Then I got to participate in the 12th National e gov summit in Goa as a delegate.

I found Goa much different from my expectation, slow and laid back. But it still is a beautiful world as per its reputation. There were so many tourists- there were younger people and there were retired ones.

It was wonderful to see older people- relaxed and friendly- having gone through the ups and downs of their lives, anchoring and steadying each other at that age.

There were also many young couples, tensed and anxious while celebrating the Valentine Day on Goa beaches, most of who looked like school or hostel runaways on a short stolen vacation. I wonder what life has in store for them and if these adventures would steady their lives in the long run. I belong to the conservative school of thought; one has to pitch in for lifelong relations, warmth and trust come with time. Mean and feeble footed passion with no assured security is risky.

Coming back to the Conference, it feels good that I know atleast as much as most experts know and on wider range of subjects. These conferences turn out to be home return as I often get to meet old colleagues from the Government. Feels nice to see them scream, ‘Oye! Tu yahaan bhi aa gaya’

For them I remain one amongst the kids of the batch who had spent more time horse riding, reading the mysteries of life in the lines on others’ palms and matching horoscopes of eligible couples in the batch. Then the Mussourie Days come back to life and the obvious query if it was palmistry for real or merely passing long hours holding palms of beautiful young ladies in the name of palmistry.

Some tragicomic secrets are better kept for life.

Then the next obvious topic comes up invariably, “You SINGLE!!! Unbelievable!!!” And the regular choice resurfaces with disbelief, ‘Still reading palms and people queued outside your room!!!! Are you still that lucky!!! ?’

“Nahin yaar, I stopped reading palms after Mussourie. It is painful. May be just one last palm after that and that too with stolen glances”, one has to explain.

“OK”, and then the regular culprits for the unexpected delay come up, “Heart broken by a treacherous woman :-), Spoilsports parents, community, cadre, distant stations or jobs and so on”.

But what can one say; life is so magically mystical even for the mystics! One never knows if it is none of the above or all of the above, for there never ever was any problem but still things went the way they are.

And then the 5 points agenda your friends want to support you on- Newspaper Ad, Website Ad, getting you join a Gym, Jogging in the morning and them selecting the best prospect amongst all within next 15 days.

And the evenings after the day long series of lectures, passed with such wonderful friends on deserted private Goa beach around a bonfire remembering the years of life that had flown away in moments.

Goa was followed up with an invitation to visit Delhi to participate in a round table conference. This conference with some international stalwarts, leaders from the world donor agencies, some CXO rank officials and some senior officials was again on leveraging IT to deliver Healthcare in India. Participating in the round table conference with people who are on the core team of Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer and sharing your opinion is damn exciting and self motivating. Hoping to attend more of these and making a big impact one day.

But till then, it means a lot of hard work and pain of not been able to read Ghalib, missing photographing the wild life, missing a date with searching history of the lost races, not being able to trek anymore in Laddakh and Uttarakhand, missing the memoirs that had a promise of being published one day and also not being able to blog regularly.

Wish somewhere someone understands !!.

A Pilgrimage

2009-02-22T00:07:00.005+05:30

It is over a month since I got this break to jot down something for this blog, even though I have been checking some of my favourite blogs without fail and cursing myself for my nonstop hopping schedule.
So what I did all this while is something I definitely want to write. The First stop, the non official one! Just ran away from office one Saturday (office anyway was off), took the bus to Tirupati and then called someone.
“Boss, I will be in your jurisdiction, if you can help organize the Darshan of the Lord, God Bless- even otherwise I am going ahead”, I said.
And then the things did fell in place- the Grandeur of the Laal batti :-) , chauffeur driven car and orderlies to welcome you is mesmerizing. I do miss it for sure, but that is part of life. I believe I am not doing too badly either.
Once I reached the temple and the security area for documentation, the video of the pilgrims being rushed in the main shrine- in fraction of seconds- was intimidating.
“Lord! they say one reaches here only if you want him to. Let me have a glance of yours”, I prayed, I begged.
Once the paper work was done I started and reached closer to the main shrine through some vacant corridors. No Dhakka Mukki and I escaped Police Lathi too (Seriously, now I fear that the most).
Then I waited in the neighbouring Rang Mandap for the morning Pooja to get over. The mandap was built by Ranganath Yadav Nayak (of Mysore kingdom probably) to my surprise. The beautiful Golden Sheshanaag was right there in front of me and then I was asked to come to the main temple.
It was a humbling experience! as I was the only person in the sanctum sanctorum, besides the high priests and even they asked me to sit next to the statue of the lord. For so many moments I sat there stunned and wondering if I was really that lucky and where were the thousands of VIPs at those moments that visit the temple.
I tried to capture every minute details of the statue in my memory forever. Then shivering I came out and the journey down the hill began. I thanked my friend for the visit and he explained that he had to arrange so many visits each day and it was my good luck if I had a pleasant visit.
The office staffs were still staring at me in disbelief (scared possibly, as even I was) for they had been doing this duty for ages and rarely had anyone been in the temple alone for so long as they said.
I think and rethink and want to believe the best; may be the Lord had stopped the flow of other pilgrims while I was there.

Hope is the word

2009-01-14T19:23:00.001+05:30

Year 2009 is already 14 days old, and the New Year seem to be not much different from the last. I would say that the mayhem continues, if it was the year of the Finance and Real Estate (Debacle) last year than 2009 seems to be touching other sectors as well already.
Messy people in power are trying to brush aside their major failures on international front by creating internal fiasco as well.
But still hope is always the best bet.
Today, Sun moved from the Sagittarius to Capricorn (according to the Indian horoscope), so let’s believe that could help. Happy ‘Makarsankranti’ as well; hope we all enjoyed flying kites today, if there was not much else to do. Happy Pongal! Happy Lohri! See, there are so many reasons to be ‘happy’ on a single day in India.
Looking beyond the smaller boundaries- may be Obama would do something, when he enters his office, that could help the world economy.
Whatever or whatever else! Hope, for the good to come next, should be there. So, blogging should continue :) and wishing a belated Happy New Year to all. Happy watching ‘Gajini’ or whichever the latest movie is released.

Memoirs of a lost world

2008-12-31T22:48:00.005+05:30

There was no truck visible on the road for over an hour. The office staffs knew what had happened! They were aged clerks who had come all the way to the check post, 11 pm at night and 30 km from city, to issue the receipts of Motor Vehicle Tax collection.

The Officer in Charge of the local Police Station was sitting on the front on his jeep, obviously disrespectfully to the ADM, smoking like ‘Rajnikant’.

Someone murmured, ‘Sir, police has passed the message about the raid to the trucks and dhaba owners along the road’

‘I know’, Amit replied in disgust and asked everyone to get back on the vehicles, ‘We will move ahead of the check post to the state border’ he said.

Everyone understood that the decision was to go to the place where the ### check posts had been blown away in bomb blasts a few months back and Naxals often attacked the Government vehicles.

After a few kilometers, the trucks started becoming visible, locked and parked on two sides of the road. The drivers would be having their late night entertainment in the neighbouring villages, as the official quest to reach the revenue target continued. Soon the Sal forest area started along the road. Here, there was no truck, no habitation, no light, only dense forests on two sides and sounds of crickets.

‘This area cannot have mobile telephone network’, Amit thought.

One of the jeeps was stopped in the middle of the road to block the passage. All the other vehicles were parked along the side, all lights off.

Soon lights of mobile vehicles appeared from a distance. They gradually came closer until the first Truck stopped slowly next to the jeep with over 8-10 trucks behind it; late night they invariably travel in convoys. The driver was trying to stare in the dark to see if it was an accident. The whole team, of babus and amins and the police men collected from the District Head quarter surrounded the trucks. The truck drivers tried to assess, who those people could be. Whether their convoy had more men or the unexpected raiders outnumbered them.

‘Police, Police’, one of the Babus shouted to inform that it was ‘Government’.
The Motor Vehicle Inspectors started confiscating the documents so they could be checked at the check post. A simple, may be not legal, way to get the documents inspected as legally they never stop at the check post. They just fly off. One of the drivers refused to surrender the documents and bolted the door from inside. It was obvious that he would incur a fine above 50 thousand or he wouldn’t contest like that.

‘Desi tactics’ were adopted, the glass window was broken with a stone and the driver pulled out after unlocking the door. He came out reluctantly, raising a ‘humkara’ or a war cry. That meant a call to the other drivers to come out armed.

‘Teri *&^ $$ ’, almost everyone in the team responded with a louder shout. People knew that it was no more a Motor Vehicle inspection. It was a war and one had to fight to survive.

The talwaar that the driver was carrying was snatched, many people held him and he was bashed immediately and overpowered to send the message right.

The trucks behind were still in confusion due to the darkness of the forest, as to what was happening. It meant that the trucks’ continued to come on the road and their column was building up. The Government team hurriedly moved ahead confiscating the documents of as many trucks as possible.

After sometime Amit turned back, he realized that the lights of the first truck which was stopped appeared really far off now.

No more risk. His team was getting scattered in ones and twos on each of the trucks. They were certainly less in number now.

There was immediate call in local language to fall back with whatever documents they had collected. It served the purpose as the trucks were from North India and they couldn’t understand the local language. People started returning back with the documents collected. The driver of the first truck was made to sit in the police jeep just as a ‘ransom’, so that the other trucks also follow.

Each vehicle was asked to count every head they had come with. One doesn’t want a dead body of a Government employee to be recovered from the forest next day.

Gradually, the forests reduced. The only risk left now was once the vehicles cross the region of hundreds of trucks parked en route to the check post. What if they stopped Government vehicles? Trucks on long routes are invariably armed.

Hooters of all the vehicles were turned on along with the Red Lights for whichever vehicle had it to give an impression that it was the convoy of Defense Minister of Mars.

Slowly that area was also crossed with confused onlookers contemplating whether to attack Government vehicles or to allow them to go. The hooter of three- four vehicles is loud enough to create suspicion in anyone’s mind. They had no clue that the clerks from the Collectorate were sitting in the vehicles.

Raid got over. All vehicles were back. Head count was done once again. Everyone was back.

The OC of the PS was still sitting on the front of his jeep. He looked utterly shocked.

Now even ‘his’ own men were not under his control. The Sepoys were hugging each other. They were enthralled, damn excited, shivering in the cold as they shook hands with the clerks and car drivers. For some time, there was no line department there was only one victorious army and the tension was refusing to die.

The drivers of the vehicles with documents just confiscated had started to come and were depositing fines. Someone had started preparing tea in one corner of the ‘official and authorized’ checkpost.

Total revenue collection was Rs 6 lakhs plus for that raid.

To count 50!

2008-12-31T19:28:00.001+05:30

I’ve come so far this year, 47 mails till yesterday, despite many of the mails which were posted at some point of time having been removed for various reasons.

Somehow, an idea struck that why should I not try to reach the half century. Though time is less for 3 more mails, it is worth a trail and why not? This being 1 of them.

The past year 2008 was not an ordinary year to almost everyone who was here in this small world of ours.

We saw the world order changing, quite a bit, with over weighted systems cracking down under their own weight. We saw traditions in Finance and Business overwhelmed by the tide of time, after more than a generation had gone by believing that the world stood on those pillars.

There was fear, there was anger, there was disgust, and there was hatred while there were also some rays of hope for some of us. And amidst all this chaos- which forcefully dissected our lives and left an impression that will last for years, if not till the time we live- there were we trying to protect some space for ourselves.

In this year of turmoil, as individuals, we were- or atleast I was- trying to pull the threads of our lives in one place and put the particles of dust in place, to be, the islands that we are supposed to be.

I wish and hope that in the New Year, our world moves for a better tomorrow. Hope there is clarity in our minds, hope the fear in our mind does not force us to hit at the hand that comes ahead to help us. May God bless us.

3 decades later

2008-12-26T23:20:00.003+05:30

In the week just gone, he had completed his third trial to get across the main gate of his house by climbing its top to go out and buy a kite. Second trial was a grand success while the first and third were disasters. From the top he had landed heads down and bled badly.

That day the small kid was standing next to the entrance door of his house as he waved to his friends. It was the month of December, year 1978, and he was to join the school of his elder brother from next day.

His mother was very happy; the news of admission of the kid in a reputed school had just been communicated by his dad. His elder brother always stood first in his class in same school. That had paved the way for the admission of the younger sibling; otherwise, admission during the mid session in a convent school is impossible!

‘They admit children older than 4 years only during the regular session itself, so I had to …………’, his father was expressing hesitatingly.

But that had been happening in all the schools they had tried for admission, so it was understood. This urgency had come up only recently as the mother of the child had been appointed a lecturer in the university and had to join immediately.

They knew that the kid was a bit (just a bit) naughty and if both parents worked in university, leaving him alone at home, it could mean more problems. So the admission meant a safe home for the kid.

But the first day in school for the kid was not so good. The Aaya had taken him to the first seat in the class; he was so small for the size of other kids in the class. But other kids are possessive of their belongings, all the fronts seats were occupied for six months now. He had been driven away from the first seats to second row, from there to third and finally to the last row of three empty seats.

He had walked to a see-saw, designed like a boat, on the side of the class and wept nonstop.

That was clear cheating. He always had cried when bhaiya and didi went to school on their rickshaws. He wanted to accompany them on the rickshaw. But bhaiya had dropped him here, at the door of this class and disappeared!!!!!!!!!!

‘Bhaiyaaaaaa…….’, he cried; the more he thought of his elder brother, the more inconsolable he was. Where is his brother? Why are they not sitting together when he had come all the way with his brother? It seemed, his brother had left him there forever and forgotten him forever.

He wanted to go back to home. But the Aaya was trying to get him off the see-saw and get him back to his seat. Everyone in the class was laughing.

For some time everyone croaked something behind the teacher, he didn’t know what? He had again burst into tears and everyone had again laughed at him.

Finally the class of the smallest kids in the school had got over.

The second day in the school was better, there was a PT class and the class had gone to a playground. Each kid knew his place in the queue as they walked holding the shoulder of the kid in front. Since the last kid did not like a smaller kid to hold him from the back, he declined to forego his coveted last position in the row.

So be it! Be it! He had walked all alone as a jealous class had watched him.

As the teacher missed him all together, while the class was made to sit in one place in circles, he played around the entire field. He played with bigger boys and girls of other classes, who were allowed to play on their own. What was even better his brother was there with all his friends. And as usual, slightly elder girls started behaving grand-motherly to the young kid.

‘Ye bhi apni class mein first aata hai kya?’ and ‘Ye khata kya hai?’ were two memorable questions.

But that half an hour was too short and the classes had fallen in their queues to start for their classrooms leaving the smallest kid decked at the highest slide in the ground (and sadly being noticed by his teacher also).

He was asked to slowly slide down, then there was ‘Chooha bhaag billi aayyi’ played between the kid and the class teacher which the teacher lost and so she finally resorted to violence. As the chooha was being mauled by an angry cat, he had happily bitten her arm to escape her claws.

It seems all the young teachers are fascinated by bandits and dacoits, even that class teacher was! She had proclaimed that the kid would ‘Bada hoke Daaku banega’.

Leaders are born!!!! They are never made!!!. That day an undisputed leader was discovered by Class Nursery D of St. Francis Convent School, Wazirpura Agra. People look forward to their leaders; for all the schooling years to follow his class looked backwards, towards the last seat of the class, with respect and reverence.

That day his ‘bhaiya’ had been called back from his class to get his younger brother back to the Nursery class, since the teacher and staff had failed to lure him back into the trap. Bhaiya had borrowed money from his two friends to buy two candies for his younger brother.

Next day parents were summoned. They had simply lied that their son was not spoilt and that he would not become a ‘Daaku’.

The story almost ends here. The records that got the kid admission in school never changed. He became a Daaku, almost! But, he would never have become what he could, had he not been asked to compete with bigger kids and better them. There is joy hidden in the biggest pains in life, you only need to have an eye to search for it.

Amidst Cold Deserts

2008-12-14T02:30:00.004+05:30

I’ve travelled to almost 20 plus states in India and may be more than 80 districts. While almost every place has its own unique characteristics, there is one place which I feel the word unique can’t describe.

The place is a cold desert, where we had travelled from the bordering state. They say that the other route from the state capital is very picturesque but it was considered unsafe. We could have taken a flight, but for the experience of life- shear luck- hadn’t.

As one leaves the lush green hills of the bordering state the vegetation gradually becomes sparse. And so does the habitation and population. And then those tracts begin amidst high and barren mountains, sandy in colour but rocky in constitution. Innumerable small temples like structure seem to guard the route (located in strange and far off points on the hills). I don’t know what they mean! Remembering some God, some beloved or something else? And then gradually even those disappear and so do the thousands of flags around some forlorn monasteries.

For hours one travels in emptiness and monotony, almost barred and banished of all actions in life. A casual look outside the window to see the unbounded depth below could send chill down the spine. It feels as if one has moved far away from the earth to an unforeseen land, may be the heavens, but with all its habitants having being disbanded to some other land already.

As a belief sets in that the cold barren sandy mountains are forever, one might cross over a small bridge interlinking the passage across the mountains with a deep valley beneath.

When the Purple night begins to set, the habitation and shelter remain undiscovered. Under a Purple sky, millions of silent stars mourn some silent secret buried within their heart, with chilling cold in the air- a few tents of ITBP could be the last hope. ‘Not here but there, boulders roll down from heights around this place’, someone might say as you carry your shivering body ahead.

Next morning, the voyage upward continues to a distant land and at times one might feel that this unending journey is the only reality of life, in this or the next world. The hustle and bustle of the world- the illusions of life of the mortals- one leaves behind and begins to forget. The hollowness and emptiness of one’s soul, this journey personifies.

And then a rare sight of a yak, the last living thing left on the earth after the Day of Judgment or a pair of horse playing with the soul mate and trying to recreate the world, oblivious of anything in their territory, triggers a ray of hope- there is life beyond.

In the journey one could halt at a monastery; the architecture, the material of construction, the collection of the sacred scriptures- everything is a curious difference in itself but without the exception of solitude and dreariness. But what is more striking on the expedition is whatever few faces one crosses are without an inkling of expression.

Was I there? Am I visible? Or am I a soul already- a ghost invisible. The absence of life and abundance of fears unknown- of death or God or nature or the enemy whosoever wiped out life of those tracts and in whose reverence those stone faced bodies bend innumerable times- one begins to feel its omnipotence.

One reaches the highest of all the high passes, with black stone hilly tract in the adjacent areas and the contrasting white lime formation, which is desolate as everything else. It could remind of the pieces of white and the pieces of black in our soul, in its solitary existence.

But at some point in eternity, the action would restart somewhere- a few more vehicles, a few more monasteries and an unknown person rolling those cylinders with their magical chants engraved. Or to break the spell, to wake you from the eternal sleep- a resonation deep sound of some instrument would come. What would still draw your attention is that even that haunting sound touches some corner of your heart- still dormant and unexplored.

And every bare hall of the palaces once adorned would remind you of the ephemeral nature of youth, wealth, power, lust, greed and arrogance. Of wars that took place, of sabotages that occurred and of the era bygone; of our momentary lives and our eternal struggles; of fleeting opportunities and our ever continuing blunders; our seemingly misplaced belief of unwavering occupation and the truthful emptiness of everything that surrounds us and within.

One could also bring a few lapis lazuli, or Iranian Turquoise, some curios of yak bones, a few metal wares, some glimpses of nature’s beauty- pristine but sad.

One could also return richer in wisdom if one learns how solitary the soul is in its long journey. At some moment the realization strikes and sinks in that the life is short and physical and worldly gratifications transient. There is something beyond the outward attractions, some ‘gunas’ or skills, something which takes us closer to our inner self, our soul. And there are interactions, beyond physical, where that ‘guna tatva’ meets its expectation and a ‘wow/ really brilliant’ impact is felt.

There is no harm in appreciating that, there is no infidelity in that, no shame either. Because that is when a soul is interacting with another soul, the way it interacts with nature and may be unison could be longer- one never knows because that is unexplored.

We might then unknowingly be exploring ‘life’ amidst our existence in the ‘cold deserts’; our soul may be attempting to build relations which 'we' could not.

The Things that are happening

2008-12-07T00:44:00.003+05:30

(i) SEA Shores were ever so porous- There was a coolie who used to work on a dock yard. With assistance of an upcoming politician, he smuggled some textile machines that produced cloth at speed 10 times faster than the existing machines. Since the import duties were about 500% then, buying and importing the new machines was almost impossible. Both the smuggler (industrialist thereafter) and the politician became icons in their fields.
In the times of increasing corruption at the top levels, paupers became kings in no time and there were so many of them.
However, old habits die hard. From land, to electricity, to water, to security, to roads, they still looked towards the Government for everything while their Accountants worked over time to dodge the taxation agencies. They and their children thus became amongst the richest people in the world while the average (honest) Indians slogged to make a decent living (and many a times for them). The channels of media, feeding on their money, provided precious place to them covering invariably every alternate day a new ‘riches’ rankings.

(ii) This elite gang of neo riches gambled in Las Vegas, lived in London, vacationed in Bahamas, shopped in Paris and F%^*ed in Seychelles (ok sorry, just had business meetings and networking with models), but until one day when fate caught on them at the ‘Taj’.

Then, the ‘conscience of the nation’ was “beaten” to come to life through ‘their’ media and for a change some men in khaki were treated like martyrs and got the respect they deserved (they did deserve it but so did their other brethren who were dying every day in mine explosions in Jharkhand or Chhattisgarh but for whom not a single tear was ever shed).

It was evident that people ‘who mattered’ were panicking as they saw and heard of death of people ‘they’ knew. Death had never been so close. For if it had happened to one of them, it could also happen to anyone of them.

For first time, they saw from close what was happening to the people working in the Naxal affected districts for poll duties or for imposing law and order- for years running now.

In contrast, for years the elite had been unscathed as they didn’t travel by train and they didn’t shop in crowded roadside markets. If ever they were forced to buy something in India, Taj and its luxury branded shops was the place! You know!

But once the incidents happened in the Mumbai Landmarks, the news paper columns were being filled, page after page and page after page.

(iii) That was a strange country. The batch of brightest of the bright people, some 50 people now, had an average salary of Rs 24,000 per month after 9 years of service. They ‘were’ the cream of a nation and their head- at the peak of his career (or verge of retirement)- had recently been valued at a salary worth Rs 100,000 per month which was less than the least salary amongst the new joiners in the corporate world- a batch of 425 from a renowned B-School.

To be blatantly honest- the batch of 425 of ‘would be corporate leaders’ had not a single JEE 100 types (leave aside single digit rank holders) and had never cleared a Prelims or a CAT. Yet they had an average salary of Rs 160,000 per month.

It was indeed good that at least some people in the country were prospering but what was a cause of concern was the high pitch groans that the industry had produced when the Cabinet Secretary of India had been proposed a salary of Rs 100,000 per month.

Group loyalties are obvious.

While ‘the young ones’ in the corporate were doing their bit of service after the Mumbai mayhem, from lighting candles to shooting angry mails against the red tape and bureaucratic hurdles- one should be informed that inhuman pay package to the best in the country is like a cosmetic face chopping the limbs, the heart and the head in the body. It is outrageous and outright stupid. A corrupt bureaucrat suits a bloody politician, it doesn’t suit a Nation.

(iv) Every coin has two sides. The fear is genuine that the act of ten mad men could motivate so many more brainless fellows like them, and the situation may aggravate in the days to come.
But the other side is also true, the crises is of our own making. The policeman is still armed with lathi! If 1 man in 10,000 has a bullet proof vest, it is a third class one; something similar to the Night Vision Device on the LoC in Kashmir.

Though the choice is still open to us.

We sang laurels for Privatization when the revenue earning departments were snatched from the Government. Now from the money made, business houses sitting on piles of dollars should dole out some and privatize the internal security of the country (or atleast within their organizations). It will generate new jobs, and provide better trained staff armed with better equipments.

My feeling, however worthless, is that this is high time that the industry (where the money is) takes some responsibility. The amount spent in one evening on an individual in a cocktail party at Taj could buy a good weapon for a policeman. One ‘Corporate strategy and brain storming session’ for 1 head in Goa, can buy a good bullet proof jacket or a night vision device for people whom we call for to lay their lives for us. (The other option is to spend that money on the marriage of the daughter of CEO.)

Benefits should not stop at the advocate of beneficence; it should also trickle down to the person next in the line.

Governments today are stark naked of resources to even pay the salaries of the left over employees, clearly internal security is beyond their agenda. Raising the issue of spending resources on the security of politicians is like entering into an infinite loop, because as the masters of the present system- they cannot be expected to finish themselves (however worthless they may be though). We have to work on implementable solutions.

(v) But are the people really bothered (or just smartly led into some fit of anger and made to believe they matter when they don't)? Or this hue and cry is intelligently being created by some politicians and their business partners as an occasion to settle some old scores?

STRANGE COINCIDENCE! The first head that rolled was of the person who was a long term target of the people who pump their money (and make many times more) in running dance bars (and in all the ‘legal’ businesses done from thereof).

But these are unending debates, you know as well as I know. Unless some sincere steps are taken (beyond the superficial ones) chances are high that the story of lapses might become so common that there will be few viewers interested to see the live telecasts in days to come.

Or maybe you and I are like the rats dancing to the tune of a Pied Piper, we shiver with fury when they play some music, we shiver with remorse when they play another tune. Who knows? For like you, I am as sad and as disillusioned with the things that are happening.

Some past in the present day

2008-12-05T00:27:00.002+05:30

(i) That was a small batch of 53. It had a IITD Computer Science Grad (JEE 29) and captain of IITD Cricket team, another IITK Computer Science Grad who was captain of TT, Cricket and Badminton teams of his IIT, another IITD Grad who was the captain of the Badminton team, two National Debaters, toppers of one prestigious law school and many more toppers from their departments in IIT’s and JNU and other universities.

The country had taken them for service, from almost 300,000 applicants, at the salary of Rs 8000 per month. There was only one person amongst them with almost no genuine skills, hardly any past accolades, yet even his parents loved him from the depth of their heart.

(ii) During the Army attachment, there was a post on the LoC in Kashmir, where he happened to meet and mix with the jawans, as they laid in the bunkers night after night and see the tracer bullets fly over their head. They played with the ‘Night vision devises’ which showed nothing beyond a few meters while the news was confirmed that the enemy had imported devices that could see for kilometers.

Gradually he began to see how difficult it was to get a leave for any jawan- until the news of passing away of mother of one of them had arrived. The war hardened soldier had broke into tears and cried inconsolably and one saw in him a little kid, 3 to 4 year old, struggling to cope with his memories of that age with the helplessness of today, his duty.

Gradually the soldiers had found one like themselves in him and had confided so many things “We used to get two sets of shoes a year earlier but now only one set is given. (Someone sitting at the top is stealing the other pair of shoes). It is ok when we are on the border but when we go to home; it feels bad to go back in torn shoes”.
He knew that back home people are looked as heroes in their homes and villages.
Just for your information- the jawans were paid Rupees 5000 per month. But most people in Government job in his country don’t live for money, they live for their pride.

Jawans are brave and proud men; they continue in torn shoes on the snow capped mountains for two years and go back to their villages, whenever they get leave, in brand new shoes saved for the occasion. It is more about the pride and prestige of a family! The parents, the wife and the kids can live in pain of separation for two years, but for those 10 days of togetherness, they want everyone to know- they are part of the life of a hero.

(iii) Why only the men on the border alone?

He had been part of the teams where men had to stand on the road, their arms held up signaling to stop the fast approaching speeding truck, to complete the annual revenue quota for the district. This happened as the people in power did not approve mechanical check posts for fleeing trucks that evaded taxes (and became rich in the process) while they happily increased the revenue targets. There were close shaves for some, others were not so lucky. Someone was ran over, some jeeps were hit by the trucks, from the adjoining pond what came out was a mangled vehicle, two wounded men and two dead bodies.
In their country everyone loved festivals, except for the same police constable who people said they saw taking bribe from a tempo wala on the main crossing in the city. The constable did not like festivals because when people celebrated one festival after other in the warmth of their homes, closeness of their near and dear ones. He was asked to do law and order duties- with his lathi- day and night, with no leaves on any festival. From Durga Puja, to Diwali to Id to Christmas to Holi, one thing was permanent- his duty!
The constable was paid Rs 4000 per month in salary in the yet continuing Fifth Pay Commission in most places, Rs 65 worth of an annual increment in salary and yes, Rs 75 worth of festival allowance.
In growing discontent against the system- in state after state, the constables and the officers were being blown away by land mines and police stations were being burnt to ashes.

(iv) None had cared! The space given to them by the news paper- the beacons of national awareness- was less than the news for electrocution of a buffalo or the nth divorce and rth extramarital of some bitchy international celebrity. (Why International alone, a class of neo riches has emerged in India in last ten years who want to beat the world in all standards of perversions. OOOcch…..who am I to preach on morals? We are matured society!!!! Sorry to all! Please carry on with the L%^^ and G^& stuff with the same enthusiasm and fill pages after pages of your semi porn national news papers with that)

Anyway the poor constables and their dead bodies and their widows lost their place from the newspaper, from the national conscience and from my writing. But atleast one is within my control and so I will try to pull it back on track.

We saw the American Centre happen in Kolkata, hapless men fell to the bullets from the best international guns. We read much news, about the explosions in the railway platforms and people dying in burning trains, but nothing happened.

I correct myself, that became a habit and the initial rhetoric declined and people took it as parts of their lives and the Government compensation also declined or disappeared.

(contd.- but you would be disappointed even more)

Memoirs of a lost world...

2008-11-23T11:19:00.002+05:30

He had wanted to have a Rottweiler as his pet. After a long wait the pup had been searched for and bought, though it was still with the Vet who had helped to find a pure pedigree.

However Amit was getting restless that there had been no opportunity to leave the Head Quarter and to go to Kolkata to get his pup to his town, some 800 km from where it was now.

One of his BDO wanted a leave for two days to go to his home and offered to get the pup while coming back. Amit had agreed.

After two days, the BDO and his Sabhapati were coming back from Kolkata and Amit eagerly awaited their arrival. But they were not giving any clear message. ‘Sir, you may return the puppy if you don’t like it’, was what they communicated, nothing less nothing more.

Their jeep had just arrived in the portico and Amit couldn’t resist welcoming the new little friend, though he was anxious if everything was ok or not.

The Sabhapati and the BDO got down from the jeep without the pup. They were smiling awkwardly.

‘Where is the pup?’ Amit was anxious.

‘Gadi te Aache, Saaar’, the Sabhapati replied. He was an old man, still very active though. He had more officers like capabilities than like that of a politician. He had participated in activities ranging from ‘Road widening drive to Pulse Polio drive to an assumed magisterial duty during law and order incident involving multiple rounds of firing.

This should not happen one would say but in that block office who is the BDO and who is the Sabhapati was difficult to say as they sat on same side of the table, stayed in the same house and had same approach to life.

As Amit tried to search around the seat if the pup was there, the Sabhapati giggled, ‘Saar, driverer seater niche theke takaachhe’, pointing to a small pup peeping from beneath the driver’s seat.

That was not even close to a Rottweiler!!! Amit had felt so disappointed

But!!! ……………. Amit noticed there were two of them. From behind the first hairy and grayish pup, a jet black face was also peeping, its nose visible clearly.

As Amit moved forward, the nose disappeared while the hairy pup wagged his long tail.

As Amit tired to gently lift the pup, the pup gave a jump in the air interpreting the support as a go ahead for the jump.

Amit almost had a heart attack to see the height from the ground and the stupidity of the pup, it would have hurt itself. But it was a brave pup, which delighted Amit.

The reaction was spontaneous, ‘woooshhhh……., and caught in the air, the little fellow!’

‘Ettaa ki! Amit shouted at the BDO explaining his disappointment that there was no Rottweiler.

‘Saar, o kukur ke kaun-o Major niye geyeche. Daactaar ke taaka-o daay ni’, BDO explained that someone from Army had taken the Rott and had not even paid for it.

The pup was tumbling as it tried to straighten its legs on the ground and Amit tried to support it.

The BDO was cajoling, ‘Saar, aapni chinta korben naa. Aamraa firut feliye aasbo kukur ke. Ek poisha-o deete hobe naa. Daaktar ke aage he boliye asechi. Saahib ke bhalo naa laagle firut neete hobe’

Amit understood what might have happened. The smart BDO and his friend Sabhapati must have thought that Amit would not be able to differentiate between the breeds and they would wash off their hand by delivering anything non sense.

But the expression on the face of Amit said all, so the Sabhapati tried to do the damage control. ‘Saar, aar ek ti kukur aache gaadi te………. Kaalo ti! ………….Dekhun, otaa bhaalo laagte pare. Ekdum baachha aachhe, ek maas o hoye ni’.

Amit was upset. But still had to drag out the other fat pup who was trying to hide itself under the seat; a typical habit of the young pups, until they become confident of the outside world.

Unlike the other pup which was barely one and a half kilogram, this so called younger pup was very heavy and Amit could hardly support the fat tummy on his palm and placed the pup on the ground.

The BDO took out a box of dog biscuits. ‘Sir, eta phree diyeche daaktar’.

Some milk was poured in a pan and some biscuits were mixed to that. Even by the time the hairy pup could realize that the food was meant to be eaten, the fat black pup had gulped it all in not more than 5 seconds. That inflated its tummy like a balloon.

The hairy pup didn’t mind it but he wanted to play. When the other pup was done with the supper, he tried to catch the thick neck in his mouth and gave two jerks to his head left and right in an attempt to break the neck of the fat pup.

THAT!!! There it was, trying to assess if the ‘hunt’ was dead. A very pure bred German Shepherd!

And then- gradually- raising the head arrogantly tall over the shoulder and a sleek sloping body, its long tail, more than half the body length gracefully curling towards the ground.

‘It is an Alsatian’, Amit exclaimed, ‘the colour of its coat will change over next few months’.

‘Aar, otaa ki?’ Sabhapati asked excitedly pointing to the other pup.

‘That’s a black Labrador’, Amit knew he couldn’t stay too angry for too long, he had already started feeling proud of his acquisitions.

‘Saar, aamra ki firut diye debo, kukur guli’, BDO asked.

‘Naaaaaa!’ Amit had screamed, ‘Maara jaabe raasta e firut gele. Koto taka laagbe?’ he inquired.

‘Saar, bodor taa paanch haazaar niyeche daaktar aar, chotor daam chau hazaar taaka, Saar aapni kaunta neben?’, BDO asked.

Amit was so confused. Both the pups were so cute.

Since the Rottweiler had been booked for 10 thousand, Amit decided to pay a thousand bucks extra and keep both of them.

BDO couldn’t hide his joy and left.

That evening was so joyous. The Alsatian got friendly within minutes. Somehow he could feel Amit likes him. The Pup passed his evening biting Amit's shoes and slippers. Little pup was too exhausted by the journey, so often it would fell asleep with his face on Amit’s shoes, but there was a fear if it would get hurt sleeping like that. Whenever he would get up he tried to climb on the sofa and up Amit’s lap.

In contrast, the lab was quite aloof; it preferred to sleep in the newspaper shelf of one of the stools.

While watching TV, as Amit started to fall asleep on the sofa of the circuit house, (where he had been housed waiting for his bungalow to get ready), he realized every time he dozed the Alsatian would get up the sofa and try to settle himself around Amit’s neck and shoulder. The pup was possibly missing his family where all of them would have slept cuddled over each other.

And more often than not Amit’s sleep got disturbed when the pup gently started licking Amit’s face and mouth also.

After putting it aside several times and getting woken up with continuous efforts of small feet climbing and slipping down, Amit thought it was time they resolved the matter. He had to explain the pup slowly and assuringly that putting it aside was not meant refusal of its friendship.

‘Ok, baba, friends! But don’t tell anyone that I also kissed your forehead and that I also like you.,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Ok, not just like you- but love you’, Amit had to tell the pup.
A deal was signed between the two that Amit would put half his blanked down the sofa on which the best friend would sleep and he would not disturb Amit in return. They would not talk to the fat lab, who talked to them only when dinner was served and didn’t join for the evening walk or for play.

It was a clear signal for Amit that he would have to change his habits of animal like existence of sleeping on a sofa while watching the TV and will have to shift to his bedroom soon, where the pups wouldn’t climb the bed.

Two Years Too Late- Omkara

2008-11-12T22:26:00.004+05:30

I’m in Bangalore for some days now and pass the evening watching the same movie again and again (having only this one here with me). So I thought about writing something on it, thought it could be a good time passing exercise.

Btw, had watched this movie with IIMA gang in Ahmedabad in the first week of its release. Then, I had wanted some time for myself- a couple of months- so didn't try to keep pace with some expectations. Win some! Lose some! Save two months and lose two years. Nothing seemed to have moved for most people in these two years.

This is not a review here, don't want to be critically reviewed for the same; just that it reminds of some school time friends so I like the movie.

‘Omkara’ is based on the drama ‘Othello’ by Shakespeare. But even if it is- there would rarely be another movie which has captured the beliefs, culture and ethos- of a small area in rural North India- as closely as this one. Excessive use of foul words in the movie might be unacceptable to some; but still, somewhere that is the way of life.

The story begins on the wedding day of the daughter of a reputed lawyer. The ‘bride to be’ elopes with the lead muscleman (Ajay Devgan playing Omkara) of a local gang.

Kareena plays the role of Dolly, the young lady from the small town that sees the man of her dreams in a local don who is brave, daring and destined to rise in power. While her engagement is being imposed upon her she narrates her condition in a love letter to her braveheart

‘Is janam mein to tumhari himmat hogi nahin bas……
so hum hi keh dete hain …………….

Apne katlon ki list mein hamara naam bhi jod lena’; complaining his caring less for her plight.

If anyone could still be restrained- Omkara is not him, and so they elope on day of Dolly's marriage.

The dejected father of the girl warns the don about the age old- ‘Triya charitra’ of women. Here, one who could cheat her father would not hesitate to betray any other man (Omkara).

Saif Ali Khan (named langda Tyagi in the movie) plays the Second-in-Command and the sharp shooter of the Omkara Gang. The position of 'Bahubali' or the head of the group gets vacated as Omkara is selected to stand in the Assembly elections. While for most it is a foregone conclusion that the ever trusted and most deserving Langda tyagi will be the ‘Bahubali’, the coronation ceremony raises a surprise. Omkara crowns a college going novice and half tried ‘Keshu Firangi’ as his successor.

The selection proves to be the turning point of the movie.

Omkara, without his knowledge, has unleashed his most potent weapon, his silent deputy Langda Tyagi, against himself. This, still, is not a war between two ‘Alpha Males’ for superiority. This is a case of blind confidence on one side and of raging hatred on the other- henceforth.

Both Omkara and Keshu play to the guile of Langda hereafter. It takes little time for Tyagi to toy with the weaknesses of Keshu Firangi and make it amply clear to Omkara how raw Keshu was to handle the role of the ‘bahubali’, the broken dream of langda tyagi. He doesn’t stop there and starts poisoning the mind of Omkara regarding the possible relations between Dolly and Keshu.

And amidst this there is innocent Dolly with her one point agenda to impress her man Omkara through her cooking skills or by learning guitar. She has no clues why she is losing Omkara every passing day.

Like any alpha male, Omkara’s insecurity is driven by his belief that he is being considered second to another man, by a woman whom he loves and is planning to marry. This he would not accept or rather would destruct the world if such a world exists.

As langda creates new wedges between Omkara and Dolly, her innocence and charm wins Omkara’s heart back in some instances but for how long could it continue?

The innocently greedy act of Konaka Sen, playing the wife of Langda Tyagi, of stealing a waistband of Dolly acts as the catalyst for langda to cast his plot. Whether in epics or in Omkara, innocent mistakes of women often draw gory battlefields for men.

The divine beauty of Dolly ceases to be sacred for Omkara as his distrust grows. For adrenalin driven male, there is a very fine line- that separates life staking escapades taking a girl amidst her wedding ceremonies and taking life of one’s beloved on the wedding night, if that line is erased.

Omkara moves towards its end with Konkana Sen admitting her act of stealing the waistband. But till then Dolly is dead, murdered by her suspecting husband on her wedding night and destiny of a lot of people has already been written. The story ends with two lead actors and the lead actresses lying dead amidst Machiavellian tricks of langda and fiery temperamental actions of Omkara.

Omkara is a tragic love story of a few brave but insecure males; and the women around their lives. The regional traditions and the ceremonies complete the plot with perfect execution and the photography in the local terrain shows that beautiful films can also be filmed in Indian villages.

The film established Saif Ali Khan in the top league of actors and won many awards and possibly a heart for him. It also separated the men from boys and Vivek Oberoy ended losing despite flexing his muscles as the Bahubali.

The mystic in Gulzaar is back in ‘Nainon ki mat suniyo, naina thag lenge’. The soft and melodious ‘O saathi re, din doobe naa’ reminds of early 70’s while ‘Omkara', 'Bidi Jalai le', 'Jubaan pe laaga' are full of excitement of the 2000’s. There are a few folk songs; those are as good to watch or to listen.

Amongst the female actors, Kareena looks so beautiful that it is difficult to decide if she is acting well or not, Konkana definitely acts wells while Bipasha performs dance steps in quick sequence in her attempt to appear like dancing and does not have much role to play.

Vivek Oberoy disappoints by his role- should have put more fire in it, Ajay Devgun keeps up to his reputation and Saif Ali Khan puts the screen on fire, every time he appears on the screen.

Vishal Bharadwaj has created a master piece.

Wandering amidst Economics, Politics and Memories

2008-11-02T23:26:00.007+05:30

It has been a month since I wrote the last post. There has been a lot of discussion amidst friends and foes if the economic crises would continue. Initially it was about the bailout package and its value etc. Few would have believed its ability to create the magic of multiplier effect that Keynes had suggested. Obvious reason was that the money was not going to the masses. If someone had an article worth Rs10, booked it for a sale of Rs 100 and recovered only Rs 40, he could show it a profit of 30 or a loss of 60.
In a different system, it would have been advisable to ask the management to show a profit of 30 and distribute it accordingly, but not in the Greatlands. People had muscle (and money) power to extract the so called ‘loss’ of 60 from a lame economy. As the losses reflected were more due to greed and less for market factors (my belief, contrary to the picture created)- there was no scope of a multiplier effect and the money must have settled in a few coffers by now.
It reminds me of the hearing episode in the movie- Scent of a woman. In the current case the fattest kid (son of BIG DADDY) in the class, farted in the class, spoiled his trousers and the classroom too. The noble class teacher blamed the Black guy in the class for the rotten smell, spanked his bottom, asked him to clean the class and gave his shorts too to the fat guy. The mockery was diluted through diverting the attention to ON PATH TO WRITING OF A HISTORY saga. I am a disbeliever, would wait to see if the history actually gets created. Anyway a small percentage of the bailout package can be spent to keep the two parties happy.
Having been in Government for a decently long period I have seen the business-politics connection functioning from quite closely and can't resist the temptation to create some illogical and irritating mails, so am continuing with the same.
There were complaining voices from a country about lack of sensitivity of the world to their current crises (unlike the way they had been ‘kind enough’ in case of crises elsewhere in the world). Firstly, a majority of the crises like those in the SE Asia were your own creation, beginning from sudden withdrawal of capital based on internal policy changes. Secondly, the then world geo-politics did not allow you to pass your allies into the lap of the other countries. No other country has been so frantic to treat the world as its backyard and thus need not bother today. Thirdly, there was shear business value for the companies to invest in those places. The progressive response shown by your erstwhile competitor and in SE Asia is a pointer to that.
Today, what value does one get investing in a problem prone area? Firstly, tax payer’s money is being wasted in killing and maiming the world. Secondly, the job which costs 80000 $ in Greatlands costs Rs 4 lakh (nearly 8000$, though with 80% of the fineness of the job) elsewhere. Not many people would like to spend 10 times for a slightly better job done and happily hand over the market profits to a competitor thus. Once you are already non-competitive as a production nation, the intellectual property was the saving grace. But that will require an honest pegging of the salaries to those across the world.
Today, the lack of liquidity is only the result of over 80% finances being trapped with 20 % people who are insecure of the continuation of the party.
I will go back to a morning of the year 1991 when one of cousins of my mother was getting engaged and in a typical Hindu family gathering over 200 people were present and watching the news of pounding of a country by another and the intermittent responses by the 'scuds'. The world was told to believe that it was 'necessary' and a dictator who had atom bomb proof palaces and 50 story mansions under the ground (based on ‘secret intelligence reports’ of the invading country) had been challenged by a hero to prevent the making of some weapons of mass destruction.
An ailing economy and the defense industry had been saved thus (some perpetrators of warfare might have believed then). The same story looked a disgraceful lie when no WMD was ever found, UN and its officials had been disgraced (for being upright) and another war was forced. But this time the results could not revive the economy, and the defense expenditure driven economy flattened as the world could see through- that the news of more countries trying to build WMD was nothing more than trash.
The hero who had actually rebuild that economy was also shown his place when his wife could not get the nomination for the elections to the post he had held. Many things of the past can be reconstructed from the current events. The revival would have been neat and clean, without any illegal profits to any particular group or business. It would have been based on good policies and meticulous execution.
So elections funding for what, if you could not build ‘right’ contacts sitting in a black house? Who cares for your individual brilliance if that is not sellable. Funds are for those who are amenable, who know to bend and stoop and dance to the tunes of the pied pipers. The gossips about ‘matching the stature of JFK’ are stories and media campaigns alone and are meaningless. In reality someone with a bigger stature was rubbished with his wife by the owners of media and money. They have been left in cold to pay their debts.
It is amazing to see how the fate of a woman is interlinked to the man in her life. One may go to the black house if that man is able to take her there or one could be stopped at the door if people don’t want 'him' there again.
I talked of the year 1991 somewhere above. Almost 18 years since then, one span of the RAHU Mahadasha. I never knew what was forcing me to do so when I had walked out from the building of the biggest (and best) school in my hometown for having not carried the registration fee. My father was in Mathura, principal of a PG college and no one else in our home kept money with them. My mother, despite being a professor herself, never kept more than the rickshaw fare with her. It would have been meaningless to ask money from her. I had changed my school for the strangest of reasons.
Later I had learnt some amazing things about my horoscope when I had joined astrology classes while writing the IAS examination. A good student as I was, I passed the testing time with firm resolve. But it has been tiring 18 years and I wish from the depth of my heart for the Rahu Mahadasha to get over (Jan 2009) so that I may move ahead. Waiting for the benefic Jupiter to come in days ahead !!!

दो जातक कथायें

2008-10-01T19:56:00.003+05:30

There is a story that I was told as a kid.

In a village once appeared a Sadhu who said that he could double the Gold coins in one night (if anyone gave them to him) by his powers. Many a gullible villagers trusted the holy man and gave all their savings to him. The Sadhu closed the doors of his hut and started the meditation during the night. The next morning the eager villagers collected before the hut to discover that neither the Sadhu was there nor their money. While some wise men counseled those who had lost money, others rebuked them for their foolishness to believe that money would double like that.

My belief that there is no formula to multiply money other than the hard work continued till I joined my Finance classes. I then discovered that if one does a short, a put, a future, a swap, a forward, a monkey, a few trenches, some formulas and a few excel sheets- THE MONEY GROWS! No hard work, no sweating in the Sun and still the money grows sitting in front of a box. So the Sadhu was back again.

Actually speaking I was never convinced that money could grow just by going through a few formulas. If that were true, the Buas, the mausis and the phoophis in our villages who learn so many Banna, banni, bhajan songs despite being illiterate would have all memorized those formulas and multiplied money. So beyond that I fell asleep in the lecture.

I believed there was always some loophole and Sadhu could not be back. The loophole or the possibility of multiplying money is that, somewhere in the cycle, someone has to generate wealth for others or the money wouldn’t grow.

In pre-independence India, in Bengal there were instances of upto 40 tiers of Zamindars- each subletting his Zamindari to the next for a premium for himself. The wealth there was created by the tiller who produced the grain (converting earth into grain), which could be consumed or sold for profit that everyone else would distribute amongst themselves.

In the present era, the hierarchies were not that long. The interest rates offered were like 2%, 8%, 15%. 25% and 35% while the short, the put, the future, the swap, the trench, the forward, the backward and the monkey and the excel sheet helped each investor to believe that his money would grow. The banker, the venture capitalist, the investment banker and the Private Equity player made their margins through their jugglery and there was massive consumption at all the levels. People rolled in luxury.

So where was the wealth coming from- from the tiller again? Not much different. As shelter would be the second most basic necessity after food for human beings, it is as exploitable one.

The lack of infrastructure and the need of security in haphazardly grown metros force the newcomers to pay massive premium for the housing. That earns ugly profit for the financial wizards for the Bull *&*&, they may sell in whatever name if they are able to sell a few houses.

And wherever this is happening, it is a clear indicator of non performance of the Governments in place in providing even the most fundamental services to its citizens. (I personally believe that safe and secure housing is as fundamental a civil right as the non measurable ones like freedom and equalities)

So no wonder if a calamity has struck somewhere, it is in the rule of the wisest prince that ever ruled that land. While one spends quality time in playing Beat One! Beat All! I Win! Yoyo! Housing, Banking and Economy take a beating. One would wonder if this could have happened in the times of J’s, K’s and L’s.

In one of my postings I had come across a sick PSU which had once received a massive revival grant. Any one having seen such instances would vouch that it is easiest to pilfer when the controls are loosening. So whatever was invested evaporated in thin air.

History repeats itself. People who reaped the harvest of massive pilferage through a power company were from across the countries. Those old and retired investors who lost their pension funds were mostly from within a country. This happened as a proud father made the famous, ‘You are almost like my son’, speech in front of camera.

Like the father, like the son! Sunny wants to handover a fortune to people, who sit on the Roofstreet for causing the rot. Again in a global era, the beneficiaries should be from across the borders. And as the elections are fought on money, even the would be successor and the would be- could not succeed- are also supporting the package.

But for an ailing economy, this could be the last drain of wealth, which could take it to a stage of ‘no return to recovery’. But somewhere some wisdom is left and that is the reason, despite fighting unnecessary wars for the purpose of creating wealth for the multinational oil companies and their well wishers, a country goes on.

There is another story I was told as a young kid which I want to tell, please endure! An old father was very worried about the fate of his four lazy sons when he would die. When his last time came he gave them a mantra, he had hidden a lot of gold somewhere in their fields. When the father died the lazy sons reached the field cursing their late father that why could he not tell where the gold was actually buried.

They searched, they searched and they searched on, till they realized that they had dug all their fields and there was no trace of gold. Grumbling the sons decided that since the fields had already been dug, they should atleast sow some seeds. They threw a few seeds here and a few seeds there and got back to their home blaming their dead father. Then they forgot about the gold thing. In a few months time someone told them their fields had had a bumper crop which was ripe and golden, ready to be harvested. The sons got filthy rich again.

I have one advice to the non existent reader- unless you wish to steal the money, don’t ask for revival packages. You have huge lands and I have buried a lot of gold at seven spots. Now it is up to you to identify them and get rich. Take all the Ceilingstreet fellows with you, to dig the ground along with you, and you will be rich again in four months.

Images

2008-07-12T19:42:00.004+05:30

Friendships, if they are honest, are not a zero sum game; in relations people win or lose in togetherness. Sometimes they have the scope to blame external factors for barriers; at times it is the false pride, lack of self belief or playing extra safe.

A valuable prize is a prize for everyone. People worry about loss and so give up- even without making an attempt worth the prize. Or may be more than the fear of loss, it is the confusion that rules. But nothing may be more pleasant than being on the winning team every time and driving it to success. One spark of commitment amidst conflicting signals could suffice or atleast firmness in belief and actions could help. Most probably, at every step life doesn’t have people who would play spoilsport.

While there is always competition to get a prize, smart people know that lending a shoulder to cry is the easiest way to get the prize because an emotionally disturbed person thinks less, resists lesser. There is another side to it, if one doesn’t succumb to such attempts; there are even more people complaining.

Most often people want to keep the second best option in place. While they work overtime to get the second option right, the first possibility becomes even more distant. But nothing is assured, not even the second hand solutions. Those who went for second hand options learnt ‘that’ the harder way and there is no harm in learning from others’ experiences.

But then what should one do while dealing with an expressionless person, one might question? Most probably the other person is equally confused for want of clear message. Someone had advised long back, if it is difficult to express in person then one should write on a paper. Today there are thousands faces to that paper; but one must ensure that the message reaches the right person.

It is always better to be honest about one’s past. If the past has been painful, then telling it to someone could lessen the burden. Also if the person changes views after that, one might have successfully averted a painful future as the world is too small and information moves fast.

Expectation of being close to someone may be realized if it is permitted by the stars or if one is aggressive enough to overrule the stars, or at least is not lazy when the stars call.

Otherwise we may have different versions of same story.

What goes within one’s heart, one knows for self. People don't do errors intentionally; at times the egoist Mars in the ascendant mars our understanding while in other cases Rahu in the ascendent might leave such person confused or mercury might keep two options open at all the times. Still, it’s our own conscious or subconscious mind which dictates whether we have the lucky star on the mount of Jupiter or a mole on the mount of Mercury depicting our fears of losing our most precious possession.

Some people continue to haunt ever after when they are gone. And especially if there was no fault of theirs in parting; he had learnt it long years back.

Reflections

2008-06-30T19:39:00.003+05:30

He thanked God thinking that his loans could be off in another 4 months and in next six months he could be a rich man- by his own standards. He had never thought of becoming rich in the past, but things had indeed changed for him. His new job offered a monthly salary which was more than his 7 years’ savings from his previous job.

Life is a roller coaster. Years back he had got a coveted job. There she, none less than a Goddess, had stormed in his life and also parted with in a flash of light. It was not a decision of either of them. It was something imposed upon them as they were not ‘wise’ enough to handle that situation.

Yet many thought that he knew everything hidden in the lines on her palms, and that had influenced his decision, or why would one let her go? Balancing emotions, fate written on the palm, and the family pressures at the same time could be difficult.

Once bitten twice shy! He had resolved that he would never ever again read any palm in life.

Resolutions are weak. They are meant to be broken.

Seven year later his past had moved through his eyes in one moment, when he had had a glance of that mole on someone’s left palm, right below the small finger in her hand.

He wasn’t sure if it was real or if he was responding to his past, to the allegations of being casual and careless in sensitive matters. But this time too, may be he should have been more cautious while he had believed there could be no obstacle around. He had had a long chat with her parents. But that proved wrong; there were good cop and bad cop around.

Though she had believed things had moved smoothly and ‘common friends’ had even congratulated him for a ‘would be’ engagement. But ‘at the right forum’ that had been discussed ‘only almost’.

Mothers are probably the best friends children have and probably they only understand their children best. Even she had the most understanding mom, probably more than his mother had understood him 7 years back.

While he felt disgusted for an unwarranted lack of sensitivity from someone for events affecting others' lives (or may be he completely missed something), she was left wondering what the hell went wrong. Elation was followed by tears and one sided blame game. But that is permissible given the invariably present immaturity in the first love. He actually had no hard feelings at all, she had tried her best.

He had to distance himself from his other close friends for the fears and tears they caused to her and opted for a different station. Probably, they all needed space to make their decisions.

(Contd.)

(It is a one off attempt to write something different and any similarity to any event could only be coincidental)

Just an update

2008-05-31T18:22:00.002+05:30

It feels more like a duty to update the blog as the month ends.

Work, IPL and 4-5 hours of sleep form a vicious but unavoidable cycle. At the same time last two months have been quite fulfilling. There are so many professional announcements waiting to be made but for some slow file work delaying them.

It will take little time now to decide or be informed if I have to lead first of its type (and in magnitude) health care initiative in India in the private sector or to prepare to join as a District Collector somewhere in the next few months.

A training organized by Duke University, USA is also lined up to be held in LBSNAA and in Duke Campus for about 2 months.

How much more will I have to study? I don’t really know, even I wonder that quite often. But I can see the impact of strong fifth and sixth houses in the horoscope in my own case.

So whichever way things move, fate and destiny have to be obeyed and respected. Hopefully will be able to update the progress on the blog.

A brush with Palm Leaf Predictions

2008-04-29T16:36:00.000+05:30

I could not resist the curiosity when I was told that I was 5 km from place called Tambram and decided to visit the town. Naadi shastra or the past, present and future life written on the ancient leaves, they say 2000 years old, is practiced in this small town and hence my this visit. The impression of my RTI was faxed in the afternoon and it had been informed that leaves matching my impression have been found from amongst thousands of such leaves. A friendly warning was also given to me to beware of the ‘black magic’.

The person accompanying me was narrating ‘It is occult, I saw it in your eyes, you are a believer and hence this opportunity has been given to you. You will see how the sages had foreseen your arrival here thousands of years ago. But btw are you married?’

I respond back, ‘I was thinking that the reader will predict that from the leaf’

‘He will, he will! He will tell you the name of your wife if you are married or the name of the girl you will marry and even the direction you will find her’, he said

‘Let us see what happens’, I replied. We had reached the place where the readers stayed and soon one of the readers of ancient leaves came and the person accompanying me bowed with respect.

After settling the person started reading something from the first leaf in the bundle of leaves, which was in the question answer form. I was supposed to respond only in ‘yes’ or ‘no’. A series of ‘no’ would mean that the leaf described some other person while a continued series of ‘yes’ would describe some of the events of my life and then I would be able to know the rest of my life from the leaf.

He began by asking ‘You are a student of medicine’. I said ‘no’ and he kept that leaf aside.
‘You were born on Thursday’, I said ‘no’ and even that leaf went aside.
‘You don’t have younger brother and sister’, I said ‘yes’ and he read further, you were born during night, I said ‘no’ and the leaf went aside.
‘You have a sister and she is eldest amongst the siblings’ he said, to which I replied ‘I have a sister but she is not eldest’
‘You are 4 brothers and sister, more / few’ and I answered.
‘You are 2 brothers and sister, more/ less’, he asked to which I again responded but I was getting bored. The fellow had already extracted the information that we are two brothers and one sister, my brother being the eldest and sister next.
He continued, verifying the mother’s name, my education, time of birth, if I was in Computer related profession (sages could see this two thousand years ago), if my father’s name resembled one of the avatars of Vishnu, if his name constituted of two words, and if I was in love with some one of different community.
Smart craft, I thought; they are building information on logic and inclusion or exclusion. The leaves were sets based on system of elimination and hovered around issues which could drive someone to a soothsayer and soon the complete bundle finished and the person left to bring another bundle and I continued taking notes on the questions he had asked.

In the next bundle, the information was actually similar to that filtered in first round, ‘you are the youngest amongst the brothers and sister’, about the family agricultural land, profession, that father’s name was in two words and then he tried to build the words,
First letter in father’s name and after a few leaves he got the right letter and then last and so on. For the second word he was asking if the last letter was like n/m, th, nh etc. Another logical move as the most common last words could be Singh, Ram etc and his guess could prove right. And in the process he continued to gather information.

As I had continued to take note of each of his questions the person was getting suspicious and it was visible that there was no leaf till then that matched my profile.
The second bundle of leaves had ended. He left again to bring a new bundle and soon returned and apologized that in ‘their’ system of Naadi (named after a renowned sage of Indian epics), no leaf had been written for me. He said that he would call for more leaves written by other sages as his other relatives followed those ‘systems’. He took name of two other renowned rishis of the epics to look more authentic (he pretended that all the great rishis were born in his ‘kulam’ and had left their collective wisdom for him).

But the idea of collective wisdom of three Rishi clans was interesting from historical perspective; I wondered what could have been our history if that had really happened:
Surely ‘Atharvans’ would not have been stolen of their skill of fire making and driven to the land of Avesta by the other rishi clan. The marriage of great El Yayati with Devayani and Sharmishtha would not have been a cause of thousands years of warfare. Yadu and not Puru would have been the king of Hastinapur and Puru’s children would not have perished as ‘Kurus’ and ‘Pandus’ in Mahabharata. Indian and Iranian Aryans would have not separated and many different clans like the Bharats, Turvasus, Anus, Purus and Druhyus could be visible today. Yadus wouldn’t be blamed in the Puranas for the disappearance of ‘Saraswati’.

There could have been only 1 veda and many rigvedic rishi clans would have not disappeared and priests from Egypt and Persia not migrated with their black magic for offering prayers for the Yadus. The ‘Shaka’ and ‘Huns’ would not have been here and the demography of several Northern states could be much different. May be we could still be studying in Taxila and not in &^%.

But only if those rishi clans had been one. And I could be call El ******* or Al ###### and our blood relatives of Rig Veda ‘the Asurs’ had not become the demons of our later literature.

The Naadi reader looked hopefully that I would be impressed by the names he had taken and would return to listen to the leaves written by other clans and which were still preserved by his family. But I was not impressed, my own country and my clan had had the most majestic history for over four thousand years, however deeply covered with dust today.

When I told the person accompanying me that I was not planning to return there again, he changed the topic for whatever intention he might have had- ‘Sir, would you like to have dinner with us, I am vegetarian like you, we are purest B********. My elder daughter is studying in USA, she is-’

But I had to cut him short, I was disappointed by the lack of accuracy of prediction and was not interested in what he was saying as the predictions had failed to point towards any direction.

The ‘Salvation’ Salary- Part I- “Kaun banega crorepati ?”

2008-04-22T11:44:00.002+05:30

For a long time I was contemplating whether to write this mail or not, but an unwanted and unnecessary mail helped me take a decision in favour of writing these comments here.
We have many dreams like,
- entering a B School and cracking that 1crore + job,
- or being ‘down to earth’ and be just on the right side of the average figure say 19+3 =22 lakh salary for the next year;
- Or may be, just to teach a lesson to school kids throwing stones on your car window.
On my recent flight from Hyderabad to Kolkata, I met a gentleman from US. He asked how the B Schools in India could announce such grand figures like 1 crore + salaries when the US economy is under recession and can barely afford such costly employees just out of school. (And when top US B-Schools are not commanding such figures like USD 360000 which convert to the so called Rs 1.44 crore per annum figure)
Then I asked him back ‘why not, we are the brightest guys, after all- Aren’t we’?
He explained me the following:
1crore + has a huge component of bonus; with organizations losing 40-50% of their assets in last 1 year, employees are getting fired and who will offer such bonuses now? So talk of ‘actual’ figures USD 160000 to USD 110000, which most people will get.
With Federal, State and other taxes adding up to 43-44% of the salary and with other health insurances included, barely 50% of the gross salary is received. So make the above amount 50% of quoted figure
The one time joining allowance is also a major component of the gross ‘salary’ figure quoted so happily remove it forever.
If the earning is in dollar, so are the expenses and those are obviously huge so if you still have a coffee for Rs 10 in India then you pay Rs 300 for that abroad so the money flies away.
At the same time, the dollar has lost a lot of its power with respect to many currencies and so now commands less money value,
With all that, the standard of living thus affordable and the resultant savings is much less than compared to an Indian salary of say 15-20 lakh. So while the poor fellow would be struggling for the next one year just to cling to his job, claiming such figures is ‘wrong’ as that money would not be earned at the year end.
Even if in the past someone had managed fat bonuses for ‘claiming business’, they are now harvesting the crop in the form of sub prime for just getting that ‘cheap business on the account book’ and so most such smart people are now being fired left, right and centre. And when the hawks are not able to survive the present situation, what value will the doves bring?

What’s worse is
The magnitude of sub prime crises is huge; and only part losses have been reflected so far so as to gradually absorb the shock. So not only the present is tough but the future also doesn’t look rosy.
The credit card crises may further unfold.
The oil prices are soaring and so the winter may be cold (for less availability of oil) and hot (for the high oil prices).

Amidst this background I believe when the B Schools ‘doctor’ their salary figures to lure unsuspecting candidates, they command different capabilities of inflating those figures. For example, an I-banker can oblige his alma mater by putting a component of 3X year end bonus (tagged to performance targets which are obviously undeliverable in these conditions) and create a news paper sensation without possibly losing a single $ at the end of the forthcoming year.
In contrast, another B School with a pathetic finance curriculum and ‘almost’ no alumni in decent I-Banks (if there is any left now) will have to ride piggyback on its God father’s resources. But in the present situation when the crises is partly driven by the Real Estate, the back door entry to the 1 crore club through international real estate jobs also gets a beating.

So what to do next having yourself started this unethical warfare of bogus salary claims?

Obviously pretend holy and pass the buck to the enlightened student body for taking a decision to not to disclose the maximum figures (until the next year when you are able to manage one such figure). After all this is all what you did for one year ‘you scratch my back, I scratch your @#$.

(Next: Busting the average salary)

One last blog at ISB

2008-04-05T03:23:00.003+05:30

One last blog at ISB, but certainly not the last one about it.

Thanks God the year of great experiences and learning is about to end. This being one of the ‘lowest’ years of my life, learning that followed was immense and hence the greatness of the year that passed by.

Preparatory period, I ruptured ligament of my knee. Operation could have sent me back for a term (and thus for the year). So I decided to forgo the treatment and risk whatever might happen. Lucky! Despite a very painful injury I managed it well, though a dull existence for the year.

Coming from a place that claimed to be the greatest academic institution of India, I had believed that this year will be a cake walk. Surprisingly, I discovered that the previous year had been a cakewalk compared to this one. I never felt intellectually challenged but, competing with a 300 headed demon, I felt being challenged ethically. To fall for the rat race and compromise or to lie low and stick to values- the dilemma continued every moment. Luckily I will leave with pride intact.

MBA, whatever they call the degree, stretches your endurance. Physical labour is fine, but emotional stress could be difficult. Short contacts cannot take place of permanent relations; requirements (and expectations) of two, I wish, were same but they are not. Disappearing mirages and short lived illusions are tiring, and that sustains the livelihood of 'professional STRONGMAN- shoulder available to cry walas’.

Why you come for MBA? A degree in Finance that takes you to international bureaucracy Or a career switch Or back to Government- options were confusing as were the questions being raised. The response was logical flow of multiple steps. I discovered that the grass is always greener on the other side. Consider a package of 15 lakh, take away 10-20% variable pay, 30 % for tax, 25000/- monthly rent of house, 28000/- monthly installment for loan, and transportation and other costs and then compare to a Government job.

A Government job is more respectful, accomodations are uncomparable and transportation and daily chores taken care of in senior posts.

The most important thing I learnt was during a case prep session with a ‘consultant for 8 months’. He had remarked ‘you didn’t mention the land for the project’ for my case solution when I had discussed about the Government support in the form of SEZ. I did not feel like arguing with an uninformed person but the learning was fast that in corporate even dumb ‘Boss’ expects you to pamper him.

While I had been disenchanted mid way, I realize I had passed on my initial fever to many others. I am sorry if anyone is misplaced because of me; though I had tried to communicate as well I could of my 'gradual learning'. As a benefit, half hearted preparations helped me know people who I realized were pleasant to work with.

In our batch there were so many talented people- great all rounder’s, dancers, sports persons, writers, quiz enthusiasts. I am sure most would make great name for themselves in the years to come. Some have improved their writing notches up over the year and are writing more from the heart than head, which is the way it should be.

As a common factor, the biggest change of fortune occurred for us when we touched the top of the world, striking 20. Then everything else, with bloated egos and self proclaimed leadership, started looking so mediocre and small. I don’t believe in unnecessary humility but liked the way this grand success was celebrated in a small way.

Introspection at the end of a journey is a must. Rigidity against the movement of the tide was my weakness and the strength too. Professional shoulders to cry walas I don’t trust- not for me or for others. They complicate more than they help. Learning that there are different expectations for different roles in life is crucial- I will try to work on them. So should everyone else, if possible.

One message- ‘CEO’ is a decent post too, even if you don’t like the person there.

Memoirs of a lost world

2008-04-01T23:33:00.004+05:30

Sir, where is your security? You should not move without the security’, the BDO was trying to please the SDO by his sweet talks.
‘Why, is this war zone?’ Amit had asked.
‘No sir, but we read about the cattle that you seized at the border some days back. These cattle smugglers carry arms with them. Your armed security must be your biggest defense in their sight’ the BDO explained.
‘What defense? Both my security personnel prayed for being released from my duty. They said that the duty hours were too long for them’, Amit said knowing well that the BDO was aware of this.
‘Sir, and you released the securities without even asking for a replacement’, BDO wanted to know more, but Amit only smiled.
The last few weeks had been tough; Amit had confiscated a number of trucks loaded with cattle being smuggled across the international border. At times when Amit had forced the trucks to stop, the PS had been inordinately late to report at the site. This had created a lot of tension when Amit had discussed the issues at the higher level. But …………
Traditional wisdom said that in case one is working on things where he could be antagonizing powerful people, his movements across the subdivision should not be known. And Amit followed that religiously. If he had to go to X block, he would tell the CA to inform the BDO of block Y that he would be reaching his block. If the security asked where he was going, the word would be Z block. Amit noticed how his securities would run to the toilet with their mobiles. Amit often wondered who was so interested in his movement. Whosoever it be, Amit used to ask the vehicle to finally go to block P or Q, surprising everyone- even himself.
This had created strange situation in Warpur over the last few months. SDO had confronted convoys of trucks that moved in groups of 10-15 trucks, all loaded with 15-18 large cattle. Despite the reluctance of the concerned police stations, all but one of those raids had been successful. But this had created a lot of pressure on the security personnel of the SDO, it was visible.
On the whole, the position of the security guard of the SDO was a prize posting in police; it was said ‘In case if the SDO is peace loving who conduct no raids then this is a risk free job with no night duties in crime areas. In case if the SDO does a lot of policing then providing this relevant information to the ‘concerned people’ about his movement could mean a lot of money’.
However, if the security were terrified to continue, it meant they had been failing in their duty of providing information to someone who was upset with them and hence their prayer for being released from the duty of SDO.
But should he ask for a replacement? Amit had thought a lot about this. The new person in fact would be more trusted to the other side and hence more risky for Amit. So unlike the expectation of many and to the shock of all, Amit had decided to not take a security anymore.
That day Amit had organized a ‘Tribal Certificate issue camp’ in one of the interior villages. As luck would have been, one huge convoy of some twenty trucks carrying cattle had planned this unknown route to avoid the SDO. Amit had stopped the trucks with no personal security or police around this time.
His raids had already inflicted a lot of loss to those ‘businessmen’. The worst affected of those raids were the truck drivers, all Pathans who had ruled those lands for over 300 years in the past. They would lose their jobs for their inability to either bring the vehicle and cattle safe or remove the ‘obstruction’.
That day was their luckiest; Amit was there, unarmed, and had still challenged them when they were at their best. There had been short discussion, very crisp. Their leader in late thirties- tall and fair and wearing a ‘tehmad and T-shirt’- had tried to educate Amit that his men were losing their money and livelihood. Every confiscated truck was dragging its owner and the driver’s families into penury. They were being harassed by the police and by the legal process for the release of it. They had to bribe and the systems, which they believed Amit represented, were not most honest.
Even as all his men were furious and wanted to settle the matter, he had asked Amit it he was willing to allow them to go and take his own way for which he assured all safety. But the worst part of the ‘ego’ is that neither does it die nor does it allow reason to prevail. Even if it was evident to Amit that it was impossible to stop those trucks at that time, he had said that he was confiscating those trucks and it was for the lack of force that he was not arresting those men there.
The truck drivers, the ferocious hot headed Arians, were furious (were they not the ones doing one of the roughest job, handling a 20 ton vehicle on their biceps). But there was one wise person amongst all there and his wisdom had prevailed that day.
The leader had decided to move away with his men, letting all the trucks parked there along with the cattle. But he had clearly told that he would incur this last loss due to Amit for his men. But next time he would not be responsible for anything.
Amit had to wait for the police to arrive on the spot. They had to hand over the ‘Zimma’ of the cattle to some local cowshed there. The stunned BDO and the driver pretended that they were happy for such a big haul but Amit knew that the situation could have been worse for all of them.
Amit knew what was to happen the next day, the vehicle would be released by court and some ‘legal owner’ of the cattle would appear. If not the PS, someone else in some other office would make money. All his hard work would go waste in half an hour.
It had been more than a year and a half in the job, holding multiple charges. For the first time in his service, he had witnessed magnanimity and real appreciation of the work he was doing but from a much unexpected corner.
Some 1500 km from his home, posted at one of the borders of the country in the most powerful service of the nation, Amit had felt very lonely.

One last Graduation Day

2008-03-28T22:02:00.004+05:30

As a kid in standard One, I was just back from school and searching for my Dad to confirm certain urgent matters, ‘Papa, Papa, have I failed in six subjects?’ I had asked showing him my report card.

It is always safe to get such things verified by your father than getting beaten by your mother.
My father had observed my report card seriously and was thinking something when I had spoken again, ‘Maine aaj apne rickshe ke bachhon ko bahut maara, wo kehte the ki I have failed in six subjects because there are six red lines in my report card. Papa dekho, I have failed in only one subject because double zero to keval ek hi hai. Aur papa dekho I have got hundred out of hundred in Arithmetic’.

My dad had found my hundred marks in Arithmetic to be a good enough reason to overlook every thing else. Gleefully I had signed the report card on my own, where the parents are supposed to sign. Unluckily, the teacher could recognize my beautiful hand writing and my mother had been informed. As usual, mothers are very traditional, so the treatment met by me was also quite conventional.

Anyway to move the story ahead, my parents wanted one of their kids to become a Doctor. As my father wanted my brother to join IIT and my sister was getting one certificate after another in fine arts, I appeared to be parents’ only hope of having a doctor at home. A hope that belied all hopes, for my intellectual capabilities seemed too insufficient if not non existent to sustain 5-8 years of rigorous medical education.

In his humble attempts to help me clear the examinations, my brother would make last minute efforts. But the session would soon come to questions like,
‘Answer de, kya bada hota hai- das ki ek bata das?’ (Which is bigger? 10 or 1/10)
‘Ek bata das(1/10)’, I would reply, ‘It also has a ‘bata das with ek’’, I would argue.
‘Answer kar, Akal badi hoti hai ki bhains?’ my dear brother had once asked. (Which is bigger? Brain or a buffalo)
‘Bhains’, I had replied. ‘Khate peete ghar ki 400 kg ki bhains hi to badi hogi’, I had argued and that had complicated the matters.

But still my parents believed that I had brains, and my mother had hard facts to prove that. She still proudly narrates the story to everyone, of how she discovered that-
‘After having failed to teach him ABCD in months, I had locked him in store one day. He told the complete ABCD from inside the store to come out of it. He had learnt ABCD but was not telling ki maa aur kuchh padhayegi’

After long years of continued debate if I would clear competitive exams or not and get a job or not, one thing was certain- ‘I would not become a doctor’.
But ambitious parents don’t give up hope. All these years my parents kept planning that if none of their kid could become a doctor, they could still marry one of them to a doctor and have a doctor in the family.
But some dreams always remain dream; my brother got married to his IPS batch mate. My parents married my sister to an IAS officer and back their hopes of getting a doctor in family rested upon me. Luckily, let alone finding a suitable doctor, our family soon discovered that it was difficult to find any girl to marry me.

But no regrets, working in a generalist service and handling health matters closely, I was myself gradually becoming an expert in health matters. The block visits and inspections of ‘locked’ health sub centres; diarrheal outbreaks and absent PHC doctors taught me a lot about the condition of health services in our villages. I learnt the difference between idealistic visions in contrast to implementable programs in health care. And then it was the Pulse polio drives and no looking back thereafter.
Looking forward, possibility of working on an alternate and functioning health care system looks possible if some things fall in place. I had to meet some experts on health care in last one week. I had to travel a lot amidst the regular academics, but things still look bright for the future.

And as a philosophy, I believe one should dream big; there might be a few failures but the success is bound to occur. I will give one last example here,
It was Class third and my mother, a professor in university, had accompanied me to my school to collect my report card. The class teacher was scolding my mother before handing over my report card ‘you never come to school for teacher parents meeting, your son doesn’t study, he is always talking and fighting in the class’. Then she had asked me, ‘what is your roll number?’ to locate the report card
‘Roll No 40, teacher. Puneet Yadav, last name in the class’, I had replied trembling.
‘To class mein last hi hoga naa’, she had shouted on my mother while searching for the report card. Once she had found the report class she had discovered that I was first in the class.
My mom was almost in tears by then. She used to send us to school after preparing breakfast and tiffin for the 'interval', used to prepare lunch for everyone and then leave for her college to take 5-6 hours of classes. Almost everyone in our colony used to complain about me. But that day, obviously, my mother was very proud of me and had boasted ‘Mera beta sabse seedha hai, I don’t get time to teach him due to my college, fir bhi ye first aata hai’. But that was not all correct for my academic performance was as evenly distributed as spots on the back of a Dalmatian.

So there are reasons why people make certain choices. I couldn’t become a doctor but may be one day I would get hospitals constructed.

And for once, I am not afraid to invite my parents to attend the Graduation Day at ISB (they didn’t come at IIT or IAS academy), for I haven’t beaten anyone/ fought with anyone in the last one year, so there should be no complaints I hope.

Ghalib ka hai andaaz-e-bayaan aur (7)

2008-03-21T02:59:00.006+05:30

So getting back to the last of the posts on Ghalib ghazals on this blog, here I am confused which one to write about. There are so many of the master pieces but today it will be one which helps us know Ghalib as much as possible in one post. To begin with about the other ones which I could write here, at least some of their couplets: First, Ghalib on human beings,

‘Bas ki dushwar hai har kaam ka aasaan honaa,
Aadmi ko bhi mayassar nahin insaan honaa’.
“It is complicated even for the simplest things to simplify,
It is not in the fate of the mankind to become human being”

And his belief / attempt in goodness and being good,
‘Na suno, gar bura kahe koi,
Na kaho, gar bura kare koi.
Rok lo, gar galat chale koi,
Baksh do, gar khata kare koi’
Didn't Gandhi said the same so many years later?

Ghalib doesn’t try to hide the pains in his life; it is another thing that his search for the healer seems to eternal, like an unquenched thirst.
‘Ibn-e-mariam hua kare koi,
Mere dukh ki dawaa kare koi’
‘Let today there be the Son of Mariam (Christ)
One who would heal my sorrows (as Christ healed people by his touch)

His quest for God is as eternal as is his search for a soul mate. While I’m not sure if he got one, his poetry- though- gets its soul in the form of his words. Be it

‘Aah ko chahiye ek umr asar hone tak’, or
‘Dil-e-Nadan tujhe hua kya hai’, or
‘Dil hi to hai naa sang-o-khisht’, or
‘Dard minnat kash-e-davaa naa hua’ or
‘Ye na thi hamari kismet ki visaal-e-yaar hota’,
Ghalib’s longing for beloved, who is as beautiful as is faithless and elusive, continues.

But the separation is equally painful for both the persons. That is what is reflected in the words,
‘Wo firaaq aur wo visaal kahaan?
Wo shab-o-roz-o-maah-o-saal kahaan?
Thi wo ek shakhs ke tasawur se,
Ab wo ranai-e-khayaal kahaan?’
‘ (Now) where is that separation and where’s that union?
Where are those nights, days, months and years?
She had been in love and devotion of someone,
Where could be that excitement in (her) thoughts now?’

It is wonderful to see how Ghalib tries to communicate to his beloved through his poetry and tries to tell of the fleeting nature of beauty in contrast of an everlasting love.

‘Sab kahaan, kuchh lala-o-gul mein numayaan ho gayin,
Khaak mein kya sooratein hogi, ki pinhaa ho gayin’

'Only a few beautiful faces have been embodied in the form of the colourful flowers. Many more beautiful faces mush have disappeared/ laid hidden in the dust (from where the flowers have emerged and where every beautiful thing will end up being)'

Ghalib’s poetry moves around the narrow lanes of love, betrayal and dejection to the lofty mountains of highest order philosophy. A great and representative couplet is:

‘Na tha kuchh, to Khuda tha; kuchh na hota, to Khuda hota;
Duboya mujhko hone ne, na hota main to kya hota?

(When there was nothing, God was there; when there would be nothing, God would be there; I have been ruined by my existence, had I not existed- what would have happened)

Obviously nothing, but being nothing would mean that Ghalib would have been one with God.

In simple words, being Ghalib has ruined him; otherwise, people wouldn’t have been so critical, would have been more accepting and may be he would have been more approachable.

And the genius called Ghalib can be met in the following ghazal, one I would discuss here.

Hai bas ki, har yak unke ishare mein nishaan aur,
Karte hain muhabbat, to gujarta hai gumaan aur.

Yaa rab, na wo samjhe hain naa samjenge meri baat,
De aur dil unko, jo na de mujhko jubaan aur.

Tum shahar mein ho, to humen kya gam, jab uthenge
Le aayenge bazaar se, jaa kar, dilo-jaan aur.

Marta hoon is awaaz pe, harchand sar ud jaaye,
Jallad ko, lekin, wo kahe jaayen ki- haan, aur.

Logon ko hai khursheede-jahan-taab ka dhoka,
Har roz dikhata hoon mein yak daage- nihaan aur.

Paate nahin jab raah, to chadh jaate hain naale,
Rukti hai meri tabh, to hoti hai ravaan aur.

Hain aur bhi duniya mein sukhanwar bahut achche,
Kehte hain, ki ghalib ka hai andaaze- bayaan aur.

(The beloved communicates confusing messages through every action,
Even if the beloved loves me, the impression I get is otherwise
(When I look into your eyes, I see you staring in the sky as if I did not exist there,
When I turn my back, I hear your voice drawing my attention- What do I understand?)

Oh God! The beloved has never understood me nor will understand what I say,
To solve the problem, give a bigger heart to the beloved if you don’t give me more words

O my loved one when you belong to a city (are modern/ faithless??), why should I worry,
I will also go to the market there and purchase some heart and love from your place
(The sarcasm is subtle and poetically beautiful. The poet says, O my beloved if in your city- heart and souls are sold (and hence you neglect my golden heart)- I am so lucky to have you as my friend, I will also go to your town and buy some heart (however faithless) for myself)

I long to listen those words, even if it costs my head to be removed from my shoulders,
But the beloved should continue applauding my assassin, so I could hear those words atleast

Through my ghazals the gathering is beguiled to see the brightness of the sun,
While actually I show the burning wounds of my heart, my ghazals, glowing bright.

When my emotions don’t get soothing air, the pitch of my songs become higher,
When my feelings are low/ I'm dejected, my creativity is even more passionate

Though there are many great poets in this world,
It is said, Ghalib has no parallel when it comes to reciting/ presenting them.

Nothing more true than this, the rhythm and the rhyme which can be captured in Ghalib’s words can not be put to words in any other language- by anyone.

ग़ालिब का है अंदाजे- बयान और (७)

2008-03-21T02:39:00.003+05:30

है बस की, हर यक उनके इशारे में निशाँ और,
करते हैं मुहब्बत, तो गुजरता है गुमाँ और.

या रब, न वो समझे हैं ना समझेंगे मेरी बात,
दे और दिल उनको, जो न दे मुझको जुबाँ और.

तुम शहर में हो, तो हमें क्या गम, जब उठेंगे
ले आयेंगे बाज़ार से, जा कर, दिलो-जान और.

मरता हूँ इस आवाज़ पे, हरचंद सर उड़ जाए,
जल्लाद को, लेकिन, वो कहे जाएं की- हाँ, और.

लोगों को है खुर्शीदे-जहाँ-ताब का धोका,
हर रोज़ दिखता हूँ मैं यक दागे- निहां और.

पाते नहीं जब राह, तो चढ़ जाते हैं नाले,
रूकती है मेरी तबः, तो होती है रवां और.

हैं और भी दुनिया में सुखनवर बहुत अच्छे,
कहते हैं, की ग़ालिब का है अंदाजे- बयान और.

Ghalib (6)- Dil-e-nadan

2008-03-20T03:14:00.004+05:30

This is the second last of my posts on Ghalib’s poetry on this blog. This ghazal has been incorporated in a number of movies and serials. It has also been sung by a number of artists, but one sung by Somesh Kumar was unforgettable. This is also one of the simplest of Ghalib’s ghazals and might not need a detailed explanation and hence a new attempt- as follows:-

Dil-e-nadan tujhe hua kya hai ,
Aakhir is dard ki davaa kya hai?

Hum hain mushtaq aur woh bezaar
Ya ilaahi ye mazraa kya hai?

Jab ki tujh bin nahin koi mauzood
Fir ye hungaama e khuda kya hai?

Humko unse wafa ki hai ummeed,
Jo nahin jante wafa kya hai

Jaan tum par nisaar karta hoon,
Main nahin jaanta dua kya hai

Maine maana ki kuchh nahin ‘Ghalib’
Muft haath aaye to buraa kya hai?

What causes wretchedness, of my heart so pure*?
O, this mighty misery! Does it have no cure?

My feverish anxiety, and your coldness untold
O God, the mystery! but could someone unfold?

There is none except you- in this ephemeral world (#)
Then why is this ruckus? And what for is this word?

Why do I seek commitment? my faith does endure,
From who knows not its meaning, even I’m so sure

My life is for taking, take it if you wish to take,
That’s what I offer; false prayers I do not make.

I agree if you’d say, for you ‘Ghalib’ is ‘nothing’,
It does no harm to get him? He who costs ‘nothing’!

* Innocent
# Could be addressed to God or beloved

ग़ालिब (६)- दिल-ऐ-नादाँ

2008-03-20T02:57:00.002+05:30

दिल-ऐ-नादाँ तुझे हुआ क्या है ,
आखिर इस दर्द की दवा क्या है

हम हैं मुश्ताक और वो बेज़ार
या इलाही ये माज़रा क्या है

जब की तुझ बिन नहीं कोई मौजूद
फ़िर ये हंगामा ऐ खुदा क्या है

हमको उनसे वफ़ा की है उम्मीद,
जो नहीं जानते वफ़ा क्या है

जान तुम पर निसार करता हूँ,
मैं नहीं जानता दुआ क्या है

मैंने माना की कुछ नहीं ‘ग़ालिब’
मुफ्त हाथ आये तो बुरा क्या है

ग़ालिब (५)- आह को चाहिये

2008-03-16T01:48:00.002+05:30

आह को चाहिये एक उम्र असर होने तक,
कौन जीता है तेरी जुल्फ के सर होने तक.

आशिकी सब्र तलब और तमन्ना बेताब,
दिल का क्या रंग करूं, खून-ऐ-जिगर होने तक.

हमने माना की तगाफुल न करोगे लेकिन,
ख़ाक हो जायेंगे हम तुमको ख़बर होने तक.

परतवे-खुर से है शबनम को, फना की तालीम,
मैं भी हूँ, एक इनायत की नज़र होने तक.

गम-ऐ-हस्ती का असद किससे हो जुज्मर्ग इलाज,
शमा हर रंग में जलती है, सहर होने तक.

Ghalib (5)- Aah ko chahiye

2008-03-16T01:22:00.005+05:30

The following couplets are amongst the most famous of Ghalib, probably due to the simplicity of the words used. However, I always find them quite complicated to interpret. An attempt is made below:

Aah ko chahiye ek umr asar hone tak,
Kaun jeeta hai teri julf ke sar hone tak.

A simple but complicated couplet: sighs (of a passionate heart) take a life time to be effective/ fulfilled. But who will live so long that the locks and curls in your hair get unlocked.

The beloved’s tresses represent such complexities that take time to get resolved- by that time the poet says he will be dead, not withstanding his sighs and desire to meet the beloved)

Aashiqui sabr talab aur tamanna betaab,
Dil ka kya rang karoon, khoon-e-jigar hone tak.

Romance asks for patience (for the beloved to mellow down) while the desires are restless and impatient (want to meet the beloved at the earliest?),
What colour do I paint my heart, by the time it is all blood
i.e. it is only a matter of time till my heart will take this pain of anticipation/ patience, then it will probably rupture with emotions and be all red with blood,
Isn't Ghalib preaching? ‘Don’t test my patience- how so ever much the patience should the ‘love’ expect- it has touched the limits of tolerance. More delay on your part and you lose me’

Hamne maana ki tagaful na karoge lekin,
Khaak ho jaayenge hum tumko khabar hone tak.

I accept that you will not be careless and will do no delay (on hearing my condition), but by the time the message of my condition reaches you I would be dust (dead and buried)

Contrast this with “Vaada kiya tha fir bhi naa aaye mazaar pe,
Humne to jaan di thi, isi aitbaar pe)

Is the beloved in Ghalib’s case less 'merciless'?
Who knows, but for sure the allegation of the master poet is more subtle. Obviously the plight of the poet is known to the beloved, but Ghalib rubs on the carelessness of the beloved by praising the feigned ignorance)

Partave-khur se hai shabnam ko, fanaa ki taalim,
Main bhi hoon, ek inaayat ki nazar hone tak.

The morning dew has the instructions (taalim- education) to disappear when the first rays of sunlight appear.
Similarly Ghalib’s existence lasts in anticipation of beloved’s one sight of benevolence (and then he departs/ dies)

Gam-e-hasti ka Asad kis-se ho jujmarg ilaaz,
Shamaa har rang mein jalti hai, sahar hone tak.

Asad- (Ghalib’s name) what can cure the pains of ‘the existence’ (i.e. only death can- when there will be no existence)
The candle burns at night will flames of all colours till the morning arrives.

Ghalib compares the pains of life with the burning of the candle during the night. Wouldn’t every moment of being in flames be very painful? The pain ends when the morning comes and the flame is put to rest i.e. it dies. So also, death lays to rest all pains of human existence.

Memoirs..

2008-03-13T22:25:00.003+05:30

(continued from last post)

Amit looked around; there were mounds of dust and coal everywhere. People were sitting and standing over them, not able to realize what was happening. If Ramesh Pal could have communicated to them, they might have descended.

At that moment nothing came to Amit’s mind except two similar instances in the past where after having solved the problem he had been scolded by senior officers- ‘Why the hell do you rush to every place ahead of the police force?’ they had said. But in last two instances, the mob assembly had build up after local incidents alone while here they were being incited by a hostile person.

Amit realized that during the union negotiations, the other parties had refused to sit in discussion along with Pal’s group. While Pal's group had refused to sit in discussion with Amit on the pretext that ‘the administration represented the interests of the management’. This lack of discussion might have offended Pal and he was personally hostile to Amit.

Amit’s security guard was getting restless. As a natural reaction to the situation his hand was reaching towards the arms repeatedly, only to be stopped by Amit every time. Thankfully, experts at LBSNAA discussed cases where they had organized ‘Kumbh’ and handled more than a million crowd in a day. Don’t provoke the mob, was the substance.

Amit thought again, ‘Good Luck, Ramesh Pal does not have a mike; he is not able to communicate beyond a distance. So they were actually 2 to 20, those 20 who had come with Pal. Using the gun would mean making it 2 to 1000’.

But those 20 people were aggressive- so every time some one tried to come forward, Amit pushed him back ‘slightly’ as if they were friends discussing some urgent matter and he did not want to be disturbed.

The act of provocation and ‘self defense’ had continued for some time. The small group surrounding them was confused what to do. They were not seeing the reason as to why to attack one harmless SDO except their leader provoking them for an event they had only heard of.

Then there was a loud uproar. The excitement now was for the two huge cranes which had reached the spot slowly after ‘successful’ administrative negotiations with the unions; thereby permitting their entry. The crowd moved towards the cranes, to see them from close and in moments there was Ramesh Pal left standing with his few followers and Amit with his security.

Soon the followers of the union leader found it better to leave the place as the police personnel were also arriving gradually.

The operations had started; Ramesh Pal had left the area, but the problem didn’t end that soon. A message was received through some police resources that some people had been sent with bombs - as in colliery area dynamite was easily available- to target them. The senior police official present had decided to leave the place and asked Amit that he should also leave, which Amit had to decline. Again, instances of desertion remain tagged to officers’ name for their entire career.

Now that the police was there, surely Pal wouldn’t come close but he may use someone else to create a nuisance, thought Amit. So Amit decided to call the local elected representative and requested him to come to the spot, as it was his area and his presence could be helpful. This was very unconventional way of handling a law and order situation.

While Government officials are easy targets, Amit thought, a wise ‘political leader’ would not touch his senior politician. So Amit decided to take help of this political person and his assumption proved correct.

For next six hours, the rescue operation had continued. 4 mutilated bodies were recovered close to mid night. The local political person had remained present for all that time. He was not only glad that the problem was solved but was also thankful that the SDO had allowed him to stay there all that time.

On his way back, Amit had dropped the truck carrying the bodies in the local PS. Next day he had taken salute in all the 4 Republic day ceremonies in Kalipur.

In a couple of months after that Amit had been transferred from Kalipur, to complete the ‘rural’ lag of his sub-divisional posting.

And today there was this news about Ramesh Pal’s murder. May be Pal should have sat for discussion with the SDO that day. He might have become very weak politically in his area since the administration could do operations against his will in his den. This is where some lower rung leader would have seen the opportunity to move higher, same way as Pal was aspiring through the colliery incident.

Memoirs of a lost world

2008-03-09T15:10:00.002+05:30

Ramesh Pal is dead reported the morning newspaper. Amit was shocked as he read the news from Kalipur, his previous posting. The prominent union leader from the coal fields had been killed by some unidentified persons.

It was only a few months back, on the 25th of January to be precise, that the same Ramesh Pal had tried to incite a mob against Amit in a colliery.

Amit thought of 25th of January, the day before the Republic Day, when he had left the office for the rehearsal of republic day parade. Having visited 2 sites, Amit had received a message that there had been an accident in Bijora colliery under his jurisdiction.

The preliminary message was that a fully loaded trolley carrying coal from the under ground mines had collapsed over some workers, who were trapped beneath it. The whole colliery had stopped the work and the rescue operation was not starting due to worker opposition.

It took over an hour by car to reach the colliery area. In the meantime Amit had contacted the other colliery to provide the cranes to remove the trolley.

The BDO and the local Police Station were saying that the forces were insufficient to control the public. But a senior police officer had started from the sub division with additional reinforcements.

The colliery had 5 unions and each one had different opinion as to what was to be done and Amit had to resolve the issue with them before anything could be done. The meeting with the unions took place in a small two room building surrounded by the agitated workers. All the unions said that no worker under the trolley could still be alive. They said that the trolley carrying coal was huge with each side over 15 ft and was fully loaded with coal. The iron rope carrying the trolley had snapped under the load and all the 4 workers standing underneath had died.

After two hours of union negotiations- the amount of compensation, payment plan and other details could be finalized. The cranes from the neighbouring colliery had not been allowed to enter this colliery in the mean while. Luckily, additional forces had also arrived by then. When Amit came out of the small building, he was surrounded by the press personnel and he had to hand over the press matter to the manager of the colliery.

It was nearly 4 pm in the evening and they had to rush to the accident site. Amit did not anticipate any further problem.

When they reached the colliery, the place was thronged by curious onlookers and workers. The area would have been several square kilometers that made the crowd look spread over. The place looked grey in colour; everything from the workers’ dresses, to the dust had become grey because of the coal. There were undulating mounds of grey dust and coal spread across the whole area. It looked, as they slowly entered the colliery, that they were entering a tunnel- deeper and deeper.

As Amit awaited the arrival of the cranes, standing next to the collapsed trolley, the massive iron trolley dwarfed him. A hand and a leg were only two things that emerged from under the trolley, the rest of the bodies remained below. The fate of the individuals under the impact of the load was frightening.

As Amit stood there with his security guard, he was surrounded by a group of 20-25 workers headed by a leader. He had started giving a hostile introduction of Amit to his followers, “This is the SDO who had closed the RAMC a few days back. He is still not satisfied after taking the jobs of thousands of employees and so he has come to our colliery. But this is not RAMC and we are prepared, will the SDO be able to go back from this place?” he had shouted.

“No” was the response of his supporters standing around.

Amit was dazed, he was being publically threatened. As the rhetoric continued and the crowd started building up Amit tried to look for the police force; it was not even in the eye sight. They were out numbered 2 to hundreds. His security guard had a revolver and that had six bullets, in case needed.

(continued)

ग़ालिब (४)- दर्द मिन्नत

2008-03-08T00:39:00.004+05:30

दर्द मिन्नत-कशे-दवा ना हुआ,
मैं ना अच्छा हुआ, बुरा ना हुआ

जमा करते हो क्यों रकीबों को?
यक तमाशा हुआ, गिला ना हुआ

हम कहाँ किस्मत आजमाने जाएं,
तू ही खंजर आजमा ना हुआ?

कितने शीरीं हैं तेरे लब, की रकीब-
गालियाँ खा के भी बेमज़ा ना हुआ

क्या वह नमरूद की खुदाई थी,
बंदगी में मेरा भला ना हुआ

जान दी, दी हुई उसी की थी,
हक तो यह है, की हक अदा ना हुआ

कुछ तो पढिये, की लोग कहते हैं,
आज ग़ालिब, ग़ज़लसरा ना हुआ

Ghalib- Dard Minnat

2008-03-08T00:30:00.004+05:30

o Dard Minnat-kashe-davaa naa hua,
Main naa achchaa hua, bura naa hua.

o Jamaa karte ho kyon rakeebon ko?
Yak tamasha hua, gila naa hua.

o Hum kahaan kismat aajmaane jaayen,
Tu hi khanjar aazmaa na hua?

o Kitne shirin hain tere lab, ki rakeeb-
Gaaliyaan kha ke bhi bemazaa naa hua.

o Kya wah Namruud ki khudai thi,
Bandgi mein mera bhalaa naa hua?

o Jaan di, di hui usi ki thi,
Haq to yeh hai, ki haq ada na hua.

o Kuchh to padhiye, ki log kehte hain,
Aaj Ghalib, gazalsara na hua?

 (My pain did not pray for the medicine (i.e. beloved’s love),
That I did not get cured, is not bad under these circumstances
Thanks God that I did not get cured of the sorrow (of separation); since (from the beloved) I did not ask for the medicine i.e. beloved’s love- at least my pride is intact

 (Why do you gather your other lovers? Even if there is a complaint (against me), why do you make it a public display i.e. when you could speak about it to me alone)

 Where (and how) should I test my luck?
When you are not interested to hold the knife
(Ghalib offers to be tested by sacrificing his life- even if the beloved desires to take his life; but which is not happening)

 (So sweet are your lips that even after hearing all the insults from you- your other lover is not at all disheartened i.e. his passion for you doesn’t decline)

 (Did I pray a false God- Namruud,
Despite all my prayers, no good happened to me)

 (I gave my life (for beloved / to God), but the life was given by God (or beloved owned it),
So the truth is that I have still not paid back my debts despite my dying in love)

 (Read something (Ghalib) for the people are complaining of not having heard Ghalib’s Ghazal this day)

Ghalib (3)- Ye na thi hamari kismat

2008-03-01T19:45:00.003+05:30

Ye na thi hamari kismet ki visaal-e-yaar hota,
Agar aur jeete rahte, yahi intzaar hotaa.

Tere wade par jiye hum, to ye jaan jhooth jaana,
Ki khushi se mar naa jaate, agar aitbaar hota

Koi mere dil se pooche, tere teer-e neemkash ko,
Ye khalish kahan se hoti, jo zigar ke paar hota.

Ye kahan ki dosti hai ki bane hain dost naaseh,
Koi chara saaz hota, koi gam- gusaar hota

Kahoon kis-se main ki kya hai, shab-e-gham buri bala hai,
Mujhe kya bura tha marna, agar ek baar hota.

Hue mar ke hum jo ruswa, hue kyon na gark-e-dariya,
Na kabhi janajaa uthta, na kahin mazaar hota.

Yeh masayile tasawwuf, yeh tera bayaan Ghalib,
Tujhe hum wali samajhte, jo na badakhwar hota

(Meeting the beloved, half drawn arrow, pain/ inflammation, an evening of sorrow, possessed by the river, drunkard)

o Ghalib says- Meeting the beloved was not his destiny; had he lived longer, the yearning would have continued.

o He continues- "But don’t you believe that I lived trusting your promise (that we will meet). I would have died of happiness if I’d believed your promises".

o But then why does Ghalib live for? He says, “Ask my heart, the impact of your arrow from a bow with a slack string ; why would this pain be if the arrow had pierced through the heart (had the string not been slack). Which means, now the arrow could not pierce through the heart and so he still lives on with an arrow struck in his heart that causes this pain”

o "Even Ghalib’s friends are betraying him, instead of sharing his pains and finding the ways out, they are preaching before him".

o "He is wordless to explain how sad is a night of sorrow (of separation); had death come once, he would have preferred it to ‘dying again and again’ (which is happening now) ".

o "Ghalib laments the slander after his death (obviously here his failed love), wishes he had drowned in a river. There would have been no funeral procession for him, no grave either; where the people are reminded of him and where they slander again".

o "These words of wisdom, the words of Ghalib- he would be counted amidst pious/ wise men, had he not been a drunkard".

Once again a varied interpretation of the last couplet from the explicit one could change the interpretation of the ghazal. If Ghalib were a Sufi poet (which is still opinionated), in this ghazal he could be talking about his quest to reach the God despite his human passions that were maligned by his rivals.

ग़ालिब (३) - ये ना थी हमारी किस्मत

2008-03-01T18:29:00.003+05:30

ये न थी हमारी किस्मत की विसाल-ऐ-यार होता

अगर और जीते रहते, यही इंतज़ार होता.

तेरे वादे पर जीये हम, तो ये जान झूठ जाना,
की खुशी से मर ना जाते, अगर ऐतबार होता

कोई मेरे दिल से पूछे, तेरे तीर-ऐ- नीमकश को,
ये खलिश कहाँ से होती, जो जिगर के पार होता.

ये कहाँ की दोस्ती है की बने हैं दोस्त नासेह,
कोई चारा-साज़ होता, कोई गमगुसार होता

कहूं किस-से मैं की क्या है, शब-ऐ-ग़म बुरी बला है,
मुझे क्या बुरा था मरना, अगर एक बार होता.

हुए मर के हम जो रुसवा, हुए क्यों न गर्क-ऐ-दरिया,
न कभी जनाजा उठता, न कहीं मजार होता.

यह मसायिले तसव्वुफ़, यह तेरा बयान ग़ालिब,
तुझे हम वली समझते, जो न बादाख्वार होता

Ghalib- 2

2008-02-27T20:49:00.003+05:30

On a lazy afternoon after the passage of a storm, I am doing what I like the most, listening to Ghalib and trying to explain his philosophy and poetry to non existent / disinterested readers.
While I believe that few of Ghalib’s gazals are completely understood today, I will discuss one whose few couplets are well understood. The couplets here are those which were sung in the serial Mirza Ghalib (and may be available on the You Tube). In my next post I might cover the remaining couplets as well, just to make the gazal complete and the present couplets more meaningful.

Bazeecha -e-atfaal hai duniya mere aage,
Hota hai shab-o-roz tamashaa mere aage.
(Children’s play; Night and Day/ continuously)

Hota hai nihaan gard mein, sehra mere hote,
Ghista hai zamin khaak pe dariya mere aage
(covered with dust, desert, dust, river)

Mat pooch ki kya haal hai, meraa tere peeche,
Tu dekh ki kya rang hai, teraa mere aage

Imaan mujhe roke hai, jo kheenche hai mujhe kufr,
Kaaba mere peeche hai, kalisaa mere aage
(atheism/ irreverence, church)

Go haath ko zumbish nahin, aakhon mein to dum hai,
Rehne do abhi saagar-o-meena mere aage.
(slight movement, the bottle and glass (of liquor))

Couplet 1: For me, this world is a children’s game where new shows take place day and night
Couplet 2: The passions (in my heart) raise storm such that even the desert gets covered with dust and such emotions flow there that even the streams appear dragging.
Couplet 3: (On separation) now when we meet, don’t ask how well I am doing without you; look at the colour of your face as you face me (and turn colourless) (obviously the beloved is trying to hurt Ghalib and take ‘revenge’ but Ghalib, another egoist, reminds that while you know I am not doing well without you, the pain of separation is more visible on your face- So whom are you hurting anyway?)
Couplet 4: The ‘beliefs’ stop me (from doing wrong), when the disbeliefs pull me on the other side. I either reach Kaaba or I reach the church. In a ‘Sufi’ mood Ghalib says that both are equally good, I reach the same God whichever path I tread upon.
Couplet 5: There is no motion in my hands (for they are so weak now), but my eyes still can see; so at least let the flask and the glass of liquor remain in front me (such is my passion).

While the above couplets, all master pieces, here seem to be wandering between philosophy, love, lord, passion and drinks; in the original and complete version the flow is very steady and hopefully I will cover them soon.

ग़ालिब- बाज़ीचा-ऐ-अत्फाल

2008-02-27T20:31:00.003+05:30

बाज़ीचा-ऐ-अत्फाल है दुनिया मेरे आगे,
होता है शब-ओ-रोज़ तमाशा मेरे आगे.

होता है निहां गर्द में, सेहरा मेरे होते,
घिसता है ज़मीं ख़ाक पे दरिया मेरे आगे

मत पूछ की क्या हाल है मेरा, तेरे पीछे,
तू देख की क्या रंग है तेरा, मेरे आगे

ईमां मुझे रोके है, जो खींचे है मुझे कुफ्र,
काबा मेरे पीछे है, कलीसा मेरे आगे

गो हाथ को जुम्बिश नहीं, आखों में तो दम है,
रहने दो अभी सागर-ओ-मीना मेरे आगे.

Memoirs of a lost world

2008-02-25T20:06:00.002+05:30

The polio campaign had entered its most critical phase. It was facing hostile reaction from a very small segment of anti-campaign leadership, but their command on the masses was much stronger than the official one. The worst part was that the most critical element of official campaign was also the weakest link, and it was affecting the progress badly.

Every weekend when the officials started at 7 am in the morning and returned after the compilation of the figures from the block by late evening, they complained; and the complaints were gradually becoming louder. “Why should the Doctors leave their practice and move from house to house facing humiliation? After all our SDO Sahib will not write their ACR”, senior officials would say.

Shocking incidents took place at times. A lady had been divorced after she had given polio drops to her child. Amit felt like interfering though his officials but that could have caused reaction and he had to remain silent. The number of volunteers who were being beaten was increasing. On one of the occasions Amit was forced to call the police (against the decision to keep the campaign non-coercive) to an institution from where the head was creating disturbance. The old man was asked to give the polio drops by his own hand to his grand children to send the right message in the village.

One of those days when Amit was in a semi urban municipality, there was news that an early born child had died. She had also been given the polio drops that day and now the mob had build up and they had surrounded the volunteer. Luckily the place was barely two kilometers from where Amit was and they had to rush to reach the spot. The volunteer was petrified and was crying inconsolably, begging mercy from the crowd.

When Amit reached there he was received by a large and hostile crowd. The father of the child angrily rushed inside his hut and took out the body of the child, born full 6 weeks ahead of the delivery date. The body was very small, weak and underdeveloped. There was again a furore in the crowd and the lady once again screamed with fear.

The doctor who had accompanied Amit tried to defend the health worker, “This was an early born child, clearly so weak, how could it have survived? Who is blaming the health worker? She did the right thing; this drop should have been given earlier. It could have built some immunity in the body”.

Crowd was perplexed by the logic. Then someone from the neighbourhood said that it was one of the twins born, the first one had died immediately after the birth some 7 days back. Even the father of the child accepted that the other twin had died immediately after the birth. Then the BDO questioned him that when the other child had died without the polio drops then how he was blaming the present incident to the polio drops.

Just to nib the problem in its bud, Amit asked to register a case against the main culprit, a politically motivated person, and the ‘leaders’ in this matter. They were soon totally defensive.

Shortly there was to be held a meeting with a senior minister and doctors in the subdivision. That far barring a few health officials, there had been lukewarm response in general. Should he speak out or not and where was the question before Amit. The officials of health administration were trying to convince him that things had improved drastically and speaking something to the minister could antagonize the health officials

During the public address of the dignitary to the department concerned Amit was to speak first. He began with an apology and went on to explain that how the Junior Engineers and Assistant engineers, head clerks, school teachers and anganwadi workers had all gone out to field with polio vials. But it was his inability to raise the interest of the appropriate stake holders to participate in the programme and if this did not change, momentum may not be maintained longer.

There was press around, there was whole concerned fraternity around and the comments of SDO were brutally blunt. It was obvious one of the parties will have to quit the screen, either him or the non participating officials.

By evening, number of transfer orders had started pouring in. People were to move out of their long established fiefdoms. Amit was to stay and complete the mission. In the days to come, even Doctors faced the public wrath but that helped their resolution to solve the problem once for all. The ‘Convergence Model’, the officially coined term for the campaign, was to be quoted in international seminars and replicated across the state and later in other parts of the country. Thousands of volunteers had worked across departments reaching house after house morning to evening for days, hundreds of meetings and rallies were held over months; but it had meant success.

The last one week

2008-02-24T00:35:00.004+05:30

1. For many people international finance job was crucial. However, with most of the international I-banks facing huge losses due to sub prime crises, this option lost some of its glamour. Also the fear of further impact of the subprime was disheartening. The biggest upside was that the people entering the industry at this time might rise faster in the ladder, provided the situation does not worsen

2. Consulting became the obvious choice to look for in such a situation. The decisive factors were the pay package, profile and nature of the job and the future prospects. To begin with, the consulting firms being day 0 companies, they could not be benchmarked financially; while the ranks and GPA was discussed for the last time. And as per the ‘up or out’ model of the big firms, there were not many suitable profiles for people looking for senior roles. While the hype around the consulting jobs was extreme, the question of flying out 3-4 days per week was also a serious consideration for many. Finally, one had to be very sure if he was willing to be out (if not move up) and was prepared to search for a new job soon. In General, high rankers were more in demand for the consulting roles.

3. The other options for consideration for many people were the marketing and general management roles. It was at this time when one could also benchmark the pay packages across the sectors. And it was soon evident that the companies are interested in hiring right candidates at the candidates’ terms. Marketing was drawing great attention and people with some relevant background or specialization were in good demand.
No wonder many people were judiciously considering joining amongst the top consulting firms, General Management roles, marketing roles or IT roles.

4. Indian Financial companies also offered good opportunities. For IT, it is the Demand and Supply equation which plays the decisive factor. Operations and logistics are good sectors for people looking for a switch and can be targeted with relevant specialization and selection of courses. Some excellent opportunities came from the sunrise sectors; health/ pharma and real-estate were in great demand.

OK, what about me?
I declined an international consulting offer in Dubai, I also declined an offer for an Indian posting, from a firm having major work in Government consultancy, as ‘senior consultant’ in their Gurgaon office. Though I could have been Manager in a year and partner in 4-5 years, the profile couldn’t better the General management roles which were available.

I have been offered, by a major hospital group, the post of the CEO for their upcoming chain of 26 hospitals. There will soon be a meeting with the Chairman and the CFO of the organization to understand the execution plans.

Another offer worth consideration was in real estate as the General Manager. This post would again be in the top leadership of the firm.

So, as I have always believed- having patience is important. Seems good so far, but nothing comes close to what I was doing in the Civil Services.

ग़ालिब- दिल ही तो है

2008-02-23T02:42:00.002+05:30

दिल ही तो है न संग-ओ-खिश्त, दर्द से भर ना आए क्यों,

रोयेंगे हम हज़ार बार, कोई हमें सताए क्यों।

दैर नहीं, हरम नहीं, दर नहीं , आस्तां नहीं,
बैठे हैं रह-गुज़र पे हम, गैर हमें उठाये क्यों?

कैद-ऐ-हयात -ओ -बंद-ऐ-गम, अस्ल में दोनों एक हैं,

मौत से पहले आदमी, गम से निजात पाये क्यों?

वाँ वह गरूरे -इज्जो -नाज़, याँ यह हिजाबे- पासे वजा,
राह में हम मिलें कहाँ, बज्म में वह बुलाए क्यों?

हाँ, वह नहीं खुदा परस्त, जाओ वह बेवफा सही,
जिसको हो दीनो-दिल अज़ीज़, उसकी गली में जाए क्यों?

ग़ालिब -ऐ-खस्ता के बगैर कौन से काम बंद हैं?

रोईये जार-जार क्या? कीजिये हाय- हाय क्यों?

Ghalib revisited

2008-02-23T02:12:00.006+05:30

Discovered Hindi Fonts on Blogger and tried to type one of my favourites of Ghalib peoms;

Meaning of some words and phrases in bold from the poem above- Bricks and stones; Temple; Life; Grip of sadness; with pride (arrogance mixed) and shy (inhibited); Restrained by decorum; (Mehfil) – the party

In the third couplet, Ghalib compares the ‘prison of life’ with the clutches of pains and concludes that pains can only be overcome with the end of life (libration from the prison).
Amazing rise from story of love to one which is many notches higher ‘philosophy of life’!

Another beautiful transition in fourth couplet, back to the love story. The beloved has the inhibition and pride while Ghalib is restrained by worldly decorum. Obviously they can not meet along the road (possibly the beloved is surrounded by many people as stated clearly in some other Ghalib poems) and beloved does not invite Ghalib in the special gatherings.

Fifth couplet is tricky. Ghalib alleges atheism and being unfaithful; same allegations that were used against him on so many occasions. But then answers himself, people looking for piousness and emotions* should not approach (whom? Ghalib or the beloved)
*(amazing change of track from first couplet where he is crying for a broken heart)

Sixth couplet is one of the most famous of the Ghalib. Feel why? Continue from the fifth couplet; here he says that nothing actually is lost without Ghalib. Then why should one cry and scream?

Implicit is ‘despite his atheism and faithlessness, he is without parallel so there would be every reason to wail and scream ‘without’ Ghalib'

Read the whole poem again in the light of the last couplet and many meanings change and one can see the literary genius of the royal poet, who knew he had no competition in any field.

A break from the silence

2008-02-22T01:48:00.002+05:30

We are going through some of the most intense days of our life. The team spirit and selfless commitment for a common cause has been unparallel.
For me, I am happy for the trust some organizations expressed about the difference I could make for their mission. Then, it is mostly about self belief, understanding human relations and knowing what you want to do in your life.
A bit of travelling is expected in near future, possibly around March beginning. I plan to meet some old friends.
Will be back with the memoirs soon; I have so much to do over the next one and a half months in ISB.

Case Preparations and Intellectual Stimulation

2008-02-15T18:10:00.000+05:30

In a B-School, case preparation touches almost height of passion as the recruitment season approaches. Cases can be intellectually stimulating because the same case can evolve in many different ways and the challenge remains to solve it in 20 odd minutes.

Each batch tries to leave its legacy in form of the cases it faced during the interviews and the knowledge bank builds up. It helps a lot to know the types of projects firms undertake and nothing better if one knows who all are there on the panel. A glance through the cases and one could be assured what are the fields the interviewer is more likely to focus upon.

But case solution has to be ethical along with being intellectually stimulating. Interviewer may not like that the candidate does a case which was not fresh for him is what you are told. That is why they create “live” cases, those they are working on currently.

When the cases begin, they all look alike. At some point each case evolves into a different entity, differing from the ‘previous version’. But what if it doesn’t? And it continues to be the same case that the previous batches left and the solution of which is known. It could be too late to tell the interviewer that the solution he might have told someone last year is now documented; that you know about the negative NPV project/ decreasing profits and its possible future evolution into a real option case with possibility of good profits in the future. You may earn a ‘wow’ moment but then -----

You could take it; you could leave it and think about the next interview. Call it sheer ‘good luck’ to stumble upon a known case or ‘bad luck’.
Or it could be an anticlimax of a long trail!

Time Flies

2008-02-08T23:29:00.000+05:30

It was in 1997, when someone had knocked at my room in Jia Sarai, the abode of IAS aspirants. I knew the person who was standing there; he was the topper of Civil Department of our batch, another aspirant for a berth in IAS. He had told that he was looking for a room in Jia Sarai to start full time preparation for the CIVILs.

Even I had quit the highest paid job of my department to appear for the next prelims. I had preferred Jia Sarai to the hostel room I had been allotted in JNU for MA Geography and the scholarship at another course in Forest Management at Bhopal.

My room happened to be the best situated room in the entire locality. It overlooked the Hockey and Football fields of IIT on the other side of the road. The house belonged to the biggest Xerox shop owner of Jia Sarai who knew me for the volume of work I had done during my B-Tech project at his shop. While I had been searching for an accommodation, he had offered that room to me at a throw away rent in one of the costliest places in New Delhi. The room was extremely spacious, traditionally shared by two to three IAS aspirants in the past.

As a recent pass out from an engineering college with hardly any saving, even that rent was a huge burden for me. I had told my batch mate that he could come and stay in that room on sharing of rental. After a long thought he had responded, “Nahi yaar, mere ko serious types ki taiyaari karni hai”. However, he had informed another person, our four year senior, about the part vacancy in that room.

When the result had come all the three of us had qualified.

We still laugh, that after all his ‘serious preparations’ my friend was ranked 17th, I was ranked 15th and our senior, my room mate at Jia Sarai, was ranked 14th, amongst almost 250,000 applicants. We had undergone training at LBSNAA in same batch, we were in the same Bharat Darshan Group and even now we often plan to attend the trainings organized by DOPT together. Last one was at IIM Bangalore, when we had decided that it was time to have a degree in Business Administration.

Today my friend, Collector Sahib for over three years now, had visited ISB with his wife. So it was refreshing of memories of over 14 years, 4 years in IIT and those after that.

Time flies by! What else to say.

Post from a 'researcher'

2008-02-04T00:00:00.000+05:30

When I enrolled for that course, the idea was to learn more about the Financial Systems in India. The Professor had suggested that some of the projects we were to do as part of the course may be published in a book he was working on.

We had to submit two reports- one an individual report and the other a group work. Now that the Professor has confirmed that both my reports will be published, I am quite excited about the same. We will work on those during the last term and I hope that they come up well. For the group report we might have to travel outstation to collect some more data. My individual report was on Agricultural Credit in India in the past and present

Agricultural credit is one area which has been ON and OFF the radar of the banks and other financing institutions despite the fact that financial involvement in this sector is huge. There are issues regarding which agencies to be involved in this work- bank through their rural branches or institutions like NABARD through their arms in the form of Self Help Groups. Whatever be the method, the issue of financial inclusion of millions of poor people residing mostly in the rural areas, with their livelihood revolving around land and agriculture is extremely important.

Besides this, the independent study I was working on got completed this weekend. We worked on the autocorrelation in the returns of stocks listed in Nifty and Sensex. The data we downloaded and worked on to draw conclusions was in thousands of pages and the final report itself was thirty pages long. Our guide at UCLA has appreciated the report and this was again a ‘high point’ in the last week.

So the life moves on.

Being an Indian

2008-01-31T02:16:00.000+05:30

The fall of the share market as a reaction to some international event bothers you. By next 2-3 days the stock market recovers and everything is normal.

There is no threat of impending recession in the economy. In contrast, you can easily make a list of a dozen new sectors which are waiting to cause the next economic boom over the next 40 years.

If you are still not sure where I am referring to is then it is none other than the most happening place on earth, INDIA. The Golden bird is clamoring to soar into the sky again. The reflection of this is evident in achievements galore every now and then and all those who are associated with those burst with joy, ‘Hey, we did it’.

That’s true, no doubt, but the real shout should be ‘We did it again and again and again; and we will continue to expand the horizon every time again as Indians’.

I remember when I had graduated from IITD, there were few good jobs. But in about 10 years the situation has become so different.

Consider any three educational institutions with average annual Indian salary of 8 lakh, 12 lakh and 16 lakhs. Then consider the Purchasing Power Parity of 5.35, which makes the salaries actually convert to Rs 42.8 lakhs, Rs 64.2 lakhs and Rs 85.6 lakhs respectively (PPP of 5.35 taken from Macroeconomics: Theory and Applications by G.S. Gupta ).

Then if we consider a $ equal to Rs 40, the salaries above, which are quite common in Indian educational institutions today, convert to $107,000 (4280000/40), $160,500 and $214,000. If these numbers look familiar then it is because they are approaching those which are proudly boasted every year as the few mega ‘1 crore jobs’ in the B-Schools.

So the paradox is that the few jobs which draw the attention for being ‘1 crore plus’ convert to quite ordinary figures in Rupee terms taking into account the PPP; such figures which are increasingly being offered in India to a great number of students.

It was quite evident over the last few days that people were wondering that with average 8- 10 offers from the Deutsche, Goldman, Barclays, Lehman, ML, Morgan and Stanley each- why they are not in top placement records in Finance amongst the B-Schools. At the same time with much fewer international I-banking offers how others can have best finance placement records. The answer is in the 80 plus Finance jobs in India which are much more rewarding within this country.

So while there is a lot of glamour attached with famed streets, the actual growth might be happening on the street next to your home in India. Choice anyway is individual’s- being in a stagnant economy and better living conditions or growing in an expanding economy while creating better living conditions.

And surely ‘the success formula’ will strike more and more people in the days to come. Then more individuals and institutions will try to make a global impact while working in the ‘right direction’. But wherever one is, the events to come will surely make one feel proud to be an Indian.

ISB at the top of the world

2008-01-28T23:58:00.000+05:30

This morning was special, as I logged on to my lap top I had this wonderful news waiting for me. ISB had made it into the top 20 B-Schools of the globe in the Financial Times rankings.

The message spread like wild fire on the campus, with the excitement spreading through mails and word of mouth as we discussed the news during classes and in the breaks. Then there was this formal announcement in the atrium by the Deputy Dean in front of media and press. What summed up the sentiment on the campus is well covered in the words of Deputy Dean ‘we will celebrate- with dignity, humility, and sensitivity’.

As our 1 year journey at ISB is reaching its end, this day signatures of another journey that will be much longer in its duration and stronger in ties.

The announcement of the rankings meant different things to different people. For some, it was an affirmation of the belief they had put in ISB amidst what a year back looked as ‘better options’. There were moments of disbelief but then nothing succeeds like success. So whosoever might have had doubts till this day will agree that there could be no looking backwards from here. There is only one way from here and that is to the top.

And I think that is what it means ‘we will celebrate- with dignity, humility, and sensitivity’. And I am sure while there are celebrations around and the heroes of this saga- the alumni, the faculty, the students, the management and the board members are being heralded; there are people thinking ‘where forward from here and how?’. For the journey has just begun, barely six years ago and a lot remains to be covered. But still, today was the day for many to take a small break, look backwards and smile before taking the next step forward.

Memoirs of a lost world

2008-01-27T18:28:00.000+05:30

What does a bureaucrat do when he has wants new ideas to solve a problem? Obviously, he convenes a meeting for brain storming and hopes to get new ideas there.

Amit had convened that meeting with his 7 BDOs and the Sabhapatis (the elected head of the Local Self Panchayat of the Panchayat Samiti at the Block level). Also present were the Executive Magistrates at the Subdivision and the ACMOH. The health officials at the block level were not present as it was expected that the meeting could turn out more of a fire fighting exercise if they were there.

Amit set the ball rolling with the condition that he was not looking for easy excuses but sincere suggestions.

The initial moments belonged to the ACMOH who proudly informed about his meeting at the state capital where he had been summoned and finally congratulated for a bare 60% but genuine vaccination in three days (as against the previous drives which had reported figures of 100% plus coverage). But that had also earned an extra polio drive for Warpur alone in the whole state on one of the weekends.

The most extrovert BDO began with what he had been asked not to do i.e. complaining against the health department. His point was that since the public were not getting the regular health services, their dissatisfaction was resulting in poor response for the polio drive. He continued to say if the campaign had incorporated the Anganwadi workers, the confidence of public and the result of the drive would have been different (it turned out to be the most useful suggestion).

The Sabhapati of the same block said that he would not stop from criticizing his own brethren i.e. the politicians, who were afraid to come out openly in favour of the polio campaign under the fear of the religious leaders.

The Sabhapati of the neighbouring block, a lady, started narrating her experience of the last drive when she had pulled one of the panchayat members out of hiding after he had threatened and driven health volunteers away from his areas.

Then another BDO suggested that the campaign should be broad based. The administration should involve school teachers in the drive. But many people objected to it since the teachers were already involved in a number of activities they might not agree to any additional duties

One of the magistrates suggested that to ensure that more children reported at the booth on day one, the campaign should involve senior school children to bring young kids to the polio booths. Class IX and Class XI students could be issued certificates of appreciation for this work and it could be considered part of their community service course.

Then there were pointers to update the performance of the health department, including the number and name of children below 5 years. It was clear that this had been avoided as quoting more children could get more remuneration for volunteers, training etc. Similarly a record of the vehicles deployed could increase the mobility of the supervisors and take vaccine to the volunteers early in the morning. That was relevant because due to delay the vaccine became ineffective, as visible on a sticker on the bottle.

Those were all good points. Amit was thinking how to go ahead and implement those. It was decided to have a block level monitoring committee with the BDO, BMOH, Sabhapati and the CDPO. This could rope in the resources of most of the people functional at the grassroots. There was supposed to be a Government employee for every 10 booths (besides the health staff) who would be personally responsible for ensuring coverage in the booths.

The senior most BDO then suggested that the campaign could be effective only if the big industrialists or the ‘bidi houses’ were involved in favour of campaign. Warpur happened to be the biggest producer of hand rolled cigarettes (bidi). Since the local economy was mostly based on bidi rolling, the people who ran the industries actually provided livelihood of over 600,000 people of the subdivision. But the issue was that whether they will or why they will come in favour of such a campaign and go against the religious sentiments.

Still many people present were of the opinion that when one talked of the opinion makers and leaders of the society in Warpur there was none who was more prominent than the managers and ‘munshis’ of the bidi companies.

The other view was that the reason why Warpur was so severely affected by polio was due to ‘bidi’ industry. Since children, women and even pregnant women rolled bidi almost everyone had no defense to any sort of virus. And the spurt of polio virus was possibly due to low resistance.

When contacted over telephone, the manager of the largest bidi company suggested Amit to hold the first meeting in a smaller company to gauge the temperament and build base before directly involving the biggest group. He himself was convinced, being from the minority community that the issue was mostly of ignorance. His suggestion was cautious but positive.

Only one of the BDO was willing to organize a candle rally with school children in his block to raise awareness for attention building. To most it appeared to be an immature step for such a campaign. However, all the blocks agreed to organize a meeting in their blocks with the Head masters of the schools so as to request them to give a message on polio during the daily prayers.

One of the blocks was to start the campaign with a large meeting with Panchayat members to sensitize the political functionaries. The District Sabhadhipati (head of the district local self Government, and of the rank of a minister) was to be invited to talk on the seriousness of the issue and Amit assured that he would request the District Magistrate to also attend that meeting.

They also agreed to have a polio booth on all the bus stands as it was reported that parents were shifting their children to the bordering neighbouring state during the campaign dates.

Amit was excited about the initiative that his team was taking. However, the senior magistrates forewarned him that the whole exercise might soon fall flat if the health department was not activated fast. There were many grey areas and the whole team was at best ‘hopeful’.

Course Bidding for the last term at ISB

2008-01-23T22:57:00.000+05:30

The bid for the courses to be taken in the eight and the last term is over (though we are in the middle of the seventh term). I have been allotted Financial Econometrics, Business Law, Retailing, Marketing Modeling and Property Finance & Investment. I am taking the maximum possible five courses though could have opted for less. To me it makes sense, after all this will be the last chance to learn in this wonderful institution. Last week we completed our presentation for the Experiential Learning Project on our project on Term Sheet; yes, it is time to wind up the pending projects.

Nostalgic mails and memorable photographs of the year have begun to appear randomly on the mail, though preparations for the Placements are the prime concern at the moment for most people. So, this post is to keep the blog updated for the time being in this rush.

Memoirs ..........

2008-01-19T23:42:00.000+05:30

The data entry work for the final publication of electoral roll got done on war footing, but that meant that every thing else had to be shelved for 5 nights and four days. There were no surprises either in the form of voter deletion or other changes.

The next Sunday was quite important as it was the day for the Pulse Polio drive, which was mostly organized on weekends.

Warpur had been in the news for some time in the state for wrong reasons as it had reported all but 1 polio cases in the state. The problem was serious because the minority community (which happened to be in strong majority in the sub division) was refusing to administer the vaccine to the children. Rumours had been spread about the affect of the vaccine on the child bearing capacity of the children in future.

The day began as Amit reached the office of the ACMOH at about 7am in the morning, as per the appointment. The ACMOH was there but his vehicle was not. As the vehicle did not report for the next half an hour they started on Amit’s vehicle. In the mean time, the ACMOH had been frantically informing the Health officers in the blocks that the SDO would be visiting their offices.

The reason was obvious as the first office itself was barely opened in the morning. Some of the supervisors who were there complained about the lack of the conveyance to bring them to their offices in the rural areas. The ACMOH told that there were supposed to be a vehicle for every 10-15 booths and most vehicles were in the field now and those people would have been late. The same story repeated in the second and the third block also, though no vehicle was visible around anywhere.

The Block Development officers, the administrative head of the blocks had counter information that possibly no vehicles had been hired by the concerned department. In the booths where 4 volunteers were supposed to be present, either two or three volunteers were visible. The turnout of children was hopelessly low while the target was 80% coverage on day 1 of the drive. This figure of 80% was important as the passage of vaccine through the stool of the children would kill the wild polio virus in the nature as well and some sort of immunity developed against virus.

Only by 10 am had most of the booths been activated. By 11 am the supervisors had again disappeared from the field after handing the boxes of the vaccine. Some had to be called back from their homes by the visiting team. In most cases the volunteers had no idea of the number of children they had to cover in their booth. It was sad to see that the doctors in the blocks had not taken any round in their areas to supervise the campaign and most were in their clinics.

The BDOs were reluctantly accompanying the SDO around their blocks. They explained that previously the scheme was being supervised by the BDO’s office and now the health department had taken over for some time. It was almost non participation, if not non cooperation, that prevailed. BDOs complained that the BMOHs had not ‘called on’ them and didn’t attend the Block level monitoring committee meetings or visit the BDOs office. Basically there was no inter-department coordination.

In the field the parents were hiding their children from the health staff and the health staff was not entering the interior parts of the villages as they feared reaction from the people on religious grounds. Some even explained that the local religious institutions had been advocating to people locally for past some days to abstain from the drive.

The whole day the campaign ran in utter chaos. Most of the volunteers were not aware of the target of 80% coverage on day one. Huge amount had been spent on the training of the volunteers but they were not aware as to how to convince the parents. Only in the booths where the volunteers present could be contacted, the coverage began to improve by the end of the day.

When Amit returned back to the Head quarter it was late evening. All the block offices had started working on compiling the reports of vaccination coverage. The ACMOH took leave to get the data compiled in his office. He was to fax the same to the district from Amit’s office later as there was no fax in his office. It was a disappointing and tiring day with hopelessly poor returns of very hard work.

The average coverage was between 30-35% against the target of 80% which the ACMOH confirmed over the phone and then he was not accessible for over two hours. Amit was surprised as he waited in his office for the final report. The ACMOH came to his office at around 9.30 pm with the final report to be sent to the district.

He tabled a report of about 102% coverage on day 1 of the Pulse Polio drive. 2% higher would be for children above 5 years of age, who got covered in the drive, he explained. While he was sincerely ashamed of the huge discrepancy in the actual coverage and what he was going to report, he explained that he had been ‘instructed’ on the matter. As it is Warpur was reeling under a disaster, a report on low coverage would only show poor preparations by the administration, he had been told.

Amit had to put his foot down that he would not allow that report to be sent from his fax. They needed serious steps to build up a campaign in the next few days. There were senior officials heading their respective blocks who had not moved out of their chamber. There was literally no supervision, the vehicles were missing, the volunteers were missing, and funds had been spent on training while the training had been missing. That way they would never be able to handle the situation.

Come monsoon and the situation would aggravate as the virus would spread faster. The only way out was drastic measures and that would only happen if a realistic picture was brought to the notice of the decision makers.

The ACMOH was reluctant to sign on the low coverage report, but finally he agreed to send the low turnout report under joint signatures of the SDO and ACMOH.

Memoirs of a lost world

2008-01-11T06:09:00.000+05:30

The journey to the new district took over 4 hours by car. The District Magistrate had arranged for Amit’s stay at the District Circuit House and he had been invited for a dinner at ‘Nesheman’, the bungalow of the District Magistrate. So it was here that may be Robert Clive and party had one day planned the battle of Plassey, people were discussing about the Bungalow and its references in the Gazetteer. Amit noted that the wooden stair cases were about 12 feet wide, big enough to take a rider up mounted on a horse back.

Amit was told that the Bungalow of SDO Warpur, where he was to stay as the SDO, also had seen some important events in the past. Like most of those old Bungalows, the one in Warpur was known to be a confirmed haunted one, and Amit was advised not to worry much about that.

One of the highly reputed officers who was present there (he later got posted in the World Bank) advised Amit that events in Kalipur had made him quite famous in a very short career. But Warpur was what could establish if he really was a good officer, for reputation gets build over a period of time while fame could be instantaneous yet short lived.

Since he was associated with the Health Department he told Amit to immediately get involved in the Pulse Polio work. Warpur had all but 1 polio cases reported recently in the state. That even meant that the number was high enough to make the state one of the worst affected in the country. The country itself was one of the few on the globe where Polio virus had resurfaced. So plainly speaking, Warpur was where all the attention hinged and Amit had to tackle the issue soon.

The ADM of the District had his own set of instructions for Amit. They were not getting the report on the work of electoral roll revision for some time while the publication date was due in next 5 days.

The next morning the car had come to pick Amit from the circuit house for Warpur. The subdivision was over 50 km from the district Head quarter, a real outlying subdivision of the district as they say (much like Kalipur in that respect). It had over 100 km of international border, plant of National Thermal Power Corporation. They had one Member of Parliament and 7 Members of Legislative Assembly.

The driver told Amit how the Subdivision had been important during the ‘Indigo Revolt’ during the freedom struggle. Then he informed that the famous Battle of Giria for the supremacy of the state (which later led to the supremacy of the country) had been fought in his subdivision. He also asked Amit if he had seen a prominent movie of the master film maker Satyajit Ray which had been filmed in the house of the Zamindars of Aamtita, in one of the blocks of the Subdivision.

‘Sir, we have the fresh water Illish fish, the most prominent Bengali delicacy, in our subdivision. The place where the Ganges separates into the Ganga and Padma (which enters into Bangladesh) is in our subdivision. Illish is in abundance there’, he informed.

‘OK’, Amit responded.

‘Sir, the Aamtita Zamindar house is also there, we will go there if you like’, the security informed.

‘Sure, very soon, in a day or two at most’, Amit replied.

‘Sir, we are approaching Warpur, our head quarter. This place is called ‘Phansi Deva’ means where people used to be hanged during the Indigo revolt’, the driver told.

The main road leading to the small town built as twin city on the two banks of Ganges was water logged on its both the sides. Clearly there were over 10 feet deep broad drain visible on either side, clogged with remains of broken constructions checking water around.

‘This is a flood prone area, every year rain water enters here but there is no exit’, driver continued.

There clearly was drainage in place long back, Amit thought, but people have encroached over it and now water gets trapped there and these people believe floods are inevitable. ‘So next to Polio work, agenda number two, get the drainage back before the monsoons’, Amit told himself.

The car entered the premises and was driven some 200 meters further before it stopped in front of a massive building, much much bigger than what Amit had expected in his thoughts. While a lot of people started running to get the luggage down of the car, an old man in dhoti-kurta came forward. ‘Sir, I’m Kundu Babu, I am supervising the roll revision data entry’, he proudly informed.

‘Great Kundu babu that you are here. So the work must be over by now, we completed it a few days back in Kalipur’, Amit said.

‘Naa sir, that is why I ran when I saw you coming. We have heard about Kalipur, but in Warpur the work did not start at all. We have only entered some 8000 data and I am working with 1 computer and one data entry operator. I am an old man so I can stay back but no one is worried about this work. Since SDO Sahib was leaving, she ………… and hence the other magistrates also ……..’, Kundu Babu blamed his officials.

But obviously that could not be true, Amit thought, the roll publication is after 4 days. He probably does not know all the things, so Amit immediately rang his batch mate who was posted there before him.

She only confirmed what Amit did not want to hear, ‘Those people are always fighting and telling stories about their history. So I also left it to them. Anyway you are sitting on that chair now, so take care’

As Amit entered his office, he read the names of the people on the board who had been posted there in past 150 years. Many of them he had read in the history book while preparing for the Civil Services.

‘So Warpur is some place to be at’, Amit thought considering the aura and grandeur of the building, the place and its past. His first phone call he made was to his boss since the computers for the data entry had to be provided by the District.

Amit felt he would have preferred a break. But the boss had been so worried for some days asking Amit to join without the joining period. They had some work at hand, and this was it.

But yes, Warpur was a place to be at.

Foodgrain Distribution Problems

2008-01-06T02:00:00.000+05:30

A tale of two friends- One of the friends was a regional distributor of the food grains to the rations shop owners. The other was a rice miller. Every time the distributor got a weekly allotment for collecting the food grains, he would hand over a part of it to his rice miller friend to repack the grains and deposit with the official agency against his quota of levy rice. Since both the friends had been in this family business for years, this had become an established norm. They could sell the same Government foodgrain back to the Government a number of times thus. Every time the official agencies were sent the bills for foodgrain, transportation and subsidy.

The smaller players in the game i.e. the ration shops were given a share of their allotment for informing the beneficiaries at the grass root level that the ‘allotment’ had not been made by the ‘Government’. All the beneficiaries believed that the allotment for the foodgrain came once in a blue moon. At least two generations had become older living with this ‘fact’. The occasional distractions were in the form of some isolated starvation deaths reported in interior places and those would later be ‘diagnosed’ as cases of ‘tuberculosis’. As if malnutrition was not known to have any impact on the health of the people.

Gradually this friendly practice between the distributor and the miller became so rampant that substantial amount of the foodgrain distribution started occurring only on papers while the bills were claimed for real. Those distributors and ration shop owners who did not get into collusion with the rice millers started selling the PDS rice in the open market.

The fact remains that there are actually no numbers available as to what amount of foodgrain reaches the beneficiaries under the various schemes, which would vary from shop to shop and region to region.

To check the malpractices, there are orders to demonstrate the list of the beneficiaries in the ration shops. The ration card shop owners rarely display these lists. The reason is that there might be huge duplication of beneficiary names or presence of bogus beneficiaries in the list. One copy of these lists is also supposed to remain present in the local self government office. While some exceptional panchayat went to the extent of painting the list of the beneficiaries on the public wall, for transparency, a majority don’t even preserve these lists.

In one case when there was a complaint of non distribution of the foodgrain by two of the ration shops. When the shops were inspected they had not displayed the beneficiary list, their licenses were suspended and the beneficiaries were tagged to the ration shop of the neighbouring area. Ration shop owners still managed to create a lot of disturbance on the ground of inconvenience to the local public due to large distance from the new shop. They could keep the administration on its toes under the threat of sub-division wide strike by all the ration shops. Though that was manageable, the repeated deputations by the association were a regular irritation.

At the lowest Panchayat tier, i.e. on the seat of a member of a Panchayat, it is very common to have either the Ration shop owner or his family member as the elected representative. This becomes easier considering the clout these people exercised locally owing to their capacity to control the supplies of the ration.

A Case of 'Official Activism'- In one case a truck was caught carrying the PDS grains after it had left the distributors godown. The driver and the small scale rice seller in the neighbouring district were arrested and the police handed over the truck and its content to another distributor to hold it in his custody. The poor fellow had to accept this job unwillingly. The concerned official of the food department immediately raided the godown of the custodian and suspended him, while no action was initiated on the person illegally selling the PDS grains. That was an amazing case of 'official activism'.

The district administration had to stand against this case of gross injustice and finally suspension order was received against the food official who had suspended the custodian. The order mentioned the service of the order to be made against the suspended official in 24 hours. In one of the previous instances against the same food official, such an order had not been served as he had gone into hiding for 24 hours without trace. In this case also, despite a number of raids, the person was untraceable. Finally, he was nabbed in a distant district where police had been deployed beyond his anticipation. It was an instance of suspension of one of the most senior officials in the entire racquet.

A New Year, The Foodgrain journey continued

2008-01-01T05:49:00.000+05:30

The next step in the supply chain of food grain distribution is the processing of the food grains by the Rice mills (our example we started with). This seems to be simple, after all the mill should remove the husk and the rice is ready to be cooked, isn’t it?

Not quite so.

The rice mills have licensed permission to process the paddy. One might ask, why should there be License Permit Raj? Well, I came to know of instances where the bursting of boilers in unauthorized mills was reported. So one of the reasons I know, which is told, is to ensure safety of the production process. The other reason informed is to ensure equitable distribution of the excess production capacity and avoid monopolistic tendencies of large millers. So the annual rice procurement targets for the millers are informed at the beginning of the arrival of paddy in the market. The district level committee which decides the quota to be deposited to the Government consists of the Collector, the representatives of the Panchyat bodies, the officials of food department, the representatives of the cooperatives, representatives of FCI, and the members of the rice millers associations amongst others. This broad base ensures the fairness of the system.

Now consider that there has been a bumper crop in the state and neighbouring states (you may also consider neighbouring country if you are in a border state) then the market will be flooded with surplus crop and the market price will drop. The Government procurement price will be higher than the market price and the millers would crowd to sell the processed rice to the Government food department. This might lead to favour of some millers at the cost of others if the district level monitoring committee is not strong.

In contrast if the crop has not been so good around then the market price of rice could be higher than the Government procurement price of rice from the miller. The millers then try to avoid selling the rice to the Government and prefer to sell it in the open market. Then, illegal understanding with the officials involved might lead to forcing a few millers to sell their rice to the Government while the favoured ones will sell it at higher margins in the free market.

Then there are issues of which cooperative society will sell its paddy procured to which miller (they prefer the nearest ones, but the milling capacity and the paddy available might not match) and imposition of the minimum support price (MSP) in the purchase of paddy by the millers. At the time of delivery of the processed rice to the Government the millers are supposed to submit documents signed by the inspectors of the Food department that the rice is produced from the paddy procured at the MSP. Sadly, the inspectors give that certificate to one and all and the MSP mostly gets implemented on paper only.

The millers pay less price to the cooperatives, traders or the farmers who approach them to sell the paddy on the ground of high moisture content, high dust content and poor grain quality etc. then what is approved by the Government. No doubt rice millers are politically very powerful and their network exists from the block level where the mills work to the sub-division, district, state and national level. Some of the bigger traders who purchase and stock the paddy are also relatives and family members and hence I found that the inspectors were too small to impose anything upon the people with huge financial power.

As I had discussed above, in a year of poor crop or huge demand from across the borders, the tendency of the foodgrain is to fly out of the Government system. Thus, in the beginning of the processing season, Government through its food department enters into agreement with the individual millers for the quantity of rice they will have to sell to the Government based upon their production capacity. In case if they don’t enter into agreement, the Levy rice can be collected by the officials for Government based upon the percent of rice produced by the mill. The percentage of levy varies from state to state while 50% is an approximation for the median.

In a bad crop production year, I had to pass tough time to monitor the quantity of rice that was being processed by the millers and had to strictly enforce the collection of levy, though we could cross the target for the district in the end, and were probably the only district to do so.

The amount of rice produced by a mill can roughly be estimated if the accurate amount of paddy procured is known, as different state governments accept about 63% to 67% of rice production from the paddy used. Once the rice has been processed, it is delivered as per the agreement to the Food department for further use by them. This could be local distribution in the deficient districts or for transportation to the FCI godowns in the surplus states and districts, from where the FCI will dispatch it to the other parts of the country.

The food department of that state and the districts for which it is meant will keep an eye on the allotment received and the arrival of the rakes of the foodgrain. The grain is unloaded at the sidings and sub-allotments made to the districts. As usual the early bird…….., i.e. the alert districts are able to draw the allotment in their areas first. The foodgrain is stored in the Government or other godowns and then the district controller makes the allotment order for the various schemes, based on which the district level distributors collect their quota of allotments. From their godowns the MR dealers (ration shop owners) collect the food grain and inform the public of the receipt of the allotment (if they really do).

I will discuss the places where at times I faced serious problems and loopholes in ensuring the collection and distribution of the foodgrain in some other post.

Food Security- The procurement of food grains

2007-12-27T02:18:00.000+05:30

Today food grains are provided to beneficiaries under numerous schemes, like PDS, AAY, APY, Mid Day Meal for students, NFFWP etc. The work of Food grain distribution to the beneficiaries is the last stage of the entire supply chain. It would be worthwhile to understand the whole process as it actually takes place i.e. beginning with procurement. As an example, I would discuss the procurement process for rice. This is meant to understand the entire supply chain along with the various stake holders involved at different stages. The supply chain begins with the procurement of paddy, its transport to the rice mills, its processing at the mill to extract rice from the husk and packaging and transporting to various parts of the country and the local stocking and distribution thereof for various schemes.

As with the other crops the freshly harvested paddy is stacked in the fields to begin with. The paddy has some moisture content present in it. The farmers are free to sell their product in the open market or to the Government which purchases it at the Minimum support price (MSP). The government procures its rice targets through the various cooperative societies and the state food and supply departments.

Normally the paddy sale occurs in the daily or weekly ‘haats’. Some learnings in the procurement are listed below:
o The cooperative societies were lax to begin the collection of the food grain. Lesser margins, political interests or understanding with the private traders could be the reasons behind this. Some cooperatives complained of initial cash disbursement from their own sources, in case if the allocation receipt from the state gets delayed to begin with. The competitors for procurement i.e. the traders make spot payments in cash and hence have a point in their favour unless the cooperatives carry sufficient cash allotment with them. This results in delay in making the MSP operational and the traders purchase paddy at a lower price

o Traders form procurement cartels to keep the procurement price down. Reasons learnt for low procurement price in free market are high moisture content, high dirt and husk content, high procurement cost from middlemen (who at times buy grains from the fields and sell them in haats and earn their commission) and high transportation costs (for sending rice to mill for processing) , poor grain quality etc. These factors may explain up to 10 % variation from the MSP but the market price without the Government procurement remains between 60-70% of MSP

o Even this purchase price gets driven lower if paddy from the neighbouring states, where procurement price could be about 50% of MSP, enters local market. Sadly, the market on its own it hopelessly inefficient without Government intervention. The reason being absolutely no bargaining power of the farmers, the poorer ones and their families living on the edge. If Government procurement is totally stop, it could invariably drive the procurement price so low that within a few cropping seasons it might lead to driving people out of farming. At times even cooperatives pay 5-10 % less than MSP as the rice mills don’t pay them 100% price and make deductions on accounts listed above. MSP, even in its distorted form, at least makes the farming sustainable for the small and marginal farmers.

o Presently barring a few states, most states are not able to produce paddy to meet their internal demand of rice. However, in the surplus states, where the availability of paddy makes procurement and transportation cheaper, numbers of large multinational companies are targeting the produce. This is affecting the FCI procurement in these places. In contrast, in the interior regions with no bulk availability of crop for purchase (making procurement costlier) not many players are entering for buying the produce of the farmers. This is further increasing poverty and dependence on the local traders. Ultimately, the Government procurement is the only hope of farmers in such areas.

o The performance of procurement of food grains by the Government agencies is dependent on the drive of the individuals involved therein and that varies hugely. At places individuals involved have developed close relations with the traders and act as their agents delaying the implementation of the MSP or even avoiding the start of the Government procurement (and thereby assisting the traders in procuring the crop cheaper).

o The procurement season continues for a few months after each harvest. Initially the poorest farmers sell their produce, followed by the medium farmers. Some large farmers do have financial capability to hold the crop for some time and wait for the excess to reduce and let the purchase price rise. Most of the traders also procure and stack the paddy in their godowns and release it for processing gradually so as to allow the market price to rise. Ultimately, most of the crop lands with the businessmen, traders or millers, who have the large financial power and resources and political connections. A part of the crop also enters the public Distribution System run by the Government.

In one of the procurement drives, when I had camped in a haat for the procurement of the food grains, I remember how I had to argue with the cooperative to open a procurement stall. The market price of paddy increased immediately by over a rupee per kg with the beginning of Government procurement, though the traders raised the price grudgingly. Some people still sold their paddy at a lower price to the traders instead of selling it to the cooperative as they explained that the cooperative had come due to official pressure and the next time the trader would harass the farmers in buying their produce. I remember one woman arriving with a bag full of paddy on her head while her 3-4 year old son was carrying some 2-3 kg of paddy on his head in a small bag. They had made unexpected gains that day and the mother had happily bought her son something to eat.

While I was astonished that such a small baby was carrying load on his head, my driver explained that the lady might have walked some 5-6 km with her son to sell her paddy. Her husband might be a day labour and the son was not only helping her in carrying paddy but was also protecting her (‘Maa-yer Rak-kha korche’ as he had said). That day I had something more to learn about our country

Solstice

2007-12-23T03:50:00.000+05:30

Solstice is the home coming for the alumni, they are having party after party and the environment is electric. So I should not write about the words of wisdom we are gaining and am writing a bit about the evening itself.

I am just back from the Concert of ‘Indian Ocean’. Marewa, Kandisa, Bande, Kaun, the best songs of their collections were all there. From the melodies of the desert to the baul music of Bengal, almost everything was soul stirring (no jargon, I mean it).

Some generous souls had also sponsored free drinks and people had a good time. For the teetotalers, music itself was good enough to cause the intoxication. No wonder musicians accompanied armies to raise the tempo of the warriors during the war; some ragas can pump so much adrenalin into the blood.

I met someone from the first batch who has been coming at Solstice since then; it’s a wonderful home coming every time he said. Solstice is surely a great tradition for a young school; I hope it will strengthen over the years. And like yesterday, it seems the party will continue for the whole night.

Sorry for Interruption- Another Memoir

2007-12-22T02:14:00.000+05:30

ISB is having ‘SOLSTICE- The Alumni Reunion’, beginning from today. I am back from the party to keep my promise, i.e. to blog on the party night. The DJ was playing some dull numbers when I was there and now he is playing some good songs (my Quad is closest to the new events lounge). So here is another of the memoirs, a long one, before I continue on the PDS in my next post.

Amit entered into the premises of the Cinema Hall. He was to conduct the training of the enumerators for the voter list revision work. The work at hand included revision of voter list of over 1000 polling stations of the Subdivision. Since hundreds of primary school teachers were being trained, the Cinema Hall was the only suitable infrastructure available in the town to conduct such a huge training in such a short duration.

During the training Amit explained to everyone that he would make it a point to visit each of the polling station area. So enumerators should ensure that they actually visit door to door to record the voters. After the training some of the teachers complimented Amit for the clarity in his Bangla and the pleasant surprise it caused. Some of them even requested Amit to visit their schools and address the students.

Very soon the enumeration work started. The initial few days were eye-opener. School teachers walking from house to house in the burning sun was a sight that made Amit appreciate the efforts his team was putting in that work. Political pressure and restlessness had started as rival groups had started commenting on the unexpected things that the revision could unearth.

However, the enumerators soon learnt that Amit was not only visiting their areas but also checking some of the houses for the accuracy of the enumeration work done. One of the visits was especially exciting. One of the enumerator had her polling station area close to her house. Once she saw Amit visiting her polling station area, she called her son from her home. ‘Babai, Dada ke paon choo’, was the order. By the time Amit could realize anything, the six feet tall Babai (who was in class XI as he told) was pushing the people around to reach the feet of Amit. That was embarrassing, some 6-7 years back Amit himself was in Class XI and here this boy was struggling to touch his feet. Though Amit tried to stop him, it was useless. The instruction of a mother to the son was the ultimate order for him. He would have beaten Amit had he tried to stop him from doing so.

The expected findings of the revision were written on the wall. Kalipur being an industrial town, people had been shifting across the housings once they got promoted or someone got transferred. There was huge duplication of names since people had not deleted their names from previous address. There had been some large closures of industries in the past and many people had left the place. But as the work was reaching its conclusion, it was clear that Kalipur had about 200,000 people on electoral rolls not present at their given address.

Once teachers had done their job, data was being entered into the computers at the SDO Office and a storm had been unleashed even before the draft roll was out. Rival political groups were accusing each other of large scale manipulations in the past and present. Senior leaders were giving interviews that they would not accept that severely truncated voter list. Senior officials were worried what that chaos was all about and if such a list could be published.

Amit had in the mean time been warned about possible constitution of a HC inspection committee against him for depriving some 200,000 voters of their right to vote. It was not clear how correct those rumours were. Then some people were arguing that roll revision was done every year, so how could 200,000 people vanish in one year. Others were laughing at the quality of the past work, when revision was done sitting under a tree and no one moved from house to house, and were congratulating Amit for his courage.

Some well-wishers suggested Amit to roll back the deletion and seek permission to revert back to the older roll and suspend the election clerk for the ‘mistakes’ and save his own skin. Amit’s election clerk was an old person, a perfect ‘bhadralok’, who had invited Amit some days back on his grandson’s birthday. Every evening he would remind Amit to go back to his home while he would volunteer to stay back at office during night to supervise the data entry. Ultimately both used to stay back and supervise data entry.

‘And they are advising me to suspend this person who has done nothing wrong, just as they are threatening me for an action for doing nothing wrong’, Amit would think.

‘Idi***’, he would smile.

He had also been called by senior officials to seek explanation on what was happening in Kalipur. Some of them were very generous and had advised to stick to his actions if he was convinced that there was no large scale blunder in the enumeration work. However, as the Electoral Registration Officer, the responsibility would be his and implications would be drastic if he were proved wrong.

‘Be very sure there is no error in your work, there is no harm in admitting a mistake if you have committed one’, some one would say.

‘I wonder you are still ok, it is not 500 or 1000; it is 200,000 voters gone in four Assembly constituencies’, some one else would remark.

After all the hard work in enumeration, those were weeks of sleepless nights. But Amit had done audit of all the booths where the deletion of non existent voters was huge. He was sure that whatever had been done was right. And there was no reason to betray all those teachers whom he had motivated so hard to visit each and every house thrice and who looked towards him. He only told people that if deleting 200,000 people was tough, to bring back the missing 200,000 people was impossible. They did not exist on those addresses, so there was no point of retreat whatever may befall.

Amit gave his charge as SDO of Kalipur on 1st of April upon his transfer. As a result of work of some 6 months, the final voter list of Kalipur was published on 7th of April, with some 200,000 voters less than the previous one.

Food Security and the Public Distribution System

2007-12-20T21:22:00.000+05:30

In one of the previous posts I had written that I will discuss about the PDS. Since the topic is too exhaustive, I will break it down into parts covered over some posts.

(I) Public Distribution System is the physical implementation of the Government mission to provide food security for all. It is the means to the end i.e. the target of feeding over 1.1 billion people in India. Though many of these people are today self sufficient in managing ‘un-subsidized’ foodgrains on their own, a huge portion of Indian population is still dependent on the food subsidy.

(II) In opinion of a group of academicians, the subsidy and the corruption in the system of PDS actually distorts the free trade and thus harms the poor by indirectly raising the price of the food grains. The figures proposed by these people of allotted food grains actually reaching the right beneficiaries varies from 80% to as low as only 1 %. They opine, if left to market forces, the price of the food grains will adjust as per the demand and supply forces and elimination of corruption could even bring the prices down.
A fair point if it can be established by some mechanism.

(III) However, historically there have been few instances when such market forces have been efficient enough in case of food security to keep the prices low and distribution efficient. The reflection of this failure is evident in the famous Bengal famines during pre independence era where immense loss was caused by the failure of distribution system (and not lack of food grains). Going further down in history is the evidence of regional armies (corresponding to some state boundaries) attacking the neighbour to mitigate crop scarcity in their own region.

(IV) This points to the actual problem, which is the unequal distribution of food grain production, arising due to differences in rainfall across the country, differences in soil productivity and the differences in population density vis-à-vis local crop production.

(V) PDS, despite its weaknesses, has been able to transfer the grains from the surplus regions to the deficient regions. Not to mention that a major portion of the subsidy in the schemes is consumed in transferring the food grains from one region to another.

(VI) What could the prices of foodgrains look like without PDS is evident from the price ranges of Rs 15- 30 per kg for medium quality rice and from some Rs 30 per kg to as high as Rs 80 per kg for scented rice. However, the benefit of high prices rarely transfers to the cultivator i.e. the farmer, in our ‘free market economy’.

(VII) While working in the District and being involved in the procurement of food grains for the Government, I observed that the private purchasers or the middlemen delay the purchase of foodgrains from the farmers after the harvest of the crop. By this time, a vast majority of the small and medium farmers have spent their savings in cultivating the crop and many are under debt. Every passing day that delays the purchase of the crop from the farmer, also breaks the resistance of the farmers to avoid what is known as ‘distress sale’ of the crop. This purchase of the crop by the middlemen at throw away prices is avoided through the minimum support price of procurement declared by the Government.

(VIII) PDS not only provides food grains to the below poverty line people (through PDS) and the old people (Annapurna Yojana) and the poorest of the poor (Antyodaya Yojana) but also protects the poor farmers from distress selling their crop as they can sell it to Government at the minimum support price. (You are right if you are thinking of the demand and supply curves of Micro economics and the loss of the consumer surplus explained there)

(IX) However, the fate of the farmers growing cash crops (instead of food grains which have a support price) is evident in the form of occasional suicides by farmers when the market fails to buy their produce even at the break even point. The issue of loss of consumer surplus, to me, is also artificial. Since in the minimum support price some people who have surplus income are paying more for the Government procurement. This consumer surplus is much less than what people lose while buying the scented rice in the suggested ‘free market’. Certainly, the market price here is not a free market intersection of demand and supply curves. Instead it is a reflection of monopoly power of some in an unregulated market.

With this background in perspective, in my opinion, it is the PDS which has been the biggest binding factor of the Indian Nation State in the post independence period. We do see the rising tension between the states for distribution of river water during the sowing period, but the tensions are immediately subdued due to maintenance of the buffer stock of the grains and transfer of those before the situation aggravate.

So is this system perfect as it is? Is it really corrupt? And if yes, how does this corruption works and whether we can target it? Some of these questions have been pressing the Government, media and academicians consistently in the past and remain one of the prime agendas for Government for some time until a really workable solution is found. These and some more questions, like how have some large multinationals been able to tackle some of the issues involved through efficient supply chains?, I would discuss gradually over next few posts.

ISB's Sixth Anniversary

2007-12-15T00:54:00.000+05:30

ISB had sixth Anniversary Celebrations on last Sunday. The young leader is six years old. Six years old amongst a large bunch of Indian and foreign B-Schools, and already counted amongst leaders on many fronts. That sounds great, and I am obviously happy for being here.

The acceptance of ISB’s importance is global and unequivocal. In the pre-placement talks of one of the top consultancy firms, the CEO sent a video recording addressed to ISB students, inviting them to join his firm. A good gesture undoubtedly, though not to overlook that similar address seems to have been made for three of the IIMs as well. In another pre-placements talk, the partner and the MD of another top consultancy firm expressed similar sentiments about getting the best recruits at ISB.

These things are exciting for us as the students of the current batch. I am sure that along with many other things what drives this passion for improvement is a small but mostly dedicated alumnus. ISB being a very young school we don’t have fortune 500 companies CEO as alumni but the level of commitment that many alumni have for this institution is exceptional. I am sure most of us will have something to pay back to the future batches too.

I spent one full year at IIMA (while I have spent some eight months in ISB) and have a lot of respect and fascination with that institution. People tend to compare IIMs with ISB, though there is hardly any similarity. IIMs admit students, a huge majority of whom are fresh pass outs of undergrad schools while ISB is as enormous pool of diversity and work-experience as one might get in India. But at the same time I feel that people who compare these B-Schools tend to compare ISB with the combined weight and impression that all the IIMs carry after their 35+ years of existence; that itself is a pointer to the success our school.

If I were asked to see IIMA and ISB as a neutral person (I am equally biased for both anyway), I would say they are perfect complementary sets. Academic brilliance and business aptitude respectively is the core of the admission processes, as I understand, for these organizations. Together, they can drive the world’s business in the days to come.

And if anyone doubts the synergies; please see the photographs of ex and current IIM wallahs at my quad in ISB, Gachibowli, Hyderabad.

The beginning of an end? or A new beginning

2007-12-07T21:48:00.000+05:30

When I thought to write this post I pondered whether it is about exams, a new term or the auction of courses for the next term? Since those are the things we are doing here for most of the time, it appears that the remaining things have taken a backstage. Hence continuing with the ritual here I am. I plan to take 3 of the 4 marketing courses in the next term. With 5 FIN courses completed and a few available for the eighth term, I need to select some of the Marketing courses to work on the second specialization.

Moving ahead, I called this mail as the beginning of an end since as it looks now, sixth and seventh term will be mostly occupied with preparations and as they say here term eight is party time. Even today, I had a group meeting with the ELP client in the morning, had two classes, and attended a case preparation Video Conference session. What a nice way to begin the weekend, with a lot of assignments waiting to be done. But anyway, things move on.

For the information of believers of Indian Astrology, Jupiter moved from the Scorpio to Saggitarius towards the end of November. So now it is positioned in its 'own house', a place where the mightly planet loves to be. That should be immensely rewarding for people with a strong Jupiter on their horoscope. It means proud owners of their Golden Topaz should expect wonderful things to happen in the course of next 1 year. For the non believers, that should mean motion of a massive planetary body, in a different constellation of stars. And thus its Gravitational effect (remember Kepler's laws) on earth should still be different than what it was till some days back.

So it is the time to make a wish, if you have not already made one. Afterall, every changing phase of life takes us to a newer phase. And this is the right time to take the first step, just a bit to make that wish come true.

ISB Leadership Summit

2007-12-01T23:49:00.000+05:30

Today we had the flagship event of the ISB, the Leadership Summit or the ILS. The event proved its prime importance, with various professional clubs at ISB participating in the 6 tracks that ran during the day. The who is who of industry was present ranging from the leaders in Retail and marketing, Logistics, Consultancy, IT, General Management, Real Estate, Energy and emerging markets. To make the audience have their choice of attendance, a total of six tracks were organized over three sessions through out the day.

The day began with the keynote address by the Chairman of BCG. That was followed by tracks whose topics ranged from Use of Technology in Education Sector, The Big Picture in Retail and Marketing, Talent as the Strategic Differentiator, Innovative and Affordable low cost housing, India’s Economic Growth: A Tale of Two economies, and Infrastructure Development: The Key to India’s Success. A key point in my opinion was the presence of a prominent communist political leader in one of the panels to bring in the diversity of the perspectives. I also got to meet two senior bureaucrats from the service: one accompanying his wife who happened to be a speaker on one of the panels and the other representing a development authority in the Real Estate track.

I enjoyed last few days assisting in the logistics, transport and protocol for the summit. So back to the good old ‘Protocol’ days making sure that the guest has the contact number of the liaison officer, the LO has the number of the vehicle, and the driver of the vehicle has the placard- so that the three ends meet at the same place.

Thanks God that every thing went well without a hitch.

Enter into the world of case interviews

2007-11-21T00:38:00.000+05:30

The recruitment process at ISB has begun with the international recruiters having started their early stage interviews. To handle the interviews properly and be prepared for the arriving domestic placements, people are working overtime to patch up the gaps. In the phased transitions from one level to next, our batch has entered the phase of ‘Case Interviews’ preparation.

We are trying to structure our thought process for approaching the business problems. So for a hypothetical case situation of client’s decreasing profits in an expanding market, people began with a response of ‘increase the advertisements, handle the unions tightly and launch new product’. While initially it was difficult to convince the interviewee amongst us that the response was not really that structured, the situation has certainly improved over time. Today the responses have become more organized and the omnipotent 4P’s, 3C’s and Porter Models have begun to mean something for the first time. No doubt some alumni have been helpful in this slow process of gradual improvement. However, there is a long race ahead.

At ISB we had a big gathering last week for the TiE ISB connect; entrepreneurs and Venture Capitalists attended the same in good numbers. We have also started working for the forth coming ISB Leadership Summit (ILS), the flagship event of ISB with a theme India – Fostering Sustainable, Inclusive Growth for this year. The list of the speakers for the various tracks in being finalized by the respective clubs and logistics arrangements are being planned. I will write something more as we proceed.

And I managed to steal time to write this post, after writing three end terms exams for the fifth term in last two days (that meant had 2 continuous night outs) and with one more exam to write on this Thursday.

Diwali Photographs

2007-11-11T03:47:00.000+05:30

Diwali in Photographs

2007-11-11T03:02:00.000+05:30

The Festival of light arrived like a breeze and most people took a break from studies. For me it was some free time with the camera. I took some photographs with extended exposure in the dark and captured a few good photographs, or so I believe. I am posting some of the photographs.

I wish you a very Happy and Prosperous Diwali.

Another Midterm Gone.

2007-11-03T20:31:00.000+05:30

Is it not what one of the Professors had once said ‘after my paper you will feel happy, if nothing else then for the fact that the paper got over’. And true, ‘Thanks God! The mid-term got over too soon this time’.

Usually after the exams parties are held. So now people are busy debating the Pros and Cons of the ISB administration’s suggestion of having time limits for the parties. We are lucky that there is no one around to implement the Court’s order. Most people, otherwise, would land up in trouble for breaching the decibel level beyond permissible hours (10/11 p.m. for open air functions). And there are laws of the land to enforce that.

Coming back to parties, for me those are small get together where people meet to socialize and forget work and worries for some time. The music is invariable soft and ambience sober. In parties that I attended, you could see the highest dignitaries- the youngest kids- moving around jerking their heads in contempt of the smaller mortals around. They were normally bribed by Probationers uncles and Probationer Didis (Gender Bias) by chocolates, which stuff their pockets most of the times.

So when mid-term and end-term are already there to add tension in life, one should stop worrying for nothing. World and people are still not that bad, may be the threats people perceive are more imaginary than real. And usually as I believe, first things first, get back to studies and no worries in life. And if this also appeared to be written without reference to context, it is not. Try to read between the lines.

Course Auction for the sixth term

2007-10-28T17:11:00.000+05:30

We have not had the mid term for the fifth term and course auction for the sixth term is already on. There are some excellent courses available for bidding. And that is the toughest part of the whole exercise of which course to take and which course to leave.

Amidst difficult choices, I am planning to bid for the Investing in Private Equity so as to supplement the learning from the Project we are doing on the Venture Capital. Then, I am also thinking to bid for the Financial Statement Analysis to develop expertise on interpretation of financial statements of companies- Private or Public.

One of the courses, Indian Financial Systems will be of high relevance to me, so I will bid for it along with a course on Strategic Performance Management which has a bit LBOs, VCs etc. I am also planning to do a course on real estate. That makes 4 hours of classes on Mondays and Wednesdays and 6 hours of classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So hoping for a tough term ahead with possibly five courses to have a relatively free 7th term...

Loss of the Talent- Is it?

2007-10-25T07:23:00.000+05:30

It is preparation time at ISB so people are busy with their case preparations and resume preparation etc. along with the academics. I was advised by a young friend who reviewed my CV that I should get my resume reviewed from as many people as possible. Well, good old roomy at D-10 Aravali Hostel, IIT D and the next door neighbour D-9, both VPs at a haloed I-Bank in London have agreed to do the needful. A third friend, another VP, has already started pulling my leg and has forwarded his advance wishes to me for ‘graduating’ again.

It brings back the fond memories of the IIT days when we were preparing to get into our dream jobs. They were preparing for CAT while I was preparing for IAS. But our courses coincided for ‘stat, quant and verbal’ as they called it. I needed those subjects for the General Studies Paper 1 Question 1 and for essay writing. While doing my summer training at Orkay in Mumbai, where breakfast was served for 20 paisa and lunch for 1 rupee, I had saved some money due to the subsidized canteen. My investment was in the form of course packs, used by CAT aspirants, to enhance my speed in stats.

This had served two purposes; firstly I had become a bench mark for my friends who were writing CAT. They lamented that I got higher marks when I was not even preparing for that exam; they rejoiced that I was not preparing for that exam. Secondly, it was age old wisdom of Civil service aspirants to complete Stats portion of GS paper in 60 minutes if one wanted to complete that paper. I had completed that portion in flat 20 minutes and used rest of the time to build my essay type answers. The result was one of the highest marks in General Studies paper, the waterloo of IITians in that exam. 10 years down the line we are all winners, I would say.

So what brings me to an MBA course after so many years or why are the civil servants quitting the premier civil service, or are they? The same question was asked to me some ten times in last 2-3 weeks by the Assistant Editor of a business magazine.

I only know that three of my batch mates in the Civil Services exam went to Wharton and have not come back. That is a big B-School by any standards, I accept. But yesterday I saw a lady who had done her graduation from Wharton and is working in India now. She was here with her team to talk about their firm and various roles therein and various projects they undertake.

I had questions to ask, why working here after Wharton? Then there was someone from IITD, who must have been there around the time I was there. Again wanted to talk to him but the session lasted till 2.15 am so didn’t feel like delaying them for my curiosity. May be they wouldn’t have minded, I don’t know. But I know something for sure. They were working at 2.15 am to get the best people in their organization. And that explains the difference, may be.

I also know that if anyone believes that people are thinking beyond the Civil Services due to the differences in salary, then they are wrong. People knew the pay scales when they joined those services. They wouldn’t like to join as fresh grads in Corporate when their room mates in engineering college are VPs and Directors recruiting at the international level.

We will have to introspect to search for the reasons. May be some people had extra energy which couldn’t expand as much as they wanted in Government system. May be the horizon itself became small while people wanted to grow more. May be fresh air will reduce the feeling of suffocation. If nothing else, the hierarchies at newer places could be flexible and people would like to just laugh at the sense of humour of a colleague, instead of sirring him.

And about the fears of loss of talent, they are unwarranted. As long as people taught in best B-Schools around the world are interested to work in their country, there is no reason to worry about. No system owns the responsibility of ensuring development alone or monopolizes it.

Memoirs of a Lost World

2007-10-07T00:19:00.000+05:30

(continued from post dated 28 September)

It hardly took any time for 4 or 5 managers of the company to reach the SDO office. The meeting continued for over an hour. The management told that the permanent job could only be approved by the board of Directors and they would recommend that. They accepted appointment for a temporary job to one family member of the deceased immediately.

Management also promised to pay a portion of the compensation payment from the existing cash the next day only. However, their excuse for inability to pay the entire amount on the next day due to shortage of fund was accepted by the union on the persuasion of the SDO if the rest amount was paid within a week. They then promised that the legal dues will be settled in one week only.

Most of the other demands of the union which were beyond any rule were not supported by the SDO. Neither the management accepted any further demand nor the union pressed any harder for those. The deal was finalized by about 3 pm and everyone left happily.

It was about 5 pm when the union leaders came back. This time they looked very nervous and said ‘Sir, Doctor babu is not doing the post mortem. He says that postmortem can not be done after 4 in the evening. I swear we reached there much before 4 pm but since the doctor had been called from his private clinic, he did not want to do the postmortem. He wrote that the body was received at 4.05 pm and that he will do post mortem only after the permission of the SDJM’.

On the piece of paper carrying doctor’s remark the SDJM had also scribbled that no post mortem can be allowed since it was 4 pm already.

‘That means you have already been to the SDJM’, Amit asked the union leader who looked terrified and guilty and shook his head in affirmation.

‘Sir I take oath on my son’s head that I had reached much before 4 pm, only Dr Dutta had to go to his clinic at phenachity that he wrote this’, he said.

Amit rang back to the Superintendent of hospital who showed his ignorance of the incident. However he stated that had Dr. Dutta not sent the matter to the SDJM, he could have asked some other doctor to do the postmortem but even that was out of question now.

‘As if the other doctors were dying to do the postmortem. It is all planned’, Amit thought. The Superintendent himself had insisted to get the postmortem done the next day. ‘Postmortems get entangled in legal proceedings so senior doctors are unwilling to do those’ was his comment when Amit had contacted him and the doctor on duty was quite senior.

Amit was realizing how difficult it was to function in a highly unionized environment. Though the union leaders from the company were almost crying by now. ‘Sir, the family members of the dead person are waiting since morning. When we left for postmortem we told that we will come back shortly. Now if the dead body is not returned, the workers will beat us’, someone said.

Amit decided to talk to the SDJM since it was clear that union leaders could not be convinced for a delayed postmortem and that their fears were genuine for their own security and that another accident might take place. After all the workers often believed that their top leaders are hand in glove with the management and there always are second generation leaders waiting to take over the reign.

When Amit contacted the SDJM he was already in his residence. There was a sense of great satisfaction with which the SDJM told Amit that postmortem could not be done that day and that he preferred that he was not disturbed on judicial subjects.

The provisions of law insisted on sufficient light during the postmortem and there was still sufficient light for the post mortem. Irritated Amit asked him about the law and whether sunlight or 4 pm was the criterion. Amit even offered to provide for extra lightening if the postmortem was done that day. But the SDJM was very reluctant. Even he did not want to get into any problem and gradually they were losing time.

What was worse that the Doctor himself was not available to do the postmortem. Amit realized that gradually the sunlight was actually fading away. Since it was an executive matter Amit thought of allowing the postmortem on his own risk but then decided to keep the District Magistrate informed.

Unluckily even the DM and the ADM could not be contacted in the Head quarter. The union members were terribly silent by now as they watched the SDO make his fruitless efforts.

Amit had an idea but he did not feel like discussing it in front of every one so he requested the president to send his other friends to stay with the other workers and ask them to be calm as they tried to arrange for the postmortem.

After others were gone the president said, ‘Sir, if postmortem is not today and the body is not returned we do not know what will happen to us’.

Amit replied, ‘You have already heard the Doctor and the SDJM. Now the fact is that if the postmortem is done today, the management will make an excuse in the court that the post mortem was done in artificial light or in dark. They will ask that the report should not be accepted and thus avoid paying the compensation’.

‘So what can we do now’, he asked looking very confused.

‘You go back to the workers but don’t tell them that we are having problem in getting the postmortem done. Tell them that by doing postmortem today, they might lose compensation later. On the other hand if the post mortem is done tomorrow the compensation case will not be weakened. Go and discuss with all union members and let me know’, Amit replied.

The president of the union looked a bit convinced; at least he had something to tell his supporters. He left and after some 10 minutes the CA connected Amit to the union leader who was on telephone. Amit could hear him say amidst the cheers of his union members ‘Sir we will not allow you to do the postmortem today at any cost. We will not betray the cause and welfare of our workers. I am aware if the postmortem is done today the management will never pay the compensation. As the head of the administration it is your responsibility to stop any injustice to the workers, so stop the postmortem. Our union will expect that you get the post mortem done early tomorrow’.

Amit could only smile. For the days to come he had found a big fan and follower who would always praise him for his efforts that evening. This union leader was someone who was to stand by Amit in the days to come in a number of industrial problems and crises including the closure of RAMC.

On Education and Agency Problems

2007-10-02T22:49:00.000+05:30

The Agency problem in management has been defined as ‘the managers maximizing their personal benefits at the cost of the share holders’ cost’. The cases of agency problems in education systems are as prevalent as in any other business, though have not been studied in such details so far.

Let’s take a case of a school created somewhere in rural area. Almost in all the cases, schools are born due to the vision of some committed individuals. In our country where need for educational institutions, of primary education or higher education, is wide spread. In such situation, it is the efforts of a few committed individuals, some local leader or influential person, whose efforts create school in a location preferred over equally deserving other places.

The owners lobby with the Government for posting of teachers in their backward area and if the school is a private one, they search for teachers on their own efforts. Managers and administrators are appointed for day to day governance as well. However, soon when the hue and cry subsides and the excitement reduces the agency problems begin to surface.

1. City based teachers gradually start commuting, to and fro, from city to village. They can be seen on ‘Intercity Expresses’ more often then in School. Soon they develop an apathy to the problems of the school and are more than happy if someone else is willing to share their responsibilities

2. Then gradually as the supervision reduces, the absence from classes (responsibility) sets in. But since this can be easily identified, role of teaching is often times sublet.

3. The responsibility of conducting the classes and running the school ends on the shoulder of quack teachers who gladly accept this difficult role. These quack teachers could be local unemployed youth or other caretakers

4. Over the time the quacks learn their importance to the school and the dependence of other stakeholders upon them and gradually they fill in the other vacuums. They soon realize that beyond teaching, they are also important for say selecting the students for a few scholarships or for grading of students. Owing to their position, many students may be willing to take private tuitions under them for better grades or position on merit list.

5. The managers too, assured of their salary, turn a blind eye to such events. Since I believe that they are too holy to share the booty with the quacks, it must be that they try to improve their earnings in the form of ‘leisure time’ by caring least for the problems of the school. ‘Leisure time’ after all is what the workers trade for money beyond a limit.

6. This continues as inspections are few and informed. During inspections the genuine teachers report back on duty and the quacks to their normal roles and the authorities are given an impression that everything is excellent.

7. The pass outs from such schools show strange deviations from their performance records when they enter the real world. For example a board topper from Agra, who got admission in a premium engineering institute on basis or her board marks, was soon dropped by the engineering college due to her poor performance in academics. She though had over 90% marks in her board exam while other students in the engineering college had much lower marks.

8. The reason for rise and fall of such students are the ‘quacks’ that distorted grading and inflated their marks. For example in the school examinations if a student not enrolled for tuitions would top, quacks helped their favourites (when they got the answer wrong) for following the ‘right approach’ in attempting the question and giving them full marks. Let’s say they created a plus 6 marks of advantage for their tutored by this. In the next exam when their student was better prepared they may pull other student down for not getting the exact answer by giving them a flat zero while they still deserved six marks for the approach.

9. Over a series of exams, the gains and losses of neutral students even out (Case of a drunkard moving a step forward and then backward and staying at his place), but for those for whom these benefits are aligned move many steps ahead just by ‘policy decisions’. In the worse form of agency problem, policy could be aligned to pull some one down as well, when the competition is high and the rewards like scholarships few.

10. These events don’t go unnoticed. Once people believe it is luck, then they assume it is coincidence and by third time most ‘give up’. Those who still try to report the things are branded as the ‘disturbing factor’. A few of such individuals may be seen trying to reach the DM or the DIoS for solving the problems.

11. Many (though not all) good students still reach the positions where they deserved to be- though after a lot of struggle. Most of those handicapped birds who reached the top of the tree by help of bull s*** end up being shot down. The real loser is the school as its product loses credibility in long run. The deserving students lose their good will for their school.

And the saga of education and the agency problems there in, goes on.

Memoirs of a lost world

2007-09-28T04:17:00.000+05:30

It was the second day in office for Amit, on his first posting. And since 11.30 am in the morning there had been several phone calls from the Steel & Alloy Industry. The manager wanted immediate help. He had informed that one of his workers had fallen from 60 ft high trolley in the ‘liquid’ below. He said that since the worker had fallen in the liquid he may still be alive.

On reaching the site, the police and the medical team had not been successful in entering the premises as the workers had bolted the company doors from inside. The Confidential Assistant and the Deputy Magistrate were of the opinion that such incidents happened regularly in Kalipur. It was a matter between the management and union and they would bargain it amongst themselves so there was no role for administration. Even the police officials opined that it was an industrial matter and only if the situation aggravates the police may interfere.

Then one press reporter informed Amit over the telephone that the worker had fallen in molten slag and there was no chance of his survival.

In the meantime one of the managers of the company had already taken a chair in SDOs chamber and was speaking in a serious and loud tone to draw the attention of everyone around. ‘We are prejudicing the precious life of a person. What will I tell his children when they ask to me what fault did their poor father committed to die such death at the hands of the union’?, pausing with great expectation to see if he had been able to impress the SDO.

When Amit told him that he had just been informed that the labourer had fallen in slag, the manager looked embarrassed, ‘but he could have been saved, had the medical help been provided to him’, he said adding ‘but why is the union detaining the dead body and why is the administration not recovering it’.

Amit asked the manager if he had lodged an FIR, which he had not done. But the issue was bigger than that, during training it had been discussed that mob mentality is extremely unpredictable and they need to be handled with utter caution. The best thing would be to not further excite them and aggravate the situation. Yet to attempt a solution Amit had already asked the major union leaders from the company to come and discuss the matter with the him in SDO’s office.

A group of union leaders had arrived and was making itself comfortable on the chairs while another group continued to enter. They were taking some time to adjust themselves with the junior ones leaving front chairs for the senior ones. Senior ones moving from back to front. Very junior ones who had got seats due to an early entry reluctantly leaving chairs to slightly senior ones and so on.

After a detailed introduction session the president of the unit began in a very serious note, ‘We have come here highly aggrieved due to the daylight murder of one of our colleagues in the hands of the murderous management’. However he soon realized that the new SDO was becoming an object of interest and curiosity as compared to the main issue and his lot was loosing attention.

So to retain the focus of discusssion Amit said ‘But for justice you will have to let the Magistrate and police conduct inquest of the dead body and then the post mortem will have to be done. I am sure that the management is bound to give all the legal dues to the deceased’s family’ addressing a visibly irritated group. Their gestures becoming restless while hints of aggression appearing on their faces and a loud murmur began again.

‘We come here to ‘Demand’ justice not to beg for it’ someone said.

The President of the union tried to control the damage, ‘Sir, we come here for a peaceful deputation only. We want that the site manager be immediately arrested and no bail be granted to him. The cable from which our brother fell down was defective. We have evidence that a written complaint was submitted to the management but no step was taken from their end. Even day before yesterday the dead person had requested the production in-charge that the trolley was vibrating and rotating. But the managers are not bothered they always demand over production from the staff even if it kills the staff.’

After a momentary pause in which he gathered breath he again said, ‘we also demand immediate absorption of the eldest son of the deceased in a permanent position in the company. We demand immediate compensation by the management. The GPF, gratuity and --- shall be provided within 24 hours to the family of the deceased. And if the managers are not arrested within next 24 hours, there will be no production in the company. We will have strikes in all the companies with our unions in Kalipur. You know sir that in Kalipur our union is the dominant force in 80 % of the industries. And we will organize indefinite road blockade on the National Highway. We want immediate resolution on our demands’.

Since some of the demands on the compensation etc. appeared logical and only the management could have made a statement on those, Amit decided to call the representatives of management to come to his office for discussion.

(continued)

Towards the end of the Fourth Term

2007-09-24T22:40:00.000+05:30

The last of the core terms i.e. the fourth term will soon be ending. Today the results for electives for the next term have been declared. I am enrolled in Options and Futures, Fixed Income, Marketing Research and Logistic and Supply Chain Mechanism.

One of the criteria that I adopted for selection of courses is the least weightage of marks for the class participation. As discussed in the meeting with out faculty mentor, someone commented that he got a 9.5 on 10 in Class Participation (CP) without having said a single word in the class while reverse is also true for some. Two marks here and there mean a full grade in the course, so its time to be more selective.

I have also enrolled for Experiential Learning Project with four other friends of mine. We are working with a Venture Capital firm on developing the term sheet models for the deals that firm might like to make.

As the term end comes closer, a sense of change- in the groups, teams and comfort zones- is looming large. One of the mail summarized the mood, ‘Wanted an IITian with a GPA of *.** to complete our group in courses X, Y, and Z’.

Memoirs of a lost world 56

2007-09-11T23:55:00.000+05:30

(contd. from last post)

Amit had to reach the company premises at the earliest. As his car moved to the site he read the fax message again and again. The voice of the loud speakers was audible from a distance. The crowd began to build up as they approached the premises. The driver had to slowly maneuver the car amidst the crowd. At the company premises, the sound from the competing loud speakers of the 5 unions was producing deafening sound.

The vehicle stopped at the main gate, the whole gate had been surrounded by policemen from the various police stations. The SDPO rushed to Amit’s vehicle and said hurriedly, ‘Sir, we are here. But as 5 pm is approaching the crowd is becoming unmanageable. They are still not filing the VRS forms’.

‘Fine, let’s see the situation inside. I got the message from my magistrate that there is a huge crowd inside. Almost all the 1400 workers and their families are crowding in front of the office building’, Amit said.

‘Yes Sir, and they are making furious speeches’, he said and stopped moving ahead and said, ‘Saar, I will request you to not to go inside. Our jurisdiction ends here. Police will not enter the company. Inside it is the jurisdiction of CISF’, the SDPO informed collecting all the courage that he had.

‘Thousands of people are agitating inside. The news of closure will reach here any time and you won’t enter the premises!’ Amit was shocked.

‘Sir, Bado Saahib is informed’, he had said in a sheepish manner.

That meant he had orders. Amit moved ahead inside the gate with only his personal security guard following him. The two magistrates were standing under a tree, some 100 meters from the spot of actual gathering of the crowd. Obviously no CISF was visible near or far.

One of the Magistrates tried to stop Amit saying that the workers were highly excited and the tension was rising. Amit handed the copy of fax to him and asked him to get sufficient copies Xeroxed and to hand those over to all the groups.

People started surrounding Amit as he reached the main office building. He was told that the person supposed to collect the VRS forms was seated on the third floor.

The scene on the third floor was worse. The reason was visible why no one had dared enter that hall, for it had already been ‘captured’. A group of 8-10 individuals including some union big-shots were seated surrounding a large table.

Amit was very upset, the company had been closed and here were ‘leaders’ frightening the staff away from filing their VRS forms.

‘Who is the person deployed to collect the forms?’ he asked.

One man stood up, he was already sweating profusely. It was clear he was very frightened for his own security.

‘Everyone else, either you move out yourself or I’ll get you removed by the police’, Amit screamed. They looked into each others’ eyes. Surprisingly, they got up and slowly left that dark hall dragging their feet.

‘Why don’t you come down?’ Amit asked the person supposed to collect the forms.

‘Sir, this is safe but people are not coming. Should I stay or leave’, he asked making it very clear that he wanted to leave.

‘Wait here, let me see why people are not depositing the forms’, Amit said and moved down the stairs.

The main office building was some 10 stairs above the ground where the crowd had gathered and where the unions had put up their camps. Some people were now shouting against Amit and were asking him to leave the campus as ‘he had forcefully removed the peaceful workers from the main building’. On some other mike someone was blaming Amit for ‘the closure of company’ almost instigating the crowd against him. They simply didn’t want Amit there.

Amit stood at the channel gate of the ground floor. He wanted to remain in their visibility so that people would feel confident, that could be the biggest assurance if they desired to deposit the form. Almost 15 minutes he stood there, talking to people, telling them to deposit the form, if they wanted to. But not a single form was being filed and gradually his efforts were becoming futile.

No one would come. Amit thought and almost disgusted he started getting down the stairs to move towards the main gate. ‘I can’t force people to deposit their VRS forms’, he thought.

Midway to the main gate, he turned back as he heard someone shouting to stop him. They were two old ladies. They might have seen Amit going back. Both burst into tears by the time they reached Amit gasping for breadth, ‘They won’t let us deposit the forms if you go away’, one of them said.

Amit turned back to take his old position in front of the main gate, visible to all. In fraction of seconds the two ladies went up, deposited their forms, and then vanished in the crowd.

But, the message had gone. There were cracks across unions; people started coming individually irrespective of which group they belonged to.

In about an hour the number crossed two hundred forms. Then, one of the big unions deposited its forms ‘en masses’, the number immediately crossed seven hundred.

It was about 5.30 pm when one of the major unions tried to threaten Amit that forms collection should be stopped. Amit showed them his watch in which the time was 2.30 in the afternoon. It was clear to all that the form collection would not stop until completed.

There was a panic in all the unions, now the senior leaders were struggling to fill in their forms ‘in time’.

By 7 pm in the evening the place looked deserted. It was dead silent. Most of the forms had been collected. Temperaments had cooled down, with no supporters left, the union leaders also thought it worthwhile to leave the place.

There were 5 people on hunger strike waiting for someone to talk to them. Amit’s driver brought some juice for them; they too broke their strike, in a very calm atmosphere.

All but one VRS form was filed. The lady who refused to file her form wanted to become the principal of the company’s school once the seniors had retired. That never happened though.

Some things had worked well that day. First, no one knew that there was no police to enter the premises.
Second, when men were collectively afraid of their individual safety, two women had placed their family responsibility above their own safety.
Third, there were some twenty 'important' missed calls on Amit’s mobile phone. Sometimes one needs to hear to his conscience alone
Lastly, while returning the SDPO had received Amit at the main door of those ghostly vacant premises. He might have expected to be shouted at. Nothing actually happened; Amit had nothing to speak to him.

In one of the biggest industrial closure in the state, RAMC had been closed for ever. Not a single stone was thrown, not a single bullet was fired. In the minutes of one of the high power meetings, the role of Amit in the closure had been criticized. But he had no regrets for that as he awaited his transfer orders, in the days to come.

Memoirs of a Lost World

2007-09-01T05:09:00.000+05:30

(contd. from the last post)

Kalipur was one of the most sensitive industrial towns in the state famous for its trade union legacy. After the closure order of RAMC, administration was more than careful in handling the various unions. The MD of the company, Mr Sehgal, had left for Delhi after one of the unions had made an attack on him. The whole senior management had taken VRS over the last few years and now the company had 1 manager who ran the company from his home, with few office staff and over 1400 workers.

The unions had filed a ‘stay petition’ in the high court against the closure order and since a decision was expected from the court that day, everyone was highly excited. For Amit, it had been almost three months of handling deputations, lifting road blockades and holding meetings to pacifying the associations. In the process he had become extremely popular with them. They would tell him stories of how the plant with the latest machines and technology in Asia never worked for more than 23% of its efficiency.

In the past, the attempts to close the sick PSU had ended up in getting huge funds flow for the revival of the company. This had in turn resulted in siphoning of the resources by the powerful people. In the process, the unions had split up into 5 unions by now. Every time the new union would claim to be the genuine protector of the workers’ rights.

The orderly had returned back with some 8-10 people who had come to give the deputation. Once the union members had seated themselves, their leader started reading their deputation after the customary ‘thanks for the time etc’. It had several important points which he read one by one:
· The unions will not accept any Court ruling against the interest of the workers.
· The Central Government will have to roll back the order of closure of mill
· The Government will have to fund the revival of the company, and so on.

Amit listened to their demands sympathetically, though there was hardly anything that he could have done on the subject. After the meeting the union leaders had left satisfied. One of the OC of the police station was still excited. He wanted to beat the demonstrators and drive them away. Amit told him to be patient because lathi charge could have driven people away from his office but it would have made the whole industrial town vulnerable to reaction of the trade unions.

With the union gone, it was the administrative team which was now in the chamber. They discussed about the expected decision by the High Court that day. They also discussed the possible reaction of the trade unions, including the possibility of a law and order problem in case if the closure order came.

They were more worried about what could happen if the workers did not file VRS form on that very day, which was the last day to file the form. At the same time it was reported that no one would be able to file the VRS form due to the fear of union leaders.

The SDPO and the OC’s and the magistrates having left the chamber, the orderly peeped in once again. He was getting restless and asked ‘Saar, ukil babu-ra jante chaichen ki aapni aaj Court korben ki naa. Ki bolbo?’

Somehow Amit did not feel like leaving his chamber. He feared any important information could be lost if he were not there. So he told him that he would hold the hearings in his chamber only. The orderly looked pleased with this response. Probably he had been pestered too much.

The top most lawyer of the town entered first and bowed gently. After almost two hours of hearing, he got a call from the strike venue that unconfirmed news was received that the unions had managed a stay on the closure order.

Another 10 minutes after that, a fax slowly began to emerge from his machine. To the shock of Amit, it stated that the court had ordered not to give stay to stop the closure of the company. So the company stood closed from 5 pm that day, which was also the last day of filing VRS forms for seeking compensation by the workers.

And as Amit knew, almost no one had filed a VRS form till then. The time was about 3 pm; only 2 hours were left to complete the VRS process. There was no management on site. At the same time message had been communicated at the company premises that a stay on closure had been received.

About 1400 workers were to file VRS, though no one was doing that under the fear of the unions. There were five people on hunger strike at the same time.

(Continued)

Memoirs of a Lost World_54

2007-08-30T00:01:00.000+05:30

Amit had just climbed the stairs to the second floor of his office where his chamber was situated. It was 9.30 am and still half an hour for the office to open. He was greeted by his orderly. Amit was pleased that the orderly was there and his guest had also arrived.

The principal of one of the main schools of the town was waiting with one of the teachers. ‘Sir, thank you for giving us time to meet you before the office time. After 10 this place becomes so crowded that it takes a lot of time to get in’, he said. ‘Actually I came to invite you for the annual school function’, he said sitting on one of the chairs Amit had pointed to.

‘When is the function? Aapne DM Sahib ko invite kiya?’ Amit asked.

‘I will, I will, possibly today itself, I just wanted to talk to you. Sometimes the SDO Sahib and DM sahib don’t want to come together’, he explained.

‘It will be great if sir is there. Ma’am and all can continue in your function while I will take this opportunity to take boss to a construction site. The Panchayat member was saying that the work is getting delayed there’, Amit remarked.

The SDPO who had also joined in the meeting commented, ‘Saar, it was your instruction that we closed function of Monu Nigam and Bahadur Mehndi that night; so Principal Sahib is not inviting us for the College day. Police always gets the discredit while you will always take the credit’, he said to embarrass Principal.

‘No sir, I would have gone next to your office. But it is true that we have a lot of respect for sir. We lost our money that day but it is true that no one else could have done what sir did by closing that show’, The school principal replied.

‘I know. Saar, the news is that the show lost some ** lakhs and do you know why the public did not turn up?’ he asked and then replied himself ‘the reason being the rumour in the town that the SDO will order firing if the show crosses the permissible timing of 11 pm’. SDPO said and burst into laughter.

‘What? Open Fire! Do I look that bad?’ Amit also asked jokingly.

The Principal replied in between, ‘Sir, we are very happy even if we lost our money for that show. Well, we have told ‘them’ that now onwards we won’t fund any of the shows for them. The message reached the hard way, but it was well needed and we are grateful to you for doing that. But Sir please do some thing to this every day strikes, closures and use of loud speakers by the unions, it makes life miserable for people like us’. The Principal said as he took the leave.

Officer in Charge (OC) of two of the Police Stations had joined along with the Hospital Superintendent for the next meeting. Amit asked the Doctor, ‘How is the health of the five people on hunger strike now?’

‘Not good. They are in the fourth day of hunger strike. We were expecting this strike to close by now, but they are still continuing. If something is not done, there might be an accident’, he responded with a worried look.

As Amit looked towards the SPDO and the OC’s, the Dharha OC said excitedly, ‘Sir, aapni bol-le aaj hi pitiye tariye debo’.

As Amit smiled a bit to the idea, the SDPO replied in a low voice, ‘Sir, we can remove them to hospital instead of lathi charging them if you allow’.

That was reasonable but removing 5 people forcefully from a crowd of 5 thousand striking workers and their supporters was bound to cause strong reaction amongst the striking workers, so Amit said, ‘I think we should not arrest them, instead we can carry them to the hospital around mid-night on the ambulance. They would find that less provoking and we will cite health reasons for our action. We can still keep police around so that there is no law and order situation. I had gone to the site last night; there are very few people around that time. But we can not discuss about the plan to anyone and Doctor Sahib will please make the necessary medical arrangements’.

The solution looked reasonable as it minimized the chances of disturbing many people. The orderly had come back again and asked if he could send the union leaders from the company on strike who wanted to give their deputation to the Government.

Amit told him to do so.

(Continued)

'Bandhan' and PDS

2007-08-22T03:39:00.000+05:30

I am sure the last weekend was the busiest we can expect to have at ISB. I wanted to write something about two important events of the last week, but could not. Even though it is 1 week since we celebrated the event ‘Bandhan’ on the Independence Day, I am putting a few photographs of the event now. From sports, dances, drama and singing, the visiting kids participated in every thing and wanted to perform more, even beyond the timings of the programme. Some of the moments were specially very touching.

Then there was another event which became important from my perspective. The 8 members BCG team visited the campus with two Principals. In their previous visit some of us had requested for information about the actual projects handled by the consultants. So this time they were prepared with presentations on three projects: on launching a product, on the Public Distribution System (PDS) and one on the IT Sector.

What actually drew the maximum attention was the project on improving the delivery of the PDS. The first hand experience of Ashish on the topic and the information he had gathered working in the Orissa and Chattisgarh villages was eye opener for many. Despite all the complications, social sector remains one of the most exciting and tough sectors to work in. But the satisfaction of, may be, having been of help to poor, helpless Indians is immense.

I might write some of my experiences with the PDS after the end of third term next week. And that reminds me, time is flying at ISB. Only one more core term to go and then people will be opting for their specializations. Doesn’t that mean making some of the crucial decisions of life in next one and a half month? Any advisors?

On Cultural Differences

2007-08-11T14:32:00.000+05:30

I think every good B-School has its own cultural trademarks. These traits are the ones with which people can associate themselves, years after they have left their alma mater. One of these ‘culturally differentiating trademarks’ at ISB is that of ‘dunking’. Since pictures speak more than words, I have put two photographs of the first ‘Day time Dunking’ of our section. And if you are confused what a suited- booted Paah Ji is doing in a swimming pool, then that’s dunking or rather having been dunked.

Normally the Birthday kid and his/ her study group members are the first ones to be dunked; until the madness rises when most people end up getting dunked. But what drove the Section to break the tradition of Dunking at Mid-night was the fear of Corporate Finance Mid-term exam. So the dunking seems to be appropriate in the sense that people are washing the (bad) memories of the just concluded paper.

Preparations are also on at ISB for the Independence Day celebration. The best thing about the events planned for this 15th August is the visit of a number of school kids along with some NGOs. People here are planning games, music, arts and what not for the kids. And I know being in the reception committee for welcoming the kids is a much needed change than being escorted to the stage set up for district celebrations in the Collectorate. After all the responsibility to organize a successful show is the responsibility of the ADM General.

It also reminds me of the events I had planned for the Independence Day celebration at the District Headquarter in one of my postings. Amongst all the other things, I was most impressed was the performance of a flute player who played almost divine music. After a few days I had called for him only to discover an untrained rustic villager who was out of earnings, job, shows and a group to perform with. His previous group having dumped him for all the attention he used to draw.

Ranjan had brought with him a lot of certificates along with newspaper cuttings showing his kuchha hut and stories from his village where he works as a day labourer in others’ fields. All I could arrange was to tie him with a professional group with the help of District Information Officer. Now Ranjan is staging shows again and has been to some foreign countries as well. At times if my mobile buzzes and someone cries for a few minutes before speaking a word, I know it must be ‘Babu Moshay’. After all, places have their unique cultural trademark.