In pursuit of opulence :)

It stuck me when I read yesterday that everything is Backward in Earth :)

And my inference of it is, humans always are in reactive mode to the problems for which they are the authors. They obviously didn't author it intentionally. They typically get blinded by material returns that causes the callousness.

Carrying on, I am deeply worried about the upbringing of children in this distraction filled world. Kids spend majority of time on television or with gadgets. Most of the parents are oblivious to this as they are engrossed in their aspirations. what we fail to realize is that there is no purpose in life if what we authored becomes a failure :(

Carrying on, The community I live in trying to ban plastics in all form. Plastics are one of the most insane inventions someone could have ever made. This is again a backward thing to me as the enforcement is less thought about. the problem that was authored with creation of plastics cannot be eliminated without there being an alternative.

Carrying on, Consumption is the next backward thing in this so called progressive world. when we stock stuff beyond what we need we create problems both for self and for others. I am reminded of reading ' Money if yours but the resources belong to the society'. Also, Someone said the next world war is going to be over water!

A dozen others things I am reminded of around how Man in pursuit of opulence is creating problems in the society... for which he needs to find solutions looking backward.

Terrorism...Think about it as I sign off this post!

New Year and a New start!

New Year and a New start!

5 years ON, and I am back to writing my mind!

Yes, A new year....and a resolution to return to blogging! 

As i hover around what to write I want to get real and list down my resolutions for 2016. I will return to more soulful writing from my next blog. 

Here they are:

1) Resume blogging (already here! Wish to blog atleast once every week)

2) Fitness Resolution (1KM jog everyday and slowly scale it to 5KM/day by April 1st) 

3) Cleanliness Resolution (Maintain a stretch of my surrounding clean and green)

4) Cleanliness Resolution 2 (Wash your clothes by yourself. Start date: 9th Jan)

5) Pursue a distance education masters course (Target start Date: by Feb'16)

Here are the top 5 and i wish to update on how I am doing with them once every month!

Excited to begin the year with things that I enjoy doing!

Adios...

Intense

I chose an intense movie on a wrong day and this blog entry is the result of it! . Today my daughter left to India and she is away from me for the first time after 20 months. And after almost 30 minutes I bid bye to my wife and kid I started missing her on the way back home in the bus. Although it might seem a bit exaggerated honestly its not.

Within a few hours after separation I wrongly chose to see the movie Nandhalala :). The intensity of the emotions in the movie coupled with the loneliness/separation in my mind made me weep. And it’s after a long time I am weeping seeing a modern movie. Let me count how many of them made my weep… Vietnam Veedu tops the list followed by Ethir Neechal and anbe sivam and of course Black and now Nandhalala!!

I have always liked and engaged in movies that portray human emotions. And this movie was one such with a classy screenplay and scintillating performances from the director/hero and the boy. Although the movie derives inspiration from other movies its still a classy creation. It’s far from just saying that it’s a copycat movie.

Contradictions are a part of all our life. And it’s the contradictions that make us change our opinions. Although the human life is considered the most fortunate of the creations it’s a misnomer. To me many times I feel that to be born as a human being is the worst of karma(n). {Mruthyoma amurthamgamaya}

Sufferings are more cruel when you experience them in the mind than in the body. That’s why sometimes Man decides to commit suicide when emotions are running high. The physical pain can sometimes be handled by the mind but the mental agony/suffering is very tough to handle, and needs enormous will power and maturity to overcome.

On the lighter side,

Expectations/Ambitions are quite human and stand as a motivation to drive life. However when they are defeated its very tough to compromise and reconcile. If you have seen both the ends of it, it’s equivocal and easy to laugh at. But if we only see the high, the low is suffocating.

Contradictions, Sufferings and Expectations are the three facets of this movie (to me) and each of these are conveyed In a intense(emotion) fashion. If you can handle the mood please watch the movie!

Yet Again...

I just happened to read that Devan Sharma the man who had the guts to reveal the state of US economy recently to the world authoritatively, is quitting. On the day the credit downgrading of US was revealed I was pretty sure the US reaction would be in these lines. And foolishly (as the latter reacted) it did happen.

Yet Again US is showing aggression and not showing intentions of acceptance and introspection. After all US is known to do this time and again. By doing so they are just becoming fragile and vulnerable.

Yesterday in one of the local channels of south India I happened to hear couple of speakers analyze the incumbent recession of US. And as they discussed they drew lessons for Indians, from the precarious debt situation US is in. One of the speakers quoted his mature friend say ‘When one gets his salary the first expenditure he must make is to save’ . And I wondered how good it holds for a individual, family, society, community, city and even to a nation. Although spending is essential and constructive it must come after saving what’s essential.

Getting back in line to the topic, yet again the US is pumping dollars by increasing the deficit limits. Unfortunately the dollars are only yielding money in hands of Americans but not creating jobs which will create a more sustainable and inclusive growth. They are not building a sustainable model and just blowing the balloon beyond its might.

Surveys clearly show that the once happy citizens of US of A are no longer happy. Because all the wealth they accumulated over years is now eroding and they are not realizing wealth out of their assets. Fellow citizens are losing jobs and those working are also not enjoying their work for very many reasons.

And…..What’s annoying is, a nation which is devoid of ideas is holding the baton and running without introspection. And the whole world around is lamenting and fearing another recession. The potential in Asian economies is enormous but unfortunately the US hegemony forces us to keep silent and not engine the world to a better path.

There are so many economic forums but none of them think of pulling the baton from US and ask the US to start the retrospective.

Its high time something is done other than have the burgeoning deficits of US
(funded indirectly by Asian economies) put the whole world into a standstill !!!

Trance

Embarrassing but true.. It’s been a year since I posted my last blog. Life has been so engaging. No orkut, no facebook and no socializing. Today after a long time I have invested the time and interest to write on something.

Someone recently told me that in life participation is very important. Because when you participate in something you immediately set goals to get to it. Along the way you start equipping yourself for it. So participation is very important to get the involvement in life ON.

And how true is this, in as many angles you can think about it? And thinking about it further, all of us are engaged in one thing or the other throughout our life. Sometimes voluntarily and many a times inevitably :( .

But realistically, in life it’s impossible to be always doing what we like. Each one of us at different point in time through our life are driven by expectations. And we often fall bait to those expectations and do things we might not be completely to our liking.

So to say our life is often driven by external influences and experiences. And at different stages of life we are shaping up with confusing goals and circumstances. The destination is changing and route is changing accordingly. The driver is unaware what to do and the passenger is thinking when and where to get down, thinking selfishly what’s best for him. :)

Although the 4 paragraphs above look disconnected I can derive at least 4-5 instances in my life which can connect them. I don’t want to elaborate , and I want to make them abstract for people to draw the lines when they read this.

The lesson to derive here is to constantly sieve through our participation and interests. And try to eliminate our time wasted in things we don’t like doing. When I said constantly I mean as we age. If we keep doing this religiously then by the time we are absolved of dependencies in life we can truly engage ourself and participate in truly the things we relish doing. It takes different timelines for different people.

Many of the sages in India have been worshipped due to their clarity in thought process. They have mastered the mind and channelized it abstract the truth. And when the mind is mastered the thought process flows like a elixir, the body becomes immortal and the life is absolutely trance….!!

What the Consumer Wants

What the Consumer Wants

Over a last few months I have been interacting and reading about the mobile handset market in India and its been one of the most tricky business for some time now.

Since many years Nokia was a monopoly and was percolating deep into the Indian rural and urban market. With market share of more than 70% it wasn’t surprising when Nokia started their assembling plant near Chennai with sizeable investment and a staggering rollout of more than 2 million phones per month!!

But the scene started changing slowly and the technology market started to become highly un-predictable with the entry of dozens of new players everyday. Apart from the Korean and Taiwan dumps the country saw many registered mobile handset makers invade into the market share of the biggies like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola.

The mobile market became as tricky as the film industry. It became very hard to research what the customer/consumer wants. And the time to market needed to be very very fast. Just take the technology pace in the data transfer technologies. Imagine the time gap between infrared to Bluetooth to wifi to 3G and so on. By the time a technology is adapted to on a mobile phone a new technology arrives and customers are always on the look out.

Just few months back and during the IPL this year a new handset maker called micromax entered into the populated market and within 3-4 months he is already the third largest seller with market share of more than 20%. If you look closely at what they did best? It was aggressive marketing, branding and put all in one strategy. They looked at what all a customer needed and put it all in one at a very competitive rate.

A week back I read in business India magazine that a PCO (public telephone booth) vendor in one of the remote villages in India used to travel 2 kms everyday in the evening to charge up his battery. The battery was the source for power to his telephones and the place where he operated had no electricity. But today he has a phone made by micromax that keeps running for 7 days continuously without a charge and he used it happily even without wires (BSNL lost yet another customer :)). Things like these are simple to read but interestingly for many users these days, what’s important it how long the mobile can run without a charge, than the features a phone has. There is no time for many to charge their phones since they use it non-stop.

If you thinking how many myriad things drive this handset market… Let me try to list.. Cost, features, games, connectivity, e-mail, 3G, data transfer, wifi, camera, battery life, resolution, look and feel, video recording and so on and so on…

To make it a perfect strategy to manufacture one phone is almost impossible. Do you really agree? Read on..

And driving down to bring a philosophical angle as I usually do, there is one company that makes costly phones with low features and with very ordinary marketing but still maintains to be a monopoly in the market. And the company is the great Apple Inc. Every product they launch including their iPhone is highly criticized and reviewed. Yet it stands out to be awe’d at and irrespective of its cost is always sought after.

Now on to my closing down thoughts. What the consumer wants is the most tricky maze/puzzle to crack always. Very few companies can crack it and those are the ones which stay while others go up the spike and then slowly fall to get buried.

Whatever is the case I always bet that quality, durability/longevity and class will always be alive. It will have its pickers and will survive to emerge stronger.

En-vision

En-vision

Recently I have been reading some of the quotes by leaders and some of the ambitious projects that they plan, which made took me by awe and I tried to think on what distinguishes a achiever against a true visionary.

At different stages in life and according to upbringing each one of us definitely count on our own achievements and feel happy, but being a visionary is something very different. Visionaries go a mile further and dream of things that can impact societies and change the world. And to envision such a complex thought truly demands deep understanding and experience.

Today I had a chance to read something kalam said recently when he addressed students in Washington. He said,

Quote:

“In a globalized world, our problems are shared, our efforts are shared, and the prosperity and the happiness will hence be shared across the nations and societies as well”

- Unquote.

How true. But this thought doesn’t come to everyone. Everyone is competing these days

$as a student

$as a employee

$ as a country

$ as a society , as a community, as a religion, as a leader etc.. etc..

But have we really thought about how we can co-live and co-create a better world to live in? , We have only thought about a better house, have we thought about a better surrounding? A best house in a worst surrounding will not even catch attention of on-lookers !!

On to the next thing that impacted me to write about visionaries.

Bill gates, always referred to as the worlds richest man or the second (does it matter to him ?) recently is following a crop produce by Indian farmers that has ability to withstand floods! Gates is closely following farming in India and other agricultural countries and proposing scientific methods to enhance yield in cultivation.

Incidentally Gates is also setting up a 800 million dollar reserve/fund to fight global hunger and poverty. He is camping at places like Ghana and Rwanda which have always being reeling in famine.

While there are so many remedial measures he could have thought about, he has been following agricultural innovations so that these famine hit countries could come out of this forever and not always depend upon outside world for funding.

These kind of visionary ideas are the need of the hour as the world is so divided. As I draw close on this write-up I wish a wider consortium is formed and all such visionaries spread across the world can sit together and discuss what can spread the happiness, that is spiking in certain parts of the world alone.

Yes the spike needs to flatten and the our grand children need to live in a much better and tranquil world.

Whirlpool-ish

India as a country has been picking up and drawing the attention of global community for all the good and bad reasons. As one sector looks at us with awe and admiration for the sheer capacity we exhibit another looks at us with pity. But amidst all the chaos this multi-billion people country has been burgeoning and swiftly moving like a gazelle. In this blog I want to delve into some of the exaggerated sectors and dig a little on what could be truth behind them. I am sure I would have to keep writing pages if I have to make justice to this premise. My I would just draw a line and leave the reader to ponder over the rest.

Stock Market:

As any economy expands disproportionately it will require a lot of intervention to solve the dis-ease that is bound to appear at the lower levels. But what will be more remarkable is the growth of the industrial sector and the corporate sector around the boom. During such booming times the hype that is created in the stock market is very very tepid and whirlpool-ish. Remember always that production is true while paper money (created through stocks and shares) is always false.

Media:

One of the important pillars of any democracy is the media. A democracy will be considered matured only if the media is allowed to play a free and fair role is showcasing a very transparent and true picture of the democracy to the world. But freedom is not free :D and truly so the media has to also understand its freedom and act responsibly. I was recently disturbed to listen to a debate where it was disclosed that more of 70% of the news telecasted by media in India is paid news. And I will surely suspect the credibility of the media and not trust them, to re-verify them before broadcast. The hype that the media creates is very dangerous and again whirlpool-ish.

Cricket (Sport):

And why should I look for another hyped sector while the IPL is running just in front of me as I am penning my thoughts down :D. The hype that this sport that drawn is quite ridiculous and has kept the central body ICC lip locked. While all other sports in this country are starved and under performing, the cricket team is always in limelight again for good and bad reasons. The winter Olympics that happened in Canada recently saw 3 Indians walk with the flag in opening ceremony and much to our shame all the three were not financed by the government to participate in Olympics! :(

As I close down due to my principle of showing restraint (of not writing more than one page) :D , I want to remind you that this country has more reasons to be worried than to celebrate. And just like the country every family including yours and mine have more reasons to retrospect than celebrate. Its time to get responsible and its time to play things down than hype things which are passing. Otherwise one day each one of us will getting encircled into a whirlpool of remorse.

Blessed...

Blessed

Many a times in life we dream about something happening in the future. But when we reach the moment, when, the then future is now the present, we tend to pinch our self to ascertain if we are living in reality or still in dream. This might sound whimsical but I am sure this would have happened to each one of us in our life. Such moments are truly to be cherished and such people are truly blessed!

I experienced one such moment on 12th of January this year when the pediatrician brought my daughter and asked me to hold her in my arms, seconds after the baby came into this world. I couldn’t trust that it was real. I was so ecstatic that I was pinching myself to convince that what I was experiencing was real and not a dream :D. And yet again last week another dream turned a reality, when the little one, now 2 months old smiled and tried to lick my face when I cuddled her and rubbed her cheeks with mine, I could only express my delight in one single word, and that is ‘BLESSED’ !

Another incident followed on the 18th of this month. And that taught me a good lesson and in turn motivated me to write this blog. This was another incident which made me feel I am blessed yet again. I or rather we (3) became proud owners of a residential flat in a nice residential area in the city. This particular day has been in my dream for years now and I when the dream did turn into a reality, I could not completely believe everything I was experiencing was real and not a dream :D

But as I sat down thinking, I realized that almost everyone is as blessed as me and what I was going through was just satisfaction of some kind. To slightly change the phrase

‘Blessed are those who are satisfied’

Every human being is given a equal opportunity to be satisfied. The environment might be different, but there can be no denial on the fact that there is definitely an opportunity. An opportunity to prove, an opportunity to improve and an opportunity to feel satisfied :D

And digging a little more I stuck upon another profound thought. To feel satisfied one must focus on life and give little importance to material things. If you understand the quality of life you wish to live you will feel satisfied on achieving that. But if you set targets on material things, by the time you achieve them they lose their value substantially, and all your life, you live aspiring for more, and miss to enjoy life, waiting to be lived !!

And there I stop but before I end,

I recently read this beneath the signature of someone who sent me a mail. And needless to say I liked it. I hope my reader can draw a line of relevance here.

God grant me -
Serenity to accept things I cannot change;
Courage to change things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference

Influence

Influence

We are living in a very analytical world and at the same time a very equivocal world. Everyday there are many things we read, listen to and perceive and that keeps influencing our thought process. The biggest challenge according to me is to be not influenced these influences ;) . I will call this state as neutrality.

Influences are different at different maturity levels to human beings. A kid for instance gets influenced by seeing a cartoon of superman. But the same kid as it grows realizes and moves towards human influence. And once he helplessly transforms to a man is influenced by close circle around him (parents/corporate icons etc..). And as he turns aged influenced by religious philosophers. Even a most analytical person often tends to get influenced. The only difference being, that he can create a pretense of being neutral by showing contrasting opinions which will keep the observer puzzled !

As I think deep I can almost certainly say that it’s impossible to be/remain un-influenced and present a very neutral thought process. It’s probably only possible for saints and only very few of them. Now the reason I started the topic is to explore how can we pick and choose the best influences in our life. It’s similar to deciding upon an investment in life. Every other one of them seems attractive but attractive is always un-safe/dangerous.

We must very subjectively decide on what we should get influenced with. The brain often tends to attach an emotional angle here. But it’s very important that we analyze well on which is best for us. Wrong influences are like multipliers. They grow fast while good influences are like additions. They get added up slowly and withdrawal is also easy.

Well closing down here. On a moral note, the best possible way to age is to slowly separate ourselves from influences. When you don’t get influenced you don’t expect people to hear and act by what you say. And when you start practicing this you can detach and slow achieve neutrality. Everything around you will seem to be so pure and unique. No relativity ;)

Genuin'ity

Genuin'ity

Almost 2 years since I last wrote a blog. If I claim that , its because I didn’t have time or because I didn’t have a good topic or because I am too busy to think about anything or because I lost interest for writing…

“All I can say is I am not being to genuine to myself. ”

Hang on, before assuming what genuin’ity is about. I know it’s a word that you cant find in the dictionary and I already know that from the red underline that the smart MSword is showing me!

I am writing about the genuin’ity that missing in humans and how fake a life many of us are living. If this one word makes me write a blog after 2 years you must catch the essence of how it could have affected me.

There have been 2-3 incidences recently which have affected me very much to loose my self-control and be highly critical. And not surprisingly all of them were due to money. Sometimes many of us including me attach too much of importance to this commodity that it seems more important that anything else on this world. I wish that a device called calculator was never invented. This device has provoked humans to multiply and divide in every moment of life. Yes, please look and delve into these words ‘multiply and divide’ and think about them beyond just money. And to whatever propositions you can think away from money, money would still always be a tangent* for all these situations in life.

People are so self-centered and rigid that they are sometimes so in-genuine to what their conscience says. They try to win over their conscience and try to dominate it internally. Its interesting, because you dominate yourself . And that’s what I call a false (in-genuine) living.

I don’t want to write more and want to restrict myself to the usual one page I write. Because I don’t want to get more emotional and spoil my day at office which has so beautifully begun.

Just to close on a moral note. Life is very meaningful and pleasantly designed by a cunning architect called God. This architect always wants his designs to learn by their# mistakes. And as I said mistakes are ours (#their). If we can live a much genuine life then life would be as pleasant and meaningful as the architect originally designed it for. But if we wanted to falsely wrap us with a million worries and live a life always calculating (with not just money, I stress again) we would only go up and down the roller coaster and keep blaming and praying to the cunning designer .

*A straight line or plane that touches a curve or curved surface at a point but does not intersect it at that point

It's not Important.....

Its not important how much you earn, but what’s more important is how well you live. (After all every idiot is earning, including me :) )

Its not important how long you live, but what’s more important is how happily you live. (Longevity is a curse infact)

Its not important how much you read, but what’s more important is how much of it you can apply and spread. (How many of us read to change? :) )

Its not important how far you live, but what’s more important is how accessible you are. (Have we lived a life to attract people to visit us? )

Its not important how much you think, but what’s more important is to translate them into reality. (The more I think the more confused I get)

Its not important how much you can save, but what’s more important is to define how much is enough for me. (Someone saves for someone else to spend!!)

Its not important how much you can arm yourself, but what’s more important is how much you can try to restore peace. (Peace is but a natural process of realization, that what you did was wrong)

Its not important how much you can eat, but what’s more important is how much you really relish of it. (Some exercise after eating and for some eating itself is a ritual/exercise)

Its not important how far you can walk, but what’s more important is to have the stamina to return back to the origin. (Wherever you go you always keep longing to get back to the origin point).

Its not important how much you can talk, but what’s more important is to effect a radical thought of change in the listener. (Everyone experiences a halo, for some its ephemeral and for some its eternal)

Its not important how much you can enjoy, but what’s more important is to spread the source of enjoyment. (When everyone is enjoying it’s the state of enlightenment).

It not important how long you can sleep, but what’s more important is how little we dream while sleeping. (Dream is to experience the unreal, bitter or sweet)

Its not important how long you write, but what’s more important is how much of it meaningful and relevant with the flow. (Here I stop :) )

Proactive and Reactive

This blog is especially dedicated to the younger generation of present India who don’t treat life with much seriousness. And there are a lot of reasons for this. ..

But as life progresses there is something called change that hits everyone. For someone it comes like breeze. For someone change hits like a wave and for someone it hits like a tsunami. And more often that not it’s Tsunami for someone who is not open for change :).

I named this article to indict at most of the people are so careless about life. They don’t realise what it takes to really build up a truly wholesome life for the self and the surrounding. Let me percolate to justify, what I am saying above..

Most of the younger generation working for the IT sectors (perhaps the only employment generating sector in India) just don’t plan their tasks, priorities, time and to sum up their lives. We keep working endlessly and people suffer from stress and fatigue. And what would come in the near future would be dis-ease. The prime reason for this is that people are not proactive. They just don’t seem to bother about Issues day-to-day and finally everything creeps up high together and they start reacting to them when it’s already too late.

Next on to the health. I want to talk about something I read recently. I read that there is an increasing witness to early diagnosis of diseases like breast cancer, excessive blood pressure and fertility problems with younger generation. And I don’t see any reasons for this other the awareness levels with younger generation being low. People are running behind money. And there is a aggression to earn more but save less, to buy more but consume less, to talk more but hear less, and to sum up to earn more but live less :( . I again want to stress that we have to be more aware and in turn become more proactive.

Next on to the culture. Parentage in this and future generations will be a pity. No one cares for the culture. This is just a fashion tag attached to everything. There is no attempt to relate what, culture means and relates, to life. And when one sudden day we see something drastic happening in the family which completely ruins the family’s long withheld tradition we mourn and react.

I want to stop writing and, something strikes me as I want to close this blog. There are two types of root system. Taproot system and Fibrous root system. To kill a plant that has a taproot it’s as simple as pulling its root from the soil deep in. But a fibrous root spreads all over and has offspring’s appear all along. To kill it would be impossible. And not to forget it could even bring down the building which is external to it!!!

It’s important we plan every moment of our life and learn to be more proactive. We would see very less surprises/shocks this way.

Did someone feel the tangent called Karma here? ;)

Thanks for your time.

Disparities :(

While my plans were to write on a different topic I suddenly struck upon this one. I was thinking about the disparity that exists in world at a family level, society level, state level, and national level and across boundaries (international level). But the classification underneath is on a different abstraction.

First I wanted to write on disparities in income levels across the world. How many economists thought about this?. Bodies such as the world bank, ADB( Asian development back where all setup to monitor world economy and fund infrastructure development projects around the world. But in-spite of all this, have the disparities been met in different parts of the world? While there is a sincere effort to bridge the income levels through employment generation, economies have been facing drastic inflation levels and the disparity continues to spiral high. The per-capita income which is considered one of the major indicators of people’s income levels has risen by 5-6% in many developing economies while all those developing economies have been facing double digit inflation rates !!. Now imagine those fading economies like Zimbabwe. Pity them :(

I now step into disparities seen in food production. While food demands in many of the countries are rising steadily there hasn’t been a proportional level of increase in production. Adding to the pain, many economies/countries are forced to export food products although their internal produce isn’t sufficient to meet their country’s demand. The obvious reason is for earning foreign exchange.

Now on to the disparities seen in weather conditions. Amidst discussions about global warming we are failing to realize that the basic change in weather patterns across many parts of the worlds. While one part of a nation struggles in flood the other part is struggling in drought. In effect both regions are suffering for aid!! Both of them need one thing in abundance.. and that is Money!

Now on to disparities in sectoral growth. Even the most naïve economist would agree if I said Agriculture and Manufacturing should fuel a economy’s growth. This will in turn trigger growth in services sector and also in almost the entire economy. But many economies are thriving on growth heavily in services sector. This is a hollow growth and is just filling the balloon/bubble with more and more hot air. With more and more accumulation of money (in different currencies) we are just spinning in the tornado. We are seemingly moving around but ultimately only to cause destruction in the long run :(

I want to write more but I want to kill the pessimism in me. So I stop here. But in hope that economists should start thinking, on these lines to bridge disparities, which are deepening around the world. Otherwise the dooms day is nor far. After all the pandora’s box has to be opened some day.…

If US of A be with us, Who can be against us ;)

If USA Be with us, Who can be against us ;)

Over the last 2 weeks or so there was an interesting drama that unfolded at Vienna where the NSG or the nuclear suppliers group reviewed waiving India from the nuclear ban thus allowing it to import nuclear fuel from other countries.

Right from the beginning the US of A was supporting India and appreciating its interests to have nuclear energy which was a very pure source of energy and will meet the energy needs of a power starved nation. As India was towards the final stages, and as the UPA managed to power through all oppositions from the left, finally the deal went for the approval from the NSG committee.

The NSG comprises of a group of nations which abide by the organizations policies of using nuclear energy for world’s development. Finally as the D-day approached for India to be included in the NSG’s list few countries opposed India’s inclusion because India refused to sign the CTBT agreement which would stop the country from conducting nuclear tests for military purposes. It was the most obvious opposition and quite lateral too. The Indian delegation started its negotiations with those countries with no positive results on day one and two. And suddenly on day three the deal went through with no major oppositions. And the obvious reasons being that “Nobody can resist pressure from Uncle SAM”

What unfolded few days later was interesting. Chinese minister visited India and first met the communist leaders. Later went on to meet the Prime minister and convey or rather negate the premonition that developed in between that China was against India being allowed to import nuclear fuel.

The reason the Chinese delegation came and more so the reason US of A is so much for India’s nuclear journey is lot interesting. India is too primitive in nuclear research and also has very basic facilities to what it takes to build nuclear reactors. The obvious nation is has to reach out to for technology and hardware is USA. US sees a giant opportunity here and importantly at a time when its economy is in doldrums. From fighter jets to now nuclear technology J . Not to forget China is the obvious second benefactor who also has the distance advantage. While transporting things like nuclear reactors distance does make a difference !!!

Whatever it takes. I am just being optimistic that we get an answer for the power crisis this country could face in the long run. Lets hope we stop burning that coal which has been lighting up our lives for a long time now !!

In Tamil there is a interesting proverb that goes like this “Sozhayan kudumi summa aadadhu”

Want to know what that means?? .Post a comment I will let you know :)

The next drama :- Australia declines to supply Uranium to India as it hasnt signed the CTBT !!

The prophecy called Mind

The prophecy called Mind

After a long time I return to blogging with the inspiration coming from the most complex yet researched part of human body. For those who assumed I am talking about the brain.. Sorry I am not. I am talking about the Human Mind. I am motivated to write about the mind due to few thoughts, which have been flowing through my mind and how my mind has been processing it.

Every human mind is trained by self and surrounding, to process information less from self but more from surrounding in its own speed. Sometimes the mind is preoccupied with this processing and it tends to totally ignore things happening around. This is a safe state. And sometimes when there is a constant flood of thoughts, and the mind is constantly trying to increase its processing capacity, there is a state of turbulence. In software terminology we sometimes refer to this as deadlock.

This turbulence can however affect only active and aggressive thinkers. And there are very few who deploy their minds with such focus. And whenever the mind is turbulent it tends to form faster judgments and conclusions. And what comes out from our mouth after all those judgments is very tough to be perceived correctly by the listener. After all you cannot expect the same processing speeds in every RAM (Random access memory) !!

So where and what is the remedy for such critical situations we are forced into?

Whenever there is a rush of thoughts its better we postpone judgments. And if the situation does demand a quick judgment, we rather sit in solitude and decide a temporary solution which could address the imminent problem, and think about what’s to come after some time when the turbulence settles and the wave has receded :)

The next thing I was to briefly write about is the power of influence. The mind is a very smart creation and it very smartly embraces people, which is in its prime area of influence. But after an age the mind is dominated by one of the internal processes inside it and this process is called EGO. This process which is dormant in young age starts to take proportions as we age. And it is important to take that whip and goad (or) rather < –stop> this process when and where we feel it disturbs our integrity. And those to lack the skill to take that whip often end up as bad decision makers or, at least cannot make a win-win decision making.

This is just the part-1 of my writing admiring the Human Mind. I wish to at least write 25 of such blog’s tracking each of the emotions I encounter (both inside and outside) and see how excellently the mind does exception handling J. Thanks for your time and Keep thinking :)

Heads on!

Heads on!
I recently had a chance to listen to a presentation where a Foreigner shared his experiences of visiting India. He is someone who had been here for more than a year and his experiences are hence genuine, measured and matured!

As he started, he not surprisingly expressed all the problems of traffic, garbage collection (or in fact garbage stagnation) , communication problems, commuting etc.. etc..

But what struk me was his small quote about poverty and more so about beggars. He was telling his audience that India has deep-rooted poverty problems and many resort to the easy way of begging for a living. But he advised and followed the approach of not giving money to beggars. He said that he felt giving money to beggars was just solving the problem temporarily for them. He rather said to the audience that money should be given to NGO’s and other social service organizations that can bring about a transformation and in effect solve the problem for a long term. This is no new thought, but this made me think about something that might irritate many of my readers but I still want to write it down.

How different that these beggars from the thousands of so called NRI’s who leave this country for their own convenience. They fail to face the problems heads on here and resort to going to a developed country and living a cozy life. Most of the Indians leave this country for the so-called education facilities available in the US or elsewhere in the world. Interestingly many of the Americans travel to India these days for pursuing education in the IIM’s, IIT’s or to the medical colleges in India. The reason is two fold. Some of them come for genuine meritorious experience, while some come because education is costly in their country. Either way they wouldn’t come to spend in a worthless education.

Migration: I see this only as escapism. Many people don’t want to adjust to the environment they were born in and since emigration is an easy option with not many surprises at its destiny, they take the easy route, just like beggars in India who think to beg is easy and you don’t have any surprises. Sometime back I read that beggars in Bombay live like any other middle class family!!

As I turn to the other side of the coin or loonies :) , The immigrant countries aren’t idiots too. They are all high inflation economies and they want you to spend your productive years in their country. After all you earn for their economy and they let you spend in your economy. In return you get to experience the life of a middle class guy in their economy!! , which is rich class in Indian standards. And once your productive years end you realize that it’s too costly and unreal to spend your old age there and you quickly resort to get back to your home country.

Think about it. I admit I am not writing anything new. But I am certainly not a person who hates the western society or the western economy. I admire them, but just wanted to indict on the temporary pleasure people, who migrate from India falsely and seemingly enjoy!

Hurray I am not a beggar :).

Handling Criticisms ...

For all possible reasons ,I don’t want my blog to be containing Management lessons. However I thought this topic is more relevant to the present world in all phases of life. So Here we go…

As people are becoming more and more communicative and expressive there is a thought pattern that gets associated with people uniformly. To be more precise, a person who is interested in philosophy has a particular verbatim. A person who is a communist has his own way of forming and expressing his opinion, and So on… Now move this paragraph to your cache memory and read On..

As the world is shrinking we are getting exposed to various cultures, communities and reactions. For example during a day we see the same news happening in some part of the world in SunTV, BBC,NDTV,Fox,CNBC and what not… Not only is there a verbal difference but there is also a difference in the way the news is presented. I have the same request.. move this paragraph to your cache memory and read On..

As this ambit of communication is wide and narrow :), there is bound to be a lot of criticisms associated with every situation we handle, day in and day out. I have observed that there is very little response time these days. Whenever there is a criticism it’s handled almost instantaneously. The reaction time being so less, can also be stopping the individual from thinking what he is saying and to whom he is saying. After all words once said are said. You cannot take them back!

I am referring to those marriage’s which end in divorce in few months. I am referring to the job that we all quit just a month after joining. I am referring to the contracts that get closed with our customers because of few minutes of debate. I am talking about the friendship that takes few moments to break, but which shaped up along years.

And I am sure each one of us have been part of such incidents and must agree that all of us over-reacted in such situations. The fact that we nod our head when we agree to have over reacted sums it all up. We didn’t analyse and react, to the criticism that we were subjected to. To a great extent all this is caused by our ego which takes control of our mind and makes us do things in a hurried fashion. To be frank it requires a very matured thought process to analyse things on the fly, and react to people around us. And the ones who do are called philosophers!!

Personally when I am confronted with such situations, I like to step out of it from stopping myself from reacting to it. So I am not a philosopher :) .I either say a sorry and make the person feel guilty, or just walk out of the tepid situation speechless. Because there will definitely be a time when the person who criticized you would feel guilty about it and come to you and seek your opinions. I am ruthless during that time. Because he has come to hear to you, and you should express all that you felt. In that way you don’t hide all your emotions. This may take you out of depression.

My quota of one MS Word page has ended.. Will continue writing about this some time later.

Until then keep thinking and Happy reading!

What drives a Boom…?

I was just thinking about what’s in a boom. What drives it? And what brings a downfall. And why I got this thought suddenly? Because for the first time in my life I today came across a company laying off people. So I thought I would better discuss and explore what keeps the giant wheel going round and round, up and down :)

Read this…

Sam Walton said,

“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else”

But drilling a little down everyone is a customer and each of us work in this viscous circle to keep the circle a perfect one ,ensuring the circle has no open ends! Not making sense??… I will explain it with a example.

In India we work in a services oriented fashion. Lets for the sake of it assume Iam a engineer working for a client Nokia. Now I work only to please my client and make him happy. I ensure I deliver my part of the product best.Nokia does his part of it ,integrates them and makes sure he sells his mobile to make his customer happy. And who is this customer? .The so called End Customer/Consumer? ..It happens to be me, you or someone else. And the money nokia earns it shares with me indirectly because I am paid indirectly by him.

Now there are two things. One, economies/companies grow only by sharing wealth and two, the consumer needs to spend, for the money to percolate. Only then the wealth flows and at some point flows back to us.

If you read the above paragraph again you will realise that these are the two things USA does excellently well.

And what is this viscous circle I am talking about should already be clear to you. It’s a binocular view of Demand – supply theory. Only if the supply is matched, and matched with the demand the product would sustain in the economy. If for some reason the demand becomes less the loop is broken. To be precise if the consumer is not in a position to afford the product or the product is not meeting consumer’s expectation then, the company/economy/product will become obsolete.

And now you know who drives the boom? Its you and me!!. :)

Having talked about spending/sharing wealth, to sustain the boom for our selfishness, :) in my next blog I will write about Saving!!!

Till then Happy reading…

On-sight!!

Oh ya!!, the long pending onsite trip of mine finally happened and I think the excitement of being in the new culture and seeing a developed economy kept me occupied for the first two weeks. But finally, I sat down to write, trying to do some justice to the blog I started.

This onsite had more been a path to understand the intricate advantages and disadvantages of being in a new culture like Canada or USA, so far. As the cliché goes So far So good!!. Canada is no different from USA Iam told. So i would tend to generalise as i keep writing.

For the last two weeks, I have been sighting far many things which I am still not able to digest. I came with impressions that my visit to Canada wouldn’t take me to big surprises and all my analysis about moving out of India would stand vindicated. Since I have two sisters in US and my parents have visited USA 3 times I know pretty much well about these countries. But after i have been here, so many opine’s of mine have been proved just a myth!!!

Over the past two weeks I had done some unique things which I might have not and never experienced in India. These are the obvious nice things about Canada and USA.Let me list them down…

Number One, I interacted with people from all geographies of the world. Canadian,American,Chinese,Japanese,Syrian,African,European,Russian and of course Indians.

And one uniform observation from all of them is their deep sense of timing while they converse. They mix up their fluency of English with both wit and substance and keep us thinking throughout their talk. Yes, at times they do talk non-sense but they do it in such a way that you will get out of thinking about the emptiness of their talk sooner.

Number Two , Another striking thing I have noticed is the discipline people follow in anything and everything. One of the toughest part for me is to follow the protocol while walking. It’s opposite to India both in the roads and for pedestrians. And if you walk on the left of the corridor while going south to north they look at you with disgust. And its people who are most respected on roads,then cyclist,then motorists and then follow all heavy vehicles. Directly opposite to India :).

Number three, is the variety of immigrants who have come here and settled but still respect and follow the protocols set by local Canadian government. When I was in Toronto I was told that Toronto has the largest immigrant population in the world. More than 60% of Toronto people are not Canadians!! What I immediately tend to admire is the way they have all adjusted to the system and become a part of it. Why I quote Toronto is because Toronto constitutes more than 40% of Canada’s GDP!!. In India Indians from Karnataka don’t like Indians from TamilNadu. But here people from all over the world just stay without inhibitions. They do have some differences of opinions but they keep it away from influencing others.

Number four, which is the most strking thing for me is, there is not much importance given to politics and Religion here. People don’t discuss day to day politics as seriously as they do in India. They respect and trust their leaders. Religion is of not much significance here. Many of them are not even particular to go to church and also not interested to take their children to churches. And I don’t have to say anything about India here :) .

Number five, I will end with this :) . Life as if it is day to day, is so easy here. The system has been automated to a large extent and there are hardly any failures in them. I am talking right from the morning when a municipal garbage system cleans up the city using their machines, or the microwave oven’s that heat food instantly, or the doors that lock automatically and track intruders through cameras, or the Wifi internet that’s hooked up everywhere. And once you start to office there are these GPS enabled buses which are tracked and also they are climate controlled. You go to office and find all find of devices right from the machine that gives you snacks and drinks by dropping dollars, or the cup washer that cleans up your cups. You come back from work and drop in your clothes in a washing machine that cleans then up in minutes and then you switch on your TV which works on a triple play through the cable modem!!!. As I said life is very very easy and convenient here…

Hang on… Are you wondering that this guy has turned Canadian? I am not. This week’s article as I aspired would just be to share my so called excitation. I still have my critic dormant inside. I will come out with all those worse parts of being here next week..

Till then, stay tuned and Happy reading!!!

Wallowing unaware!

Recently in a survey a group of people representing various countries of the world were asked, How many liked Japanese people? A few hands rose up. Then how many people liked Chinese people? Slightly higher number of hands went up and finally the crowd was asked, How many liked Indian people? Almost all hands went up. The same crowd was asked, How many liked Indian products? A few hands went up and, How many liked Chinese products, A sizeable number of hands went up and, How many liked Japanese products, Almost all the hands went up.

Yes, I am going to talk about this populist and pluralistic Indian population which has taken the world by surprise. But don’t mistake my tone, to be optimistic or pessimistic. It’s a mix of both :)

India has been a developing economy since 2-3 decades but the true sense of development and its percolation has been felt only recently. Growth by far, for any country is measured in terms of its GDP. And 9-10% growth is not something unseen in the developing economies around the world. But the path by which India has achieved and to some extent maintained the growth is unique. It’s through Services. And the reason I started writing this article was to analyse and assimilate whether a growth that relies heavily on services would be sustainable.

I myself represent the Information Technology sector, a sector that has given huge growth potential and generated employment for a sizeable chunk of individuals. After having worked for more than 2 years, Infact I believe, we were forced to rely on services since we lacked Infrastructure and the expertise to manufacture. And by the time we realised we have to focus on Manufacturing, the Japanese and Chinese became masters, and it was tough competing with them.

I have a very simple parallelism. If somebody wanted to start a textile manufacturing facility in coimbatore or Erode he knows well that he would fail. The focus is heavily on Tirupur and it’s very tough to shift that focus. Tirupur has distinct advantages which are difficult to be offset. Similar it is to shift the focus away from China!

And now I have a statement to make :)

“GDP growth has been directly and indirectly driven by the liquidity, that comes from the FDI that the, services sector has magnetized towards India”

But I have a firm belief that we cannot be wallowing in this boom forever. Because Services don’t have guaranteed returns. If you outsourced a manufacturing contract the chances of you being replaced by someone else is remote, unless you deliver very low quality goods. This is due to the Investment made in Infrastructure and SCM.

But in case of services the only investment is Human brain and it will take hours to cut down a contract. The contract that came to X from Y can as well go to Z. And Z can be a small company in any part of the world other than India. The only motivation would be the cost. If they can create a belief that they can deliver on time, that’s all it takes to do Services business.

I would leave it here and I will continue this article sometime later with few instances which hold a sign of caution for this country and its citizens, who have been wallowing unaware of the fast changing world and the fast changing economics around the world!

Until then Happy learning!!

9,10 and a BIG FAT HEN!

I had decided the topic for this blog last week on the Budget day itself. And yes, the HEN is our Indian economy. Growing at 9% and a gazelle towards 10%.

The expectations much unlike yester years was too much for this year’s budget. And PC ended up with an Ordinary, Lukewarm, Innocuous (As experts called it) budget. For me the only disappointment was not the tax proposals but that, the FM missed an opportunity to launch some exciting development projects. The FDI stands at a staggering 180 billion dollars with no proposals launched in Infrastructure side or even allocations made. I must remind the reader of the Golden Quad project that the NDA launched during the previous rule. This budget which has seen the maximum growth in the economy lacked the grit.

In spite of all the parallelisms we draw with China we lack in making massive investments in Infrastructure like China. The FM is only interested in restructuring the ITI’s which has been receiving funds YOY.

We are the fastest growing economy in the world.

1)We also have a high inflation that’s catching up with our GDP growth.

2)We have the longest rail network in the world. But we have to plan 40-50 to get a rail ticket. (or even more since laloo allowed booking 90 days in advance.

3)We have to give a cushion of 30 minutes for traveling 4-5 kms to office on our roads.

4)We have to plan a week ahead to book a ticket for watching a movie ticket.

5)We have to book tickets a month ahead for traveling to USA/Europe.

6)We have to book a Hotel room 3-4 days ahead for getting accommodation in even 5 star hotels.

The above points are just indicators that we haven’t planned our infrastructure well to match our growth rate, both in economy and in population. And this is where China, has and is, racing past us.

Before closing, I am just going to say what Narayanamurthy said about the Budget “ The FM has missed a great opportunity”!!

Happy reading!

Extra-Marital Weekend!!

Would start this post with two convincing statements….

“If a Social Foreign national film, is dubbed in an Indian language, and still holds a lot of relevance and significance amongst the Indian audience it just means that ,both the cultures match.”

And the statement No.2 is one I heard someone say recently,

“Every other happy family has almost the same reasons for happiness to share, But every unhappy family has reasons unique to their own sufferings”.

After watching one of the subtle romances like Mr. and Mrs. Iyer last weekend, this weekend I watched two movies. A startling coincidence being that, both dealt with Extra-marital relationships. I somehow convinced myself after watching the first, that the culture portrayed was far different from what prevails in India. The movie had a lot of false intimacy portrayed and the desperation the heroine showcased, was not justifiably pluralistic and quite unwarranted. No prizes for guessing , the name of the movie was Murder!

The second was the one I watched in Satyam, yesterday night show. This was a movie based on an English film and yet the concept didn’t look western to me at all. The story is about a female who flirts with married men and takes him for a ride. Takes him to a difficult situation and from there cunningly brings in her own husband to the scene. The husband poses as a stranger and starts to rob the guy of all his money. I didn’t want to narrate the movie but justify(in next few paras) as to why I made two convincing statements right at the beginning. When I said convincing I also wanted to convince you :)

Now I would cite some real life instances I have experienced myself, and one that was told to me by my friend….

One of my close friend lives in US and her husband works for a leading SW company. Her husband is working, for his employer’s client at Onsite. They had a friend who had also come to US through the same channel and for same reasons. This guy was in love with a Girl in US. This girl also happens to be a Indian immigrant into US..This cunning chap had been to India for few weeks and after he returned he was quite hesitant to invite his colleagues to his home. Suspecting some problem 2 months after (this is the frequency at which people meet each other in US), his friends sleuthed into his house, and to their shock they found a girl in his house. After talking to the girl the true story opened up. This guy is in love with a girl in US and when he had been to his village in India he was forced into a marriage, and he married this girl and brought the innocent girl to US and left her stranded inside the house. Just about when the girl could have done something silly, due to the loneliness she was through they found her. When they tried to talk with this guy it didn’t work and when they tried even talking to the girl whom he was in love with, she also refused to give up (American culture already in). Finally without any choice the girl was sent back to India.

Now the second incident where I was myself taken to a toss. I am used to be signed in from office in Yahoo. One such day I received an invite from someone who was already in my list. This person X when I asked told me, that her old id was hacked and this is her new id. She pulled me into a really usual conversation, and got quite some information about me. I was under no clue that I was being fooled by someone. After sometime this person told me that she/he didn’t have any contact id’s since her messenger was hacked and asked me to type in all the friends id’s I had in my messenger. I didn’t develop any suspicion even then! Thank God I was busy and I told her that I would take screenshots of my messenger and send it to her id. She insisted she wanted them immediately, but I was too busy for that job! Now innocently some 2 days later I took screenshot of my messenger and sent it to my friend’s corporate id. Must thank God again for this. This female replied with saying why I was sending screenshots of my messenger. Only then I realised from her that someone was picking all her friends messenger id and getting all information about her. And the database for all this is ORKUT. I was shocked at the cunningness and how intelligently I was victimized.

This blog is already lengthy I would end with this last para. The purpose I posted this blog was 1)to ridicule my optimism about this Indian culture and 2) To warn the readers. The Indian youth is as ogling, as any other youth around the world. I definitely know I can’t change the youth. If I cannot change one of my closest friends, who had been through torrid times because of a girl, and is now behind some other girl, I am quite sure I cannot change this youth of today. But I wanted to warn the society of so many cyber crimes and intelligent , cunning crimes that are creeping into the society these days.

Be Aware and stop ogling!!

Indian World Cup Team- A critical Analysis!!

Before I get into any judgments I want to present the statistics I have collected about the current team selected that will represent India in the coming World Cup at West Indies.

1)Virendar Sehwag

Runs Scored: 4787
Wickets Taken: 71

2)Saurav Ganguly

Runs Scored:10412
Wickets Taken:93

3)Robin Uthappa

Runs Scored::203
Wickets Taken:0

4) Sachin Tendulkar

Runs Scored:14783
Wickets Taken:147

5)Rahul Dravid

Runs Scored:10044
Wickets Taken:4

6) Yuvraj Sigh

Runs Scored:4317
Wickets Taken:42

7)MS Dhoni

Runs Scored:1891
Wickets Taken:0

8)Dinesh Karthik

Runs Scored:145
Wickets Taken:0

9) Ajit Agarkar

Runs Scored:1240
Wickets Taken:270

10)Zaheer Khan

Runs Scored:490
Wickets Taken:170

11) Munaf Patel

Runs Scored:6
Wickets Taken:22

12) S Sreesanth

Runs Scored:7
Wickets Taken:34

13) Irfan Pathan

Runs Scored:1006
Wickets Taken:115

14) Anil Kumble

Runs Scored:938
Wickets Taken:334

15)Harbhajan Singh

Runs Scored:687
Wickets Taken:168

Total of Runs scored by the all the players in the team = 50956
Total of wickets taken by all the players in the team =1470

My Analysis

First Thoughts:

Any Reader who would even after a glance at the figures I have posted above, agree to the fact that this team is the strongest team that comes in to the World Cup.

Pros:

I am sure (although I haven’t analysed other teams stats), that no other team that comes in to this world cup(even in the past) would have a aggregate of 51000 runs being scored by all of its players in ODI’s. I bet it wouldn’t be even close to 40k. And I wouldn’t even agree if someone posted a comment that all these runs came in the subcontinent. Nobody can deny the fact that Sachin, Rahul, Saurav and Sehwag have dominated or at least proved there stature in almost all the countries they have toured around the world. As always the bowling looks a little crippled. But then we have the best spinners in the world. Our two spinners together have 500 wickets. Again I want to challenge this figure against any other team.

Cons:

I will start with the word “Consistency”. This is where, the figures 51000 and 1470 look SMALL.

Batting

Top Order: When Saurav is in form, Sehwag isn’t and the vice-versa.

Top Order: When Dravid is in form, Sachin isn’t and the vice-versa.

Middle Order: When Dinesh karthik is in form Yuvraj isn’t.

Middle order: When Dhoni is in form he is required to play a slow innings since all the above perished :).

Bowling

Top Order: When Zaheer is consistent Sreesanth is not and the vice versa.

Top order: When Ajit agarkar is in form he is denied a team place and when Munaf is in form he

is out of the team as well. Alternatively when Ajit agarkar has lost his touch he is into the team and when Munaf is injured he is the striking bowler. Striking to him means lazy :).

X Order: I didn’t know if Irfan is a top order bowler or a middle order bowler or a batsman or a hitter. Dear reader please help me :)

Spinners: This is were India rocks. Irrespective of the track Indian spinners always bring in wickets. And hardly I have seen Bhajji or kumble give more than 6-7 runs per over even in crunch matches around the world.

Verdict:

On paper as always India has the best team. In batting we have the cushion to ignore the form of players. But in bowling I will want to advocate two spinners for all matches. Sachin or sehwag can add if spinners are exceedingly successful in a game. Zaheer and Ajit agarkar need to be two static seamers and the fifth spot for bowling can be Irfan/Sreesanth/None.

To finish I would say “If Indians cannot win the World Cup with this team they can not win the World cup for another 12 years atleast”.

Final words: Rely on Experience and aim for Consistency.

Celebrating Silence-Part2-The Finale.

As always I had two motivating forces behind sitting down and finishing this blog. One was a movie, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, I watched yesterday night and other was the excellent thought I read yesterday in Orkut. As the previous one I will start this one, with a thought as well.

“Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought”

Simplicity breeds character. Many great people are admired for their simplicity. Simplicity erodes the Ego within the self. Great Saint’s living in this country, start cultivating this trait, and slowly start to realize one by one of the worldly truths and end up believing in nothingness!! A paradox -Realisation leads to nothingness. :)

Money is the source of Egotism. A man feels insecure without money, feels slightly secure with little money, plans for more security with more money, and again starts to feel insecure with more and more money. It’s an interesting circle with no specific radius. The more is the radius the more is the hollowness. The least the radius(dot) the more is the focus.

I remember an article I read about one of the leading Businessman in India. His market capitalization is around 10b$. And for all those who aren’t amazed at this figure, I am talking about an individual born and living in this country and is worth 45000 crore rupees. But his man still doesn’t believe in profligacy. He is one guy who will fit very well in the ambit of this topic “Celebrating silence”. When someone asked him how does he feel when someone quotes he is the Richest Indian? He replied instantly that “It means Nothing”. It means Great or Ordinary only to one who keeps this thought running through his mind Day In Day Out.

Only when someone thinks profoundly he would realise this world and his duties. And to think profoundly you need to simple. You need to shed all your Ego. Of wealth, position etc. Simplicity comes from Maturity, Maturity of thought. Maturity comes from Experience. Experience come by Age, it comes by realization and by shedding your Ego. And age isn’t fixed. Certain people feel matured in their age of 20’s like Swami Vivekananda, certain people feel it after grihastha, like Saint Thiruvaluvar, many people feel it in their 60’s. But sadly few don’t feel it until their death. And what would I say about them? Just that they didn’t shed their Ego. They didn’t grow to become experienced, Matured, Simple and above all Noble.

Thanks for your Time. Remember

"Keep money in the banks and not in your Mind..."

Spurious Inflation

Spurious Inflation

Recently for the past one year there has been a lot of debate about Inflation hitting the economy hard. While it’s been heartening to note that the country’s GDP is growing at 9-10%, inflation is slowly inching towards 6-7%. So effectively it’s not a good symptom of growth. Even naïve economists will accept that a 2-3% difference in GDP and Inflation is not healthy signs. We can to some extent comment that the economy is effectively growing only at 2-3% !!!

To dig a little further I want to get down at basics. Basics meaning essential common man’s understanding of Economic growth. I was born in 1983 and since 2000(When i was 17 and in my first year of engg.) I am aware of what is the economic scene in India.I want to breakdown upon what was the cost of essential commodities in 2000 and what is the cost today….

Food

1)Since 2000 a litre of aavin milk in Chennai, has not gone up by even a single rupee. It remains static at 13 rupees. A period of time when inflation has been around 4-5% on an average Year on Year(YOY). Even private milk is sold at the same price. Means, they are definitely not incurring losses.

2) The cost of a kilo of ponni rice (one of the finest quality of rice) in 2000 was around 15 rupees. The same is now available for 18-20 rupees.

3) The cost of wheat today is 18 rupees per Kg, again a marginal increase over 6 years.

4) Sugar is now costing 22-23 rupees against 15-16 rupees in 2000. Also most of dhall varieties haven’t had substantial price rise.

5) Even today a kilo of tomato is around 10 rupees, a kilo of lady’s finger is 10-15 rupees, a kilo of onion is around 15 rupees. A week’s vegetable cost for a family of four wouldn’t cross 50 rupees(1$) for sure.!!!

Caution: I am talking about a period of 6 years where the economy has had inflation of 4-5 % YOY and hence let the reader not assume I am presenting a biased opinion in the above statements. I am just comparing the prices relative to the inflation and time.

To Sum Up: Almost all the above mentioned food items, are not cost controlled by the government. And neither has there been a scarcity for procuring them by and large over the years.

Clothing

1) Clothing is one sector which has burgeoned both in terms of choice and availability. Cotton is still cheap and plenty in availability with few takers. Polyester rules and today in Chennai you can buy a Men’s formal wear from 500 to 50000 or even more. We are not bothered about 50000. Still at 500-600 you get decent clothes that will satisfy the middle class.

Shelter

1) This is my focus area!. In year 2000 you could get a rented house in suburb for 1000 rupees a month. In the city it was around 2000-2500. Reminder: I am writing everything with a middle class family outlook. Today in 2007 the same house in suburb will cost you 3000 and in city will cost you 10000. A classic 300% increase in suburb and 1000% increase for city. And should I talk about real Estate?? All my readers know the worsening trend. A nice opportunity for me to write a separate article about this.

I will stop here. Till now I wanted to really understand if the inflation has hit the economy hard. For me inflation w.r.t economy hits only the middle class and hence iam writing only about them. The rich class always lived rich. Why bother about them?

I will continue in my next article but I will end the article with few things that have inflated in price enormously over these 6 years. This will perhaps give a cue to what I am driving to when I say “Spurious Inflation”.

What has increased substantially in cost

Cinema tickets in multiplexes, Petrol/Gas, Real Estate, Restaurants, Automobiles, Gold, Swanky Gadgets, to name a few.

Hope my mood is caught :). But I want each of my reader to accept or criticize my views. I will publish my closing blog for this, next week.

Till then Happy Reading. !!!

Think Complicated

Think Complicated

One of my closest friend recently asked me, “What is the most fascinating thing for you about life?” I immediately said it’s the Human thought process. Reasoning out I said “For me the human thought process is the most diverse, innovative, impulsive and hence the most fascinating creation in a human. After all a software engineer will always enjoy only virtual things and not physical/real :).

I thought about writing under this topic after a series of movies I have watched recently. I must say I loved all of them just for the complicated thought process of its maker. I am calling this complicated thought because it’s quite out of common for me. Almost all of us have some thinking patterns oriented towards our fellow men. But only few men stand out, and think bizarre. This, is complicated thought process for me. It’s creative, credible and compulsive.

The films were Page3, Corporate and my ever famous evergreen Kamal haasan’s Anbe Sivam. All the films dealt with one social aspect or the other. But the intricacy of handling was ingenious. I want to express my fascination for each of the films in my subsequent para’s. Meanwhile I want my reader to think about these words in sync with this blog. Complicated, Controversial, unilateral. All these words drive me towards forming one opine which might be correct. The complicated thought process occurs when one challenges a system and tries to portray the system in a negative way, and in the process sow seeds of thought for a tree. This tree can either shower shadow through its branches above the ground or it can also spread its branches under the ground(roots) and destruct the constructions in its neighborhoods. How complicated was that ? :) .

To finish I wanted to express my fascinations at the films. Page 3 was an out and out heroine based movie. Something seen once in a decade in Indian cinemas. A thorough bioscope into the party animals of the high class society and try to hint at their false pretence living. And Corporate, again an madhur bhandarkar movie was hitting at the other upper class, not in society but in the corporate level. The movie was trying to expose the only intention with which corporate’s live, MARGINS!!. They can compromise on anything and everything to ensure their margins are intact and increasing…The third movie is one I have watched for 9th time in succession. A movie which will be among the best movies I have watched in my life time. I will definitely dedicate a separate single blog for anbe sivam when I watch it the next time. Still I wouldn’t be able to express my fullest fascinations for this masterpiece by Kamal. The movie out and out tries to criticize the society that believes that it is God, who does everything and we are just dolls in His puppet show. All along the movie tries to prove a theist wrong and tells him, what is true to him might be false and what is false to him might be true. Communism personified. But Alas not all Communists are Atheist’s :) .

Before I finish this thought struck my mind. Why was such an excellently crafted movie like anbe sivam an utter flop. Was it because it was too complicated for the mass to digest? Or was it because the movie was against the mass feeling of theism? Or as usually said was it because, Kamal or for that matter Lakshmi movie makers weren’t lucky? Luck is a mystical word. More so a divine word :) . Someone who does not believe in God cannot use this word.

Think about this!!! And don’t miss to watch these movies. Thanks for your time. Remember, Think Complicated :).

Celebrating Silence.

Keep money in the banks and not in your Mind..*

Says Sri Sri in his book Celebrating Silence. I am really celebrating silence as I am writing this blog, and more so celebrating Silence in T.Nagar !! I have been reading this book of Sri Sri for some time now. And this is a topic which I wanted to write about since some time, but Sri Sri helped me get a nice intro through his one liner.

How true,*

And how false this world has been transpiring through Ages. Our ancestors never gave value for anything, material. They only valued Humans. Materials were only traded on barter in those days. Only geography of few kms made things precious. For someone in the North Rice was slightly precious and for someone in south rice was in bounty and Wheat was slightly valuable. So equity in stock was maintained through exchange and nothing seemed precious those days. Arguably, how often have we seen our grandparents get weirdly surprised when we said a kilo of rice today costs 25 rupees, a kilo of wheat costs 30 rupees and so on and so forth. That’s purely because those were materials which had no value those days. For that matter even bullion was not valued so high relatively in spite of the demand being high in all times!!

But today it’s not surprisingly, a weird world. Almost everyone values only material possessions and believe anything can be acquired if you have that valuable currency. The currency again related to our needs, is dollars or rupees or euros!

Now let us start sailing in the tributaries :).

I have heard almost everyone say this these days. “I am very absent minded. I forget things in a blip” or “I am just flooded with thoughts and the pressure makes me forget almost everything!”

But how many of us, or those who keep saying any of the above sentences, on the 31st of the month or the 1st of the next month forget to check if our salary has been credited? How many of us in pressure, don’t care to step into that AT M and check if the money is in? and in case it hasn’t call up that banker, call up tom dick and harry and get it sorted out in a jiffy, in spite of not having the need for that money in such urgency? I am sure all of us including me have that urge to ensure that our money is in our account. Interestingly, I have seen so many people out of the ATM on the 1st of a month come to the ATM and take just that account balance statement and walk away smiling!

Honestly you, me or anyone who has a need for Money would have experienced what I wrote above. For someone that money coming in is a few rupees, for someone else it’s a few lakhs and for the third it’s a few crores. But that urge and excitement is almost the same!

Now I want to take this further. For someone who is in that excitement for a few rupees I am sure it’s quite justifiable. After all he can’t live the next day without that but imagine the other two for whom the money is either like water in the well or the water in the ocean. Both are never empty and can never be full!!

Will stop here. This particular article so far, has lesser relevance to what Sri Sri implicitly meant. I would talk about that more. Meanwhile,

Keep Thinking :)

Brutally Frank!

Brutally Frank, is one the most sparkling criticisms I have heard someone say about someone in the recent past. Few minutes before I heard Anu hasan comment on Y.G Mahendra with that one. A nice few hours at work, a nice evening Tea from my grandma, a nice Balaji darshan, a nice Idly Sambhar at Rathna Café, and few nice programs in Vijay TV matched with a fitting Venthaya Mor kozhambu by my MOM for dinner. A very satisfied evening was in fact a worthy motivation to start blogging again after a gap!

Now getting to some serious stuff. It’s been a long time and a much felt gap in writing for me. The reason convincingly being that I had been with my nephew for almost a month. And to justify my laziness, the days I spent with him, I renewed myself with a lot of sumptuous energy. Frankly I never felt a need for creativity and expression while I was with him. I was speaking to him as if I was speaking to my soul, Brutally frank I must say :). Knowing very well that at an age of 1 he wouldn’t understand or even realize what I was talking to him. But both at mind and soul I did a lot of formatting and disk defragmentation of my HDD, my brain!.

I saw a lot of innocence around me in different forms. I wanted to write about them and make my readers think regressively!

Read this,

Innocence is the primary felt evidence of childhood ness. And Innocence for me at childhood is definitely a form of ignorance. If a child sees a dog it doesn’t realize it’s a creature which may bite it, and hence goes and catches its tail. This is in one angle is innocence and indirectly ignorance.

Now as this child grows it grows to realize that a dog may bite it when it holds the Dog with its tail. Hence it goes and gently touches the dog’s body and smiles innocently at its father. This is the transformation of the child’s ignorance to intelligence with the innocence being intact!

Now the child grows further and interacts with the environment. It intuitively thinks and envisages so many instances that happen around it. That’s when the child starts to shed its skin of innocence. The child or now called as a matured individual starts to analyze everything that happens around him/her and develops a syndrome or stigma of thoughts.

Until the innocence was intact the child saw no difference. The world was same for the child who was born to a billionaire and the same to someone who was born to a begger. But once the child shed its innocence or started analysing the interactions outside to him there is a sharp change in his actions..

Hardly we(both as parents and our self) realize that these are the few thoughts that determine our life ahead. After all thought is an interwoven binary of life!

I want to leave it here and want to continue in more detail in my next post! And for those who read until here and thought my first para was quite irrelevant to the post read it again. I have a reason behind annoying you with my satisfaction in life! :)

Unsustainable-Part 2

I picked this topic because I would like to put forward my views on the huge public debt this country(through banks) is forcefully creating. More succinctly, the government no longer needs money from banks and hence the banks are flush with funds. Now the prime role of the banks is to lend to various sectors of the economy and foster growth thereby also ensure that the economy is well insulated and healthy. Now RBI has to make sure the latter is ensured since the banking sector has been well privatized. The banks are not as cautious as the RBI since keeping funds idle is a sin for banks. The government insists that banks lend to the agriculture sector which is limping. Also welcome is lending to real estate sector which will indirectly aid development is so many interdependent industries. But now the banks are lending home loans enormously and what I would call unsustainably in the long run. Lending to agriculture sector always happens forcefully and rarely voluntarily!

The RBI has recently tried to curb risky loans to the commercial real estate sector with indication to banks of a possible threat that looms around home loans too! The repo rate hence has been slightly raised by .25. Dayanidhi maran a few days back had warned the realtors of falsely rising valuations in areas like coimbatore, madurai after Chennai! .

So going forward all these will definitely have impact on the inflation and cause an increase in domestic products. It’s very important that in a Globalised economy falsely hiking prices is prevented in all products so that for the public various essential commodities don’t become too costly. Such situations will drive towards a possible alarm and demand an immediate action from the regulator and perhaps force him to take strict measures. And will possibly induce a passive recession.

After all one might even travel in a highway but will have to slow down when there is an accident that’s happened before him!! :)

Unsustainable

Unsustainable

I want to start this article with information I heard from my father. Few years ago in the pre 90’s India had a considerable shortage for foreign exchange (dollars primarily). During that time people who went to study in US had to get foreign exchange approved by the RBI for them to travel abroad. One such candidate with pretty ordinary academic merits applied for proceeding to study in US and was rejected with reasons being stated that his credentials were far below the acceptable ones and, more so relatively with other candidates. But later this guy managed to politicise the issue and finally did finish his studies and come back to India and is now none other than Mr. Chidambaram himself, the finance minister of India :)

Until the twentieth century the Indian economy operated quiet predictably and to some extent even sluggishly! The government invited savings from people which went to banks and the bank lent to the government, convertible into securities and got a good interest for it as well which it shared with the public. And heights, for some period of time , even the government forced banks to invest a percentage of the savings raised from public in securities. The money was used in capital expenditure and the economy kept following the snail without overtaking it.

But globalisation started changing things, and luckily for India population turned to be an advantage. For two reasons, services industry could operate well here and hence came outsourcing and the other reason was the huge market beckoning. The two ways of taking advantage of people namely, employability and opportunity. Again both are interdependent. The opportunity can be created only when money permeates down the economy and hence increases affordability among the masses.

Now keeping this short period of history in our mind let us analyse Globalised India in the first 6 years of the twenty first century. As more and more services (jobs) started coming in technology started to get more close to people and liquidity also grew. It grew all levels. Every house started buying a TV, Fridge and more ubiquitous was a mobile phone :).

Now in 2006 the same finance minister who faced a forex crunch now has a deluge of forex to manage the economy. The result, there is no dependence on the banks or indirectly the people to save. Saving is seen both by the individual and the government as a sin in a country which once had huge revenue expenditure sizeable portions of which was by paying interest for securities created out of Poepl's savings! Interestingly now liquidity with the people is high and they inevitably keep there money with banks. The reason being (http://syncwithjayaram.blogspot.com/2006/09/rising-salaries-vanishing-workers.html) . The banks now have all time high capital with no borrowers.

I want to temporarily end the article here for two reasons, I don’t like to write lengthy in one go and I want my reader to think. Before ending I want every reader who has reached this point to think what could be the reasoning behind me titling this blog Unsustainable …

Correct guesses will get no prizes, but means the reader is fit to write a blog of his own!