Corruption and Governance in India Part II >>Democracy, Corruption and Literacy

Democracy, Corruption and Literacy in India.

warning: Its a long post.. read only if the issue interests you.

Now before we go further, let us define “good” governance. Governance is good if the following happen

• Improvement in basic social development indicators like infant mortality rate, longevity, nutrition, literacy , availability of electricity and water,etc.
• Social justice and Low violent crime rates
• Poverty reduction/ growth in per capita GDP.
• Low or zero corruption at all levels

Interestingly , the first three above can co-exist with corruption, though not high levels of corruption.

So when we Indians discovered that chanting WLD dos not work, we started wondering why because according to time honoured Indian tradition chanting is supposed to work ..in fact it is known to have worked miracles in the days gone by. .. and has a lot of support even today. One can see it on various websites, including this one.

So we theorized that democracy has not worked for India because the voters are illiterate and therefore ignorant of the value of their vote and can err in making a choice. There may be something in that argument, or was till 20 years ago. The current (2011) literacy rate in India is 74% with many states showing a higher percentage. In fact the literacy rate on a nation-wide basis has been 50% or above since 1991 which was a good 20 years ago. So do we have people who are literate and still ignorant ? Probably yes, because literacy in India has been defined with a very low standard and data collection on literacy has had errors.

So can we hope for better governance (and less corruption) when people become literate AND are not ignorant ? From empirical evidence , the answer is encouraging but not entirely encouraging. The two states of Kerala and West Bengal have had high literacy and political awareness for quite sometime now. Interestingly both are also high on social development indicators and have low violent crime rates . Both states have also had Communist governments. But they have not shown economic development much above the national average. Both have virtually no organized industry, partly because of the strong trade unions particularly Communist-backed Trade unions.

There is also the fact that in Kerala, many social reforms (especially in education and equality of women) were initiated by the local ruling family before democracy came. It is therefore difficult to isolate the impact of democracy on good governance in Kerala.

But even if we overlook the pre-democracy interventions in Kerala, political awareness working with democracy has managed to improve life / reduce corruption at the basic needs level but has not contributed to economic growth.

The silver lining is that, multiple research studies across Indian states have established a clear relationship between high literacy rates and low corruption (at the level of obtaining basic government services). As can be expected Kerala has the lowest corruption index.

Bengal , however, is somewhere in the middle for corruption rankings. So again there is some missing factor (besides high literacy and awareness) which contributes to lower corruption.

Several things must also be however noted

• Higher literacy has resulted in low corruption for basic services. But higher literacy rates alone might not be able to stop corruption at the Central govt level (like 2G, CWG etc) or even at the state level like the Adarsh scam in Mumbai or Robert Vadra case in Haryana..
• In terms of governance, Delhi is a good (or bad) example . Literacy is high, but governance in Law and Order is very poor. We have seen a spate of rape cases in the last few months.
• Another glaring example .. Bangalore Municipal Corporation . The people who elect corporators are literate and politically aware , but we don’t see much governance happening. Garbage clearance is a major challenge, forget about good roads

So , while I wanted to end this part on an optimistic note, I am back to square one, i e , we have no clue how to stop corruption and improve governance. Higher literacy / awareness might help in basic services, but will not help elsewhere.
Democracy, Corruption and Literacy in India.

Corruption and Governance In India Part I > WLD

The World's largest Democracy.
I recently attended an event on Corporate Governance. There was a lively talk by the keynote speaker and in the networking afterwards animated discussions took place. The central theme was how do we get rid of corruption. Frankly, though we were all very well-educated and well-intentioned people, no one had a clue on how to prevent / reduce corruption. That’s the trigger for this post. Not everything, mentioned here comes out of that event though.

Here is a mish-mash of facts, myths, opinions, hopes and theories.. even nonsense. I leave you to decide .. sift the fact from opinion and nonsense.
India is the world’s largest democracy (shortened to WLD) . And so it is. We all know it. The world knows it. Of late even the US Presidents have been singing this tune (Obama and Bush, both said that when they came to sell stuff to us). Other visiting Heads of State too routinely chant it…unless of course they are heading countries which are not themselves democracies.

Now, if only by chanting this WLD mantra (a la the Gayatri mantra) we could help all Indians to get a decent life !! Alas the gods did not want it so easy for us. But many of us anyway chant it. I guess we have so little positive happening at the moment that “India is the world’s largest democracy” is the one of the few things we can feel good about. The other perennial is of course “India is a 5000 year old civilization”.

So what does it mean for the common man ? This being a part of the WLD ? Very little I am afraid: A visit from politicians at election time and for the poorest, some minimal government support/ subsidy.

The point I am making is that while democracy may be better than monarchy, it has not been doing much good in India for quite some time now.. and one needs to ask why. The alternate model of Single party rule, as in China , seems to have yielded better overall results for the common man.

I have no answers for why democracy is not doing well in India. But I have a viewpoint. It is something I read in a book.

What we have is not the WLD , but the world’s largest election-o-cracy. We have election after election which are mostly fair, but that’s it. The less said the better about what happens before elections ( dynastic candidates, candidates with criminal backgrounds, use of black money funding, etc) and after elections (more corruption, and yet more corruption).

Aum WLD , aum WLD, aum WLD… repeat after me … aum WLD !!

An estimate of the cost of corruption in project cost in India.. it was 15% about 20 yrs back. It is now 45% ! Aum WLD, aum WLD !!!

To be continued…

Nostradamus meets Joan of Arc in Switzerland

Nostradamus meets Joan of Arc in Switzerland

I suspect that this post may make me look “superior” or holier-than thou, but the intention is not to look down on anyone. This is something really funny that happened and I am compelled to recall the anecdote.

I had just changed trains at some small place in Switzerland. It was a weekday and afternoon and the train was nearly khali (completely un-occupied). In the cubicle next to me were 3 Indians: a couple and one man, all in late 20’s or early 30’s. It seemed that they were not traveling together. They seemed to be techies from the south, but not from the same state as they were conversing in English and not Tamil or Telugu or Malayalam or Kannada.

Since I was sitting quite close to them and was not otherwise busy with anything other than the Swiss scenery, I could not avoid hearing them talk. It looked like both the couple and the single man ha been to Paris separately and were comparing notes. One of them mentioned the beautiful church they ha seen and was trying to recall the name of the place. After a few seconds he said Nostradamus, when he obviously meant the cathedral of Notre Dame. I had some trouble stopping my laughter, but I managed.

Their conversation then moved on to some other tourist spot. Now someone mentioned the beautiful and grand arch which looks like India Gate in Delhi. The same guy who had resurrected Nostradamus, now Said Joan of Arc, when he obviously meant Arc de Triomphe !! Now this double-promotion converted the simple event to an anecdote…and here it is.

The (very) positive side of this is, as India integrates with the global economy, and especially in the IT sector, more and more Indians get a chance to travel and see the world and gain a wider perspective. So the people who mix Notre Dame with Nostradamus might well (and in all likelihood will) BE the parents of future global Indians.

Incidentally Nostradamus is not all that far from Notre Dame. He was French and in French the name is spelt as Nostredame (Michel de Nostredame).

Mr. Agrawal, I presume !!

Mr. Agrawal, I presume !!

It is my habit to watch people, especially at airports and railway stations.  TO look at their faces and guess where they come from. Or to look at their clothes and guess what they do for a living. I have also met several people who also do this people-watching.

What I try and do is to look at someone and guess where (which state/ region) the person comes from. Over a period of time I think I am correct about 70% of the time.  In the case of women, I find it easier to guess if they haven’t cut their hair short.

I have mentioned my guessing-game and my results (of 70 %) to several friends, but most have been skeptical about this. Now I am clear it is not a psychic ability. It is more like observation and logic put together.

The logic goes something like this. In a crowd of people of mixed races (White, Caucasian, Blacks, Indians, Chinese, Japanese etc) it is easy for anyone to make out the Mongoloid people (the most prominent feature is slit eyes). They would usually be from China, Japan, and Korea etc. Now most of us Indians can go no further than the Mongoloid identification. But a Chinese person can distinguish Chinese from Japanese from Korean because each has a bone structure/ skin colour / etc which is slightly different from the other. For instance the Chinese have round faces and a yellowish skin, whereas the Japanese have flatter and longer faces and a whiter skin.

As an example closer home, for most people, it is easy to identify Bengalis in a crowd. The logic is that each ethnic type shares a very high percentage of DNA which results in facial similarities. Interestingly we more easily recognize the similarities in people most dis-similar from us. So Europeans/ Americans think all Japanese people look alike, but to the Japanese all (white) Americans look alike.

I will end this post with a personal experience.

I was at Bangalore airport several years ago on a waitlisted ticket. It was waitlist 4. In those days it was the practice that about 30 minutes before flight departure, check-in would close for confirmed passengers and any available seats then would be allotted to waitlist people. The person at the check-in counter would call out the names of the waitlisted passengers, and if the passenger was present she would identify herself and get a seat.

Along with me I could see several more waitlisted passengers (You could always identify the waitlist passengers by their desperate, expectant and hungry look). There was one person there whom I noticed. He was wearing a jacket and must have been about 45. I looked at him and said to myself, this man has to be an Agrawal.  Soon the girl at the counter started announcing the waitlist.

Mr. XYX.. Mr. XYZ, waitlist Number 1. Well this XYZ had not turned up.

Mr. Agrawal, waitlist 2. Mr. Agrawal, Waitlist 2.

And the 45 yr old Mr. Agrawal in a jacket immediately raised his hand and rushed to the check-in desk!

Rural washing machines and Urban Haircuts

Rural Washing Machines

Some weeks back, in early October, I drove to Mysore from Bangalore. . Unfortunately it was the day that the farmers in Mandya/ Ramanagar were agitating over the Kaveri water dispute with Tamil Nadu. The Bangalore Mysore road was in-accessible after Ramanagar and the police folk diverted us to a Malavalli to reach Mysore. It took an extra two hours (with a few barricaded points) and some bad roads but we reached in one piece.

The agricultural prosperity of the area around Ramanagara/ Malavalli is amazing. The greenery is breathtaking. No wonder the farmers are so agitated over a reduction in the supply of water for irrigation.

The other thing I noticed as we drove through small hamlets, settlements and villages is that a lot (probably most) of the womenfolk wash clothes by hand. I am sure it takes a considerable amount of time and energy. Wonder why the washing machine guys haven’t reached there? The basic models don’t cost much and if a few families joined together they could afford a washing machine. A social (and marketing) revolution is crying to happen. I even thought of writing a short story on this.

Haircut (W)  Vs Haircut(M)

My haircut used to cost Rs 40/- till a couple of months back and now it is Rs 50/-. The barber I go to is admittedly not high-end, but the place is closeby and it’s clean. In contrast a woman’s haircut in Bangalore costs at least 250/-. I have often wondered why there should be so much difference. Someone mentioned a supply-demand situation is responsible, but there are two reasons why this is not correct. Firstly the demand for women’s haircut in Bangalore or any other city in India is about 10 percent of the demand for men’s haircuts. So the demand cannot be pushing up the cost. Secondly there are no barriers to entry of new players and the investment is not high. So a supply constraint is also not the cause for the price difference.

On more thinking, I came to the conclusion that it is a brand thing. For some reason in India a man’s haircut is considered to be a utility whereas a woman’s haircut is fashion.

Anyone else can shed some light on this? And just for the record, women’s haircuts cost   more (usually twice or more) also in USA, Canada, UK and Switzerland.

A Samosa by any other name

A Samosa by any other name

I love samosas.. and if the accompaniment is chutney and chai.. the combination is unbeatable. I have been eating samosas on and off for at least 40 years, but only recently it struck me that though ubiquitous (and I did not quite know just how ubiquitous) and seemingly simple to make, not everyone can get it right.

The filling  has to be just right in ingredients and quantity. Too much filling and you feel as if you are eating a potato cutlet and if it is  too little, you feel you have been short-changed. The crust has to be made of maida (refined flour) and fried just right. Now I have eaten samosas in Pune, and the Puneites while good at Shrikhand  , can never get the samosa right. They use aatta for the crust.. and that makes it a very poor samosa…or an almost-samosa. And for some reason I am not able to quite fathom, in Pune it is called a Punjabi samosa. Luckily Punjabis are large hearted (and not uptight like Maharashtrians) , and haven’t filed a PIL against the Marathis for insulting them with this prefix “Punjabi” to the almost- samosa.

Further south, In Bangalore, the various Darshinis and Sagars (restaurants that serve South Indian food/ snacks ) also serve samosas. They don’t call it a Punjabi samosa, but they also can’t get it right. The crust is (as in Pune) is done in aatta and the ever present curry leaves are added to the potato masala. Well, this is also an almost-samosa.

Yet there are at least a couple of places I know  that you can get the the genuine article in Bangalore. One is Bhagatram on Comemrcial Street and another is Lakshmi Sweets in Marathahalli. I am sure here are many more. I think what makes the difference is the ethnic origin of the shop owner or cook. I have eaten samosas in Whitehall, London in a  Pakistani eatery, and hey were quite good.

Now thats what brings me to the second part. Where exactly did the word Samosa come from ? The word  does  not quite sound like Hindi / Sanskrit, nor is it Punjabi or any South Indian Language. So I looked up my friend Google Srinivasan. And here is what I was not-so surprised to find.

The word (and therefore the eatable) originated probably in Iran where it is called  sanbosag in Persian It is also seen in other countries : Sambosa in Afghanistan, sanbusak/ sanbusaj in Arab countries, samboosa in Tajikistan, samusa in Burma and sambusa in Horn of Africa (Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti).

Samosas have been around for about a 1000 years now. Amir Khusro (1253–1325), a scholar and the royal poet of the Delhi Sultanate, wrote in around 1300 that the princes and nobles enjoyed the "samosa prepared from meat, ghee, onion and so on". Ibn Battuta, the 14th-century traveller and explorer, describes a meal at the court of Muhammad bin Tughluq where the samushak or sambusak, a small pie stuffed with minced meat, almonds, pistachio, walnuts and spices, was served before the third course, of pulao..

 It is only in India , that the samosa is for the most part a vegetarian snack. Elsewhere it is usually filled with mince lamb or beef.

Have you ever been conned ? Part 2.

Have you ever been conned ? Part 2.

I am not writing this blog to expose the group of people who conned me, but just to record their ingenuity and acting abilities.

I guess this too happened within a few months of the first one. We were living in Domlur and late evening I had driven to the nearby market to buy veggies. This was before the traffic-mess days, so one was allowed to actually park there. It was dusk, actually more than dusk, just the last bit of light before night. I saw a slot that I could park into, but a man was sitting there. He was sitting on his haunches and looked like a villager. As I backed into the space, he got up and I parked.

 He had meanwhile joined a group of people, which had at least two women (in 30’s) two kids and one man. They had a number of bags with them, as if they were traveling. Just as I got out of the car, one of the men approached me and asked me if I knew Hindi. He explained that they were from some place in Maharashtra (their clothes confirmed this) and were labourers at some construction site. Their contractor had defaulted on wages and they wanted some money to buy tickets to go home as there was some festival (Diwali ?) approaching. They just wanted 200 rupees. It was a convincing story. Unfortunately I had only 50 with me. So I actually went to a kirana/ grocery  shop that I regularly bought from and borrowed 100 bucks and gave it them. Then I went back home and told my wife what had happened. We thought that I should go back and give them some more money. So I went back. But they were nowhere to be seen. I drove around but there was no sign of them. They had vanished. It surprised me because it looked like they would definitely have needed more than a 100 bucks to buy tickets and I had expected them to be still around asking other people for help. Anyway, they were not to be found and I came home.

Some time later, maybe more than an year, a similar group again approached me. They may even have been the same people. The size and composition of the group, their approach (do you know Hindi ? the contractor has not paid, etc), the timing (dusk) and their clothes immediately flashed the earlier experience to me, and I knew I had been conned then! Of course I wasn’t going to be fooled twice.

Since then I have been approached twice again (once in Ahmedabad!) by similar groups and in a complete action replay, and have on several occasions seen someone else being approached. It’s a neat trick and seems to work wonderfully well. 

I sometimes wonder if some enterprising person has an IPR on this and is franchising the whole con.

No minor vices This happened quite a few years ago when India was not so well integrated into the global economy. I was working for a company that had a foreign collaboration and one of the business executives from “Head Office” of the collaborator was visiting us in the factory in India. He was an important person for us. Along with a colleague (we will call him Gopal) I was to receive the visitor (who will be called Max ) at the airport, take him to his hotel and settle him in. Well Max arrived. He was mid-thirties, slim and blond with a good dose of American enthusiasm, a likeable sort of a guy. We had just started the ride back to the city from the airport when Gopal started asking Max about his family, mother, father brothers, sisters, uncle and aunts. I sensed that Max had not expected this line of conversation. Cross-cultural training/ sensitivity was yet to find roots on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Max answered with some hesitance that his father had married twice and thus he, Max, had a large number of siblings. We also came to know that he was unmarried. At some point of time Gopal asked Max whether he smoked . Max said he did not smoke. This was a big surprise for Gopal. He could not imagine an unmarried American who did not smoke, especially since tradition did not prohibit Max from smoking. Gopal then made a remark to me …”Yeh Max to bahut sant (saint) aadmi hai” and repeated the same to Max in English. As we were starting lunch, Gopal asked Max what he would like to drink. Max replied that he did not drink anything stronger than beer. Now this was too much for Gopal. An American in his thirties, who was not married AND did not smoke AND did not drink !!! Gopal repeated the saint dialogue in English to Max and me. I could feel Max distinctly uncomfortable with this newly conferred sainthood. Gopal just could not get over this rather “sainted” American, and soon enough repeated the saint dialog again. At this point Max interrupted him and said, “Look guys, don’t get wrong ideas about me. I am no saint. It’s true that I don’t smoke and drink, but I have a weakness for women”

No minor vices

This happened quite a few years ago when India was not so well integrated into the global economy. I was working for a company that had a foreign collaboration and one of the business executives from “Head Office” of the collaborator was visiting us in the factory in India. He was an important person for us.

Along with a colleague (we will call him Gopal) I was to receive the visitor (who will be called Max ) at the airport, take him to his hotel and settle him in.

Well Max arrived. He was mid-thirties, slim and blond with a good dose of American enthusiasm, a likeable sort of a guy. We had just started the ride back to the city from the airport when Gopal started asking Max about his family, mother, father brothers, sisters, uncle and aunts. I sensed that Max had not expected this line of conversation. Cross-cultural training/ sensitivity was yet to find roots on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Max answered with some hesitance that his father had married twice and thus he, Max, had a large number of siblings. We also came to know that he was unmarried.

At some point of time Gopal asked Max whether he smoked . Max said he did not smoke. This was a big surprise for Gopal. He could not imagine an unmarried American who did not smoke, especially since tradition did not prohibit Max from smoking. Gopal then made a remark to me …”Yeh Max to bahut sant (saint) aadmi hai” and repeated the same to Max in English.

As we were starting lunch, Gopal asked Max what he would like to drink. Max replied that he did not drink anything stronger than beer. Now this was too much for Gopal. An American in his thirties, who was not married AND did not smoke AND did not drink !!! Gopal repeated the saint dialogue in English to Max and me. I could feel Max distinctly uncomfortable with this newly conferred sainthood.

Gopal just could not get over this rather “sainted” American, and soon enough repeated the saint dialog again. At this point Max interrupted him and said, “Look guys, don’t get wrong ideas about me. I am no saint. It’s true that I don’t smoke and drink, but I have a weakness for women”

Blue Blood-y Buggers: Indian Royalty

Blue Blood-y Buggers

For the last several years the media, specially the print media has been rather shamelessly lionising the erstwhile Indian royalty. So one is treated to pictures of palaces, stories of riches and glory and images of bejeweled and obese men and women.

So what is my take on this .? Here it is

At the time of independence, India was one of the poorest countries in the world. While one can lay some of the blame at the doorstep of the British, we must remember that in even when India became independent, there were some 250 plus "princely states" and kingdoms, ruled by kings of various degrees of importance and a uniform degree of dereliction of duty to their people. So this poverty was the outcome of centuries of exploitation and misrule. The palaces that one sees in glorious full colour reproduction were built while the people toiled and spent lives in darkness. While the kings in full regalia attended the Delhi durbar of Queen Victoria, or holidayed in the south of France, their subjects were starving to death. They shamelessly added to their coffers and built magnificent palaces while doing nothing for the public. And this mindless and unpardonable neglect of duty went on for several hundred years. Only the other day on some TV channel there was a documentary about a famous necklace owned by the Maharaja of Patiala. Among other things, it was recorded , that when he died he left behind 80 plus children from 20 or so wives. This king was so  f**_king busy, he could never have had time for any governance.

Finally, to add legendary insult to historical injury, some of the dynasties have claimed descent from Rama and some from Krishna.

Then came Independence, and at least some good sense prevailed. Or perhaps they made a virtue of an inescapable necessity. Barring a few exceptions (the most infamous being the Nizam of Hyderabad), the kingdoms agreed to join the Indian union. But they retained some of the privileges and properties and were given generous pensions by the government. In the time of Indira Gandhi's government, she abolished the Privy Purse and the pensions and the 'kings" squealed like indignant school children. They claimed that they had given "their own" property to the government and now they had been betrayed. How ridiculous. They should have been glad they were not guillotined as happened in the French Revolution.

In the years that went by, some of them joined political parties, but very few rose to any prominence. It was clear that the masses of India had had enough of them and did not want them back in power even if through election. Most of the rest sat around for some 20 years reminiscing the past and blaming fate. The Mysore ex-king kept jumping form party to party (an unusual case of party-hopping !!) , the favourite of the moment being the one that he perceived would help him get back his palaces. He even turned designer, hold your breath, designing of all the things, saris !!!

In conclusion, the only positive things that can be said about them are that some (very few) were good rulers and actually worked for the public good. And their myopic vision and constant internal bickering and fighting gave the British a chance to establish control over India. Without this , we wouldn't  have been an independent country.

Dho dala !! My story of washing machines

Dho dala !! My story of washing machines
 
I think in the last 20 or so years, no other household appliance has done as much for the Indian middle class home as the washing machine. My household goes into panic every time the machine breaks down.

As a child I had only heard that in far away lands there were machines that washed clothes and some years later I saw these huge things in laundry shops, but they were far from becoming household appliances even in the west. So when we got our first washing machine, somewhere in the mid eighties, there was a fair bit of excitement. It was a simple twin-tub (Videocons semi-automatic VNA 800) that did a reasonable job, but suddenly washing clothes became an entertainment rather than drudgery. I must have read the instruction manual several times over, with more interest than a best-seller and each time discovered a new feature.

We marveled at the high pitched hum of the dryer-tub and beamed happy smiles when the clothes came out nearly dry. We watched with satisfaction as the washing tub removed the dirt from clothes and the water turned a muddy grey-brown. It was as if the Ganga was washing away our sins and cleansing our soul. Even though the washer and dryer BOTH had automatic timers, we stood respectfully through the complete washing cycle. We traded out favourite moments-in-washing with friends and relatives.

More practically, the maid taking a few days off was no longer so dreadful. And I think the maid was also very happy that she no longer had to wash clothes, though she wasn’t as yet allowed to operate the machine.

Over a period of time, the twin-tub was replaced by a front loader. It washes better, the clothes don’t get mangled and one can use fabric-softeners and conditioners. But the initial romance has died. Running the washing machine is no longer as entertaining as it used to be. Also as its fully automatic, I don’t have to watch-and-wash.

Is it just me getting old or do I need a new more exciting washing machine ?

No Green cards for India

 No Green cards for India
Can you guess the number of Nepali citizens that live in India ? Well according to a reliable figure available from 1997 it was 1 million. The estimates for today vary from 2 to 3 million. That’s 20 lacs minimum… not a small number. While in the earlier years , they were mainly concentrated in the north , nowadays one can see them in the south too. According to a treaty between India and Nepal, citizens of either country do not require a passport/ visa to enter the other country. Almost all Nepalis in India do low level jobs such as watchmen and construction labour and domestics, and certainly don’t have a very high standard of living. But their numbers still keep increasing because conditions back home in Nepal are even worse. In many ways this parallels the migration of Indians from rural areas to cities and from poorer states (like UP and Bihar) to Mumbai.

So while educated Indian youth travel westwards for a better life, Nepalis come to India. Nothing wrong with either set, because the quest of a better life is undeniable. But look at the paradox. The Western/ developed nations (USA, Canada, Australia, Europe) with their very high income levels (USA per capita GDP is US 50,000/- compared to USD 2,700/- for India) have all kind of rules and regulations and restrictions to discourage immigrants. They, the West, only accept the best, most well qualified Indians and make it look like a favour. And while India does not have much wealth to share, for many years we have been sharing our poverty (not my words.. I think this is from Amartya Sen). Does it mean India has a heart ? A heart that is not all that small ? To me, yes, it does mean that, and among all the senseless politicking and communal violence and terrorist deaths, that’s at least one small comfort to me.

But we also have rabble rousers like Raj Thakeray and more generally the Shiv Sena and its various avataars , who, forget Nepalis , will not even accept Indians from Bihar and Nepal into Mumbai. What can one say about that, or do about that ?

Finally: Some time in the pre-liberalisation era , I had meeting with an Englishman. He was most upset that India had high customs duties and other trade barriers. He was a torch-bearer for free trade and I was his punching bag for all the ills of India’s trade policy. At one point I asked him, if the UK so strongly believed in free trade, why did they not allow Indian workers to feely enter the UK ? We had no further discussion.

The Great Indian Middle Class Cover up

The Great Indian Middle Class Cover up

A few months back I took a train to Kerala and saw a large number of “VIP” suitcases “covered” with olive green canvas … and thereby hangs a rat’s tale.

I guess I must have been in the 5th Std when some returning-from- “phoren” relative gifted our family a transistor radio.. and not just any radio..it was National Panasonic !! cutting edge Japanese technology of the time. As an aside, these were always called transistors.. never transistor radios.

The new transistor was a big change from the older (Philips) radio which would needed a warm-up before use , made guttural noises and sometimes whistled funnily for no reason. An additional plus point was that I (or my brother) could carry it to our room and listen to all the Vividh Bharati broadcasts of film songs..including the famous Jayamala, a program where AIR broadcast songs requested by soldiers from the armed forces.I am greatly indebted to the Lance Naiks, Sipahis and Subedars from 56 APO and Ambala cant for this early exposure to one of our great musical traditions. Come evening, the transistor would be appropriated by my father for the nine o’clock news (of Devaki Nandan Pandey and Lotika Ratnam fame). But I digress…

This transistor was about the size of a large dictionary and had shiny and smart looking knobs and dials. It had a built in antenna (aerial in those days) which could be folded . But it did not come with a factory made case. So in deference to the time worn tradition of our dusty land, a “rexine” cover was procured. It was black with a transparent plastic window. So the smart Japanese thing was now looking like a piece of Russian artillery. Thankfully the music was still as sweet. Somehow the aesthete in me did not take too kindly to this Russian intrusion, and at every available opportunity I would take the cover off to admire the Japanese beauty that lay beneath.

That was my first first-hand brush with this obsession of middle-class India to “cover” anything and everything in sight. Suitcases, televisions, washing machines, music systems, mobile phones, computers, telephone instruments, et al, ad infinitum. My mother cannot refrain from a disapproving glance if she sees something that does not have a cover. And so it has gone on. Products designed with passion and commitment by left-brain thinking Italian designers, long haired Japanese award winning designers and similar assorted persons with artistic souls are promptly “covered” by us In India. To add insult to designer injury, the covers are about as appealing as a badly made caramel custard. And then finally of course there are the people who will buy perfectly designed and expensive Japanese and German cars and never bother to remove for months the flimsy polythene film that covers the seats.

Rather tasteless, no ?

Hairy Tales

These  are not hair raising.. they are hair cutting tales. They all relate to my childhood experiences with haircuts and barbers.

Sunday best : For some reason quite unknown, as kids we always had haircuts on Sunday mornings, and that meant waiting and waiting. At least an hour each time. It wasn’t as if barbers were not open on weekdays. Or that there wasn’t enough time after school on weekdays. But it HAD to be a Sunday morning , …perhaps because our parents were not logical minded , maybe because time was not at a premium, or something like that. Unfortunately several thousand parents in the city had the same mental make-up. So we ended up waiting an hour at least. Forty years on, things have not changed . Sundays still see a logjam in barber shops all across India. I know that, because in the last 20 years or so, I have twice made the mistake of getting a haircut on a Sunday morning.

In recent years I have often wondered why indian barbers don’t smarten up a little and offer differentiated rates depending on weekdays. Like TV advertising has highest rates at prime time. Must suggest it to my barber.

Red Haircut: Why were all barbers in India communists in the 70’s ? The only thing we could do while waiting interminably on Sundays was to swat flies, and to read the well-thumbed magazines the barber-shop had. And they used to be mainly Russian magazines, in English and Hindi. Sovietland is one name I remember. These magazines told us all about the glorious advances being made in Soviet Russia, and they had pictures of sturdy Russian style buildings and and sturdier Russian women driving tractors and trucks. At a time when there weren’t too many tractors around in India, to see one driven by a woman was a little amazing. There used to be also a brightly coloured Children’s magazine from Russia. So I sort of reasoned that Indian barbers were all communists. The hard working proletariat, plotting the overthrow of the Kulaks and reading Sovietland for strategy and inspiration. Only many years later this did mystery of haircut-commmunism get resolved. The Russian magazines were the cheapest available. They filled up the waiting room without costing much and so the barber shops preferred them over Filmfare etc.

Miscellany : One of the embarrassing experiences of childhood is something like this. When you are about 5 or 6 yrs old, you are so short that when in a barber’s chair, the barber has to bend very low to do his work. It’s inconvenient for him, so he puts a plank on the armrests of the chair and makes you sit on that. His problem is solved, but he doesn’t know the mortification it causes to the little soul to have his smallness on public display. It’s truly embarrassing. But one grins and bears it. And then comes the day when you have grown a few inches and the barber does away with the plank. It’s a great feeling. Grown up, man of the world, sitting in the chair just like your elder brother. Sometimes though, more embarrassment is in store. By a freak of chance, the barber who had ”graduated” you was shorter than his colleagues. So the next time you get assigned to a taller barber, you are back to the plank. I swear it is NOT a pleasant experience. Its like being banished from heaven.

How not to be horn-i in Bangalore

How not to be horn-i in Bangalore

Please forgive me for using the “h” word, but I couldn’t get the right one. Horn-i here means a driver who frequently uses the vehicle horn, mostly without any positive or useful effect. This having been clarified, henceforth the word will be spelt “horni”.

A fictional study conducted by a reputed automobile association has come up with some rather startling facts. It has been found  that in Bangalore, yellow-plate passenger vehicles (cabs, sumos/ qualis, mini-buses etc) on an average give a 16 percent higher mileage than other vehicles. And if it is used for call–centres / BPO companies, the figure goes further up to 18 percent. When I read this report, the engineer in me was intrigued.

So what is going on? How does one improve fuel efficiency? Well the bad news is that you can’t get higher mileage just by changing the colour of the number plate to yellow. You have to be seriously horni to get there. Here is how it works. As a result of continuous horni-ing, an envelope of charged particles is created around the front of the vehicle. This is a low-pressure area. So the air from the rear of the vehicle pushes the vehicle forward. Of course by this time the driver has created a further envelope in the front. This natural-assist is what reduces fuel-consumption. All of this of course requires skill.

And just how horni can you get? There are a number of places you can go to learn the art and science of being horni. Mostly these are places that are run as offshoots of driving schools. We met up with one of the people running a school. He was one Mr. Honkerappa from Assholenarsipura Horni Driving School. He said that to really do a good job at being horni, you have to take at least 40 hours of instruction. He did however offer some tips. Here they are

• Well, the driver must know precisely when to be horni. Some recommended situations are: at traffic lights when there is no space for any other vehicle to move an inch forward or to the side;
• For added saving, being horni a split second after the traffic signal changes from red to green is highly recommended. Never mind the fact that you are sixth in line and it will be a full minute before the other vehicles in front of you move. Just be horni and see the performance go up.
• You must also recognize when someone else is being horni and hogging all the action. Never allow the vehicle in front of you to have an empty space in front of his vehicle. For the natural-assist to work, the space in front of YOUR vehicle must be empty. So be horni with all your might.

We also asked him if there was any special equipment or car accessory that was recommended. He suggested model PITA from M/s Balasubramanian Horn Company of Coimbatore. It’s a huge hit already with all call centre vehicles in Bangalore. You cant miss its strident / rude sound on Bangalore roads. It endows the driver with a rudeness quotient far beyond his biological limits. And its been proven to improve horniness. Interestingly, the advertising tagline of the company is “You can’t be seriously horni if you don’t have Bals”

Finally, are there any side effects or can one be horni all the time? Well occasionally you may come across a driver who takes offence at the rudeness. He may actually gun you down. It has been reported in the US of A. Then of course you can’t be horni around hospitals and schools. In my own case, I have a special sound–activated switch in my car. If someone is being too horni, the switch kicks in and my car remains stalled in front of the horni driver for 5 minutes. By which time he has lost it.

Recommended Reading:

• Medico Legal Issues in Horni Driving by Mr. Balasubramanian, Coimbatore.
• First Aid on the Road published by Bangalore Call centre Drivers’ Association
• If you are Horni, don’t do it from the backseat… Anonymous

Milk and maids

Milk and maids
When I first set up house after getting married, the white revolution had not yet happened in India. It was not easy to get a good milk-supply. We lived in Pune and someone mentioned a college that also ran a dairy and supplied good milk. I spent a day getting “registered’’, buying coupons and so on. 

The milkman came early each morning and rang the bell. And I heaved myself out of bed all groggy to take the milk packets and give him the coupons. Depending on the season, the milkman came in anytime from 5 to 6.30 in the morning. So on many mornings I and my wife lay awake since 4.30 too scared to go back to sleep lest we miss the guy. And so it went on till I mentioned this to a friend. He had a good laugh and said the solution was very simple. All we had to do was to hang a bag or basket outside and leave the coupon in it. Imagine, something so simple and it had missed us. Of course the milkman himself never mentioned it to us , though he must have been working with it in many other homes. Anyway we were finally able to sleep better. Though one of the things I was always curious and regretful about was, what if the college had employed Smita Patil to deliver milk and I had been missing seeing her every morning. So one day to set the matter to rest, I intentionally did not hang the bag.

We followed this hang-a-bag thing for many years since then. And every few months I would check out if the milk was being delivered by Aishwarya Rai or Sushmita Sen or Kareena Kapoor and so on. Of course it wasn’t. But as Mirza Ghalib said “Humko maloom hai jannat ki haqueekat lekin, dil behalaane ke liye Ghalib yeh khayaal achhaa hai” (I know paradise does not exist, but tis a good hope to live with)

But we have now switched to tetrapak milk pouches . It can be kept for long. Does not need boiling before use. One doesn’t have the hassle of accounting for coupons. If you are expecting guests you don’t have to go through the trouble of informing the milkman a couple of days in advance. The quality is good. And finally, there is never any doubt about who is delivering it.

Ageing with dis-Grace.. India: A 5000 year old civilisation

Ageing with dis-Grace.. India: A 5000 year old civilisation
This idea has been knocking around in my head for sometime now. There was a time in the 60’s and 70’s when only the Jansangh (predecessor to the BJP) leaders used to proclaim the greatness of India by constant reference to the past. I guess they had nothing else to counter Nehru’s forward looking rational “western” outlook. But nowadays its not only the BJP/ VHP and their ideological brethren, but people from all kinds of political and non-political backgrounds who keep mentioning and praising India as a 5000 year old civilization. Sometimes one even hears foreign publications and authors using this concept...(and this of course delights us Indians to no end)

Now, we certainly have a 5000 year old history. But the question in my mind is, does that make us a 5000 year old civilization ? In my opinion, NO. I must add that if I were to pride myself on being a member of a 5000 year old civilization, I would think it was an unbroken 5000 years of cultural and social development. Now my specific problem comes with the word “unbroken”

I look at this issue with 2 view points. The historical/ chronological and the empirical.

Historical: The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), which “makes” us a 5000 year old civilization, certainly existed in 3000 BC, but how much did it contribute to its follower the Vedic civilization? Now I haven’t done a great amount of googling on this, but I know a few things

•   Historians are not clear how the IVC dwindled. Was it the rivers shifting course ? Or were they massacred and obliterated almost completely by the invading central Asian “Aryans” who then laid the foundation of the Vedic culture? Or some other reason? In any of these cases, is it logical to assume that a people who disappeared so mysteriously and so completely would leave a major influence on the next culture that came along? What I am trying to say is that if a culture disappeared so anonymously, their impact on the succeeding culture would have to be negligible. So we have a break in cultural lineage,
• Do we see any influence of the ICV in our day to day life, as we see the influence of Vedic culture? Again the answer is no. An example I always remember from school is that the IVC had under ground drainage. Now if IVC had really influenced us, why didn’t we have any underground drainage till the idea was imported from Europe and executed only in the 19th century in India.
• Another point, though perhaps not a major one is that all the IVC sites are restricted to a few places in Pakistan, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat. It wasn’t really a pan-Indian phenomenon.

Thus, on the historical count I am not so comfortable in including the IVC as a part of a 5000 years of unbroken civilization in India. So my friends, I am sorry, but I have just made us at least 1000 years younger.

Empirical: When we say with pride that we are a 5000 year old civilisation, what we are also saying that as far as membership to civilisations goes, the older the better. So it’s better to be 5000 years old than to be a mere 2000 year old. This pride also assumes that a 5000 year old civilisation is a good thing and is better than a civilisation which is 2000 years old. Now what is “better” ? I would say that a civilisation or culture is “better” if it has highly developed forms of art and literature, architecture, philosophy, technology, etc. But above and before all this, for a civilisation to be better, it must provide for its citizens a life without want or fear, with justice and equity, and with opportunity. Now let’s take a look around and see how India is doing on this score as a 5000 year old civilisation

• In our country we routinely kill people in the name of religion, caste, community, political affiliation and for a hundred other things. You name anything and we kill people for it. The State blatantly sponsors the killing of innocent citizens as happened in Delhi and in Gujarat.
• We allow, through our inaction and complacence at all levels, people to die of hunger, disease and accidents. This in a country which now has its citizens swamping the Forbes Top 20 billionaires list !!
• For a 1000 or more years , we have kept 65 percent of our people deprived of education and participation in the mainstream. These are the people in the Scheduled Castes, Tribes and Other Backward Classes.
• We consistently elect political leaders about whom the less said , the better. We recently (in 2008) had the sad case from Bangalore of a young man who committed suicide because his vehicle met with an accident with the vehicle of a political leader , and the young man felt so terrorized that he saw suicide as the only way out.

In many ways , I can say that India is a place where human life is not valued at all. Surely a civilisation that does not value human life cannot claim a 5000 year heritage with any pride whatsoever.

Have you ever been conned ?

Have you ever been conned ?
This happened on a weekend somewhere in the year 2002. My wife and I had gone to Shoppers Stop one evening. It used to be then in its old location on Magarath Road. As is usual, parking space was difficult in Bangalore and I followed my rule of “park in the first available slot even if it means walking half a kilometer.” Once parked, we were walking towards the store, when a man stopped me. From his appearance and demeanour, it was obvious that he was asking for some kind of help. He spoke Kannada, a language that I do not understand. (Kannada goth illa, saar). He looked about 40, balding, malnourished and wearing a shirt and trouser which were frayed at the edges. Rubber slippers nearly falling apart. Over his shoulder he had a jhola bag. His eyes were watery as he spoke to me, and his voice was almost cracking with helplessness. Since my wife knows Kannada well, she stepped into the conversation. Well this guy’s story was that he was going from Hoskote to Whitefield and did not have enough money to take a bus. It seemed a little odd that he should be at Shoppers Stop, since it was neither on the way nor near a major bus junction. In any case he wanted 20 rupees. My wife told me that I should give him the money. To his luck, the smallest note I had in my wallet was 50 rupees, so that’s what I gave him. He thanked us and went on his way. Moving on, my wife and I briefly discussed the rather unusual place (Magrath Road) this man had come for his journey between Hoskote and Whitefield and then forgot all about him.

That is, I forgot about him till about four months later. I was driving and was at the corner of Manipal Centre road where it meets MG Road. I had slowed down to take the turn and who should I see on the pavement but the same man! He was similarly dressed, complete with the jhola and he was in conversation with a young couple, no doubt telling them about his aborted journey. I think I even saw the young man reach for his wallet.

For a moment I thought of stopping and asking the trickster to refund my 50 rupees, but I did not, and drove on. I had no intention of taking him to task, or exposing him to the young couple. Just to get my own money back.

At home I told my wife about this and we had a good laugh. I must say I still admire the man’s acting ability. His act was so damned convincing! But more than that, I thank him for giving me an enriching experience, which makes for good conversation. I must have spoken of this incident to so many people. Not a bad return on 50 rupees !

Just do it ? Free will or Destiny. Part I

Just do it ? Free will or Destiny. Part I
Be warned , this is a long one !

Some years back, General Electric had a career guidance booklet. It carried the title “Control your destiny or someone else will.” This phrase was attributed to the super-manager Jack Welch, the guy who REALLY controlled everyone’s destiny at GE.. but that’s another story.

In this post, I intend to show how collective beliefs can shape the destiny of a people and a nation (Part I), and why personal beliefs must be changed for collective beliefs to change (pat II).

Now this “Control your destiny or someone else will” is one end of the spectrum in an ongoing debate on what governs human affairs , free will or destiny. Aptly it comes from the USA. At the other end is the oft heard in India “Sab upar waale ke’ haath mein hai/ Sab theek ho jaayega” in Hindi and no doubt in most other languages of our wonderful land.

To elaborate, the debate is between the forces of Destiny and the choices of Freewill and which of these two defines our lives. At one end of the spectrum there are those who believe that an individual can achieve anything if she / he makes the effort and at the other end of the spectrum are those who believe that everything is pre-ordained or “destined”. And there are of course those in between. In some ways this debate is similar to the one about whether god exists.

India and most Indians have traditionally believed in destiny/ fate. Our Hindu religious books and leaders (past and present) are explicit about destiny. Very little importance is placed on the role of effort and action. The doctrine of karma states that our orbits in this life are limited by actions in past lives, and that the only worthwhile rewards are to be obtained in the afterlife (swarga/ moksha). And the highest level of action is “tapasya”, “tyaag” or “sanyas” , that is withdrawal from life. Historically, we have honoured and revered not so much the ones who achieved, but those who withdrew. With the exception of Swami Vivekanand I am not aware of any major Hindu religious leader or philosopher who has laid stress on doing and achieving.

What this meant for most of the last 1000 years or more, is that our collective will has been indoctrinated to “withdraw” rather than achieve. This was eminently suited to the various powers that ruled us, whether they were Hindu kings, Arab-Turks, Mughals or the British. Some scholars even suggest that this belief was encouraged and supported by the ruling class, because a people who have been taught to withdraw are not likely to demand a better life… being poor and dying of epidemics or hunger was after all a faster way to moksha! In fact it took leaders of the caliber of the Mahatma and several of his contemporaries to wake us up from this passive approach and demand independence from the British.

Even after independence, things did not change rapidly. India struggled along as a subsistence economy (an euphemism is Developing Country) for many years. In fact a new phrase was coined in Economics: the Hindu Rate of growth !! Implying a GDP growth rate of 3 to 4 percent which is what India did till the seventies.

It is only in the last 20 years or so, that prosperity, a better life and better living condition have caught the imagination of India at every level. This is due, in no small measure, to our interactions with the Western world and its “riches’ through the channel of books/ magazines, satellite TV, movies and NRI’s. India has suddenly realized that it is better to live in at least some comfort here than be in perpetual misery for a swarga in afterlife. We are at last publicly celebrating achievement and wealth. And a GDP growth rate of less than 8 percent is a nightmare for everyone. So we now have a new sensibility, a new belief a new hope. And this has given us  new malls (yes chithra, I DID read ur post !!), new roads and new lifestyles.

…… to be continued

Freewill or Destiny >> Part II

Freewill or Destiny >> Part II
In Part I of this post, I had tried to put in perspective our religious and cultural background on the subject of destiny In this part I will bring out the importance of action and effort.

I am believer in free-will. When someone dies in an accident or illness due to lack of medical care, or a natural disaster, it is not because it was due to “uparwala” (god/ destiny) but because those of us here (neechewala’s) refused to act.

Let me illustrate this with a few examples:

• When India became independent, the average longevity was 45 to 47 years. Now, 60 years later, it is 65 years. By any standards, this is a remarkable achievement. And how did this happen? Not by an act of god, but by the efforts of some dedicated leaders and men. India invested in better health care, nutrition, hygiene, vaccinations and so on. By no means is the job over, but the longevity HAS risen by nearly 50 percent. So what our preceding generations put down due to “uparwala” was actually due to the neglect of the “neechewalas”.. the Brits and the most of the Indian Royalty…

• Then again, the east coast of India (specially the Andhra Pradesh coast) is prone to cyclonic storms. Till the 70’s every alternate year, sometimes every year, there would be 1000’s of deaths in that area, and we would read about it in the newspapers. Many thousands more would be left homeless. To the immediate relatives of the victims and those who lived in surrounding areas, this was again “uparwala” at work. But then suddenly someone put him out of business, at least on the east coast of India. The government installed a coastal cyclone warning system. So when a cyclone is forecast, people are warned and they move to safer places. We still have occasional deaths, but the numbers are typically less than a 100 in any year. Unfortunately, “uparwala” is till in business in Bangladesh, because they don’t have a cyclone warning system.

There are still the tsunamis and the earthquakes which are unpredictable and cause large scale death and destruction. I guess it’s a matter of time till we learn to deal with that.

Look around you , and you will find that most of the tragedies  are the result of inaction at  various levels, and not because of the unknown forces of destiny. Life at the day-to-day level is governed by cause-and-effect and effort-and-result rather than the randomness of fate.

So what is the moral of the story ? The moral of the story is that in India , to progress, we should elect sensible people and parties to represent us, and we should demand more from our elected representatives at all levels. That is the way we will be masters of our own destiny. We should believe in the power of action, rather than leave things to destiny.

Pressing to impress- the Iron in my soul.

Pressing to impress- the Iron in my soul.

This post has been partly inspired by a line in one of PG Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster novels. One of Bertie’s friends is wooing a woman, and Wodehouse says “it was difficult for him to iron his trousers even as he was pressing his suit.”

I like to wear my trousers (even denim jeans) neatly ironed. Neatly meaning, that there should be no wrinkles AND the crease should be sharp, forward looking and firm. And for perfection, there should be just one crease. Not even the hint of a second one. Prima facie this should not be a problem and in fact was NOT problem till a combination of 3 separate and important global events happened in the last few years. Just goes to show, in a manner of speaking, how a single sneeze in Bangalore’s Murugesh pallya can trigger global warming. Read on…

The first was the coming of the current fashion of “flat front” in pants. Now many men who dare to wear flat-fronts, have their own fronts about as flat as a well inflated football. Since I DO have a flat tummy (or no tummy) , the flat-fronts trend suits me to a T(rouser), and I am quite grateful to the blokes who brought in this trend. But this has not been an unmixed blessing. For some reason, known only to the same fashion designer blokes and trouser manufacturers, flat fronts are sold without a factory-ironed crease. Not only are they flat at the waist, they are flat (i e without an ironed crease) all the way down. This I don’t like, and so when I buy a new trouser I make sure I get a crease ironed in ASAP.

Had the matter ended there, life would have been happy and wrinkle-free. But no, it was not to be. I soon found that most flat-fronts cannot ever be properly ironed with a regular front crease. If you try to match the seams at the trouser cuff and put in a crease, there will be ugly wrinkles at the hip. If you make the hip wrinkle-less, the seams at the cuff will be poles apart and u get a crease that’s looking sideways as if in suspicion. While battling with this major problem of modern day living I was lucky enough to bump into someone from the garment industry. I asked him why it was so difficult to put in a proper crease in readymade flat fronts when in the olden ages of pleated pants and neighbourhood darzi’s it was all so simple. The neighborhood darzi’s trousers never once presented this problem to humanity. He looked furtively around and made sure no one could overhear what he was now going to tell me. Then in a whisper and a smile reserved only for fellow conspirators, he let the cat out of the bag. I quote him. One of the major challenges in garment manufacturing has always been to use a 2 dimensional material (fabric) and turn it into an article that will be used to cover a 3 dimensional object (people). In modern design, we work out this solution using computer aided engineering. The result is a flat front that fits perfectly when worn , but isn’t easy to iron. This also , in addition, optimizes fabric use. And then , with a wink , he added. This is also the reason why designers prefer female models who are nearly 2 dimensional. Its easier for the computer to find the solutions when the surfaces involved are flat !

Wellllll… I was speechless…..and of course crease-less as well.

And , now the third global event. Only in this case it is a person. Its Venky the laundry-wala . Like his many fellow tradesmen in Bangalore and other Indian large cities, he inhabits the basement / car park of the apartment block that I live in. He works hard all day and parties harder starting early evening. His wife in fact works harder and doesn’t party. (laundry-wala’s are always hard “pressed’” for time !! ) . Not for him the trivial problems of a crease in a flat front trouser. He picks up the thing with all the care of a blacksmith, lays it flat as fast as he can, and then with a resigned spiritual serenity slides his 10 kilo coal-burning iron over it . And if the seams don’t match at the cuff or the creases in the two legs look as if they have had a major disagreement , so be it. A single pass is all that your Gap or Colour Plus pants merit from Aruna, and no worry if the crease he has just made, has been newly created to keep company with the three already created previously by him. He could not have been less than an Arjun in a previous life. So I now have several flat front trousers that have multiple and squabbling creases. (The “iron” has entered my soul. I think I will strangle Venky this weekend).Or perhaps, 'press' his throat) 

So that’s it. There is no punch line. But I am reminded of a line that my older brother used to say when I was in my teens. For heavy dates I used to carefully iron my own trousers. (Heavy date meant watching more than one girl from a distance of less than 50 feet. Please note the words in bold.) My brother would say “Press, press no impress !!” . Well , to give the devil his dude, he was always more successful than me. He got nearer than 25 feet several times. And once he ACTUALLY talked to 2 girls.

Please excuse me, now. I now have pressing matters at hand. Venky has just brought in a mangled flat front and I have no choice but to put in a new crease myself.

In all probability …

In all probability …

Probability (or Px as mathematicians call it) is a much heard of but little understood mathematical concept. People often say..there is a good chance that this train ticket will get confirmed… or in all likelihood that Congress will get a majority in Karnataka . Now when you start putting a number on “good chance” or “all likelihood” , you have Px. So u can say there is a 70 percent chance that the ticket will get confirmed or there is a 80 percent chance that Congress will get majority (fat chance !!)

In more serious mathematics , Px is expressed as a number between 0 and 1. So if the likelihood of an event NOT happening is ZERO, we say Px= 0 and if it is certain to happen then we say Px= 1. Now here is where maths departs from day to day experience. What maths says is that there is NO event yet to happen where Px= 1. So for anything that has NOT YET happened , there is ALWAYS a chance, however small that it will not happen.

How about the event “The sun will rise tomorrow” ? Is it not certain to happen? Well , mathematicians say , yes it is MOST likely to happen, but NOT CERTAIN to happen. Px is very close to 1 (say 0.9999999999 and on) but less than 1. Here is how to understand this

· Let us say the earth has a life of 6 billion years. On the last day of earths life , there will be no sunrise on the next day (there will in fact be no next day).
· There is also a possibility that the Earth may be completely blown up and cease to exist even tonight as a result of some unknown cosmic catastrophe.

But cosmic events are not the only things that involve Px. Everyday life has many examples. Casino’s use it extensively. It’s also used in the design (how many) of service counters to provide at a railway station, or in a supermarket or in deciding insurance premiums. Here is a very interesting example.

When a borewell is drilled for water, it sometimes ends up dry. So the money is literally down the drain. Now with this risk how can farmers dig wells in rural areas ? Insurance companies step in. From previous data on wells in a particular area, they estimate the probability of a dry well (say 5 out of every 100). Then they calculate a premium. So now the farmer can pay a small amount to overcome the risk. If the well is dry, the insurance company re-imburses expense to the farmer. If the well is not dry, the company keeps the insurance premium. Over hundreds of drillings they make a profit and the farmers’ risk is taken care of . Medical , accident and auto insurance all work on the same principle.

Nationality ; Indian. Caste : English Medium

Nationality ; Indian. Caste : English Medium


I have long felt that in India , the ability to speak and communicate in English is not just another skill; it is also the membership to a superior caste. And then I saw an article in a newspaper a few months back that confirmed my thinking. It said that a sociological survey in Mumbai found that the percentage of inter-caste marriages where both partners spoke English was three times that of inter-caste marriages where only one partner spoke English. So here is a ray of hope that the caste system is not as immutable as it previously was and can indeed be overcome.

As kids , one of the way we described students from many other schools was” HMT”… which was not an abbreviation for the HMT watches already a household name in the 60’s and 70’s. HMT stood for “Hindi Medium Types”, a kind of a dismissive description for children who went to schools that were not ‘English medium”. This was the beginning of a brand new modern post-independence caste, but we had yet to see its full might. In subsequent years we have all seen innumerable and sometimes funny matrimonial advertisements for “convent educated” brides, (sometimes “convented” is the word used) . So here the new caste was invading matrimonial boundaries. We also saw new schools claiming to be “100 percent English medium”. This is rather like the Gurukuls of the olden days where admission was reserved only for Brahmins.

And now the sociological study from Mumbai; to me it confirms that the “English Medium” caste has arrived and is firmly in place.

While, for an Indian, being able to communicate in English is undoubtedly of tremendously great advantage, I have a feeling its not a completely unmixed blessing. To my mind, the English speaking Indians need to be aware of the following:

• We should not be dismissive of those Indians who cannot speak English. This is one reason why the English speaking Indian middle class can never understand the power of leaders like Lalu Prasad Yadav , Mayawati or Karunanidhi. Remember that in India the number of people who speak English is still less than 200 million. The remaining 800 million plus Indians speak a language other than English.
• The dominance of world politics for the last 200 or so years, first by great Britain and now by the USA, has made our own views too anglo-centric and narrow. We think the French and Italians are funny, because the English and Americans have told us that they are funny. We need to step out of this blind-spot and absorb good ideas and wisdom from other cultures.

Endpiece: have you noticed that a fairly noticeable number of profiles on networking/ friendship sites place a premium on “command over English” as a desirable quality for potential friends/ mates . So I asked some of my friends: would you like to make friends with a very nice man ..educated, good-looking, courteous, but one who did not know any English ? The answers varied from long hmmms and haws to a clear NO !! 

Lord Rama and Krishna would have remained friendless in this world ! 

The Caste system extended

The Caste system extended

Several years back in Chicago I met an engineer working for an American MNC. He had recently immigrated to USA from Poland. During conversation he mentioned the Indian caste system. I told him I was surprised he knew of it. He explained that it was a part of their social studies text in school. It was one of the only two specific things he knew about India. The other was the Taj Mahal. In retrospect, I should not have been surprised at all. The Indian (or Hindu) caste system is a uniquely Indian tragedy, and considering the size of the Indian population it is a huge tragedy. It is unique and large enough to have found its way into a textbook in Poland.

Now as if our historical sins were not enough, we often extend this caste system to other spheres of life. I will cite some examples from working life.

• In India, nursing is regarded as a very low end profession. The social distance between a doctor and a nurse is huge, and a nurse can rarely break out of this “caste” and be accepted a social equal to doctors. In fact a few months back, following a controversy in the salary fixed by the Pay-commission for doctors and nurses in the Armed forces , some top brass of the Army made a rather stupid statement. In effect in order to defend a higher salary for army doctors, he insulted the army nurses. See the link below for more details (copy and paste to your browser window)

http://www.outlookindia.com/rantsmag.asp?fodname=20081027&fname=Army+chiefs+letters+(F)&sid=1

• The same “class” distinction applies in the areas of technical professions. After school (10+2) one can get into an engineering college and get a B Tech/ B E degree in 4 years. Or after 10th standard one can get into a polytechnic and get a Diploma in engineering in 3 years. Now these diploma holders, no matter how hard they work and how smart they are, forever remain second class citizens. The Indian work environment will RARELY lets them forget their origins.
• And here is one many of you will identify with. You are in an elevator that is going up (or down). It stops at a floor that is not your destination. The door opens and you see one or more housekeeping staff wanting to get in. Chances are they won’t get in and wait for the next one. There is no policy that housekeeping staff should not enter the elevator when regular employees are inside, but dig deeper and you will find that someone (usually their supervisor) has told them that that is what is expected of them.
• Once in a while we hear that so-and-so working in USA/ Australia rose from an office secretary’s position to the Chief Executive. But we never hear this in India. In fact we never hear this even from UK , because the UK has it own very strong “class’ system.

As the caste system has been around for 2000 years in India, none of this is surprising. Old habits die hard, and ancient ones even harder. Only in the last 20 years or so, have wee seen any kind of serious assault, by the government on the caste system. But this has been mostly limited to reservations in jobs and education. It has also generated a certain amount of ill-will among many upper-caste hindus. I think there is also a need for a communications campaign.

Why Personal Computer sales are going up

Why Personal Computer sales are going up
reproduced below  is the sales pitch of a computer salesman in Delhi
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

madamji.... the mamry of this machine is very big

so if u buy this ji.. you will be gatting a huge mamry

and madamji.. your mamry will be made of pure silicon

it will never be down ...full 100 percent upfront parformance ki granti hai madam

and the best part is, we will give full sport to ur mamry and other parts

so madam..which mamry shall i fit to you ?

madamji... we have many sizes 38C , is the most paapular

but if your hubby-ji is also liking to have big mamry than you shd take 40DD

And never the twain shall meet

And never the twain shall meet

The east is east and west is west , and never the twain shall meet. ..So said Rudyard Kipling. The subtext to this in the modern times is that we in India see the West as cold and impersonal and we see the East/ourselves as warm and hospitable. Perhaps…

I had been thinking about this in the last couple of months , but what got me writing today is the headline in the day’s newspaper. An Indian working in Saudi Arabia smuggled himself on an Air India flight to India. His passport (as is usual in the middle east countries) had been kept “in custody” by his employer/ agent and the poor guy had to resort to this rather unusual method to return home, from what one can only guess , must have been very difficult working conditions. The usual noises are being made about lax security and denials and counter charges are being made by Air India and Security Agencies. The man himself has been handed over to the Airport Security Agency.

The east I want to write about is the Middle East. The “Gulf Countries” seem to have a rather large appetite for expat workers. Quantity surveyors, drivers, maids, masons, carpenters all seem to be needed. The locals either do not have the skills, or the pace of growth requires import of labour or they are just plain lazy and have the (oil) money to indulge their laziness. So, many Indians head there, as do Philippinos, Egyptians and others, to make if not their fortunes at least a decent living. Now, one can work a lifetime in these countries but one can never be a citizen, or anything even remotely close to a citizen. The expat worker is always at the mercy of his agent/ employer and has no form of legal protection.

Contrast this with Canada (or USA). Canada has an ageing white population. And they have a life expectancy of 80 plus years. To meet its workforce needs, Canada has been admitting immigrants for a long time. People come from China, Korea, Morocco, Mexico, Lebanon, Algeria, Pakistan , India and Viet Nam to name a few countries. After 5 years of stay they get a “Permanent Resident” status. There are numerous NGO’s that help immigrants on legal and discrimination issues. After another 5 years they get a full citizenship on par with any other white citizen. My figures on the years maybe slightly wrong, but the important point is, that unlike the Gulf countries, Canada treats immigrants with respect and makes them their own.

Nothing prevents Canada from accepting workers in the Gulf Countries model. There will always be enough people from the developing world to provide the required labour. There is some amount of antagonism and discrimination towards immigrants, but they do not follow the Gulf Countries model.

So now , do we still believe in (middle) Eastern hospitality ?

Dubbulroti and The Pop-up toaster
 
I must have had my first exposure to the pop-up toaster when I was 7 or 8 years old. In some comic book, possibly Archies. I had seen a few toasters , but a pop-up toaster was like science fiction. I distinctly remember being fascinated by the concept. One wouldn’t have to stand around the toaster for fear that the toast might get burnt and one wouldn’t have to periodically open the toaster to see if the toast was properly done. So one could keep on reading comics, or just stand around whistling smartly and carefree, while this marvel of technology silently went about its work.. and voila.. the perfect brown toasts would pop-out. Of course pop-up toasters were not available then in India, so it was really like science–fiction anyway.

As life unfolded, for no particular reason, I never actually used a pop-up toaster for a long, long (and long) time. So by the time I actually did get around to using one, the fascination had faded. But I could still recall the first exposure, and in fact can still recall it with a feel of joy. Now, as we know, pop-up toasters use a bimetallic strip in the circuit. It changes shape when heated and that can be made to turn the toaster off at a desired temperature or after a desired time interval. At the same time , a spring loaded thingy “pops-up” the toast.

But using a pop-up toaster in India has its own learning opportunities. The voltage fluctuates from day to day and from hour to hour. So the “perfect golden brown” setting of yesterday will produce an under-tanned European today . You ratchet up the setting. And the next day it comes out all smoking and looking like a sunburnt Nigerian. Then again, the pop-up action is so vigorous that the toast fairly leaps out of the toaster…sort of challenging Sergie Bubka to a new pole-vault record. Which is not to say that I don’t get perfect toast now and then.

And so what is Dubbulroti ? Well when we were kids, that’s how we knew bread. Double (from English) and Roti (from Hindi). Of course we never knew that Dubbul was Double. In the small (or even tiny) town that I grew up in the sixties, there was just one bakery. And bread was not sold in grocery (or “provision” shops). The bakery guy had this huge tin-trunk mounted on his bicycle and would make the rounds of residential areas, shouting out his wares. He also carried butter in the same box. I wonder if anyone else has a similar re-collection.

No Smiles Please we are Indian

No Smiles Please we are Indian

The heading is derived from a book called No Sex Please we are Indians ..it created a flutter in the media in the 90 s.. but that s all the similarity there is.

Many years back, when I first started working I had occasions to visit Bombay and Bombay hotels and building had lifts/ elevators. To my surprise and amusement , I noted that if one entered a lift which already had some westerners, they smiled at the new entrants (thus I simultaneously increased my knowledge, while becoming upwardly mobile) . At first their smiles caught me so off-guard that I looked blankly at them and maintained an I-did-not-notice-that look. Those people must have wondered if they had body odour ! But after repeated such incidents and on comparing notes with others I found that it was a Eurpoean custom which meant to convey I acknowledge your presence as a human being and an equal .

Well , the not-so-slow learner that I am.. not only did I start reciprocating with a smile., I even went to the extent of initiating one ! Truly braveheart stuff.

But, I noticed that Indians in India (unless long time NRI s) rarely smiled at each other in lifts, me included. We get in, we make sure we look impassive and hold our breaths till its time to get out.

Later when I traveled to phoren I noticed that it was not only in lifts, but on numerous occasions that people, complete strangers, smiled at each other. In offices, for instance, they would smile and wish you a good morning or evening etc. This is especially true for Europe.

So now I have a split upwardly-mobile personality. Euope Smile. India No Smile.

But but but.. even in Europe when two Indians come across each other in a lift they will NOT smile !!

I have always wondered why we behave differently. Not that we should ape everything that Europeans do, but there are certainly good things we can learn. I have also come across articles explaining similar Indian behaviour (large population/ crowding, large number of poor people ,and an acknowledgement may encourage them to ask for a favour.. something like we never make eye-contact with beggars on the street in India)