Where is prounouncing Pen stretched to become a pain?
Where in India would someone say Bholuputus (real story) and what does it mean?
Where is Mr. Vishwas and Mr. Biswas one and the same?
Where does one hear the 'd' in Bridge pronounced?
Where might Boss and Bus be pronounced the same way?
Where might people say Mani when then they mean money?
Player instead of pleasure?
It's fashionable to predict what will happen. It also was lucrative at one point. Now, if a party funds you, it may still be.
But I am adding a twist to the prediction game. I am predicting how things may turn out for people like you and me- the Aam Admi, in whichever state the elections are happening. Names ending in 'ni' not included.
1. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
2. Petrol prices will rise. So will a few other essentials, partly to offset doles announced.
3. Liquor prices may rise, for the same reason as above.
4. The first six months will look as if there are bright days ahead.. not using acchhe din, as it's copyrighted.
5. From month 7 to the next election, it will seem like a long wait for change. Refer to 1 above.
The brouhaha over elections in some Indian states is almost over. The counting is on May 4th, a big day for individual contenders and the Parties in the fray. So who will celebrate with a party on that day?
I don't have any guesses, because the Indian voter throws up surprises quite often. What now seems like a pattern, is that Southern States will vote a regional party, but I have no idea what Bengal will do.
But whoever wins, the lot of the common man seems to change very little. Jobs are probably stagnant, and so are wages at the bottom of the (large) pyramid. So what will anyone in that position gain from whoever comes to power is a moot point.
The elite usually continue to flourish, no matter who wins. The era of big ticket reforms kicked off in 1991 is almost over, and India will continue growing at 5-7 percent, due to its large population, as a whole. How that translates into the well-being of different segments is what really matters.
Life in the US or the west is a dream for many. So is a life in the Gulf countries, for others. But what is the reality, vis-a-vis a life in India? I mean, a working life and a retired life.
I was earning a comfortable (at the time) 40 thousand dollars per year when I got a job in the U.S. as an assistant professor. Spent quite a bit on the 2 Bedroom apartment, and furnishing it. The car and medical insurance payments later, was left with just enough to make a trip to India perhaps, and a comfortable lifestyle. But we had to do our own washing, ironing and cleaning. Car maintenance occasionally came up. If we had had kids, maybe expenses would have multiplied.
The same applies here, at a lower rupee salary. Plus you get maids for housework and dhobis to iron clothes. Drivers are available or autorickshaws in cities. Now metros too. Public transport has always been better in India, and safe for kids and older people. So they are not dependent on you for their movements. Now we have the Metro as well in many cities. Your savings tend to be high in India, as you spend less, unless there are medical emergencies. You can plan your retirement savings too, if you start in your thirties or so.
Job security was higher too, until now. So it's possible for a qualified person to live a good life in India too, particularly for a double income family of the middle classes.
Sometime in life, you have roommates, or roomies. I had some in my school dormitory, in my engineering college hostel, both in Hyderabad. Later, had some in the U.S., until I got married. IIMB had single rooms, but great diversity in terms of classmates.
These are great learning opportunities. You live with completely different kinds of people, and learn to get along with them. My engineering roomies were Telugu speakers, and it improved my Telugu. In school we had to speak English.
The U.S. roommates or flatmates were all from Hyderabad, so it was not a big challenge. Also, we had a French friend, an Iranian one, a Turkish one and a Nigerian one among classmates in our courses, apart from Americans.
A Korean and a Venezuelan colleague followed at Lander, my workplace. And of course, an American, Leslie, who became good friends with my wife.
In India, multicultural colleagues followed (I worked across the country), including Odiyas, Bongs, South Indians from all states, and Marathi and North Indians from all over. Enjoyed the diversity and good times, with festivals of all kinds being celebrated.
Which is better?
In India, it appears, the autonomous B school outshines the department of management in a university. Especially if it is fully residential. This is unlike the US, where autonomy is inbuilt into university departments. The large bureaucracy in an Indian university nullifies some advantages that it may have in terms of scale and diversity.
Another unique thing is that the top Indian B schools are run by the central government. Unlike the Harvards of the U.S. This could be because the first independent Indian government identified Higher Education as a strategic growth lever, and went into action mode. Set up IIMs and IITs. The focus on one discipline helped them carve out a niche, unlike state universities, which also had fund constraints-still do. Industry participation initially was insignificant, and the government fully subsidised these institutions. My fees at IIM Bangalore for the PGDM in 1982-84 were around 3-4000 rupees per annum. Seems to have paid off for the government.
Less bureaucracy, strict faculty selection and student selection and swiftly changing curriculum and pedagogy with freedom and incentives to faculty have made IIMs a force to reckon with- I worked at 3 of them, I should know.
The most exotic ones were around Pattaya, in Thailand, where I went with Golftripz in 2010. Laem Chabang was one of three we played, and a tough one. It was designed by Jack Nicklaus, I think.
Where I learnt my Golf was actually a free (for us) Golf course in Harihar built by the Kirloskars. It was an 18 hole course with narrow fairways, so you had to hit straight. It also had a 3 par with a green surrounded by water, requiring a precise drop.
Hyderabad Golf Association has a course around the Golconda Fort, very scenic. Also the Kodaikanal Golf Club, with winding fairways, and many ups and downs (apart from your game)-proud to have got a Hole in One there, in 2014. Also Wellington where I got a second one.
I also played at Ooty Gymkhana, ASC Bangalore, Air Force Golf Club at Nagpur, KGA and BGC at Bangalore, Madras Gymkhana, and a course in Kolar, near Bangalore.
Played with Yashad Gaur, Vijayakumar, Dhanapal, and Muthu in Bangalore, classmates in Chennai, and Gadgil, in Nagpur. Garima Shah and Aditi Gupta and Akshar also joined us in Nagpur, and so did Smita Dabholkar and Madhu Helchel.
I am planning to do one in Kolkata soon.. more on that later..
If you are a near-monopoly, you care less and less about the customer. The govt. is usually a monopoly, and we know how it 'serves' its customers. But this one is about Indigo, which has reached its nadir with a fiasco so bad, it has nowhere to hide.
For one which micromanages passenger movements and makes them stand in line for 20-25 minutes just to board a flight, to one which cannot estimate its own pilot requirements! What a Fall, as Mark Antony would have said.
Short term solutions are OK, but in the long run, a couple of viable alternatives have to emerge, or else trains will become the preferred mode of moving around.
Also a severe penalty for this nonsensical situation is needed, to compensate for the disruptions in many lives.. maybe a fare cap!
The year 1983 saw Kapil's devils claim the World Cup from nowhere. It was an incredible team effort. And I think, so was this one. Though we may have our favourite players, I feel this could not have happened without everyone contributing their best. What a landmark win! The Australia India semi-final was a classic.
Congratulations to Harmanpreet, and the band of indomitable warriors who fought with her, Jemimah, Smriti and all the rest. You are all heroes for us.
Inertia is a concept well-known, thanks to Newton and his first Law.
It is hard to wake up in the morning, we all know. We have to galvanise ourselves into waking up, and making that cup of tea. I have now mastered the art- of doing both. I usually wake up at 5 am, coz the Sun rises early in Kolkata, and I feel I have a duty to keep up with it.
Getting ourselves to do anything of significance- making up the bed, or writing a work email- sounds like a chore. Somewhat like washing dishes. So we generally delay, or to use a Tharoorian word, procrastinate. And this goes on, with various To Do lists in life.
We generally don't forget to marry, because of a constant push from parents, in accordance with Newton's First Law. But do you know that organizations also have inertia? Because humans make up most organizations- for now, until robots throw them out.
They should be doing things like strategising, right-sizing, growing, implementing strategies, and many other things, to keep owners, or shareholders, happy. But they don't. They get caught up in an inertia vortex, and 'This is how we do things around here syndrome, and forget to do the few essential things for survival and growth. So some remain sleeping giants, like those mythical entities. And some slip into a coma, never to come out.
Those organizations that remain agile, beat them by a mile. Happened to K Mart in the US when Wal-Mart came along. Happened to Biyani (Future became Past?), when D Mart came along. And will happen to many others..
Our (Indian) education system, in school particularly, stresses written communication much more than oral. As a result, when we get into higher education- college or beyond, our spoken skills are limited. Except for a few students who get into debating or speaking classes.
What I observed in the U.S. is that spoken skills are a lot better among undergrads. Maybe among school students also. Their society needs some socialising skills among opposite genders for dating and so on, which are accepted forms of getting to know potential partners.
Whatever the reasons, our students need a lot more prepping for communication skills. My MBA was the first time I was expected to really participate in a class discussion, and that was when I was 22 plus!
Some training, and opportunities for all through curricular and extra-curricular activities- drama, for example, may be great to develop these skills. Schools and colleges, and individual teachers, can do more in this respect, I think.
Not sure what the impact of social media is, on these two forms of communication among youngsters.. a research topic, maybe?
I have worked in all 5 regions of India, the longest being South and Central. Hyderabad (Vignana Jyoti Institute), Harihar (KIAMS), Bangalore (PESIT, IFIM, and NMIMS apart from a company, MBA, earlier) in the South. Also IIM Kozhikode in Kerala. Probably the longest of all.
In the West, Mumbai in the same company, MBA. Also Bhubaneswar in XIMB (East). North- Lucknow and Delhi. My first job was with an ad agency, New Horizons, in C.P. in Delhi. Appu Ghar and Modern Suitings, Alwar, were our clients, and India Today and Bombay magazines.
In Lucknow, it was the IIM. Also IMT Ghaziabad more recently.. around 10 years ago.
Centre has been a long stint, Nagpur IMT for 3 and a half years, Indore IIM for 7 and Prestige University as their first VC for around 1.5 years.
I have also visited many places in most states, including Ladakh, Kanyakumari, Shillong, Dibrugarh, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Ahmedabad, and Puri and Konarak. Also a few in M.P. like Jabalpur, Gwalior, Satna and Bhopal.
Though I liked something about each place, Harihar was the best in many ways. Small, with friendly people and with a Golf course in the campus (then). What more can you want in life? Many students of Harihar and Nagpur are in touch with me too. So there's something in the Oranges too, I guess.
One of the most anticipated events in India is the onset of the monsoon rains from the South-west. This usually happens around June 1st in Kerala, and over the next two to three weeks, spreads across the country. This year, there has been a delay, though there were unseasonal rains in April and May at many places including here at Indore, in central India.
Housing about a sixth of the world's population, we need to grow a lot of food. And the crops are diverse, including the major grains we consume. Though irrigation has improved, the rain influences the output significantly. Therefore, the importance of rains during this season, which support the major growing season.
Also, a relief from the hot summer! What fun it is to smell the earth in the first few showers! And for kids, to play in the pools that form everywhere naturally, or make paper boats and float them in the water. Wo kagaz ki kashti, wo baarish ka pani, as Jagjit Singh once sang.. a reminder of our own childhood, for many of us.
Americans are obsessed with 'football'- not as we know it. The foot is hardly used. Anyway, it's a national obsession. In India, we fret about cricket in the same way. Every run, each ball in every match big or small, is analysed by armchair pundits. Opinions about batsmen or bowlers see-saw faster than the stock market, or the dollar exchange rate.
But there is another obsession we have (not the fat wedding), which is not talked about as much. Education. From pre-primary play schools, to Kindergarten, and onwards, we obsess about schools, and grades-only we call them marks. It may sound crazy (it is? Ok), but every parent is obsessed about what his kid will study- at least in the middle class, which is infinitely larger than we assume based on statistics (which are dodgy at best). Whether it is the Board exams given by Super-bored students, or entrance exams that are cracked by the super-prepared ones, one thing stands out. The obsession about education, IITs, or IIMs, or the National Law Schools, that recently entered 'the league'.
Coaching classes seem to be the largest industry in India, though fragmented into hundreds of brands in each town. Kota is a town known only for coaching classes, the way Hyderabad once was -or the whole of Andhra Pradesh.
If we only cared as much about the outcomes of that education on society and its well-being..
The circle is complete.. India overtakes UK to become the world's 5th largest economy.
They took away our spices and textiles, so we invented software, which cannot be removed.
They gave us a cold shoulder, so we warmed up their Summers to 40 degrees centigrade.
They were too serious, so we let them elect a buffoon to rule over themselves.
They left us with an archaic school education system, so we got ourselves Edtech.
They boasted about their (neighbour's) Scotch, so we made Amrut.
They are still learning how to cook..where those spices went is an unsolved mystery.
This is from a citizens' charter, and to be taken with a bit of salt.
1. I am the sole user of this road/the road belongs to me. To hell with everybody else.
2. I must always act as if the sky will fall, if I don't cut across at least 3 vehicles every minute or two.
3. Kuchh toofani karte hain. (inspired by an ad for a cold drink)
4. India is overpopulated anyway...
5. Wrong side driving is good for my health, and keeps me and others alert.
6. Cops are busy checking documents, so...
7. I am paying taxes, so I own the road (related to 1)
Pals from various places. An attempt at a comprehensive classification of my pals, geographically.
Australia- Pooja Daniel, Sanjeev Undri
Dubai- Smita Mohan
China- Yapin
Sri Lanka- Samudrika
USA- Nidhi Kanungo, Annie, Samren, Leslie, Ron and family, Dr. Soni, and Athena, Kamalesh Nayudu, Avadhanulu, Seshu, Nandakumar (Junior), Jockey, Zoom,
New Zealand- Chasha and Ruab, Gurvinder Singh
Canada- Vaseem, Tanya Shrivastava, Radhax,
Finland- Anusha, Bhawana Moondra
UK- Senior (Nandakumar), Shuchi Bhatnagar
Hyderabad- Jogi, Venu, Nagarjuna, Nagu, Ramesh, Basudev and lots more, Pratima of Satara fame. HPS classmates galore, including Dattu, Krishna, Praveen (part-time resident).. Aditi Gupta ( lived in South Carolina too)
Lithuania- Natalija
Delhi- Shruti, Aditya, Nikita, Shweta, Sunil Kataria, Harish Chaudhry, Himanshu, Harish Arora, Pradeep Acharya, Kanika Mhendiratta, Padmapriya
Jaipur- Achint, Garima Shah
Bhubaneswar- Ramana, Banikanta Mishra,
Lucknow- Bhuvneet, Anam, BK Mohanty
Mumbai- Bhagyalakshmi, Sheetal Garg, Abha, Meghana Joshi, Meghna Sinha, Pallavi Sharma
(Originally from) M.P. -Tosha Dubey, Anusha Soni, Pooja Shukla, Manuja Seth, lots in IIM Indore
Bangalore- Bharath, Nagendra, Shailaja Gupta, Anushka Mishra, Savitha, lots of IIMB classmates- Prabhakar, Himanshu, Ramesh, Lingu, Sid-Shubha,.. SP Kumar, Manasa, Sowmyashree, Rajiv Krishnan, Ram Seshu, Muthu
Chennai- Vijayakumar, Lady Daga (Bhawana)
There is a lot of speculation about the ethnic Indian who is likely to follow in Boris Johnson's steps. In my own opinion, that hardly matters. What matters is how well he or she will govern the U.K.
We have had many Chief Ministers, usually local stock, who have governed various states. The one who made a visible difference in Andhra Pradesh where I grew up, was Chandrababu Naidu. He may have lost his appeal today, but he was the first to introduce Powerpoint presentations-in government! He is also said to have made one to the ISB founders to get them to set up shop in Hyderabad.
He is single-handedly responsible for getting the IT giants into A.P. - not just Indian giants, but all the global ones. That is not a mean achievement, given Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and others were probably contenders at the time.
Good roads that are not an eyesore can be a very visible symbol of good governance. Gadkari reportedly got 50 flyovers constructed in Mumbai in a few years of ONE term, whereas we struggle to build one in that time elsewhere!
Sreedharan was allowed by powers that be to do good, and so was Verghese Kurien given a free hand. Maybe that is a secret sauce- a free hand given to capable people!
These, as per Indian tradition, need not actually be related to you. An Uncle is an elderly sort of person known to the family, and an Aunty, likewise.
We had several while growing up, and we sometimes watched them play Tennis, Badminton, or Bridge in the Club we were regularly going to. They were invariably nice to us kids, and we were lucky to learn something from the conversations or interactions we had. Some taught us Billiards, or let us watch while they played.
Some were socially connected, and I learnt of the existence of some Marathi detective/mystery novels due to one of them..it was an author called Baburao Arnalkar. Another Uncle was a music fan, and I first saw/heard a stereophonic sound at his place.
The aunties were hospitable, and fed us non-stop whenever we visited. The kids and we played through our summer holidays, and went for long walks in heat that we cannot tolerate today.
Our real aunts (or Uncles who took us on long walks or to parks) were no less, and we visited them in holidays or at weddings or other events like birthdays. My point is that the multiple aunts/uncles played a part in bringing us up, and we learnt a lot due to them. Sleepovers were common too. As they say, it takes a village to bring up a child.
I am not a food blogger, but have noticed that my Facebook posts related to food produce interesting reactions. Therefore, I am making one more attempt to list a few of my favourite foods from around the country.
Amritsar- I had Makke di roti with sarson da saag once at an authentic place there. It was yummy!
Indore- street food, including corn shavings (bhutte ka kees) and dahiwada, and of course, poha.
Tamilnadu- what I like best is the vegetarian thali, served on a banana leaf. Of late, Chettinad chicken too.
Kerala - Fish Moily used to be my favourite while in Calicut. Seafood in general, appams and stew too.
Lucknow- the kababs, especially Tunde kababs, biryani, and chats
Delhi- Chhole bhature, and Mutton curry at Nizam's in C.P.
Nagpur- Savji food was a favourite- makes you perspire.
Andhra- Mirchi bajji is a favourite.
Rajasthan- Laal maas.
Orissa- Dahi maachh.
Kolkata- the rolls are very good, unlike any others.
Hyderabad- Irani chai and biryani, any day.
Bangalore- Simple dosa, rava dosa, idli or Bisibele bath, filter kaapi
Mumbai- depends on the company. :) Maybe pav bhaji.
Pune- Sabudana wada, Bhave supari (made in Satara)- a mouth freshener, Bakarwadi
