of treadmills, work, cameras and cookies

The weather is awesome here - and for once I'm really happy to be out of Delhi till February! The work is slowly slimming off again after the two super hectic months of dealmaking..so I figure I can get back to faffing around for a bit!

Time changes the most basic of perceptions. Till last year I used to scoff at people using digital cameras and today I swear by mine and thank my lords that I lost the film SLR I had (though i SO miss it sometimes!). Till 4 months back I thought treadmills were for wussies who couldnt run out in the open. I decided to give it a try at the gym last week and found it gave me more kick than running out in the open ever can! You set your pace, inclines, keep counting the calories (yeeeaahhhh..there goes the tiramisu bite at 200)and keep running. And I find running on the treadmill can be SO hard! I have so far managed to push it up to 20 minutes on a slight incline and walk/run/sprint/run/walk/sprint for 3 kms...and my world starts spinning in no time! So here's a goodbye to those pounding late nights on Marine Drive or early evenings at the Bombay Port Trust garden...i've gone modern and embraced some more technology:)

Picture this: a high powered meeting with mostly expats and in a casual conversation about educational standards and intellect in the US, HA lets out, 'Americans are donkeys'. One quick look at the shocked faces around and he discovers at least two assinine faces gaping. A hasty retreat - qualifies quickly with some explanation about the hard labour they do...and I am left trying not to grin all through the meeting. Will also someone please tell him that having a short fuse DOESNT mean having less time. Picture this: "I know you have a short fuse, so we'll just summarise and take our leave"...and the guy is like..huh? (note: the size of the pupils increases just a bit and he looks taken aback). I love my job!

I can see a dhow sail in with its catch for the day from my window...and try to imagine if he had a hard day's work and a good catch?

I suddenly want to eat cookies - has anyone had them from Cookie-man at one of the multiplexes? I get my supply from Inox and I think they're just too good. Even the cookies at CCD are quite good:

Me

I like being a hedonist. But that is not to say I live in momentary pleasures.
Even if I do, the memory of that pleasure should last a lifetime.
-Raccon, 2005

Delhi....or Mumbai?

Just a little something that I wrote on Sunday on an internet board in response to a related question:

This post is meant to be a mix of humour and seriousness and of course garnished with a lot of personal biases, so please do not take it as a personal affront.

I've worked and lived in both Delhi and Bombay now.

Delhi has more or less, much better infrastructure, greens, spaces and governance than Bombay. Bombay rocks professionally simply because of the tonnes of opportunities available here to professionals/skilled/unskilled people.

Bombay runs not because of the natives, but because of people who have chosen to migrate there. The natives are mostly in politics or with the municipal corporation and doing a bad job at both of these.

Pick up the surname of any successful Bombayiite and see where they come from - you wont be surprised to see most of them from North India/thereabouts
:-P What however remains surprising is that the same boisterous, 'rowdy' North Indians in Bombay become slightly more disciplined and more contentious when it comes to professionalism or the way they live their lives. I guess living in smaller spaces breeds more consideration/toleration for the fellow man - which seems to be absent in Delhi. People rave about the nightlife of Bombay - hell, theres no space to enjoy it in their own homes, thats why people move out on to the streets and malls and theatres and the rocky shores..:-)

Delhi has a much better cuisine, a superbly rich culture, but a very large chunk of the populace that suck at anything except bothering about their own welfare at the cost of others. Bombay has horrible infrastructure that is hanging on just by the skin of its teeth, but a populace that is so busy because of the many opportunities available there, so really doesnt have a lot of time for being rude to ladies or getting work done through jugaad.

I daresay, bring the same people to Delhi and maybe they'd go back to being rude. Take those people to Singapore and watch them swallow their spittle before looking at the next wall with leery eyes to spit upon.

I think delhi would be a lovely place to live in if most of the people on the streets went a bit slow on their birthright to be dishonest or rude citizens. Bombay would be a great place to live in if all of maharashtra was called Bombay and the people and offices spread out all over Maharashtra and it being deemed as mandatory for offices and homes of the people working in these offices, to be within a 10 km radius.

haha, the culture/attitude of Bombay people match the infrastructure of Delhi and the same of Delhi people match the infrastructure of Bombay - may I advocate a switch?:-)))))))))))))

I liked staying in delhi, I like working in bombay - any solution? low cost airlines??:-)

India...shining???

A student at my b-school wrote this and sent out to the egroups - thought it was too thought provoking and not something that we could ignore in an era where people obsess about corporate strategies and Metro cities or are busy obsessing over themselves unncessarily. So putting it here:

Dear All,

This mail is in context of the recent comparisons drawn between US and India by certain sections of Indian society. Some of us agreed to that point of view and some did not. With this mail, I am trying to put in front of you my thoughts on this. I would like to request you not to view my thoughts as some kind of generalization. Our country is so vast that it is impossible to state a fact that applies true for each and every nook and corner of the country. Whatever I am expressing is based on my personal experiences as well as the information that I could gather from the newspapers, books and articles, as well as the experiences of my friends and colleagues working across India. Please feel free to disagree where ever you think I am wrong and point it out to me. I would be grateful for the same, as you would help me in getting over some of the number of imperfections that I have as an individual.

In the midst of all the development that has been happening, India scaling new heights in many fields, growing confidence of Indians, booming Indian economy (Sensex breaking the 8000 ceiling), new jobs and avenues that are being created, Indian IT professionals dominating the silicon valley, recent Goldman Sachs report of India being one of the economic superpowers in coming few years and our comparisons of the tragedies-Mumbai and New Orleans, there is a threat of us becoming complacent and start blowing our own trumpet while the world moves on. I don't have the slightest doubt about the capacities of us the Indians and the potential that our country has to become a non-belligerent, supportive superpower (unlike the US) in the days to come, but, in words of Robert Frost- '...miles to go before I sleep....'.

Disparity in Indian society is growing by the day and there is a total system failure in terms of the education, health, livelihoods and law and order in many parts of the country.

So, while many of us in past few years have been promoted from the Indian Railways to Jet Airways customers, there are still millions of our countrymen who don't have access to a pucca road on which they can travel to the nearest haat with their produce in their Ox-carts. While the galloping Indian economy in developed parts of the country treads on the six and eight lane highways, most parts of the country are still inaccessible for whole four or five months of the rains- unfortunately this is the time when the morbidity and mortality due to various diseases is at the peak and the people desperately try to reach the nearest block or town for medical assistance.

While we in metros see the blatant display of wealth in terms of new longer and costlier cars, expensive consumer goods and shopping malls full of the best products of the world market, millions of our compatriots are still going without two square meals a day.

Bonded labour, in form of Harwaha system is still going on in our villages. So, for Rs.8000 a year (A year, mind you, not a month), it is still possible to have a dignified slave to work for you 14 hours a day in our villages. Most of the times, it is poorest of the poor SC and ST families of the village that get into the cob-web of this system.

While in our cosmopolitans, corporate hospitals like Max, Apollo and Escorts are coming up, in most of the rural areas it is the Quacks (Jhola Cchaaps), who are not qualified enough to treat animals are treating human beings for diseases ranging from common cold to cancer. I witnessed in one village of Madhya Pradesh of population 160, 15 people dying in one year, of which 11 were children below 15 years of age and 12 of the dead had died because of lack of safe drinking water.

With all hungaama in the name of IT in rural India, the farmer is being charged exorbitant amounts for getting a copy of his land records by the soochak of the Gyandoot Project in Madhya Pradesh. E-governance is still a distant dream for most of the districts in the country.

On two ends of the spectrum, NGO activists are either making wealth or are getting killed for their work and rapport with the community depending on the degree of integrity and honesty that they display. They are finding stiff resistance from the stablished players of the rural and urban development- government officials, and businessmen who are hand in gloves with the corrupt and inefficient Government machinery at many places.

Forests are vanishing, despite JFM, SFM and whatever Forest Management, many forest areas are rapidly turning to deserts. Our tigers and leopards are being poached at alarming rates to be sold in the international markets and danger of extinction is looming large on these magnificent animals. All this goes on while we are trying evade this reality by burying our heads under the sand like an ostrich.

Other natural resources are fast depleting- worst hit is water which is being recklessly pumped out in whichever areas it is still available. Land quality also is depleting due to the reckless use of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture and improper management of organic matter disposal. People turning towards the cash crops for more and quick income have also got a bearing over this situation.

Governance has become a victim of politics, corruption and vested interests of individuals. While the numbers of management institutes and engineering colleges in India have gone up drastically in past few years and in some parts they have come up like mushrooms, churning out tens of thousands of engineers or managers (so called) a year in a single state, in many other parts of the country there are only two or three 8th pass persons in the whole village!

Atrocities on weaker sections of the society- the poor and women- is common in rural areas and in some ‘disturbed’ states of India, it has assumed dangerous proportions. All said and done, the persons from both of these categories are still being subjected to a second rate citizen treatment and this practice is continuing unabated in many parts of the country.

Separatist movements are going on in many parts of the country, with a lot of bloodshed and brutalities both by militants and security forces. This has support of many countries who don’t want to see a strong India and are ready to go to any extent to check the movement of Indian juggernaut in the direction of becoming a developed nation. Lack of development and prosperity in these areas are helping the separatist movement by providing a pretext of these movements to drag in the youth into this.

The crux is- there is no chance for our country to think that we have achieved what we wanted to achieve and relax, even for a minute. They say- ‘Rome was not built in a day’ and neither would be our country.

My intention is not to dampen the spirit of India emerging as a developed country. I am a total nobody to say this, considering all the big-wigs are going gaga about the achievements of the country in the recent years. All I want is to point that lets not get complacent with the achievements of our country so far. Let’s not start relaxing so early and start living in a false sense of well being, as all is not well.

If at all this is going to be a triumph for the nation, it is just the beginning. The fight has just started and a lot of struggle is ahead. There are millions of Indians waiting for their fair share in the development of the country. With the growing rhetoric about privatization and commercialization a panacea to all problems of the country, there is a chance of dumping this responsibility totally on the market forces (as we had done in past, dumping the total responsibility of development of the nation on the government and its agencies, and there by making them feel like God- all pervasive and omnipotent- without any answerability whatsoever). None of them- either the Government or the Market- would ever be able to single-handedly perform the Herculean task of the development of the multitudes of our country till the time we, the individuals assume a portion of this task as an individual responsibility and do our bit about addressing these problems.

And for this, the first thing that is required is a lot of soul searching and a well participated discussion amongst us, and to find out the exact role that we can play and how to optimize it in the favour of the Indian version of the Chinese Long March that we are witnessing. In a way, we are in middle of making of the history- emergence of the modern India as a developed country. It is akin to the freedom movement and as we ask our previous generations, tomorrow’s generations are going to question us how we participated in this process and what role we played in this. Victory or defeat-in both cases, we would be responsible for some role or the other. It’s now up to us, what we want to be- performers, or the fence sitters.

I would like to quote Late Dushyant Kumar, one of the famous Hindi poets of modern times before I close.

‘Ho chuki hai peer parvat si, pighalni chahiye/
Is Himalay se koi Ganga nikalni chahiye/
Sirf hungama khada karma mera maksad nahin/
Mera maksad hai ki koi tadbir nikalni chahiye/
Mere sine mein nahin to tere seene mein sahi/
Ho kahin bhi aag, lekin aag jalni chahiye……


Warm regards,

Prashant Mishra
..............................................................................
And an equally thought provoking answer from a very busy senior:

I read with interest some really well written thoughts and I decided to participate in the discussion in all earnest. I think the thoughts in Prashant's email were really nicely penned but he erred on the side of his assumption. The assumption that everyone is actually involved in chest beating on the Indian achievement is a bit naive.

The basis of the assumption possibly was the email about new Orleans and a liberal dose of English Media reading that we do. India is a contrast irrespective of what part of India you are inhabiting. Some part of Urban Mumbai is much worse than the worse of Rural India. I think except Delhi we have this problem in every part of the country and everyone including various governments are aware about them.

However development is really about understanding the challenges and solving them. Road building is therefore considered one of the best development moves due to the multiplier impact it creates and distribution that it brings of wealth.The problem with development is that it takes time and most of the time the pills are very bitter. A large number of good intentioned moves and developmental effort may destroy the purpose of the move. (Mindless aid to Africa is one example) I can share a large number of good intentioned actions by the Government that created major problems for precisely the people they were trying to help.
The legal and regulatory issues in Microfinance is a case in point.

Keeping the balance is a good advise but celebrating successes is not a bad act either. Remember Winning is a habit and if you start losing, the habit quickly deserts you. Similarly progress is a habit, if you stop celebrating it, you would forget that hard work may lead to success. You can see light from a candle in the darkest of nights and the 8K sensex, or IT sector performance is just that candle.

However dark the surrounding is you feel a sigh of relief noticing the light, similarly how so ever aware we are about the poverty and inequality that surround us we want to celebrate that far away light. The Gyandoot soochak is charging a fee for the service for a price - demand drives his price but remember there was no one earlier to even listen to this villager seeking to make a complaint. Let us not get on the other extreme while advocating balance to the celebrating folks.

Recalibration rather then doomsday is a more apt point to make. Finally as a country India offers you everything together, the best of five stars and the stinking slum ( Mumbai never lets u forget that we are a poor country irrespective of the size of your car )

So let us celebrate if we have something to celebrate and yet stay focused that Manjil abhi door hai.

warm regards

Vineet Rai
Chief Executive
Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Fund

A blue Monday...

But then Blue's always been a colour I've really liked..:-))))))))

Started out pretty early at 8 since I had a meeting at 830 (info: E and SE Asians start their day like really early so they think 830 is like a great time to meet - after I almost fainted when they suggested 730). Somehow work was'nt as hectic as I'd have imagined after a weekend and managed to sail through it - even had a totally degenerate lunch at a place called MLA canteen (no, MLAs dont eat food there...not while we were there, atleast) with a friend who specialises in these kind of places - dirt cheap. One of the friends called up saying Monday was a good day for Salaam Namaste since we could get seats easily - and I'd been wanting to see the movie since everyone was raving about it. So Salaam Namaste it was, after a Siberia-cold office day (one of these days am going to stuff some rags up the AC duct's you-know-where).

The movie was pretty good. They touched some issues with a lot of elan. Saif Khan can certainly carry a movie on his own with some help from others. Overheard in the intermission and later, from various young ladies:
1. " Damn ya, I want to have a boyfriend like that minus all the tantrums, of course"
2. " Saif's haircut was lovely and so was his tanned look"

Had a vague sense of deja vu when the topics we were discussing yesterday, namely live-ins and abortion turned out to be the overriding theme...but it turned to be deja boo when friends said thats where they got the topic from (the tv promos it seems, has splashed it all over that its a movie on live -ins).

The good thing about the movie was that it actually started from where a normal movie would have ended - the couple getting together:)
Also, Mallika Sherawat has done a world of good for us viewers - Preity Zinta gave a lovely lip-lock...something which'd be quite taboo before the lady from Rohtak (I know another lady from Rohtak too, but we'll talk about her some other time) burst on to the scene and created some new benchmarks - I've always maintained that a little competition is good for any industry...:)))))) and for someone like me who faints at just Preity's dimples, the lip-lock made my dil go mmmmmmm.....:-P

That apart, the movie was handled very well, set some new benchmarks - esp the one in Indian minds that you have to do a lot of papad belo-ing to get a woman to like you - something Indian cinema has conspired over so many years to hammer into the minds of gullible men:-P Jaaved Jaffri's role was AWESOME, to say the least....though the 'Exactlys' got a bit too many after a point. Also, the last scene of delivery was a bit too slapstick for my liking, but some people seemed to like it...I'd have personally preferred a more composed, though goofy/nerdy Abhishek Bacchan and lesser jumping around. Oh and yes, Preity was looking quite aged in some of the shots in the first part - especially around the eyes - so you know where to pump that Botox in, Preity...:-)

Hopped off to the gym after the movie and did a superfast, superheavy workout - am sure tomorrow is not going to be very nice in terms of movements...:). Joined the friends again and we went to this place at Mahalakshmi race course called Gallups (we had earlier planned to go to Lemon Grass, Bandra, but the Ganapati Visarjan crowd was just a bit too much. Good Indian food at Gallups though I'd remember it more for its drapes and windows...which overlook onto the race course...I'd love to come there for a relaxed Sunday lunch sometime..:)

Have a bit of work to do for tomorrow before I sleep..so I guess I'll get cracking...:)

Weekend extraordinaire...:)

The first weekend I spent in Bombay and at home (well, in spirit, at least) after a month...:)....and I had pledged to make the most of it.

So I slept. :-)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Slept loads and loads and loads.

These days I've developed an obsession for Idli Vada and Dosas with STEAMING Sambhar:)...so I had loads of that too. I forget the location but theres this place in Matunga or Mahim that has the best idlis ever - I've only been taken there, so dont really know what place it is. Most of the places in Mumbai serve Gujju Sambhar - sweetened...so that is kind of sick.

Friday night - Went to a screening of ad films that a Frenchman collected all his life, at NCPA - and while the sharaab was awesome, the ad films were beyond compare....I always thought most of American ads ALWAYS sucked, but I was for once proven wrong with two ads from there being the best I've ever seen. Others, mostly Europian were superb too. Tratts is the new hangout place for the gang after we've unequivocally decided that we're finally bored of Barista, so Tratts it was, on Friday night...were a particularly sleazy version of Truth or Dare was played out till 4am...I dont have anymore secrets I think, to spill! Why is it that in any Truth or Dare, most of the things asked pertain to sex?

Sat night was a friends' wedding reception, so that was that. Well, we decided that since the friend and his wife were going to be in the reception till it ended, we might as well make full use of the suite he booked in the heritage wing of Taj for his newlywed till he returned. Other things apart, the gateway sure looks awesome from there - posting two pics since couldnt decide which was better:

Reminded me of a time when, at a friends marriage, we all checked into a propah hotel and decided to get thrown out. That was like 5 years ago, we were fresh out of MBAs, flush with own money and I was just back from the boondocks for a couple of days and eventually, we DID manage to get chucked out:)

Sat night was nothing similar, but strangely the just-married friend wanted us all to stay on after they returned from the reception - so there we were....all sprawled out on the carpet, popping bottle after bottle of bubbly and hold your breath...playing Cranium..:))))...I can only imagine the whipping his wife wud've given him afer we left...;-)...there was hardly anything of the night left by the time we left...last heard, he's still not checked into his home (haha, which is like 5 minutes from there)

Sunday - the day began at 2pm...with yeah...idli dosas at 3. Went for the first time to the IMAX Dome at Wadala to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:
1. Had never been in a cinema hall where the screen was up on the domed ceiling - I was gaping like a villager:))))
2. AWESOME movie, wonderfully made and enacted.

Dinner at Phoenix Mills, Spaghetti Kitchen - after having made reservations 3 times and cancelled all three times in a span of 3 hours(the third time, the excuse was given that Mr Jhunjhunwaala's wife is delivering prematurely, so we have to rush with her, please). Walked in finally, when no alternate place could be decided upon, and the lady there telling us, 'Yes, you are so lucky, we just got an unexpected cancellation 5 minutes back (us)'. The Penne Vodka was the most amazing pasta I've had - it beats anything at Tratts hands down ( which has so far the best italian i've had ever), so I'd happily recommend it to anyone. While I'm still recommending...the Risotto at Basilico in Colaba (near the Radio Station) is not to be missed too...though for me Risotto is basically khichdi with a lot of cheese:)....still is great, there. Had a huge debate on live-ins vs marriage (yawwwn)and then on abortions (much better)

Finally stumbled into home and tomorrow is Monday - totally looking forward to it.
Bring it on!! :-)

Long time!!!!!!!!!:-)

Havent had the time to post anything or do stuff online since soooo long that coming to this blog almost feels like I'm coming to a house after a long absence....cobwebs everywhere, smells musty and dont know where to start...:-). So will pick up the first thing that comes to my mind.

Abhishek Bacchan has become extremely hot property from the below average looking actor he was, before. All this after Yuva. He looks damn good now - wonder why? He didnt look as good in his pre-Yuva movies...and nothing seems to have changed in his looks. Though about his talent, he still cant carry a movie on his shoulders alone - all hits of his have been multi-starrers - the last solo he did I think was Naach - which was eminently forgettable. So i guess he's an equivalent to unisexual eye candy...

random shots from maldives - its heavenly!!! but then so damn many places are...that you never stop being amazed at nature's beauty. Man made stuff cant ever beat it - A petronas or a taj mahal are hardly any comparisons:

An Israeli couple has been arrested for kissing after they got married in a temple in Hindu style in Pushkar - makes me wonder if it was right or wrong? The couple say that kissing after a marriage is normal in their culture. Is kissing ok in one public place and not ok in the other? What kind of a kiss would not invite censure while what other form of lip-lock would invite frowns? Who decides when it becomes obscene? The law states that hurting sensibilities by performing obscene actions in a public place can invite legal action (the couple has been arrested under this section - since when was kissing obscene?) - can a person from a conservative background get all those young couples making out in bombay arrested then, claiming that their sensibilities were hurt? Wow. What would the reaction have been had they kissed in a mosque? Or if they did a 'hawan' and seven feras in a church?

Its been raining like mad all day today - went to drop off a friend at Grant Road and water was till knee level - some entering the car too. Thank god its the weekend up ahead.

Phew...this week has been awesome - a bit of slack after about two months of slog:)...though theres some more blood to be squeezed!

So many people in public keep rubbing their nails of both hands!!!! Its eery!!!! I've heard its a yogic remedy for hairloss - wont be surprised if suddenly Mumbai is devoid of baldness - what'll happen to Pritish Nandy if he starts it too?

No travel over the next two weeks - phhhheeeew! My first weekend at home after 3 weeks...even more phhhheeeeeeeew:)

Watched Iqbal - awesome movie. Watched Dansh - very very very thought provoking - about the duties of a man as a family person and his duties as an idealist. About who decides the law - the one who has the gun? About what is right or wrong when everybody is in a frenzy? The movie could have explored these questions and left it to the viewer but I guess commercial practicality made it necessary to provide some easy answers. All in all, very nice...though as a person sitting next to me (seemed to have his roots common to mine, in Bihar) said after the movie...'saala bahut haibhy type moubhi tha' - my words exactly...:-)))))))))))))))))