Nomadic pause

This is a landmark leap year , in a sense that I just realized that I havent leapt this year !
With the end of 2008 , Mumbai becomes the place where I have spent a record steady four and half years . Here's how the record came to be broken :

1969 : Born in Military Hospital , Pune
1970-71:( 2 yrs ) Mhow ( Military HQ Of War ) , Madhyapradesh
1972-75:( 3 yrs ) Srinagar , J&K
1975-78:(3 yrs ) Gwalior , Madhya Pradesh
1978-80:( 2 yrs ) Tezpur , Assam
1981-84: ( 3 yrs ) Ambala Cantt , Haryana
1985-87: ( 2 yrs ) Pune , Maharastra
1987-91: ( 4 yrs ) Nanded / Nagpur , Maharastra
1991-92: ( 1.5 yrs ) Chennai , Tamil Nadu
1992-93: ( 1 yr ) Bangalore & Hubli , Karnataka
1994 : ( 1/2 yr ) Mysore , Karnataka
1994: ( 1 yr )Coimbatore & Madurai , Tamil Nadu
1995: ( 1/2 yr ) Ahmedabad , Gujarat
1995 : ( 1/2 yr ) Goa
1996: ( 1/4 yr ) Hyderabad , Andhra Pradesh
1996-2000: ( 4 yrs )Pune , Maharastra
2000-2001: ( 1.5 yrs )Gurgaon , Delhi
2001-2003: ( 3 yrs ) Pune
2004( Apr )-2008 ( Dec ): ( 4.5 yrs ) Mumbai

A sure nomadic pause if it lasts into 2009 , else a new record for long stays .
Mumbai is rapidly growing on me , as I grow rapidly in Mumbai .
Hope and pray the pause is permanent .

My 2008 lists

A quick list of people and things in the year gone by and how they affected me :

Events : The Wall Street Collapse , the doubts on free market economy and the mindless surge of oil prices to $160 a barrel and back swung the sensex from 22000 to 7500 taking with them more than a million of my hard earned rupees . My leessees of my houses , mostly software blokes , also evacuated citing job losses , leaving behind no rental income for me . Making it quite an unforgettable year of fiscal losses .

People : Barack Obama ( he's the man ) won a hard-fought heavily publicised election battle redeeming my faith in audacious hope , beautiful Sarah Palin( she's something - can't figure out what ) gave me quite a few laughs in a trying year and Ratan Tata's battles with Corus , Jaguar , Singur , Nano and Taj showed me how mettle matters while Lalit Modi with his awesome marketing converted me single-handedly into a cricket fan . Alan Greenspan who wrote an Age of turbulence before the Age of trubulence gave me an insight into how he created the mess that was to come after his quitting . Imran Khan , the new kid on the bollywood block was refreshing and his second movie , Kidnap , was just so . Daniel Craig endeared and so did joker Heath Ledger , just before he died . Adiga stole my plot and won the booker , but am not complaining .

Movies : The Dark Knight and Casino Royale earn my accolades while Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na turned me into a hopeless romantic again .

Books : Monica Ali's Brick Lane and Shaw's Pygmalion set me thinking , Maughams autobiographical Of Human Bondage's 700 pages mirrored my life too and the Audacity of Hope enlightened me . ( Is that all the fiction I read this year ? ) . Read a bunch of books on television journalism - Crazy like a Fox finally told me what was right and left , how embedded journalism has changed the world and how CNN lost the plot to Fox news , Hugh Miles's Al Jazeera stunningly clarified my views on the Arab media scene , Nalin Mehta's India on Television was boringly historical , Bonnie Andersens cryptic NewsFlash was CNNs story and McGowan's Coloring the News provided worthwhile perspective on print news journalism , probably also indicating reasons why Obama could have won , the pacy thriller Television Disrupted threw me deep into the technicalities of broadcasting and Dilip Awasthi's The Special Correspondent gave me insights on the tactics of news gathering . Bought most from Rediff.com , except Newsflash which was from Amazon.com

Adventures : The Sky jump - worlds highest - Macau ( my legs still tingle when I visualise the final few seconds before I jumped ) made me believe more in myself while the Cruise on the Nile fulfilled me with wonder on the largest river in the world .

Moves : Radio to TV ( theatre of the mind to mindless theatre ! ) Saw news happen - terrorists at the taj , US elections ,Indian olympic victories upclose from newsroom .

Gadgets :The iPhone has changed my life - snaps , maps , mails , youtube , blogs , itunes , surfing the web and of course , taking the calls couldn't have been more brilliant . A new record score of 36000 in my macman stands - could be breaking it anyday.

Architecture : The Bangalore and Hyderabad airports are terrificly visitable - at the airports , feels like Hongkong in there . The Pyramids - were a true wonder - so was the Bibliotheque at Alexandria - sheer engineering brilliance . The Bandra-Worli sea link is turning out to be one too .

Sports : The sensational IPL matches dragged me into stadiums in Mumbai ( DY Patil ) and Delhi ( Ferozeshah Kotla ) as I fell in love with the abbreviated version of the game . But a hard-earned crystal cup after many years brought me back to my first love - soccer .

2009 , here I come .

The Hunter and the Farmer

The Hunter and the Farmer

Airtel recently announced their reaching the 75 million subscriber mark . Reliance and Vodafone had hit the 50 million cellphone mark some time back . Idea will reach it maybe a year or two later and Tata might take even longer . What is significant about these numbers is that Idea was the first cellphone operator amongst them all and is yet to reach even the 50 mn mark while Reliance was the last to begin operations . . So why is one operator so slow and one sprinting away to glory ?
ICICI has crossed the marketcap of India’s largest bank , SBI . ICICI’s market cap is just under 85000 cr ( had crossed Rs.1 trillion when its stock hit Rs.950 ) , with SBI at 65000 cr and the robust HDFC at 35000 cr . With much higher NPAs, ICICI bank is aggressively straddling all spaces in the financial basket and moving to overtake SBI in overall sales soon . Its stock gotten hammered , punished for mistimed moved in the US markets , yet it carries on .What makes a bank like ICICI so strong ?
Infosys makes more press than TCS . Isn’t TCS’s $4bn revenues similar to Infosys’s US$ 4 bn revenues ? Here’s the difference , TCS was established in 1968 , while Infosys was created almost 15 years later with a $250 corpus . TCS rewrote none of the rules of IT game . When Indians became expensive manpower , Infosys went to China and got work done cheaper . It listed on the NASDAQ . As the dollar strengthens , Infosys rewrites its strategies every week . It has targeted attrition and won that battle too . Its annual reports begins by calling people its assets . So why does Infosys make so much press ?
Why does the Times of India increase its rates by 40% in an inflationary year or a Dainik Bhaskar launch editions rapidly while the Hindu reduces cover price as competition enters the city ? The Times launches an additional newspaper to combat a competitors entry . It changes advertising pricing , dictates editorial policy differently , kills the subscription business to thrive and trounce competitors . Its count of innovations is legendary . Why is there no no.2 newspaper around for miles .
How did UTV movies break into the top 10 distribution companies in revenues in the US in under 3 years or how does Adlabs buyout over 300 theatres in the US in under a year ?
SO why do some companies grow at an abysymally low rate even in a super-charged economy and why do some others grow at a rapid clip , consuming all available venture capital and human resources ? Why do some companies continue to languish inspite of enormous opportunities around while some others with seemingly sketchy business plans create need and want in the process of sprinting away on the sensex ? Why do some managers who join a new company do very well but some who join quit immediately citing cultural differences ?
The difference in these companies is genetic in nature . Lets examine the difference in operating style of both types of companies . One set of companies operate as hunters . They have no idea what is the next business idea or where the next years growth is going to come from . They aggressively seek out ideas for growth and move rapidly in that direction . They borrow capital on the run , set up businesses , expand , buy out competitors and hit new peaks of market capitalization . Like hunters , they have no idea which forest to hunt in , which animal they are likely to confront and what tools are going to come handy . They could go hungry over days and feast for the next few . The other set of companies operate as farmers . Farmers seek predictability – they get up at the same time every morning to toil on the land with their cattlefolk , sow the seeds , wait for the monsoons and rejoice when the crop yields what it is meant to yield . They have set systems – the time to wake up , the time to herd cattle , the time to return from fields , the time to eat is all defined and any upsetting of schedule results in under-performance .
Hunter managers don’t care much for systems , and stay extremely focused on results . They deliver higher than expected results , but can fail dramatically too . And they will be the cause of failure , but they will find the next big company to work for and move on. Some hunter workers grow to become hunter managers and hunter leaders , increasing their maturity of aggression and their ability to create control in chaos and unpredictability . Farmers are less likely to take risks and operate within a web of systems and processes . Many hunting firms evolve to become farming companies with a myriad of systems , but the genetic coding makes its appearance once in a while as they attempt a hostile takeover or start a new businesses absolutely unconnected with their core strength.
As Reliance Industries gets into Retail , one sees remarkable aggression be it in its acquisition of talent , land , alliances , consumers or capital .
Hunting firms focus on results , Farming firms on procedure . Ever wonder why Infosys puts its sales figures on page 13 of its annual report while TCS talks revenues on page 32 ? Its in the genes .
When mergers fail , it is most likely that a hunting company has acquired a farming firm or a farming company picked up a stake in a hunting firm . AOL Time Warner alliance collapsed as the hunting instincts of an AOL and a Warner Bros. conflicted with the farming culture of Time . Similarly , when people quit , examine the DNA of the person who quit and the genetic coding of the company he left behind and you find the hunter vs farmer fight playing out .
There is nothing wrong in being a hunter or a farmer . Great hunters and Great farmers have both had their places in the history books . Realization of where one stands makes the difference .
Look yourself in the mirror every morning .
Who do you see - A hunter or a farmer ?
And where are you dressed up to go - To the forest or to the farm ?

Ignorance is progress

Ram : ( Adjusting the belt he couldn't see below his tummy ) Ignorance is progress .Absolute ignorance is rapid progress . Whatdyasay ?
Shyam : ( ridding the collar button of its anchor and loosening his tie ) Preposterous . Ridiculous . All progress is built on knowledge and learning .
The taxi turned onto Tulsi pipe road , the connect to Bandra from Parel .
Ram : Not quite so . Think about it . If Columbus knew he wouldn't reach America , would he start at all ? If Alexander knew he would get malaria , would he move a muscle ? They haden't read history , seen Magellan maps , studied Flemings theories on pencilin or listened to leadership speeches on battle preparation or read Homers the Illiad or Odyssey . That lack of information spurred progress , led to discoveries of a new continent , new methods of warfare and birth of new civilizations - America and Greece .
Shyam : The drivers for such quests were different . It was an individual need not societal so you can't sweep society into the generalization .
Ram : The ability to take a risk leads to progress . The word 'Risk' implies less knowledge , for if all was known wheres the risk ? Look at what happened yesterday . The ex-Nasdaq head Bernad Madoff has run a $50 bn scam . How did he manage to do it ? Wasn't an Enron collapse the start of a lot of regulation and governance ? Who forgot to implement ? Who pays the price . Harshad Mehta did a massive bull run sabotage - mind you , he paid back 550 cr over 5 days to various banks . One man . Then heavy duty regulations came in , there was a bear hug on the markets . Seven years later another broker - another scam - Ketan Parekh . Again more regulations . Five years later - Telgi - 50000 cr gone . The stamp scam was 100x Harshad , but measure the $ 1 trillion economy against a bankrupt govt in 1991 and it's the same size .
The car crossed the small flyover that spared one from the Dadar flith below . Traffic was dense and three km stretch took over three quarters of an hour .
Ram ( looking out of the half-rolled down window cursorily ) : Throughout history , its the same example . Napolean attacked Russia in winter in the early 18th century and paid a massive price - defeat , demoralization and end of french dominance . A century later , Hitler attempts the same - loses his ground to Russia in a winter attack and loses the war . Yet another example - Soloman bros , the great investment banking firm in the late 80's filed for bankruptcy after years as the largest bond trader in the world and brought the US economy down quite a few notches . Today Lehman , Bear Sterns , Merryl Lynch are doing the same . If they had learnt , the world would have been different . But in the process , millions have been made rich , millions have lived a life , enjoyed homes , fulfilled aspirations . And millions have forgotten again . More money is being pushed into the system , to force people to pull our their credit cards again , to leverage assets to buy another house they don't need , to think of a car they can never afford and help another million somewhere in the chain make real wealth .
The taxi slowed down further for the next kilometer or two .
Ignorance , my friend , is real progress .
Ram : Remember the old line from the movie Anadi - ' Sikandar ne Porus se ki thi ladai , to mai kya karoon ' ?
Shyam : Sure
Ram : Thats a guy who would make progress , not bogged down by historical facts or improbalities . Think of this . We have had a good and maybe slower journey today because we didn't have a clue on traffic on tulsi pipe . Had we known , we would have taken a train . And maybe lived the same mundane sleepwalking life , we live everyday . Maybe not seen the new malls , the new highrises on tulsi pipe , the new wealth being created , the new showrooms . That's probably what the Mumbai grind does , the train travel , the lack of information , the mundaneness , the selfishness , the acceptance , the realisations sort of keep your head down , so you can take in this harsh city and yet not break down . Till one day , the tide turns , and Shyam mark my words , the tide does turn - thereafter , you take on this city - richer , enriched , wealthier and content .
Shyam : Maybe . Now that you set me thinking....

A tear, a little fear and some passion

Of the many movies I saw over the last three weeks , four stood out as outstanding . Casablanca , Enemy at the gates , The scent of a woman and No country for old men . Each of these made me want to see it again , made me pause to ponder and reflect on life . Each tugged at my heart in a very compelling and different way .

Casablanca is an outstanding love story . Desire , pathos and love are depicted sensitively and the few memorable lines from the movie - Play it sam ; We'll always have Paris ; Its the beginning of a beautiful friendship ; Frankly my dear , I give a damn - have been etched in cinema folklore over many years . Humphrey Bogart is terrific as the chain-smoking , rustic lover while beautiful and confused Ingrid Bergman wanting the good life , looks quite stunning . Quite a few hindi movies have explored this loved and lost theme , but I guess they take the ' suffer or sacrifice ' route rather than etch out a character as strong and self-consuming as Bogart . The black and white movie uses shadows and light quite effectively . Absolutely a nine on ten .

Enemy at the gates was one of the movies I saw amongst many war movies together - The longest day , The windtalkers , Platoon , The thin red line , Dirty dozen , Black Hawk Down and The battle for britain . But EATG stood out as gripping and brilliant . There are probably fewer movies with the crucial Russian - German war as a backdrop so it makes it additionally interesting to see a part of this history . Ed Harris and Jude Law's singular conflict interspersed with lovely Rachel Weiss and cunning Ralph Fiennes turned out to be quite a gripping tale . Told only from the point of the sniper Jude Law , it grips you from the first scene to the last . A small scene of german Ed Harris being stripped off his rank for failing to nab Jude is moving , but it generates no sympathy for his character . The love making scene in the bunker amidst many sleeping soldiers is shot very well . You want them to make love and be together inspite of the impossibilities , so there is an sense of fulfillment when the scene comes on .The whiteness of her skin in the filthy green and dirt background with passionate love-making , makes it quite an endearing moment . Jude Law is brilliant and gets the audience on his side from the first scene . A nine on ten .

Al Pacino is Al Pacino . His blind colonel act in The scent of a woman is starkly memorable for being intense and moving . Fun movie to watch , especially the plot of wanting to spend a weekend in NewYork pursuing his unfinished dreams - driving a ferrari , meeting his estranged brothers family , doing the tango , living in the most expensive suite in the most expensive hotel in New York before blowing his brains out . Liked the tango scene the best . Surely an eight on ten .

Saw Coen bros No country for old men twice . I mean the DVD guy didn't pick it up so got an extra day . What a thriller . Had'nt heard of the spanish actor Zavier Barden before this movie . His potrayal of Anton , the hellish guy obsessed with getting his money back was quite stunning . The intriguing part of the movie is that while there is a chase - the sheriff ( Tommy Lee Jones ) is after Zavier , the killer , who is after Josh who has picked up the drug-deal-gone-awry millions of dollars - none of the three meet each other in the movie . They get close , cross each other and get within a breath but don't meet . The texan countryside is awesome and shows how tough it is to be a cop in that terrain . The guns are deadly and each killing is credibly different . You really want Josh to run with the money - guess thats the connect with the key character . There are some unnecessary conversations , though , that distract you as you try and connect the story with those conversations , including the one that the movie ends with . But the chase itself is gripping and polishes off the killings as character defining , so none of them looks gory or out of place . It won 4 deserving oscars . An eight on ten definitely.

Money down the tube

The Sensex is at a 3 yr low . The world markets are in turmoil and minute by minute as the ticker spills blood , my money is sinking into the Arabian sea . Not ordinary money , but dollops of cash - am a million and half rupees down as I go to press . Yet , everyday as I watch CNBC , I have a smile on my lips and some hope in hell .
It's the women on CNBC . Must say it is probably the best collection of faces , second only to some parts of Bollywood . One look at beautiful Tanvir Gill and your day has begun well . She is probably the face of CNBC . Eyes , Hair , Lips , Face , skin - she's a 10 . And as she explains the wiping off of zillions of marketcap everyday , she gets more and more appealing . No sorrow in her eyes , yet shes pathos personified . Who the heck cares about a couple of million here or there as long as she's there to explain it all off to a sub-prime or a p-note .
A close second is Sonia Shenoy , a freshly minted face - she's just gotten onto the newsroom . Anchoring a session called After the bell , she's one bombshell . Her hair falls seductively as she is quite stunningly attractive .
Mornings belong to Mitali Mukherjee . Mitali is lovely , bright , full of sunshine and very very beautiful . And human . Can't concentrate on the opening bell tips that she ends up giving as her beauty is quite distracting . The sort of woman you take home to mom . Very coy and very enduring .
Menaka Doshi is the fiesty afternoon anchor . Wonder what she would look like if she were tanned , for she has just about the right features to carry off any color on her skin .
Shireen Bhan , the executive editor is another sexy woman . She smiles most of the time and since she does not do a regular sit-down news reading show , one can enjoy her overall personality . She's good looking and carries herself well . Her Young Turks programme with many a successful businessmen is one of my favs . Very vivacious and garrulous , she surely has many an interesting entrepreneural tale . Rebecca , her US counterpart is another stunner . As she shouts out the Dow Jones spectacular falls , smiling all the time , you miss the irony of it all .
Anuradha Sen Gupta , Lata Venkatesh and Manisha Gupta are the real hard workers covering advertising , banking and commodities . Real women with solid knowledge and interacting with big-time CEOs and business leaders , they are made of sterner stuff .
And to add to honesty and innocence is Swati Khandelwal , one of the last of this batallion of the women of CNBC . A chripy , sweet little young thing with a slight tan covers patchy news and mid-caps with rigor .
May their tribe increase .

The $50mn business

How the heck does a country so poor as Somalia manage to create a highly profitable new industry ?
Using its only strategic advantage - location. Its place in the Cape of Horn helps it target all sorts of ships passing through the area . Last reported they have managed a $50mn profit by holding up over 45 ships including a Japanese cargo ship , a Thai fishing vessel , a Chinese super-sized cargo ship , a Saudi oil tanker and a Russian ship full of nuclear powered tanks .
The modus operandi is pretty simple - small 10-15 member fishing boats surround ships and take them hostage .The US naval commander in the area commends the efforts of these pirates while Indian media is giving it good coverage .
I remembered the movie 'Black hawk dawn ' on the covert CIA operation to take a Somalian warlord hostage starring Mr 'deadpan' Eric Bana . Piracy on high seas is probably just another way for the warlords in this poorest of poor countries to fund its forever war with neighbour Ethiopia .
In these days when most companies are pleading with their governments to bail them out , here's an outstanding example of a bunch of guys who have decided to fund themselves .
Damn poverty .

Don't Book This Tiger

As sheer count , this is my fiftieth post over the last three years . In celebration , I thought I will write about writing . Here's what I think of Aravind Adiga's Man booker prize winning novel - The White Tiger .

At one level , its pretty close to the story I have been wanting to write , but on another level it doesn't quite turn out that way . It is , however , one of the very few bookers I have managed to finish cover to cover ( Funnily , of the famous booker of booker winner , Midnights Children ( 1981) , I haven't gotten beyond pg 25 ! ). And even so , of the few bookers that I have managed to complete , it lacks a soul . In story , it pales in comparison to Monica Ali's Brick Lane ( 2003 nominee - a terrific read , one of my favourite bookers - a pity it lost to Vernon ) . In plot , The White Tiger pales in comparison to Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient (1992 ) . In language , it pales in comparison to DBC pierre's crass and inventive Vernon God Little (2003 ) . In canvas , it surely lags Yan Martel's beautifully crafted The life of Pi ( 2002 ) and in imagination , Ben Okri's Famished road is far far brilliant (1991 ) .

But it has won the Booker . And as they say nothing succeeds like success . Here's why I think it won the Booker . It is a timed political statement on India's current pursuit of capitalism in deference of its socialistic roots - panning the failing concepts of inclusive growth and constantly peckered cautious optimism . Its a dark tale told with immense brevity . It is probably the first booker that you can speed read . There are no literary pretensions . There are no take aways . People who look at India as a sprinting economy dangerously challenging the world and staking its place in the world will love it for the pithy , stark poverty-filled images of 'Darkness' as sketched by Adiga . The plot is threadbare and too simplistic for credulence . It just can't be true .

A rickshaw-puller killing his owner for the seven lakh rupees and turning entrepreneur with a new identity is not new . Its certainly stuff of many a hindi movie , just the timing makes it very contemporary . The metaphors of 'Darkness' and 'Light' or his despcription of sex as 'dipping my beak' also don't elevate ( pun intended ) the book in any manner .

Avoid the book . Read a older , brillant and well written 'Brick Lane' instead .

Mu-Barack !

Obama has done it .

Remarkably and brilliantly , he has managed to first outsmart Hillary and then McCain . And like I wrote the last time round , he is a new 'emotion' . Here are some lessons I learnt from him - just watching him , his speeches , his poise and temperament and from reading his book ' Audacity of Hope' .

1. Hope Audaciously - a first time senator , black , muslim middle name , earning less than his wife , an unpaid education loan , two fathers , two mothers , 3 countries of origin , not getting a ticket to the National Democratic convention in Y2K , young and inexperienced . Can a guy like this have a hope in hell of becoming teh most powerful man on earth ?

2. Develop yourself - a Harvard law degree with a teaching assignment , a fantastic oratorial skill , a desire to win ( basketball especially ) , energetic and a spankling clean reputation .How long can you keep a good man down ?

3. Be Smart - the world has changed since the last election . Orkut , Facebook , 3G and Youtube have emerged out of the blue . Demographic sand has shifted . Terror , Fear and Hate are new buzzwords . Fox is the channel to watch . Its a post-american world . Traditional republican belts have been just that - traditional . How about focussing battle on those states and distracting the enemy by making him spend more time at home ?And why would you not have a TV campaign surrounded by a lot of internet , make appearances in Europe and Iraq and hire someone with contrasting and complimentary skills as your VP ? How about a Music video with 60 celebrities on 'Yes , We can ' that gets 11 mn viewers ? How about roping in facebook founder 'Chris Huges ' as an advisor ? How about organizing 4000 parties across the country called ' Unite for Change ' for Hillary voters to convert to Obama after she withdrew ? How about a tactical site called Fightthesmears.com to take care of the attacks by competition ? How about a customised site 'MyBarackObama.com ? How about a contest to collect $1 mn in 1 minute called AnObamaMinute.com in NewYork ? How about sms'es for polling booth addresses ? How about ads on online gaming sites ? How about a widget for the iphone ? And telecalling in spanish ?

4. Go mass : enrol non-voters to widen base and swing support , get money in smaller donations ( $5 to $10 ) and create the biggest war chest in history . How about loaning your competitor ( Hillary ) some money to pay her dues from your war chest ? And making a republican call himself 'broke' due to the amount of money he has .

5. Persist : Heroism is just hanging in for 1 min longer . Just hanging in there gave Obama newer ground to take the battle to - the economic meltdown , the choice of Sarah and the death of his white grandmom one day before polling .

Look what he amassed on the way to victory - $640 mn in funds , 3.1 mn contributors , 100 mn pageviews on Youtube videos , 5 mn volunteers , 2.2 mn fans on facebook , 800,000 on Myspace , 1mn page views on campaign website , 33000 followers on twitters . And despite Hillary getting the largest fundraisers behind her Obama mobilized a larger fund bank from 3 mn people .

He's one hell of a guy . May God bless him . May he run another term .

Pappu , put on your dancing shoes

The Indian Value system has surely changed and how .

The most moving dialogue in the blockbuster 'Deewar' - 'Mere paas Maa hai' quite defined the value system for very many years . Gaadi , naukar , bangla , bank balance vs a 2-penny job , a uniform and Maa . The movies' cult status forever etched in peoples mind the spiritual vs the material battle and pronounced the definitive answer - it had to be 'Maa' over everything else .

That was in 1975 .

Three and a half decades later , values seem to have been redefined by a breezy new yuppy movie with newcomers called 'Jaane Tu ' .

Pappu is blue eyed , fair , wears Gucci , Rado , drives a Bmw , strings the guitar , can travel where he wants , can buy what he wants and has an MBA but - he can't dance !

A new battle of 'material and stuck-up ' vs the ' free ' .

Have and have-nots redefined .

This is perhaps a new age value - 'cool'-ness .
To chill , to relax , to fall in love .

Like the 'protagonist ' enjoying his life and its absolute mundanity .

A saturday well spent

I played the best soccer match of my life a couple of weekends ago .

My first every sporting encounter had ended in two things - a discovery of a passion for soccer and a medal . The silver medal came in my seventh standard in school in Ambala Cantt Haryana . Our captain was a burly haryanvi called Pal from the tenth standard and the team drawn from different classes of the Raman House . Pal was tall , hefty and strong . He was an able captain and everyone listened to him without questions . His sheer size gave him absolute authority and that he was a good player helped immesely . We fought hard and lost the final to a better team . I began the matches as an extra - a last minute inclusion because I enrolled quite late .I played in some matches . I still remember running a lot in the finals .

We won and I still have the medal .

Of the rest of matches in school , the most I remember was the unforgettable match in Southern Command school in Pune . Our team lost to a team six years younger . Our team of twelfth science was a motley crowd of unfit spectacled boys fighting for honour against a team of sixth graders . A self-goal , an inability to decide who should be captain , no ball control and overall sloppiness led us to a humiliating 3-0 loss .

Another Pune match stands out as remarkable - the one where we bunch of radio guys beat a software team from Onward tech on the Race Course ground 8-0 exactly as I had planned and predicted . The one played ten years ago in rains on the Shivaji preparatory military school ground was great too . But in most of these games , I would run hard , shout hard and push people hard .

That's why the Mumbai match was very different and special .

Our captain , who operates the TV studio production system , barely spoke in most matches , but was always available when a ball was passed his way to deftly weave through competition and pass it back closer to the post . We substituted every ten minutes and since the game was played in half a full soccer ground , it left us all with good energies to contribute effectively . Sixteen teams fought for a place in the final . The matches were organized such that all of them finished in a day . We played our first match at ten in the morning and won 1-0 . We then won round after round , defeating teams of varying calibre and capped it all with a closely fought 3-2 win in penalties in the finals . The opposing Private treaties team had this wafer-thin maverick Parsi footballer , Daryl , who won my immense admiration for his singularly spectacular footwork .

The crystal soccer cup proudly sits on my office shelf .

To my list of learnings on how to win a soccer match , including teamwork , ball-passing , leadership ,possession , covering the opponent and attacking from the word go , I have now added one more : Have a couple of Goans in the team . With three of our seven players being Goan -Dylan Pereirra , James Rodrigues and Salvador - each exhibiting tremendous ball control and following our strategy to a T , it was impossible to lose .These guys played soccer for a living and having them around makes winning a lot easier .

It took four days for my muscles to recover fully , but every minute that drizzling saturday was worth it .

The US economy is a train wreck

Landed on ... totallylookslike.com . Quite cool . My political hero Fidel Castro does have a striking resemblance to Daniel Day Lewis . There's Salman Rushdie with his fatwas looking eyes wide open like Stanley Kubrik . Noone will deny that Khomeini is not Bond after he has managed to keep US from attacking Iran for years while his 8-year war rival Saddam Hussein perished .And rockers have always looked like hounds .

Of all , probably the US economy one is the most closer to the truth .

Judo anyone ?

Russian President Putin just released a how-to video on judo .
Years back around the time of the 2000 Olympics , The Times of India ran a cover page headline with his photograph flooring another judoka with a powerfilled side-kick . That same front page had an article at the bottom of the page with Atal Bihari Vajpayee requesting the UN general assembly if he could sit and deliver his speech as he had severe knee pain .
And I had written in a letter to an editor the next day asking readers to guess which country amongst the two - Russia or India would win more medals in the forthcoming Olympics .
Jatha Raja , tatha praja !
Today , years later , as an unprecedented economic crisis faces the two countries both running rapidly towards capitalism like never before , Manmohan Singh has been fighting furiously . He's been dropping the CRR daily , increasing liquidity ,getting Chidambaram to front the press twice a day and pushing the US to get his pound of nuclear flesh . The fight is directed more towards the domestic markets than to any fundamental structural changes that can have any consequences in the futrue . The new Russian prime minister meanwhile got his armed forces to move into Arctic circle and lay claim on the Oil sources there , ensuring a robust domestic supply and a say in world politic for years to come .
Oh ! These russians .
Around two weeks back , a Norweigan ship with an Indian crew was hijacked by pirates around the coast of Somalia . The Indian crew on board is living in constant fear of losing its lives . The wife of the captured Indian captain has been appealing to the Indian govt to do something and we are dithering on who to approach and what to do . At around the same time a Russian ship got hijacked by Somalian pirates in the same waters .
Guess what Putin does ?
He's speedily sent a warship to surround their pirated ship in an attempt to tire and blow the Somalian pirates out . Ransom be dammed . The pirates attempted to dock the ship to take away the precious cargo - 33 Russian T-72 tanks , but the Russians aptly thwarted that attempt . They also enlisted help of neighbourhood US warships to surround the Somalians and starve them .
As the battle wages in the high seas , one just wonders why we aren't an active race .
Be it sport , economics or pirates , adjectives like 'Incredible ' , ' Emerging ' work well with India , but verbs like ' attacking ' , ' controlling ' don't .
Judo lessons , anyone ?

Why l Jumped .

I jumped the world's highest skyjump of 233 metres , from the 61st floor of the Macau tower last week .
And have lived to tell a tale .
Why did I jump ?

Firstly , so I have lifelong bragging rights .
Secondly ,I think its just one of the 100 things to do before you die .
Thirdly , it was part of testing myself constantly - having just about mustered courage for a large ferris wheel ride or the safe as a walk in the park 'london eye ' , a couple of years back I moved into thrill & adventure sports .I first tried parasailing . On the secluded platform in the middle of the sea near Coral Islands in Pattayya , tied to a high-speed boat I let myself be pulled into the sky and then watched the world go by as I circumnavigated the boat for a full ten minutes before being got down . My heart pounded and how . High up in the sky I wondered why I was doing it too . The Coral Islands looked like a spec and the wind flapped the chute vigorously . I lived .

I swam around the coral reef in the Islands - an amazing feel . The spectacular colour added to my joy , except the painful thorn-like jibes that the coral left on my palms . I googled it to find later that Corals are live and the jibes were algae skin ecdyzing !

Next up , a high-speed tube ride attached to a boat was wild in itself and holding onto the thin handles on the tube for your life was a sheer adrenalin surge . The ride lasted all of twenty minutes but seemed like a lifetime . The guy on the aquascooter pulled the four of us across waters at such a high speed that on one of the turns I contemplated letting go . I held on just to test myself . Endure , bugger , endure ; I kept telling myself .

My first free fall was the ' space shot ' in Genting Highlands , the steep fall down in the belted-up chair car with a magnificient view of the mountainside made it an exhilarating experience like no other . A couple of smaller roller coaster rides was the most I was willing to do - not trusting my heart too much .I mean I was sure it will stop for half a sec but it not starting again was my fear . The very next year I did the large and huge roller coaster and the sleeper-twister in Genting Highlands , topping it with a blind roller coaster in Disneyland , Hong Kong . In pitch dark with bats and other scary animation hitting you , it was quite scary .
A bungee jump was the logical next step .
I chickened out of the Bungee at Macau when I realized that the max weight was 115 kilos and I was 114.5 kilos - just about there .My weight surprised myself . I am 108 kilos on the ground and I thought I would be lighter ( Isn't gravity lesser in atmosphere ? Isn't everyone lighter on the moon ? Wondering why the heck I have to gain weight 233 metres above the ground ?) I opted for the sky jump - the world's highest sky jump - instead . I performed the jump to my own surprise .Am now sure that the Bungee jump is also possible to do . So bungee jumping , flying a microlite , paragliding and parajumping will be next .
This jump will remain special . The view of Macau from the 61st floor of Macau Tower is dazzling . As you look down , fear grips you and your bloods races through your veins . For a fraction of a second , your life flashes by - things that you ave done , things that you haven't . It is an amazing feel . The priceless experience of pounding adrenalin at 233 metres can't be substituted for anything else .
The certificate given by the AJHackett company says that I have earned the right to ask the world -'Do you have what it takes ?'
And as the Tees sold by them say - ' why live on the edge when you can jump ?'

No teams please , we are Indian.

Okay , so the Olympics are over . What's the big deal ? The big deal is India ending them with rank 50 out of 55 countries and with three medals. Right ? No !

The big deal is that we are still an individual nation . We win individual medals . This country of a billion and half can't work together . We are a nation of individuals and will stay that way . As spectators , we get collective consciousness raised to remarkable levels . As participants , we want our victory for ourselves . Vijendra Singh , Abhinav Bindra and Sushil Kumar won their medals on the basis of their individual skill and strength without the system and without anyone hogging their moment under the sun . That's want we want as a country . Like crabs in the well known story we can't co-create , we can't co-celebrate . Every achievement is and has to be individual . Vishwanathan Anand , Anju Bobby George , Sania , Leander , Geet Sethi , Fereira , Padukone and zillions of others . Athletics , archery , wrestling , badminton , golf , snooker , chess anything will do , except Soccer , basketball , relays . No teams please , we are Indian .

That brings me to Cricket . Even cricket is such a game that I hated from the bottom of my heart till IPL came along but that's another story .

I hated cricket because of its soap opera system - individual players turning up at regular intervals , the length of the engagement needed ( five days for one format of the game ! ) , the one-man show culture , the inability to create a result in many games , the static-ness of the game ( you move muscles very little for half of the game ) , the non-contactedness of the sport ( soccer is contact sport at its best ) and the match fixing rackets ( at some point I wasn't sure whether to believe what I saw ) . It remains a very individual game , with glory for a few . Soccer is sheer tenacity , teamwork and leadership on display . A game that consumes less time than a hindi movie yet gives you absolute pleasure . No teamwork , no victory .( Just won a soccer cup last weekend - love the game )

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati can't get themselves to play together for even a tournament . Guess the Olympic Association should focus on creating champions for individual sport and forget about hockey and the rest .

Ever heard of a co-authored Indian book ? Keep looking . Ek Myaan , Do Talwar ? No way .

We are Indian . No teams please .

A new emotion

Barack Obama is an emotion . A new kind of emotion .

When I bought his book 'the audacity of hope' last year , he had just stepped into the race to be the next president of America . An amazing race this time for sure - the first woman , a sixty year old war veteran from a war Americans want to forget - Vietnam and an african american with a middle name 'Hussain ' and a surname that rhymes with their biggest enemy . Obama has just about repaid his education loan for Harvard Law school studies while media discovered his ancestral home in Africa and a broke half-brother in London .

He is the American Dream and as he said earlier , no black son or daughter will now be able to complain to their ma and pa of missed opportunities, discrimination and unfair competition .Following the election has been a great pleasure - his speeches , his ability to turn crowds on , inspire an new generation , mobilize enormous amount of monies for his campaigns and even to visit Iraq and Germany to build his foreign policy credentials are surely stuff of folklore . Black Boxer Cassius Clay gave up after winning the Olympic Boxing gold , throwing the medal into the Hudson river and becoming Mohammed Ali . Will Smith has managed to reach the pinnacle of the entertainment business with his efforts as a musician ( winning grammy's ) , TV sitcom actor and movie star . But Barack Obama is not on the fringes of society . He is the new society . As President Of America , he presides on a new world order - a post American world order .

Finally , years and years of slavery will be remembered and maybe banished from memory forever . And Martin Luther King will turn in his grave with a smile . Not since Alex Haley's roots has there been a tale of such a lot of toil , perseverence and revere . Remarkable achievement against Unsurmountable odds .

From hereon , whether he wins or loses , Obama will be a new emotion .

For now let's call it 'audacious hope '!

Upside Down

As I sit to do a mid-year review , I realize that the world has turned upside down .
Last year this time , oil was $70 a barrel , ( happened as I was in Dubai ) , yesterday it touched $140 and talks that it will hit $190 are doing rounds . Speculators have moved from equity to commodity to oil . Stocks hit 21500 in Jan this year and trade at 12700 today , taking with them loads of my hard-earned cash too ! Real estate has hit ridiculous levels - a 3bed house at 5 cr ! A tent on a piece of land will be good enough soon . Cauliflower hit 45 bucks a kilo last week. Do consumers switch to Daal ? Recession coupled with inflation in the US has people scurrying to Walmart ! And Spain defeated Germany to pick up the Euro 2008 title ! Name one spanish player and I will buy you a ticket on Virgin Inter-Galactic flight to the Moon ! Business class in most airlines is emptying , denying me interesting company . Gingerly ,the government has increased petrol prices by 4 bucks - if they increase by 15 , each tomato will be 25 bucks !
My 2008 resolutions have all bitten mid-year dust - am 4 kilos more than when I joined the Gold Gym last year - losing 25 kilos is a great pipe dream yet , have lost 57% of my share portfolio instead of making 25 lacs and have read just 5 books in half year , making the resolution to read 20 tougher .
But like Scarlett says in Gone With The Wind , ' Tomorrow is another day , things will turn out better . I will find a way .'
Will I ?

22 in 07

(written on 31st Dec 07 , edited & published today )

This resolution is done and how !
Had vowed not to buy a single book in 07 and to read atleast 20 .
Whew ! it’s the 31st and am through with 22 !
And the only 2 books I bought this year were in Dubai ( P J O Rourke’s Eat the Rich ) and Hong Kong ( John Man’s Genghis Khan ) , not in India !
While I chose the books to read off my shelf randomly , there was an urge to read the ones that I had on my mind for quite some time to read . The final ‘read’ list had only 5 fiction titles and 17 non-fiction , of which 9 were on business and economics , 4 on history , 2 on sports ,1 each on sales , media and movies .

Here’s a mini review of all the 22 , not necessarily in the order that I read them in .

George Blainey’s A very short history of the World was a refreshingly fun 450 page history lesson . Tracing the epic journey of humankind over the last four million years from when the very first people left Africa to settle the globe upto the present day , it condenses the grand human adventure into a short gripping and endlessly thought-provoking narrative .

One of the first inferences George draws is called the Paradox of isolation . The worlds greatest financial powers , US and Japan have benefited greatly from the fact that there has been no invasion possible on them due to the vast seas that separated them from other countries . They also were reluctant participants in the wars fought in Europe which has seen many bloody wars over years over its lands and seas .
The second inference is the Role of Religion . Jesus Christ was a jew who invented Christianity which went onto to overcome Judaism as the largest religion in the world . Religion has resulted in many many wars and even today , it is the single largest source of wars in many countries .Mohammad was a skilled general who waged wars on Mecca , Damascus and Jerusalem and captured them to begin the Muslim rule for the next 1100 years . Buddhism was India’s only export to China . The Hindu religion did not make a significant impact .While religion was meant to unify , it has only divided the world more and more .
The third was a sort of Shifting sands of Civilization . From Egyptian to Indus to Roman to Greek to Chinese to Islamic and finally the American discovery. Each civilization played its role in pushing the frontiers of science , abetting natural discovery , feuding over religion and in the end consuming itself . Each was at its helm a powerful empire with great emperors and seemingly invincible . And each was at its nadir , crushed by its own glory . One larger than life ruler took the entire civilization to its greatest heights and the absence of a successor created a significant gap so as to finish the value , culture and ethos of the very society . The Greeks for instance were so engaged in vigorous internal quarrels and fights that they invented fierce competitive sports . The Olympics were created with the intent to give vent to the desire to win at any cost . The other great element of democracy – Oratory , was invented in Greece too . Everything was debated in greek society and open-air assemblies where powerful orators swayed crowds became the norm . Had they directed these energies to the outside world like Alexander had , Greece would have survived . Even the Romans had exceptionally talented generals ,soldiers , admirals and sailors . Romans improved on Greeks who were masters of the fights by seas , by mastering the art of making roads fast – thereby extending wars to far off places breathlessly . The Roman bridge is a work of art even today .
Finally as Britain started colonizing the world , France would engage with it in many bitter wars over years and between them , they would rule the world and influence the civilizations for over 500 years .
And as the world wars erupted in early twentieth century , over how much land each country should own , Britain and France needed more and more capital and the US stepped in to finance the war efforts in exchange for the ‘badge’ of global policemen which it is retains till today .

Henry Kissinger’s Diplomacy traces the history of the world analytically in the last 4-5 centuries . It stays away from history i.e. what happened but very critically examines the ‘power play’ between world leaders during the major diplomatic tussles in World history to illustrate why things happened . He examines critically the American foundations of Democracy and the debates that have strengthened it over years .
The world wars have been dissected brilliantly – the Versailles humiliation of Germany , the lagging behind of Germany in world conquests & colonization , and its deliberate attempt at world domination through wars is examined through the meetings and diplomatic intrigue between Churchill , Stalin and Roosevelt on the one hand and Hitler , Mussolini and Stalin on the other . Religion curiously interplayed diplomacy at critical junctures in history . Hitler , an Austrian by birth began a world war by walking over territories Germany had to surrender as part of the Versailles treaty and taking over Austria . Benjamin Disraeli , a Jew , was British Prime minister in the intermittent period of the war . World Diplomacy evolved from Austria’s Concert of Europe under Matternich to French Raisond’etat under Cardinal Richelieu to British concept of Splendid Isolation and later Balance of Power by William of Orange , the German concepts of Realpolitik under Bismark and later Weltpolitik ( global politics ) under Hitler . He traces brilliantly the evolution from Monarchies in 1800s to Republics in 1900s.

Along with Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman , would rate Diplomacy amongst the best books to refresh History from . Don’t die a ‘Beirut ‘ death is deeply entrenched in my mind as a remarkable description of life in half-christian – half-muslim Lebanon , forever on the brink of war . This one book is the best description of why the Middle east is what it is . Friedman attributes three key reasons for Middle East conflicts – Tribalism , resulting in high survival instincts as everyone acts as a wolf in the desert ; Authoritarism , with power concentrated in a single authority , coming in two forms – gentle as with King Hussain of Jordan or brutal as with Assad of Syria and finally ,the creation of nation-states by the west in polygon shaped countries to meet oil needs of the west . In fact , in Lebanon many rural tribes have changed their names to plural to look larger than they are .Beirut , as Friedman says has no truth , only versions . Israel has developed a remarkable scientific temper to control the religious chaos around it . Surrounded by Egypt , Syria and Jordan it is a constant epicenter of conflict .
The book opened my eyes to a portrayal of Yasser Arafat that I didn’t know . Arafat to me was the voracious speaker at NAM summits representing the Arab cause in the Arab Israel conflict . Friedman potrays him as a puppet – used both by the Arab world and the west to meet their own selfish needs leaving him as a leader without a worthy cause . Arafat made West Beirut his base and using the media there created the image of a cause by launching periodic attacks on the Israeli territories .
Friedman distinguishes between the four types of jews - Zionists who speak Hebrew , are religious and visit the synagogue comprise 30% and are represented by the torch , Yiddish speaking Herdim jews comprise 15% , secular jews who worship the Torah and eat steak make up 50% and Messianic Jews who reside in the West Bank are the balance 5% .
This is a must read for anyone wanting to understand the middle east . Friedman has since moved on writing about what he missed while he was sucked up into middle east politics – the world is flat , an outstanding treatise on the new globalized world .

Two liberating books , if I can call them that were Jim Rogers - Adventure Capitalist and P.J.O.Rourke’s - Eat the Rich . While Jim Rogers traveled the world to invest in various economies and profit from them , Rourke’s need was simpler ;- he started with wanting to know why some countries are rich and some poor . He took a two year sabbatical to visit six countries, three rich and three poor to study what makes them so. Jim Rogers commentary on world affairs makes for interesting read as he describes the population problems in Europe and Australia , Chinese work ethic ( there are more capitalsists in communist China than in Capitalist America he says ) , African depths of mis-governance and poverty even as they are commodity rich , Ghana’s slave factories , Mozambique’s extreme poverty and Tanzania’s tourism potential , the division of Africa into white ( south ) and black Africa .
Rourke begins his journey by trying to attribute reasons for richness or poverty ; thereby eliminating brains ( Hollywood with no brains is filthy rich while chess crazed Russia is miserly poor ) , education ( american students know what a condom is but don’t know 9X7 , natural resources ( Africa has more than all the rest of the world while rich Scandinavia is frozen most of the year ) , civilization ( Egyptian is in shambles and America doesn’t have much to talk about ) , government ( for millions of years mankind had no government ) , hard work ( well , the rich play golf ! ) and technology ( middle-east has the most complex technology in the form of weapons ) . He concludes that while love , death and money are three most important concerns for humanity , money is the least understood with people shying away from even trying to understand it
“Being Saudi ‘ for instance is a cool thing in Saudi Arabia as they build their country through working partnerships arrangements with people of Asian origin who come to do business but need to alliance with local sheikhs .
Rourke’s book is more organized – as he travels through Wall street ( good capitalism ) to Albania ( bad capitalism ) and through good socialism ( Sweden ) to bad ( cuba ) to bad reforms ( Russia ) to mismanaging resources ( Tanzania ) to overmanaging ( Hong Kong ) and finally potential ( Shanghai ) .. Rourke’s final conclusion on what works is the ethos of capitalism ; Hard work , education , responsibility , property rights , rule of law and democracy . A remarkable book .
The Adventure Capitalist is similarly a good read about his travels across the world in a custom-built Mercedes with his companion . It’s freedom in a true sense and have begun to fantasize about one such trip myself .

The next two books were Edward Luce’s In Spite of the Gods and Amartya Sens The Argumentative Indian , both turning out to be absolutely mediocre fare . After having read Gurcharan Das’s India Unbound a couple of years back , both these books were superficial and drab . Edward Luce’s book draws from both the other books so much that I could identify identical paragraphs ! He questions India’s dream of being on the verge of superpower status by contrasting the unequal development as 750 million of 1.1 billion people continue to live in 680000 villages with no roads , schools , healthcare or even electricity while a percentage of people manage to splurge on yatches and expensive real estate . Combined with the spectre of unemployability without any social security , India’s growth could be stymed . Contrasting Indian and Chinese growth ; he argues that while China developed first with agricultural reform ,then by moving into low cost manufacturing and climbing up the value chain to break into services , India started with services and has pretty much neglected the other two . Also , he distinguishes between India’s capital intensive growth which generates less jobs to labour intensive growth like in China’s which creates large scale employment and India’s large investments in higher education while China’s primary . His observations on corruption , bureaucracy , judiciary , reservations and the sychophancy are staid and commonplace . I realized in retrospect that a lot of Luce’s book is drawn from Amartya Sens work . Sen’s for instance argues that there is no growth without pangs . China solved its pangs ( illiteracy , health , land reforms , social equality) before it got into manufacturing and growth . India has jumped the ‘pangs’ bit and is growing with IT and services .

Micheal Lewis Liars Poker about the stock market and life of a bond trader in Solomon brothers made for a very interesting read . It almost mirrors our corporate life . Lewis takes potshots at definitions and culture - A professional is someone who can speak clearly , sit stiffly , shake firmly , sip iced tea neatly and while negotiating for a bond trading job , never never to mention money , but to talk about challenges in the job . He details life on the trading floor in the heady mid-80s when Solomon brothers was the most powerful and profitable merchant bank right through to its collapse when markets moved from bonds to equities . As life moved between the two markets London and New York , Lewis traces the rapid evolution and sudden debacle . As the market crashes this year in the US with its sub-prime crisis taking with it CEO’s of financial conglomerates and crashing Bear Sterns from a $120 stock to a $10 stock in 5 days , it is pure déjà vu .

New York Times Detroit based reporters Micheline Maynard’s The End of Detroit is an in-depth scathing attack on the myopic American automobile industry . As American markets evolved from hatchbacks to trucks and SUVs the big three American car makers focused on the new markets as hordes of clinical Jap auto companies rode into American markets and drove away with customers and global dominance . From 9 on 10 cars being made in 1960’s to 4 on 10 in the early 2000’s , Detroit has crumbled from its heydays as mecca of the auto business . She also points out that all the foreign invaders came in with clear positioning - BMW was luxury , while Hyundai was bargain – and knowing who their likely consumer was instead of being all things to all people . Toyota americanized itself over years to get to a $10 billion in 2003 more than the combined profits of the Detroit companies for 3 years till 2003 . And Honda had a distinct style of looking at the market one customer at a time and therby not launching a single car without having thousands of customers waiting for it at dealerships . Detroit , she argues was wedded to ineffective marketing gimmicks like rebates and zero percent financing , failed to meet customers real needs – reliability , latest technology and great design at reasonable cost .The American auto market eventually got segmented into small cars dominated by Japanese , mid-size shared by Koreans and Japs , luxury by Germans and Japs ,Minivans by Japs , SUVs by Americans and Japs and Trucks by Americans . Years ago I had read Alfred Sloans My years with general motors , which described the vision as ‘ a car for every purse and purpose ‘ thereby defining GM as a multi-product car company with a little product for everyone . Unlike GM , most of foreign companies never made industrial size their prority , but introduced profitable models . Putting together many interviews , anecdotes and stories she shreds the auto industry threadbare . While she ends the book with a simplistic five point manifesto ,which is easier said than done .

Paco Underhills Why we Buy and Howard Stevens Selling the Wheel on Buying and Selling were interesting takes on well, buying and selling . Selling the Wheel elobarates the 4 phases of sales as Closer , Wizard , Relationship builder , Captain and Crew . If I trace my own life it is pretty much evolved the same way . Closer is someone who sells and closes when need establishment is not so clear and one or two meetings are enough to close . Wizard is when one sells using technical knowledge to probably a group of buyer s. Relationship builers sell in complex environments and Captain and crew is when there are multiple levels of engagement and marketing needs play a vital role . A great book and an easy read, it is quite a page turner . Underhill on the other hand examines the role retail environment plays in encouraging or discouraging shopping by introducing many new terms – conversion rates ( number of walk-ins converted to buyers ) , butt brush factors (being jostled when shopping ) , tactile buyers , endcaps ( display of merchandise at the end of every aisle ) , chevroning ( placing shelves and racks at an angle so more is visible to a shopper ) , hand-allotment ( how many goods can a consumer carry and which hand for what ) , visual anticipation ( gap between entrance and product to build anticipation ) , power display ( a large stock showcased such that it slows the shopper down ) , waiting time ( for billing and trial rooms ) , interception rate ( percentage of customers who have some contact with employee ), density check ( snapshot of stores population ) , shallow loop ( a quick grab near the entrance – flowers , diary etc.) and open sell ( where all products are kept so as to encourage sampling ) . Lot of general gyan timed just as Indian retail takes off .

Alex Fergussons biography Managing my Life on how he moved from an engineering apprenticeship in toolmaking to playing soccer to be the manager of Manchester United . Sure enough Manchester United has accumulated success upon success culminating in the unique treble in 1999 wherein he won the premiership title , the FA cup and the European cup in 11 incredible days . This May they went on to win the Barclays Championship beating my fav Chelsea . One of the most important things I learnt from this book was the fact that all training is repetitive . The concept of ‘something new this time pls’ is a myth . Good coaching relies on repetition . He also belies the tactics myth – more than tactics , it is teamwork the individual brilliance morphing into team spirit is the way to victory . As he ranks no.2 in the premiership this year , surely a lot of these have stood in his good stead .


A completely different book was Pundits from Pakistan , by rahul bhattacharya on the Indian tour of Pakistan in 2003-04 . It was the first official tour after the Kargil war between the two countries and I thought the book would be fun . The problem with reading a book whose ending you know is expectation management . Slow in parts , it was better to have just followed the tour in the papers . Non-fiction by Indian authors anyway is anathema to me , am skeptical about touching them but this was different . How bad can be a cricket commerntary ? As Orwell had described sports – war minus the shooting – India –pak matches have always been the same . Intermittently , he explores the factors that add to excellence in performance in Pakistan cricket . For instance , Pakistan has been able to generate so many fast bowlers as generically , they are of good height and built , their diet makes for speed plus aggressive body language and their constant practice with the tennis ball – throwing a lighter ball builders better muscles . Having great bowling legends also helps - Imran , Wasim , Wakar and Shoaib . Most practice with an insulation tape wraped around the ball to help swing it right has resulted in the fast bowlers making a mark with efficacy . In India on the other hand due to weather , diet etc, , batting became more popular – Gavaskar, Tendulkar , Pataudi or even Sehwag .

The quartet of fiction – Hari Kunzru’s Impressionist , Joseph Hellers classic Catch 22 , Harry Potters Philosophers stone and Half blood prince , and Haroun and the sea of stories by Salman Rushdie were different in their canvas and literary treatment . I loved the premise of Rushdie’s Haroun ; its characters , their verbal interplay and possibilities was great , but I think he could have climaxed differently . The country Alifbay for instance is ‘Alphabet’ , the Dull lake , Gup and Chup , Khattam-Shud meaning finished is the Prince of Silence and Foe of speech and Haroun and Rashid named after the legendary Caliph of Baghdad Haroun-al-rashid . The premise that Rashid , the Shah of Blah , the Ocean of Notions suddenly runs out of stories by losing his gift of the Gab and his son Haroun seeks to return his gift . He encounters a mad bus driver Butt and a water genie Iff and travels through the magical cities of Gup ( where it is always light ) and Shup ( where it is always dark ) and wherever the story gets stuck , there’s P2C2E ; process too complicated to explain ! Rushdie at its best . Will read this again and again .
IN the Impressionist , Pran Nath the startling white boy is regarded as noble till his true parentage is revealed and then starts his search for identity in a world that has no place for him . Not the sort of book I will read again .
To properly enjoy the pre-booked Harry Potter JK Rowlings Half Blood Prince , had to read her first book Philosophers Stone . The book is an outstanding journey into another magical imaginative world with the Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry , Quiddich games and Dumbledores etc. A brilliant new world of make believe was needed to substitute the Alices in Wonderland and Enid Blytons .And JKRowling has managed to do just that .
Catch 22 is a classic . A war novel , it takes satire to a new level and traces the life of Yossarian , a soldier not wanting to fly any more missions .

The Disney War by James Stewart and Shah Rukh Khan and the seductive world of Indian cinema made up my entertainment and media reads this year .
The Disney war traces the evolution of the company since Micheal Eisner joined the firm in the late eighties to now . On how the company evolved from being a TV company to movies , merchandising and parks to the eventual formation of Buena Vista entertainment with Walt Disney pictures for animated movies like Lion King , Touchstone pictures for adult fare like Splash , Pirates of the Caribbean and Sixth Sense Hollywood picture for action fare like Pearl Harbour & armegeddon and acquiring studios like Miramax with movies like Pulp fiction , gangs of new york , Chicago , the hours and Steve Jobs Pixar with Finding Nemo , Cars , Toy Story and Incredibles . Disney’s strategy was to create Imagineers who would use creative imagination . A great read in corporate board management .
The best part of SRK’s biography was the comparisons with AB . The difference between Amitabh’s Vijay and SRK’s Raj . DDLJ buried Angry Young Vijay and brought to the fore Raj ; who wasn’t anti-establishment , he was a yuppie who worked the system to get results . He was an articulate global Indian who was equally at ease in a nightclub in Paris or in a village in Punjab . Raj was trendy and traditional and depending on the situation he could be progressive or conservative . He played by the rules or tweaked them when necessary . And unlike Vijay , Raj was not larger that life . He was scripted as ‘life’. The herogiri was gone . It was an age to be chilled out . Dramatic dialogue – was an essential part of Vijay’s heroic personae . One can still quote Amitabhs great dialogues from Sholay and Deewar . but Raj spoke in normal everyday language , he wasn’t overtly macho , he would starve with Simran when she would do karva chauth . He is sensitive , vulnerable and not afraid to cry . But has the strength and guile to outwit more chauvinistic men . Unlike earlier films Baazigar and Darr , Aditya asked SRK to take of his mask – no stammering , wounds or ultra-violence resulting in a new Raj . Vijay was working class , seething and sometimes brutal but Amitabh was cultured and sophisticated . SRK and Raj were the same ; every girls fantasy lover , every sisters brother and every mothers son . Raj represnted post liberalization 1990s India . Moral , not necessarily pious .
And after Hritik’s Kaho Na pyar hai spectacle Shah Rukh’s Raj had to find new meaning . Karan JOhar helped him morph into Rahul , the modern chic young upgraded dude in Kuch kuch hota hai and Dil to paagal hai .

Finally , Good to great by Jim Collins about why some companies make the leap and others don’t , begins with the line ‘Good is the enemy of Great ‘ .Good to great leaders are a paradoxically blend of personal humility and professional will . They are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton and Caesar . These leaders first got the right people on the bus , wrong people off the bus , right people in the right seats –and then figured where to drive the bus. They confront the brutal facts and yet never lose faith – the stockdale paradox – maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end regardless of difficulties AND at the same time have the courage and displine to confront the most brutal facts of your business .A culture of discipline and adaption of technology and expecting results to come through a relentless push rather than one miracle moment . He defines the hedgehog concept ; while foxes pursue many ends at the same time and see the world in all its complexity , they are scattered and diffused moving on in many levels while hedgehogs reduces everything to a basic pursuit or idea . The way to choose the idea is either to decide what one is passionate about , what one can be best in the world at and what drives the economic engine ( profit per customer etc. ) resulting in a Big Hairy Audacious Goal .

Train to China

Hong Kong is an interesting place . Its got to do with the strange mix of history and culture as it has been a british colony till 10 years back when it was handed over to China so it retains most of its britishness . Like Londoners in any weather , they are dressed perfectly everyday . The skyline also reflects the engineering learnings from London with the metro , waterways and taxi systems .
Walking through the lanes of Tsim Shat Tsui is amazing . The cleanliness never ceases to appeal . The long escalator that takes one down from Victoria heights to downtown through the streets of residences and restaurants is an interesting concept . The sound and light show on the islands harbour is great too . Disneyland is built on an island an hours drive from teh city and has its own share of chills and thrills . After having read Eisners Disney war , it was quite an experience . That the Chinese are hard working people can be made out from their gait - brisk and fast .
As you take the train to China , the world changes dramatically . For one , the immigration form in HongKong airport does has a tick box for 'media' in profession of traveler , but in China immigration their is no such column . I was carrying the South China Morning Post's Hong Kong edition to catch up on the Benazir assasination the day before . My travel agent pounced on me and pulled the paper away saying its illegal to read foreign newspapers . Next , as we walked from the Hong Kong side of the station to the Shenzen side in China , it was the general untidyness of the place they hit us - looked just like Mumbai . The bins were overflowing , the windows were broken , people dressed shabbily and walls had graffiti . Well , with over 2 billion people , thats' the best you can manage , I guess .
But , as you walk into windows of the world - that great park they have created that has all the important landmarks from all over the world in one park , you are absolutely amazed at the Chinese obsession with the art of 'copying' ! The Taj Mahal looks more magnificient here than in Agra , so do the Eiffel Tower and Niagara Falls .The couple frolicking in the bloated balloon on the waters in the park was another interesting innovation .
'We have been noones colony , so we have great pride ' said Christy , my guide , smiling her cheery smile .
But , food was an issue everywhere - bland and non-spicy .
The best Chinese food you get is in Mainland China in Mumbai !

Get shorty !

Whats common to Louis Gestner , Napoleon , Hitler , Amir Khan , Naresh Goyal , PV Narasimha rao , Nicholas Sarkhozy , Sachin Tendulkar , Ricky Ponting , Rani Mukherjee , Salman Khan and Sunil Gavaskar ?
They are all short guys who have made it big in life .
So what makes short guys tick ?
I think its the tenacity of purpose , it's the need to prove themselves and the desire to go the extra distance that makes them work . Each of them goes the extra mile when many give up so that they create the success they need so badly . Because for the rest of the world , looking good itself is a reward , being tall , handsome and good looking in itself gives it a sense of accomplishment and then to further actualize they need to create a newer 'need' - need for recognition , need for money or power that will then drive them to greater heights . But for the shorties, being short itself is the beginning .
Naresh Goyal has pulled out an airline out of the blue while the goodlooking blokes like Pervez Damania abandoned their plans mid-day for the good life . Sarkhozy sweats hard to make the French toil harder for their bread and pull his country from dangers of global recession .
Hitler and Napoleon created havoc across countries with their exploits , driven by their own inner desire to actualize and prove a point . Again , beyond a point how much land does a man need ? Look at Boris Yelstin and Michael Gorbachev - handsome guys both , created new revolutionary political concepts but gave it up before implementing any of the Glasnost and Perestroika they talked about .
PVN Rao stood like a dwarf amongst world leaders wherever he went , but created the most sustained economic revolution that india has ever seen lasting as of today a full 18 years . Ponting , Tendulkar and Gavaskar were great at their craft and took the game to the next level with sheer grit and tenacity .
Even in the Army , during the NDA and IMA periods , it is the tall and lanky guys who get most of the plum assignments and get to dance the most beautiful girls during parties , but its the shorter officer who works his way upto the Chief of Army Staff position by agreeing for all the dirty assignments , winning people in the trenches with empathy , driving himself to the hilt and walking away with the final glory .
See a short guy around ?
Keep an eye on him . He could go places .
Better still , be like him and you will go too .

Two young kings !

Nine amazing days in Egypt introduced to this wonder of the world called Egyptian history . It wasn't so much the pyramids , but the entire experience of sailing on the Nile for four days , the zipping through Greek and ROman history in Alexandria , the ceaseless haggling over antiques , the hunt for cleopatra's bust , the felucca ride to Banana island , the saharan climate with miles and miles of desert and the lovely overnight train ride from Cairo to Aswan and then back from Luxor to Cairo .
The Egyptians have done an outstanding part of packaging their history and also knocking out that part of Greco-Roman history that does nto suit them . The absence of Chinese fakes all over the curios and antiques shops is the real wonder of the world .
The blueness of the mediterranean sea is rivalled by the blueness ( yeah, right - 'blue'ness ) of the red sea .The two kings that have created Egptian history are Tutankhamen and Alexander ( my fav king al them all ) . King Tutankhamen was king when he was 8 and died when he was 18 , while Alexander died at 32 . They pretty much had half the world under them by the time they died .
The Luxor and Karnak temples were eye-popping.
The most exhilarating thing of it all was getting clicked next to the bust of Alexander near the bibliotheque alexandrina on the corniche at Alexandria !
Enchanted enough to do a trail through Saharan Egypt someday .