Marine Drive in 1998

I was more funkier twenty years back. Denim, white belt, badge and Gladwellish hair !

2009

How does one describe 2009?

Amongst the newsmakers- Andhra stood out. Starting the year with the massive Satyam scam, it staged an upset by winning the IPL in SA, from being a team written off last season, then the summer saw it being ravaged by floods washing away towns, the landslide victory of the congress was overshadowed with the dramatic death of its CM and then out of the blue the state almost split into two bringing many other forgotten statehood aspirations to the fore.

Amongst the TIME magazines best books of 2009 - fiction & non-fiction, this year I managed to read none, though I read a lot many non-fiction works this year.

I turned 40 this year. Like they say life begins at 40. Maybe I need to re-invent myself. Take up marathon running for instance. Maybe I will get younger. Maybe I should give in to wanderlust and try to backpack Europe next summer as I have been dreaming the last couple of years? Maybe I should burn midnight oil and finish my novel ? Salsa ? Maybe. Read 25 books? Maybe.

All in all, I think 2009 was a 'paused' sort of year - the year with the lull before the storm.

2010, I reckon, will be the year of action.

Valuelessness

I think the parallel process of denigration of values following the transition to capitalism has slowly begun. Myth and fiction are being inter-twined creating a new confused Indianess.
There is a serial on Ravana, extolling his virtues as a king, not 'demon' king. Ramayana has been re-serialized in a 4-book form and presented as fiction. The video games on Ramayana have you fight demons with the bow and arrow acting as Ram and there is a new movie in the works which presents Mahabarata from Draupadi's point of view ! Saw a management book on case studies recently that carried a line- who will you choose- Krishna or his army?
Last weekend , I finished reading Ozamu Tezaku's 8 volume graphic novel 'Buddha' . The illustrations are quite stunning and the story moves quite rapidly - the journey of Buddha's birth to enlightenment is detailed even though it is classified as a work of fiction.
The book is, however, full of nudity, expletives,racism, profanity and violence.
How is a 10 year old kid to read it ? And what is he to retain from it? Whose version of mythology is it? Does being classsified as fiction give it the license to distort and represent old myths ? Fictionalizing myth further will dilute the Indian value context and leave behind confused meanings.
And in 10 years, what will be left of the original Indian Mythology?

You ain't seen nothin yet !

Here's what Yogi Berra means
A snapshot of numbers and growth of various products and services over the last 10 years:
Product/service: 1999 nos: 2009 nos: % growth
ATMs : 1100 :40000 :3636%
Air passengers(mn):12:54:450%
Coffee shops:9:1200:13333%
DTH(mn):0:16
Internet users(mn):1.5:55:3667%
Mobile users(mn)1.2:449.3:37442%
Multiplexes:1:900:90000%
PC's in India(mn):1:7.6:760%
Desktops(mn):1:5.4:540%
Laptops ('000):23:2200:9565%
FM Radio stations:0:280
TV channels:75:426:568%

Phenomenal.
Here's a list of new cars launched in India in 2009:
i20, Spark, Jazz, Ritz, Astar, Linea, Punto, Merc E class, Audi A6, Passat, zetta,Fortuner, Estilo, Zylo, Altis, Altis sport, Rangerover, Road liner, Jaguar, Landrover, Nissan, Nano, Beetle ( coming in Nov), Golf, Tuareg, Polo( coming in Dec) !
India has suddenly turned to become a market for global brands now that most other markets are deep in the red with no consumer demand.

The best is yet to come.

What next for Balika Vadhu viewers ?

Television has changed significantly over the last couple of years.
Maybe it reflects the changing demographic structure of society or maybe it is leading the change. Time was when rural audiences were the core viewing group, as there was one uniform India - licenced, protected, uncompetitive and poor- and the need was to reflect their reality. Then came 1991. India became free again and tasted capitalistic independence -with abundance, choice and wealth. Print added color and skin, Television added slickness , svelteness and instantness, Radio added the music and the internet re-defined urban. The Aspirational housewifes dreams found satisfaction in the well-decked bahus and saas'es with the scandals and affairs reflecting capitalistic values again- choice, competitiveness and infidelity - to brands and men. Over the years, another adaptive format of capitalism- competitiveness and identity- in the form of reality shows emerged in all formats of talent- laughter, singing, dancing, dating, fighting, driving, or just staying together - competing to win.
India was definitely split - into two , three or maybe four India's - the rural , the emerging, the developed and the evolved. The mass at the bottom remained rural but the pace of growth of 1991 had now caught up with them and they had access to cable- so wanted to identify with that content - Colors, followed by Zee, Star and everyone paved the way for such new rural social-issue oriented programming.
Every other day, there is a new car being launched costing anything from 80 lakhs to 5 cr. There are watches costing 0ver a lakh, bags worth many lakhs, shirts and trouser brands costing 50,000 rupees available at showrooms. And at the other end, there is a sachet for every product priced at Re.1 to create newer market segments that can migrate upwards to buying the pack.
A kid born today has atleast 20 channels he can spend his childhood in front of and then he will maybe migrate away from the medium by the time he is 12-13 and get onto the internet and maybe migrate to the mobile by 17-18.
What medium will he consume when he is twenty?
Its unlikely to be television as it is today, for sure.

Fine city -Singapore !

Singapore looks like a nursery.
Everything is monitored and everyone is well dressed. Noone breaks any rules and cleanliness is the way of the world.
The country is rightfully positioned as a world city and is truly integrated into the global economy. Many ads for basic products like housing and shopping use expat models. Food is truly multi-cultural. Having faced tough choices about food in most of South East Asia- HongKong, Kaula Lumpur, Macau, Bangkok and China , Singapore was a breeze- basic edible fare with vegetables was available everywhere- including in the Jurong bird park and Sentosa island. The good Orchard hotel which hosted us( cost quite a packet though) had an Indian menu everyday.
Patches of Singapore look like Chennai - Little India for sure with its zillions of tamilians and the ananda bhavans and banana leaf restaurants ; while some parts reflected the city's multi-ethnicity - Chinatown with white-as-paper chinese people and the consistent smell of fish oil and Arab street with its Malayasian Muslims.
The city cheekily advertises itself as a fine city- full of fines - fines for smoking, traffic, spitting, importing chewing gum to get people in line. The best control for rush hour is to fine the drivers - there is a 30% surcharge for peak hour traffic and a 50% surcharge on taxi fares on weekends.
At 41 rupees to a singapore dollar, it is expensive as taxes account for 5-10% of the rate. A bottle of water is 8 bucks and any cab ride spills into hundreds. The city-country is also trying hard to catch up with Malaysia and HongKong to get tourists with investments in resort city etc. The 120 page Strait Times also chronicled the post-recession problems of Singaporeans, the issues with expats and the aspirations of the local population. The stock market was rebounding and was in good shape while the bank interest rates stayed close to the 1% mark.
The other intersting thing was the continual re-development - each building had been torn down every couple of years to make way for a more smarter,slicker building keeping the city chic 24X7.
With only a 700 sq km area and a population of 27 million, geographically, its only a patch on Mumbai, forget matching to India's size.
Like the taxi driver driving us to Jurong on Ayer Raja Expressway said, you can finish Singapore in 4 days, but even in 4 years, you will only know so little of India.
How true !

On business - 3

Democratization has set in for good.
There was a time in the 1960s and 1970s when IAS was the coveted job to do. Then came Engineering and Medicine that ruled the roost for very many years. Till one day in mid-1991, PVN Rao liberalized the country. Management and Chartered Accountancy suddenly became the rage.
Today, eighteen years later, anything is ok - fashion design, culinery courses, acting , interior design, real estate , NGO and charities are all considered at par. Water management , Civil engineering, Nanotechnology and Petroleum engineering are as coveted as Computer technology. A Dentist is as coveted as a Neurosurgeon.
'Business' was looked down upon and the middle class dream ended with a service and retirement pension. A pawn broker was looked down with contempt. Now, credit card and mortgage firms pay the highest salaries.The economy has shifted from being agrarian and industrial to knowledge driven. And one cold afternoon late last year, Jet Airways tried to retrench 1900 people, resulting in a huge stir, political protests, an apology from the chairman and a re-instatement of the people . A month later, as the world came crashing down financially, Jet quietly removed over a thousand of its employees without a protest. Hire and Fire is now an accepted part of Indian corporate world for good, settling the Union issue once and for all.
Accountability has also reached high standards. You need to tread the straight and the narrow - with judicial and media activism, its difficult to fool all the people all the time anymore.
And while its cool to be an entrepreneur in the knowledge economy, there's now a level playing field for first gen entrepreneurs.
Heave Ho !

On business - 2

The entreprenuer differs from the manager in only one aspect - risk apetite. This reflects directly on the rewards. An entreprenuer gambles big and makes it big, but a manager trades his skills for smaller, safer returns. The entrepreneur manages his external environment and needs skills to negotiate his way in the world , the manager manages his people and so focuses on operational efficiency.
Can a manager make a transition to entrepreneur ? While they are necessarily cut from different cloth ,some managers migrate to become entrepreurs and some even behave as entrepreneurs in their role with a high degree of ownership and responsibility which is occasionally traded for some stake in the firm.

The US is a great example of how an entire society is built on entrepreneural skills. Punjabis and Gujaratis adapted quickly into that environment and blended their entrepreneural skills with Jews, Britishers, East Europeans etc. South Indians waited for Y2K and leapt into the couldron with many IT ideas for outfits of all sizes, sweeping away the BPO business and SAP implementation worldwide. As the internet came into its own, a new generation of entrepreneurs was born.
The tech world also needs extensive collaboration - IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, HP and Google all need each other to survive. Unlike the rest of the industries, IT has high inter-dependence. Everyone is a cog in the wheel. Entrepreneurship comes easily in this space, you need to find a small niche, seek small funds, get guys with stars in their eyes on board with equity, build your product, find the wheel that needs your cog, get valued, sell-out and exit with your millions. Orace, for instance, has bought 52 companies in the last 24 months.
Most other businesses - TV sets, Cellphones, Cars,Films, Burgers, Garments - need you to market your product and find consumers. The tech world doesn't need you to find consumers, it only needs you to find the nearest complimentary product and then together you can tango ! e.g. The iphone has spurred over 6500 apps, each of whom on revenue share can roll in the moolah. The app makers focus on the open source code of the phone and create zillions of games etc. that people will download for a fee. A revenue share worked with the phone maker can fund your lifetime of travel.

The trick is in finding the idea.

On business.

How is it that some people can create enormous businesses generating large scale employment and creating a lot of wealth in the process, while a large majority are destined to plough the till and seek salvation by becoming Sisyphuses ?
Maybe its in the genes. All of working humanity can arguably be divided into four parts - workers, managers, entrepreneurs and geniuses or talent. Talent creates the idea, entrepreneurs convert it into reality, managers run the ops and workers run the processes. The wheels of business churn to produce so as the rest of the world to consume - be it knowledge or goods or services.
Since these layers are a pyramid, there are very few entrepreneurs and fewer geniuses or talent, but a whole lot of workers at the base.
Workers slog to create EBIDTA while the entrepreneur laps up the PAT. Innumarable CxOs create inumerable balance sheets and stare at quaterly humungous profits, but none thinks of the possibility of creating that value for oneself. Some take the leap from one classification to the next- from manager to entrepreneur and maybe genius. Infosys is an example- Nandan and Murty have climbed the complete ladder. If Nandan cracks the national ID project, he is absolute bankable 'talent'. Sreedharan after the Delhi Metro has orders from the world over including Pakistan. Jobs, Buffet, Gates, Tata are gifted. But so are Subramaniam of Subhiksha, Majumdar of Symbiosis, Parekh of HDFC - they are among the many who have built businesses from scratch.
Now, if hard work, perseverance and some luck turns a worker into a manager, what helps make the transition from manager to entrepreneur?
And then to genius ?

All quiet on the western front

Just finished reading Erich Maria Remarque's 'All quiet on the western front'. Quite an engrossing war novel. Its the story of a nineteen year old german boy, Paul Baumer, fighting in the World War I for a cause he doesn't know or understand is quite intense. Erich participated in the War himself , was hospitalized and lost his mother during that time, so the story is pretty much modelled around his own deep-rooted feelings on the purposelessness of war and the toll it takes on the people who participate in it. He gives away the lopsided nature of the war when refers to the fighting French, British and American soldiers as being inferior to german soldiers but having better rations, weaponry and tanks. In a way, the book is quite similar to Joseph Hellers Catch-22, except that Yossarian accepted the futility of the war and wanted to escape,feining ill health and madness while Baumer doesn't protest, he accepts his duty as a soldier and comes back to the front lines & trenches to do as commanded. Maybe because Yossarian was older. Remarque constantly reflects on the wretchedness and inhumanity of war and how soldiers are plain statistics in a war. Im Westen nichts Neues - nothing new on the western front. Dying German soldiers, the killing of British or French is part of the rigor of war-nothing new. How a war leads to a slow loss of interest in life ,increasing uncertanity of what's to happen when one return to normal work- almost dreading the thought emerges as stark reality through the key characters. Even as the one Baumer adores Stanislaus Katchinsky or Kat , who is so full of joie-de-vivre finally meets a bloody end, Baumer lives on unsure.
The book was banned in Germany and when Remarque wrote a sequel The road back about what would have happened if the soldier survives a war and returns to normal life, both his books were burnt. The movie versions ( 1930 and 1979) did better - both winning oscars for best picture.
Terrific book.

Archers in town

Dear Mr. Archer,

It was great meeting you at landmark the other day. Must confess that I have read many of your books and at one point, I owned over ten of them.

Have been wondering about quite a number of things about your writing-

a. It is quite evident that none of your books have been made as movies but have only made it to TV versions and adaptions. Do your plots not lend themselves to the movie format or is your asking price too high?

b. Is it true that in order to fight the advent of movies and TV, one tends to write more action centric novels and not character novels that you are good at. At the turn of the last century, there were many great books written -with long elaborate character sketches and a long winding scripts -all of which we bundle together as classics. The world war finished all that style of writing and gave birth to 'cold-war' writing with thrillers from - alistair maclean, forsyth, tom clancy, ian fleming, sheldon etc. focussed on the cold war and espionage. You have avoided all this and focused on drama. Are you afraid of action?

c. Everyone has a specialised in a certain form of fiction - Michael Chricton - science fiction; Grisham - legal, Tom clancy - cold war, Steven king - horror; each has had many movie version successes as action lends itself well to movies. You have stayed focussed on drama, relatiosnhips and middle class aspirations- more TV stuff than movies material.

With Paths of glory being a real life story and your next book being a re-writing of Kane and Abel- maybe you have finally run out of stories. In fact, the last 4 of your books are real life- including your prison diaries. In response to a query on your favourite books, you had said that 'The Count of Monte Christo'( I have always thought your favourite own book 'Not a penny more,not a penny less' was actually inspired from Dumas's novel ) and All quiet on the western front ( you happily signed this one for me) were your best and amongst your own books ,your wife liked 'As the Crow flies'. My favourite is 'First amongst equals'- liked everything about it from the title to the way the story pans out and the way it ends.

Hope to have a book of my own for you to sign when I meet you next time.

cheers
naveen

p.s. You are very right when you say that while we could accept coincidences in real life, we quite dislike them in stories.

What a win !

They say the PM will be the first to do a Nehru encore- do a two term in the parliament.Here's what I think worked for this govt. in teh elections-

1. This election was a formality - the govt. had handled and won in the past year many battles with the opposition so winning this war was a formality. The trust vote; the nuclear deal; the immediate political action after 26/11 - the PC move to Home, the instant CM change in Mah., the pursuit of Pakistan; the immediate action after Satyam- the enquiry, new board, the sale;the stock market management from letting it crash to 7500 and recover to 12000 and even the thorny Jagdish Tytler affair on the eve of elections- all of this in just the last year was a testinomy of a solid working govt.

2. Agendas : The BJP didn't puruse any agenda- they didn't chase the job-loss story, the fiscal deficit, the rising prices, the Satyam scam and just repeated the temple agenda as their leaders fought. The country had moved on. The left lost after three generations of ruling Bengal- they couldn't save the Nano jobs and prevented the nuclear deal which everyone thought was good for the country.

3. Leaders - I think Rahul Gandhi symbolizes youth and his entry has led to many many young people joining congress in leadership positions, BJP has none. Modi and Jaitley couldn't reconcile the rest of the leaders. Pramod Mahajan was missed. Not changing Vsundhrara raje scindhia cost them Rajastahan. Lalu ran out of funny one-liners while Nitish attempts to build roads like Hema Mailni's cheeks were rewarded. The PM is an economist, intelligent and clean guy.

4. Work on ground - Rahul worked in the hinterland for the last 2 odd years , making inroads into Mayavati turf, Mamata eroded the left with her victory on Nano, YSR freed hospitals from corporates and gave them to the poor, Karunanidhi delivered 60 lac TVs as promised, Shiela Dixit is awesome - running Delhi like a company and Shashi Tharoor is a cool guy - he walked across and cleared his posters in trivananthapuram. Sonia turned out to be a great leader, selflessly holding the fort together.

The next 5 years will rock.

Sensex at 25000 is my biggest bet.

Now what?

Arun: Hey, listen. Somethings happening to me.
Mohit: What?
Arun: In the last 4-5 weeks, I have met over 5-6 people from my past.
Mohit: You attended an alumni meet or something?
Arun: No, no. These are people from my distant past- my first boss of over 20 years ago, my class benchmate of over 30 years, my school friend after over 15 years and two collegue after over a dozen years.
Mohit: Wow! Must have been fun.
Arun: Thats the point. I didn't find it too much fun to connect.
Mohit: Why?
Arun: It foxed me, so I thought about it for a long time over last weekend. It seems to me now that the issue is over-familiarity. I had already sort of met them. With a linkedin profile peek , flikr photograph albums, facebook conversations , messanger chats, youtube videos, blogged thoughts and the texted twitter 24X7 shadowing, I knew what they had done every minute in the many many years that had passed between when I met them last and now. So when I met them it looked like I had met them last week !
Mohit: Ha
Arun : This is the age of extreme and instant familiarity. Imagine meeting the girl who sat on the same bench as you 30 years back and have nothing to say. Just because for the last 6 months you have exchanged so much information that you were almost on the same bench all along!
Mohit: You are so right.
Arun :The other day I met my first boss of 20 years back and we discussed things we could do together. There was no mention of the 20 years because that was what we discussed over the last 3 months !
Arun : Wonder how our relationships will be defined in the years to come with so much personal information hanging out in public, so furiously, so often.

Zoozoos for Bozos

The current Idea , Lead India and Tata Tea advt campaigns are wonderfully effective.
The fact that they were launched many months ahead of the elections means that they had the time to grow in peoples minds in an non-intrusive way. If they had been launched now, it would have been a normal campaign - communicate brand values by utilizing a current subject making it topical and create resistance in the minds of consumers.
Great marketing - good timing, great execution and packaging.

The Vodafone campaign is the most clutter breaking one I have seen in recent times. The Zoozoos are a rage - think of it - the communities of 26/11 , elections & cricket franchisees, all mostly in teh 25000 to 30000 range on facebook and youtube are half of the zoozoo community , around 65000. That too created with an under 25 days of exposure. For a brand to have lived many lives, it is only expected. Look at brand values of Orange (great recall even now- built on theatre and beethovan concerts) changing to Hutch ( re-built on the pug, innnovation- 10buck pack etc. and many many retail tie-ups) and then to Vodafone ( re-built on the pug+girl story last year , customer service, VAS and now zoozoos ) and yet retaining and growing customers keeping the core premium positioning intact.
Amazing !

Dated breath and a Demi-God

If Chelsea win in the FA cup finals (and I am praying it will ) and Premier league, Gus Hiddink will turn Demi-God . Not since Jose Mourinho has Chelsea fought like such a cohesive team. The two terrific back-to-back performances, against Liverpool in the league and against Arsenal in the FA cup semis is already making other teams wary. The Liverpool match will rank maybe as one of the finest high-stakes matches palyed by Chelsea. With the see-saw resulting in a 4-4 draw, it was quite a setback for Liverpool. Arsenal began with a lead and went down 2-1 in match with a record attendance ( over 88000 people ) at the Wembley making it an all blue finals in May.
Drogba is in outstanding form just in time - as the Champions league semi-final with Barcelona , the Barclays premier league match with Arsenal and the final with Everton come up over the next couple of weeks.
This new-found Chelsean ability to resurrect themselves from downunder, to react to the goal scored by winning is stuff of legends. The pressure of the scored goal binds the team into some sort of a vengeful fighting machine, bringing out the best in them, and amid great drama and suspence, they score towards the dying moments of the game, so much so that one now assumes it will happen each time.
This team is not for the faint-hearted !

Socha hai - the answers.

Answers to the Javed- Farhan Akhtars song from Rock on.
Aasman hai neela kyon? – This is due to dispersion of light, technically called Rayleigh scattering. As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths ( red, yellow, orange) pass straight through however, the shorter wavelengths ( blue) are absorbed by the gas molecules and then radiated in different directions. This scattered blue light is what makes aasman neela .
Paani geela geela kyon? – Simple principles of adhesion, cohesion and surface tension apply here.Water’s molecular structure makes it good at forming hydrogen bonds and bipolar bonds with other materials. That's why it's so good at adhesion (sticking to things). Liquids like water, alcohol and kerosene have less surface tension and low viscosity so they wet the skin, leaving a thin viscous residue on the surface. ON the other hand liquids like Mercury with high surface tension don’t wet .
Gol kyon hai zameen? – The circular shape is due to the gravitational pull of the earth. It pulls all nature towards its core resulting in a shape that is circular.
Silk mein hai narmi kyon? – Silk is manufactured from the nest of silkworm,which is made up of liquid secreted by silkworm,It is not fibre like cotton so is much softer.
Aag mein garmi kyon? – Fire creates an exothermic chemical reaction that agitates & excites the molecules in an object. This agitated motion of these molecules creates heat. The more they move around the more heat they give off. This heat is transferred through the air and can be felt by us through radiation.
Do aur do paanch kyun nahin? – This is defined by the numeric system – sum of two even numbers is an even number. Now, don’t ask 6 kyon nahin !
Ped ho gaye kam kyon? – Afforestation – trees meet many human needs – paper, rubber, furniture, transport. Also leading to global warming – Al Gore’s fav subject.
Teen hai ye mausam kyon? – Rotation around the suns orbit creates varying intensity from the Sun leading to 3 seasons. In some parts of the country , theres no rain so its more like summer all year round !
Chaand do kyon nahin? – There are two moons ! Earth has two moons; the first one is the one we all know called 'chaand ' the second is 'Cruithne' a 3 mile lump of rock that takes 770 years to cycle its orbit. A collision between our planet and another body created a debris which got caught in our gravity and formed the moon.
Duniya mein hai jung kyon? – This is metaphysical – quite beyond physics. Tribal survival instincts lead to war and will continue to do so. Some parts of the world are still evolving – defining new reasons for fights and redrawing boundaries.
Behta laal rang kyon? – Corollary to the above. Jung leads to laal rang. Purely physical.
Sarhadein hai kyon har kahin? – Purpose keeps vitality, differences create eliminiation of options and Darvinian theory leads to survival of the fittest.
Behti kyon hai har nadee? – All matter flows from high to low till even – rivers originate from the high mountains and hills and flow into oceans
Hoti kya hai roshni? – Millions of tones of Hydrogen is converted into helium every minute in the Sun creating immense heat & light. In the night, the Reflected light from moon gives the ‘roshini’
Dost kyon hai rooth te? – Transactional Analysis in play here. The three stages of Parent – Adult – Child create many permutations of behaviour, one of them is an emotional blackmail. In negotiations when you don’t want to argue logically, you assume a child state and ‘rootho’ , creating a temporary artificial advantage.
Taare kyon hai toot te? –Keep in mind that shooting stars really aren't stars at all. They are debris from space buring up entering earths atmosphere
Badalon mein bijli hai kyon ? During a storm, a build up of electrons in the upper layers of the clouds causes Lightening. These electrons are attracted towards the positive potential of the earth, but air’s stiff resistance doesn’t allow the electricity to pass through easily. When a huge potential has been accumulated, the electricity forces its way through the air molecules. This causes a lot of friction and hence releases a tremendous amount of heat energy causing thunder. Lightning usually strikes the highest point and the most positively charged area. This is becuz lightning looks for the easiest way out of air.
Sanaata sunaee nahin deta – newtons first law- matter remains in motion till external force acts. Sound is created by movement of air molecules. If molecules are static, so sound is ultrasonic and one can’t hear it.
Aur hawaein dikhayee nahin deteen – air made up of various transparent - gases Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, Carbon Dioxide, Neon, Helium, Methane, Krypton, Hydrogen and Xenon
socha hai… ye tumne kya kabhi? socha hai… ki hai yeh kya sabhi?socha hai… socha nahi toh socho abhi
socha hai… kya kabhi… hota hai ye kyon?

Noone knows a thing

The sensex has crossed 10500, an unexpected 25% jump from where it was just two weeks ago.
All analysts and brokers predicted the bear market rally ( from sensex at 7600 in Oct to 8800 in Mar ) reversal at any moment and predicted newer lows in the next 2 weeks ( maybe 5000, one analyst told me ) . That was last week.
The same analysts are predicting the current rallys peak now ( maybe 12500, another broker tells me today)!
"Bear market rallies aren't uncommon,' had said a global guru two weeks back ,' but having thus far and no further. "
"What we are seeing is only domestic investor action, the FIIs are only net sellers. Over 11000cr has been invested by indian institutional investors and the market is flat - indicating that its the FII money that moves the Indian markets. And considering the latest US industry data, it seems quite some time coming", said a TV presenter last tuesday
"I am selling all emerging markets. Maybe second half is when I will come back" said another investment guru at the end of last weeks markets summary
"Downgrade", said a rating agency of a couple of stocks
"Sensex at 5000 in the near term", said an analyst
"Sell at next rally"
"Buy at lows"
I wanted to hold Reliance, my broker said sell- I sold at 1500. It's 1700 today. Just five days after I sold .
I wanted to buy more of L&T at 565 two weeks back. 'The way it is chasing Satyam, it will go to 300' said an insurance head. I didn't buy. It's 770 today.
I wanted to buy ICICI at 305 in the same week. 'This is a stock with amazing NPAs. Everyone' s dumping it.' Sure enough, next three days ICICI hit 275. Today its at 374.
I bought Satyam at 46. When it hit 38 last week, I buzzed my broker wanting to buy treble the stock quantity and lower my average buy price. 'No way, money down the drain', he said', wait till it gets directions'. Talk of directions, in 2 sessions, it has hit 46. With my intuitive averaging out buy, I would have been +3 bucks on the stock.
Tata group is in Rs. 1 trillion debt, thats 90% of the groups turnover. Sell all Tata. Today, eight trading days later, all its stocks are up 15%. Debt be dammed.
Noone knows a thing.
Today, all analysts are saying just the opposite of what they said two weeks ago - all is hunky dory, life has changed, everyone has got jobs , G20 summit was great, Paulson's done the bailout trick, madoffs in jail , elections far away.
Here's a prediction from Barclay capitals aired this afternoon - 'this bull run will last the next three quarters of 09'
I am not buying !

Will the Internet be the 'Last Man Standing' in 2025?

A richer, depleted and younger planet will only access a quick , precisely targetted and cost&time-effective medium. The Guardian is already online, having stopped its print edition yesterday. The internet is the largest medium in the Uk already. Music downloads on mobile is 5 times the music industry in india today.Video content being 'searched' will be a bigger market than broadcast. Movie downloads on broadband will be bigger than multiplex collections. Content production will change dramatically to adopt to the net's needs.

So in 15 years, will the internet be the only medium left - offering massive choice , comfort and affordability ?

Comics - no relief !

Wanting to buy the graphic novel on the never-ending war in Lebanon, ' Waltz with Bashir', I rummaged my mouse through amazon.com to discover some good things about online buying and some nasty truths about graphic novels.
Book buying on the net has come a long way since I bought my first book on rediff in 1998. The book 'Kotler on Marketing' was delivered from Shankars in Bangalore with a nice pyramidal bookmark . It was a no-frills experience- some discount, a 3-day delivery promise and no status-of-order check. Have since bought many more books - the experience is better now except that there's no discount and delivery takes 15-20 days but you can track the order on the cell phone. Would rather have the discount and 3 day delivery without the SOD check. Better than rediff is the buying experience on Amazon, one for its reviews- and two for the near-brick&mortar-purchase experience. The best is its trademarked feature 'Look Inside' which actually opens the books pages for a sneak peek at the index, prologue, first chapters and epilogue for a quick browse before buying. A bookstore experience, but without the 'butt-brush' factor. Albiris, on the other hand, is a store with terrific choice- the same book is available in hardcover to paperback , signed copies to pre-owned to first editions at varying price points. Sometimes the first quoted price is a 10th of the last copy. Becasue whats the point of buying online if you can't get the browse experience and the discount ?
Now to Waltz with Bashir.
Why are the graphic novels as expensive as they are.
The DVD of '300' - based on the spartan-persian war can be had at Rs.400 , the book is Rs.500 but its graphic novel is twice that at Rs.950. Try Agatha Christie's novels - most cost close to Rs.300 today while the graphic novels cost Rs.650 upwards. This is one mystery even she wouldn't be able to solve!
I grew up on comics - ( no ipod, playstation , gameboys , computers ,multiplexes , DVD players and cellphones in those days. A weekly movie meant a trek to the open-air movie theatre in the army unit with a dress code- tie, shoes and full sleeve shirts !) So my companions were comics - Amar chitra kathas, indrajal and diamond comics, commandos ,tintin and asterix alongwith the daily newspaper episodes of Tarzan, Woody Allen ,Bo peep, Calvin , Garfield , Mutt&Jeff , Bringing up father and later the Mad magazines of which I have a huge set. The most expensive amongst the lot were Herge's Tintin and Asterix at near Rs.75, quite reasonable even almost 5 times the price of an ACK then .Even the graphic novels of David Copperfield or Three Musketeers were quite easy on the wallet. IN the pricing hierarchy, their book-versions were always much more expensive.
Things have been turned on their head.
Suddenly, a graphic novel is the most expensive version of the story. An animated movie like Persepolis or Waltz with Bashir has DVD versions at Rs.400 but graphic novel versions are 25% more expensive. My experience with print tells me it costs probably much lesser to make a comic than a book.
Is it the target groups propensity to buy, then? An Asterix costs under Rs.700 now, so assuming people are ready to spend that much for a comic, shouldn't a graphic 'novel' cost more?
Is that why it sits smugly in that high price range?
Some graphic novels are too shallow- no plot, too many characters, some erratic strokes and colors and an unfinished agenda- prompting a sequel ! Scam absolutely, if there was one.
Finally,is it that the audience seeks multiple experiences around the same story? So, will Harry Potter book and movie versions follow with a graphic novel version ? Now that the Potter theme park is launching in December this year.
Is the reader of the book , the viewer of the movie and the player of the game the same ?
And will he pay another 1000 bucks for the graphic novel ?
Maybe .
Can't figure why.

Borrowed Fame

Last week I had finished reading Tom Sharpe's The Great Pursuit about a guy lending his name to a book by an anonymous author who didn't want to attach his name to his book. With dry Sharpe humor, it turned out to be an intellectual plot peppered with some dramatic action between London & New York, as the 'pseudo writer' becomes famous and carves out a 'fictitious' life of his own, extracting revenge in the bargain.
The 1951 movie, 'The Front' ,which I watched yesterday, had Woody Allen playing a cashier at a restaurant, masquerading as a writer , when he actually was a 'front' for a set of blacklisted 'communist' authors. He sees this as his escape from the drudgery of the cash register, but this is the cold war '50's and the FBI is hot on trial of any communist whiff. The relationship formed with a beautiful TV production manager, as a result of the weekly 'scripts' he is providing, form the rest of the interesting story till an abrupt ending leaves you thinking about the need to be truthful !
Quite a set of coincidental stories of pretentious authors and consequences of 'borrowed fame' to swallow in the Ides of March!

Car and TV fights

Two very interesting pieces caught my attention in the latest issue of Businessworld and bought back memories of having participated in those battles and return with similar lessons. The first dealt with the fight between LG and Samsung and the second between Toyota and Honda. Coming 6-7 months into the slowdown,both make quite fascinating reading. The last time I drove down the Greater Noida highway to the LG factory, it was mid-summer of 2006. Across various divisions, we made audacious presentations to take the season by radioactive storm. LG turned it down as they were changing tack, the new CEO Shun was seeking to re-position LG from being a mass-market leader to a mass-premium player ( a new segment most companies in boom-time India had created to chase both volume and value - to keep the mass and attempt the premium or viceversa - to whip the cream and drink the milk at the same time). Samsung in the meantime was attempting the reverse. I remember that after my Samsung presentation, I was told that the dealer budgets had now increased from 0.5% to 2.5% of the 4% allocated to advertising and promotion, signifying a shift in strategy to tactical incentivisation. Of course, we managed to attack the regional offices for our share of monies, but the strategic shift stayed in my mind for some time. I thought highly about Korean flexibility. Sony and Phillips in contrast weren't as nimble- sticking to steady premium-technology positioning for years. Both never attempted a price cut or looked at the mass markets.

It seems today, as the article says, that the positioning shifts attempted by LG and Samsung have not yielded the desired results. LG has skidded off its leadership plank and given way to Videocon while Samsung has slipped further. The trade, which was used to LG's agression suddenly needed to look at a new mass player and it helped that Videocon was around to fill the gap. Probably LG's Kims' move to Videocon helped too. Samsungs' consumers were also left confused - as is the wont of any premium brand when it goes mass. The slowdown was a final nail.

The drive to Toyota on the Mysore road is great and the sight of thousands of cars parked in the plant at Bidadi is exhilarating. Have only seen the Maruti, Gurgaon and the Daewoo,Noida plants, so in incomparison this looked much larger. We had to leave our cell-phones at the out-gate and walk the distance to the factory office. IN times of google maps and satellite pics, I thought it was a little archaic. Inside the plant, I saw Japanese excellence at work and learnt the truth about their brillance. The incredibly achieved brand swap of Qualis-Innova is a marketing case study. Toyota doesn't introduce a new model till its existing model has outgrown its profit and volume targets. So, its in it for the long haul. I thought this was a good strategy. After all, where was the hurry ?But the last three years have proved it wrong, or so it seems.

According to the piece alarmingly titled ' On the wrong track',it seems it is losing the battle in India. The Camry costs 21 lacs in India and only 10 lacs in the US. For an economy thats 15 times our size, how do they manage to buy the same car at less than half the price? Assembled locally with a similar 44% imported content, the Accord at 17 lacs is only 7 lacs more expensive than in the US . The 4 lac price differential is hurting volumes. The Corolla Altis, the new car launched phasing out the version I have, is priced above the Honda Civic (and should be!) but the absence of a car in the C segment to compete with the City and one to compete with the CRV are doing Toyota's slow expansion philisophy no good. The plan to launch an A seg car in 2011 will also put Toyota much behind in the race, considering Skoda launched one last year,GM two years back, Mercedes (a beauty at 55 lacs! ) and Honda is intending to do it next yr.

As GM contemplates bankruptcy, as Ford shares drop below $1, and as internationally, Toyota expects its first operating loss in 70 years, inspite of being so very conservative, it will be interesting how, like my team Chelsea, it makes a comeback.

Scarcely English

Dharmendra's character, a simple car driver in the movie 'Chalte Chalte, attempting to master the english language was aghast at the phonetical challenges some english words presented -  'to', 'do' and 'go' !

Why is the English language short of words ? Short so as to be forced to have different meanings in different contexts. Or sometimes have different words for similar objects and activities ?

e.g. The word 'Lie' can mean many things including as various forms of speech e.g. verb and adjective and can take on different meanings in context. While 'truth' means only one thing in all contexts. 

Similarly, 'drive' is physical, metaphysical and philosophical - and a verb or noun all in different contexts. ( I can walk english, talk english and speak english said Amitabh -summarizing pretty much how english can be used)

You 'drive' a car, 'drive' someone out of the house, summon inner 'drive' ,  'drive negative thoughts away' , park your car in the 'drive' or even go for a 'drive'. Finally, a screwdriver and a car-driver perform absolutely different functions !

Why do except and accept have to sound the same? Or dairy and diary resonate similarly?

Or why is awesome quite full of praise and aweful devoid of awe?

And why is it cowdung and bullshit? 

Secondly, what's with the silent alphabets? i.e. why is the 'p' necessary in pneumonia and why are 'k' and 'w' unnecessary in know?

 

Leadership lessons from Soccer: Scolari's failures

Pete Gill's article on why Scolari didn't deliver in the seven months he managed Chelsea makes for great reading. From a hero in Brazils 2002 world cup win to the villian in Chelseas premier league performances...

Pete Gill: Luiz Felipe Scolari was sacked after just seven months at Chelsea, F365 considers the reasons it went wrong for him so spectacularly and so quickly at Stamford Bridge...

Signing A Two-Year Contract
Questions about the wisdom of Scolari"s appointment were raised the moment it was announced he had put pen to paper on a two-year deal. Not only did the short-term undertaking suggest that his roots in London would be loose, but it also cast considerable doubt on whether he would - or could - provide the long-term outlook that many felt Chelsea desperately required after two years of gradual regression and their side relatively elderly compared to their closest rivals.

The brevity of that contract may have also served as his death warrant: While the sackings of Jose Mourinho and Avram Grant from their long-term deals cost Chelsea tens of millions in compensation, dismissing Scolari will have been comparatively cheap.

Did He Lose The Dressing Room?
According to Sky Sports News, the Chelsea players were "unhappy" with both Scolari"s tactics - specifically the refusal to use a 4-4-2 formation - and his "antiquated" training methods, while the BBC has reported that Roman Abramovich appeared at the training ground to "canvass the opinion of the senior players" last week. If true, then there is only one conclusion to draw from the axe falling this Monday.

Losing The Fans
Scolari"s substitutions became a weekly source of irritation to the Chelsea supporters, culminating in chants of "You don"t know what you"re doing" during Saturday"s dismal draw with Hull. That reaction may well have spooked the club"s hierarchy into believing that wielding the axe would be both an appropriate and popular measure; don"t forget that Jose Mourinho was ousted in the wake of less than 25,000 fans attending a Champions League qualifier 24 hours previously.

Failing To Adapt To Being A Club Manager Again
After so long as an international manager, did Scolari appreciate the different - and heightenend - demands that a return to club management would make? John Hollins, the former Chelsea boss, believes not. "Every day is very, very busy and I have to say I don"t think there was enough in there from him to carry it through."

There"s an interesting - if unverified - anecdote to endorse the suspicion. After the game with Middlesbrough, when it now appears that only a couple of late goals saved him from instant dismissal, Scolari failed to appear in front of the press. Why? According to reports, he had actually left the ground even before the final whistle to collect his son from St Pancras station.

Good parenting, to be sure, but hardly the sort of dedication to the job that Chelsea might have felt they were entitled to receive in return for his handsome remuneration.

Failing To Win Any Big Matches
Early February is an unusual time for managerial upheaval, but Chelsea"s record against fellow members of the Big Four this season - Played 5, Drawn 1, Lost 4 - didn"t just spell doom for their title tilt but also suggested that redemption in the Champions League wouldn"t be forthcoming either.

Chelsea"s statement that "In order to maintain a challenge for the trophies we are still competing for we felt the only option was to make the change now" reads as the club concluding they had nothing to lose - and plenty to gain - in acting so decisively ahead of the CL"s resumption in two weeks" time.

The Absence Of Plan B
Scolari took the Chelsea job after almost ten years out of club management and it showed. Once the flaw of his favoured formation, which used both full-backs to provide all the width, was exposed, Scolari seemed to run out of ideas.

Perhaps he was right to believe that Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba were incompatible but Scolari"s reluctance to try something different must have been a factor in the club believing he wasn"t capable of arresting "a deterioration at a key time of the season".

Failing To Speak The Lingo
Given the close relationship between communication and management, it was a puzzle from Scolari"s first garbled press conference that Chelsea had appointed a man who could barely make himself understood in the Premier League"s native tongue. If those press conferences were any guide, Chelsea"s players must have been the most confused in the country.

Failing To Inspire
The statement released by Chelsea suggests that the club had simply lost confidence and belief in Scolari. No wonder. There was simply no facet of his tenure that either inspired or convinced.

Performances, both individually and collectively declined, and the impression of a club going backwards was allowed to fester. Since the late summer, Chelsea have ceased to appear a happy unit and Scolari"s handling of Didier Drogba - which alienated rather than motivated - was a test of management that he failed.

Failing To Entertain
There is no arguing with results and Scolari would still be Chelsea manager if they were top of the league. Nonetheless, it is telling that Chelsea cited a decline in "performances" as well as results in their explanation for his ousting.

While it was never confirmed in public, the general impression last summer was that Avram Grant had been sacked because he failed to inspire an attacking brand of football. After a bright start, the entertainment provided by Scolari"s Chelsea deteriorated to the lowest level seen during the Abramovich era.

Losing Steve Clarke
Clarke"s departure wasn"t a headline act in September but it has become steadily clear ever since - both in terms of the defensive solidity he has organised at West Ham and the decline at Chelsea - that he was in fact an integral factor in the club"s recent success.

Building Around The Wrong Players
One of Scolari"s most prominent statements in the summer was that he would get the best out of Florent Malouda, making it sound like a simple procedure that only required the Frenchman to operate from his best position. So much for that theory. If anything, Malouda"s performances have declined this season from awful to the sort of thing you sometimes find at the bottom of your shoes. Worse, Scolari"s faith in the non-performing winger meant that he opted against buying any alternatives in the summer. Was this a factor in the club eventually pulling out of the Robinho chase?

It wasn"t until the final day of the January transfer window that width was acquired in the form of loan signing Ricardo Quaresma - by which time it was already far too late.

Building Around The Wrong Players, Part Two
While Deco was brilliant in his first few games this season, Barcelona"s ready acquiescence in offloading the midfielder was a clue to the slump that followed thereafter. The 31-year-old simply does not possess the legs to star over a campaign and, having built the side around him and hired no alternative, Deco"s sharp decline spelled doom for Scolari"s Chelsea.

But In His Defence...
Arguably the greatest trick Jose Mourinho pulled off at Chelsea was getting out when the going was still good and he retained a near god-like status amongst the fans.

Scolari, by contrast, arrived at Stamford Bridge just as Roman Abramovich was shutting his chequebook and an ageing Chelsea side, haunted by the trauma of Moscow, was beginning to decline.

The bottom line, however, must be that he played his hand appallingly.

Vote?

As the world largest democracy goes to the polls, I am faced with my quadrennial quandry - to vote or not to?

Mumbai has now been delimited into 6 parts each of roughly 15-16 lac voters, making it a 90lac voting constituency. Bandra is the biggest with 16.90 lac voters ( I thought Andheri might be the biggest what with the 50 odd lac people staying there, but the mere 15.5 lac registered voter base makes it smaller, so too with Dadar , which alongiwith Chembur is smaller than Bandra) Why does so much of Bandra vote?  Is it the literacy? Is it the slums around the airport and Dharavi? Is it just need to belong? Is it love for the city? 

I think we need a Chief Minister of Mumbai, separate from Maharastra. The key task is to make this a world city in some timeframe with absolute focus on infrastructure, efficiency and law enforcement. Without the worry about famine, monsoons and infrastructure in the rest of the state - just like Delhi manages itself with a CM.

Does my vote count? Last elections saw Govinda winning Mumbai-north by just 20,000 votes. Some constituencies split 50:50. ( Florida is famous) So each vote does count. 

Is the right guy standing? With a 40% turnout, 36lac people would have voted last time. If all were regular voters, the same guy and the same government would  come to power. 

Whats the electoral theme? Noone's got one this time around.( India shining bombed last time, so no theme is better than a mis-understood or mis-interpreted one) Reforms being irreversible, each successive govt can lay claim to it and improve it delta. 

Will I vote? I must, but crossing the registration hurdle is key.

Clearly, Manmohanics has got us this far. 

My virtual vote goes to him.

Wigan's way gone

Four in a row! 

Not counting the one Hiddink didn't really oversee as coach, its a hat-trick of wins for him taking Chelsea back right upto #2 in the EPL league with 55 points, 7 behind MU's 62. Though tied with Liverpool they have 1 more match win than them( 16 vs 15)

The first half sizzled with John Terry's scissor kick , the highest number of goals scored by a defender now belong to him,  gave Chelsea control but Wigan wrestled the control back with some good footwork and an 84th minute goal. 

Then Lampard got into a revenge masterpiece - a header into the net - bravo! 

They can complain about being 'pushed' for ever, ( the video is clear) but as Lampard said later, he didnt know if it could be a foul'.

Super soccer, nevertheless.

An ecstatic Abramovich couldn't hide his glee.

Me too.

Now why was Scolari not able to deliver while Guus seemingly can? 

Needs some study. Leadership mystery #1. 

Any goal in extra-time is special. More so if the combination thats to deliver delivers - what better than a double header by Ballack-Lampard - surely is a leagues tickets worth of play. 

Reclaim your life

This ad is awesome. 

Taking off from its earlier positioning of Tata Safari 4X4, make your own road, this Safari Dicor reclaim your life version is brilliant. 

I like the way the ad opens, and moves to its climax soaking in powerful natural images of New Zealand.

If you look back on your life - What would you remember? The corner office ? The corporate powerplays ? The VIP Lounge?

If ever there was an ad that created a compelling reason to buy a product, this one would come pretty close.

Now why does the Sunil Shetty - Ford Endeavour print ad look strikingly similar?

Eternal return

The current financial crisis reminds me of Friedrich Nietzsche's theory of eternal return. According to the theory matter is finite and time is infinite so everything repeats itself as only so many things can be created from matter but there is much more time. Everything has happened before and will continue to recur ad infinitumm. So as the Dow hits a 11 year low, it has hit a 11 year low i.e. repeated something that has happened before! The Mumbai attacks were labelled India's 9/11 i.e. it had happened before. Satyam is India's Enron. PwC reflects the sunk Arthur Andersen.

Shakespeare passed off  'eternal return' lightly - the more things change, the more they remain the same while the phrase ' those who forget history are condemned to repeat it' camouflages eternal return as if it were a prophecy. Milan Kundera's novel Unbearable Lightness of Being attempted an inversion of the philosophy- a married man having an affair was just that - another affair- more of the same but since everyone lives only once, his actions have very little significance on the universe - so lightness was not having to worry about eternal return, that somewhere else this will be repeated. The Hindu philosophy of Karma as a reward for actions of past life and the Egyptian philosophy of After life as something one can look forward to after death also interpret Eternal return in different ways. 

Recession 2008 resonates with Depression 1929 . Lehman bros is the new Solomon Bros, the huge investment bank that sunk in 1980s. 

As FDI and world turns to India , it could be the next superpower - just as it was before hundreds of years of colonial rule ravaged it into insignificance. Nandan Nilekani, in a recent panel discussion, said that we are about to reap a demographic dividend that can catapult us to the top of the world league of nations.

So whats new?

What a slumdog win means

Winning 8 Oscars has put Slumdog Millionaire in the annals of movie history as a  remarkable story of  passion, hope and survival. 

Very funnily, as Delhi figures prominently in many of our recent local releases, Mumbai seems to have redefined itself and moved onto the world stage. From Rab ne bana di jodi, Oye Lucky-Lucky Oye , Chandi Chowk to China , Delhi-6 to Dev-D, movies in the last 2-3 months had got in a distinctive Chandni Chowk and Pahargunj flavor. Mumbai's crumbling infrastructure, abject poverty and instant fame trapped in film by Boyle and certified by the Oscars, has in a sense freezed Mumbai into a city the world will watch for, if not a world city. 

Maybe, being a world city is the next step as real capital moves in, scripts of movies begin to be based here and hollywood studios open offices here.

In a FICCI frames discussion recently, Pritish Nandy, put up the question on 'Whats indian cinema' up for debate. Is it bengali, tamil , telugu or hindi ?  Are the sensibilities of regional languages different from hindi? Does a bengali understand tamil emotions, if there is something called a tamil emotion that is?

I think just as we understand a polish drama called ' My name is Justine' , we cry with Rose on the Titanic raft as  Jack drowns or  want Erin Bronkovich to win, the world will want to see our culture wrapped in our emotion. And Slumdog has done just that. Jill Gwen, the hoplessly excited Fox searchlight executive on the panel emphatically conteded that the movie could connect with any audience - in a  sense of universal appeal. 

She's right. I mean if one were to substitute all characters with Chinese or Brazilian ones it would still make for a compelling tale. Though the story is an Indian original, Vikas Swarups canvas was pretty universal. Rags to riches is after all a very universal story- a universal desire and therefore has a post-linguistic, post-cultural appeal. 

What this win surely means that Rehman deservingly is a global composer now, Indianness is the next big thing and maybe many more movie houses will land on our doorstep with scripts that will use us to tell another universal tale. 

Jai Ho !  

  

Beginners Luck?

What a match it turned out to be. 

Quite a spectacular turnaround for a team that by the 70th minute was facing sure elimination in the FA cup, down  1-0 to uninspiring competition , with the coach having been sacked at the end of the last match, the captain being suspended for the match. This was the pits. In the 71st minute, it was attempting the 14th Lampard corner, having not been able to convert any of the 13 earlier compared to just 4 that Watford had managed against them . A pathetic show of a lack of finishing, if ever there was. A minute back, as the interim coach, Ray Wilkins, stared in horror, Watford sub Tamas Priskin had run through Drogba deep into Chelseas' defence and beat Cech to score a one bouce goal as Ashley Cole chased hopelessly.

My heart sank. Here was a great team having absolute possession of the ball, complete control of the game and all odds in its favor going down in a match they must absolutely win.  Facing an elimination from the FA cup, Chelsea were up against a resolute Watford for a place in the last 8.

Catching the match on Max,I had decided to give my team some company. Should I just attack the remote and hit the bed or bear the 20-min agony?

Stand by your team, I said to myself. 

Wishfully, the next 20-min were spectacular.

Nicholas Anelka scored an audacious scissor goal a couple of minutes later, followed by another brilliant one-bouce header into the net past  hapless Loach.

Chelsea then wasted their 17th corner. Drogba wasnt in his element and it showed. He missed, didnt convert many chances and was a little short of the ball on quite a few occasions. He teamed up with Anelka for the second goal to sort of make up for things. Mancienne quite passionately showcased his debut with some great tackles, but convert even he couldnt. Ballack had energy but both his headers found no net. 

Abramovich looked so much like a simple businessman, without passion, as he saw Anelka's goals. At one point, I saw him rubbing his hands with a dry childlike smile - was it with glee or was it to keep the chill winter breeze away? Was there a lesson there? Does passion always translate into results. Who was a bigger hero at the end of the IPL - Shah Rukh or Shane Warne? Who delivered ? As if on cue, Guus Hiddink, the huge Dutchman, sitting next to him watching the team he just inherited from Scolari , didn't quite exhibit any passion on the hits and misses either.  

A dangerous attempt almost got Watford an equalizer in the 87th minute.

Within the next minute, Stoch and Kalou charged down the left to create  the pass for Anelka to score his hat-trick with a super 15-yard kick. Anelka's shots were redeeming; and a definite lesson in finishing.

Maybe the Priskin goal was a wake-up call for the team to spring to finishing some of its brilliant counter-attacks. 

Or maybe it was just Hiddinks beginners luck?

Whatever it was, it surely made my night. 

 

The free-doom media

What makes the internet work or doesn't work? I mean besides oodles of venture capital , business ideas on back of envelopes, why after 10 years , this brilliant medium still has no revenues in the bank?
I have oft wondered why I have 5 free email accounts when I run up a 6500 buck monthly fee conversing on my phone, why I read newspapers free on the net , why I can access wikipedia without spending the 29,000 bucks I spent buying the Britannica, why I can search on google for free, why I play chess with a russian grandmaster on yahoo! for free when a 4 week, twice a day chess classes cost me 5000 bucks, why noone charges me for cracking sudokus on zapak when each book of a 100 sudokus cost me 200 bucks, why I can see maps without buying an atlas, why I can now read books or watch movies for free when a movie costs me over a 1000 rupees to see in a multiplex. Why does cable cost me 400 a month but liveTV on the net is free?
Why am in linkedin for free ? Why am I getting to see albums for free? Why am I blogging for free ? Why the hell is youtube free? Webpages are free and software is now free too! Didn't they sue good old Bill for protecting his source code and running a monopoly?
If advertising is the answer, I haven't clicked on any banner. Nothing relevant flashed for me to get enticed. Except googles links maybe- sometimes they are extremely relevant, but most times you can avoid them.
Who is making the money and how? Who runs this big free world ? Who pays for the cost of servers, bandwidth and expensive fibre optic connectivity below the oceans?
Shouldn't the service provider - the ISP ( quite a forgotten word in these days of broadband)- get a revenue share for my monthly internet access . Much like it happens in the real telecom world - every piece of content is revenue-shared between the telecom company and the content creator. This model has turned 'song downloads' into an industry bigger than the entire private FM industry today.
Some have hit the revenue model - because they serve a tangible need - books , movie tickets, concerts, travel , marriages , jobs - but the ones that provide referral information or the ones that help stay in touch - essentially serve it free. And that is truly baffling, considering the real cost of communicating or finding information.
Surely there should be a cost for everything online. Maybe like a subscription fee based model -which works very well for say daily stock tips by poweryourtrade.com or movies by bigflix.com which gives me 30 movies to watch a month for a couple of hundred rupees.
Some services use the net to save money- a bank can operate with a much smaller outfit as it saves on precious real estate. An electricity company or a telecom company can provide great customer service by enabling payment online. Some supplement offline products - you get some awesome help on the apple sites - my iphone and ipod are serviced online for free , but all additional music and features are paid for.
The other side of the internet revenue model - advertising- has also been run to the ground. By getting themselves into a cost-per-click mode of payments, they have sold themselves as the most accountable medium, resulting in abysymal revenues and a lot of bleeding businesses.
Maybe they should look at revenues share there too - if they are able to generate a good number of enquiries, they should sell the enquiries for a fee or charge a share of the overall revenue accrual.
It will be proven of the net as it has been of every other media, that what is free, has no value. ( except free hugs, maybe !)
The net is undoubtedly the medium of the future.
It should just believe itself more so.

Heroes take a fall

During my engineering days , Nortel networks was like one hugely coveted company to work for. Quite a few water-cooler-conversations were abuzz with the IT giants' products and performance. Last week, the $11bn technology powerhouse filed for bankruptcy. Nortel is suddenly a Great Place To Work no more.
The last 5-6 months have shattered many a myths of superheros. They ain't what they used to be. Are superheros turning human ? Superman's latest sequel showed him drowning, deprived of his powers, only to be rescued by a skinny woman . Spiderman spends months in anguish at the loss of his sting. At one point in the latest version, he falls dramatically hurting himself and spending some time in a tattered costume. Batman loses his battle with a brilliant joker( Heath)in his latest fight, needing help from the cops (which is a first for Batman).Alex, the great king of the jungle in Madagascar is reduced to a wimp, singing and dancing like a pansy in its sequel. They surely don't make Superheroes like they used to anymore.
Star TV taught Indian media broadcasting and Ekta Kapoor taught Star audience management. From creating huge weekly audience share-pies to introducing the concept of the character-less fiction ( anyone could play Mihir or Tulsi, anyone slept with anyone ), Ekta ruled the world of bored housewives. Every serial began with a 'K' and re-defined marketing principles for a whole host of programming practitioners. The longest romance in TV history lasted almost 10 years before the biggest of the shows were killed towards the end of last year. Yesterday, Star axed all the rest of the 'K' shows. 'K' doesn't work anymore.
Whats the next alphabet? 'C'?
Satyam created many entrepreneural dreams with its purchase of Indiainfoline for 500cr , setting the pace for the indian internet revolution. Listing subsequently on the Nasdaq, creating a 50,000 people competitor to Infosys and TCS, Satyam was Ramalinga Raju's outstanding contribution to the world of IT. Little did one know what that vision was built of till a confession letter in early Jan bared all.
Pricewaterhouse Coopers, a revered consulting and audit firm bit the dust and with it the world of financial practices has come into a terrible spotlight. Caught like a rabbit in high-beam headlights.
Every management institute has coveted the Day1 placement with Lehman. Bear Sterns and AIG have been halts in rapid career progression. In a classic reversal of capitalism, investment banking has ceased to be a destination anymore. Finance, itself, has been pushed back to its place on consumer doorsteps.
Michael Phelps reign has been much shorter - 8 brilliant golds in October and a ban in january on drug charges. Instant superhero turning instant history.
Finally, Louis Phillipe Scolari, my great brazilian hero, came with impeccable credentials to coach my favourite team,Chelsea, only to be sacked yesterday after numerous failures in the game including lack of respect for players , not turning up on time, resting Drogba when unnecessary and not spending enough time training.
In a sense then 2008 redefined superstardom, probably bringing realism back in fashion.

Shifting-Hyphens

One of the favorite passtimes in college was to link people together in order to create some excitement amidst academic boredom. Creating a new story and a discussion point to the casual conversations of say, Arun and Amrita, would add spice and keep it alive as a referral point. A Hypen would then summarily complete the picture : Arun-Amrita.
Diplomats, esp the foreign policy types, similarly used the Hyphen to lump issues and countries for easy reference and some excitement. Middle-East, South-East , Franco-German , Indo-Pak slowly entered Oxford as legitimate words. As the worlds most powerful country, US created all the frames of reference. Sitting in India imagine having to call Dubai - Middle East !
The Hypen - a residue of non-chalant US foreign policy now seems to be in danger of falling off the pages of Oxford. At the turn of the century, with the help of some source code, we moved from being the corner store and taxi-driving types to the absolute top of the consulting value chain, and a couple of 9% growth years later, began to challenge the Hyphens place.
We have now brilliantly shifted the hyphens between Indo-Pak to Indo-China in business and politics, Indo-Pak to Indo-Australia in cricket and Indo-Pak to Indo-US in the media business. Then from being categorised into a non-unit called NAM ( basically an excuse for not-voting on any UN resolution on any issue for fear of taking sides) or a non-starter like SAARC( basically an excuse for knowing what the f%$# our neighbours were upto), we forced the creation of a new acronym of hope called BRIC.
Just as years ago, Japan and China broke away from the South-East by creating powerful economies and a created another larger new region called South Asia ( quite funny if you think about it) , India will now decide who it wants to be on the other side of the hyphen.
That's surely a good, great feeling !

Depression - the sequel

Paul Krugman's latest version of his book The Return of Depression Economics makes for terrific reading . That he won the nobel prize for economics last year shows out in the form of his clear thinking about the reasons why depressions happen and how they lead to prolonged recessions .
He has masterfully de-jargoned the crisis making it a good read .
Despite all his explanations , I think the basic reasons for a recession are much simpler .
All that marketing as a science is focussed on doing is converting wants into needs. And creating more and more wants and converting more and more of them into needs. Till one day your infinitely bloated 'wants' make you a slave of the ambitious and equally 'wanting' financial system.
Let me illustrate this with an example .
Let's say - a basic need is to have a house in Mumbai .
You have two options - buy or rent ( classic dilemna - no McKinsey needed )
If you rent , you pay a certain amount every month , live in Mumbai till you have made your moolah and catch the flight home in some years. All seems to be fine . Math says you will spend 50,ooo bucks a month over 20 years i.e. 1.2 cr . With some inflation , say 1.5 cr. Simple landlord-tenant relationship and life chugs along.
Now , every Tom, D & Harry around you will seem to be making a killing with a real estate investment , every bank conversation will funnel into a investment strategy discussion on why not a house , every neighbour will quit his lease and buy , every builder will entice with EMI , every broker will show you an offer you can't refuse and every year your landlord will breathe down an annual 15% increase . The collective pressure will convert your 'want' of a house into a 'need' for a house .
You fall for it .
Suddenly , the economy surges around you - as you have now activated the capitalist machinery - a broker earns commission , an advocate registration doc fees , a carpenter and interior designer attack the house with Jacquar , marble and teak, new furniture and furnishings clean out whats left in the bank , a bank executive creates a loan dossier and wins his incentive , an insurance agent creates a policy premium , a gardener ( in Mumbai ?, you kidding!) , the municipal commissioner turns up with his annual tax bill , the society needs maintanence payments , and you need to pay a chartered accountant to calculate your tax liability , pay a lawyer to read the fine print of tenacy documents and a broker to manage the property. Not to mention paying some of the builders employees wages, to the building construction industry and to the transport business .Wow and whew !
Let's get back to the math .
At a 12.5% annual interest ( most banks currently ) for a 1 cr house ( a measly 800 sqft 2 bed place ) will lighten your account by 1.25 lac a month or 3 cr over 20 years , not taking into account the cheerfully sucking economic predators , detailed above , surrounding you.
All this converting wants into needs business takes into account a perennial growth in ones income so the propensity to keep paying smaller and smaller EMI's is factored .
Many such wants spin the capitalist wheel till there's huge amount of job creation , money exchanging and overall gain . Trouble is when consumtion stops .
If you can't be convinced , this wheel stops. And when money supply stops - like when the music stops in a game of musical chairs - someone has to dance in the centre of the circle.
If you imagine a country as big as ours or as big as the US creating 24X7 wants , surely somethings gotta give somewhere . Either in depleted energy or in stressful health or in absurd levels of greed before prices will keep rising ( inflation ) till its impossible to convert a 'need' anymore. Leading to empty stores of 'wants' noone can afford or wants to buy .
And isn't that a recession ?

Slumdog wows

Saw slumdog millionaire last night and loved it .

Now I can't understand those who say this shows India's grotesque underbelly when we have lot of great things to show - including a state of the art suspension bridge over the bandra-worli sea space and probably the plans for the worlds tallest building . They couldn't be more wrong.

Only suffering , strife , struggle makes for a great plot . Every single piece of literary fiction whether it camouflaged as humor , paraded as parody or depicted as a tragedy has 'suffering' at its core . There can be no story worthwhile without suffering . Go back to Shakespeare , Milton , Updike , Heller , Dickens , Eliot , Kafka or even Wodehouse , who makes it light and bearable - 'suffering' is the essence of a story . For the magic of any story is the change in its key character between the beginning and end of the plot - an emotional growth , a fulfilment , a redemption . How can a story achieve that if the protagonist starts and ends without any change in his character and personality - status quo is no story! The characters that stay etched in your mind are the ones that had the greatest change in their state of being - Nazneen in Brick Lane , David Copperfield , Nicholas Nickleby , Howard Roack in Fountainhead ,Yossarian in Catch 22, D'Artegnan in Three musketeers , Ali in Kite runner , or Jemal in Slumdog .

Think of the another example closer to real life - Dhirubhai Ambanis' is a great story , Lakshmi mittal , Amitabh , Kishore Biyani , Sunil Mittal , Azim Premji ,Rahul Bajaj , Barack Obama , Nelson Mandela , Gandhi are all great stories - each one of them is of immense fortitude , searing ambition, enormous sacrifices and remakable achievement against all odds . Anil Ambani , Aditya Mittal , Abhishek , Sanjeev Bajaj or Rahul Gandhi can never be the stuff of legends since they start with billions and build empires further - its not a growth of character , just an delta extention of the inheritance thats been handed out to them .

Where is the 'pain' , its endurance and the emotional growth that makes it compelling for the world to participate ?

Irony - 2

Slumdog millionaire officially is now hugely successful - the rags to riches story of a slum boy who becomes a millionaire reflects in the rags to riches fate of the movie itself . Legend has it that the movie was to release in a DVD-only format , but as its tagline goes - born to lose , destined to win - it was finally released with over 600 prints and has grossed $42.5 mn ( Rs.205 cr ) as of 19th jan , a week before its Indian premiere , promising more moolah to the Fox studios.
Somewhere else , another generational rags to riches story plays out in a downright-deprived-to-absolutely-powerful sort of manner - Barack Obama becomes the first occupant of the white house ( Might as well change its name now to Presidents house or One,Washington).
A couple of years back , Shilpa Shetty got caught in a racist battle between her and Jade Goody on an episode of Big Brother . Jade called her 'brown' and it sparked a huge row in the UK for the then PM Tony Blair . Guess who succeeded Blair as the next PM - Gordon 'Brown' !
Irony again that the biggest fraud in Indian corporate history had to be called 'Satyam'.

Chutnefying english

Spent the last weekend attending an interesting seminar organized by MICA , on the birth of Hinglish and death of English - aptly called 'Chutnefying English' .

Purists and practitioners were at loggerheads trying to take sides while trying to sound very meaningful . Mahesh Bhatt very uncharacteristically read out two full pages of a thesis on how statistically now more people speak hinglish than english ( pulling a 350 mn number out of his hat ) and how earlier in films it was only villians and comedians who spoke hinglish but now it has degenerated hindi itself . Mehmoods' lines 'Bahaar ki chokri kitna advance hai' or the song 'mera joota hai japani , patloon inglistani' were the earliest hinglish renditions and most villians were 'Peter ' , 'Mona' or 'Michael' - taking off on colonial times . Its only when Bhatt took off in extempore citing his rich experiences as a filmmaker that the debate gained heat . He wondered why we learnt 'Jack and Jill ' or 'Little Miss Muffet' when there was a huge repository of urdu and hindi literature and why kids don't like parents who still don't know english . His point being 'mother tongue ' helped one connect to ones own self - something he repeated ad nauseam.

Rupert Snell , the Hindi and Braj teacher from the University of Texas , Austin was terrific . He hilariously introduced Bhatt , kept the sunday audience in splits with his chaste hindi and tackled with dry humor all the muck people slung at 'oh those brits'. Shannon Finch , the gritty anthropology student ( while protesting vehemently on why Gurcharan Das didn't give her the time he committed ) gave an interesting insight on why people repeat sentences in hindi and english for effect - a phenomenon she called Bilingual Repitition with some very good examples - recorded from students she gave recorders to capture their usage -

A teacher instructing a class followed the ask 'Kitab khol deejiye' with 'Please open your books' . In a random conversation , ' Aadha saal khatam ho gaya' was followed by 'Half the year is gone' by a student . And how what she called code switching - mixing multilingual words - added to empathic stress . To illustrate she played out a recording from her research : Suddenly , we were talking about India aur achanak usne subject change kar diya .( 'Suddenly' and 'achanak' being similar words with the hindi version adding to dramatic effect )

Also , as an example of code switching used to define which language the sentence came from she used an example ( sentences below ) - it seems that while the first sentence below has more english words than hindi , its still a hindi sentence while the second with fewer english words is an english sentence .

Daddy ki blue shirt table par hai

Film rajaas ki duniya is not worth ek single rupaiah

Someone also amplified boringly the science of mixing hindi verbs and english nouns and adjectives - gherao-ed , manao-ed , maska-fying etc. The other aspect of this debate was the commerce behind it all . The need to connect , felt Prasoon Joshi was far more important that the need to maintain purity . e.g Pepsi's Yeh Dil Maange More reflected youthfulness , aggression as in 'maange' , a movement away from the scarcity era with 'more' and Coke rebounded with 'Life Ho To Aisi ' another hinglish line . A movie like 'Jab we met ' also went on to rake in huge moolah due to its refreshing take on youthful romance . Another young bloke studied spanish usage in the US to conclude that there is nothing like Spanlish as purists rule that lingo - so much so that even TV broadcasters prefer pure spanish speakers without a word of english embedded in it .

Here's my take on the Hinglish affair - language is a means of communication . So it is sub-servient to a need - the need to communicate . It can't be a master - you need to learn it and speak in its pure form . Shakespeare added 30000 words to the english then , now new age technology has added many more words to it - did we have words like googled , flickrd , wifi , podcast , itune , wikipedia , second life , smsed ,email - so who is to say that Hindi can't add words of its own . If it helps millions reach out to others - a little twist , some nichod will maybe help english survive .

Code-mixing and bilingual repitition ki aisi ki taisi ,

Chill maro , mat karo bheja fry , piyo thoda cold lassi .

Kya english aur kya hindi , thoda punjabi mein jod do sindhi ,

Bani jo bhasha tod-marod , oose complete karo dictionary oxford !

Satyam Jayete?

Satyam has gone belly up .

Its according to which channel one is seeing or which business paper one reads - anywhere from a 5000cr to a 7000 cr scam . Ramalinga Raju has confessed to the massive accounting fraud , sinking his stock by 80% and the stock market by 750 points , putting pressure on the world markets on corp governance and probably liquifyeing PwC - all in one day.

Just in the morning multibillionaire Adolf Merckle , one of Germanys wealthiest men , owner of Heidelberg cement among other firms jumped in front of a running train not able to handle mounting debt.

Raju chose to confess instead . It was like riding a tiger , not knowing how to get off without being eaten - said RR in his letter .

Greed is good , said Gordon Gekko , Michael Douglas's character in Wall Street .

Not so sure.

Outliers !

Just finished reading 'the Outliers' , the latest from bad-haired behavioral scientist Malcolm Gladwell . His second book 'Blink' didn't quite impress me for its premise was ridiculous , while his debut book 'Tipping point' dissapointed in its examples . So what made me buy his third book ?

Having worked now for just under 20 years , am desperately seeking some mid-aged mantras / quick-fixes for the next 20 - what should be the ends and what should be the means ? How much wealth does one need ? How high should one aspire for ? As means , is it entrepreneurship , is it going to be higher up the company management ladders or is it going to be further studies followed by some more racing with the rats or just hang up boots , shave your head , buy a 350cc bike and travel the world - blow all you have to start again in some years ?
Perhaps the sub-title of the book - 'the story of success' - caught my imagination and hope of finding some answers prompting hard earned 400 bucks to be thrown at it , just as a new year broke.

Outliers are people who are those who 'unbelong' - are different from the rest for any variety of reasons. Gladwell divides the book into two parts - 'opportunity' and 'legacy' with the proposition that the opportunity and legacy are the reasons why some people enjoy tremendous success and most don't . In a wild premise, he states that the timing of birth makes all the difference between having opportunities or landing a legacy and therefore all talent is overrated , its all luck ,luck and more luck . For instance , those born around 1955 have benefitted from the mid-1970's software boom - steve jobs , bill gates , larry ollison , eric shmidt etc. , those born in 1830's benefitted from the 1860's boom in railroad , oil and gas boom ( jd rockfeller etc. ) . Stating legacy as an ingredient for success , he analyses the growth of the jews in the US . The Jewish immigrants came as garment workers ( sophisticated work integrated with mainline America) , Italians came as construction workers , Irish as domestic help and Mexicans as farm labourers , thereby creating an immigrant hierarcy in the US with the jews at the top . The second generation jews all got into law , medicine , engineering , wall street ( solomon , lehman m goldman sachs ) and ran all the newspapers . So a Jew with parents who worked as garment labor in 1930s would have studied law or engineering and would be automated to be successful today !
Similarly , he argues why koreans max in air crashes - they obey authority in their culture and therefore can't negotiate or converse effectively with culturally rough ( considered normal in cities like new york )air traffic controllers around the world.
Leaving legacy aside , I thought of applying the 'opportunity' corollary to the Indian context and in 10 year blocks to see if the theorem holds.

If one rewinds back to 1995 , here's all the jobs a guy out of college could do then - heavy engineering , FMCG , durables , government , armed services , PSU banks and newspapers - mostly low paying , low on skill and mass in nature .

Fast forward to 2005 , here's what he could consider - Insurance ,BPO ,Telecom , Infrastructure , IT , Banks , Mutual Funds , Stocks , Financial services ,Events ,Media - TV , Radio , Advertising ,Hospitality, Automobiles - each of these industries had just 1 player in 1995 and has close to 20-25 players in 2005! All highly productive , high paying and high on skill and money.

Let me now forecast what the opportunity landscape might look like in 2015 for a guy looking for a job - NGOs , Travel , Health , Education , Private equity , Management Consulting, Retail , Logistics , Transport , Security ( arms , ammunition , guards - keeping away the have nots will be an industry ) , Services- legal , Films and Leisure( yatchs , suites , choppers et al) . Extremely evolved and unsteadily high paying .

So here's Malcolm Gladwells big point ( adapted by me to the Indian context ) - those who are born around the mid-1970s in India will have the greatest chance of making it big as they will be around their 30s in 2005 , making the most use of the opportunites - and riding away into the sunset with a billion or two in the boot of their 4000 cc BMW parked in their 8 bedroom bungalow in South Mumbai !

So how about being born at the right time , next time ?
Eh !