I escorted my mother into the restaurant. “The Higher Taste” the sign above door stated in style. ‘Aptly named’, I thought, for we were on Hare Krishna Hill, within the premises of the temple complex run by Iskcon in Bangalore and an eatery in such a place should have a name befitting its neighbouring building, the temple.
The food at the restaurant was good. Not outstanding, but good. There was an abundance of food colour in the souffle and a paucity of walnut in the walnut subji biryani, but one can live with these things. The décor and general upkeep of the place was befitting a luxury hotel, as indeed was the tariff for the food.
Now, the one thing I tend to be particular about is to call people by their name and not by their occupation (how I acquired this value concerns a ‘mali’ who brought me up without my ever knowing his name, but that’s another story). I gestured to the waiter who stood by the buffett counter to get me water and, when he came up to my table, had a look at the name tag pinned to his shirt. ‘Lakshman’, it said.
Something wasn’t quite right; the fellow was clearly from the North East, where Lakshman is a most unusual name. As I looked around, I found most of the waiters to be from the North East, as is common today in most restaurants in the city. Yet, their names were most discordant: Padmanabha, Ranganatha, Aniruddha and so on.
While helping myself to the souffle-and-cream, I spoke with ‘Lakshman’.
“Where are you from?”
“From Darjeeling, Sir.”
“Where exactly in Darjeeling?”
“Kalimpong, Sir.” I knew of Kalimpong, of course.
“So, what’s your real name?”
“Chiling, Sir.”
“Are you Buddhist?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I am a big fan of the Dalai Lama.” I said, seeking to keep the conversation going, for I wished to know more.
“I am part Tibetan, Sir,” he said proudly. “And my father works for the Indo-Tibetan Border Police along the border with China.”
“Do you like being called Lakshman?” I asked, though it really was none of my business.
“It’s a nice name.” he replied politely.
Over the course of the meal, I mulled over my little exchange with Chiling. Why did he need to be rechristened to serve at this restaurant? Chiling is a beautiful name, with a lovely ring to it and in the Tibetan language it could have profound meaning.
The answer, perhaps, has to do with the way every temple (or any sacred place, for that matter) works; there is no room for diversity in the interpretation of religion. Chiling may change his name willingly, for he comes from a part of India that is rotting away, that has no opportunity, and he needs a job. Yet, to transplant a ‘suitable’ name onto such a person is, I think, exploitation, for a name is the vocalisation of identity and self-respect.
I wonder how the Restaurant Manager interviewed him: “Well, Chiling, the job’s yours, except for a small matter: can we call you Lakshman, because Chiling is, well, is not, actually, suitable to our audience.”
or,
“You know, Chiling, we want you to work for us, and we need high customer sat scores, so can we call you Lakshman ?”
When we finished our meal, I looked into the mirror in the rest room and saw one customer who was not quite satisfied. Perhaps they don’t quite care.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Rotting Food and a Rotten Minister
The thing I like about agriculture economics is that most of it is common sense and hence in critical short supply. Listen to the best brains around – Sainath, Devender Sharma, Suman Sahai, MS Swaminathan, even, occasionally, Swaminathan Aiyer – and you would wonder in bewilderment at the absence of common sense and simplicity in the entire Government system around agriculture.
Take the issue – now fading in public memory since it hit the headlines earlier this year – of rotting food. When a conscientious activist filed an RTI application in January 2010 asking for information on just how much food was rotting or damaged in the godowns of the Food Corporation of India, the answer stunned the nation: 10,688 lakh tonnes. Lets put this down numerically: 10,688,00,000,000 kgs.
When I contrast the insistence in most middle class families that the food on the table – mere grams of rice, or an extra roti - not be left over or thrown away, with this wanton, egregious, almost criminal waste, our value system seems terribly pointless. I spent some time reading articles on just why such large quantities of food lay rotting away. Let me give you some of the reasons :
1. Godowns available, but
a. leased out to the food companies such as Pepsi and ITC, who pay higher rents than FCI (I am referring to godowns owned or operated by State Governments, not by private players, so their touching refrain on a godown’s profitability is most unbelievable)
b. used to stock liquor, because of its ‘value-add’.
c. no labour to move material into it. Hence, food kept out in the open, under plastic sheets, while the godown lies semi-occupied. Dampness in the air in the monsoons encourages toxic fungal growth.
d. administrative apathy: no one sees the point in loading bags into a godown and out, when it will not rain (of course, it rains immediately).
2. Food in godown not taken out (in Haryana) before flooding, despite five days notice given on possible need for evacuation.
3. Bags of grain stocked one on top of another in colossal piles, which means that the grain at the bottom is damaged. In this technology age, no State Government has created grain silos, an obvious solution.
4. In instances, lack of availability of space in food godowns.
In other words, a large part of this wastage is hugely avoidable.
So much for supply. Lets talk of the need for grain. The National Sample Survey consumer expenditure data tells that 74.5 per cent of rural persons could not reach the recommended level of 2400 calories of daily intake in 1993 to 1994. By 2004-05, the percentage had reached an unprecedented high of 87 per cent. As importantly, the quality of food they eat is deteriorating as well.
A big part of India’s agricultural and food crisis, including this horrendous wastage, can be attributed to one man: our Honourable Agriculture-cum-Food-cum-Consumer Affairs Minister, of whom it can be safely said that, in the last seven years that he has held these portfolios, he has done virtually nothing to address India’s food security and long term agricultural balance. His decisions (including ones regarding the export of grain when there is a deficit) are bizarre; indeed never has he let reason or wisdom come in the way of a decision (or, indeed, in the absence of a decision). Add to this a rather outsized ego: when asked about the impact of food inflation on the poor, for instance, he said that if the poor could afford to buy soft drinks, then they could surely afford food essentials. His star moments are when he indulges in the politics of cricket with abandon,
Then, why does the Prime Minister put up with this?
The answer: the Hon Minister in question has considerable nuisance value and is an astute trouble maker, fishing with characteristic elan in troubled waters. The late US President Lyndon Johnson once said of a powerful, but troublesome colleague, “It is better to have him inside the tent pissing out, rather than outside the tent pissing in.”
It’s a heavy price to pay for India’s rotting food.
Take the issue – now fading in public memory since it hit the headlines earlier this year – of rotting food. When a conscientious activist filed an RTI application in January 2010 asking for information on just how much food was rotting or damaged in the godowns of the Food Corporation of India, the answer stunned the nation: 10,688 lakh tonnes. Lets put this down numerically: 10,688,00,000,000 kgs.
When I contrast the insistence in most middle class families that the food on the table – mere grams of rice, or an extra roti - not be left over or thrown away, with this wanton, egregious, almost criminal waste, our value system seems terribly pointless. I spent some time reading articles on just why such large quantities of food lay rotting away. Let me give you some of the reasons :
1. Godowns available, but
a. leased out to the food companies such as Pepsi and ITC, who pay higher rents than FCI (I am referring to godowns owned or operated by State Governments, not by private players, so their touching refrain on a godown’s profitability is most unbelievable)
b. used to stock liquor, because of its ‘value-add’.
c. no labour to move material into it. Hence, food kept out in the open, under plastic sheets, while the godown lies semi-occupied. Dampness in the air in the monsoons encourages toxic fungal growth.
d. administrative apathy: no one sees the point in loading bags into a godown and out, when it will not rain (of course, it rains immediately).
2. Food in godown not taken out (in Haryana) before flooding, despite five days notice given on possible need for evacuation.
3. Bags of grain stocked one on top of another in colossal piles, which means that the grain at the bottom is damaged. In this technology age, no State Government has created grain silos, an obvious solution.
4. In instances, lack of availability of space in food godowns.
In other words, a large part of this wastage is hugely avoidable.
So much for supply. Lets talk of the need for grain. The National Sample Survey consumer expenditure data tells that 74.5 per cent of rural persons could not reach the recommended level of 2400 calories of daily intake in 1993 to 1994. By 2004-05, the percentage had reached an unprecedented high of 87 per cent. As importantly, the quality of food they eat is deteriorating as well.
A big part of India’s agricultural and food crisis, including this horrendous wastage, can be attributed to one man: our Honourable Agriculture-cum-Food-cum-Consumer Affairs Minister, of whom it can be safely said that, in the last seven years that he has held these portfolios, he has done virtually nothing to address India’s food security and long term agricultural balance. His decisions (including ones regarding the export of grain when there is a deficit) are bizarre; indeed never has he let reason or wisdom come in the way of a decision (or, indeed, in the absence of a decision). Add to this a rather outsized ego: when asked about the impact of food inflation on the poor, for instance, he said that if the poor could afford to buy soft drinks, then they could surely afford food essentials. His star moments are when he indulges in the politics of cricket with abandon,
Then, why does the Prime Minister put up with this?
The answer: the Hon Minister in question has considerable nuisance value and is an astute trouble maker, fishing with characteristic elan in troubled waters. The late US President Lyndon Johnson once said of a powerful, but troublesome colleague, “It is better to have him inside the tent pissing out, rather than outside the tent pissing in.”
It’s a heavy price to pay for India’s rotting food.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Temple temper
A few months ago, I visited a famous temple off the Bangalore - Mangalore road. It must have once been a simple and beautiful structure, built by those who believed in their work. Over the last couple of decades, though, structure after structure had been built to milk the anxious devotee, until the temple’s own beauty, its ethereal charm, its sense of tranquility had all been drowned by the human mass atop an enterprise. Now, the main thoroughfare in front of the temple has become shamelessly commercial, cheap Chinese toys are sold everywhere and the dirty heaps of plastic carry bags – used everyday in their thousands to carry offerings into the temple and then thrown away - are an environmentalist’s nightmare. It’s hard to focus on The Conversation with the Higher One, under such circumstances.
We – my wife, son and I – nevertheless got into the queue of those seeking that audience of a split second with Him - a priceless second to thank, complain, ask (actually, plead), negotiate, cajole, promise, promise to keep the promise, weep and, at times, berate. It was a long queue that got noisier as we approached the Sanctum, with many craning their necks or hoisting their little ones onto their shoulders, often inflicting, in the process, some collateral damage, as I believe the term is, on those behind.
I have never been a ‘religious’ person (indeed, I truly don’t understand the definition. What makes a person religious or irreverent ?), nor am I comfortable with crowds. I had a tight hold on my son, and spent my time looking at the others in the queue.
Above all of us was a large signboard which stated, rather rudely I thought, that photography, including mobile-phone photography, was banned in the premises. While I tried to think of just why this signboard was necessary, I wouldn’t think of breaking this rule. One accepts what one has to.
…and then someone had to do it. A fellow near me – a middle aged, respectable looking chap – cupped his mobile camera in his hand in anticipation and, in that split second when he had a clear view, he clicked the picture and pocketed his camera with a smug look of intent achieved.
It took about five seconds for a pujari to catch him and then, to use a most inappropriate term when referring to the location, all hell broke loose. Two other robust looking men accosted the photographer and tried to snatch the camera away, while he pretended that he had done no wrong, all the while holding on to his mobile phone for dear life. The argument turned louder and nastier, primarily due to the fellow’s incapacity to accept his mistake and his unwillingness, when confronted with evidence, to delete the picture. Others joined in, of course, as will always happen anywhere in India and there were opinions both ways.
The bedlam around this incident and the crowd jostling for space were just a bit too much for me to bear, for I have no recollection of my moment with The Higher One. I was out of the inner Sanctum in a trice, and took in fresh air with vigour, happy to get away from the argument, but feeling quite irritated at the whole thing. I wonder just how devotees experience true inner bliss amidst such chaos.
On the way out of the temple, I was thinking of this little incident and mulling on just how unneccessary and dissatisfying it was for all concerned. I will never understand why our friend, the renegade photographer, visited the temple. Did he want to Converse, or was he chasing a momento, a screen saver that he could consult everytime he cut ethical corners in his daily living ?
I will also never understand why the pujari – The Representative, one would imagine – made a scene, used force and abused this man. Surely, his time is better spent at a higher level of engagement.
At a broader level, of course, the reality is that the vast majority of ‘devotees’ visit temples as a part of a running contract with The Higher Power, where money is their quid pro quo for the many favours asked, including the assuaging of guilt. In these temples of commerce, priests are the management team (with high performance bonuses) and the products – laddus, flowers, pujas - are profit centres.
I would opt, any day, for the friendly village temple with a part-time priest, who works in the fields for a living and spends his mornings and evenings at the shrine. He may be a bit fuzzy with the specifics of Sanskrit and the nuances of ritual, but his heart is generally in the right place. May his tribe increase.
We – my wife, son and I – nevertheless got into the queue of those seeking that audience of a split second with Him - a priceless second to thank, complain, ask (actually, plead), negotiate, cajole, promise, promise to keep the promise, weep and, at times, berate. It was a long queue that got noisier as we approached the Sanctum, with many craning their necks or hoisting their little ones onto their shoulders, often inflicting, in the process, some collateral damage, as I believe the term is, on those behind.
I have never been a ‘religious’ person (indeed, I truly don’t understand the definition. What makes a person religious or irreverent ?), nor am I comfortable with crowds. I had a tight hold on my son, and spent my time looking at the others in the queue.
Above all of us was a large signboard which stated, rather rudely I thought, that photography, including mobile-phone photography, was banned in the premises. While I tried to think of just why this signboard was necessary, I wouldn’t think of breaking this rule. One accepts what one has to.
…and then someone had to do it. A fellow near me – a middle aged, respectable looking chap – cupped his mobile camera in his hand in anticipation and, in that split second when he had a clear view, he clicked the picture and pocketed his camera with a smug look of intent achieved.
It took about five seconds for a pujari to catch him and then, to use a most inappropriate term when referring to the location, all hell broke loose. Two other robust looking men accosted the photographer and tried to snatch the camera away, while he pretended that he had done no wrong, all the while holding on to his mobile phone for dear life. The argument turned louder and nastier, primarily due to the fellow’s incapacity to accept his mistake and his unwillingness, when confronted with evidence, to delete the picture. Others joined in, of course, as will always happen anywhere in India and there were opinions both ways.
The bedlam around this incident and the crowd jostling for space were just a bit too much for me to bear, for I have no recollection of my moment with The Higher One. I was out of the inner Sanctum in a trice, and took in fresh air with vigour, happy to get away from the argument, but feeling quite irritated at the whole thing. I wonder just how devotees experience true inner bliss amidst such chaos.
On the way out of the temple, I was thinking of this little incident and mulling on just how unneccessary and dissatisfying it was for all concerned. I will never understand why our friend, the renegade photographer, visited the temple. Did he want to Converse, or was he chasing a momento, a screen saver that he could consult everytime he cut ethical corners in his daily living ?
I will also never understand why the pujari – The Representative, one would imagine – made a scene, used force and abused this man. Surely, his time is better spent at a higher level of engagement.
At a broader level, of course, the reality is that the vast majority of ‘devotees’ visit temples as a part of a running contract with The Higher Power, where money is their quid pro quo for the many favours asked, including the assuaging of guilt. In these temples of commerce, priests are the management team (with high performance bonuses) and the products – laddus, flowers, pujas - are profit centres.
I would opt, any day, for the friendly village temple with a part-time priest, who works in the fields for a living and spends his mornings and evenings at the shrine. He may be a bit fuzzy with the specifics of Sanskrit and the nuances of ritual, but his heart is generally in the right place. May his tribe increase.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Akash Mallige
This is the season of the Akash Mallige. Next to the laburnum, about which I have written earlier in Spring, the Akash Mallige is my tree of choice. If you happen to go on a walk and smell a divine, mild scent, at times inhibited by the smoke from vehicular traffic, but otherwise ethereal, look down at the semi-carpet of white flowers and then at the gorgeous tree that reaches for the sky, its flowers bunched downwards, much like a fashionable set of ear-rings. The fragrance always makes me grateful to the social forestry men of Bangalore who, with much perspicacity, planted many of these trees all around the city – indeed five tall ones stand majestically on the pavement in front of my home.
The Akash Mallige flowers twice a year, the monsoon being its piece de resistance. The flowering begins modestly enough and soon the tree is in bloom. Everything about the flower is delicate, its white with a streak of pink, the fragrance of course, the long stem and the almost entreating countenance it wears as you pick it up from the ground. Much to the amusement of passers-by, I select a few fresh flowers for use as an air freshener. If you do this as well, look into the flower before taking it away and you will often see an ant at work on the nectar within. The gentle thing to do then is to leave the flower alone, for food comes before fragrance.
The thing that I wonder about is how Nature can reproduce millions of these flowers with the same amount of fragrance and nectar. Just what kind of quality control is inherent in this system ? I hope we never know the answer, for Mystery adds to divinity.
The Akash Mallige flowers twice a year, the monsoon being its piece de resistance. The flowering begins modestly enough and soon the tree is in bloom. Everything about the flower is delicate, its white with a streak of pink, the fragrance of course, the long stem and the almost entreating countenance it wears as you pick it up from the ground. Much to the amusement of passers-by, I select a few fresh flowers for use as an air freshener. If you do this as well, look into the flower before taking it away and you will often see an ant at work on the nectar within. The gentle thing to do then is to leave the flower alone, for food comes before fragrance.
The thing that I wonder about is how Nature can reproduce millions of these flowers with the same amount of fragrance and nectar. Just what kind of quality control is inherent in this system ? I hope we never know the answer, for Mystery adds to divinity.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Success means.......
“Success means never having to wear a suit” is the quote on my favourite T-shirt. I believe in it.
Over the years when I have worn it outside home, the comments from friends, colleagues and strangers have been most noteworthy. At the Goa airport, for instance, a foreigner stared at it for a while, walked up to me and said simply, “I agree completely with that statement. I hope you do as well.”
Read the quote again and do reflect on it. I would be glad to hear your thoughts.
Over the years when I have worn it outside home, the comments from friends, colleagues and strangers have been most noteworthy. At the Goa airport, for instance, a foreigner stared at it for a while, walked up to me and said simply, “I agree completely with that statement. I hope you do as well.”
Read the quote again and do reflect on it. I would be glad to hear your thoughts.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Unintended Consequences
Four years ago, in June 2006, the Government of Tamil Nadu announced that twenty kilos of rice would be available to each family that had a ration card, at a token price of Rs. 2. The Government did it to win votes and the battle against hunger and malnutrition. Lets look at the unintended consequences instead, that are now making themselves apparent.
Listening to Mariappa, my farmer in Javalagiri, is most illuminating. “Sir, “ he says with a mischievous smirk, “there is more money in each home now available for liquor and that is why men support this move to subsidise rice.” And are the full stomachs resulting in more incomes? “No sir, actually farm labour has become far less willing to work. Do you know, Sir, that subsidised rice is the reason for less milk being produced in our area?”
Unable to understand the connection, I look at him in bewilderment. “We don’t get farm labour to take the cows out to graze as we used to (this job is generally done by older farm workers, who are no longer capable of slogging in the field). Since they get their staple at virtually no cost now, and some occasional income, no one’s interested. And milk prices rarely rise, so we all make a loss on cattle. As a result, everyone’s selling off their cows. I see a milk shortage around the corner.”
Lets summarise : More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk.
…and what has cheaper rice done to nutrition?
Most of the villages in Krishnagiri and many other districts of Tamil Nadu have, for centuries, had millets as their staple food. Millets are healthier & wholesome, and have far more fibre, which means that the carbohydrate in them is released slowly, giving the body time to absorb it well. Rice is primarily carb, and white rice has a high glycemic index (in other words, it breaks down quickly during digestion, releasing glucose into the bloodstream, increasing the pressure on the pancreas to do their job). The consequences of shifting a staple diet based on local millets to one based on rice boggles the mind. Since farming is hard work, farmers eat a lot, lot more than you or I do. When most of this food is carb, the net result we will see manisfest in this decade is rural obesity (and obesity-linked diseases) – a most unexpected phenomenon resulting from the best of intentions. Among the younger men in villages – those in their 20s and 30s - there is little love lost for farming and they get far less exercise than their parents, yet they eat the same amount as their parents do, so they are likely to be even worse off.
More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health.
In 2009-10, Tamil Nadu doled out 38 lakh tonnes at Rs. 2 per kilo. That’s 38,00,000,000 kilos. With such numbers, can you smell a scam ? If you are wondering just how dhabas and street food in Bangalore is so cheap, you have the answer – the rice is being smuggled in. Stand by and watch the menfolk eat their lunch by the construction site nearest to you – the plate has a dour, nutrition-less mix of salt, loads of rice and rasam, the last-named a euphimism for water coloured with spice (and, at times, the odd piece of non-veg of uncertain origin).
More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health. More scam.
And what about the impact on the Earth? Lets just take water as a resource. Rice, unlike most traditional millets, is water intensive; indeed rice and sugarcane are the two most water intensive crops. More water needed means more electricity required to pump it, more wastage, less water to go around.
More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health. More scam. Less water.
In September 2008, the Government of Tamil Nadu reduced the price to Re 1. One packet of gutka more per kilo. Twenty packets per month.
More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health. More scam. Less water. More gutka.
Now in July 2010, the Central Government has new norms. For the poorest of the poor, under a scheme called Antyodaya Anna Yojna, the quota of rice per card holder has gone upto 35 kg. For Tamil Nadu, it means about 6 lakh tonnes of rice more per year. At less price.
More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health. More scam. Less water. More gutka. Meanwhile, more rice at less price just came in.
Listening to Mariappa, my farmer in Javalagiri, is most illuminating. “Sir, “ he says with a mischievous smirk, “there is more money in each home now available for liquor and that is why men support this move to subsidise rice.” And are the full stomachs resulting in more incomes? “No sir, actually farm labour has become far less willing to work. Do you know, Sir, that subsidised rice is the reason for less milk being produced in our area?”
Unable to understand the connection, I look at him in bewilderment. “We don’t get farm labour to take the cows out to graze as we used to (this job is generally done by older farm workers, who are no longer capable of slogging in the field). Since they get their staple at virtually no cost now, and some occasional income, no one’s interested. And milk prices rarely rise, so we all make a loss on cattle. As a result, everyone’s selling off their cows. I see a milk shortage around the corner.”
Lets summarise : More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk.
…and what has cheaper rice done to nutrition?
Most of the villages in Krishnagiri and many other districts of Tamil Nadu have, for centuries, had millets as their staple food. Millets are healthier & wholesome, and have far more fibre, which means that the carbohydrate in them is released slowly, giving the body time to absorb it well. Rice is primarily carb, and white rice has a high glycemic index (in other words, it breaks down quickly during digestion, releasing glucose into the bloodstream, increasing the pressure on the pancreas to do their job). The consequences of shifting a staple diet based on local millets to one based on rice boggles the mind. Since farming is hard work, farmers eat a lot, lot more than you or I do. When most of this food is carb, the net result we will see manisfest in this decade is rural obesity (and obesity-linked diseases) – a most unexpected phenomenon resulting from the best of intentions. Among the younger men in villages – those in their 20s and 30s - there is little love lost for farming and they get far less exercise than their parents, yet they eat the same amount as their parents do, so they are likely to be even worse off.
More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health.
In 2009-10, Tamil Nadu doled out 38 lakh tonnes at Rs. 2 per kilo. That’s 38,00,000,000 kilos. With such numbers, can you smell a scam ? If you are wondering just how dhabas and street food in Bangalore is so cheap, you have the answer – the rice is being smuggled in. Stand by and watch the menfolk eat their lunch by the construction site nearest to you – the plate has a dour, nutrition-less mix of salt, loads of rice and rasam, the last-named a euphimism for water coloured with spice (and, at times, the odd piece of non-veg of uncertain origin).
More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health. More scam.
And what about the impact on the Earth? Lets just take water as a resource. Rice, unlike most traditional millets, is water intensive; indeed rice and sugarcane are the two most water intensive crops. More water needed means more electricity required to pump it, more wastage, less water to go around.
More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health. More scam. Less water.
In September 2008, the Government of Tamil Nadu reduced the price to Re 1. One packet of gutka more per kilo. Twenty packets per month.
More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health. More scam. Less water. More gutka.
Now in July 2010, the Central Government has new norms. For the poorest of the poor, under a scheme called Antyodaya Anna Yojna, the quota of rice per card holder has gone upto 35 kg. For Tamil Nadu, it means about 6 lakh tonnes of rice more per year. At less price.
More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health. More scam. Less water. More gutka. Meanwhile, more rice at less price just came in.
Monday, July 19, 2010
If Gurgaon is India's future, can I opt out please?
I travel to Gurgaon only because it reminds of just how lovely a city Bangalore still is. If Gurgaon has a soul, it is well hidden, beneath the monster towers that stick out of the sparse landscape like a sore forefinger. All these buildings – the glass-and-steel offices and the cement laden housing towers – reach for the sky in a travesty of justice, for just outside them lie low, flat, decrepit, asbestos roofed slums of those who provide the menial labour for the elite in the towers. They live in conditions – no water or sanitation worth its name - that can be only described as appalling and soul-wrenching, but then, let me remind you, Gurgaon has no soul to be wrenched.
If you take a walk outside the gated superblocks, the stench of decay and waste – human, animal and vegetable – hits you, but then you would be the only ‘person-like-us’ taking such a suicidal walk. For Gurgaon has little public transport and its ‘community autos’ carry ten humans on average at most times – the cattle class transport model. For the denizens of the towers, there are cars. And cars. And more cars.
Such hyper-development has unwelcome consequences. Not least, as Harrison Fraker, an architect at the University of California at Berkeley, argues, superblocks in effect become gated communities of privilege. The social consequences of such isolation (for those inside and out) take time to make themselves felt; there is however no doubt that such inequality creates deep and lasting divisions, that perpetuate themselves.
Most travellers to Delhi speak with bitterness of the rudeness, brazen guts and absence of manners of the average Delhi-walla (these attributes belonging largely to the city's post-partition residents, who now comprise three quarters of the population). Yet, even Delhi has some culture going for it - in its train museum, its art, the Delhi Haat and numerous other events that mark an urban space. Gurgaon has nothing.
So what do people do there?
Bill Bryson says in his entertaining book on the US : We used to build civilisations. Now we build shopping malls. .....and here's the Gurgaon story again. Each of its numerous malls are about the same - the stale air of Chinese food wafting along the numerous corridors of upmarket clothing stores. On my first visit to Gurgaon, I went to a couple of these malls in the evening, there being absolutely nothing else to do in the corporate guest house where I stayed. They were filled with teenagers and the yuppies of the city hanging around, in a rather poor imitation of post prandial bestial indolence. I am not one to sermonize to teens on building character or any of that sort of thing, yet it seemed somehow so wasteful, to live one's best years away in a mall, simply to belong to a group that did the same thing. All, while their parents made money, so that they could spend more time at the mall.
A proud resident of a gated superblock told me on my second visit that Gurgaon is the future of urban India. As I look around Bangalore and see the seventeen story supertowers in early stages of construction, he seems vindicated. If he is right, then I want to opt out. For now though, Bangalore stays my city.
If you take a walk outside the gated superblocks, the stench of decay and waste – human, animal and vegetable – hits you, but then you would be the only ‘person-like-us’ taking such a suicidal walk. For Gurgaon has little public transport and its ‘community autos’ carry ten humans on average at most times – the cattle class transport model. For the denizens of the towers, there are cars. And cars. And more cars.
Such hyper-development has unwelcome consequences. Not least, as Harrison Fraker, an architect at the University of California at Berkeley, argues, superblocks in effect become gated communities of privilege. The social consequences of such isolation (for those inside and out) take time to make themselves felt; there is however no doubt that such inequality creates deep and lasting divisions, that perpetuate themselves.
Most travellers to Delhi speak with bitterness of the rudeness, brazen guts and absence of manners of the average Delhi-walla (these attributes belonging largely to the city's post-partition residents, who now comprise three quarters of the population). Yet, even Delhi has some culture going for it - in its train museum, its art, the Delhi Haat and numerous other events that mark an urban space. Gurgaon has nothing.
So what do people do there?
Bill Bryson says in his entertaining book on the US : We used to build civilisations. Now we build shopping malls. .....and here's the Gurgaon story again. Each of its numerous malls are about the same - the stale air of Chinese food wafting along the numerous corridors of upmarket clothing stores. On my first visit to Gurgaon, I went to a couple of these malls in the evening, there being absolutely nothing else to do in the corporate guest house where I stayed. They were filled with teenagers and the yuppies of the city hanging around, in a rather poor imitation of post prandial bestial indolence. I am not one to sermonize to teens on building character or any of that sort of thing, yet it seemed somehow so wasteful, to live one's best years away in a mall, simply to belong to a group that did the same thing. All, while their parents made money, so that they could spend more time at the mall.
A proud resident of a gated superblock told me on my second visit that Gurgaon is the future of urban India. As I look around Bangalore and see the seventeen story supertowers in early stages of construction, he seems vindicated. If he is right, then I want to opt out. For now though, Bangalore stays my city.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
When Moses sank
When a child recently killed himself after being beaten by the Principal of an elite Catholic institution in Calcutta (no such British institution can reconcile to Kolkata), the media began this whole beaten debate about ‘corporal punishment’ again. Why is a debate even necessary to punish those who use their force and armour against children?
Perhaps I am impractical. And, of course, I have never taught a rough, noisy, garrulous bunch of children. Yet, I know the pain.
In December 1977, my family left the little town of Digboi and came to Bangalore. I had then finished my sixth standard in a small school (the ‘school year’ then was Jan to Dec). This institution, run by the Sisters of Mount Carmel was more an extension of all the families that lived in the town – after all, everyone knew everyone else. I was considered by teachers to be a meek and studious chap, never prone to take risks, a ‘teacher’s pet’. Of course, i had never been punished.
I first joined Frank Anthony Public School, Bangalore, in January 1978, it being the only one in which I got admission, Mum and Dad (Dad, in particular) aspired to put me in a true-blue, academic-centric ‘Convent’, which Frank Anthony certainly wasn’t. Their opportunity came in June and I joined St Josephs Boys High School, the venerable public school of 19th Century vintage, with a distinguished alumni list and a place of pride on Museum Road . My brother threw his weight behind the decision: in his class at IIT, there were a number of Josephites, but none from Frank Anthony.
My first day at Josephs was the day school commenced after the summer vacation. It was a hot, dusty day in June, and I sat uncertainly amidst thirty five boisterous boys (it was the first time I had left a co-educational classroom), timid and hesitant in a huge, old classroom, the walls, desks and benches of which carried numerous holes, scars and slashes of creative expression; the scene could have inspired Rowling in her creation of Harry Potter’s institution.
The classes began well enough and I remember relaxing into my uncomfortable wooden bench. A teacher named Moses walked in for the Biology class. After taking the attendance, he asked if all students had done their homework, assigned to them before the school closed for the vacation. There was silence and everyone looked around at everyone else. The boy next to me whispered,” Have you done it?”. “No.” I whispered back. “Then stand up.”
I stood up with trepidation (as I write this, I can feel the emotion coming back thirty two years after the event). “I haven’t done the homework, Sir.” I stammered out, and possibly would have added that it was my first day at school, but such explanations could wait. Moses advanced down the aisle and hit me on the face.
It was a brutal blow, in more ways than one. I had never been hit in school before, was in an alien environment and Moses was a powerful fellow, a brute of a chap, and I reeled back and felt the tears swell. He ordered me out of the class, and I stood in the dark and cold corridor for the rest of the session, sobbing into a hankerchief and wondering just what I had done wrong.
It took me many months to reconcile myself to the school and to this man; I would sit in every class of his with fear. Moses was clearly the worst teacher one could have: of average intelligence and education, and lacking in competence, with limited knowledge of his subject and a menacing air that brooked no questions, he was brutal with students who could not stand up to him (he hit me twice in the succeeding years) and partial to those who showered him with goodies (there were many of those) or who chose to flatter him. I realise today that children can be very tough indeed and can adapt, on the outside, to difficult people: I actually tried to flatter him over the next few years, realising that my marks were in his hands, and even succeeded. Yet the scar never ever went away.
For years, I hated Biology as a subject, and have only, in the last decade, been fascinated by it, largely the result of my interest in wildlife. After leaving school, I often fantasised situations where I gave it back to Moses either physically or otherwise…..but abandoned any thought of retribution after reading Mahatma Gandhi’s biography by Louis Fischer.
Did any child complain about Moses? Some apparently did, and it seemed to boomerang on them. For, Josephs believed in the rule that the teacher was always right, particularly, if he happened to be Catholic. Some years ago, I heard that Moses was still there: the loss to human value by having such a teacher is incalculable.
There are thousands of children who have had to endure much more than this. If we wish to have them educated, and not just literate, the first step is to replace the hand that hurts, with the heart that seeks to understand. Calculus and trignometry (or indeed the digestive system) can wait.
Perhaps I am impractical. And, of course, I have never taught a rough, noisy, garrulous bunch of children. Yet, I know the pain.
In December 1977, my family left the little town of Digboi and came to Bangalore. I had then finished my sixth standard in a small school (the ‘school year’ then was Jan to Dec). This institution, run by the Sisters of Mount Carmel was more an extension of all the families that lived in the town – after all, everyone knew everyone else. I was considered by teachers to be a meek and studious chap, never prone to take risks, a ‘teacher’s pet’. Of course, i had never been punished.
I first joined Frank Anthony Public School, Bangalore, in January 1978, it being the only one in which I got admission, Mum and Dad (Dad, in particular) aspired to put me in a true-blue, academic-centric ‘Convent’, which Frank Anthony certainly wasn’t. Their opportunity came in June and I joined St Josephs Boys High School, the venerable public school of 19th Century vintage, with a distinguished alumni list and a place of pride on Museum Road . My brother threw his weight behind the decision: in his class at IIT, there were a number of Josephites, but none from Frank Anthony.
My first day at Josephs was the day school commenced after the summer vacation. It was a hot, dusty day in June, and I sat uncertainly amidst thirty five boisterous boys (it was the first time I had left a co-educational classroom), timid and hesitant in a huge, old classroom, the walls, desks and benches of which carried numerous holes, scars and slashes of creative expression; the scene could have inspired Rowling in her creation of Harry Potter’s institution.
The classes began well enough and I remember relaxing into my uncomfortable wooden bench. A teacher named Moses walked in for the Biology class. After taking the attendance, he asked if all students had done their homework, assigned to them before the school closed for the vacation. There was silence and everyone looked around at everyone else. The boy next to me whispered,” Have you done it?”. “No.” I whispered back. “Then stand up.”
I stood up with trepidation (as I write this, I can feel the emotion coming back thirty two years after the event). “I haven’t done the homework, Sir.” I stammered out, and possibly would have added that it was my first day at school, but such explanations could wait. Moses advanced down the aisle and hit me on the face.
It was a brutal blow, in more ways than one. I had never been hit in school before, was in an alien environment and Moses was a powerful fellow, a brute of a chap, and I reeled back and felt the tears swell. He ordered me out of the class, and I stood in the dark and cold corridor for the rest of the session, sobbing into a hankerchief and wondering just what I had done wrong.
It took me many months to reconcile myself to the school and to this man; I would sit in every class of his with fear. Moses was clearly the worst teacher one could have: of average intelligence and education, and lacking in competence, with limited knowledge of his subject and a menacing air that brooked no questions, he was brutal with students who could not stand up to him (he hit me twice in the succeeding years) and partial to those who showered him with goodies (there were many of those) or who chose to flatter him. I realise today that children can be very tough indeed and can adapt, on the outside, to difficult people: I actually tried to flatter him over the next few years, realising that my marks were in his hands, and even succeeded. Yet the scar never ever went away.
For years, I hated Biology as a subject, and have only, in the last decade, been fascinated by it, largely the result of my interest in wildlife. After leaving school, I often fantasised situations where I gave it back to Moses either physically or otherwise…..but abandoned any thought of retribution after reading Mahatma Gandhi’s biography by Louis Fischer.
Did any child complain about Moses? Some apparently did, and it seemed to boomerang on them. For, Josephs believed in the rule that the teacher was always right, particularly, if he happened to be Catholic. Some years ago, I heard that Moses was still there: the loss to human value by having such a teacher is incalculable.
There are thousands of children who have had to endure much more than this. If we wish to have them educated, and not just literate, the first step is to replace the hand that hurts, with the heart that seeks to understand. Calculus and trignometry (or indeed the digestive system) can wait.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
When Courage created an entrepreneur
Most of us live, yet our lives have no story to tell. What story can be more pedantic than the pursuit of security and luxury while living within one’s zone of comfort and constrained imagination. Does your life tell a story?
This note, then, is about someone whose life has a story to tell. As I turned the pages of The Times of India this morning, I saw a touching memoriam to a Fauji, killed in the Valley exactly a decade ago. A few months ago, when I met his wife, it was in my role as a Coach for a program run by the Indian School of Business.
Sangeetha was in her late twenties when she lost her husband. Without an MBA or other professional qualification, holding a little child and overwhelmed by grief, she could well have retreated into the recesses of family comfort and anonymity, as many others have. The Government did what it always does: the unthinkable. It offered to allot her a fuel station in a lower-middle class locality in an unknown city (Bangalore). The circle of family and friends gave her predictable advice: say No, be the quintessential home-maker, live for the child, and so on. If she did the unthinkable and took on the task of setting up a bunk, with little knowledge of this, or for that matter any, business, it was because she wanted to temper the grief and develop an identity.
Eight years later, it’s a job very well done, even though she has little entrepreneurial passion for this business. I spent a few hours understanding the operation and the person – knowing the person is the most important bit – and the question on my mind was: Why was I a mentor to her, and not the other way around? Let’s define entrepreneurship for a minute: courage, persistence, the will to survive in business, the ability to take risks and some business basics……Most of us, particularly us MBAs, have the last part. She has the lot. If she is constrained, it is because of the dynamics of the fuel business, but, as I repeatedly told her, she would be a success in any business she chose to do with passion. The only thing a mentor can really do is listen, possibly praise; I trust I did both in some measure.
As I sat reading the rest of the newspaper, these thoughts crossed my head, as I silently saluted a man who laid his life down in defence of his country, and his wife who had the courage to step up to the challenge of creating a space for herself. Aristotle once said, “ Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” I teach.
This note, then, is about someone whose life has a story to tell. As I turned the pages of The Times of India this morning, I saw a touching memoriam to a Fauji, killed in the Valley exactly a decade ago. A few months ago, when I met his wife, it was in my role as a Coach for a program run by the Indian School of Business.
Sangeetha was in her late twenties when she lost her husband. Without an MBA or other professional qualification, holding a little child and overwhelmed by grief, she could well have retreated into the recesses of family comfort and anonymity, as many others have. The Government did what it always does: the unthinkable. It offered to allot her a fuel station in a lower-middle class locality in an unknown city (Bangalore). The circle of family and friends gave her predictable advice: say No, be the quintessential home-maker, live for the child, and so on. If she did the unthinkable and took on the task of setting up a bunk, with little knowledge of this, or for that matter any, business, it was because she wanted to temper the grief and develop an identity.
Eight years later, it’s a job very well done, even though she has little entrepreneurial passion for this business. I spent a few hours understanding the operation and the person – knowing the person is the most important bit – and the question on my mind was: Why was I a mentor to her, and not the other way around? Let’s define entrepreneurship for a minute: courage, persistence, the will to survive in business, the ability to take risks and some business basics……Most of us, particularly us MBAs, have the last part. She has the lot. If she is constrained, it is because of the dynamics of the fuel business, but, as I repeatedly told her, she would be a success in any business she chose to do with passion. The only thing a mentor can really do is listen, possibly praise; I trust I did both in some measure.
As I sat reading the rest of the newspaper, these thoughts crossed my head, as I silently saluted a man who laid his life down in defence of his country, and his wife who had the courage to step up to the challenge of creating a space for herself. Aristotle once said, “ Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” I teach.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Two Stories. One Moral
Two stories. One moral.
A few days ago, the CBSE results were announced on the Web. On that morning, the garrulous maid who cleans our home came in a bit late, with a grin on her face.
‘Anna, she began, ‘ This morning, I have to keep a watchful eye on a boy who lives in another apartment where I work, who has just written his tenth standard exams.’
‘Why?’ I queried
‘His mother is off to work and has asked me to ensure he doesn’t do anything silly if he gets marks below his expectations. His mother says that you really can’t predict how children will behave these days.’
Can you imagine this? A mother who found her work more important on such a day, abdicating her responsibility of just being with her child to a maid. A mom whose known repression of her son led even her to believe that he could not be trusted with himself. Is this what education does to us?
Incident Two: two days later, I was seated by a window in an Airbus to Mumbai. Next to me was a two year old, with her mother beside her, holding an infant in her lap. Her husband sat across the aisle.
It was clear that the children were scared. They were crying at a very high pitch, with the mom trying hard to soothe them, to little effect. As the plane took off, the two year old turned hysterical, which made me suspect the possibility of a block in the inner ear, and some pain – a not unusual occurrence, as the plane gains or drops altitude. Thankfully, the television saved the moment, and the child quietened down, even as the mother nursed the infant. About forty five minutes later, as the plane dropped altitude, the children began to howl again, clearly due to the pain in the ear. The mother went back to nursing the infant, which only made the two-year old cry louder. In her embarrassment, the mother’s face turned red, her initial indulgence with the child turning to outright hostility – she began to beat and pinch the two year old, even as she herself began to cry. The air hostess offered some sugar that would help in swallowing and, hence, in relieving the pain. The angry woman rejected the offer – how could anyone know how to manage my child? I looked away, as she actually pressed her palm against the mouth of the child to prevent her from crying, her other hand pinching the child’s bottom with force. The screaming child shifted position and lay on her mother’s lap; her crying had now reached a feverish pitch. When I looked again, the mother had opened the dining tray onto the head of the two year old and was pressing on it with all her might to hurt her own child. I looked away and waited for this family to leave the aircraft before getting off myself. Is this what education does to us?
If, years (perhaps two decades or more) later, these two children – one, a boy who has just finished his CBSE and the other, a two-old girl belonging to a different city, a different culture – decide to dump their parents in an old age home, or choose to migrate to another country leaving the elders dependant on a nurse, can you blame them?
How does one start the movement from literacy to education?
A few days ago, the CBSE results were announced on the Web. On that morning, the garrulous maid who cleans our home came in a bit late, with a grin on her face.
‘Anna, she began, ‘ This morning, I have to keep a watchful eye on a boy who lives in another apartment where I work, who has just written his tenth standard exams.’
‘Why?’ I queried
‘His mother is off to work and has asked me to ensure he doesn’t do anything silly if he gets marks below his expectations. His mother says that you really can’t predict how children will behave these days.’
Can you imagine this? A mother who found her work more important on such a day, abdicating her responsibility of just being with her child to a maid. A mom whose known repression of her son led even her to believe that he could not be trusted with himself. Is this what education does to us?
Incident Two: two days later, I was seated by a window in an Airbus to Mumbai. Next to me was a two year old, with her mother beside her, holding an infant in her lap. Her husband sat across the aisle.
It was clear that the children were scared. They were crying at a very high pitch, with the mom trying hard to soothe them, to little effect. As the plane took off, the two year old turned hysterical, which made me suspect the possibility of a block in the inner ear, and some pain – a not unusual occurrence, as the plane gains or drops altitude. Thankfully, the television saved the moment, and the child quietened down, even as the mother nursed the infant. About forty five minutes later, as the plane dropped altitude, the children began to howl again, clearly due to the pain in the ear. The mother went back to nursing the infant, which only made the two-year old cry louder. In her embarrassment, the mother’s face turned red, her initial indulgence with the child turning to outright hostility – she began to beat and pinch the two year old, even as she herself began to cry. The air hostess offered some sugar that would help in swallowing and, hence, in relieving the pain. The angry woman rejected the offer – how could anyone know how to manage my child? I looked away, as she actually pressed her palm against the mouth of the child to prevent her from crying, her other hand pinching the child’s bottom with force. The screaming child shifted position and lay on her mother’s lap; her crying had now reached a feverish pitch. When I looked again, the mother had opened the dining tray onto the head of the two year old and was pressing on it with all her might to hurt her own child. I looked away and waited for this family to leave the aircraft before getting off myself. Is this what education does to us?
If, years (perhaps two decades or more) later, these two children – one, a boy who has just finished his CBSE and the other, a two-old girl belonging to a different city, a different culture – decide to dump their parents in an old age home, or choose to migrate to another country leaving the elders dependant on a nurse, can you blame them?
How does one start the movement from literacy to education?
Sunday, May 23, 2010
A Scorpio isn't a sun sign, it's a nightmare
If there’s one car I dislike, it’s the Scorpio. It has many influential cousins, all equally dislike-able, including the Outlander, Endeavour and the Land Rover. Well, the cars look good by themselves, I must admit. Its what happens to normal, decent, ordinary (though rich) people when they get behind the wheel of these metal tanks.
The driver of the typical urban SUV is reckless, fast, mannerless and uncaring. It is, I am certain, the result of the perception of power that one acquires in the insulated safety of a steel-encased tank, a perception fed adequately by the silly media industry that extols you to buy the monster for its power & go-anywhere feature (though a fraction of these monsters are actually used on roads they are designed to ‘conquer’). How else do you explain its bearing down on you as you cross the road, horn blaring and lights flashing, as though it were taking a patient on his last breath to hospital? Why else would politicians, for instance, and dodgy businessmen make SUVs (primarily the Scorpio because of its relatively low price) their vehicles of choice?
Reality often beguiles perception. I wondered if anyone had done any research work on the possible link between SUVs and self esteem (and its ugly side, narcissism). In the lovely book, The Spirit Level, I came across an excerpt posted below (with much delight):
“…the popularity of SUVs suggest a preoccupation with looking tough & reflects growing mistrust and the need to feel safe from others. Josh Lauer, in his paper, ‘Driven to extremes’, asked why military ruggedness became prized above speed or sleekness and what the rise of the SUV said about American society. He concluded that the trend reflected American attitudes towards crime and violence, an admiration for rugged individualism and the importance of shutting oneself off from contact with others – mistrust. Accompanying the rise in SUVs were other signs of Americans’ increased uneasiness and fear of one another: growing numbers of gated communities and increasing sales of home security systems.”
QED
The driver of the typical urban SUV is reckless, fast, mannerless and uncaring. It is, I am certain, the result of the perception of power that one acquires in the insulated safety of a steel-encased tank, a perception fed adequately by the silly media industry that extols you to buy the monster for its power & go-anywhere feature (though a fraction of these monsters are actually used on roads they are designed to ‘conquer’). How else do you explain its bearing down on you as you cross the road, horn blaring and lights flashing, as though it were taking a patient on his last breath to hospital? Why else would politicians, for instance, and dodgy businessmen make SUVs (primarily the Scorpio because of its relatively low price) their vehicles of choice?
Reality often beguiles perception. I wondered if anyone had done any research work on the possible link between SUVs and self esteem (and its ugly side, narcissism). In the lovely book, The Spirit Level, I came across an excerpt posted below (with much delight):
“…the popularity of SUVs suggest a preoccupation with looking tough & reflects growing mistrust and the need to feel safe from others. Josh Lauer, in his paper, ‘Driven to extremes’, asked why military ruggedness became prized above speed or sleekness and what the rise of the SUV said about American society. He concluded that the trend reflected American attitudes towards crime and violence, an admiration for rugged individualism and the importance of shutting oneself off from contact with others – mistrust. Accompanying the rise in SUVs were other signs of Americans’ increased uneasiness and fear of one another: growing numbers of gated communities and increasing sales of home security systems.”
QED
Monday, April 26, 2010
Donald Duck in Cowboy Gear
Many summers ago, when I first began a corporate career working with TDICI, then India’s premier venture capital fund, I was about as raw as one could possibly get (I find today’s freshers a lot brighter and informed). A couple of months into my job, I was handed over a company, in which we had invested over the years, to ‘look after’. The company’s name was Gum India and it made, very simply, a bubble gum called Big Fun.
The company was in trouble, indeed in every conceivable sort of trouble. It owed money to nearly every pedestrian in Chennai, was a marginal player in most markets and made a product that destroyed kids’ teeth, which didn’t quite put it on a pedestal anywhere. The company was driven by its sales people, who inspite of an alleged business education, understood nothing of finance, collections or profitability. And, if this was not enough, the company founder was (and still is) quite a character: full of bluster, grand ideas (never supported by his own reality, which he perceived to be but an irritant), and an ability to talk the hind legs of the most skeptical donkey you’d meet. In us, he had found not just a donkey, but a herd of them. This chap had a mean streak of arrogance, partly a result of breeding, partly an education from IIM and the rest a CV that was more window-dressed than real. This hauteur meant that he reserved his time for my CEO, consigning me to his beleagured finance manager.
This note then is about Ramkumar, Gum India’s finance manager. He was a short tubby chap, grey haired, with a moustache and a formal smile that hid more than it revealed. His was an unenviable position to be in, as you can well imagine; hounded by creditors, harassed by employees and impaired by a management team that found him to be an impediment in their grandiose plans. This is not to imply that Ramkumar was a suffering, silent saint; on the contrary, he was a skilled manipulator with a number of victims who were guided gently down a primrose path to nowhere, these victims including my CEO, some of my illustrious colleagues and me in particular. I am certain now that he was a most creative accountant, delving into a grey realm of fiction when arranging the company’s financials and there was some speculation that he had his hand in the till as well. Yet there is no doubting the stress he was under, which at some point presented him with a slipped disc.
I used to meet him regularly, generally in his office in Chennai (indeed, I suspect the company did not have the money to send him to Bangalore without excellent reason). I was always instructed to meet him with stern messages on company performance (or the lack of it) and sometimes rehearsed my lines, yet an hour with him would disable my ammunition and have me meekly submit to his extenuations. Our meetings always ended with a set of excuses for non-performance from his side that were to be relayed by me to my senior colleagues in the company’s defence. The next quarter, he would assert, would be spectacular for the company. It was a quarter that never came, yet every time we met, there was astonishing chutzpah on display.
Ramkumar’s room was a drab, grey cabin, with little to please the eye, except for a poster that was stuck on the wall behind him. It had Donald Duck in a cowboy suit, hat, holster, the works, twirling a gun on his forefinger, with a broad grin across his engaging face. The byline said, “Nothing will happen today that I can’t handle!”. Everytime I met him in his room, my eyes would fix on that poster. I kept relating it to the man himself, and realised that it reflected his philosophy, if indeed that is a suitable word to use. There I would sit, paying scant attention to what he was saying while nodding my head, thinking of just what this statement of assertion meant and the more I stared at it, the more it impressed me with its resilient overtone.
As the years have passed by, this visual of Donald Duck has stood me in good stead. When faced with a fire in my family home in the middle of the night, an airline employee who had closed the flight gates or a ticket conductor who asked (recently) for proof of identity that I did not have on me, I have sat back in despair only to see my friend, Donald, in his cowboy suit. Often then, a picture of Ramkumar opens up in my mind, his easy, at times sly, smile reflecting his confidence in making me putty in his hands. I have then composed myself and put on a smile to help build my defence. I cannot remember an instance when this statement has let me down, since I first accepted it.
The company was in trouble, indeed in every conceivable sort of trouble. It owed money to nearly every pedestrian in Chennai, was a marginal player in most markets and made a product that destroyed kids’ teeth, which didn’t quite put it on a pedestal anywhere. The company was driven by its sales people, who inspite of an alleged business education, understood nothing of finance, collections or profitability. And, if this was not enough, the company founder was (and still is) quite a character: full of bluster, grand ideas (never supported by his own reality, which he perceived to be but an irritant), and an ability to talk the hind legs of the most skeptical donkey you’d meet. In us, he had found not just a donkey, but a herd of them. This chap had a mean streak of arrogance, partly a result of breeding, partly an education from IIM and the rest a CV that was more window-dressed than real. This hauteur meant that he reserved his time for my CEO, consigning me to his beleagured finance manager.
This note then is about Ramkumar, Gum India’s finance manager. He was a short tubby chap, grey haired, with a moustache and a formal smile that hid more than it revealed. His was an unenviable position to be in, as you can well imagine; hounded by creditors, harassed by employees and impaired by a management team that found him to be an impediment in their grandiose plans. This is not to imply that Ramkumar was a suffering, silent saint; on the contrary, he was a skilled manipulator with a number of victims who were guided gently down a primrose path to nowhere, these victims including my CEO, some of my illustrious colleagues and me in particular. I am certain now that he was a most creative accountant, delving into a grey realm of fiction when arranging the company’s financials and there was some speculation that he had his hand in the till as well. Yet there is no doubting the stress he was under, which at some point presented him with a slipped disc.
I used to meet him regularly, generally in his office in Chennai (indeed, I suspect the company did not have the money to send him to Bangalore without excellent reason). I was always instructed to meet him with stern messages on company performance (or the lack of it) and sometimes rehearsed my lines, yet an hour with him would disable my ammunition and have me meekly submit to his extenuations. Our meetings always ended with a set of excuses for non-performance from his side that were to be relayed by me to my senior colleagues in the company’s defence. The next quarter, he would assert, would be spectacular for the company. It was a quarter that never came, yet every time we met, there was astonishing chutzpah on display.
Ramkumar’s room was a drab, grey cabin, with little to please the eye, except for a poster that was stuck on the wall behind him. It had Donald Duck in a cowboy suit, hat, holster, the works, twirling a gun on his forefinger, with a broad grin across his engaging face. The byline said, “Nothing will happen today that I can’t handle!”. Everytime I met him in his room, my eyes would fix on that poster. I kept relating it to the man himself, and realised that it reflected his philosophy, if indeed that is a suitable word to use. There I would sit, paying scant attention to what he was saying while nodding my head, thinking of just what this statement of assertion meant and the more I stared at it, the more it impressed me with its resilient overtone.
As the years have passed by, this visual of Donald Duck has stood me in good stead. When faced with a fire in my family home in the middle of the night, an airline employee who had closed the flight gates or a ticket conductor who asked (recently) for proof of identity that I did not have on me, I have sat back in despair only to see my friend, Donald, in his cowboy suit. Often then, a picture of Ramkumar opens up in my mind, his easy, at times sly, smile reflecting his confidence in making me putty in his hands. I have then composed myself and put on a smile to help build my defence. I cannot remember an instance when this statement has let me down, since I first accepted it.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Paths are made for walking
The warm spring season in Feb-March is my favourite time of year.
As you walk by the different species of trees that line the roads, most of them in flower, the mild, yet intoxicating, fragrances emanating from them make you breathe more, deeper and fuller. The honge is in a class of its own, its mauve & white tiny flowers forming a carpet that attracts the apis indica in their hundreds and releasing the scents of a million blossoms in spring that power the imagination. No less is the large leaf Mahogany (about which I have written in the earlier post), the now-scantily flowering Cork tree (Millingtonia Hortensis to those who know of Millington, the great botanist in pre-Independence India) and the Champaka in white and blood red.
Stop to look around you and up into the foliage and you are greeted with a riot of colours, with the Tabebuias leading from the front. Colours from the delicate to the resplendent, from the ridiculous to the sublime – only Nature could prepare this Planter's Punch, in a moment of heady mirth. Walk longer, a lot longer, to reach Lalbagh and a lot more is in store – the Flame of the Forest (Butea), now alas a rarity in the city, the Coral Tree, the Silk Cottons in two colours that would shock and awe, the giant Mahua, the flowers of which would make a heady brew and, as April dawns and the season of Vishu begins (the Malayalam new year), the most beautiful, the most delicate, the most inexplicably charming necklace of petals, the Laburnum (Cassia Fistula, Vishu Kanni in God's own language).
As you can see, this is clearly my pick; I can spend a happy hour by a laburnum, watching the necklaces of yellow sway in the mild breeze, drop some flowers or draw a dizzy bee into their midst. When our ancestors first set store by this tree, profiling it as sacred, setting its flowers aside for worship and giving an otherwise ordinary tree a place of pride, it was because they had had their moments of exultant de bonheur, an unbrindled happiness at the sight of the Laburnum. We have a lot to learn from the history of beauty.
As you walk by the different species of trees that line the roads, most of them in flower, the mild, yet intoxicating, fragrances emanating from them make you breathe more, deeper and fuller. The honge is in a class of its own, its mauve & white tiny flowers forming a carpet that attracts the apis indica in their hundreds and releasing the scents of a million blossoms in spring that power the imagination. No less is the large leaf Mahogany (about which I have written in the earlier post), the now-scantily flowering Cork tree (Millingtonia Hortensis to those who know of Millington, the great botanist in pre-Independence India) and the Champaka in white and blood red.
Stop to look around you and up into the foliage and you are greeted with a riot of colours, with the Tabebuias leading from the front. Colours from the delicate to the resplendent, from the ridiculous to the sublime – only Nature could prepare this Planter's Punch, in a moment of heady mirth. Walk longer, a lot longer, to reach Lalbagh and a lot more is in store – the Flame of the Forest (Butea), now alas a rarity in the city, the Coral Tree, the Silk Cottons in two colours that would shock and awe, the giant Mahua, the flowers of which would make a heady brew and, as April dawns and the season of Vishu begins (the Malayalam new year), the most beautiful, the most delicate, the most inexplicably charming necklace of petals, the Laburnum (Cassia Fistula, Vishu Kanni in God's own language).
As you can see, this is clearly my pick; I can spend a happy hour by a laburnum, watching the necklaces of yellow sway in the mild breeze, drop some flowers or draw a dizzy bee into their midst. When our ancestors first set store by this tree, profiling it as sacred, setting its flowers aside for worship and giving an otherwise ordinary tree a place of pride, it was because they had had their moments of exultant de bonheur, an unbrindled happiness at the sight of the Laburnum. We have a lot to learn from the history of beauty.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Mahogany Magic
In the post-winter month of Feb - occasionally extending into early March - something astonishing comes alive in Bangalore, a process that, because it is commonplace, is taken for granted by all of us.
Many years ago, as a part of the social forestry program, large-leaved mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) was planted all over the city. This is not the expensive-wood mahogany that is considered better dead than alive. Rather, it is but a poor cousin, poor enough to be planted by the road and left to grow unhindered. And grow it does to a large size, flush with large green leaves and capsule-like fruits, covered with minute knobbly projections, containing many winged seeds that are, as I write this note, scattered on our pavements and roads.
In early Feb, as if on cue, every tree of this species begins to shed its leaves. The beginnings are modest and I often stand for a few minutes under the benign shade, tracking the lazy swirl of a leaf as it breeze-dances its way to the ground. A couple of days later, the process acquires a momentum, a shot of inspiration, a fillip and the occasional leaf is now joined by many many more, turning shedding into a veritable shower. Park a car under the tree for a day and you could well miss the steel-and-rubber under the pile up. Imagine, for a moment, just what imperative the tree is responding to, to have to issue pink slips with such rapidity, to shake off its clothing, much as wet dog shakes off water with some annoyance.
The imperative, of course, is the heat which results in transpiration loss. In the tropics, our deciduous trees shed their leaves in the summer, unlike the temperates where autumn is the season for the shed-fest, yet the magic of the mahogany is the sheer velocity of the process, measured in hours, not days, in the briefest moments of a mild breeze, not in gradual phase of weather change.
And one day, the tree is bare, a shadow of its former self - indeed it is quite an appropriate turn of phrase, for a bare tree's shadow is but sparse, a gigantic fibrous root system it would seem, upside down.
Miss this spectacle for a day or two though and you have missed it for a year. For very soon, the tree begins to grow its leaves again, bright dark-green leaflets, that soften the summer sunshine and fan the weary pedestrian. A week later, the tree is back to its former glory, bathed in a shiny green, a new look for the year ahead.
For some years now, I have watched this with fascination. I have far more questions than answers each year; questions such as 'What determines the speed of renewal?' and 'Why does it not wait for some indicator of rain before sprouting its leaves back?'
When a spectacle forces a question, we know that Nature is at work. Here, it's the magic of the Mahogany.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Just Why I am a Genius
One of my abiding questions has been: just why am I a genius? Indeed, I read somewhere that only geniuses ask this question.
Well, the latest issue of The Economist (page 78) has part of the answer. Research presented in the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Feb 19th proves that a post-prandial snooze sets the brain up for learning. Those who remain awake throughout the day become worse at learning. Those who nap, by contrast, actually improve their capacity to learn, doing better in the evening that they had at noon. These findings suggest that sleep is clearing the brain’s short term memory and making way for new information.
If you have additional insight on just why I am a genius let me know.
Well, the latest issue of The Economist (page 78) has part of the answer. Research presented in the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Feb 19th proves that a post-prandial snooze sets the brain up for learning. Those who remain awake throughout the day become worse at learning. Those who nap, by contrast, actually improve their capacity to learn, doing better in the evening that they had at noon. These findings suggest that sleep is clearing the brain’s short term memory and making way for new information.
If you have additional insight on just why I am a genius let me know.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
China is the wrong goalpost
Just prior to the Budget this year, a newspaper headlined "Finance minister says India will beat China by 2014." This is about as boring and predictable as one can get. The media and India's corporate sector has succeeded effectively in placing China on an aspirational economic pedestal, compelling politicians to pander to their views.
China is the wrong goal. In the pursuit of economic growth, it is destroying its environment, depleting its soil, air and water and producing third rate goods, often made or coated with toxic material. Fast growth comes at its own cost - its a very heavy burden for current and future generations to bear.
Just why can't we take the best examples in comprehensive economic growth? These are not economic Page 3s, so to speak, not spoken about in hushed tones or with awe. But they are solid examples: Bhutan, Netherlands, Costa Rica and Norway, all have a great deal to teach us. In an earlier blog, I briefly commented on the essence of Costa Rica's philosophy. Bhutan measures not GDP, but Gross Domestic Happiness. In a couple of later posts, I will cover the other two economic models, if only to make the point that human happiness, green cover and economic growth are intensely correlated and have never been contradictory.
One reason why the aforesaid 4 are not on any economic map is their size, particularly vis-a-vis India. China fits the bill here, of course, yet the fallacy is in the belief that 'thinking big' is thinking right. Nothing could be further away from the truth than this rather fallacious assumption.
China is the wrong goalpost. Happiness - through whatever economic model we choose - is the right one. More later.
China is the wrong goal. In the pursuit of economic growth, it is destroying its environment, depleting its soil, air and water and producing third rate goods, often made or coated with toxic material. Fast growth comes at its own cost - its a very heavy burden for current and future generations to bear.
Just why can't we take the best examples in comprehensive economic growth? These are not economic Page 3s, so to speak, not spoken about in hushed tones or with awe. But they are solid examples: Bhutan, Netherlands, Costa Rica and Norway, all have a great deal to teach us. In an earlier blog, I briefly commented on the essence of Costa Rica's philosophy. Bhutan measures not GDP, but Gross Domestic Happiness. In a couple of later posts, I will cover the other two economic models, if only to make the point that human happiness, green cover and economic growth are intensely correlated and have never been contradictory.
One reason why the aforesaid 4 are not on any economic map is their size, particularly vis-a-vis India. China fits the bill here, of course, yet the fallacy is in the belief that 'thinking big' is thinking right. Nothing could be further away from the truth than this rather fallacious assumption.
China is the wrong goalpost. Happiness - through whatever economic model we choose - is the right one. More later.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Vedanta - a man is known by the company he keeps
The more I learn of the Indian mining major, Vedanta, the more I am convinced that it is a company whose designs and values are suspect. There are many such companies in India, of course, but the Vedanta group has set, by itself, a rather dubious standard of 'rape and run'. The group companies include Sterlite, Madras Aluminium, Bharat Aluminium and Vedanta Alumina.
Over the last few months I have been exposed to a fair amount of data, videos and photographs put together by a number of civil rights groups, committed non-profits and intrepid individuals and am convinced of the abuse of this management's power and money in its operations in Orissa and elsewhere in India. I have seen and read extensively of collosal, shocking air pollution with fly ash, of thousands of people affected by multiple skin diseases, of the use of State police to force poor people to vacate large areas of lands that the group wants acquired for mining, expansion or new development and of mass destruction of tree cover. This is the classic example of the company that Micheal Moore termed the alter ego, in some sense, of the psychopath - single minded pursuit of profits to the detriment of all else.
The final nail in the coffin was the decision of the Orissa Government to 'sell' a sacred hill for mining bauxite, to this company, a decision that regrettably was endorsed by the Supreme Court, which has often taken the side of environment and traditional heritage in its history. This hill - the Niyamgiri hill - is sacred to the Kondh people and they have fought a courageous battle that, in many ways, is only beginning.
Very interestingly, this is one environmental battle that is being fought in the financial services sector: a number of investors - mutual funds, charitable trusts, pension funds - are either dumping their Vedanta stock after learning of the company's activity or refusing to buy. These include Norway's Government Pension Fund (also called the oil fund), the Church of England, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Martin Currie Investment Trust.
Hence, here's a request: please read to learn about Vedanta. If you don't like what you see, and you manage a fund, do the right thing. Write to the Mutual Fund Managers you know or those who manage some of your money about this company, requesting them to avoid buying or holding onto the stock of a criminally negligent company.
Over the last few months I have been exposed to a fair amount of data, videos and photographs put together by a number of civil rights groups, committed non-profits and intrepid individuals and am convinced of the abuse of this management's power and money in its operations in Orissa and elsewhere in India. I have seen and read extensively of collosal, shocking air pollution with fly ash, of thousands of people affected by multiple skin diseases, of the use of State police to force poor people to vacate large areas of lands that the group wants acquired for mining, expansion or new development and of mass destruction of tree cover. This is the classic example of the company that Micheal Moore termed the alter ego, in some sense, of the psychopath - single minded pursuit of profits to the detriment of all else.
The final nail in the coffin was the decision of the Orissa Government to 'sell' a sacred hill for mining bauxite, to this company, a decision that regrettably was endorsed by the Supreme Court, which has often taken the side of environment and traditional heritage in its history. This hill - the Niyamgiri hill - is sacred to the Kondh people and they have fought a courageous battle that, in many ways, is only beginning.
Very interestingly, this is one environmental battle that is being fought in the financial services sector: a number of investors - mutual funds, charitable trusts, pension funds - are either dumping their Vedanta stock after learning of the company's activity or refusing to buy. These include Norway's Government Pension Fund (also called the oil fund), the Church of England, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Martin Currie Investment Trust.
Hence, here's a request: please read to learn about Vedanta. If you don't like what you see, and you manage a fund, do the right thing. Write to the Mutual Fund Managers you know or those who manage some of your money about this company, requesting them to avoid buying or holding onto the stock of a criminally negligent company.
Monday, February 15, 2010
The Cost of Driving Your Car
If you are contemplating buying your second car, for the home, the better half or possibly a grown up child, read this carefully. When an airconditioned taxi cab (with a chaffeur) is offered to you @ Rs. 15 per kilometre (Meru or Easy Cabs, for instance), you shudder. This is expensive, if used regularly. Much better to buy a vehicle instead.
Lets do some micro economics here:
Assume now, that you are purchasing a mid range car, say one that costs Rs. 6 lakhs and runs on petrol, giving you an efficiency of about 12 km per litre. Assume further that the car will run about 10,000 km a year. These are fair & realistice assumptions. Remember that this is the second car for the family.
Fuel cost per kilometre (including engine oil) : Rs. 5 (just a third of the cab)
Over a five year period, though, there are the following:
Daily washing, quarterly servicing and (inevitable) repairs, battery & tyre replacement and tinkering costs : Rs. 100,000, or about Rs 2 per km
Insurance : Rs. 50,000, Re 1 per km
Loss of interest (post-tax!) on the amount invested in the car : Rs. 3 per km
Loss on sale of car after 5 years (@ Rs. 3 lakhs) : Rs. 6 per km. The more expensive the car, the higher the loss per km.
Total cost of ownership : Rs. 17 per km. The saving to you by using a cab covering 50,000 km over a five year period is Rs. 1 lakh.
Throw in a personal chaffeur and the cost reaches Rs. 23-Rs. 26 per kilometre.
I use this argument against a second car, rather than the first, only because a single car may be seen as vital for, say, a medical emergency and hence not subject to critical economic analysis.
The moral: public transport is not just eco-friendly, it is common economics as well.
Lets do some micro economics here:
Assume now, that you are purchasing a mid range car, say one that costs Rs. 6 lakhs and runs on petrol, giving you an efficiency of about 12 km per litre. Assume further that the car will run about 10,000 km a year. These are fair & realistice assumptions. Remember that this is the second car for the family.
Fuel cost per kilometre (including engine oil) : Rs. 5 (just a third of the cab)
Over a five year period, though, there are the following:
Daily washing, quarterly servicing and (inevitable) repairs, battery & tyre replacement and tinkering costs : Rs. 100,000, or about Rs 2 per km
Insurance : Rs. 50,000, Re 1 per km
Loss of interest (post-tax!) on the amount invested in the car : Rs. 3 per km
Loss on sale of car after 5 years (@ Rs. 3 lakhs) : Rs. 6 per km. The more expensive the car, the higher the loss per km.
Total cost of ownership : Rs. 17 per km. The saving to you by using a cab covering 50,000 km over a five year period is Rs. 1 lakh.
Throw in a personal chaffeur and the cost reaches Rs. 23-Rs. 26 per kilometre.
I use this argument against a second car, rather than the first, only because a single car may be seen as vital for, say, a medical emergency and hence not subject to critical economic analysis.
The moral: public transport is not just eco-friendly, it is common economics as well.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Costa Rica: happy and green
I first met Carmen from Costa Rica in UC, Berkeley in 2001. What struck me most about this teenager was just how much she laughed all the time in the month long program she attended alongwith me and about thirty others. In Costa Rica, though, (as I read in a recent BBC report) her laughter and ready sense of humour is hardly an exception.
Costa Rica is a remarkable country. It has no army. Successive governments have poured money into books, not bullets, with the result that the country is almost fully literate.
It is the first developing country to state its aim of being carbon neutral by 2021, in part through the mass planting of trees. In the 1980s, about 20% of its land area was covered by forests. Today, about half of Costa Rica is has rich tree cover. About 90% of its energy supply comes from renewables.
Is being green also being happy ? Much as I would want the correlation established, Costa Rica is the only real example I can find, the correlation established in a report published by the New Economics Foundation, which has combined three variables - what people say about their life satisfaction, their longevity (very high at 78 years ) and their ecological footprint.
Sociologists and some others have extended this argument, making facts that are equally relevant and proven elsewhere (read Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers'). They say that, in addition to greenness, longevity can be connected to happiness which in turn is because of strong social networks of friends and familiers and a high level of tolerance of social divisions and opinions. A popular piece of philosophy in Costa Rica says no argument or quarrel should last more than three days.
We have a lot to learn from this beautiful country.
Costa Rica is a remarkable country. It has no army. Successive governments have poured money into books, not bullets, with the result that the country is almost fully literate.
It is the first developing country to state its aim of being carbon neutral by 2021, in part through the mass planting of trees. In the 1980s, about 20% of its land area was covered by forests. Today, about half of Costa Rica is has rich tree cover. About 90% of its energy supply comes from renewables.
Is being green also being happy ? Much as I would want the correlation established, Costa Rica is the only real example I can find, the correlation established in a report published by the New Economics Foundation, which has combined three variables - what people say about their life satisfaction, their longevity (very high at 78 years ) and their ecological footprint.
Sociologists and some others have extended this argument, making facts that are equally relevant and proven elsewhere (read Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers'). They say that, in addition to greenness, longevity can be connected to happiness which in turn is because of strong social networks of friends and familiers and a high level of tolerance of social divisions and opinions. A popular piece of philosophy in Costa Rica says no argument or quarrel should last more than three days.
We have a lot to learn from this beautiful country.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Laptop & change
This month, my laptop (the first one I have ever had) completes six years of service. Perhaps IBM (now, no longer IBM, but Lenovo) should give me an award for persistence. On the other hand, I have used Windows XP all along (now, no longer Windows XP, but failed Vista, followed by Windows 7), so perhaps Microsoft should. Or, perhaps, the guy who sold me the laptop should be getting some flak from his boss for not tempting me with an upgrade, but then he has gone through three more jobs in the last six years. Then, the dealer (his boss), who sold me the laptop, is no longer a dealer, but has shut shop because of thinning margins.
Well, you get the gist. Everything (pointlessly) changes all the time, of course. Except my laptop. It has now become rather old and slow, much like an old man walking down a high-traffic stairway, holding onto the railing of predictability.
I am not emotional about things in general & would gladly let go of a product if it had outlived its utility or had been worn to its soles, yet there is an underlying environmental responsibility for full usage - after all, like most people I know, all that we use is the Office Suite in its most basic form. This laptop, old as he is, needs to use only about 10% of his potential to deal with me (which gives you an idea of just how tech savvy I am). Much of our dissatisfaction with computers is because of their speed, or rather, the superior speed of newer computers, when contrasted with the one you own. I call this 'engineered dissatisfaction' - a term I use for the egregious efforts of intelligent engineers and product managers who, in their effort to maximise profits for their corporations, encourage people to buy new computers without bothering about what they could do with the old one. They do this knowing fully well that the potential customer is rarely using the full product, but can be tempted with the Apple in the garden (no pun, of course, intended).
By using my laptop over this inordinate period and speaking about it, I am making a statement - to anyone who'd care to listen. Think. Before you buy.
Well, you get the gist. Everything (pointlessly) changes all the time, of course. Except my laptop. It has now become rather old and slow, much like an old man walking down a high-traffic stairway, holding onto the railing of predictability.
I am not emotional about things in general & would gladly let go of a product if it had outlived its utility or had been worn to its soles, yet there is an underlying environmental responsibility for full usage - after all, like most people I know, all that we use is the Office Suite in its most basic form. This laptop, old as he is, needs to use only about 10% of his potential to deal with me (which gives you an idea of just how tech savvy I am). Much of our dissatisfaction with computers is because of their speed, or rather, the superior speed of newer computers, when contrasted with the one you own. I call this 'engineered dissatisfaction' - a term I use for the egregious efforts of intelligent engineers and product managers who, in their effort to maximise profits for their corporations, encourage people to buy new computers without bothering about what they could do with the old one. They do this knowing fully well that the potential customer is rarely using the full product, but can be tempted with the Apple in the garden (no pun, of course, intended).
By using my laptop over this inordinate period and speaking about it, I am making a statement - to anyone who'd care to listen. Think. Before you buy.
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