A thought

To stick to what you stand for in life is the most difficult thing you can do.

Lessons from Tough times.

While tough and extremely tough times take a long while to go away, they do leave a lot of learning's. Some of what i have learned :

• You learn how to best make use of your finances. The credit card of course is your best friend in these trying times.
• You suddenly realize that fuel is more costly than it has even been. A thousand rupees seem to get you less of gasoline than it did when you had enough moolah at hand.
• You realize that your friend list seems to shrink everyday, this is the best time to say good-bye to most of them, they were not worth it anyways.
• The electricity bill seems to be more than ever before and seems to come at too quick a frequency.
• Eggs and not pizza is the best food ever created.
• Suddenly your entire set of relatives want a job in your organisation, if not that, nearly all have something to do with the organisation that you just quit.
• The electricity pole just outside your house seems to have developed a fascination for your car and seems to move just as to hit it while you are engaging the reverse gear.
• The bathroom sink and electricity fitting suddenly give up and you realise that inflation has actually increased when you pay a huge amount to the friendly neighbourhood electrician.
• All your younger relatives seems to get married at this time only and your family wants them to given the most expensive gifts.
• Every meeting or party that you attend has to be in Gurgaon, if you are living in Noida.

JRD, Ratan and the Nano

The year was 1989 or maybe 1990 and these were the pre-cable days when at 9.50 there used to be program on DD where a dude called Rajeev Mehrotra(hope the name is correct) a bearded guy used to interview celebrities. Most of these were boring oldies in whom no one was interested, but then, there was very little choice. It was between studying and watching TV and i always preferred the latter. In one of these shows our dude was interviewing JRD. I cannot forget this interview even after close to 20 years. Here was a man who was supposedly one of the richest in our country, wearing slacks and t-shirt, with a half filled crystal glass filled with scotch. Apart from the general talk about what are your future plans and all that crap, a number of things impressed me about JRD.

• The fact that during the half hour he took very very small sips from the glass(unlike tanks like us). I found this most elegant. Even when the interview ended the glass was about 25% full.
• JRD had two regrets in life 1) not having been able to speak or write Hindi and having no permanent residence. The latter he added was a matter of convenience as most of the places he went, there was a Taj hotel and he need not be bothered with stupid things that he couldn't handle like maids and cooks etc. I was mesmerised as i had never heard of anyone who did not have a permanent place to stay.

JRD passed away sometime later and the man who succeeded him was Ratan Tata. The man was most non-impressive. He did not have the enchanting personality like JRD, the world was abuzz of his 'different' sexual preferences, he was failure in whatever he had done till date(Voltas and Nelco Blue Diamond TV) and was succeeding JRD just because of his DNA.

Life continued after that and Ratan Tata fought with the world just to be where he was. The fact of the matter was that JRD was a Sultan of his empire and the world treated him like one. The Russi Modies and JJ Iranis of the world were his Satraps who were just loyal to him and resisted change, never realising that the world around them was already changing completely and these old men should hang their boots now. They were irritated by this new Tata who treated them as his equals and had completely different ideas to do business. The junior Tata fought with each one of them till they realised that JRD is happy in his grave in Paris and his history and so will they be if they don't walk in line with the new guy. Most of them walked out with the prophesy that Tata group is doomed. The Buddha was smiling. The status of the group was thus : Tata Steel was ranked 100+ in the worldwide ranking of steel companies and was not doing well at all. Tata Motors could never think beyond TATA 1612 and TATA 407, those old model Merecedes trucks that were of the 1947 variety but were still loved by drivers, again, the raking being nothing to speak about. Ratan later launched a new company called TCS which was into an unrelated field of software etc. Overall a bad sign for the group. Buddha was still smiling.

Tata Motors then planned launch of the first Indian car and the world (including yours truly) thought it would be a disaster as other of Mr. Tata's projects had been. The world couldn't have been more incorrect. Indica sold like hot cakes and became a success story. TCS then became one of India's best IT companies. Ratan Tata, unlike his counterparts at Reliance /UB/Birla was never seen in parties, never agreed for interviews and remained a recluse for the media.

Tata announced the launch of a car which was priced at Rs.1 lac. The world laughed, Suzuki's of the world said that this was a impractical and the Buddha smiled. One fine morning there was news that Tata Steel had decided to buy Corus, a steel major from Europe. The country stood up and noticed the fact that RatanTata, despite being media shy had done more for the economy of the country then some of his more brash and media savvy industry cousins. The Corus deal made TISCO one of the top 10 steel companies in the world.

Jaguar and Landrover, the iconic brands were up for sale and both the owner of the brand as well as the unions, who had been a pain the ass for buyers agreed on only one name : TATA Motors.

2008- Ratan Tata drives Nano, the Rs. 1 lac dream car that he had promised that he will launch, the world takes notice. This is the cheapest car in the world. The Suzuki's of the world are feeling stupid, Bajaj decides to follow suit and no one can understand how this technological miracle happened. Tata still remains the media shy guy that he has always been, even, though both CNN and BBC dedicated enough time to the product and company then probably both the Ambani brothers combined. The news channels of the nation went gaga over the great technological feat and the country was proud of Ratan Tata and his vision.

Hats off Mr. Tata for giving the dream car to the nation. Whether our screwed-up infrastructure will be able to handle this or not is not for you to decide. The nation has agreed to the fact that your vision, foresight and business acumen is par excellence,probably far more than your father. That you have decided to call it a day is sad news for the country, may we have many more unrelenting visionaries like you. The country is proud of you and your vision.

The judicial system

In 1991 as a seventeen year old i entered the city courts of Agra for the first time, till then my idea of a court was taken from hindi movies with Muraad as the judge and some side-kick as a well dressed advocate. I was aghast at what i saw in the court of Munsif 1, the judge was shabbily dressed and would have slept anytime had the poor single fan that was trying its best to perform a miracle been a little quicker. The advocates present were chewing gutkha, giggling and treating the court as a dustbin. The bailiff was charging Rs.3 for services rendered , and ,as i understood later, the total of this collection was distributed to all in the hierarchy from Judge Saab downwards.

After my first experience all respect for the judiciary flew out of the window and i understood why middle class individuals shudder at the very thought of entering the Indian court. I jokingly asked my advocate one day as to how many honest judges will be there in Agra( the total number was 31 if i remember correctly) and i was informed that their is just one and the advocate lobby is trying its best to get him transferred ASAP.

My advocate was an expert in under-the -table settlements and as expected he told me that the case will be decided in my favour, with a judgement written by us, signed by His majesty for a payment of Rs.12000.00. I agreed and lo and behold, the learned Judge did just that.

You can understand what respect i had for the community when i came to Delhi in 1997. As far as i was concerned, all judges were corrupt, the system rotten and all Judges should be thrown into the Arabian sea to save the country.

I was in for a shock again. I realised that while most of the judiciary is rotten at the district levels, the High court and the apex court are the saviours of the Indian judicial system. With cases like Jessica Lal, reservations to the creamy layer and many others having been highlighted off late, the faith of the people in the Judicial system has been established again to the level that most of the people now feel that it is the Supreme Court that is running the country with the total failure on part of the Executive and the people who are supposed to make the laws of the land. While I understand that the Judiciary also tends to overdo things at times, Aaamir Khans and Mallika Sherawats of the world will agree, it is still the only system in the three wings of the Constitution in which we have any faith left.
What is needed is some amendments in the draconian Indian Penal Code, swift judicial process and a need for a infrastructure overhaul of the courts. The number of civil suits pending in courts is appalling to say the least and need a quick solution. This may happen only with time, but hopefully for the country will happen sooner than later.

Effigies, Traffic Jams and Democracy

Yesterday there was a traffic jam on all the major roads of Delhi. The jam was called by Vishwa Hindu Parishad and like all others was accompanied by violence, destruction of public property and of course disruption of traffic, inconvenience to commuters to say the least. This is a unique way of putting your point across and is by and large unique to our democracy. Frankly, i have never heard of effigies being burnt anywhere else in the world(i may be wrong) than in India and that too with amazing frequency. I am sure that some creative mind thinking out of the box would like to start a new business of making good quality effigies of important politicians and make a lot of moolah out of it.

Protests of any nature are an integral part of any democratic set-up and a democracy where the citizens cant raise their voice is no democracy at all. We as a race are very argumentative and believe in putting our point across strongly. I was wondering where this form of protest actually start and realised that the cow-milk drinker Mahatma started all this, with very noble intentions indeed. The idea probably was a peaceful protest that was completely non-violent. Burning of effigies, disruption of traffic and damage to public property never formed a part of this. I was having food at a road side joint near Jantar Mantar and thought of asking some people protesting against 'americanisation' of India what was wrong if Wallmart were to come to India, after all a guy called Ratan Tata has also acquired a company called Corus, nine of the ten guys had no clue as to why they were there. Majority of the people were either the poor who were brought by buses with the offer of a good lunch and transportation or students who wanted to please some neta ji who was a part of the protest.

The sheer agony of people waiting to go to office, the ill in urgent need to go to hospital, the sheer amount of fuel wasted while people abuse the protesters is amounting to crores. I am sure that none of the people who went through the agonizing wait a Akshardham etc would have any more to do with the Ram Setu somewhere in Tamil Nadu that I have to do with the love life of Queen Elizabeth.

The number of people who go to vote decreases with ever election, the apathy amongst the middle class of anyone who is a politician is immense and these instances just add fuel to the already burning fire. No wonder someone said recently that all politicians of our country should be thrown in the Arabian Sea with their hands and legs tied for our great nation to prosper.

Childhood Pals

While I have always been extremely critical of Sanju Baba and have thought of him as just another criminal who is getting sympathy he does not deserve, the fact that a gentleman called Yousuf Nulwala and he have been friends for 35 years came as a surprise to me. How many people can claim to still be friends with guys that they met during their school days?

It invariably happens that guys who were our friends branch out later in life. This may be attributed to a number of reasons, geography, paradigm shift, fall-out due to petty issues etc. The fact happens to be that when we make friends during our school days we are neither as calculative in our relationships nor are we as mean and opportunistic as we later become.So an individual becomes our friend due to the sheer delight in the company and there is no calculations of caste, creed, religion, social status etc. Later in life we filter individuals due to these criterion and then decide whether a particular relationship is viable or not.

Also, when we move higher into either academics or professional life we get specialised in our skills as well as attitude. So as a banker while I may still like my friend, the fact that he is into trading of commodities in the Agra market may not gel with my outlook and thus there is little in common between us. Another friend of mine who has strong religious beliefs may be too boring for me now.

Does this mean that all such childhood friends get lost in time? Well, in most cases yes, but then if you make an effort and the other person is as willing then yes. The differences that were given above notwithstanding.

I am today in touch with at least one of my friends who has studied with me from class 4 onwards which in effect means that we have been friends for good 23 years now. The funny part is that in the last ten years we must not have met each other more than 5 times. Well, the fact is that we still connect. He is someone who is not my friend due to my position in the society, make sure he calls me to share good and bad news all the time. Calls me when drunk and remembers the stupid things we did in school, the girls we were horny for and I do the same. In case of some others this is not the case. The simple reason is that, in them the innocence of a relationship is missing. So you have a guy who calls you up for advice on his own professional life and puts it across as if he is asking it for another colleague. This in effect reflects on the trust that he has on the friend that has studied with him from 1978. Others our plane jealous or high headed and are just there as an e-mail id, nothing else.

In the end, I am proud of my friends which are few in number but nevertheless are there for me, always.

Shantaram

Purchased the book out of sheer curiosity and got hooked to it. One of the most amazing things that the book does is to keep your interest alive. The spiritual discussions between the protagonist and his mentor in India are amazing.

Worth a read anyday and a true value for money book.