The Future Arrives Faster Than You Think

A friend has commissioned a project on "Futuristic Business Opportunities" with some ISB students and that set me thinking about predictions for the future. It is a difficult terrain and the world's greatest experts have fared badly in it. In 1990, John Naisbitt wrote 'Megatrends' and Alvin Toffler wrote 'Powershift'. In both, India features as a peace-loving, backward, democratic country which buys a lot of arms and has satellites. Neither could predict the arrival of India on the world stage. Both thought Japan will set the fashion and cultural trends of the future. China's emergence is suspected but not the scale of its achievements and growth.

Let us just look back at 1995 in India .Even ten years back, nobody would have thought that India would be an emerging superpower in 2005 . We cannot today manage without a cellphone and e-mail which barely existed then .The aspirational products for the upper-middle class were microwave ovens,compact music systems , 1000 cc cars and holidays in Bangkok. Today the aspirational lifesyle elements are Plasma TVs , 2.5 lit SUVs and holidays in Serengiti .The hottest job sectors were then in consumer goods sector. Today, it is sort of passe. Ten years back,the senior executives earned about Rs 8 to 10 lacs in a year. Today it has reached Rs 35 to Rs 50 lacs . There were no malls or multiplexes in the country and today any self-respecting one million population town has malls. There were no Indian CEOs of global companies or widely- known management gurus .The last decade has thrown up Rajat Gupta,Rana Talwar,Prahalad,Mohan Sawhney,Indra Nooyi and Vindi Banga etc. to the top echelons of corporate success.

The interesting thing about these movements is that practically none of the mainstream media was able to either spot or predict these changes. So the only possibility of predicting even for ten years is possibly to go through expert opinions in specialised journals or research papers . One megatrend in India has been that the it has closed the gap with the rest of the world in lifestyles. But in cultural trends it has Indianised itself more in line with many countries in the world. So today Bollywood movies excite the passions of even the snootiest in our cities. Hindi pop music has become acceptable in all circles.


Going by the present trends and overall global directions ; it seems positive that India, China, South Africa and Russia will start playing important roles in the world displacing France, Germany and Britain . The upper-middle class ,with the greater purchasing power of the rupee,will have actually a better lifestyle than westerners including having customised nature or heritage holidays and premium cars like Porsche 911 or Audi R8. The lower-middle class then will have a lifestyle which the middle class has now .

India will be amongst the principal players in auto componenets, healthcare and tourism besides IT . We will also see a dominant presence of Indians in Wall Street and international media houses in the next five years .

But certain things may not change - like the Congress and BJP squabbling over Ayodhya, India being at 117 in the FIFA rankings or Rekha dancing to a sensuous number .

What do We Eat Now?

The list of foods that we can eat is shrinking faster than an aspiring model's waistline. Even as early as twenty years back, we were able to eat several dishes with pleasure and without worrying that we were murdering ourselves.But now the list of items with dubious value is longer.

The first item on the list is milk. This was supposed to be the panacea of all food deficiencies. Dara singh drank two jugs of it everyday and so did the Gods. It was holy and healthy, affordable and nutritious. It had Calcium to make our bones strong and Protein for our growth. But today its parentage is under severe question. We are told that no animal drinks milk of anybody other than of its mother and so cow or goat milk cannot be suitable for us. It has growth hormones more suited for calves than humans. We are also told that in large parts of the world like China and Africa, they do not drink milk at all and yet are flourishing. The propaganda juggernaut has become so powerful that Maneka Gandhi could even work out an alternative career on this and so could numerous talk-show hosts and anti-milk doctors.

The second unfortunate item on the list is eggs. They were supposed to be repositories of protein and wholesome. They were eaten every day during the breakfast by our erstwhile rulers. So as children we were given eggs-poached, fried, boiled or in a pudding. The super manager Russi Mody used to have sixteen-egg breakfasts. But now eggs remind us more of cholesterol that protein. You start feeling vaguely uneasy in the heart when you take even a two-egg omelette. The upper limit of taking eggs is three a week. So out go all the Spanish omelettes, noodles with eggs or even Moghalai chicken which come with boiled eggs.

The third pariah is the humble bread. White bread , made of refined flour, was an all-time food. It came as toasted bread in breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and as recommended diet when we had fever. Today refined flour is the cause of troubles in pancreas,heart and kidneys !

The other nutritious food like ghee and red meat have been so much calumnised that they are almost treated like nuclear waste.

Fruits and vegetables were the last of the protected species which no body could touch. But the long arm of medical research has even not left them in peace. Apparently,twenty different kinds of pesticides go into the production of a fruit or vegetable now. So an apple a day was expected to keep the doctor away and I started eating apples everyday. But apple has pesticides in seeds and its core besides the skin. So the only way to eat the fruit is to wash it in warm salt water for thirty minutes, take away its core and then chomp it with a prayer that no more pesticides are left. Grapes are supposed to be positively lethal with pesticides oozing out of every pore. I am told that the fox in the story does not even jump for the grapes because they are carcinogenic.

The green you see on a ladies finger is actually a coating of a dye. The brinjals and spinach are more chemical than vegetable. Rice and potatoes are fattening. Fish could have the deadly lead in it. All processed foods are unhealthy-so out go Maggi and cornflakes or even jam.

I wonder how long will the restaurant boom last with all these frightening truths staring them in the face.

Lalu Prasad Turns Into Jack Welch

I have been tracking Laloo (not Lalu as he calls himself now) for a long time. I got fascinated by this rustic man with tremendous wit and humour ten years back. I also knew he was the smartest operator in Indian politics - anybody who can install his wife, with a primary education , as the chief minister has to be really a smart cookie. He also gave a voice to the downtrodden.

But the lower castes in Bihar under his patronage started doing what the upper castes had indulged in-plunder, terror and exploitation. The state treasury was shamelessly looted by Laloo and his cronies. The state went back in time. But Laloo survived through his buffoonery and political savvy.

I had to follow his motorcade once on a drive from Gaya to Patna. Laloo had just lost the lok sabha elections and you expected him to be down. But he was irrepressible on the route. The route itself was lined with his supporters on both sides - thousands of emaciated, bare torsoed men and children cheered him as he went by. I had to follow his motorcade as nobody in Bihar can overtake him. Laloo stopped in four places where he opened the door of the car, put his feet up and had samosas and jalebis offered by the locals. He got down in a few places to give im promptu speeches.One interaction went like this.

Village Youth : We do not have jobs. Can you help us? You did not give us jobs when in power ?

Laloo:What have you studied? Do you speak English? Do you know computers ?

Village Youth: (now befuddled and embarrassed) No.

Laloo: The government at the centre now is not allowing me to expand employment in Bihar. They allow only multinational companies who want candidates with knowledge of English and computers.

The entire village then starts cursing the centre.


Laloo has a unique way to use humour and twisted logic to set his own agenda in a conversation.

He is now employing the same tactics in portraying himself as the great turnaround specialist of railways. Anyone with a modicum of experience in running an organisation knows, that it takes much more than allowing a bureaucrat a free hand (which is all he seems to have done) to achieve any sort of improvement. For an organisation of the size, complexity and mindset of the railways obviously it would take enormous effort to make any dents.

The railways have started delivering results possibly because of a) initiatives already in place before b) economy growing c) factors in the transport sector d)some changes brought about by Laloo's team e) other environmental drivers.

But the media is portraying him as a management genius.He has been given the entire credit for the performance.This is absurd.I also suspect management schools are playing to the gallery in this.

Nobody who has mismanged a state badly for so long can overnight become a genius like this. This is simply not human nature.

In Agra

Went to Agra on a holiday. The folks in Delhi smile indulgently when you tell them you went to Agra of all the places-it sounds quaint !

The beauty of Taj never fails to astonish me. Amongst the wonders of the world and the architectural masterpieces, it is the only one in the lists for its perfect beauty. The colosseum, the great wall of China or the pyramids are there for their size or other unique attributes. But the Taj exists possibly as the most beautiful monument in the world. It seems perfect in shape,symmetry,design and aesthetic appeal. It would have been even so much more wonderful when the marble would have been completely white and the inlay work was not damaged.

Contrast this with the city of Agra- filthy, chaotic and rough. The touts, the guides and the autowallahs treat fleecing the tourist as their divine right. I cannot even fathom how the poor foreigners would be getting taken for the ride of their lifetimes. The facilities outside the five stars are pathetic. The town boasts of only a Pizza Hut , a Dasaprakash and Zorba the Buddha restaurant where you could possibly eat. There are no coffee shops where tourists can spend their time. The result of all this is that many of them who could actually spend four days in Agra in seeing the Taj, the fort, Fatehpur Sikri and the other monuments prefer squeezing everything into a day. Fatehpur Sikri is actually worse than Agra in this - my car was stopped twice by local hoodlums to ask for money and the moment I reached the fort, I was surrounded by salesmen of all kinds.The government anyway is sleeping.

The stories about Taj are so intriguing. Shah Jahan's hair supposedly turned grey overnight after Mumtaz's death during childbirth. The hands of the builders were all chopped off so that they would not be able to repeat the construction anywhere. The bottom of the monument has tiny cells where apparently all the workers were kept after the Taj was built and they were not allowed to go outside. All of them died there.

Indian Art in the Stratosphere

In December 2002, my wife and I went to a gallery in Calcutta which claimed to be selling affordable art. I was always interested in Indian art and I had some knowledge about a few painters. The proprietor of the gallery recommended an ink on paper by Shyamal Dutta Ray. I had not even heard of him.But the owner seemed genuine and the painting was aesthetically good. We bought it for fifteen thousand rupees.

The art market boom was in its incipient stages then. Neville Tuli was just beginning to get some media space and there was some talk about Indian artists generating excitement in western art markets.

Then the interest in India began. The westerners interested in India began to buy Indian art. The non-resident Indians with wealth and some aesthetic interests reached a critical mass. The rich domestic Indians also saw art as a great status symbol. The market exploded. The prices today have reached absurd levels.

I got mail today from a gallery about a self-portrait by Paritosh Sen for one lac rupees and I had seen this piece being tagged at twelve thousand rupees a year and a half back.

But does anybody understand art barring a few pundits ? I cannot claim to say that I can identify great art even after visiting countless exhibitions and galleries. Some art hits you immediately with its power and beauty. But many great art remain incomprehensible and silent in their impact. Mona Lisa in Louvre would have probably been missed by many as a smallish and non-descript painting without its fame. The Shyamal Dutta Ray painting has been hanging in my house for the last four years (now worth a few lacs) but nobody, repeat nobody, has so far cast a second glance at it.

So it is only a status symbol and no rich household is complete without a piece by a well-known painter. It stays there as does the latest B & O music system. Who cares whether it is great or simply average or even bad ?

Timbuktu and Mali

Today, Timbuktu means a place from nowhere. It seems to be beyond the end of the known world. It is actually a town in Mali in West Africa. Mali is a poorly governed, impoverished country today. Thomas Friedman in his book discovers that ,even in Mali individuals have started using open-source software and to him it is almost like the final acceptance of the concept of open-source software. Naseruddin Shah fantasises of sending his wife to Timbuktu on his 25th marriage anniversary in Omkara.

But it was not like this six hundred years ago. Mali was then a country of fabled wealth. It was said that gold grew on trees in Mali. It was for about twenty years ruled by Mansa Musa (part of the Mansa family) when it reached the zenith of its glory. Mansa Musa undertook the Haj and went through Egypt. He distributed immense amount of riches wherever he went. Apparently, he gave away so much gold in Egypt that it caused inflation and the price of gold crashed by twenty five per cent.

The world-traveller of those days Ibn Battuta heard so many stories about the Mansa regime that he went to visit the kingdom. This is after he had visited many other countries including India. But even he was astonished by the scale of opulence and grandeur in the palaces.

Around 1360 AD the descendants of Mansa Musa were pitted in a terrible conflict with the descendants of his brother Mansa Suleyman and this led to the ultimate annihilation of the dynasty and the end of the glory for Mali.
This is the ruthless cycle of history. It changes everything.

Utter Rubbish

There was a time when I used to think that everything printed in the newspapers and magazines is the absolute truth. Growing up in remote places of Orissa,a copy of The Statesman or the Sunday magazine were items worth looking up to. Later, I joined a B-School which itself was written about in the press and for the first time I realised everything written is not true. But I gave the benefit of doubt to the media.

Working in the corporate sector also did not open my eyes to the bullshit perpetrated as news for a long time. But I was not sure about why they wrote what they wrote. Then I discovered the P.R.agencies. And I realised ,that may be fifty per cent of what is written in respectable newspapers could be trash handed over by the agencies. In fact,any article talking about the plans and expectations of a company or an industrialist or a politician is usually only that-plans of smart operators who know how to use the media.

I know of an industrialist, a rogue would be the better word,who appears on CNBC and speaks to ET about his future plans and anyone who knows him can bet his backside that they are a load of utter rubbish.

Why is this so? It is largely because journos with some exceptions get sucked into the -You scratch mine and I will scratch yours- cabal of politicians, businessmen and their bosses. And there are the usual issues of dal, roti and kids.It is the same situation for people who start off as honest bureaucrats. So in this country it is an open secret that several politicians have made thousands of crores but no newspaper or magazine has managed to investigate that. It is only left to Bollywood to talk about the issues with anonymous characters.

So what is the answer to this mainstream media malaise? Is it going to be the blogs? They can be powerful because they can be set up at no cost and hopefully it will give rise to some fearless individuals fighting for truth and justice.

The CEO-The Other Side

The aspiration of anybody who passes though a B-School is to be a CEO. He is the great figure of our times. He is intelligent,powerful,smart and experiences life in ways that other people cannot. It does not hurt that he makes loads of money. The media has stories about these celebrities and their lifestyles which encompass but are not limited to , buying art, diving in Australia and spending the summers in Finland besides driving the latest cars. There is a massive industry of consultants and reporters which thrives on understanding this great animal.

So a couple of years ago, four of us sat down to unravel the mystery of these creatures. Was it genes or parenting or the management school that made them successful? Or was it exceptional communication skills or interpersonal ability or strategic thinking? Or was it all of them?

Arun Sarin of Vodaphone has probably given the best answer , I have come across, to explain the phenomenon. He says to be a CEO you need to be two sigma on the seven or eight key management competencies like analytical ability, communication, interpersonal skills, strategic thinking etc. rather than three sigma on some and one sigma on others.

But coming back to our discussions, we tried to analyse the thirty odd CEOs we knew or had interacted with between us. It was a sad story. Most (may be about four exceptions in the group) of them had reached their positions due to luck or their exceptional maneuvering skills. They were obviously very good in touting every success in their functions as theirs. They were also very good in reading signals and adept in manipulating these signals to their benefits. Several of them were good functional heads but being CEOs was a question mark.

Many of them had no character and were low on integrity.Many misled their phirang bosses shamelessly.

We tend to think that everyone who is a leader or CEO is a great performer. This is not true.If it were true then it would be so simple to choose the leader-just make the best performer your leader or CEO. So the CEOs also did not have sterling performance records also. It was more of a case of being in the right place at the right time and using the environment to suit your own interests.

None of them could be our role models. And here I am talking about the CEOs, of the may be top two hundred employers in the country.

But still at the end of the day the prize of being a CEO is worth it for the influence and satisfaction you can get. So the rat race will go on.

History Through News Reports

Nothing brings the magic and flavour of history back like news reports of the time when the event happened. No historian today can reflect the mood and temper of the moment better than the news hacks who were present at the place of the event.

Read the Oct 1931 article on Gandhi in Time magazine when he visited the House of Commons. He is described as a small ,nut-brown man, bare-legged and bare-footed as usual. A special meeting of the house is convened to meet him.There Gandhi meets the world's most talented hecklers, the members of the House of Commons.

Rajmohan Gandhi said recently that Mahatma was not a bore as he has been portrayed by Indian historians and media. He was witty and interesting.The first member of the House sarcastically asks him about the meaning of the term Mahatma. Gandhi replies with a deadpan face that it means an insignificant person!

He then travels to Lancashire where the mill workers have been hit hard by the boycott of British textiles by the Indians. He has genuine sympathy for the workers and tells them that he will try to help them after the British rule is over in India.

Charlie Chaplin insists on meeting Gandhi and finds him a tremendous figure but cannot understand why he promotes an ancient piece of technology like the spinning wheel.

Speed of Snails and Origin of Tennis

It is really a fascinating experience to see your children grow. It is even more interesting when you discover through them that you are an ignoramus about the world. It is more galling to understand that when I thought I was the well-read types. Rian is two months short of his sixth birthday and his mission in life seems to be 'Exposing Papa'.

Today, he saw a snail in the park while playing and the question to me was,"Papa,how many years will the snail take to go around the earth?" I said,"I don't know beta but we will find out on the net."

The snail has a fastest speed of 0.03 mph and the circumference of the earth is 24900 miles. So the snail, going at its fastest speed, will take 95 years to circle the earth. Not bad for a snail!

We came back home and he saw a bit of U.S.Open. So the missile thrown at me was,"Which country did Tennis start in?". Flummoxed again, I ran to my reference book. It started as Jeu De Paume in the middle ages in France and came to England in the 15th century.

And then in the evening he enlightened me that Indra had broken young Hanuman's jaw and from then on he was known as 'Hanuman-monkey with a broken jaw'.!

And the voyage of knowledge goes on..

Resuscitating the Blog

After a long time saw the blog again and got a shock to see that the last post was in April-four and a half months back. And then,I did a google search for Green Monsoon blog which threw up the name of Indiblogger on the first page. They have an interesting cut-off period for defining dead blogs. Any blog which is without a post for four months gets listed under R.I.P. So, it seems, to the world at large this blog is well and truly dead !

But it probably comes like its namesake -the monsoons. It will appear at regular intervals.

But now I intend to make blogging a regular practice and see where it takes me.