Have You Seen These Billboards?

It looks like several ad folks in Mumbai have run out of ideas. The clients with their mindless quest to win at any cost have not helped either.

The hoarding for Mumbai Mirror, a sister publication of TOI, goes :

"Come on ! Give me a hundred pelvic thrusts."

I am sure no one can understand the logic of this sentence for a newspaper.

And I saw another hoarding for Euphoria Gym in Juhu:

"Some people think starving themselves is a shortcut to fitness. The Somalians beg to differ."

Utterly insensitive and in bad taste. The copywriter also probably does not know that there are more children in India with premature deaths than sub-Saharan Africa.

Cromwell In Lok Sabha

Oliver Cromwell was one of the signatories to the death warrant of King Charles I and established the Commonwealth. He declared himself the Lord Protector in 1653 for five years.

He dissolved the ‘Rump’ parliament and then formed his Barebones Parliament to which he assigned all power.

He gave the following speech on dissolving the Rump Parliament.

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of potage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money; is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not bartered your consciences for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance. Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stables, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this house; and by which God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do; I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place; go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves begone! Go! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!

Four hundred and fifty years later the words ring loud and true for our Loksabha.

Yeh Bombay Hai

The infrastructure in India is charitably described as lousy. The worst roads are unfortunately in Mumbai, the commercial capital and Bangalore, the IT showpiece city.

Patna today has better roads than either of them. I do not know who is responsible for this shoddy state of affairs-the centre, the state government or the local municipal corporations. It could be even the corrupt contractors and local politicians. But strangely, the general public does tolerate filth, potholes, stray animals and even unpaved roads in the middle of the city.

Mumbai takes the cake in filth and a lackadaisical attitude towards its own roads and cleanliness. So the city which has fabulous citizens, a rocking nightlife and immense professionalism has decrepit looking buildings, animal shit on roads and in many parts only mud and potholes.

Class Discriminations in India

There are very few societies more class-ridden than India. While the country focuses on caste, the discriminations based on class do not let merit and fairness prevail. Caste in educational institutions undermines the concept of merit. But class works beneath the superficial surface and insidiously destroys justice and merit.

Class in the Indian context is a nebulous and complex concept.You can feel it, you practice it but you cannot capture it properly. It is tied at a gross level to caste but also to economic wealth, family station, your English pronunciation and also the colour of your skin! So a poor man is going to be beaten up in the police station but a rich man will stay unharmed. It is very rare even in the most merit-based institutions in the country to see a driver's son being friends with a privileged doctor's child. We do not let people of a different class rise and the concept of merit is twisted to suit the dominant section's interests. In a more open society like the US, you find some of the most influential figures like Clinton,Oprah or even Larry Ellison come up from devastated families and economically deprived backgrounds. But the surreptitious discriminations practiced by Indians do not let any person from a lower class rise similarly, except in academics and research etc. where merit cannot be subjugated.

So the leaders in any part of life today come up from the same relatively privileged 5% of the population.

This is also because we sub-consciously tend to magnify the importance of anybody with the right background and do not really give due importance or respect to people of a lower class. This is part our cultural heritage. The minister's son or the industrialist's nephew will always get the blue-blooded treatment in class compared to the boy with the most merit. Marriages are closely tied to the status of families perpetuating class differences again. The great stories of our society are about kings and princes not about ordinary folk doing extraordinary things. God Rama was not born to a poor man but to a king. The heroes of Mahabharat are all from princely families. Karna grew up as the son of a charioteer and so he was not allowed to participate in the archery competition to win the hand of Draupadi. He wins another archery competition defeating the Pandavas and Kaurava brothers and the crowd is stunned by his prowess. But when they discover that he is not from royal blood, they stop applauding.

A country of a billion people has only a few figures like Rajni Kant,Lal Bahadur Shashtri or an Irfan Pathan who come from a different class and have managed to stand out. Some child from a deprived class, who wants to dream and achieve will always find odds like this daunting and will give up in his quest.

This makes the talents of a large part of the population unavailable for our growth. But there are no easy answers to this. Centuries of mindset and discrimination cannot be undone in a few years.

Regional Disparities

According to the 2001 census, only 43% of rural households (56% in urban) in India have electricity.The regional disparities are even more disturbing. The level of electrification in rural Punajb, HP and Haryana are 90, 95 and 79 percent. In contrast, the levels in rural WB, Assam and Orissa are 20, 17 and 19 percent respectively. Bihar has a level of 5.1 %.

The percentages of Punjab, HP and Haryana rural households getting tap water are 16, 38 and 83. The number of rural households getting tap water in WB, Assam and Orissa are 7, 5 and 3 percent respectively. The figure for Bihar is 1.38 %.

So much for being one country and so much for Jyoti Basu's 30 year reign due to the prosperity in rural Bengal.

How Good A leader Is Manmohan ?

In around a month, Manmohan Singh will reach the midpoint of his tenure as the Prime Minister. There will be assessments followed by bouquets and brickbats in equal measure. He has been successful in bringing down the communal temperature, sustaining the economic growth, forging a brave new foreign policy path, initiating some landmark acts like RTI, launching programmes like Bharat Nirman and the rural employment guarantee. He has alienated the urban educated sections because of the reservation policy, failed in convincing the left on several reform initiatives and not managed to make any headway on preventing terror.

But how good a leader is he? By common thinking and opinion polls, he is not a good leader. But going by research on leadership he is probably the best we ever had. The most influential theories on the personal characteristics of a leader have been by Plato, Warren Bennis and Jim Collins.

Plato propounded the concept of the ' philosopher king ‘. According to him the king should either be a wise man or a lover of wisdom. On this yardstick, India today has probably no politician better than Manmohan. And no past PM, barring Nehru comes close to him in knowledge and wisdom.

Warren Bennis emphasised the importance of self-knowledge and inner voice in becoming a leader. He also spoke about having vision, a broad education, curiosity, virtue and risk-taking as essential ingredients of a leader. It is difficult to assess any past PM on self-awareness and inner voice but amongst the other parameters aggregated, Manmohan scores more than any PM except Nehru. He however fails badly on risk-taking.

Jim Collins studied more than 1400 organisations over a thirty year period and arrived at the concept of 'level five' leadership. Level 5 leaders exhibit a paradoxical combination of personal humility and ferocious resolve. They are mostly shy but competent. Abraham Lincoln, possibly the greatest leader America has produced, was a typical level 5 leader. He was described as quiet, peaceful and shy by author Henry Adams. Level 5 leaders have always achieved more than the level 4 leader who is the charismatic and visionary type. Here again, Manmohan could do better on resolve but on the overall attribute he would rank higher than the earlier Indian PMs.

Many great leaders also develop an elaborate inner life due to hardships and traumas in their early years. Manmohan Singh grew up in poverty, battled against odds to do well in academics and then excelled as an economist. This broad experience of life in different facets makes him more complete as a human being than any of his predecessors.

The only dimensions where he falls short are risk-taking ability and resolve - definitely an outcome of his days as a bureaucrat. As a leader, he also has to operate more on instinct than on caution. Whenever he has risen beyond these limitations as in the nuclear pact with the US or the reforms as the finance minister, he has stood tall.

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.

The Brave Engineers

It is human nature to start reminiscences when one is a little idle and when I go through my life the time in N.I.T.Rourkela seems the most surreal one. I or rather we did things that seem completely improbable now and depending on the way you look at it they were completely bizarre or just hilarious.

It was Holi. The campus was situated next to a tribal settlement. Suddenly the rumours started flying in campus that a student of second year has been drenched in colours against his will and then mildly beaten up in the settlement. It was enough to start a virtual war against the tribal settlement. The revenge had to be taken-the village had to be attacked.

And it was the fashionable thing to jump into such activities. It fetched you tremendous peer respect and favourable publicity. So here was I, 53 kgs of weight, thin and wearing a spectacles of negative 3.5 power and the only violence I had indulged in was killing mosquitoes. I was desperate to get the glamour and star appeal of the studs who could go to such villages and create some mayhem.

So a group of about two hundred students then marched with broken tree branches, hockey sticks, cricket bats, lots of bluster and bravado. I was there with a twig right in the front. We reached the village after a minor trek and suddenly discovered there was absolute silence and all doors were shut. The brave marching contingent halted –confused and looking for strategy.

Then suddenly an arrow flew from one of the houses. And panic and pandemonium broke loose. The students ran for their lives. I was there in the front and I still remember after almost twenty years my feelings that moment. When I looked back I saw everybody had disappeared or was running like a gazelle and I was the only one left within the boundaries of the village. It is somewhat akin to what an antelope would feel when it sees itself surrounded by a horde of lions in the African bushland. I think I ran though I do not remember where or how fast. In the process I remember outrunning stones, sticks and somehow surviving almost like Sunil Shetty does in the middle of a bullet storm. Bollywood is imaginative but everything they show is not fantasy.

The marauding engineers were that day exposed for their bravery.

What Makes Italians So Hot?

What is it that makes Italians the best-rated lovers in the world by women consistently year after year? I am sure men all around the world want to emulate their Italian counterparts. Here is my attempt at throwing some light on the most educative and useful of all subjects.

First, of course the looks. The men have olive complexion, sharp features and being of Roman lineage anyway fit the generally conditioned idea about male beauty better than other races.

Second, they are genuinely interested in women. They love everything about women and the women notice that they actually light up from inside when they see them. It is also not a sexual kind of interest, which is a special trait of the North Indian male but a true desire to spend time with the women and make them happy.

Third, of course the famed Italian charm. It flows naturally from their genuine interest in women. But they can be insouciantly charming and their body language in presence of women is devastatingly seductive in a non-threatening way.

Fourth, their sense of dressing is awesome. Somehow they manage to carry off the most audacious of touches. Like an Italian could be wearing a woollen jacket and light blue shirt with a cuff open and the wrist would be exposed to show a stunning wristband design. Or he would be wearing a dark suit without a tie and the open buttons of his black shirt could be showing a large cross on his chest.

Fifth, the reputation precedes them and sort of makes everything they do so innocent and appealing to the women.

There are of course some Indian men who could give Italians a run for their money.

AIDS in Nigeria

Nigeria is a country obsessed with sex. The President, a highly respected man otherwise, has eight wives reportedly. Amongst the wealthy and the powerful not having multiple wives is the exception rather the rule. The women are as aggressive as men in hunting for partners.If you go to a cyber café ,the only thing you see is boys and girls chatting on yahoo to hook and fix up their rendezvouses. A significant proportion of single women are willing and available for a price. If you want a girlfriend all you have to do is go to the university and ask for one. It is not unusual for fathers to ask their daughters to fix up a school/college girlfriend for their colleagues.The FM stations in the morning are full of pastors exhorting the sinning masses to restrain themselves sexually.

No wonder with so much promiscuity, AIDS has struck. In absolute numbers South Africa and India are ahead but in percentage terms Nigeria has 5.3% of the population affected by AIDS against 1% in India.

To find out the real extent of the spread of AIDS, we have to factor in the statistics that the life expectancy is only 48 and only 58% of the population is above the age of 15.Assuming that the population below 15 is relatively AIDS free, then approximately one in eleven Nigerian adults has AIDS. It is a horrendous figure and it is today a leading cause of death like in many other African countries. Thirty percent of the prostitutes (called harlots rather colourfully) have AIDS and are a principal source of the spread of the disease.

It is a point to ponder, if you ignore the tremendous human tragedy, how the natural system has in-built checks and balances. For promiscuity now there is AIDS, a disease as dreaded as any in history.

The Other Rath Yatra from Puri

I spent a large part of my childhood in Orissa,a state known for its bucolic beauty,stunning temple architecture ,frequent floods, poverty and Lord Jagannath.In fact Lord Jagannath occupies a more prominent place in the life and psyche of Oriyas than any God for any other community,I can think of. Of course, the chariot festival is well known but less known is that Oriyas of all ages, classes and types think of him as protecting and helping them everywhere. He is Jagannath meaning lord of the universe, a lord for all. Some of his most famous devotees have been Salabeg,a Muslim and also an elephant who was trapped by a crocodile in a river. He is the Lord who is for universal brotherhood;kind,compassionate and very much a part of your own milieu rather than a powerful God ruling you from a distance.

So it is with a lot of pain that I read that Rajnath Singh’s rath yatra will commence from Puri.I understand that he has his right as an Indian citizen to travel anywhere.But it is tragic that he uses Puri and its rathyatra tradition and in all likelihood he will try to take Lord Jagannath’s blessings for his journey .This is a political stunt,a cheap and devious trick to exploit the Hindu insecurities.

Lord Jagannath always stood for harmony,peace and tolerance.The Oriyas were always a peace-loving people.In fact,I remember growing up without even once being exposed to any caste and religious identity.I remember in the engineering college I studied in,I lost out the award for the Best Actor despite a brilliant performance.I was told later that the Mathematics professor who was the judge had preferred somebodyelse for the award because I was not a brahmin.I remember being utterly stunned by this for days at the narrow-mindedness of the man.In fact today almost after 20 years,I think of him with revulsion.But this was the only incident of someone trying to define me as a member of a caste or religion and acting on that basis.The harmony amongst different identities,castes and religions was faultless.We used to treat Muslim or Christian boys with a fond quaintness rather than with suspicion.

So it is even more tragic that the people and the soil of such a state are being defiled to further narrow,divisive and communal agenda of a rustic cow-belt politician and his party.

India-Two Different Millennia

India is a more fascinating country from a distance.Everytime I travel abroad ,I realise the greatness of the country which sometimes escapes my attention in the din and noise of its daily life.It has grinding poverty but it also has unique grandeur.It has its venal politicians but also a brilliant middle class that is making waves around the world for its prowess in IT,management and engineering.It has its centuries old caste inequalities but also its rich,distinct culinary tradition.Amartya Sen’s “The Argumentative Indian” does a fine job of delving into the splendid tapestry that is India.Alongwith Nehru’s “The Discovery Of India” ,it will remain a fine example of throwing light on the cultural,social and knowledge mosaic that is this 5000 year old civilisation.

But the disconcerting fact remains that the great contributions of India to the world like concept of zero,the decimal system,elements of trigonometry,buddhism,ayurveda or formal rules of grammar all belong to the period till the end of first millennium(till 1000AD).The last thousand years have not seen any great contribution to the world even though there has been some great architecture like the Taj or Konark built.So today inspite of India’s rising status the average Argentine or Dane does not use anything intrinsically associated with India.He probably talks on Finnish phones(Nokia),watches American movies,secures himself with a Chinese lock,drives a Japanese car,plays in a German shoe(Adidas),drives with Saudi oil.The impact of the IT sector is of course high on the corporates in general but not on the common man.Logically the inventions of the last thousand years will always play a more dominant role in life than the inventions and discoveries of the previous millennia . So the relative importance of India in the average life of a human being today in the world is lesser than what it was in the first millennium.

The most probable reason for this seems to be that the world discovered the riches of India in a big way in the second millennium.Combined with better routes and technology, it could travel and attack the country.So the last thousand years seem to have been a time of wars,battles for dominance and bloodshed.The British rule of course typifies this.This meant that the resources and time of the rulers and the people were more focussed on survival rather than on developments on the frontiers of knowledge.This over a period of a thousand years led to the relative decline of the country in the world standings.

One can only hope that the people and politicians understand this and South Asia gets out of its history of bloodshed and rivalry as we enter another new millennium.

Dubai and Lagos-A Story of Contrasts

I have had the opportunity of spending some time in the last three months in Dubai and lagos. It is a fascinating contrast. Dubai and Lagos are stories of two divergent ways in the world and how good governance makes a difference. Lagos is the capital of Nigeria and Dubai a principal emirate of UAE.

Both are rich in oil but Nigeria more so. It has the world’s fourth largest oil reserves. But Nigeria quite surprisingly imports oil also.

Both are on the sea. Dubai has a very pleasant climate for four months in a year but for six months it is unbearably hot affecting life and work. Lagos temperatures fluctuate between a pleasant 18 to 35 degrees centigrade through out the year.

The common language of Nigeria is English and everybody speaks it. Some local citizens of Dubai are passably conversant with the language but many do not understand it.

UAE is principally a Muslim country but Nigeria has Muslims and Christians co-existing in relative harmony. In Nigeria, each religion has its own space and freedom.

Nigeria is located closer to the important markets of Europe and USA and has close cultural relations with Europe especially UK.Dubai’s cultural relationship in the true sense is with other gulf countries.

The people in Nigeria are open and friendly whereas in UAE they are more closed.

The land in Nigeria is fertile and there is rain throughout the year. Dubai is on a desert.

With so many natural advantages, one would think that Nigeria would be far more advanced than Dubai. But strange are the ways of the world.

Dubai has a per capita income of approximately 19000USD and Nigeria’s is around 300 USD. Dubai is rated as amongst the most modern cities in the world and is a tourist hub. Lagos is one of the most difficult cities to live in with inadequate basic amenities. Dubai is clean, modern and forward-looking. Lagos is filthy, poor and chaotic.

What makes Dubai so much better than Lagos despite its inherent handicaps? It is quite simply governance. The administration in Dubai has ensured implementation of forward-looking ideas whereas the military junta in Lagos simply occupied themselves in padding up their Swiss accounts. The result is poor law and administration, shabby infrastructure and bad image resulting in businesses and talent staying away from it. Dubai has overcome its natural odds in creating modern infrastructure and efficient law and the outcome is an international city.

Is your social strategy in place?

Despite all the euphoria about economic growth, the obstacles in India’s path remain formidable. One of the most difficult issues to tackle would be the increasing level of economic disparities. So while there are 53000 households with annual incomes of more than 1 crore, 400 million go to bed hungry. These 400 million are below the poverty line which by definition means that they do not get enough to eat everyday. The simmering violence of a hungry stomach can be explosive. And a large alienated mass of people is a potential tinder box if they are mobilised. History has shown that such disparities are socially unsustainable.

When a large section of the society is disaffected then it tends to retaliate against people who it thinks are exploiting them or the society. The consequences of such conflicts are enormous and problems become intractable. We have seen that the population of NE and Kashmir have felt alienated(though for both economic and political reasons) and it has led to a spiralling circle of violence and resentment. This has had catastrophic impact on the economic activities. Despite the best efforts of the government and parts of civil society business has not recovered in NE. We are seeing the increasing influence of the naxalites in a broad swathe of Eastern and central part of the country. The dangers of such inequality are multiplied in India because of lack of a proper justice system and endemic corruption in the law enforcement circles. The lack of justice and the unfairness around make the deprived sections more volatile and violent.

In these circumstances, it is even more threatening for the key organs of the society which are seen to be exploiting the society. So the rich landlords were the targets in the naxalite movement and the government or security forces in Kashmir or the tea gardens in Assam. In these times of increasing disparity, many people have started seeing the corporate sector as flourishing at the cost of poor people by charging high prices or making money unethically. This is reinforced by the visible lifestyles of executives and owners.

The typical response of businessmen to this would be that they need to reap the rewards of their talent and hard work. The executives also need to be paid international salaries as the country becomes more competitive and the companies need to retain talent. While these are valid reasons, the corporate sector needs to also take steps to assuage the concerns of large sections of society. This can be best achieved by being a good corporate citizen . Good corporate social responsibility can act a protection against the vicissitudes of the social dynamics and make the companies less immune to violence and subsequent losses. The steps taken today can prevent bigger disasters tomorrow. One shudders to imagine what would happen to FDI or venture capitalists if the CEO of a multinational is kidnapped and beheaded for a ransom.

Corporate social responsibility implies a) Being honest, doing everything legally
b) Fulfilling all obligations and commitments towards all stake holders(including society at large)

Sadly, many corporates in India fall short of expectations even on being ethically proper. In the past, we had examples of companies not paying the employees their providend fund dues which has fortunately got corrected. Many corporates go to great lengths to avoid taxes, duties in collusion with government officials. They shamelessly degrade the environment knowing fully well that it is a treasure to be fully protected. There are several instances of crooked businessmen not clearing the genuine dues of their business partners and associates. The consumers getting cheated by cynical manipulation of licenses with the help of politicians is an accepted practice in this country. No wonder in surveys of respectable professions ,managers and entrepreneurs still figure very low.

This aspect of corporate social responsibility should be a given. In fact, the corporate associations like FICCI and ASSOCHAM or CII should be pro-active in ensuring minimum level of ethics like watchdogs. Any member flouting or sidestepping the law should be censured by its peers. Necessary inputs and systems for getting information and acting on them should be put in place. The government has to be more concerned about this and should tighten laws for evaders.

It is also important in the era of globalisation to be ethically above reproach especially for companies which have global aspirations. The consumers worldwide expect ethical behaviour and can with the power of internet or alert citizen groups or individuals can destroy companies. . It cannot be just an offshoot of the benevolent intentions of the CEO. This also has to be in the DNA of every employee or dubious acts by sections of the company like in Arthur Andersen can lead to collapse


The second aspect of corporate social responsibility then assumes importance. It is about giving back to the society from where one draws sustenance. The Tatas have done it widely in different fields and the goodwill they enjoy today is partly an outcome of this. The benefits for business from this dimension of CSR are enormous. No government or political party in Jharkhand today can think of unduly harassing TISCO. Similarly, Infosys by the simple act of funding the expansion of the premier pediatric hospital in Bhubaneshwar today commands huge goodwill in Orissa. Fortunately, many corporates today have embarked on programmes to give back to the society.


But in India the corporates need to also go beyond the above traditional understanding of the corporate social responsibility to ensure that they actually work as a powerful force for the good of the society. Today the best and brightest join the corporate sector with idealism in their hearts. They look upto their leaders .At the top there are crooks but there are also men of iconic stature and unimpeachable integrity like Premji and Murthy. There are some top level professionals chief executives who command a great deal of respect in the society. They need to dynamically influence policy and be more engaged with society. It is in the interest of the business that they speak up on behalf of the silent masses of society. The civil society needs people who have the courage to stand up. Many arms of the society (academia or media)in the face of consumerism can wilt because many times they are not financially independent or there is a quid pro quo with the powers that be. It is on such issues that the corporate leaders of the society should stand up. Today, they have the strength to not to succumb to pressure. But they do not stand up and only seethe silently. So it is sad to see that the Gujarat riots are not censured by the corporate community in general or Gowda’s antics are being handled with kid gloves.

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So corporate social responsibility which is ethical behaviour and fulfilling obligations towards all stakeholders is not just a feel-good activity to draw talent or build up reputation .For the Indian industry the significance of corporate social responsibility goes beyond the traditional underpinnings. It is a strategic necessity from several angles. The corporates need to have a sound social strategy as part of their business strategy.

Innovation and FMCG industry in India

Background

The Indian FMCG market has slowed down in growth for sometime. From a growth rate of excess of 12 percent in early 90’s, it has registered only 4.4 percent odd so in the last five years.
In the last five years , the GDP has grown by a CAGR of close to 6 percent at real prices. So FMCG business is not even growing at the pace of the domestic economy. One would have thought that in a country where penetration and consumption are still low by international standards, this industry catering to basic necessities would have registered higher growth. But in the last decade sectors like telecom and durables have grown spectacularly but not FMCG.

The reasons for the slow growth have been discussed and debated endlessly. Primarily a) The housing, telecom and durables sectors had a latent demand which ensured explosive growth. b) The easier and cheaper availability of credit supported this growth. c) The consumers started spending more on products of these sectors and had lesser money for FMCG products and so downgraded in FMCG.

To counter this, most companies have got into a battle of market share and aim to differentiate themselves on trade reach or advertising efficiency. The route to winning has been believed to be better distribution, operational improvements or outflanking the competition on pricing and promotions. However on hard evidence, these directions have delivered incremental growth and also not helped in exploding the categories.

Failure to exploit trends

In general however, the sector has been unable to exploit the key demographic and sociological trends of the last decade. Within the sector, the companies which have done so have reaped dividends.

The most significant demographic trend in the recent years has been that Indian consumer is getting younger. The average age of the population is amongst the lowest in the world. The youth has far more purchasing power than before and a different attitude towards life in the post-liberalisation era. So sectors which have captured this trend in products and communication have grown like lifestyle apparels, shoes or even trendy watches. In FMCG , Perfetti has done well growing at more than 30% CAGR in the last decade by mainly focussing on youth with hip products and edgy communication targeted at them..

The second important trend has been that families have become increasingly nuclear and urbanised. This has necessitated the need for convenience foods and saving of time. One outcome of this has been the restaurant boom. But convenience foods are yet to take off more due to issues of taste and right price rather than cultural factors. Largely, the industry has missed the bus here.

The other major trend of higher consumption potential due to both rising incomes and increasing consumer base hence has anyway not translated into corresponding growth.
Any sector or company which wants to grow spectacularly has to exploit the inherent potential in the above three defining trends a)Younger population with a different attitude b)Need for convenience and c)Increasing consumption potential. The visible and existing models of behaviour and organisation and strategy in most FMCG companies do not suggest that they are trying to ride these trends and hence it is difficult to anticipate any major change of trend in performance.




Criticality of Innovation

So the sector needs to look at significantly different ways to participate in India’s boom. It need not be dependent on the monsoons or minor price-cuts to drive its growth. These new ways should exploit the key demographic and economic trends. The companies cannot depend on existing products and communication strategies to drive their business. And only new and innovative ways in the sector can rapidly leverage these broad trends for growth.

The other industries have seen spectacular growth due to innovations which have exploited these trends. Some of them which have changed the rules of the game are a) The consumer financing boom changed the way durables could be bought b) The technological changes leading to crash in rates of calls and equipment altered the way cellular telephony is perceived and experienced.

Similarly in FMCG, innovation as played a key role in the outstanding growth of some companies. Frito lay has experienced spectacular growth with an innovative product Kurkure. The caps in sachets by Colgate, the introduction of “lite oils”, the sachet revolution by Cavincare have fundamentally altered the rules of the game and delivered spectacular growth to the companies.

But for most companies, innovation though important, is not a key strategy in performance. There is no premium on innovation. The companies remain hostage to analysis and stability. The R and D centres are not the leading edge departments. The structures do not support innovation. The cultures encourage conformity. Innovation is not on the agenda of most senior managers where as it needs to be the prime driver for their performance.

It is important to realise that the innovation will play the most critical role in rescuing the industry from lack-lustre performance. It is also important that this percolates to every level of the organisation. The processes starting with appraisals, brainstormings and feedback loops have to be in place. The innovation has to be across all dimensions starting with product development, distribution, communication, people strategies and manufacturing. It needs to be pervasive and a very powerful element in the fabric of the organisation.


It is time the industry moved to innovations as the prime platform to ride on the broader social and economic trends .