All is Well?

Three idiots was entertaining and thought provoking. It seemed easy to stand at the sidelines and label those who follow curriculum as boring. Conversely, it seemed fascinating that one day everyone would find their calling if they followed their hearts, and become inventors, artists, thinkers and geniuses. The world would become a great place to live in with everyone doing what they’re essentially good at. The problem with this chimera seems to be, how can one reliably know that this is it. How do we figure out that this is what we are made for and there isn’t anything better to do out there? The simple answer is one probably can't and this has its own perils.
Look no further than Mumbai where a spate of suicides has taken place in the recent past by children who’ve been rejected by a system that suddenly seems to be thrusting children into all kinds of talent exploration. Some children have given up at not having won a talent contest or not having been selected for another. One could have seen this coming. Kids in the neighborhood do 7 hours of school, two hours of private tuition, an hour of karate classes, some music, sport, art and then of course home science and Japanese lessons. At the end of the day, you have a pooped, fatigued child who’d rather stick to one class- slumber. Their parents were the Chatur generation, learning by rote, mugging up texts and puking all over answer sheets. They did this with frustration, with no real choices available. They vowed every time they lost marks in Math that they would let their kid do its own thing. And they seem to; at least that’s what they think. The problem is by enrolling kids for a spate of extra curriculars, they’re subjecting kids to the same curriculum phenomenon, just that it seems to be rather broadly defined now to include all kinds of non subject junk. Keeping up with the Jones' seems to be taking on a new meaning. It might be helping some kids genuinely find their own niche, but that’s more the exception than the rule.
Parents seem to be erring on the side of caution, ensuring that they throw everything at their kids, leaving nothing out from what the neighbours might be doing. The kid doesn’t have much choice except duck in a few cases. So while its easy junking what could be learning by rote, how easy is it to define a viable relevant alternative that works? Any ideas Ranchoddas Chanchad?

Mind your Pees and Thoos

Mumbai has just released its ‘fines’ data. Most fines have been levied on people peeing on roads (65%) followed by those spitting. The fines have been levied by special beat marshals who’ve been recruited to reprimand and levy fines from citizens for various reasons. There are 120 odd marshals which essentially means one marshal for 1.5 lakh citizens! The equivalent cop ratio is one cop every 50000 citizens. These beat marshals have been assigned wards within which they’re supposed to operate. I head out every day to work but haven’t seen these Marshals ever, not surprising given the ratio above.
If we try and analyse how the average Marshal might work, the truth is simple. There are certainly more number of people peeing than chewing paan and spitting. Everybody needs to pee but not everyone needs to chew paan and spit. If we did then we might have bigger industry players in the paan business than just the nukkad panwala. The fines for spitting and peeing are the same. Anyone who’s lived in Mumbai will know that there are certified popular peeing spots in every locality. These are alleys, wall fronts, railway walls etc which seemed to have been always built for these purposes. The smarter marshals might station themselves around these watering holes and collect their fines once the deed is done. In fact with peeing catching someone in the act is easier compared to say spitting which is a blink and you miss kind of activity. With the incentives for peeing and spitting being the same, it’s very clear why marshals gather more from peeing fines that spitting.
In fact half of what’s collected goes to the agencies who run these marshals! 120 marshals collected 6 crore rupees in 7 months that’s roughly about 90 lakh a month for the entire group or 3 lakh per day i.e roughly about 2500 per marshal per day. Rs 200 is the fine per act of peeing which really means if I get 15 people to pee on a certain wall in a day, I make my average. The rest is a bonus. If we assume, conservatively that 10% of Mumbai’s working population pees atleast once a year on a wall somewhere, that’s a whopping 1800 crore just out of spotting and fining people who pee. Now now, do we have a business proposition here or what!

Kahani mein Twits

Am glad the old sardar finally spoke on the Tharoor controversy. Never one to be forceful but saying “it’s a joke” sent enough of a message I guess to the holy cows. But then the damage has been done. The elephant’s in the room isn’t it?
Tharoor wears his personality on his ministry, totting a blackberry, frequently a mundu (traditional Malayali dhoti) and twitting through the day. Followers of his posts will vouch that while the secrets of Sharm Al sheikh haven’t been shared yet but there’s been enough to feed to curiosity of an eager intelligent polity. No wonder he has more followers now than Priyanka Chopra.
Tharoor is seen as the firang in the current cabinet, suitably under the ‘Foreign minister’ label. In a party where innumerable chants of Gandhi and immeasurable measures of sycophancy might land you at best a front row seat in a rally, Tharoor is clearly an outsider. He is considered an upstart who managed to get to the corridors of power because someone sensible pushed his CV. The more insecure ones might also feel he’s an upstart usurper to their thrones. In a cabinet of senile satraps, Tharoor is an anathema. He makes the rest look less glamorous, less evolved and more Neanderthal.
In such a scenario, the septuagenarian sabha is slyly singing sermons shunning shashi’s sacrilege. It’s the cabinet equivalent of college ragging, albeit rather serious. They are baying for blood while brandishing bovine batons. The cow, has graduated from provider of milk to icon of our ilk. It’s the best opportunity that the mediocre cabinet will ever get to castigate and put in place that snooty Stephanian who seems to threaten the closed corridors of the cabinet with his 140 character ‘leaks’
This 140 character assassination might die a natural death or get lost in the timeline of other such trivial pursuits. I feel we need such mild earthquakes frequently to prevent our democracy from slipping into a comfortable ennui. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to follow Mr Tharoor on Twitter, holy cow or not.

In Jet we Trust?

One of my favorite brands is passing through tough times. Jet Airways, is yet to sort out the pilot mess that it has walked into. From a service perspective, pilots have always been a given in the scheme of things. Except a comment or two on the quality of landing they make, and the announcement that is made at the beginning of the flight which mentions who’s at the helm , the pilot is considered to be on auto pilot, a given. He is a bit like those faceless auto and taxiwallahs who ferry lakhs of passengers to from their destinations in Mumbai. The airline experience is defined entirely by his other colleagues, who check you in, board you, serve you and take care of you in the aluminum cabin. It’s also defined by employees who man the call centers, the ticketing offices and other touchpoints.
It’s on these counts that Jet Airways has been delightful. Having flown the airline for the last 8 years fairly frequently, I can bet my last dollar on its service being on time, crisp, no nonsense. Its more fancy competitors have raised hemlines, worked on vital stats of air hostesses and introduced other frills, with limited success among passengers like me who’d rather have a simple professionally managed flying experience. In fact, it’s this consistent delightful experience that made me invest in Jet stock which predictably is in the red these days.
The stock has been held to ransom now by the vicissitudes of the men who fly it. Pilots have always been at the more glamorous end of any airline, seen as the bosses on board. They’re like prized sharp shooting mercenaries who have been spoilt by the price that the Indian civil aviation industry is ready to pay to have them, with demi -god like statuses. I have nothing against them making huge salaries or living a high life but the lack of ownership for the airline and brand that they have shown is disappointing. They probably fail to realize the permanent damage that they have done to India’s leading aviation brand. More seriously, they fail to realize the failure of the airline to live up to the trust that it has created among customers. By default, pilots have become a touch point which inadvertently has permanently damaged the brand experience
The blame is not squarely on the pilots. I don’t believe that the way the Jet management has handled this crisis is spectacular. In fact on that count they’ve never been a great example. Even when the sacked a 1000 temporary employees, they were made to retract their steps by some political parties. This precedent has probably encouraged the pilots to hold adamantly onto their demands. And this time too it looks like the management will give into the demands of the pilots.
Though I would not want to admit to it, but this episode has dented my confidence, both as a customer and investor.

See where you Pee!

Xixi no Banho - 1 Translation(s) | dotSUB

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The language of Freedom

Independence means

1. Having cutting chai thela right outside a five star
2. Randomly chatting up neighbour on bus and getting an equally heartfelt response
3. Laughing at the same jokes, cringing at the same irritants
4. Creating' Indian Chinese cuisine and then mixing it with Punjabi in the same meal
5. Having an opinion on any mundane thing and sending SMSs to a random TV poll on the same (and getting a mention on air too... rarely!)
6. Kasab getting a fair trial
7. Marrying a woman from another language, region, caste, religion, social status, upbringing and yet having a child who's inherently Indian
8. Everyone being as suspectible to swine flu ;)
9. Watching pirated DVDs and shedding genuine tears
10.Having ur finger inked every five years so what if the candidate list isn't spectacular

Jai Hind

Vigilantism

Saw a man who attempted flicking a woman’s cell phone get mercilessly bashed up by two otherwise shady looking characters who conveniently assumed a moral high ground. In Mumbai we have a term for this, it’s called “haath dhoke lena”.
The other day in Surat, a mob lynched two rapists from under the nose of some cops. It didn’t help that the rapists were Muslims, good old Gujarati bias also came to the fore I guess.
Shiney Ahuja and his hapless maid are both get a similar haath dhona treatment from the media and public at large. The media is peddling stories of morality, sleaze and virtue and has pronounced him guilty. It doesn’t help that his wife comes out in the open and makes some pretty obnoxious statements (“even a man can get raped”) accompanied by what looked like a kitty party jing-bang of neighbouring aunties. The poor maid of course is the butt of many an insensitive jokes doing the rounds on sms and newspapers.
In Bengal, Maoists are openly challenging the Govt to fight them in Lalgarh. Pot bellied policemen with lathis are standing and staring in defiance.