What is in a name? - Part II

 

 Col Slade- Do the deal, Charlie. Take it! Go to Harvard

Charlie- I can't do that

Col. Slade- Why Not?

Charlie- Because I have a conscience, you know. Its some things you just can't do

Col. Slade- Conscience, Charlie?  When were you born, son? Around the time of the Round Table?  Hah. Haven't you heard? Conscience is dead

Charlie- No, I haven't heard

Col. Slade- Well, then, take the fucking wax outta your ears! Grow up! It's fuck your buddy. Cheat on your wife. Call your mother on Mother's Day. Charlie, it's all shit. You're gonna have a tough time in this world

So goes the exchange between Charlie, a prep school student at Baird School and Col. Frank Slate, a retired and blind Colonel in the United States Army. It is a scene from the movie Scent of a woman which won Al-Pacino an Oscar in the leading role and went on to win many Golden Globe awards as well. 

For some background, Charlie has been promised a seat at Harvard by the Principal, if he squeals the names of the students who vandalized the Principal's new Jaguar. Col. Slade, who has seen much in life, exhorts him to go ahead and make the deal but Charlie is not comfortable with the idea of "selling out"? The movie sets you thinking but we will come back to it.

Many years back, in the early eighties, my family was traveling to the Himalayan Shrine of Badrinath. Travel conditions in the hills were tough- there was no luxury accommodation available then, food along the way was very basic and since we couldn't afford a private taxi, the trip was made on a U.P. Roadways bus. Tired and famished after the whole day of bus journey on narrow potholed roads pockmarked with recent landslides, we finally reached the town of Joshimath. It was bitterly cold and getting dark, so finding accommodation was first priority. There were no cell phones or even land line phones in those days, and a guesthouse, the only one at Joshimath, we had planned to stay in, had no system of reserving accommodation. It followed a first come first serve system. On enquiring, my father was told he must look elsewhere as all rooms were taken. My father pleaded with the manager, letting him know that he was traveling with little children but the manager was in no mood to reconsider. After considerable time went by, My father was about to give up when he happen to mention that he has traveled all the way from Pantnagar University on this pilgrimage. The Manager was in conversation with another party and only half listening to my father but on hearing this, he signaled my father to wait. Further conversation ensued during which the manager learnt that my father was a professor and taught at the university. Lo and Behold, there was a sea-change in his attitude- he still held that all his rooms were taken, but now he was willing to accommodate us by vacating the one that he occasionally used himself. Slightly baffled by this sudden change of heart, my father profusely thanked the manager and we went on to stay in the room. This incident was much discussed and narrated later on and it was concluded that the good reputation and influence that Pantnagar University enjoyed led the manager to reconsider his decision and go the extra mile to help us. Nor was this an isolated incident- I was to repeatedly see people, even hardened policemen, trained to sniff out goons and mischief makers, melt with high regard or even slightly bow at just the mention of the name of the institution, such was its' reputation. Not just in the hills, but also in big cities like Delhi. This is even more remarkable considering there was no TV or internet or social media in those days and all that one knew was through word of mouth.  

In his book The Bonsai Manager, R. Gopala krishnan describes an infamous case of misappropriation of funds at Tata Finance and how the company, when it discovered wrongdoing, immediately decided to make it public and handled it with utmost urgency and transparency with the end goal of making sure that Tata's name as a company was not sullied. The company risked losing its business and its customers by doing so and had the option of not disclosing anything at all but it decided its credibility was at stake.  

Swiss Airlines, built on the platform of quality, once discovered a problem with its aircraft engines and decided to ground the entire fleet, until such time that the problem was discovered and fixed, at a huge blow to its finances.

15 years back, in an MBA class room, a professor asked us who our hero was in the corporate world, a role-model, someone who we looked upto. Most all hands went up, amongst them majority of the girls, for Rebecca Mark (the business media had christened her "Mark the shark" for her aggressive deal-snatching capabilities). Young minds were enamored, there was awe and even some measure of reverence. Her aggression was clearly a virtue many wanted to emulate and since access to boardrooms were still some distance away, copious amounts of this quality was at display during classroom participation. There is a front page news story picture of Rebecca Mark etched in my mind meeting Shiv Sena's chief Bal Thackeray to discuss the Enron plant in Maharashtra. The Enron scandal hadn't happened yet and the list of her fans in business schools was particularly long. Enron collapsed later due to a number of questionable and illegal financial practices, and Arthur Andersen, their auditors, were subsequently convicted of obstruction of justice for its part in the scandal. The reputation damage to Arthur Andersen was immediate and catastrophic, and its clients fled in droves. It made no difference that the conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2005 — by then, it had lost all its customers. Although never formally dissolved as a partnership, there's little chance that Arthur Anderson will ever again be a viable business.

In the world of business this is formally recognized as Reputation Risk- damage to the value of a company's brand name cause by negative public opinion. It can happen for a number of reasons (mostly fraud and financial wrong doing) and can have a debilitating effect on shareholder value. Conversely, in accounting the concept of good business practices, good reputation, is also duly recognized and attributed value as Goodwill.  These intangible concepts are ingrained in a world that, above all, usually only accords value to hard numbers.

Yet individuals, it appears, sometimes have difficulty clearly understanding what is at stake. Some confuse it with accumulating money or power. Others believe that their fame has made them surpass the usual boundaries of convention that apply to other people. But fame alone does not determine name, leave along good name. Fame is fleeting. Your fame is dependent on other peoples' choices. Your name depends on your own. Fame is temporary; it is, for most part, a mirage. Your name lasts a lifetime, infact it goes beyond a generation. The list of people who learnt this lesson the hard way is long- Jack Welch, whose fall from grace was quick and steep or more recently General Petraeus, a highly decorated officer of the US army, who became fodder for lewd jokes after his extra-marital affairs came to light. People who fell from grace perhaps never thought this could happen to them. They thought they were beyond the rule of law. Rajat Gupta of Mckinsey was looked upon as a realm of what was possible to achieve, a rags to riches story he went on to receive some of the highest accolades in the business world, but now history will remember him as an infamous crook who tried to accumulate illegal riches. To his credit, at least he seems to know that he has lost his reputation by admitting as much publicly.  

Rajesh Khanna, had just about died when articles about his misconduct and his personal vendetta against his co-stars began to appear in the press but Balraj Sahani is still remembered as a gentleman actor, two generations after. Azharuddin once hailed as a cricketer of unparalleled talent, was tainted forever with match fixing charges. Isn't it a shame that a man who debuted with 3 centuries in a row, whose mere turn of a wrist could send a bowl to the boundary, would be remembered as someone who brought disrepute to the Gentleman's game?  If there have been people who, in one stroke tarnished their reputations, there are also those who went to great lengths to safeguard their reputations, however intangible an asset it may be. Amitabh Bachchan fought hard to extricate his name from the Bofors scandal and repeatedly said to the media that it was important to him that his name was cleared. Kapil Dev, when accused of match fixing cried like a child on national television.

And yet, the message is lost on the young men and women of today. Lured by the riches of corporate life, dreams of flying in a corporate jet, owning an entire island or amassing unaccountable money, they are willing to gamble anything. The haphazard growth of the media has resulted in a body blow to its ethics -citizens of the fourth estate leave much to be desired but even they can't escape the fact that their most precious commodity is the trust that their readers put in their word.  Can Barkha Dutt of NDTV claim the same status of unadulterated respect anymore after the Radia tapes came to light? Probably not. You can write a 1000 letters of protest or refute the charges of misconduct but public trust is frail. The only thing that you cannot redeem in a lifetime, once lost, is your name. Not definitely in an age where news spreads faster than fire. Of all the possessions of man, there is nothing as fragile as one's name. It is not without reason that self esteem and reputation appear nearly at the top of the pyramid in Maslow's theory.

This brings us back to Charlie, who, beyond the maturity of his years, decides his principles are far more important than buying his way into Harvard. There are parallels to this in the corporate life- Ask yourself if you ever sold out your colleagues to make your way to the top? Did you build a business on the misery of your employees and then, did not remember to reward them? Our day to day life throws innumerably difficult questions at us- these are moments of truth, moments that test our integrity, moments that are a decisive test of our character. Whatever your principles may be, you play this game once and none other but your own conscience is the referee. Neither is this game a short sprint. It is a marathon that lasts 40 years of your working life. You waiver once and you may never recover.

Every morning I take the 20 minutes drive towards the Airport where my office is. The highway is full of billboards that are selling anything from liquor to cars to property- not generally a source you would expect to receive much useful information, leave alone find any wisdom but then, one day, unexpectedly, I noticed this written in bold fonts: Win, but not at any cost and 5 minutes later, a second one with an even better message: Stake everything but your name.

Here's a third one to consider: Ask yourself What is in a name? And if you allow your conscience, it may be heard faintly telling you: Well, my friend just about everything.    

What's in a name?- Part I

 

 

It is safe to assume that you may have seen Gladiator, a blockbuster released in the year 2000 that won no less than 5 academy awards, including for best picture.

Allow me therefore, to run you through a short part of its brilliant screenplay.

To give you some background, Marcus Aurelius is the old king of Rome; Commodus is his son and Maximus his brave General.  As the king is getting old, and a major war has been won against Germania, he decides to have 2 separate conversations with his son and his general on succession:   

Marcus Aurelius: Are you ready to do your duty for Rome?
Commodus: Yes, father.
Marcus Aurelius: You will not be emperor.
Commodus: Which wiser, older man is to take my place?
Marcus Aurelius: My powers will pass to Maximus, to hold in trust until the Senate is ready to rule once more. Rome is to be a republic again.
Commodus: Maximus?
Marcus Aurelius: Yes. My decision disappoints you?
Commodus: You wrote to me once, listing the four chief virtues: Wisdom, justice, fortitude and temperance. As I read the list, I knew I had none of them. But I have other virtues, father. Ambition. That can be a virtue when it drives us to excel. Resourcefulness, courage, perhaps not on the battlefield, but... there are many forms of courage. Devotion, to my family and to you. But none of my virtues were on your list.

 

 

Marcus Aurelius: There is one more duty that I ask of you before you go home.
Maximus: What would you have me do Caesar?
Marcus Aurelius: I want you to become the protector of Rome after I die. I will empower you to one end alone, to give power back to the people of Rome and end the corruption that has crippled it.
Marcus Aurelius: Do you accept this great honor that I have offered you?
Maximus: With all my heart, no.
Marcus Aurelius: Maximus that is why it must be you.

Maximus:  And Commodus?

Marcus Aurelius:  Commodus is not a moral man. You have known that since you were young. Commodus cannot rule. He must not rule. You're the son that I should have had. Commodus will accept my decision. He knows that you command the loyalty of the army.

 

Dwell on this for a while, read it again if you will, paying special attention to the words that I have underlined.  We will come back to it.

Cut to modern times:  A young man, all of 20 years old, from one of the poorest slums in the city, comes in for an interview and is hired. The young man confides in me his ambition to become CEO, one day.  I fall off my chair, recover my composure enough to ask a few polite questions and get to understand that from great deprivation is born great ambition, whether deserved or not.

All around me, people are going crazy seeking high titles. Never mind the fortune at the bottom of pyramid, people are busy inverting the corporate pyramid to a point where designations have lost all meaning.  In an airline company, where I worked, amongst a 50,000 strong global workforce, there were just 4 Vice Presidents. Today, youngsters who may have just stopped wetting their pants seek to be "We-Pee" just as they graduate out of their MBA schools. Naturally then, with great sense of innovation, and in the universal spirit of accommodating everyone with ambitions overflowing, corporate hierarchies too have evolved- today, you have a deputy COO, a senior Deputy COO, an assistant and associate COO, an 'about to be COO' and several other versions, never mind how incredibly stupid it all sounds. That's just the modern version of a 'flat' organization. Flat at the top that is. If you want to find out who really does what, forget it. It may be a better idea to simply play a game of Sudoku, a puzzle it is too, but at least it has some logic.        

 I receive an unsolicited call from a recruitment agent (by now an unavoidable inconvenience if you have to stay in the 'game') who, without making any apologies for it, blurts out the details of an opening, in a crass, rehearsed tone, even before I can so much as acknowledge her. When I ask her about the company which she is recruiting for, her tone hushes, voice drops to a whisper, as if she was about to break a massive state secret to me, bigger than what Wikileaks could ever imagine.  At other times, recruitment agents have questioned me about my title being 'just' Manager.  I immediately correct their folly, drawing their attention to my resume and pointing out that once, long back, I was a Senior Manager. That's by way of jest. But people take titles so seriously these days, that very often when I crack this one, I have to explain that I am joking. But seriously, what's with the titles?

There's the famous Harvard case study of a Japanese ship welder, who, before he could get into the coveted job of welding the hull of the ship spends 100's of hours honing his skills as a welder. Today of course the robots have taken over this precision welding job, but the example is to illustrate the importance of spending time in the field. Raghuvir Sahay, a theatre artist and the main cast in the movie Peepli live, says he picked up his talent acting in Natak Mandalis  (folk theatres) that travel around the country. A celebrated chef in Taj, sets aside 1 full month to travel across rural areas in coastal India to learn original coastal recipes.    

Read Outliers (Authored by Malcolm Gladwell, by now celebrated for books like What the dog saw, or The Tipping point) The central premise of the book is exactly same: that anyone who has achieved some degree of expertise in his/her chosen field has started early and spent at least 10,000 hours honing their skills that are required to become an expert.  He goes on to give several examples including that of Beatles and some accomplished athletes.

Or don't read the book. Go and see '3 Idiots' – What is the message in the movie?   If you think the popularity of the movie, is any indication that people are 'getting it', I can give you a nice gold bordered certificate that you are an optimist.  

I recall, long ago, as a young person I would say hello every morning to a photo of Sir Sean Connery, bearded, in a black suit with a bow tie,  almost bald but not devoid of any of his charisma, pinned right infront of my eyes on a board over looking my desk. I had torn it out of a magazine with an accompanying interview which had the following quote from him in large italics: "I have met many educated people, but few who have the insatiable appetite to know, to create, to be curious, to be better men".

Titles, at least to my mind, represented excellence, the power of original thinking, power to create. It represented wisdom gained through experience and experience comes through years of toil. They were a certificate of a rank deserved, of a standing that came from respect that was earned, of admiration that was showered from superiors, fellow workers and subordinates alike.  It was to reflect the trust, a company's stakeholders had bestowed upon its bearer, to influence the trajectory of the company, not control the destiny of its people. A title was about achieving, not an achievement in itself!  High titles were about truly being a better man. 

Not anymore. Today, titles are empty tags. They represent an invisible ladder, each rung decorated with a price tag, a corner office, a sexy secretary et el.  Today, it is about power brokering, about politicking, about 'you scratch my back, I will scratch yours', about everything that is petty, and unbecoming.  Today, it has nothing to do with a sense of creation. Do you ever wonder why so many organizations are falling apart? Times are when people forget the difference between deserving and demanding. They choose to have status over stature because status can be acquired. Stature has to be built, there are no short cuts.

Back to the gladiator screenplay:  I saw it over and over and over until the words rang in my mind. 

Wisdom, Justice, fortitude and temperance vs. ambition and loyalty

 It is perhaps, the closest, most apt metaphor to describe today's corporate world albeit in a melodramatic way.  Surely, no one would disagree. The disagreement is on whether to be on the left or the right of this equation to get to the throne.  

I have nothing against ambition. In drawing room discussions on this subject, almost everyone, including my wife, disagrees with me on the non-importance of a title. They point out that as in the movie, so in life-power is grabbed, not given. They remind of the ways of the wily Narsimnha Rao, my favorite politician. They tell me am confusing power with morality. In defense, I point back to the 'happy ending' of the movie. They in turn remind me the differences between reel and real life.

I truly believe that an undeserved title, far from helping you achieve greater heights can actually hinder your work, your success in an organization in terms of work that you want to accomplish. It can damage your long term prospects. Who does not want to lead from the top; have men follow orders?

Getting a title or reaching the top can, at best, be a mission. A more relevant question to ask would be: What's my vision for this company? For it's people? For the industry? For the country? Is it not the vision that separates a statesman from a politician? Desiring a title in itself cannot certainly be an end goal, can it be?  Wouldn't you rather that your time at the top is remembered as an era instead of just being described as tenure? If it's the title that you crave, as did Commodus, remind yourself in time- If you cannot lead in thought, you must stand apost with other men in deed. 

Having a title without a vision is like being a terrorist with an AK 47 who does not really aim, and ends up causing a lot of collateral damage.  It is like rejoicing the statistics of 50 centuries by Sachin Tendulkar, without actually relishing the beauty of watching him play. Or it may be akin to checking stock scrips everyday without any intention to buy or sell.  What's the point? 

One last anecdote:   The king of Jordan was dying of cancer in a hospital bed in the US.  For years, the line of succession had been frozen- King Abdullah's younger brother was to take over the throne after him. As the dying king called for his family in the US, to bid his goodbyes one final time, his younger brother's wife, a Pakistani women and the new queen to be, could wait no longer. The king was to die any moment now so she had her husband's belongings shifted into the main office in Amman where the King held throne. As things turned out, word reached the dying king. The women in her mind had perhaps broken a mere protocol but she had lost her husband the long awaited kingdom. King Abdullah did not waste a minute and proclaimed his son to be the new king. Succession is a tricky thing; don't be in a hurry.

My advice to young men and women at this time of the year: Titles are all about desire. I ask you to aspire. 

The difficulty of being a good father

 

 

Picture this: You jump a traffic signal on your 2-wheeler. Nobody stops you, nobody whistles you down, and there are no cameras to have clicked your number plate for traffic violation. Nobody that matters really has seen it, except your son riding pillion, who, in his 6th year, is old to understand that perhaps something wasn't quite right, but not old enough to make the connection between breaking a simple traffic rule and the idea of morality, of fairness, and I suspect many adults will have difficulty making the connection themselves.   

What would you do thereafter? I have cursed myself many times for rushing through a signal that I could see had been green for quite a while, approaching it from afar. Yet, instead of slowing down, I decided to press on at breakneck speed, actually accelerating to get through it before a glimpse of crimson was visible, comfortable in the thought that there will be a momentary pause, a middle ground, a window between the light turning red from green that conceals the intentions of the driver, diminishing the difference between a real traffic offender from one who merely misjudged the distance.

Now, there are a thousand silly things in daily life that I curse myself for -sometimes silently, sometimes aloud- small promises that I really shouldn't have broken, words that I shouldn't have uttered but I never consciously considered the effects of these small wrongs on those around me, especially my children. Until, I saw the protagonist, the main character of the movie, Ferrari Ki Sawari- a young father, with son in tow, who is an upright man & decides to pay the traffic fine voluntarily, even though no one really saw him breaking the traffic signal except his own son.

You think that the director makes a great point-nothing can be more important than demonstrating the right from wrong to your kids. But it is impossible to not go through a conflicting emotion at this point in the movie, a nagging feeling of whether one can really survive this world being that upright. Would you really pay a traffic fine voluntarily? Have you? Ever?

From then on, a barrage of questions, of matters however small have haunted me- There is a cloud, a grey area, a gap between honesty and the extent of its practice in daily life that bothers me. It is perhaps easy to teach the idea of differentiating the right from wrong to your kids.  But honesty, goodness, morality are all absolute values, there is no middle ground. Their practice in daily life is anything but.

I watched my son at the playground with other kids. On his first day, he kept pleading with the other kids to slow down the merry-go- round so he could step on it, but despite his many pleas and requests, they never did. Exasperated, he decided to withdraw and play on the swing. Next day, it was the same story again and since I decided to not intervene, this kept happening for days at end, until one day, an older kid, whom my son had befriended, stepped in with a stick in hand and forced the other kids to stop. The lesson was crystal clear to my son. It wasn't clear to me. Is there value anymore in being polite or do I teach him to be aggressive like everyone else, to survive in the world we live in? More importantly, will he be able to distinguish which situation requires a stick to be used?

At school, kids are taught to always cross the road using the designated Zebra crossing- so he questioned me one day when we awkwardly leapt across the busy road at Bangalore. How must one teach a kid to cross roads using Zebra crossings when none exist? These are not insignificant things- even a child can understand the contradictions between what is being taught and what is actually being practiced. It won't be long when he learns to disregard what is taught and does what he sees others doing without understanding why there is a difference. 

And here's the larger issue- our schools were so steeped in high idealism-ideas of Satyagraha and ahimsa that they never prepared us for how that idealism must be practiced in a world that is far from ideal. No teacher said that the world is imperfect so you may learn these principles but when it comes to using them, you will only be able to apply them in half measures!

When we graduated, we were like Ranbir Kapoor's character in Rocket Singh- naïve, idealistic and completely unprepared for the pitfalls of the working world, stuffing complaint boxes with letters against the corrupt, hoping the world would change for the better. 

So, I often ask myself- why must I teach my kid about a rule if he is going to later learn it to become a handicap?

Must I insist that he learns about morals, if he is going to be humiliated because of those morals later on in life? 

Must I teach him about the real world that is cruel and crushing or should I leave him to be disillusioned on his own later on?  

Should I teach him to play or should I teach him to win?

Should I teach him to be Maryada-Purushottam or should I teach him to be Mayavi? 

Selling Airplanes in India

My daughter's treatment in India afforded me a lot of time to talk to people here and this is what I have learnt talking and dialing some old contacts just to see what's going on.  

 

Just like China, there are nouveau rich (as the economy opened up) who have made their money with real estate, extractive industries etc. and Just like China they are "party" ( in politics) people. That much is known to everyone. What is not known that well, is that this money- is far more invisible in the hinterlands of India than in the cities. So a small town such as Sagar in Madhya Pradesh which is in the middle of the mining belt of India, are sitting on piles of money because it is easier to hide there. You befriend the taxman because he/she went to school with you. A town like Kolhapur has one of the highest concentration of Mercedes and BMW's.  

 

So why would they want to know about Aviation or Airline? 

 

Consider Tatas- before they become a respectable business house, Tata, the founder made his first millions in selling opium to the British forces who were fighting in Burma and Calcutta. Ofcourse, he had then the vision to get into textiles and steel etc. to become a formidable business group. 

 

The thing is that if I have made my money in coal or running trucks or some such business, I may not know anything about Airlines, but the 'sexiness' of an Airline business suddenly makes me respectable, it adds profile & legitimacy to my name. I have the mullah, what I want is to gain acceptance into the big boy business club of India. That explains why there is a long queue of people asking for Airline licenses. 

 

When Capt. Gopi made a pitch to ATR's, he didn't have 1 single slide on his business plan. He sold the "India growth story" to them. While the India growth story, is all but muddled for the moment, the ball is more in the court of Aircraft makers, as ambitious sales targets were already set based on explosive growth in the last 5 years and investments made. 

 

Therefore, if I were an Airplane salesman selling (largely) turbo-props, I would stop thinking about the air shows with bimbettes in row to welcome some VIP's. I would rather put on my riding boots to visit the badlands of India- the so called Tier-2 cities and visit the man with the biggest house with a simple presentation titled: How to launch an Airline. None of the fancy slides on the fuel burns and payload range. 

 

Arguably, this is a risky strategy, as by its very design it is meant to attract players that may be non-serious actors on the stage. 8/10 of such ventures may fail (not unlike elsewhere) leaving the very dirty and very tricky part of retrieving aircraft assets from these failed companies. But this is a stage that an OEM necessarily has to go through until the market matures. 

 

Space mission to help fix land market

This is a real revolution, we need a 100 more revolutions like these.

Space mission to help fix land market

Cartosat-2A, which India put into orbit last week, has begun beaming pictures of the hinterland, setting stage for what may be a revolution in country's finance

 

Andy Mukherjee

Arocket head being carried on the backseat of a bicycle. That’s how French photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson’s camera captured the initial years of India’s space programme, which began in the early 1960s.
   Many of the programmes critics noted at the time that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was squandering the country’s severely limited budgetary resources on an elitist reverie far removed from the realities of the newly decolonized, poor nation. Author and former United Nations diplomat Shashi Tharoor described the tension in his 2003 biography of Nehru. “There was no limit to his scientific aspirations for India, Tharoor wrote in “Nehru: The Invention of India.’’ “And yet the country was moored in the bicycle age at least partly because of his unwillingness to open up its economy to the world.’’ Four decades after Nehru’s death, his economic legacy, especially a dangerous flirtation with Sovietstyle state planning, stands largely discredited.
   Yet his scientific aspirations are coming to fruition in an India that is twice as open to the world as it was just a decade ago, judging by the flow of trade and overseas investments in relation to the size of the economy. Last week, India put 10 satellites into orbit in a single mission, creating a new world record.
   Among the payloads was Cartosat-2A. It’s an indigenously developed remote-sensing satellite that has already begun beaming high-resolution pictures of the Indian hinterland, setting the stage for what may be a revolution in the nation’s finance. India has already made extensive use of domestically developed communication satellites. In the mid-1980s, satellites made it possible for India to export computer software written in Bangalore to the US. In the 1990s, the same technology enabled India to set up a modern, nationwide, electronic stock market circumventing the lack of a robust, terrestrial communication network.
   In Andhra Pradesh, students in remote villages get access to an English teacher in the city via a satellite link. Later during the day, the same link may be used to set up a video conference between an urban doctor and his rural patients. Indian scientists have also effectively used images from outer space to map the missing nutrients in barren land so it can be reclaimed for agriculture. The next step is to combine satellite pictures of landholdings with field surveys and create a unified register of property titles.
   That’s going to be a key use of the images obtained from Cartosat-2A. These will have a resolution that’s 36 times sharper than that of the images clicked by India’s first remotesensing satellite in 1988. “Land is probably the single most valuable physical asset in the country today,’’ a government-appointed committee on financialsector development noted last month. “Unfortunately, the murky state of property rights to land makes it less effective as collateral than it could be,’’ said the panel headed by University of Chicago economist Raghuram Rajan. Improving the collateral value of land will mean more bank credit to more entrepreneurs at cheaper rates. The first stumbling block to achieving this goal in India is the absence of reliable visual representations of what a landholder actually owns; surveys in India have traditionally covered farmland because the British rulers had a strong revenue interest in it. Rural and urban dwellings have largely been left out. Not just that.
   A survey in Andhra Pradesh found that 9% of village maps were either torn or faded; an additional 29% were missing from official records. “Unless alternative options — for example, use of satellite imagery — can be explored, reconstituting village maps in the 30-40% of cases where these are either missing or not usable will require huge amounts of fieldwork,’’ noted a 2007 World Bank study. “Given the cost involved, it isn’t surprising that this has rarely been done in practice.’’
   More than five years ago, McKinsey warned that India was losing as much as 1.3 percentage points of economic growth because of distortions in the land market, including titles that weren’t legally foolproof.
   One of the indirect costs shows up in very small farmers not leasing out their land to those who actually have the stomach for taking the risks associated with agriculture. If the owners of small strips of land were assured that by handing possession of their holdings to someone else they weren’t diluting their ownership rights, they would gladly do so and come to cities to supplement their rental incomes. Urbanization will accelerate; manufacturing industries will gain a competitive advantage from cheaper labour. None of this is happening now because of dodgy property rights.
   “Land title in India is uncertain and there is no assurance of clean title,’’ Ascendas India Trust, a Singapore-based owner of office property in India, told potential investors last year. “Title records provide for only presumptive title rather than a guaranteed title to the land.’’ All that may change. The Indian government is planning a mammoth resurvey of all land—partly using satellite imagery—with the ultimate objective of creating a digital repository of all land records. The spirit of private enterprise that was stymied during Nehru’s rule — and crushed under his daughter Indira Gandhi’s reign — is already witnessing a surge. And it’s getting a boost from Nehru’s insistence on inculcating a scientific temper among his countrymen. BLOOMBERG

 

 

 

A chore made easier

A chore made easier

Housekeeping attendants at the newly opened Crowne Plaza Changi Airport hotel will not have to contend with sore backs when they clean its 320 rooms. This is because each bed has a device that lifts the mattress to an attendant's waist level, so that she can vacuum under it without straining her back. The device can also move the bed away from the wall, to ease the changing of beddings. The hotel is the first here to introduce this device. It is part of an ongoing programme by the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) to have jobs in various sectors re-designed so that older workers and housewives, among others, can be brought into the workforce. Each device costs $500, but the WDA subsidises $400. Another six hotels are due to install the device over the next two to three months. The WDA hopes to get 20 more hotels on board in one to two years. Hotels here hire some 4,000 housekeeping attendants, who are paid about $1,000 a month. Another 1,000 such workers will be needed in the next three years as more hotels are being built, the WDA said.

 

 

Empowered villages

ABB brings electricity to lost villages of Rajasthan

 

Anshita Singhania

 

   THERE’S NO power today. Imagine reading this in the newspaper in the morning. You would immediately jostle up the morning’s tasks, try to use all your machines so that your work for the day isn’t delayed. Well, if this is the urban paranoia about power-cuts, imagine a situation where you had to live without electricity. There are houses in Rajasthan which have never seen electricity.
   Just as Shahrukh Khan in the movie ‘Swades’ brought electricity to a village, ABB has provided electricity to villages in Rajasthan. As part of its ‘Access to Electricity’ programme, a corporate social responsibility of the company, they have provided power to parts of Western Rajasthan through solar photovoltaic (SPV) home lighting system. Mr Biplab Majumder, country manager & MD, ABB India, says: “Around one-fourth of the world’s population don’t have access to electricity and rely on other, often primitive energy sources”. He said that the average income of a family in west Rajasthan is around Rs 45,000 annually and many families are below poverty line.
   “In the first phase (2006-07), ABB India’s ‘Access to Electricity’ programme brought power supply to around 800 households in five villages in the interior desert areas of Rajasthan, where no grid existed and was considered unviable due to the scattered nature of the villages,” he explains. The only advantage was that Rajasthan had an average of 325 days of sun. “Scattered dwellings across four hamlets were equipped with solar panel units that helped bring light to their homes. The project was continued in 2007 with another 400 homes being illuminated,” he says.
   The project, based on a publicprivate partnership model, involved the ABB, the Rajasthan government and an NGO. It was started in a hamlet with power generated by solar panels. Solar photovoltaic cells convert solar energy into electricity which is stored in a battery bank. It is through these batteries that electricity is generated. Solar voltaic pannels are also used to run household appliances like lights, fan, small TVs, radios, CD players and to charge mobile phones. As a result, the people of Hanumangarh, Balau, Lakhania Ki Dhani and Khoksar saw drastic improvement in their social, economic and environmental conditions.
   People here are mainly involved in carpet weaving, animal husbandary, carpentry, basket weaving, shoe making and tailoring. Due to lack of light, they had to complete their work before dusk. This resulted in less production and low income levels. The situation has changed now. Mr Majumdar says: “It has helped small enterprises grow. This helped increase the income and create opportunities for education and employment. There has been an increase of productive hours by 3-5 hours per day and now they can work longer in the evenings.” This has helped people take more orders and also reduced migration of people to other cities. People have also started sharing the cost of SPV. The area is visited by ABB employees regularly who check the systems and assess the overall impact of this project.
   “Another remarkable result has been the emergence of a service industry for maintenance and repairs of SPV systems. There has been a rise in the employment opportunities for the local youth,” he said.
   According to a survey conducted, the average income of people had increased from Rs 24,000 to Rs 30,000. Almost all households have a mobile phone charged with SPV systems. A few people who owned mobile phones previously had to travel around 10 km and pay Rs 10 to charge their phones. “The women can now cook at leisure as they had to finish all their work before sunset earlier,” Mr Majumder added. Health conditions of the people here have also improved as they no longer have to inhale the fumes of crudely-made kerosene lamps or strain their eyes.
   Electricity has also enabled students attend coaching classes after school hours in the evening. Earlier, the schools in the village had no proper infrastructure and most of the boys studied up to standards 10 or 12 and the girls studied up to standards 8 or 10. But now, according to data from ABB, there has been an increase in school enrolment. The academic performance of students too had improved significantly. Daily attendance has increased by 15%, says Majumder. The number of girl students has increased from around 28 in 2005-06 to 37 in 2006-07 after electricity entered their lives.
   Mr Majumder said that security at night had increased. Earlier, people never had time to socialise as they were busy working the whole day and at night they never went out. But now, they have time to attend social gatherings after the sunset. “We at ABB believe in making a difference to the communities we operate in. As a power company, we are indeed proud of this project where we bring light to many households who would otherwise have remained deprived. It is also making a big difference to their lives from a social and economic perspective,” says Biplab Majumder, country manager & managing director, ABB India.

 

The art of driving on Indian roads

Roads are our national heritage, as you very well know. This is a cradle to grave association: many of us are born here, live here (Hindi movies have a full genre of songs associated with the 'footpath') and of course, given our highest regards for safety, dying on the road is as natural as dying of old age. In between, we marry here (by digging holes into the road for the 'tamboo' to be erected), we wash our laundry on the road, we sell stuff from chips to computers on the road, we pray on the road and do so much more. Such productive use of a public asset is unparalleled around the world. Naturally, then World bank is always so eager to lend us money for building more roads.  

But ofcourse, we also drive on them. For those of us, who may, in our naiveté, forgotten about the talent that this requires, I wanted to summarize some nuggets of wisdom that I have acquired while doing so. It must be said that driving on Indian roads is an existential skill, quite literally so and many expats have unhesitatingly mentioned it on their resumes after their India posting, as the single most important skill that they learned in India. It must also be mentioned that NASA has unequivocally expressed its preference to hire Indian auto drivers for driving the next MARS probe vehicle when humans finally visit MARS. They believe a great deal of affinity exists that can be tapped to the benefit of human kind.         

With further ado, here are some of the secrets that Indians inherently know (cradle to grave association) but for the benefit of the rest of the world:

Showing who the boss on the roads is:  Well first things first. You may not be to able to do so at home, but once you leave home, it is time to show the world who the boss is- everything you do, whether it is the flourish with which you open and close the doors, the dirty look you give to the rider behind you from your rear view mirror, or the pitch and length of your horn- it is all to achieve that one single goal- no one on the roads must take you for granted.  

So let us say, if the signal has turned green and the guy infront of you is still not moving (because the car infront of him hasn't moved), it is your public duty to encourage him to do so, by trying to sit atop your horn, so he can derive uninterrupted motivation to move forward. The key word here is uninterrupted; lest the bugger think you have relented and start to take it easy. In case you get tired, because this could take some time, you can always ask your travelling companion or a passerby to press your horn for you. After all, don't the geese do the same thing while flying in formation. It is such a natural thing to do, it should come naturally. 

Take the lights- Let us say you encounter another vehicle coming from the opposite side on a 15 ft. wide road what would a king of the road do? Exactly, you would flash your lights to assert your right to go first. It does not even matter if the road is 15 feet or 50 feet, or even has a divider with separate lanes for to and fro traffic. All that matters is that you know that there is a feature in the car that allows you to flash the head lights at day time and the other idiot should know that you know how to use it and that you will not shy away from exercising this right, come hail or high wind.  What if the other guy also flashes his lights. Ah, there's the rub- Our mythology provides clues to how you must act then. IF you have seen the TV Serials Ramayana or Mahabharata, the warriors pray & invoke lightening like weapons and throw them at each other. Then these weapons- flashes of light really, fly and clash with each other and eventually one or both are destroyed. And then, both warriors throw each other incredible looks. You must emulate mythology and then just like in the serials, flash your light once again with even more vengeance.  

Likewise, by keeping your lights at full beam at night, you are just retaking your natural space around you and telling the other guy, who is blind by now, that his place is in the gutter at the side of the road.

The right of way: There is a caveat to all of the above.  Whatever else you may do, in this battle of dharma on the Indian roads you never take on the dreaded GOI vehicles- ie, the Government of India vehicles. Government buses are mai-baap. If you do so, all that may happen is that they may ram through vehicle, pinch their nose, shrug their shoulders and walk away.

Horn please: Since most of our great nations great people are stuck on our great roads at any given time, before & after working hours, you can imagine there is no time left for practicing any 'regular' pastimes. Indian ingenuity (assorted management theorists now call it Jugaad- the art of improvisation), that we are so proud of, is seen in abundance here. Using the horn, irrespective of how feeble it may be on a puny Luna, is a national pastime. The ruling congress party was toying with the idea of proposing legislation around it so it is permanently enshrined in our constitution as a fundamental right, but were not so sure of getting it through the house due to the 'didi's menace. But that does not matter. Something does not have to be in the constitution to be practiced. So, right to using the horn- look some people believe that their vehicle is underutilized if all features of their car, especially the horn is not used enough.  No horn means no existence in the parlance of Indian roads. If, you may have momentary lapse of memory, you can always look at the smoke-belching truck infront of you, which has a devil's head painted on it with an all familiar suggestion: Horn Please.

Speed breakers  Speed breakers are ornamental creations on Indian roads, meant to create a beautiful undulating landscapes that is soothing to the eye. It has nothing to do with breaking speed actually. You simply cross don't cross the breaker. You swerve to the side of the road where the breaker ends and then swerve back onto the road.

Lane discipline:  Well, first you have to find a lane, but assuming that you are Agent Vinod ( James Bond equivalent in India) and you manage to find one, the way it works is that the lane dividing dotted line must be exactly between your 2 front tires, if you are on a four wheeler. You don't exactly ride 'in' a lane. You drive 'on or rather 'across' it. A two-wheeler rider has the option of zig-zagging between one lane to another. This option is especially well-utilized if you have PYT sitting as a pillion rider.  Expect the slowest vehicle to be in the fastest lane.  That is because the left most lane is for even slower vehicles that are stationary.

Helmets: There is a rule that helmets must be worn even though there is no chance in an eternity that you will ever cross the lightening speed of 33kms per hour in any city, anywhere in India. If you had an uncle or any distant relative working in the armed forces in the 70's, you can perhaps make a fashion statement on the streets of Bangalore by asking him to lend you his bottle green army helmet (the kind Irfaan khan is seen sporting in Paan Singh Tomar). Mind you, it is solid steel, so much so that you may feel dizzy with the weight.  Strapping it on is not important because the traffic is not that fast, unless you are foolish enough to land in a pothole that may unbalance the precariously balanced but tough, fashionable looking thing on your head. If the helmet has scratches and peeled off paint, or a dent (presumably from a bullet that was shot at by the invading Chinese forces in 1962) boy aren't you then going to rule the cool quotient.  It is the equivalent of wearing a bullet shot or acid-wash torn jeans. 

Tail lights:  India is such a fascinating place- Even truck drivers take public service messages seriously- In order to save electricity, they simply don't install tail lights.

Swerving: Before I tell you about this, ask where was swing bowling discovered. Where indeed- in the Subcontinent!  Swerving on the road is like swing bowling and I suspect the motivation to invent swing bowling came from our roads. It is a delicate art- Open manhole- swerve, cow on the road- swerve, stationary vehicle-swerve, pothole- swerve … you get the idea.. Why should life's journeys be a straight line?   

Swearing & gesturing and Spitting: – All the roads are my spittoon and I will swear as I please. That says it all.

At the traffic signal: You never really stop. The trick is keep moving ahead, keep revving your engine. The smart accountants on the 2-wheelers who pass by every day, have already figured out the duration of traffic signals, They have a premonition, somewhat through a sixth sense, micro-seconds before the signal for the opposite flow of traffic must turn to red, which automatically means that the traffic for their own lane must turn green.

Crossing the busy road:  Ever swum across a river in spate? You don't take on the rival, you go with the flow- you move forward inch by inch diagonally in the direction of the traffic flow, until you have established yourself as a nuisance blocking the road .Then people have to stop to let you go.

Ambassador: This one has a bit of retro-appeal therefore I see a need to mention it. Assume you are driving a small Taxi like a Maruti 800, but you come upon a large family customer. Typical to the Indian customs, you don't refuse a customer. Instead you sit on your side, against the door. Then as and when you need to change floor gear, you just asked the kids to 'swalpa adjust maadi'.  

Queuing:  Look, if you can master this, I can guarantee you half the battle is won. It's like the golf swing. This skill is utilized almost everywhere, but I have specified 2 maneuvers at the railway crossing where, if used deftly, it is like a trump card.   

Part A: At the railway signal crossing: Ah, now this is the one that requires experience and precision so pay attention. You arrive at a railway level crossing that is closed in anticipation of an arriving train. Well, if you are on a 2 wheeler, you immediately get down, bend your torso 90% and simply go under bar with your bike, plain and simple as that. The bar is to keep out other fools who chose to flaunt their wealth and travel in 4-wheelers. Right, that being clarified, let's talk about what happens if you find yourself in a 4-wheeler. Part of the skill is to spot the queue at the railway crossing from afar. Let's say, there are about 10 vehicles piled up in the queue on each side of the crossing. An ordinary mortal may simply decide to be at the 11^th position. Not you. You have read my article. You have mastered this right from your days of yore. You rev-up your engine, tweak your moustaches a bit, ignore all the dirty looks and simply zoom past all the other 9 to arrive at parallel to the second position. Notice that I say second position. That is so, because the guy first in the lane has parked it about 1.5 cms away from the bar, so to aim for the first position would really be fool-hardy, second position is good enough. You don't have the second position just YET. You have to perform a small, but deft maneuver to get it. Right, so just as you arrive parallel to the second car, you turn your steering left a little, say about 15-30 degrees, so that your vehicle's left edge is now strategically placed in-between first and the second position. At this point, you haven't quite evicted the guy in the second position, but you have, very literally, what is called 'a foot in the door'. Don't lose concentration just yet.  As the guy in the erstwhile second position curses himself for parking too far apart from the rear end of the first car (about 5 inches apart, anything more than 2 inches leaves you vulnerable for a 'hostile takeover'), you grab every single opportunity that you get between now and when the train finally arrives and leaves, to inch ahead to ensure that, if at all your rival moves, he is going to bump into you. And of course, that is going to be hitting the minefield as you know how to act if someone even brushes a feather across the length and breadth of your vehicle. If that ever happens, you know, you have to come out of the vehicle and shout at the top of your voice, pick a fight and make sure that everyone behind you in the queue must suffer for their bad karma.  But believe me, it is unlikely to happen. The guy will simply make way for you. (though it helps if you have a stubble & wearing a pyjama-kurta with paan stains. Some people have tried using stickers of Samajwadi party, even here in Bangalore on their vehicles and found it very effective).

Part B:  Right, its time for the manually operated crossing bars to go up. You are alert and raring to go. You have noticed that some fools have followed your example queuing up behind you, contesting for the third, fourth, fifth or subsequent positions in the queue, so effectively there is a parallel second queue albeit with a slight curve because they all have their vehicles lined at that 15 degrees angle I mentioned before. And this is also obviously the case on the other side of the railway line. You curse them for being in-disciplined copy-cats. But so what?.. You still have the reassurance of being at the number second position…er.. that is.. number second position on this side of the railway crossing, being mindful of the mirror image arrangement on the other side.  

As soon as the bars lift up high enough- This is no less than a 100 meter sprint with a billion people as competition- that your low rise vehicle can pass (the other fool has a high chassis car, so he has to wait longer, you once again congratulate yourself for tactical superiority).  Remember the angling of the vehicle is everything, other than the timing. You don't drive straight, you drive at about 30 degrees and assuming that the wall of vehicles that you have on the other side do the same, you are sure to have beaten the queue.  

Vindicated 

Sometimes when you write something and you can see a living proof of it being played right infront of your eyes, you feel so vindicated. 

In May 2011, I had written about why all roles matter, not just to pay lip service to teamwork, but in the very real sense. For instance that of a bell boy in a hotel. 

http://www.garyagarwal.blogspot.in/2011/05/unusual-hiring-luxurious-office-of.html 

On a recent trip, I stayed with an ITC hotel and was naturally curious to find the whereabouts of the management with whom I previously worked. I asked the young person at the Check in desk at the towers, about Gautam Anand, who led the team many years back, but she shook her head and seems to not even show recognition of the name. 

Just then, a bell boy who was walking past must have overheard me, turned back to come to me and without hesitation said that Mr. Anand was located at this property till 2003 and has since moved to Chennai. 

Bell Boys remain at the properties for many long years, serving faithfully. Check-in staff moves on. Who would you think will know the hotel & its people better?    

The Surge into Africa

The world does not wait, while you are sitting in the potty ("going through crap") and the rule applies perhaps more vigorously to our Industry than the rest. The Aviation Industry is in a perpetual hurry. 

So, with this master piece of an acquisition- Etihad's 40% buy into Air Seychelles,  a classic inorganic growth strategy fit for a latecomer to the market vs. someone like Emirates that has painstakingly built an organic business since 1986-7 (over 20 years) to reach where they are, is also the beginning of the surge into near virgin Africa. 

This also comes at a time, when Emirates is increasingly facing more resistance to roll out their organic growth program- from countries like Canada, Germany, Australia and even India (no A380's allowed so far). 

And if you have noticed where Seychelles is located and how many bilaterals they hold, it could also mean the end of the infantile, fragile & nascent, dream of several African and Indian/ Asian carriers to connect Asia to Africa. 

Because this would mean that India & large parts of Eastern & Southern Africa could be connected using a narrow body with a good range. 

Time will tell.  

A peep into Vietnam's Doi Moi Era

 

A memoir of life in Saigon during the late eighties

 

The fall of the Berlin wall, as the 5 decades old cold war came to an end, changed things all over the world. Whether it was Europe, Africa or Asia, no country had remained unaffected by the cold war, so naturally, its demise too, brought about tremendous changes. Vietnam was, very unfortunately so for its people, one such country, at the frontiers of the cold war and a theatre of some of the worst conflicts that played out during the era. So when Gorbachev announced his   Glasnost and Perestroika, Vietnam, torn apart by years of conflict, saw light at the end of the tunnel and announced its own- Doi Moi, the rhyming, somewhat musical sounding version of the liberal face of communism. The year was 1986.

 

In December of 1986, my father accepted a United Nations assignment based at Saigon (Now Ho Chi Minh city) and that is how in May, 1987, I found myself, along with my brother, both teenagers, landing at Saigon's Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport. Today, an airport bursting at seams, Saigon was then, so poorly connected, it is unimaginable that the only reasonable way in was a once a week Air France flight on a 747-Combi that left Paris to arrive at Saigon after multiple hops, via Karachi, Delhi and Bangkok enroute. France had sought to maintain colonial connections despite the conflict.

 

As the plane touched down and taxied towards the terminal, it crossed rows of American war plane skeletons, as if lined up to showcase trophies of a war won against world's formidable power.

 

No sooner had we come out of the Airport and boarded the taxi, than my father started to narrate the queerness of a communist state- someone, a total stranger, had come up to him while he was waiting to receive us, and extended his congratulations for finally being reunited with his family. My father was taken by surprise and before he could ask, the stranger smiled and walked away. At social get-togethers ,We were to come across many such strange episodes later- A colleague of my father, while shopping at Dong Khoi, a posh Saigon thoroughfare, was addressed by his name and given advice on how to buy the best pearls- yet again, by a total stranger. There was never any doubt in the mind of a foreigner living in the Saigon of the late eighties, that he was being watched. Papers from my father's office desk would disappear, copied for government scrutiny and would then magically reappear. Chauffeurs, maids, guards, anyone who came in contact with the foreigners, were queried on a pre-designated time and day to obtain information on the whereabouts and movements of aliens on a strict, weekly basis. Going out of the city's 25 kilometers periphery required permission from the government. The government was pedantic almost hysterical about foreigners and nor were they in this game alone. Once, another friend of my father, who worked in the rural hinterlands of the Mekong delta, was approached by an unknown man in a party. The man knew that my father's friend had a daughter studying in the US and her exact whereabouts. He made a not so subtle suggestion that any clues to the missing American service men, especially from the rural Mekong delta area, where my father's friend farm was, would be handsomely rewarded. The Cyclo's lined up infront of our hotel- Cuu Long (Now Majestic), a 1925 built, French colonial era property at the end of Dong Khoi street, a hub for foreigners staying in the city and our home for the first 6 months of our stay, were always on the cue- with each cyclo assigned to a specific foreigner to keep tab on what places in the city were visited.

 

To a teenager's mind, even though, its backdrop hardly understood, this was 007-spy stuff, with imagination running wild- the whole of Saigon city was a large movie set, with the script of a Bond flick running live and we as characters in it. It couldn't have helped we visited Saigon during school holidays and that the supply of cold war depicting Bond movies (with Roger Moore taking train journeys between Eastern European Countries like Hungary to Vienna, Austria's capital and a major hotspot of cold war era's diplomacy), was unlimited, as was the Rambo series.  

 

To my surprise then, once we finally moved into our own apartment, a former Jailhouse, perhaps earlier used for torturous interrogations &  therefore considered well protected with high walls and barbed wires, was full of people from Eastern European countries- there was a couple from Hungary, a bachelor from East Germany and another couple from Poland. The neighboring apartment building had Russian families by the dozen.  Vietnam's geo-politics at the time, its history of war with the colonial powers of the Second World War, drove it to be foes with the US & the Western allies, while being friends with countries of the Eastern Bloc- Hungary, Poland, East Germany & Russia. And India. Some reasons for India's involvement could have been historic- such as the presence of Buddhism in Indo-China and a large Tamil Diaspora during the British times, but India, led by Indira Gandhi and completely entangled into the cold era politics, sought to befriend a nation that was a sworn enemy of China. To showcase this, IRCON-the Indian Railway Construction Company had built parts of the Saigon to Hanoi railway line with Indian locomotives and rolling stock providing the weekly train service between the 2 cities that took 4 days to traverse the 1800 kilometers, if the engine didn't break down. There was also an animal husbandry project based in the fertile Mekong delta to rear milk yielding buffaloes that could help diversify Vietnam's agri-based economy. The Vietnamese loved us- we were a curiosity wherever we ventured, with loud cries of "Ando, Ando" (for Indian) following us. Once, an acquaintance pointed us to another Indian connection- the house of the infamous crook-Charles Shobraj (He had an Indian father while his mother was from Saigon). Shobraj is still alive, serving a jail sentence in Kathmandu. There were other influences- right next to the Ben Than market, then a place to buy everything counterfeit, now a popular place for the tourists, was an old Dravidian style temple, complete with an old Tamil Pujari, who spoke very little Tamil and didn't know when the temple was built. Now married to a Vietnamese woman, he had arrived as a little boy with his father on a ship during the Second World War.    

 

Saigonese loved Americans too- but given the political compulsions, and the dictates from their Northern Hanoi based brethren, had to do so more discretely. To this day, there isn't much love lost between the power drunk Northerners and the commerce oriented Saigonese. Many secretly aspired to escape to the US someday. With over a million people of Vietnamese origin, living mainly in the West Coast cities of the US, many adopted during the war, while they were still infants, it was impossible to not have a relationship. As the effects of Doi Moi took hold, money from the non-resident Vietnamese started to flow in as investment. The Dong though continued to weaken, as the government dealt with high inflation. My mother would have to stuff currency notes in a gunny bag to go buy a week's grocery.

 

Friday evenings were a spectacle in the streets of Saigon- The adult went to the old R & R haunt of the American servicemen- The Rex Hotel with its famous dance bar. The kids could view the athletic spectacle of a cock fight in the high court square or enjoy a spectacular Vietnamese game of Da-Cao played like volleyball except with a shuttle kicked by lithesome, bare top, Vietnamese men. Women were no less beautiful in their long, black, straight hair, falling on their flowing elegant Ao-dai's, a long dress much like Salwaar-kurta's. The street had it all, but the sight that one beholds in the memory forever is the Notre Dame church at the end of the street- it was magical to be there during New Year eves.   

 

The young Vietnamese, banned from going outside the city limits, leave alone going out of the country, were too restless to stay indoors. So, they got on their 100 cc Hondas, with their significant others on the back and did a 100 rounds of the city's main streets- so if you were sitting in one of Dong Khoi's several French style open cafés, having your extra bitter Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk at the bottom (my favorite, though, was ice cream served in a real coconut shell), you were sure to spot the same couple go past exactly every 5 minutes. It was hilarious but also sad. Vietnamese government, at the time, required its citizens to obtain a license to simply get married.  There were other peculiarities of communist Vietnam- The door to commerce was still somewhat shut- so some things were always in short supply- cigarettes for example. Gifts of cigarette cartons were common place to garner a favor but if you really wanted something done, and make them do so happily, it had to be a full carton of 555 cigarettes- yes, the only word to understand this phenomenon was that the Vietnamese seemed to have a fetish for it. Dunhill was fine too, but if you presented 555, boy, then, it was either of the too- you were in an exceptionally generous mood or it was really the moon that you would ask for. Usually the latter.

   

There were other distractions for the foreigners- visits to Tanah Binh club for swimming, weekend trips to Un-Tao beach, where it wasn't uncommon to be presented with an entire turtle, complete with its shell, placed on top of a large tray, with all its' garnishes and served with a festive flourish, as lunch. My mother, a staunch vegetarian and unable to withstand the stench of the seafood(or aroma) depending on your preferences, was usually nauseated during lavish office parties where seafood was in abundance and at least once, I remember, almost fainted, with orange juice and some fresh air put to good use to revive her. A tourist trip to the Cu-Chi mines, 300 kilometers long tunnels by some accounts and bored manually by the Vietnamese to fight the Guerilla war against the Americans, or the long but beautiful 8 hour country drive to the French hill station of Dalat and a stay in one of its charming but haunted resorts. Apparently, a French army general would check in very often, only to disappear the next morning, and even his signatures on the register would disappear, as narrated to us by the hotel staff. It was a smart way to keep in business in an era with few tourists arriving.

 

We left in 1989, but as the new decade of the 90's arrived, Vietnam was to graduate from the Doi Moi Era and embrace full liberalization post the fall of the Berlin wall. Saigon, am told is now indistinguishable from any another bustling South East Asian Metropolis. The unparalleled view of the majestic bend in the Saigon River, the colorful street decorations and fireworks to celebrate Tet- Vietnamese New Year, the aroma of the Vietnamese coffee…. all of these are perhaps still very much there but I never could go back, so luckily these two and a half decades old images of the Doi-Moi Era are frozen in time as frames of a black and white movie playing in my mind.   

A review of a review

 

A comment on Mihir Sharma's review of Suhel Seth's book- 'Get to the top'

 

There is an old Panchatantra classic that I have read to my toddler several times:

 

An old Brahmin performs a puja (a prayer) for a king and gets a cow's calf as dakshina (alms). As the night falls, The Brahmin proceeds to carry it home on his shoulders. The path to his home passes through a forest. 5 thieves spot him coming from afar and decide to employ an unusual plan to grab the calf. As soon as the Brahmin enters the forest, the first thief, dressed as a common villager, presents himself and in mock surprise, asks the Brahmin:

 

First Thief - Why for god's sake are you carrying a pig on your shoulders?

 

Brahmin (lets out a cry) - You are mistaken oh kind man, it is a calf!

 

No sooner has the Brahmin traversed another 100 meters, the second thief confronts the Brahmin and says:

 

Second Thief- Where do you, a Brahmin, of all the people, go with a pig on your shoulders?

Brahmin (now angry) - Are you totally blind? Can you not see it is a calf?  

 

This continues with the third and the fourth and even the fifth thief repeating the same question to the Brahmin throughout the forest, until the Brahmin , mired in self doubt, and troubled with the thought how his calf could have changed into a pig, finally decides to abandon the calf in the jungle and continues his journey home without it. The thieves of course pick the calf up and celebrate.

 

There is moral to the story, just as every Panchatantra tale has one, but certainly some people got it wrong- they thought the story told them how, if a lie was told enough times, it could magically turn into a truth or at least a half truth; if enough mud was thrown, some would definitely stick. And voila, the first practitioners of the PR industry were born.

 

Seth's influence or stranglehold, should I say, on the Indian media is such that at first I wasn't even going to read Mihir Sharma's (a writer at Caravan magazine) review of his book. In this age of crass commerce, when even seasoned authors resort to cheap gimmickry, can you really be faulted for becoming prejudiced? But should I say, of all book reviews that get published, very rarely are there any that come even close to offering such profound insights- not so much on Seth's book or on him personally though he is chosen as a medium, a symbol- but on the death of merit, on shallowness, even irrevalance of TV debates, on ubiquitous armchair subject experts enshrined by public appearances on TV, on the blindness of ambition.

 

Seth doesn't get this, judging from his twitter reactions to the review. No surprises there- people in love with themselves usually don't.

 

So, the book is of course not worth a dime, but the review- Mihir Sharma's review that is, all of India's gold can't get you what it can, if you were looking to understand the psyche of today's upwardly mobile India.

 

There is just one drawback- you have to have watched Seth in 'action' on NDTV or you won't understand "….Intemperance is intellect and fervidity is profundity in the India of today…"

 

A poor alternative, if you are not an NDTV audience, could be to have a colleague or a boss who comes from a similar background as Seth's but a clearer, more distinctive identifier of such a person would be his proclamations of "passion" towards his work more than 2-3 times in the same sentence when asked to explain something of intellect. If you mistook him to be a salesman for a condom brand called, well, Passion, by god, you are, in the esteemed company of  a person whom Sharma's refers to as belonging to the 'age of Seth'. Judging from the thousands of MBA graduates that India is churning out at breakneck speed, all instilled with the sense that they are the next Jack Welch, finding such people shouldn't be too difficult either. Just visit the gali next to my house at Bangalore, (infact, any bylane in India) and you will come across the esteemed Sri-Devi (global) MBA Institute where such specimens are groomed. And why not? As the 'Suhelian era', dawns & every man an advertisement for himself, humility, far from being virtuous, is a terrible drawback in your personality, that must require you to see a career counselor or indeed a psychiatrist, if you have to reach anywhere.

 

Consider the following delights of Sharma's essay:

 

………..It doesn't matter, he (Seth) argues, if you are a blithering idiot when asked for your opinion: "It is not important what your opinion is. What is important is that you do not come across as someone who has nothing to say." Seth, the master people-brander, does not address the peril of having an opinion and expressing it vociferously, and yet still coming across as someone who has nothing to say. The possibility appears to never have occurred to him….

It reminds me of myriad competitive college entrance exams Group Discussions that were to judge your intellect merely from your ability to interject & aggressively elbow into the 15 minute discussion attended by a dozen contestants, where each of the other 11 were as eager to showcase their verbal prowess as our politicians are. No matter than many of our youngsters believe that stopping to breathe while talking may be a competitive disadvantage,  a dangerous gap that could lead to the demise of a promising career. It is an ode to the age of commerce then that an entire empire has been built in teaching people how to remember to breathe.

 

Or of colleagues in large office meetings, who offer an opinion with no more conviction than as a statement of existence.   

 

Sharma's 4000 words essay, then, is a master piece- if the details on Seth's journey to the top, do sometimes get a trifle tedious, they are only there to explain larger points about malice's in our society.  Go on and read it now, I exhort you- because this is a good time of the year to get some perspective.   

 

Mihir Sharma's review available on this link:

 

http://www.caravanmagazine.in/Story.aspx?StoryID=1189&Page=1