Unmuddlings!!

Crystal has always been a darling for most old timer town Mumbaite. Am not sure if the Shobha De circle would look down upon. But most unlikely I guess. Because everyone in Mumbai starts off as a wannabe. And everyone over God knows how many decades, would have been happy to have a paneer bhurji or a baigan bharta or a dal and/or a kheer with roti or parantha. Great location – bang on Girgaum chowpatty, awesome music [oldie goldie melodies], even better service [pretty quick on the take – can be in and out in 30 mins flat with full services stomach]. The only sore point being the long queue on weekends [but that gave it the sheen of exclusivity!!] This takes me to my first brush with Mumbai about a decade and half-back. With my pigeon hole that gave me the PG status; where my hosts!! [who were the real tenants] charged me 20 times the rent they paid to the landlord for the 1500 sq ft house they occupied. All thanks to the Mumbai’s ill famed ULCRA - my host who was 50 plus old has grow...

In a democracy like ours, the Supreme Court has a very balanced path to chart. Conservative yet modern; proactive yet not activist; quiet yet alert; incisive yet independent. This is very critical [and of course difficult] to the democratic fabric of the country, because [ironically] one institution has to also always keep a leash on the popular sentiments and the powerful lobbies; lest they should run amock in the running of the executive [governmental] and societal [private – for profit or not for profit] institutions. In the democratic traditions of more the merrier, the louder the better – there is one institution that is entrusted with the role of interpreting the broader tenets of the constitution without getting biased by the lobby power or popular power of a specific case. When I had started blogging in April 2009, I had drawn attention to a piece a Supreme court directive [http://unmuddlings.blogspot.com/2009/04/this-supreme-court-ruling-isnt-among-my.html] which had left me d...

The jury is out. Indians’ famed analytical abilities are under the scanner. The last few decades of globalization or say global exposure – had exposed the poor EQ of Indians through our students and managers. We had a self satisfying pat about low EQ, but telling us that we have higher IQ. But the people land of Aryabhatta are no way the best in terms of quantitative abilities. GMAT scores of 2010 say that Indian rank as low as 7th globally in quantitative score, below the Chinese, Japanese, South Koreans, Taiwanese, Turks and Israelis. This is a much bigger cause of concern, if one factors that the Indians who take GMAT are normally the top quartile students [this hypothesis needs to be tested though]. A part of India shining was the fast burgeoning IT/ITES industry, thanks to the English language proficiency and middle class diligence. Now the whole world is learning English in hordes. I really don’t know for how many more years, the can smile because of our English history. We can i...

Scarce power availability – just a trickle from the Solar variety; un-tarred roads, no permanent dwellings, sparsely populated – hardly many souls a ear shot away, a boat to cross the river. No mobile access. Looks as if, a shot from Ritwik Ghatak reality check movies of the 1960s? Superimpose all that then with the coos of the birds, the lazing crocodiles around, the stunning Satkosia sauntering amidst the royal eastern ranges; the chirpy springs & streams all around. Not to forget the dense foliage, the agile deers, the indifferent elephants around, pug marks of a variety of other fauna and of course the early January chill. That takes us deep inside amidst the breathtaking Satkosia the river [21 Km of Mahanadi] and forest in Tikarpara. Far from the madding crowd and cocooned by the homely care of Tikarpara Paribesa Parjyatan Samiti members [TPPS – Tikarpara Eco Tourism Samiti as a transalation]; Satkosia is heaven on earth. A realization of the potential connectedness of human s...

Yes the gold medal haul example again – but that’s just one. The opening ceremony at Guangzhou, the lovely religio-festive and decorative artefacts [ganeshas, diwali crackers, candles] at awesomely value prices that have swept Indian [Read global] markets, the global IT manufacturing monopoly almost, credible story in IT/ITES, the strengthening Yuan, the consistent economic growth. That’s the real story. We can rile the Chinese at the roadside here, we can ridicule their communist background. Yes, the Chinese top brass – seem intolerant on the Dalai Lama issue; they come across as land grabbers in the Arunachal Pradesh story [so do we to some people in the world in the POK issue – but I know we are not ;)]. Many times we here stories of journos gagged and populist voice stifled [Tainammen Square]. Despite a partisan western media, these stories may be as correct as the above macro indicators. But the macro indicators still remain. A 150 crore or so people cannot be gagged and flogged t...

History repeats itself. It’s a cliché. But like most clichés, it might come true sometime soon. The wealth destroying saga of Indian Airlines Industry is starting to get replicated in the Indian Telecom Industry. Billions of dollars of the exchequers money has been lost in the past by delaying an exit to nullify a strategic advantage. Post independence, the government had to invest and nurture many high investment, long gestation services as a part of national building. Airlines, railways, education, steel, ship building etc etc. These were inevitable and were steps in the right direction. These industries helped India gain both self sufficiency in many ways and global acceptance as a force which can take care of itself and be accepted a geo-politics force. But then, all policies and strategies have a context. Globally, there are lot of case studies to show that government organizations create both social and economic wealth when they are there to hold Atlas’ responsibilities to b...

Its out in the open that the global ecological balance is deteriorating every day. We all know that if we continue to consume as compulsively as we do, the doomsday will come sometime. The question is whether it will come in our generation or whether we will beat it by a hundred years or more. The answer to this we don’t know – the secret is that we don’t want to know. Lest the answer should spoil our mood, and more importantly force us to look at the world, life & living, differently from what we have looked at for a almost 60-70 years now as a race. The massive strides in scientific knowledge have actually pandered to the senses. To shop to consume, to be occupied – is to give ourselves a perception of fulfilled living, while we hurtle towards destruction. It is all wired too deeply in our psyche. Where does the solution lie? One solution, it for all of us to go back to a 1000 years behind time. No electricity, no airplanes, no gasoline guzzling vehicle, no anti-biotics, lower l...