ART - My second play in Delhi

Mumbai introduced me to the play culture. Saw a few of them during my summers. Once you come back from Mumbai its everyone's pet peeve that Delhi does not offer similar avenues for an evening out as Mumbai does.

Anyways yesterday went for my second play in Delhi. 'Art' a French play translated into English with lead performances by Sumeet Tandon and Suhel Seth

Found this while googling for a review. It must consider my self lucky :P . It did manage it cheap considering it must have cost me a fortune to watch it at Illinios Theatre Center where it is being staged in January 2006

This brilliant Tony Award winning comedy examines the questions of “What is friendship?” and “What is art?” Three men, longtime friends, clash over the artistic and monetary value of a large white-on-white painting one of them has purchased. An internationally acclaimed hit, “ART” is intelligent, thought provoking, and wildly funny at the same time.

But funny it was and teh show made for a great evening. In the process got introducted to 'Kamani Centre' The have next week's schedule on theire website so you can plan ahead.

What I missed - I really want to go and see a Durga Pooja. Thought about going today but, missed it this year. Would definitely won't want to miss it next year. My bong friends are you listening.....

Life After B-School

The difference in life in a b-school and life after that
a) In a bschool you pay to get educated, after b-school you are paid real world experience.

b) In a bschool you stay up late in the midlle of night to watch movies. After b-school people go out and watch movies in office time or better still spend those normal hours the office cafeteria; and spend late nights working on that presentation because that is the only way your boss will believe you work hard.

c) In a b-school you pay to take a flight and travel. After b-school the company pays for your flight and sometimes even boarding & loading. This happens as long as you get up at groggy ungodly hours of the morning to catch that the flight for some good-for-nothing-meeting & then catch a flight back at the time when should actually be hitting the club to finally reach back home in wee hours of the morning.

This is series one. Will post some more as reflections on my years of work experience.

Life Outside Office

I look at my social accomplishments chart for this month. Two movies & two books. Pretty decent. I have been making good use of my time outside office. Have met my old college friends too.

The two months that I saw this month have both been ok. In fact Iqbal was a really good one. A simple yet powerful tale. Highly recommended. Nasserudin Shah's performance is amazing

The other one Salaam Namaste was a typical Hindi movie. The fast half is good, fast and thrilling. The second half was a shouting competition between Saif and Preity. And lots of tear-shedding

Watched Skeleton too a few days later. I love scary movies but this one was ordinary. Yes, there is a suspense and a twist in the end which the director tried to do it the Shamalayan way but my rating - Ordinary stuff.

On October 2, I saw the - "Maine Gandhi Ko Nahi Maara". - Urmila and Anupam Kher. If one thing you can watch the movie for is Anupam's acting. Classic , simply amazing. Reminds me of Saaransh (tale of a old father and the anguish he goes through in getting his dead son's remains released from Customs). In MGKNM, Anupam's portrayal of man who is guilt ridden because he killed Gandhi is touching. Urmila too has really come of age since her Rangeela days.

In all I have done a lot of work, beyond office
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Books that I read last month - Tipping Point & The Alchemist.
I am far from competing with some fellows who claim to be reading two or three books in parallel but I try to console myself - after all I am working hard in office too :)

The Grind - Getting into the corporate groove

Finished B-School and joined corporate life. Just realized that 'the grind' I was waiting for is right here. Its hectic, its tense and there is a lot of pressure. Pressure to meet targets & perform. Its amazing because there is so much excitement in the air. I love the place where I work and the people with whom I do my job, I don't recall anyone telling me anything other than taking things as a learning opportunity. But the place is so charged and people are running so fast that there is a natural instinct to run, to beat, to achieve. Everybody talks in terms of over achievement of targets.

Now I know what all those talks meant. A growing sector, liberalization affect, changing perspectives and all those things. I discover something new and different everyday. But is comforting to talk with my fellow management trainees. It just helps to know that there are people going through the same 'teething problems' as I call it.

As compared to this business school was a cake walk. As a friend of mine in Bombay said, " A sales job or sales stint develops a new respect for people in your eyes."

And for another friend of mine.. THE GRIND is right here and.., I am loving it

For others I work in the financial services sector & and apart from my primary job do Investment consultation/Tax Planning for free. Do contact me.

Till I am this free again, adios... and wish me luck
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Book that I am reading these days - 'The Tipping Point'

The knowledge economy/software boom

This will be an eye opening reading for many. That Indian IT story is big no doubt and we often get carried but this ET article carries the point home. The Indian IT story is still minisicule as compared to the old economy. For a starter, one old economy company and a PSU at that, has higher net profit than our top 5/6 IT companies combined. Today when new age IT companies celebrate their topline touching billion dollars , its bottom line is touching a billion.

This is not a stock recommendation for SAIL but the point is Indian old economy has carried this nation this far and is still going equally strong. Not to deny the Indian service sector its due, it is high time we realize the contribution of old economy sectors and the PSUs.The ET article by the way is here.

I am still here

This seems more like an outcry. Checked my own blog to find out that laziness has got the better of me . My last post was almost three months back. Looks like ages.

Here I gear for another phase of life. Xl is over and those two years have become a unerasable part of my life. When I got in a busines school I never realized the impact it will have on me as a person and the opportunity it beheld.

Today I gear to embrace another phase of life as a working professional with a lot of anticipation and excitement. Its another few days to my joining and I plan to be back to blogging regularly..
Till then adios..

Those compensation packages - HR proposes; FM disposes

The B-School placement season is on. Its a mutual selection process. Companies make a sales pitch in their presentation to attract 'the right kind of people' while candidates put in a fight for the companies they want to get in. One parameter that every company which makes a presentation on campus gets evaluated on is compensation package. It would definitely figure into Top 5 (I am more tempted to right 3) for every individual. The Buzz this year (or maybe every year for all I know) is flexible compensation packages or cafeteria benifits. Most companies seem to provide compensation packages where in you can structure the package (apart from certain specified components) so as to suit your life style. The idea you can minimize your tax liabilities the way you want. Companies also offer perks, which if paid in terms of cash would be subject to IT deductions.

But for all you know - The company HR/salaried executive proposes - FM disposes.

Just read this article. The gist is this. It seems the Fin Min is planning to bring all those perks (specifically credit cards, club memberships, tranport - company owned car & chaffueurs, Health clubs etc) under the tax scanner. So a friend of mine who works in this world's most dominant software company whose products run more tha 90% of PCs and claims he enjoys perks above 50% of his salary, might be in for a shock after the budget.

So could we. Most of will be getting our first salaries in June/July. The rule sof the game might have changed by then.
The article is here

Did New York Orchestrate The Asian Tsunami?

Controversy theory is not one of my favourite themes for a blog post but this article was really an interesting read.

Did the thought ever cross your mind that Tsunami that killed around 60,000 people could have been engineered by a nation. The article that I read claims that Tsunami was a result of an under water explosion by America somewhere close to Sumatra. It goes on to explain how US military and Naval activity post the disaster shows a high degree of planning, which was not have been possible if the tragedy was unanticipated.

It further goes on to explain how America is the biggest beneficiary of the event.

I am not a great supporter of America and neither am a great at America bashing but the article is still a great read for you to be aware of the possibilities in this case.
Disclaimer: I do not know of the credibility of the source.

The memories of a city: Mumbai

I am a born and bred North Indian. So much that I often describe Delhi as the place I belong to, to cut short the details. The first time I visited Bombay ( The old name symbolises some things & I prefer it to the new one) was ten years back. The first impressions of the city have been such that I rank it above any other. One of the few cities (in India) where people queued for buses, where a female could safely take a taxi at 11 pm , place where people have much more civic sense then our national capital, where taxi drivers would not cheat you if you did not know the way (unlike delhi or chennai). A city that was untouched by the fundamentalism & culture police and, had a night life.

For those used to bus travel in Delhi, let me recall an incident which happened 10 years ago.
I was boarding a BEST bus with my travel group (5 people), when the buses conductor said he could take more than two of us on borad. Reason, the standing capacity of the bus was X (I don't remember the number) and he could accomodate only two of us. So either we split or wait for the next bus (15 minutes or something). For us, used to passengers hanging out of Delhi buses and the scant regard of traffic rules generally around the country, this was a welcome surprise.

That was Bombay ten years ago. Things have changed since then. With the mounting population pressures , Mumbai's infrastructure seems to be creaking. But, what has not changed is the spirit of a Mumbaikar (the new term for Bombayites).

Salaam Bombay

In spite of being a born & brought up in North India and having spent the last eight years of my life in NCR(National Capital Region) I have always been a great fan of Bombay. My recent visit to Bombay reinforced my faith in the commercial capital of India.


I was in Mumbai on Dec 20, to receive the CRISIL Young Thought Leader award.. Tired due to the train and the flight journeys which did not let me get my required sleep, I ended up taking a little nap in the cab which transported me from the office of CRISIL to the venue of the award ceremony. I was woken up by the cab driver at the destination where I walked into this multistory building with groggy eyes. Once inside the building, I realized my wallet was missing. The fare was paid by a colleague so I had not noticed this earlier. Desperately hoping that I had forgotten it in the office, I called up only to be told that it wasn't there. Then it hit me - I had left my wallet in the cab. That's it, my wallet was gone. Neither me nor any of my fellow travelers had the cab number. It was a cab we hired from the roadside so no way to reach/find out. I tried to think positive. Maybe the taxi was still standing outside for some reason. Highly unlikely, I told myself. The taxi driver would have left the place as soon as he discovered the wallet. Anyways I did try and have a look at the taxis outside the building. That I did not recognize the driver did not help matters at all. I came back resigned to fate - My wallet was lost.

About an hour later, the HR person from CRISIL came with a slightly fat middle aged man who had come searching for me. He didn't look like one of the audience members or the participants of the presentation ceremony. The guy was the cab driver who had driven back and was searching for me. Strange indeed, considering locating anyone in that multi-storied building would not have been easy task. He found my identity card and tried calling only to realize that those were Jamshedpur numbers. He refused to hand over the wallet to anyone except me. The wallet had everything intact - cash, ATM cards, credit card and some bills.
... The spirit of Bopmbay (Mumbai).

Another salute to the city which I have always held in high regard. There is something about this place which makes people the way they are - professional , stretching to their limits , honest and efficient. Why I rave about Bombay so much? That question requires another huge post. Maybe my next one. Till then, Salaam Bombay.

Sometimes being the lowest cost producer doesn't help !

More than a month since I posted anything. Came across this interesting article from the Economic Times which outlines the woes of Indian FMCG companies, which seem to be having a problem selling their exports at international prices (higher than domestic prices) in markets other than their home countries because of under cutting my the merchant traders. Infact they seem to be facing the heat from their own brands in the international market

Well not unusual its an arbitrage opportunity and it will be explioted no doubt. Companies like Marico seem to have learnt their lessons and are offering market specific packaging a with local language covers. Every problem.. is an opportunity for an innovative mind afterall.

Work, Family, Personal Life: Why Not All Three

We have lost the capacity to fall in love, for many reasons, but above all else because we take ourselves so incredibly seriously.
(Rabbi Shmuley Boteach)

Before you think am into some mushy/preachy kind of stuff, this is a quote from a article covered in HBS- Working Knowledge series. The quote was made at Möbius Leadership forum session titled "Walking the Tight Wire: Family and Career, Finding the Balance".

There were three spaekers at the conference, Myra Hart (HBS professor), Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a popular speaker and author and Scott W. Ventrella, a management consultant & an adjunct professor at Fordham University's Graduate School of Business.

Two take aways from the whole story....

a) Work & Family life balance is being covered in business schools and not left to self help books and such similar mentors. Also means they have more competition at their hands now :)

b) I hope I am not sterotyping but, what struck me was, the proff's(a female herself) research work was specifically done with female graduates of HBS. According to her about 40 percent of HBS female grads take time out from the workforce at some point in their careers to either raise families or pursue other options such as working at nonprofit organizations etc. If this is the case in Harvard wonder would be the percentage for females who attain higher education in India.

Wonder why men don't have to do that. Though work life balance as an issue started with men, it indeed has bigger connotataions for the fair sex. In case of men it is more about giving attention to family while in case of women, the issue somehow boils down to her having to make a choice between the two.

Why is work life balance not an issue for the males? Two possible expalnations can arise. either u expect & appprove of males neglicting one of the two. ( No need to specify which one would not get their attention). Or is they we force males to put a strong face, not come out with rheir problems and not ask for help in trying to live a better life because its not manly enough? I guess either of the explanations is not the kind what we would rationally approve and yet we continue with age old traditions.....

Interestly if this was not all , the Rabi had another observation about equality of sexes. According to him,

women have fought for equality and in so doing have lost their souls. They have responded to the model of the classical hero...Equality for women was a step back for women.. real greatness is where you don't have to prove yourself constantly

(This reminds of a little tiff I had with a team mate this evening over some project work. My rather weak attempt at delegating a difficult part to him on the pretext that he is a guy, was met with 'try to a behave as equals' retort)

Anyways....maybe i'll go with the proff's opinion....

I think you have to look at how you value your choices on multiple dimensions.... People shouldn't just choose work based on prestige or salary.....If you're satisfied with the kind of work you're doing and the place where you're doing it, you will be successful...... And so you will open up doors you can't even imagine. But if you let others define what success is…then it's easy to lose sight of yourself.

Let the woman of today define her success. Maybe this is the only way she can lead a balanced life.

Online ads.. more

Well continuing from my last post, this piece from Vikram's blog is a must read.

Ad spend is growing but, aren't you missing the point ?

Economist.com | Media industry
Was reading this story as to how the advertising industry seems to be back. Revenues for media groups and ad agencies are picking up. What I found interesting was the fact that not only media but also Internet Advertising specially that targeted at the search engines is increasing.

This is in line with a rise of 40%, to $4.6 billion, in the revenues from advertising over the internet for the whole of America during the first six months of the year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a firm of consultants, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). In Britain, such advertising is growing even more quickly, albeit from a lower base. There, revenue from advertising over the web grew by 75% during the first half of the year.

Put all this in the context of the project we did for our Marketing Research course. We found that really net savvy people the sample including students here with 24X7 access and professors (Dr, Madhukar Shukla & Proff Fenn) along with others whom we roped in for our online survey outside the campus, clearly indicated that internet ads are not effective. Forget about purchase intention, internet advertisement did not generate any significant recall.. Not one of them could recall an internet ad with product, brand and usage correctly matched.

Infact I put forward this point when I attended a panel discussion at the imes Group Media Conclave at IIMA.
Yes we do need new ways to target the consumer, as the marketing head of ICICI Prudential mentioned. Infact ICICI Pru's circulating pamphlets through the now famous - "Dabbadwallas" of Mumbai is a great viral marketing idea. One pamphlet being read by a group of 10/15 executives at a lunch table and loads of Word of Mouth publicity after that. But I disagreed with Yahoo India's country chairman Mr Neville Taraporewalla's suggestion. He believed Net is that one breakthrough different medium that can capture customer attention, in this cluttered world.
Not in India, not just as yet......

Infact I still stick to my point, media seems to have lost respect for the customer and probably has forgotten that too much indundation leads to switching off. It has already happened on TV, the trend is fast catching up in case of print and on internet.

Bush or Kerry- My two cents

Nov 2, the Us presendential elections. Over the last few days the media has been ablaze with news about out how Bush and Kerry are tied in the race. Infact this election saw candidates fighting it out on the last day breaking the old traditions.

Another election joke goes that when asked to mention his three mistakes , Bush's answer was..Last Debate, this debate and the next debate. :P

The London based Economist has picked up Kerry over Bush. The Economist tries to do an fair analysis of candidates. Afganisatan thus is as a sucess for America & Bush. Though Osama was not captured, all Taliban training camps were destroyed. And now we have had successful elections there. Even Iraq according to them is not a mistake ( Probably a result of -" The coalition of the Willing" being supported by UK). However according to economist whats wrong was the way the aftermath of Iraq war was handled. The treatment given to POW and also the American treatment of Israel-Palestine issue. Infact a friend of mine working in America prefers Bush because - 'He has leant the ropes' , a euphemism for ' he has made all the mistakes he could'.

Kerry's vacilating records on foreign policy, Iraq war and his protectionist attitude & fiscal policy preferences against deficit are his problems. However in the end the paper decides for Kerry without any convincing arguments except stating that Bush has refused to learn from his mistakes. Infact to my surprise they approve Kerry because

...his plan for the next phase in Iraq is identical to Mr Bush's, which speaks well of his judgment. He has been forthright about the need to win in Iraq, rather than simply to get out . I could not understand why the paper believes that Kerry will definitely approach the palestine issue in different way.

The full article is here

Which brings me to my conclusion. A Duke university proff today said that the choice in US elections was about Bush/No bush rather than Bush/Kerry. All over the world outside USA atleast people seem to be deciding whether Bush is should be the next president or not. Thats wat the BBC correspondents in different countries concluded. And that is the way ecomomist seems to have decided - No Bush an therefore a Kerry

Am not a great bush supporter and the first paragraph of the economist story probbaly sums it all for me..

This year's battle has been between two deeply flawed men: George Bush, who has been a radical, transforming president but who has never seemed truly up to the job, let alone his own ambitions for it; and John Kerry, who often seems to have made up his mind conclusively about something only once, and that was 30 years ago