Category: general

The stamp paper market

Following the Telgi scandal the Karnataka government had a great brainwave. They decided that one of the reasons duplicate stamp papers were in circulation was that stamp paper was available freely. The only remedy to this, it was decided, was to restrict sales of stamp paper. So now the street corner guy doesn’t sell the paper. Initially it was supposed to be available at a few select branches of the State Bank of Mysore. Currently, it is available in only one place in Bangalore – the head office of SBM.

A stamp paper is an extremely important and necessary document, and especially necessary if you need to transfer some stuff. Say some property or some assets or even a gas connection. And given that the number of such transactions hasn’t come down, and that people continue to die, the demand for stamp paper remains high. The supply is now restricted, and to get a stamp paper you need to stand in line for a few hours in the hot sun.

Given this situation of restricted supply, and assuming that people are not cancelling their transactions becasue of the lack of availability of the paper, I’m wondering where the paper is available. Is the only option to pay someone trusted in order to stand in line for half a day and get you the paper? Is there no better method? A semi-skilled labourer earns about Rs. 250 per day, so to make him fetch you a stamp paper that is notionally worth Rs. 20, you have to pay about Rs. 130 extra!

I’m sure there exists a black market in this. My problem is that I’m not able to find it. I’ve noticed that when the people at the counter issue the paper, they write your name and address on it. Nevertheless, i’m sure some black marketers have found a way in order to bypass this and peddle the papers. And as I mentioned, that the volume of deals hasn’t been going down implies there are more sales than what happens in that single window at the SBM office.

I’m willing to pay up to Rs. 100 each for a Karnataka government stamp paper that costs Rs. 20. Can someone direct me to the black market where these things are available? Many thanks in advance.

Buffet versus sit downs

During lunch today, I was talking to my mother about what would be the ideal method of serving food during functions. She has always been a major proponent for sit-down lunches with food served in courses, while I was arguing in favour of buffets.

My mother’s argument is that people won’t feel free serving themselves at a buffet. She argues that we are culturally used to being served, to being pampered by hosts, and hence we would eat better if food was brought to our table rather than if we were to go to get the food. She says that in a buffet, a number of people feel hesitant to ask for a refill and the size of the plate (after all, it needs to fit on one hand) combined with this means that most people won’t eat well.

She mentioned in passing that holding out your plate asking someone to put food on it (enjil/jhoota fundaes mean that in most buffets in India there is someone next to the food who serves you) is seen by many people as being akin to begging, and that their “honour code” means that they don’t want to be seen asking for more.

I have several other arguments in favour of buffets, but what I talked about today was that at a sit down lunch, you need to eat in a hurry. Food is served in batches, and hence it is important that everyone finishes eating in good time; good enough time so that those that couldnt get a seat in this batch aren’t kept waiting for so long. The cooks who are serving the food take responsibility of ensuring that a “batch” finishes eating in good time. Rather, they decide when the batch is supposed to end and the cleaners then come in forcing people to wind up.

My argument is that in sit down lunches, the amount you eat is directly proportional to the speed at which you eat, given that the time for each batch is fixed. This implies that if you actually want to have a good meal, you need to eat in quick time, and hence won’t be able to savour it as well as you could. And if you want to savour every morsel and eat slowly, well, you can be rest assured that you won’t have your fill.

Then there is the trade-off between dishes. In a sit down meal, items are brought in courses, and a particular item is served only when it is “in course”. The way the cooks are organized means that it’s extremely tough for them to break course and bring something that only you wanted. Or go back and forth between different courses. More importantly, when you are eating something, you don’t know what is going to follow. Actually, given certain “conventions” you sometimes have a good idea as to what might follow, but no clue regarding the quality of the thing. This point is elaborated by Ravikiran in this blog post.

So my take on sit down meals is that you sit down and mechanically wolf down whatever the cooks serve you. The only choice you have is to waste some food. You need to predict the quality of an item as it is being brought, and then get yourself served the appropriate quantity. And you also need to keep in mind the several items that haven’t been brought yet, and also predict the quality of those.

In a buffet, there are no such problems. You go once and fill your plate with a bit of everything. Then you know what you like. And go again to get more of that. You can eat at your own pace, for there is no one waiting to grab your seat. You can savour every morsel as you ingest it. You even get to choose the order in which you can have the stuff. The only flip side is that each time you want something you might have to stand in a line. However, if the hosts have estimated the numbers and planned well, this too gets eliminated.

So what is your preference? What do you think makes more sense for a largish gathering? Please leave your comments here.

Holiday after the blasts

The funniest thing this afternoon following the bomb blasts in Bangalore was the decision by all software companies in the Hosur Road area to declare a holiday for the rest of the day. Here are a few reasons why I thought that’s an awful idea:

  • First of all, after the blasts, the police would’ve cordoned off the affected areas and the traffic situation will already be bad in these areas. Now, with busloads of these guys pouring in on the already bad traffic, you can rest assured things can’t get better soon. At least in terms of the traffic
  • If employees are in office, assuming that office complexes haven’t been targeted, they are relatively safer. Definitely much safer than being out there on the road stuck in a traffic jam.
  • (my mom came up with this one) If they are in office, then they have access to food and drink, so they can easily wait it out till the situation defuses and then get home. If you are caught in a jam, jai only will happen, for you don’t even know how long it will take.

If you can add any more points to this list, please leave a comment. And yes, I know you will point out that the office declaring a holiday gives an option for employees to leave whenever they want to rather than staying on till close of play. However, given that most IT types travel to work in office buses, they don’t have much of an option. Office closed means computer closed and into bus and getting ready for traffic jam.

The economics of motorcycle maintenance

Yesterday I gave my old bike for servicing. It was in such bad shape that for a while I was worried that the cost of servicing would be greater than the salvage value of the bike. This morning, when I went to pick it up, I was pleased to see that the bill came up to Rs. 445 only. The first thing I did after that was to ask the mechanic how much I could get if I were to sell my bike. And he started laughing loudly.

Continue reading “The economics of motorcycle maintenance”

My Dear Brothers and Sisters of America

I have a proposal to make. If you are visiting Bangalore soon that is. As you might have figured out from reading my blog, a large number of books that I want to read aren’t available in India. I can ask a bookshop here to import it from the US but that would make the books prohibitively expensive, much more than my willingness to pay.

I notice on Amazon that there are “used and new” books also available for sale, at a cheaper price. Something like a second hand market. And I notice that a number of books are priced very reasonably in that. Unfortunately, delivery for these is only within the US. This is where I need your help.

I will order the books and give your address. You will need to ferry these books to India for me. Of course I know that you usually come back with your suitcases loaded, with gifts and chocolates for cousins up to four steps removed. In the middle of that if you can squeeze in two or three books, please let me know.

The ideal case for me would be to burden each of you with exactly one book. However, the free shipping of Amazon kicks in only when I’m buying a few books. Hence, you’ll be saddled with more than one book. Actually, I wonder if we could work out a mechanism where my books and your books can be ordered together, so as to get the free shipping, and then you can ship my books to India.

As for payment, well, I don’t know how well this will work but I have this mechanism. I’ll order the books much before you leave the shores of the US. Even otherwise, you have a long plane journey to endure on the way here. By carrying my book, you will get the opportunity to read it. I don’t know if I’m a good recommender of books. Nevertheless, I think you should find some useful stuff in these books.

If you can’t leave a comment here, mail me at skthewimp [at] yahoo [dot] com

Ranting and cribbing

Ok i’ve talked about this before. When you rant, you do so mostly to feel better. Get things out of your system. Just get rid of some trash so that you can structure the rest of your thoughts. And so all you need is a listener. A counterparty. A good listener. And it’s done. I’m not saying it’s easy to find a good listener. Those types are hard to come by. But it’s mostlty a generalist’s job. Whether you are pissed about your job or with your girlfriend or with the Prime Minister, and you want to rant, you need not find a different person for each!

Cribbing, as I’d mentioned earlier, is much harder. You need to find the right people to crib to. You need to organize your thoughts. You need to be able to ask the right questions. And you need to interpret people’s vague answers and figure out the component of their answer along the direction of your question. And then fit it back into the larger question.

Cribbing is also an art. First you need to find the right counterparty. Next, you need to make it clear to the other person that you are cribbing and not ranting, and so you need a solution. Then, as I mentioned in the last paragraph, you need to give the crib a good structure. And you should be able to objectively ask those right questions without letting your emotions and feelings come in the way. You should get over all those “I don’t want to pain this person with my rant” kind of feelings and think you’re just asking the other person for some specific help.

From a macro perspective, you need to keep separate accounts of rants and cribs. People are more likely to get cheesed of if you rant to them (unless of course they are close to you etc.) but not so much if you crib – I’m mostly talking about bad listeners (which is most of the people) here. If you are cribbing, the structure in your questions and statements helps the other person and it won’t be too heavy on them. also, they have something to do in the whole buisness -? to think of a solution, rather than to just sit and listen, so it’s more enjoyable for them.

Sometimes when I feel like cribbing to someone I feel “ok i’ve been cribbing to this person a lot nowadays and he/she may not like it”. I need to figure out if I’m going to rant or crib, and also filter the historical data on this parameter. And then apply the rule I put above. It’s going to lead to a much more optimal solution.

The journey back home

It was almost 945 when I started back from the MG Road area this evening. The day travel card I had bought earlier was in my right knee pocket. I heard some people at the Chinnaswamy Stadium bus stop complain that there hadn’t been a bus that way for a very long time. Bus number 20 presently arrived, but couldn’t reach the stop due to the pile-up of traffic from the signal at the Mahatma Gandhi circle. I ran back towards the bus and was lucky to find the doors open.

The new BMTC bus stand in Shantinagar seems to be a major churning point. More than half the people in the bus got down over there (thus ensuring I had a place to sit) and a similar number quickly got in. I think more bus interchanges should be encouraged at this stop. In fact, this is better than Majestic or Market as a hub, since it will be a dedicated hub without being an origin or destination.

I got off at Lalbagh main gate, hoping to catch either 12B which would drop me at Deve Gowda petrol bunk, or some bus that would deposit me at the Ramakrishna Ashram. I found neither. I ended up in a Janapriya Vahini no. 2 which I planned to take till fifth block. By observing the crowd at the bus stop in fourth block, I learned that there hadn’t been a bus towards my area for a long time. And I started wondering why none of them practised bus hopping.

Yet another bus later, I was at the Banashankari bus station, which is something like a black hole for buses late in the night. Buses arrived, unloaded all their passengers and parked for the night. Nothing was leaving the bus stand. Nothing in the general direction of Kathriguppe at least. Road works at the Kadirenahalli cross also meant that I didn’t really know where to stand. It wouldn’t have mattered since no bus was leaving the stand.

It was the first time in ages that I saw auto drivers competing to ferry me home. Some three of them seemed keen, and all of them offered to ferry me at 1.5 times the meter – which is the regulated late night rate. They resolved the fight quickly and I was soon in an autorickshaw. Rupees forty from Banashankari Bus Station to Kathriguppe. Earlier in the day it had been rupees thirty from Kathriguppe to M G Road and back to Banashankari Bus Station. As i keep saying, choice of mode of transport is made keeping in mind cost, time and convenience.

Quizzing

Different quizmasters have different interests. However, there are a few things that a large number of quizmasters are interested in, and these form a dominant portion of most quizzes. There is some sort of a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop at play here.

And if you don’t share these “special interests”, then your average performance automatically gets capped.

Of course, this doesn’t apply in case you force yourself to develop new interests just for the sake of quizzing, but that, I think, defeats the whole purpose.

Indian editions

For the last one year or so, I’ve been relying on bloggers such as Tyler Cowen for my books recommendations. Basically I read about a book on a blog, or say Marginal Revolution does a book forum on the book, and I soon get interested in the book, and go out to buy it. And the fact that I’ve been fairly regularly winning book coupons at quizzes provides an easy financing for these books.

Some of the books that I have bought and read through these recommendations include Super Crunchers, The Black Swan and The Long Tail, all books that I have really enjoyed. Apart from this, I’ve bought and read books written by people whose blogs I read – and this includes Discover your inner economist and The Logic of Life. And I’ve noticed that in general, the books recommended in the blogs that I read are more enjoyable than the books writen by the bloggers themselves. Maybe this has to do with the fact that if I’m regularly reading someone’s blog, there isn’t that much value I can get from the book.

Now, my problem is that a large number of books that I want to read don’t have Indian editions. At least with “popular” books such as “Discover your .. ” the Indian edition came out in due course of time, and I was able to read them. Unfortunately, it seems like the market for a number of such books in India is so small that they don’t bother bringing out an Indian edition.

The gentleman at Gangaram’s book store told me that if I wanted, he would be able to procure the US editions of these books. However, the dollar rate, plus the $10 for shipping means that these books would cost me on an average, > Rs. 2000, which is much much higher than my willingness to pay which stands at Rs. 400. Again, given that US editions are typically much more expensive than Indian editions, asking a friend in the US to buy them (or ordering through Amazon) and sending it to me through another friend or something will again be too expensive. So I wonder what I could possibly do to read the books that I want to read.

Here are the books that are on my “want to read” list currently but I’m not able to procure them.