Category: general

Due to some allergic reaction of the skin on the back of my right palm, I’ve had to shift my watch from my right wrist to my left. It’s a fairly heavy Titan watch, something my left hand is not used to carrying. And I wear it almost always, which means my right hand feels incomplete without it!

Anyways, the transfer of the watch from one arm to another seems to have turned everything topsy turvy. The whole world seems to have become suddenly laterally inverted. I suddenly feel left-handed. My right hand reaches down to change gears while I’m driving. Thankfully it doesn’t extend to my legs, so I don’t end up pressing the accelerator instead of the clutch.

I slowly seem to be recovering. At least now I observe that I’m not switching the keys of the keyboard… like typing “s” instead of “l” or “i” instead of “e”. Oh yeah, I’ve kept my watch aside now. So much better off to feel naked than to see the world ulta-pulta!

A few days back, I had cribbed about the really arbit mid-term paper of the Contemporary Economic Scenario (CES) course. Just back from the end-term and it ended up being no better.

The end-term had two divisions, each forty five minutes long. And both of them were “fill in the blanks/short answer” type question papers. The first was a fairly short paper, six questions, and included stuff like “Name one Asian country whose stock market outperformed India last year” and “According to the professor, what is the illustration given to prove that Greenspan was wrong in 1999?“.

In effect, one could crack this paper if and only if he/she mugged up the entire 80 pages of notes meticulously prepared by the prof.

The second part of the end-term also lived up to the rest of the course. It was purely fill in the blank type with probably some of the vaguest possible questions. Included stuff like “Bilateral trade agreements can have ________ or _______ effects” or “The Singapore issues consist of _________, _________, _________ and ________“. Again of the totally muggoo type. Only difference being this portion didn’t have negative marking, so there was some scope for creativity!

Just to remind you that this course is taken by three of the best faculty in the Economics department. And they come up with such rotten quesiton papers. Just hope that the grading is good, else it might get a little dicey!

The previous NDA government had made ambitious plans of disinvesting stakes in numerous PSUs. However, given the left support to the current government, and the presence of people from the socialist era, most of these plans have been scuttled. The disinvestment ministry was scrapped and parliamentary proceedings stalled for numerous days (thus wasting millions of rupees of taxpayers’ money) when the government wanted to sell stake in BHEL!

Given the policies of the current government, a number of PSUs are likely to be continued to be closely held, with a huge majority of shares with the government and small portions with public sector banks, NBFCs, LIC, etc. However, it makes eminent sense to sell a small stake in these companies to the general public, if not anything else, to improve transparency.

Let me illustrate this taking Telecom as an example. Telecom in India is an uneven playing field, with private players being charged an “Access Deficit Charge” (ADC) which is supposed to go into cross-subsidizing BSNL’s rural telephony. Of course, there is the talk of how different players are manipulating with the ADC in order to abstain from paying, and there is also talk of how excess ADC has been collected this year.

However, the crux of the matter is that BSNL is not a public company and has not declared its financials for about two years now. As a consequence, nobody has any clue as to where the ADC is going and whether BSNL is actually using the money to provide rural telephony, rather than to just subsidize its local calls at the cost of its competitors!

Now, BSNL has been asked to come up with this OneIndia plan, where STD calls to anywhere in India would cost just Re. 1 a minute. Sceptics, including the MD (or is it Chairman) of BSNL have expressed their reservations regarding the feasibility of the plan. Once again, a little information about BSNL’s financials would have helped clear the air. If not anyone else, it would have at least helped TRAI frame its policies better.

What I am driving at here is that had a small share of BSNL (even as small as say 1%) been held by the public, SEBI would have forced BSNL to publish its financials, solving a number of problems. Similarly, given that a large number of sectors would be (hopefully) opened up to competition pretty soon, it would be really helpful if the government agencies in the same were listed and available for public scrutiny.

Even if we keep this competitive issue aside (after all there are so many private firms which are competing in various markets), in the larger public interest it makes sense for the companies to be public. After all the companies belong to the people and it is well within the rights of the people (as indirect shareholders) to scrutinize the financials. And we have already seen that unless the SEBI sits on a company’s back, it is not likely to release financials very efficiently.

In conclusion, it would only be in the interest of the people if a small stake in each PSU (both state and center) were sold to the public. It would bring greater transparency to the affairs of the companies and discourage hijack by politicians and bureaucrats. And it is evident that there could be no better time than now, what with the buoyant stock markets, to do the same. Just hope Mr. Chidambaram has the willpower to do it, though I’m sure Mr. Yechury and Mr. Bardhan are likely to make more than their fair share of noises!

Spent the last half hour chatting with Shilpa. We started out talking in Kannada. Five minutes later I noticed a couple of peculiar problems and then we quickly switched to English.

1. There is no standardized way of writing Kannada in the Roman script. I try to follow the baraha model by using caps and h and stuff. However, she didn’t seem to follow that. She tried to write it so that I pronounce it the way I would if it were an English word.

2. Kannada slang is highly localized. Shilpa and I both grew up in Bangalore and went to a CBSE school, so both of us learnt Kannada at home only. And the thing is, even the Kannada I speak at home is some kind of slang. And I have now come to believe that Kannada slang is localized at the household level! Have faced this problem earlier when talking to friends. However, it struck me harder today because she happens to be my distant relative and yet was using a different slang!

These two reasons together met that it was really tough for us to figure out what the other was saying.

No wonder, whenever two Kannadigas meet, they start speaking in English!

You think of a wonderful scenario. You start day-dreaming about it. You day-dream about it so much that you start believing it’s true. Now it becomes part and parcel of your life. You start planning and building your life around it.

When it hits you that this is all not true, there can be no worse feeling than that!

On the same lines, aren’t bad dreams better than good dreams? When you have a bad dream, you wake up thinking that life is so much more wonderful than what it could be and that makes you happy! (happened to me last week). As against a good dream when you realize that life is not all that good and stuff…

There’s a party on in campus right now. One of those where the drinks are free. And I’ve taken a conscious decision not to drink tonight. Not even taken my bandana along. Guzzled some 10 cups of tea. And just watched. Just stood in a corner, headbanged a little, and watched the people. Watched them get drunk, dance, fall all over each other, and tell stories.

I see the pillar just below the basketball board. Brings to memory that January night… when I decided to get drunk but not lose control. There had been no communication from her for a long time, and I was quite depressed. And I kept hugging the pillar assuming it was her.

The music changes… Fanaa starts playing… Used to be my favorite party song in 1st year. And I had dedicated it to MotherJ a couple of times. And watched her dance, and remember Kareena Kapoor in the original video. I had once even pulled her to the floor when this song played.

Today she is also doing what I am doing, standing by and watching. I continue headbanging and remember the original video. The carefree expression on Kareena’s face. And I suddenly remember that it’s been a long time I’ve felt “Fanaa”. Almost a year since I last felt that feeling of extreme liberation.

I go on one of my “random walks”. Just go all round the dance floor and say hello to a few people. Everyone seems drunk anyway, I seem to be the only sober guy around! I am amazed that I’m not able to “sink in” into the party. Typically all it took was a couple of headbangs to get in. Don’t know what’s happened to me. Maybe I’ve once again started thinking too much.

As the sounds of Rahman’s “Chaiya Chaiya” fill the air, I remember October 31 1998. The day I think I became a kind of hero in NPS. It was our school picnic. A friend and I get on top of the bus and start dancing. I remember a few girls presenting us bottles of Pepsi as a congratulatory gift the next day!

I soon run into Beedi. He seems totally drunk. His argument is that IIMB doesn’t give drunkards the respect they deserve. He goes on to say that when people get drunk and do some stupid things in the process, people make caricatures out of you and make sure you are embarrassed. Like yesterday there was this buzz here that “SKimpy proposed to four girls in A block” or “SKimpy puked all over J Block”. Being on the wrong end of this treatment a couple of times, I must agree with him.

Shilpa also raised this issue when I was talking to her a couple of days back. She said that if people took advantage of the fact that I was drunk and made me do stupid things, they must be really mean guys. Somehow defended these guys yesterday (or maybe I changed the topic), but now I seem to be in agreement.

Coming back to the party, my inability to “settle in” reminds me of those numerous parties when I’ve felt totally out of place. Everyone else is familiar but still in some sense so unfamiliar! So unfamiliar you don’t feel like letting go. You get that horrible feeling that you don’t belong. That there’s something wrong with you. That you should have gotten drunk.

After about an hour and a half of just loitering around the place, I decide to head back. Do one last random walk, and then head straight back. And get down to writing this bullcrap.

I feel i’m growing older
And the songs that I have sung echo in the distance…

Yesterday I got a mail from irctc announcing “training returns”. Indian Railways is soon going to start its own version of loyalty programs. Every time I book a ticket for a 2AC train journey, I’ll get a certain number of points which can be later redeemed for free tickets.

The mail doesn’t mention any details but it’s a really nice thing to see the Railways coming up with such programs. With the advent of low-cost airlines, it looks like the Railways have realized that they are losing out a lot of the upper class traffic and are hence taking efforts to compete with the airlines. Would be interesting to see how this rail-air battle goes. Have a feeling the airlines might just win.

On another note, it is interesting to note that the Railways Minister is not someone who has been known for any kind of reforms or development. Probably he is too busy with his party politics and hence is maintaining a hands-off kind of approach. Anyways, that doesn’t matter as long as the Railways does its job and makes sure the trains reach on time!#

recently joined orkut and added about a dozen people from our batch (i guess she’s added more but they haven’t accepted the invites yet) as her friends. Now, among the set that she added, some of us were hitherto unconnected. We had “not seen” each other on orkut before.

Given that her friends’ list is so small, it is easy for us to see the hitherto unseen people, and add them. Can go on writing about this but no enthu now. So i’ll stop. Just wanted to point out that how a node with a small degree has helped connect various other nodes with large degrees!

I just woke up. Found the door of my room open. Found that everything on my bed had been pushed to the left half and I’d been sleeping on the right. There’s some goo on the floor. There’s some puke outside the room, but I don’t know if it’s mine. I find my watch on my wrist, and my spectacles neatly folded onto my table. I haven’t used a blanket, just pushed everything aside and slept.

There are no chairs in the room, I remember Khare borrowing both of them for the drinks yesterday. I remember leading me to the girls’ block at past 3 in the night challenging me to knock on ‘s door. I remember coming to the wing and me telling him that we should start prep for placements soon.

I had a dozen shots of Khare’s expensive Pernod. Really good stuff. Contrary to my last week’s dream, I didn’t break the bottle. I remember going to the shop to get pepsi, lay’s and biscuits, don’t remember devouring them.

Anyways, I still feel drunk. And I have a statement of purpose to write by tonight. God save me! And yeah, I’m waiting for to wake up so that I can hear the story!