ExpertDabbler

Let me assume, that you, the blog reader is about 25-30 years old and have relatives from both of your parent’s side. Let me put this as PK’s principle #1 : The healthiness of the relationship your father or mother has with their siblings is in direct relation to the way the ancestral property was governed, administered and partitioned or would be partitioned.

To my mind, no other stuff comes as close to handling the partitioning stuff in a civil manner as a WILL. If your parents or grand parents were busy in their day to day mega serials, never ended up writing a WILL and passed away all of a sudden, fireworks are in store for you. If you are jobless right now, you are in for some exciting times. Better play some old, strategy video games and be prepared for the onslaught.

I am not sure if it’s a basic human instinct to postpone the important in favor of the urgent all the time. But I am sure its a perfect way to land one and their offspring in trouble. Some people are so confident on their immortality that they hardly ever fill out the nomination section in the bank account application forms! Their children might end up getting a crash course in Hindu Succession Act inter alia and end up cursing their parents all their lifetime.

Let’s face it, irrespective of what any astrologer tells about one’s ‘ayul’, anything can happen at anytime. Its even more pertinent if the person who is managing the stuff in the family is above forty. And just like the heights and depths of the Sensex, the levels at which blood relatives / family members would go fighting for money matters is to be seen to be believed. I have so many cases which would make all those scheming fat ladies in tamil mega serials look like saints.

So first things first, if we really love our loved ones without any streak of sadism,
then we should do the following

- make sure we have all the bank deposits filled with proper nominees first. Its okay even if any of my readers run for it without even reading the rest of this post. It’s THAT important.

- get a lawyer and affirm ourselves to write and register a WILL for the entire self acquired property. This is not a guarantee that all our children will stand united forever as they show in the closing shot of all Vikraman movies. But hey, at least we did our job and there’s only so much one can do.

We can relieve at least a good percentage of our civil courts’ case burden just by ensuring that we draft a WILL clearly about the property that we have acquired, and to whom it should pass on once we are past tense. Please note that failure to do so may even result in our annual ‘thidhi’ being cancelled in anger by our loved ones (Bharatha Kalachaaram you see!).

Afterword:
My good friend and blogger Prabhu (Adengappa) wanted me to write about the need for drafting a WILL sometime back. Being the slacker that I am, I managed to scribble some stuff only today. So this post is dedicated to Adengappa

I’ve been reading about stuff on H1b every so often in rediff and other portals. Recent one being this

Let me try to put some stuff for the dummies.

The whole campaign can be classified into two lobbies - pro H1 and anti - H1.

Pro H1:
- Companies like Microsoft, Google, Cisco and the innovation challenged bloke called Bill Gates
- Companies like Wipro, TCS, Infy (they are the cause of major controversy and to some extent justifiably so)

Anti H1:
- A body called CIS and some professors who analyze endless reams of data.
- Some senators who feel that H1 visa holders are next only to biological warfare and so should be stopped from entering US.

At the center of the storm is the candidate who is having a garland in his neck, not sure if it’s the one before wedding or sacrifice for a village God (Bali Aadu).

The candidate can be of two types – one is the typical grad school passout in US. He had already gone through hurdles like GRE, TOEFL, probable student loan,writing SoPs, getting the offer of Admission - IR20 err I20 (Sorry got confused with a commodity which is getting increasingly precious). And last but not the least, the mood of the Visa Officer in US consulate.

The other situation is a typical bachelor’s degree holder, with some experience looking for that elusive break which would help him close his home mortgage dues faster before his mortgage turns sub-prime. Though I reckon joining a start-up in Bangalore is a not a bad option than taking a job in recession prone US.

The Pro H1 party says there is a huge gap in the availability of skilled labor for techie jobs in US and that they are outsourcing because of that. The Anti H1 party argues that all this brouhaha of ’skilled worker’ is all just an eye wash to bring in low cost workers into the great America and pollute the land with infidels, or something to that effect.

They are basically like DMK and ADMK. Each have their own political reasons and business reasons for fighting it out. In the end, the powerful lobby wins.

If I were to decide on this issue, I would say those who completed their masters in US should be completely exempted from this quota. It is not fair on the ones who took the pain of going through all the hassle a student goes through, only to find its all driven by a number and lottery game.

Pitting them against the 2nd category folks for basically the same number of quotas (okay, maybe 20,000 more but hardly any difference) only creates unnecessary animosity between the two without solving the problem of the US corporate or the American economy at large or the US senators.

The second category of workers should be allowed visa based on their education/experience/skill sets, the offer of employment they hold and the demand for such professionals in US. Admittedly, this is trickier than the first but no less important.

For e.g My friend Madhu, may not be a Master’s Grad in US, but having known him well, I think it would be unfair to him and his potential employer to lose out on Madhu just because of the H1 issue if he chooses to apply for one. Classic lose-lose situation.

I think the USCIS and the other stake holders should take a long, hard look into this and come out with a better design for the whole H1B process so that their country gets the candidates they need and those who abuse the system are deprived of their advantages. One step in the right direction was rejecting multiple filings. But more needs to be done.

The whole fixed numbers game (be it 65,000 or 79,999 or whatever) is simplistic while trying to be simple. I agree that every system will have its own shortcomings, but having a numerical cap on such a sensitive issue betrays a laziness to think and analyze more than anything else. Topping it off with a random selection process is beyond words. I am sure our planning commission can come out with a better system than that.

It’s another matter that most of the desi bloggers in US who may have a much better view don’t talk about such mess by the US government in their blogs. They are happy with their status reports on how many street lights were not glowing in Pazhavandhaangal when they last visited. I am scared to write about NRI’s nowadays so let me not get there.

Where is Ramarajan now? Not that I am a fan. But I know for sure he made a lot of money when his market was at the peak.

The junta which said Kamal was the 9th wonder and 10th wonder during Dasavadharam’s audio release(albeit a deserved praise), would’ve heaped glorious songs exactly like these for the likes of Mike Mohan, Suresh, Ramarajan too. What happens to them after they are sidelined by the ‘industry’? How do they survive?

Every society worships the rich and famous. As a consequence, a lot of people are determined to become rich and famous soon no matter what. They think, if they get big and rich, they will die a rich man or woman. Of the several thousands who strive, some do eventually succeed. But even those who succeed are not equipped enough to manage and channelize their new found wealth. Thats a different ball game which requires a completely different skill set.

I met a person yesterday. The man should be around 50 years old. He has not had to work for somebody till date. He has about 5 houses in Chennai - usually purchases house by paying cash in full. He has managed to provide education for his two sons, and lives a comfortable life. He says he has been able to do all this with share trading. He does not even own an office. He has one Honda City and Ford Fiesta for personal purposes.

This is not to suggest all those who invest in the stock markets end up this way. The kind of self-discipline needed to make money in the BSEs and NSE is not something to be scoffed at. The point is, this guy will never be declared rich nor famous. He would never give newspaper interviews, much less TV coverage. Nobody would peak their nose in his private life and see who he sleeps with.

Yet, i bet this guy will die a richer man than Ramarajan.

You can earn all the money in the world, but if it’s just going to do down the drain, whats the difference??

A forwarded mail from one of my friend’s friend

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Hi,

Just wanted to send a couple of links and share an experience with you all. A few days back from my office cafetaria, I picked up a tropicana beverage that contained a blend of Orange, Banana and Strawberry. As I am always suspicious & paranoid (sigh !!), I checked the ingredients. There was a “Cochineal Extract” that aroused my suspicion, but I convinced myself thinking it was likely to be a sea weed. However, after buying it, but before consuming it, I “googled” for that term and found some information, which made me discard that beverage.

Basically it is a small bug. They add it for colour and flavour. I can’t believe that these companies have been adding BUGS& insects in to our beverage !!!! eeeww!!!!

Looks like there has been a new FDA regulation that forced these companies to declare such ingredients.

I don’t want to describe more, and those of you interested in the details, take a look at the following links.

http://www.vegparadise.com/news13.html

http://www.knowledgeforthirst.com/2003/cochineal-extract/

———————

WSJ as in Wall Street Josiyar. DSJ stands for Dalal Street Josiyar.
I wonder what’s so different between these blokes and the marathadi Josiyar?
Apart from the obvious differences like MBA education, English speaking ability etc, there are lot of similarities among the two.

- Main content providers for newspapers and television channels.
- Very dynamic - can change their views every other day.
- Can generate a lot of noise which pass off as wisdom.
- Can give 1000s of reasons AFTER an event happened but rarely in advance.
- Their business depends on people’s insecurities.
- Use jargons like Patterns, Peyarchi respectively, and
.
.
.
- Make life miserable for gullibe people.

We are better off without them.

Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby present a link to the pension details of the TNEB website.

Once you are in the website, you will find a field called PPO number. You are free to type any five digit number and you will get to see the pension details of one actual pensioner in TNEB holding such PPO number. So much for Right to Information Acts.
While I definitely laud the TNEB in making information accessible to everyone, I am not sure if it had to be taken to such a level (Web 3.0?).

I thought long and hard before disclosing to the public. Neither the TNEB nor the ones who administer the site are kids. So I do not think they need my advice nor my good intentioned mails. If they can keep their salary confidential, I hope they can empathize with the pensioners’ need to keep his or her pension details confidential as well. I would be really surprised if any decent number of TNEB pensioners actually look for their details in the TNEB website? Why disclose information when there is no need? What I find here is unmistakeable and utter disregard for the sensitivity of information for their own ex-employees.

I wish they close this section ASAP and fire the guy responsible for this section of the website. God alone knows about the status of other State Government run organisation websites.

Kuttipriya tagged me for the important brands I cannot possible live without.

It’s another matter that we tend to confuse brands with fancy names, cute logos and stuff and the premium we pay. But good brands are the lifeline of the business and help get business done at a very individual level. Branding is a blend of product experience and reputation. If someone gives you Rs.1,00,000 without second thoughts perfectly sure that you will give him back on the said date, thats the power of brand YOU. Chances are, you’ve earned that reputation and trust over the past so many years. Enough of vetti gyaan:

On to my favorite brands:

Toothpaste: Colgate/Pepsodent.
I saw Colgate in my hotel in San Jose and called my friend in India and said, “Inga namba ooru item ellam kedaikudhu da, Colgate paste kooda irukku”.

He responded, “Vennai, adhu US company daan da!!”

Thats the extent to which Colgate had become ‘namba colgate’ to the average Indian.

Soap: Hamam
Honestly, i have not given much thought to this item. Its always Hamam by default at home for the last so many years, so soap means Hamam it is.

Shaving Kit: Gillette
Gillette. Now, if only I had the power to award Nobel, i would first do to the design team in Gillette. I mean thats sheer genius. I dont have words to describe anything else. I’v been using 7′0 Clock for a long time. It was not until my US trip when i moved to the Gillette Mmach 3 Turbo at my friend’s insistence, and i completley fell in love it. Suddenly Shaving is not a chore, its almost impossible to scare your cheeks, absolute fata fat. I’m a Gillette guy and feel honored to be so.

Phone: Nokia
More specifically 1108. Don’t sweat. Its not available anymore. But man, what an instrument!
It should’ve fallen from my bed and from the sleeper coach berths at least a dozen times. It holds the charge for like 3/4 days. I feel 1108 and cockroaches have one thing in common - both can survive a nuclear explosion.

My friend has a Nokia, whose keypad should’ve consumed more sambhar than my friend herself and yet works. Not exactly the qualities Nokia would love to advertise but these are the thing which makes a product endearing for me.

Favorite Shopping place: Nungambakkam Landmark (Not Citicenter, not Spencers)
Forget the limited parking space, forget the head scratching deemed to be security guy who is more keen to get a buck or two than help you with parking. There’s just no better place to spend 3 hours browsing books and come out without spending a paisa. My weekends are not complete without a visit to this place.

Shoes: Skechers/Bata
I was introduced to the comforts of Skecher very recently and am loving it. Prior to that ‘Footwear is Bata’.

Camera: Nikon
I shifted to Nikon from Canon AE-1, a legend in its own right. My dad was always fascinated by a Nikon SLR, so we bought one Nikon FG second hand in 1993. Ever since I’ve been a Nikon addict. I do think Canon makes better optics but Nikon is sheer bliss to handle.

Watch: Casio
People who know me well would’ve noticed an old, worn out black Casio calculator watch usually tried by school kids. I should’ve changed the strap atleast ten times. And yet I retain the watch. I did not even buy this one. I got it as a gift from Priyums several years back and I am sure she might’ve forgotten it as well. I did buy a Wenger when I was in San Jose. A tumble down from our dining table and its been stuttering ever since. So much for expensive watches. Casio for ever.

Bike: Hero Honda
I’ve been a proud owner of one Hero Honda or the other for the past 15 years and I have not felt a need to change so far. Maybe I would in the future.

Refrigerator: Whirlpool
When I decided to change my old fridge, my mom had one requirement, ‘It can be anything, but make sure its a Whirlpool’.

Eateries:
I would get straight to hell in a hurry, if i talk about my brands and not talk about my favorite eateries. Nothing epitomises the power of branding than the likes of the below mentioned best places and the dishes to have those:

Butter Dosai - Coimbatore Paati Amma Stall
Podi Dosai - Karthik Tiffin Center, i’ve come to like these gradually. Not for the light hearted though.
Jigir Dhanda - M M Stall, South Masi St, Madurai
Rava Roast, Idly Sambhar - Rathna Cafe
Benjorang - Best Thai food in Chennai
Fruit Juice - Kovai Pazhamudhir Nilayam - Chennai, CBE

I’ve been seeing Shelfari in Subha’s blog for sometime but was never really open minded enough to explore this till today At last, this seems to be one social networking site I might be comfortable.

For a person who is conservative with money, I think I’ve been relatively generous(by my kanjus standards) in gifting books to friends. Couple of recent gifts include Po Bronsons’s What should I do with my life. I’d already blogged about this long back. I started reading this again recently and to my pleasant surprise, the thoughts this one offered me on second reading was even better.

There are some books which are not for the casual reader. They demand more scrutiny and attention. In the sense one practically needs to study those. ‘Myths of Innovation’ by Scott Berkun comes under that category. I’ve been a regular at Scott’s blog for the past 4 years. Overall, a good read but requires more effort from the reader.

One way to get the latest and greatest from Amazon is to order it online and send it to our friends in US. Someone or other always travels every month or so anyway and they can be our courier agents I managed to save on shipping this way.

I am currently reading A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink. Dan talks about how right brain thinking will be the next big mantra for success in the coming years. His arguments are compelling but more importantly he does not put you to sleep in the process. I think it should be incredibly hard to write a fast readable book on serious topics. Authors like Daniel Pink with their journalism background are specialists in such genres.

One caveat, all these books have one thing in common though, don’t try to gulp it all in a hurry. The book and a fast food joint are not one and the same.

The most basic bottomline about books, even after discounting all the gyaan, is that they are so easy on the eyes when compared to the 14 inch notebook monitors. A 30 minute book reading session before sleep is perhaps the best treatment, both for dry eyes and insomnia :-).

PS:
Folks in India can avail PDR (Professional Development Reimbursement). Essentially the money spent on books can be deducted from taxable income by submitting the bills. Unfortunately, lot of companies keep mum on this provision because its more work for them. I am not sure what kind of books are covered and what’s excluded and who decides on these issues though. I think we are safe so long as we do not claim PDR for Penthouse letters :). It’s better check with your HRs and accounts departments.

I wrote Blame IT couple of days. Few minutes back it suddenly struck me I wrote Salary Trap two months back. Folks who argued with me on Blame IT might pounce on me and say I’m contradicting here. Honestly there are some common elements and there are some stuff which can be easily construed as contradictory.

I just have to take responsibility for not being able to put things in proper context in these posts and try to avoid stuff like these in future.

I dont think a person who earns Rs.40,000 is wrong in paying a rent of Rs.8000. Again this is my thought. It’s not a big deal if he is depriving somebody who was paying Rs.6000 so far. I mentioned this in my earlier comments too.

Say, If I am moving out of company A to B and relocating to city X to Y, I would rather worry about the safety and living conditions aspect of my new residence and see if my monthly outgo will fall in a safe percentage of my salary than in absolute numbers. I think this is what followed by the non-IT junta as well.

But, if a person earns, say, 40K and out of which pays Rs.25,000 rent + eats out + parties and thereby lives on credit card at the end of the month, thats salary trap for me.

In short ‘Relative’ is the core concept. I can just hope that people get the context of the posts as well. Lesson for me to emphasize the context better in the posts to come.

It all started with an ambitious sounding e-mail with an even more pompous subject line - Project Buffet.

Project Buffet is a cute little experiment by yours truly and a few aathma nanbargal. The funda is simple - every month each guy will contribute 5K and together we would buy stocks. Yours truly is the fund manager. It had two investors till last month and all set to go up to four in the days to come.

So how successful has been this experiment so far? At this point, we have not made much profit, but we have not lost money either. Me thinks thats kinda cool in a market which has fallen 20% from its January peak.

What we don’t do,
- with due respects to Milind Karandikar, we do not subscribe to technical analysis,
- we do not go by any brokerage or securities firm recommendations
- we are not planning to get BMWs tomorrow so no hurry.

We believe the process is as much fun as wealth creation.

I am well aware of the pitfalls of handling money with friends. I guess I know the folks involved so am comfortable for now.
Will keep my readers posted on the outcome. Right now, we are having fun with this experiment.

Ellam buffet mayam, peter lynch mayam