ExpertDabbler

Last Saturday was the typical ‘Nai ku nikka neramillai aana velai’ type weekend. Come Friday evening and I think as if I am going to change the whole world in the next two free days, but the reality is all too well known. I had a leisurely bath, followed by a leisurely breakfast at 11, then bank visit, etc. In the meanwhile, Me and Gopi kept calling each other precisely when the other person was not available. This happened like 4 times and it was sort of evolving into a game of its own.

Mom made ‘paruppu kozhambu’ for lunch after eight long months which not only tasted heavenly but also took me to heaven for the next two hours. Heaven comes right into your bed room after a good lunch.

Mr. V. Ravichandran of Citizensguardians* fame had called me earlier to attend a public meeting he was arranging in Ashok Nagar that evening. The meeting was in protest against the existing one-way traffic system in Ashok Pillar - Udhayam theatre area. While population reduction per se may be a good thing, drastically reducing the population of Ashok Nagar residents through traffic accidents has badly offended the folks in the neighborhood. They have made enough naïve representations to various authorities and as we all wisely knew all along, nothing happened. They had planned to conduct a public meeting on Feb. 25, 2009 but the great Tamil Nadu police which is second only to grave yard…err… sorry Scotland yard, figured out in the last moment that there will be a law and order problem and denied permission. Huh!

Ravichandran, being the person he is, approached the court and got what he wanted.
I suppose he knows the language of the courts better than the language of the police. There were about 100-200 middle aged people when I went for the meeting. That was understandable given that there were no crowd pullers like ‘Theepori Arumugam’ nor SS Chandran for the meet. So those who like meetings for the double meaning jokes which enhances sense of humor and consequently quality of life decided ‘To hell with one-way, lets take the TASMAC way’. Understandable.

Ravichandran said he had spent money from his own pocket for this entire episode. I strongly disapprove of such methods. He is not an investment bank, nor is he GM nor Satyam computers to expect a bail out. If one is not big enough nor criminal enough, one has got to be fiscally prudent is my 2 cents.

Later on, I wanted to check if that Dosai master in Anna Nagar Karthik Tiffen Center makes Dosai exactly the way I taught him during childhood days. I was glad to know he still lives up to the standards. But the guys who serve chutneys, the embedded value of which comes to more than 50% of the price of the dosai have strayed from the sacred path. I see the chutney vessel’s depth and height more than chutney itself. I also need to send out more ‘gentle reminders’ for more chutney.

What the heck I am on the lookout for a fresh talent on this front. After all, was it not Mani Ratnam’s talent hunt that gave us A R Rahman? Any one who knows any good Kayendhi Bhavans in Chennai please let me know.

The Sunday temple darshan this time was the Murugan temple in Thiruporur. Its hard to distinguish this place from Koyambedu market. I think cleaning that temple is in itself a mega project. How a temple which collects Rs.10 for ‘sirappu dharisanam’ and which collects ‘Thula baaram’ somehow lacks funds to keep its premises clean is beyond me. All the Hindu religion based political parties and their sister concerns should embark on a program to keep our temples, which I believe as one of the pride worthy aspects in India, clean. We can worry about the non-existent Ramar Kovils later. I do not want to absolve myself of this. There should be a way to involve the public too. It looks like we are the only country which takes pride in our dirtiness.

I visited Nungambakkam Landmark in the evening but did not buy any books this time since I have a few lying unread already. This prudence saved me from ‘Ennadhu 500 rupaai ku book vanginiya? Andha kaasuku veetukku 15 kg arisi vangi potrupene’ act from my mom.

I did manage to get hold of Gopi at 11 PM night on Sunday. So there went one more listless weekend with nothing useful done. I should be a wonderful person. I keep wondering about the weekend already gone and its already another weekend. Of course I am very optimistic about the stuff I can learn and do in the next two free days!

Happy weekend folks!

* Lazy me used a readymade joomla CMS and its built-in templates for this site. Please feel free to SPIT at me for this here. Send in your comments or ideas to make it better. Constructive criticism may fetch you an Aapam in NALAS AAPA KADAI either in OMR or Velachery

I had read Thaneer Vitto Valarthom – 1 and written about it earlier. I bought the remaining parts in the Chennai book fair this January. Having been exposed to Gurumurthy’s thoughts in the past had set the expectations right on what to expect and Gurumurthy does not disappoint one bit.

I think one has to salute Gurumurthy for his willingness to write consistently about dry but very important subjects such as finance and economics in thamizh with depth and clarity. This was the most impressive feature in Part 1 and my admiration has only grown after reading part 2 and 3. Be it the intricacies of rupee convertibility, or VAT and why it is opposed by the small retailers, the FII inflows and its effects on the stock market, the annual union budget and what goes into it and what it means in layman’s terms - I can definitely say I have not read anything better for the layman in thamizh and I am someone most comfortable in my mother tongue.

Gurumurthy also focuses on the plight of the farmers post 1991 based on his first hand experiences in Erode. He brings out the major differences between the Western and Indian economy and how the policies of LSE trained Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Manmohan singh have wrecked havoc on rural India. I was not aware that the most agriculture oriented western country (France) supports a meagre 11% of its population with agriculture (It is about 2% in the US) while it is still the lifeline for about 65-70% of the Indian populace. Another fundamental difference is that in Indian farming only one-third comes to the urban cities for sale, the rest are consumed internally among the villages. Making agriculture unviable in the last 15-20 years has absolutely forced the millions of people to migrate to cities where life has become progressively worse for all. What have we offered as a policy measure to thousands of farmers? Subsidies to the rich and and farm suicides to the poor. All these topics are essentially Commerce 101 from Gurumurthy in Thamizh. No one does it better.

Besides this, there are the usual Gurmurthy regulars – the issue of religious conversion and how it impacts the fabric of this country, the role played by the media and politicians in minority appeasements are all well documented with customary punch.

He is also right in chronicling the way Justice is administered in India - with a lot of colonial hangover. I for one firmly believe there is more of incentive bias at play than any sense of justice in our courts.

There are other chapters where I am not in synch with the writer. His stand that women should be ready to make sacrifices in order to safeguard the family structure which is central to India’s economics and sociology is something I am neutral on. I agree with the fact that more people living and sharing the same roof makes lot of economic sense. I think Indians evolved and adopted the joint family system since we never had any kind of social security sponsored by the government and family/relation was and still is the only available social security. My take is, the emphasis should be on ‘responsibility’ which is gender agnostic, generation agnostic, religion agnostic, class agnostic. Instead he goes about saying that women having more responsibility to hold the family which is the basic unit of this country and so they should make sacrifices which sounds rather retarded to me. This implies more like condoning the irresponsible men and making hedonism all the more alluring. After seeing the kind of debt piled by the developed nations, I am less inclined to criticize him on this issue as before. But I am still not convinced about his solution.

One other gripe I have is that he is almost all praise in all matters relating to the BJP while he is vehement in his criticism of the policies and actions of the Congress and its Italian leader. It is amazing that five years of NDA rule had left Gurumurthy a completely satisfied man, or so it seems. One may argue these are understandable given his political leanings and his proximity to Advani. But what irks me is that people who can be genuine thought leaders in this country are found lacking in objectivity. They take sides which compromises their stature and credibility to some extent. Anyways I guess satisfying a cynical Virgo is always a herculean task and I am no exception to that.

To sum up, we read some books for entertainment, and we read some for information. But I guess we should read some books because they are plain necessary reading for any concerned Indian. We can argue with his ideas, but I am not one to question his intention. If you hold an Indian passport, know thamizh and care for the issues facing India, this entire series (parts 1, 2 and 3) is required reading.

Rajakeeyam lunch in Cholayil Sanjeevanam:
I’d be very surprised if any other restaurant provides a healthier food at that price – Rs.125. It’s time people gave a golden handshake to the likes of Saravana Bhavan, Sangeetha etc.

Thirukazhukundram temple:
If you are one of those who like ancient hindu temples with the unmistakeable odor of bats (vavaal) then do visit Thirukazhukundram. It’s about 13 kms from Chengalpet on the Chengalpet – Mamallapuram/Kalpakkam route.
The temple on the hill top maybe a bit of a stretch for the old aged but it’s beautiful to see the surrounding landscapes from there on a lazy sunday evening. It is quite famous and old and fortunately not yet commercially exploited as far as I could sense.
I am not sure about Paabam, Punniyam etc but visiting ancient temples on ordinary weekends (My 2 cents: Please stay away from all temples during auspicious days if you want your peace of mind) is an activity I enjoy.
http://shamalakrishnan.blogspot.com
is an amazing resource for those who want to visit ancient temples but do not know where to go.

Charles T Munger:
This man has long been in the shadows of his more illustrious business partner, Warren Buffett, and consequently well outside the limelight. Those in the US would do well to get a collector’s edition of all things Munger ‘Poor Charlie’s Almanac’. Munger is not an average stock picker who just got lucky. Some rich grandfathers deserve to be rich and great. Munger is definitely one of them.

If you do not want to spend so much money on a book, try these links first:

http://vinvesting.com/docs/munger/human_misjudgement.html
http://vinvesting.com/docs/munger/art_stockpicking.html

Sundar has an amusing post on stereotypes and generalizations.

I will try to argue both against and for stereotypes/generalizations here.

Let me focus on the perception of India. It is true that India has a less than ideal perception in the outside world. One of my US colleague had for long assumed that India being such a poor country had only one ‘India International airport’ until she spoke to me. One thing is that generalizations as a rule will not be accurate. Relying on hearsay and stereotypes to form opinion and stick to it about a country as complex and diverse as India will be as accurate as some ABCD kid saying ‘Diwali is a festival of lights to be celebrated with wine, beer, samosa, chicken tikka, bangra dance in desi halls and restaurants‘. India is an ethnographer’s delight and nightmare at the same time.

After some introspection, I realize I am not as qualified to write in any great depth the perspective of some one living in Thiruvotriyur as someone who is actually living there. Thiruvotriyur is as different from, say Besant Nagar as Gopal Palpodi is from Colgate. I am not qualified to write about the India and Indians shown in Naan Kadavul in all probability. India requires a lifetime of understanding if one wants to understand meaningfully. A sambhar tastes very different even within Tamil Nadu every 300 miles. If this is what is the case for a resident, tax-paying, bribe-giving, aavin booth-standing, traffic rule-violating, middle class local, then I don’t have much to talk about Hollywood directors, social activist turned street photographers turned NRIs who are here for 3 weeks to attend their share of ‘must attend’ weddings and who form their perceptions about India during their stay. A vacation in India is enough if all we want is some ‘matter’ to discuss in parties or to make a mainstream movie. India is merely a prop here. It is like someone reading about India’s GDP in business daily to discuss in parties - very handy.

On the other hand, deciding whether to start a pottikadai behind Parthsarathi temple in triplicane requires a different thought process. India’s GDP does not matter much for this decision and is a mere generalization and offers nothing for the potentially life changing decision for the potti kadai owner.

What should we do to change the world’s perception of India? Ideally, that should never be the goal. It will be like a girl trying to prove to the whole world that she is a virgin. Perceptions are subject to change by its very nature. We Indians have enough problems to fix and to keep the next ten generations occupied. Perceptions will change in due course, hopefully for the better. America was once considered the greatest creditor nation in the world thirty years back. Not many share that perception now. Who changed that perception? None in particular, everyone in general.

Should all this arguments for inaccuracy mean quick and dirty opinions be avoided at all costs? I don’t think so. It is still valuable so long as one realize its limitations. As long as the perspective is a)local, b) is original without any pretension to political correctness, and c) is recognized that it is valid for only a short term,

I’d still say random quick opinions and stereotypes are useful, more importantly it is inevitable.

If someone says about Mr. X like this, ‘ Andha bemani kitte kadan kudutha vaangave mudiyadhu sir.. eppovume thagaraau dhaan!! Avanga familye ipdi dhaan!!’

I know there is lot of generalization in this statement. But will I go ahead and lend money to Mr. X or his family?? No matter what we say in blogs, we almost always will still have those stereotypes and generalizations and act according to them. I’d be brutally dishonest with myself if I say anything else. Stereotypes and generalizations are relative, inaccurate, yet inevitable and we do it 24/7 no matter what we say.

PS: I think I have made atleast half a dozen generalizations in this post.