ExpertDabbler

If I have my house as the center and draw a circle with a radius of 1 km, I should find at least 8 TASMAC shops. There are at least 2 cases where two TASMAC shops are bang opposite each other. The considerate government does not want the ‘kudi makkal’ to cross the road to get sarakku. In effect, there should be many more TASMAC shops than newly opened ‘potti kadai’s in Chennai today. A bulk of the money made by the laborers goes back to the state government as TASMAC revenue. Tamil Nadu can safely be renamed as TASMAC Nadu.

If one wanted to buy a property in Madurai beyond a threshold, the threshold fixed by ‘his highness’, one cannot do so unless ‘his highness’ has given ‘permission’.

Want power? Why don’t you buy UPS or Generators at home and work? A very useful investment, higher the KVA the better. Not satisfied? Vote for DMK, you will get UPS free as well fueled of coursed by TASMAC.
For a state government run by a party without even a simple majority, the previous government should easily be the most lawless in the history of TASMAC Nadu. And after all this for five years, the senile old man and his cult thought they could make an ‘open offer’ for Tamil Nadu @ 1000 bucks a vote. What was even worse, ardent devotees of this cult thought the open offer will be successful.

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Just to let my blog readers know that someone had conducted funeral prayers for Osama in Makkah mosque, Mount Road, where about 10000 ‘people’ had participated. I heard it was decided henceforth to name new born male babies after Osama, all in the right spirit to uphold the ’secular fabric’ of the nation.

Stay tuned for more such prayers for ‘thiyagigal’ like Ajmal Kasab, and Afzal Guru, the last two may take several years though or may not be needed at all. This is again pure win-win. If they are hanged, the new born kids will be named after them, thus preserving the secular fabric. If they are given amnesty, that again is a manifestation of ’secular fabric’ preservation.

A few months back, one of my colleagues, a new joinee asked me this question. “Prabu, where do you want to go after this”. He implied my next dream job. I told him, ’Seekiram retire aaganum’. Ever since that conversation, the idea has only grown inside me. I had taken off from work for the past 10 days, ever since my daughter was born. I returned to work only yestersday. The more I think about it, the more I feel, ’Yes, that is the one’. Yes, PK, at the ripe age of 34, is yearning for a retired life. It may sound funny for some, but I believe it’s true.
Ever since I moved to my new house four months back, I have felt the urge to go out diminish steadily. I keep mentioning this to my wife and mom now and then. In the last few months, whenever I had free time, I more than wanted to be at home. Gone are the days when I wanted an excuse to go out - weekend dinner in Chennai restaurants, the visits to Landmark book store. And not surprisingly, the more time I spend at home, the more I kind of like this unhurried life style. The only occasion I venture out on weekends, is for buying groceries, which is not what one has in mind when someone says ‘I am going out’.

According to Robert Kiyosaki, the author of ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’, Wealth should be measured not in terms of the money one makes or has made, but in the number of days one can survive maintaining their current life style, without their job. I asked this myself and my answer was ‘Not very long’. So I have to work for some time. But given my predilection, I want to maximize the scope for living this ‘retired’ life style even when I am in a full time job. And I want to plan things in such a way that I can slow down gracefully to a retired lifestyle. Moving towards this is a gradual process.

Right now, Ilayaraja music, books, home food, arattai katcheri with mom, my wife, and with my daughter in the future sounds more attractive a proposition than corporate ‘padavi’, ‘onsite assignments’ and so on. In this context, this video made a lot of sense

Late 70’s:
- Pocket radio. Mom has recounted tales of how a 30 day baby had stopped crying as soon the baby’s uncle switched on a pocket radio Of course I don’t remember a thing.
- Giant ‘valve radios’. I vaguely remember listening to a few of those ‘Murphy’ radios in my uncle’s electronics repair shop in Virudhunagar. Uncle was a sought after ‘radio’ technician. People used to come from nearby villages for radio ‘repair’.

80’s
- Gramaphone records. We had one. Appa used to frequent a shop called Amman Electronics in Town Hall, Coimbatore. The primary business of Amman Electronics was to record music for customers for a fee. What a business model! I wonder what that proprietor Mr. Balu is doing now for a living.

Small Transistor Radios. I remember buying one ‘National’ radio, proudly referred to as ‘Japan set’ on a trip to Rameshwaram.

Tape recorder. Dad bought our first tape recorder, a National Panasonic model 543 when we were in Kovaipudur. This is one model number even my mom will remember now. We gave it to one of my uncle subsequently, and I am sure he had it till like 3 years back. The only music he ever listened to was ‘Sirgazhi Govindarajan’s bakthi paadalgal’. And 543 was more than sufficient for that purpose.

Mid 80’s:
Dad bought a ’stereo’ tape recorder with a ‘DOLBY’ button, from a Burma Bazaar shop, Trichy for 4500 bucks. That was a lot of money then. Again a National Panasonic, the model number was RX-C41. We were in HUDCO Colony, Tatabad, in CBE. That was the golden period of Mike Mohan courtesy Ilayaraja. People who got hooked to IR around this time will find it impossible to come out of that magic.

Late 80s:
SONY walk man. I listened to ‘Idhayathai Thirudadhey’, and ‘Varusham 16′ almost every night

90’s:
- A R Rahman!
- Audio systems with CD players. I and dad bought one for 9000 bucks when mom was out of station, and we got the scolding of our lifetime when mom returned, the amount was several times my dad’s monthly salary then.

2000s:
In 2000, dad was no more. I knew listening to music will never be the same. I am far too calculative to spend lot of money on music systems. I knew I will never be as mad as he was about Music.

2001:
Bought my first PC.
- MP3s CD.
We had close to 400 tape cassettes, almost all bought by dad. I let go of all of ‘em when I moved to Chennai.

Mid 2000s:
iPod/Clones era.
No CDs, No ’systems’. One just needs to ’synch’ music. I was too lazy even for this. I asked my friend to ’synch’ my Zune. Never have I done it even once. I got a Mercury speaker for Rs.1500, a far cry from 9000 buck audio system of the early nineties.

2010:
I completely moved away from Audio systems, asked my mom to give away the Audio system we bought for 9000 bucks to our maid for free. Amma scolded me one last time for buying that stuff in the first place.

2011:
I wonder what all my Dad would’ve bought if only he were alive now, I think it would have been at least BOSE to begin with. On the other hand, I bought an iPad app called Mundu Radio, which for 0.99$, streams music non-stop.

For all the evolution, the favorite music director has remained pretty much Ilayaraja, along with ARR of late

I am no good in telling flashback tales. I tried telling this to my wife over phone today and she almost dozed off
I don’t think my daughter will ever listen to all this flash back stories when she gets old So here i am recording it in my blog

“Akshaya Thrithiyai” has come and gone, but I think this is still relevant.
Everyday I find at least one or two friends in my circle talk about gold prices and how people well known to them are buying gold ‘for investment purpose’. The major jewelry shops in the city are overflowing with customers. Most of the jewellers have started ‘gold chit funds’. Every broken resistance level in gold and silver prices, seem to bring new set of customers. I have at least one argument a day at home with my mother on the investment aspect of gold.

Muthoot finance and Manappuram finance are having the opportunity of life time to milk customers. Both are in a never ending race to expand their business manifold and they are being helped by the ever obliging customers. Even well educated professionals are actively playing the leverage game in the following sequence
- buy gold, pledge and borrow money, and buy more gold.

My colleagues at office claim that gold price has not gone down in the last twenty years, and so it implies it can never go down in the future as well. The price may or may not go down. I may or may not be wrong. What irks me is the confidence people have in their own folklore assessments.

Now, these guys are hardly the commodity bulls we have seen or heard. They are the average IT MNC employee vargam who three years back were having sleepless nights about jobs during the recession. Of course all that is history now. Good times are back and so gold can only go up seems to be the sentiment and logic.

I can understand if folks buy gold for personal use out of a cultural necessity. The thamizh society has alway been obsessed with gold on all occasions from wedding to kaadhu kuthal. Even now there are communities where the first question on a marriage proposal is ‘how many pounds of gold’ so people, however desirable or undesirable it may be, do buy gold as a consumer and that is not likely to stop in the near future. But investment purpose?

If the script is risky in the IT MNC cooliedom, It was downright scary with what my other friend told me yesterday. I was having lunch with him and asked him what he was doing nowadays, since he had no job worth telling about ever since I know him. He said he was into commodity trading! He is trading in commodities futures online, playing around in leverage. He was giving me all sorts of gyaan about technical analysis, support and resistance levels and so on. I have no reason to think moneymaking is so easy. I think this guy will in all likelihood make the brokerages and the commodity exchanges like NCX,NCDEX very very rich.

It is scary to think that folks who are essentially consumers, and who do not know a thing about the macro factors which has led to the spurt in commodity prices, are simply in a gold / silver buying spree banking on the ‘gold/ silver price can’t go down’ logic.

This is like someone saying ‘I know petrol price in Chennai, I know there is always a need for petrol, so let me buy crude futures’. Just because I buy petrol for my bike does not make me an expert in crude futures. If people do not know the difference between the two, I guess they will learn it by paying a tuition fee in the commodity exchanges market.

Will gold prices keep rising?
I do not know.

What about the statistics that gold prices have always gone up in the last 20 years?
Again I do not know. I would like to consider factors like purchasing power parity, and inflation in the last 20 years to arrive at this ‘multi bagger’ conclusion on gold. Not to mention that need not hold good in the future.

To those who leverage and buy more gold - all I can say is best of luck. Such ’sure thing’ mentality and irrational optimism and certainty has rarely yielded good investment results. This time it is different? Let me see. I am not buying gold because I do not know about the factors that drive it.

Am I losing out on a quick fire way to become rich? May be. But I can live with that ignominy.

On the day of Akshaya Tritiya, I did not buy gold. But the crown jewel landed in our lives in the form of our baby girl. I and my wife got the biggest gift of our lives. We waited for more than two days in the hospital for her to arrive, in the course of a normal birth.

I think my daughter inherits my facial features, her skin, fingers and palms reminds me of my father, and I think she will get my wife’s intelligence, and my mother’s character.

Right now I am a thrilled and proud father struggling to find a name for his lovely daughter. I want a simple name which both grandmas can pronounce, my overjoyed mother wants to call ‘akshaya’ no matter what I choose. My uncle wanted to refer the Goddess Lakshmi. My other uncle who is astro-numero conscious has his suggestions. My intelligent wife, who was always sure that the baby is a girl, just wants one name among the forty five names she had carefully written in the Evernote list. I have the task of balancing everything

The jury is still out on the name! But the whole family is overjoyed at my daughter’s arrival. I’ll do anything for that!

Four years back, I wrote this post on Real Estate in Coimbatore.
http://expertdabbler.com/2007/01/02/real-estate-in-coimbatore/
I revisited this post today after all this while, and immediately felt like writing a sequel

The story in the four years went like this.
2007 - boom
2008 - slowdown
2009 - bottom
2010 - boom
2011 - skyrocketing boom

Four years is quite a good time in the market. The kumar who had earlier challenged me that prices will double in 2008, will be laughing at me and my post if he had survived the 2008 slowdown. While I wanted real estate prices to come down, I had a few investments, bought way back in the 90s, at rates not possible to buy now. In that sense I have a vested interest in the state of Coimbatore real estate.

I browsed through forums like skyscraper city, visited Coimbatore a few times and saw the city evolve in these four years. Essentially, the questions I had, I continue to have. If there is one city which will make real estate prices in Chennai look like ‘aadi sale’, it has to be Coimbatore.

In these four years, the Coimbatore Tidel park stands completed but no big company has set up shop yet. Yes, i hear the same old ‘TCS, Wipro, HCL will be coming’ music.

On the other hand, Robert Bosch and Cognizant are the big movers and shakers in Coimbatore. They should collectively employ about 5000-10000 people in the KGISL tech park and adjoining areas. Now, if I say 10-15 years back there were not even proper bus facilities in that KCT route, I will look like an old man who starts singing the ‘andha kaalathile ell am’ pallavi. Nor will it look good if i say somebody offered a house in Kovaipudur for 10000 when i was a kid. My parents could not afford that. Now after 30 years, a house in kovaipudur goes for sixty-seventy lakhs. A return that would have made even Warren Buffett proud.

In saravanampatti, the place where CTS and Bosch have set up shop, the land prices have gone up by around 30 times in the last 10 years. Anyone wants to compute the CAGR?

Regarding the developments, Some malls are getting developed. Avinashi road has become a six lane road. The city has flight connectivity to Singapore, the road connecting saravanampatti to airport is developed, the multi laning of the NH 47 highway is complete. NH 215 from Dindigul-Mysore passing through Coimbatore will be expanded. The Mettupalayam road is getting expanded. And most importantly coimbatore has ‘Pothys’, the ultimate index of infrastructure development!

Property prices quoting one crore have become common. I could not believe that Sobha developers had charged rs. 1.6 crores for a villa in godforsaken ‘vedapatti’ citing it being ‘close’ - just seven kms to RS Puram. Of course, outsiders to the Coimbatore city will not know that a 15kms ride will take a traveler from one end of the city to the other in 30 mins.
People actually quote rs. 75 lakhs for an apartment in Ganapathi, a place where I lived for a monthly rent of Rs. 2500.

Interestingly, rental yields are still as low as 1 %. For e.g. One of my friend lives in a villa where some ’speculators’ (I do not want to call them investors) are willing to pay Rs. 2.7 crores. But in the same place, I can take that villa for rent at 25k per month. Why? I presume that is because while there are lot of people to buy, there are fewer people wanting to live. This is the case in all the tier 2-3 cities where the real estate prices are skyrocketing, someone offered me a villa in Madurai in the old meenakshi mill campus for Rs, 70 lakhs four years back, when I wrote the first post I never went anywhere near that place ever since.

One of my favorite pastimes in the last few weeks is to go through forums like http://indianrealestateboard.com. People actually give reasons for why paying Rs. 1+ crore for a sobha villa in vedapatti is a sound idea. These guys have done a great service to the real estate developers. Anyone who has some degree of healthy scepticism about the prices, will find all his doubts vanish and become a hardcore bull on reading forums like this.

My 2 cents, not that anybody sought my advice. Yes, I am seeing some developments but the prices demanded are disproportionately higher than the developments in Coimbatore.
The combatore irugur railway line may have been doubled but the real estate brokers and developers are expecting 5 times the 2003-4 prices, and the HNI/NRIs desperately wanting to invest in Coimbatore are willing to pay 6 times the money they would’ve paid in 2003-2004. God alone knows where this will all end up.

If I had money, I will buy shanthi gears stock. Because they have 18 acres of land in prime areas in Coimbatore, and their mcap is 300 crores. This is a safe bet, I win if land prices goes up and shanthi gears unlocks value by selling it, I do not lose much if land prices crash, because Shanthi gears is a good company with decent management and is likely to work out fine for the investors in the long run.
But here’s the catch. Folks with ideas do not have money and vice-versa. Whatever.

I was 10 years old then. It was the summer vacation of 1986. India Pakistan Australasia cup final in April. I was in Virudhunagar for the annual Panguni Pongal festival. We had no television in Virudhunagar those days. I was standing and watching this match in Malleshwaram Radio Mart. When 4 runs were needed of that last Chetan Sharma delivery, Javed Miandad smashed an incredible six. I was devastated. I could not come to terms with that for a long time.

India has beaten Pakistanis many times since that epic in the recent past, especially in the world cups. But I was not as satisfied simply because the occasion was not big enough. World Cup final is a big occasion and I had badly wanted India to win one. I do not recall the 1983, I guess I was too small then to know anything about cricket. I had grown old and lost interest in cricket for a while.

25 years after. I am in Virudhunagar again for the same Panguni Pongal festival. This time, the occasion was the world cup 2011 final. Very recently I started tracking cricket ever since India made 338 and tied against England. My grandma is no more. My uncle has pulled the plug on cable television. I went to the other uncle’s place just to see the match. I had traveled from Chennai during the day to be in time for the Indian run chase. After letting the Sri Lankans score 274 I thought India had less then 30% chance. After 31 for 2, that dwindled further.

Nevertheless, I decided to watch this one. In the end, the dream of every cricket fan in India came true! The way Gambhir and MS Dhoni played a knock of their life times will remain etched in my memory for a long time. And to see that kind of a knock come from the captain of the Indian Cricket team under immense pressure is one of the most satisfying experiences for any Indian cricket fan. Now I can tell you this one compensates for that Chetan Sharma delivery in 1986!

In a nation which has innumerable problems where a good many seem insurmountable, big sporting victories like these at least improves the spirit of the nation. And I did not regret one bit for converting back to cricket. Royal Salute to Dhoni and his team for giving India to cheer and smile about!!! Thank you for making me feel emotional about sports and make me feel young again!!!
Thank you for giving that 37 year old five foot three incher from Mumbai an opportunity to touch the World cup, this was one thing he was never going to do on his own.

Tamil Nadu is the eight wonder of the world. In a world where there are nuclear crises, economic slowdown, and job losses, and where other states in India are merely talking about FINANCIAL INCLUSION, Tamil Nadu is the only state where about 60 million people - the entire state population is moving towards financial independence. Yes, going forward, people in Tamil Nadu need not work to make a living.

Think about this, each family will get 30kg rice per month free. People are already given free land, free grinder (or) mixie - yes that is an internal choice. You got to choose one among the two. Free houses, free groceries, free education, free bus pass, free healthcare… Wait a minute, It is all too breathtaking. It would be great if the government can also write off my current home loan. HDFC be damned.

Those who feel I have left out anything, please feel free to inform the political parties so that they can update their election manifesto.  So basically, everything will be provided free by the government. There is no need for me to keep slogging in some IT company for ever. So yeah, I am planning to put in my papers soon This is going to be the golden era in Tamil Nadu.

Deivanayagam Chettikulam Nellainayagam

Health India Foundation
101 Usman Road
600 017 Chennai
India
Fields of Interest: Tuberculosis,Lung Disorders,HIV/AIDS

Curriculum Vitae
C N Deivanayagam was born on 15-11-1942 in Tamilnadu.Graduated from Madras Medical College in 1965 with Johnstone Gold Medal(for being the best out-going student of that year).Trained in Scotland and N.Ireland for 18 months and acquired the MRCP(Edinburgh)in 1969.Research officer at the British Medical Research Council’s Pneumoconiosis unit for one year.

Returned to Chennai and was assistant Professor of Chest diseases at Madras Medical College(1970-1981) and Professor of Thoracic Medicine(1981-2000).Examiner at Various Indian universities for graduate and post graduate Medical Degrees and Diplomas till date.Co-Founded the Indian Chest Society and edited its official journal Lung India for many Years.

Established the HIV/AIDS care service at Govt Hospital of Thoracic Medicine in 1992 amidst much opposition.Initiated research into the use of Siddha System of Medicare along with BioMedical system.Proved that Siddha drugs are able to combine readily with Modern OI controlling drugs and reduce the Viral Load.This was presented as an Oral Poster at the 13th World Aids Conference at Durban.
Established the Health India Foundation at Chennai in 2001.This NGO is now running a regular Day Care clinic for HIV and other disorders at the Red Cross Hospital,Chennai.The goal is to integrate ancient systems with the modern for health care and promotion

Typically, a wily old person will join the board and say, ‘Folks let’s talk about our building project for a change’. They will realize a year has passed and the BBB has hardly moved a stone. Action plans will be formulated - first things first, a google group will be created for the sake of more privacy. The Internet is the only place where strangers who have never met each other, have no personal relationships, will talk about a public / common cause and yet expect privacy by moving to a different forum.
  
A date will be fixed to gather as a group and meet the BBB management. Of the many hundreds who join the task force, a few, say the few nineties, will not be able to make it because, tight work at office on that particular day. The many tens who do go will come and report the MOM as good samaritans are expected to and pacify the others and say that the prices have gone up, and that it is a good investment etc.

The BBB meanwhile will merrily go about acquiring more land. The land acquisition will stop onlywhen he reaches
- Bay of Bengal in the east,
- he reaches Andhra border in the north
- thindivanam in the south
- arakonam in the west,

or

He runs out of cash.
Then he will be content to freeze the ‘ expansion’ with phase 3, and will go for approvals. Now once the revised plan gets approved. There will be wild celebrations in the hope that construction can start anytime soon.  

You remember those seductive brochures with flat plans which even specified where you will keep your tooth brush? That brochure will begin to ‘evolve’. Apartments which where earlier club house facing will suddenly be facing sewage treatment plants. The project which was earlier separated as ‘blocks’ earlier will have ‘phases’ instead of blocks. Mergers, Acquisitions, and Demerger of ‘phases’ are common. There will be a new proposed 200 feet public road between phase 2, 3 and the club house. One can also expect a new tower for commercial development.    

Ever believed in the world of BDSM and master- slave relationships? The ’slave agreement’ between BBB and MCI is one such example. If it were me, I would just avoid all the legalese and just type ‘I BBB will do whatever I want to you. You, MCI, are my slave. I am your master, Now you better sign’.  

Key highlights of the slave agreement:
Pay 20% on signing of slave agreement.
Cancellation will attract a hefty deduction from what the buyer paid.
Name transfer will involve a cut to the BBB
The BBB can increase the floors, apartments, phases, in whatever way he wants. He will have ownership to the clubhouse, terrace and other common areas. He will have all rights to change the plan. Since you are paying for the super built up area ( carpet + walls + common area), your flat which was earlier 1200 sq ft will enlarge itself due ti ‘forces of change’ to 1400 sq ft with only a small 175 sft increase in common area and a huge 25 sft increase in your carpet area. Of course you pay for all the 200 sft extra. The BBB will try to build before 2020 subject to force major clause. The MCI will have a choice - to agree or to agree readily.

One can expect a uproar in the forums. But soon the poor MCI will realize he is already trapped. Too much money has gone down the drain. Lakhs already paid in pre Emis. He need the house ’somehow’ to save face.

Once the house gets completed after 4-5 years from booking, a lot would have changed in their lives. The desperate few who had no other choice will move in. The rest will just sit and keep thinking what to do with this house. One drive down the OMR will tell the number of new apartments coming up. Well what one may not know was that a good portion of them were ‘upcoming’ way back in 2007.

In the apartment that I now live in, its a 200 apartment complex, only 30% of the flats are occupied. The rest are affectionately called ‘ investor flats’ by the builder community. Of course all the flats except for a few were booked/ sold out in 2007. It is in ready to occupy condition since last July. People are still ‘thinking’ but they are all very sure that the prices have gone up 50% since they booked and so it is a good investment. I think people can afford to ‘ think’ till India keeps clocking 8.x GDP.

This is not to say there is no demand. I think there is genuine demand from home buyers in the 35 lakh segment in the suburbs. But this does not mean someone will pay rs. 35000 EMi for that one bedroom apartment in thiruporur.

Given all this reality, where
- builders play hanky panicky
- interest cost keep going up
- too many apartments coming up for ‘rent’
- too many people think they can’t go wrong on their investment on real estate

My 2 cents is that the market is due for a correction. The sooner the better because the impact will be milder. Otherwise we are asking for lollapalooza effects.