Have cake, Will eat...

It was indeed out of the blue; the analysts tracking this firm were taken completely by surprise. Given the fact that Satyam was recently awarded for corporate governance, it was probably foot-in-the-mouth time for the promoters.

Satyam's decision to acquire infrastructure firms owned by sons of the promotor through cash payout has been widely criticized, what with the stock taking a major blow, down from INR 226 to 162 per share. Within a day, ~30% of shareholder's value in terms of market capitalization was wiped out. Exemplary shareholders' activism and subsequent annulling of the acquisition decisions has done little to support the stock price, at least in the domestic market.

Views of independent directors were largely ignored; leave aside the fiduciary duty of the board to the shareholders' in terms of related party transaction disclosures. As one analyst rightly pointed out, if the infrastructure sector growth story and diversification were indeed the drivers behind the deal as claimed by Satyam's top management, probably a merger through share-swap rather than cash acquisition could have been done, which would have helped Satyam's promoters avoid the furore.

Something here doesn't make sense. Satyam's promoters aren't that naive - such an acquisition was bound to evoke the negative reaction as it has. Then why did they go ahead with this announcement, trying to distribute Satyam's cash within the promoters through these acquisitions? One might wonder as to whether the buyback announced now is yet another covert way to transfer value to the promoters on the expense of other shareholders - what with the stock price taking a hammering, any buyback at this juncture would help the promoters consolidate their stake with less-than-ideal cash transfer to those who surrender their shares. Notably, the promoter's stake in Satyam is mere 8%; as such a dividend payout would have fetched little to the promoters. If returning cash to the shareholders is indeed the objective now, why not announce a hefty dividend instead.

Or perhaps they would consider the dividend once the buyback increase promoters' stake. Till then, watch out for the promoters further increasing share through secondary market trading.

P.S. Now that the entire Satyam story is out, turns out my call was rather on one end of the spectrum, the other being what turned out to be the reality- the Maytas acquisition seems to be the last ditch effort from the promotors to replace fictious assets by real assets. Well, there indeed was a hidden motive this related party transaction - but not shoring up promotor's stake leveraging the now battered stock price. Long live PwC :)

NYT Blooper!

They put me, of all people, in print!

...with a story on something to do with recession and India! I guess I was the editor's choice of the day :P They would print anything these day :)

Someone told me about this long back, but had somehow forgotten. A friend forwarded the link today - it was on the front page in the print, myself not sure about that though

(And I thought India TV was the only one when it came to sensational journalism :P)

Singapore Trip - 1

I am in Singapore these days, on a two weeks trip on an academic project. While its a short duration trip, I will try and cover as much as possible and keep the blog updated.

We are a bunch of 22 students, assigned to different projects with companies in Singapore. The Air India flight landed in the Singapore airport early in the morning. The bus ride from the airport to YMCA (where we are putting up) gave us a sneek preview of the beautiful landscape in which Singapore is set. It is an island microstate, with a total area of ~700 km-square, as wikipedia tells me. The ride was short, around 20 odd minutes, and the YMCA place turned out to be pretty nice considering the constraints of the modest budget this tudent trip was organized under.

On the first day, we went to this place called Little India. Indeed, it seemed to be a really small place with Indians and Pakistanis crammed up together, with some Sri Lankans thrown in for good measure. The place was crowded and smelled bad; with junta seeming to have little regard for traffic laws - quite strange for Singapore. Still, it felt quite closer to home in a weird way :). We visited Mustafa, this huge shopping complex where you could find anything and everything at relatively cheaper prices. One of my friends got USD exchanged for SGD, surprisingly the exchange rate offered there was much more attractive than the other places we had tried before. God knows how we Indians do it, but we always seem to be one step ahead when it comes to saving money. Dinner was a quiet affair, with everyone settling for some nice biryani. Restaurants were plentiful, with many advertising their regional cuisine speciality - India seems to be the only country who doesn't have one single "Indian" cuisine for the world, rather a diverse array of the same.

We reported to our respective offices the next morning. Mine turned out to be a startup in Out-of-Home Media, a promising new-age advertising concept rapidly gaining ground in India as well. A few hours went by exploring various parts of Singapore looking for the LCD screens this firm employed in its business, to get a first-hand feel of this form of advertising business. Felt good :)

The evening was spent in Boat Quay, a nice riverside place with a string of restaurant flanking one side. We ordered a couple of lasagnes in an Italian joint and just enjoyed the view. Instead of taking a subway train back to YMCA, we decided to walk back, stopping briefly on a Starbucks on the way to grab a coffee.

Will put up some pics as soon as I am able to get them on the lappy.

Ithaka...

It was after the CAT exam in 2004, when a member of the faculty from Roots Education, the coaching centre I was enrolled in for CAT, reminded us again of this little, marvelous piece called Ithaka...I came by it again today while visiting a friend's orkut profile...

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Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you're destined for.

But don't hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you're old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you've gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now...

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A valuable learning, and such simple simple way of putting it...

24 - A Review

Recently, I started watching 24 (A TV series). And what a wonderful experience it has been!

Something about the serial - Each season covers one full day. With 24 episodes apiece, it translates to each episode dedicated to one hour. It means, events happen in real time, with the space for commercial breaks made where the characters are doing some monotnous activity, like driving, waiting etc. In fact, each episode starts with a announcement to this effect, "The following events happen between 7AM and 8AM". Major thrilllaps!!!

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The series involves a fictious US government agency, Counter-Terrorism Unit (CTU), with the protagonist being Jack Bauer. In each season, this guy, along with the agency, tackles a major terrorist threat, ranging from assasination attempt on the would-be president, a nuclear attack to the terrorist threat of letting loose a deadly virus on the common public. The stakes are indeed high, where the casuality estimates generallly run into percentages of the total population of Los Angeles where the CTU unit is based. The storyline itself is full of action scenes which even beat the Bond movie climaxes. High tech equipment like infrared scanning and satellite surveillance are the order of the day. The plot develops quickly in the first couple of episodes, and often completely new angles are introduced at the end of each episode. Sheer violence and loss of human life is common.

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Perhaps, the most intriguing aspect is the theory of consequentialism, i.e. Ends justify the means, which is the hallmark of every action the protagonist Jack Bauer takes, be it being dedicated to his profession at the cost of his personal life, defying orders coming from as high as the presidential office itself, forcing the lone doctor at gunpoint to attend to a criminal (who happens to be the only lead in a case) leading to death of someone close, assualting peers and superiors when he deems fit and so on. Personal conflicts abound, where CTU employees have to make difficult choices between work and people they care about. Office feuds too are in plenty, where power struggles amongst the superiors often threatens to jeopardise the mission objectives.

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Couple of things that I didn't like - Jack's daughter has to be involved in some or the other way in almost every season, where she runs into trouble and Jack has to spend considerable time getting her out of it - kind of a force-fit. Also, CTU is in direct contact with the President of US himself on almost an hourly basis, which agains doesn't go very well. One can accept that critical decision points need to be referred to the highest office, but hourly updates to white house bypassing the entire chain of command doesn't fly.

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Still, this series rocks. If you are in need for some real action, thrill, drama, emotions, politics stuff in one go, this one is for you. One caution though, this stuff is highly addictive - you might want to finish off the entire season in a single sitting, such is the atmosphere it creates around you with its captivating plot, real-time onscreen display and some real power action. Awesome stuff!

Bheemeshwari

Yesterday, we a group of 10 friends, went to Bheemeshwari.

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It's a small tourist spot around 120 odd kms from Bangalore. We had booked taxis and started around 5:30 am in the morning. The journey has some scenic value, though the road is slightly in a bad shape. Once there, we entered some village to ask directions to the rafting camp. The guys over there charged us 100 bucks as "entree fee" :O, showing us some rules written in Kanadda! I guess we got some of what the foreigners experience in India, no wonder the tourism industry is in such a bad shape.

Anyways, we managed to reach the camp. Rafting was fun, the rapids over there were classified level 2. Compared to Rishikesh(level 4), it was peanuts they tell me, still we had a few instances of water splashing all over us. Coupled with the race that broke out among the three rafts backed by constant war-like cheering, the two-hour activity turned out to be real fun, albeit a bit exhausting. We were brought back to the camp in an open jeep - the 5 kilometre ride was another adventure, the driver seemed to just touch the limits "banking" laws of physics would allow on the narrow, windy road out there!

Trekking to a nearby hillock was also a decent experience. The guide took us uphill through relatively rough and steep path, while the downhill journey was on a much smoother track. There was a small watch tower on the top, am unsure of its purpose in such a remote place.

Totally exhausted, we started back to home. Surprisingly, the camp's restaurant didn't stock any cold drinks/biscuits/chips of any sort what-so-ever. However, it had beer, chilled one at that!

Nothing was better than a beerful drive back after the wonderful day :)

All in all, good fun.

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Renested...

Few posts back, I talked about this place we built here in IIMB.

As they teach in any MBA course, assets depreciate. The Peace Lounge too was in bad shape following some heavy rainfalls. At the start of this term, with ample free time in hand, we renovated the place, bringing it back to its pristine glory as befitting the balancesheet of Peace Club. Below is a sneak preview of the same.

Apart from replacing a few bedsheets and rugs, we also added a audio woofer system (!!!) as well as some new lighting effects. The event was also marked by first party of the term, which, useless to say, went into the wee hours of morning.

Let there be Peace. Amen.

Rock On...

I recently got to see a recent bollywood flick, Rock On. It won't be fair to post a complete review given the inexperienced me, but I really liked the movie for two things.

One, things were kept simple. No random love-songs or senti dialogue when freinds, exes, meet after so long a time. Two, no overacting, the bane of current bolly scenario. Acting was not superb, so to say, but no one seemed just about to jump out of their pants.

Nice watch!

Random

Nothing is going as you planned. Forget about the plan, everything is going exactly the opposite you wanted them to be heading. Nothing you do seems to be an iota of help. Friends, family and relatives none seem to be capable of offering any help. Every second that ticks by seems like a day long of agony. Every face you see seems like the devil himself. Is this life, you wonder, then I better be dead. And while introspecting in the night, you fall asleep, waking up to another day welcoming you to even more misery and pain.

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What to do? Once my friend asked me this , and then, a learned being that he was, he answered it himself.

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Cook a pot in the morning, morning after morning.

Take a nap in the afty, afty after afty.

Pour a drink every night, night after night.

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Until it passes away.

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P.S. I have to admit this is the crappiest post I have ever made, and will make in forseeable future. Still. it might appeal to a few people out there with, let's put it this way, a different sense of humor. So lets learn and put up with such stuff every once and a while.

The not-so-terrorist Killings...

Recently, several bomb explosions rocked the cities of Bangalore and Ahmadabad, while many others were prevented in the city of Surat, thanks to faulty circuit design and vigilant public. While casualties were in single digit in Bangalore, over 40 were killed in Ahmadabad. These incidents were covered in ample detail by the media for several days, and the government quickly blamed terrorist groups for disturbing social peace and playing with human life.

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The stampede in Naina Devi killed 145 pilgrims. It was a headline yesterday, today it figured somewhere in the backpages of national dailies. The government announced a relief package and a magistrate level probe. Everything is seemingly back to business now.

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Why am I writing this? Does anyone else see a parallel?

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Casualties caused by civil neglect have been much higher than those caused by terrorist acts. Still, it's the latter which catches all the attention, and whatever remedial efforts GoI actually undertakes. How much of common sense does it take to ensure proper systems around key pilgrimages, especially the high-altitude ones? I remember something similar happening in a rally organised by Miss Mayawati years back, we never seem to learn.

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Naina Devi episode is not the first in the list, and sadly won't be the last. Still, we would be more concerned about the terrorist acts perpetuated by forces from across the border over which we do not have a direct control, when perfect ingredients of equally horrible tragedies are already there within our borders, something which GoI should (and could) have addressed long back.

Heads and Tails

IIMB, as is the case with several other colleges, has a small, 24 hours canteen called Athikas, where one can go get tea and some other eatables as sandwitches, maggi etc. Nothing hi-fi, the people manning the shop are complete desi; no wonder Athikas is the favourite hang out place for us students. Notwithstanding the problems caused by the unprofessional managements (huh, that's an MBA speaking) like stockouts and hygiene neglect, people just love it.

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Recently, Amul opened a store inside the campus. Driven by the strong brand equity and the promise of healthy food, people started patronizing this new outlet, leaving Athikas owners slightly worried. To counter the threat, they stocked up on all the popular Amul items. Together with the extra services they offer, like credit line etc, Athikas once again seems to have regained the ground they lost temporarily. The Amul outlet resembles a barren land.

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However, did Amul, the company, lose out though? Its campus sales increased many times over; through Athikas and not through the Amul outlet though. Win-Win strategy!

The IIMC-XLRI Fiasco

Pagalguy.com recently had this as the main story on its home page - a video showing IIMC girls mouthing choicest of expletives during the IIMC-XLRI sports meet followed by long paragraphs on why this is unacceptable, how this classifies as the lowest level college culture could ever stoop, and that the IIMC girls (being girls and students of IIMC) should have refrained from this henious act.

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PG's arguments in favour of this article have been hollow and, as accpeted by the editorial board later on, misplaced. For, boys swear in almost all grad/postgrad colleges, PG has never cared to cover even one. But girls' swearing is a totally different ball-game for PG, it seems. Also, these girls being from IIMC, does it take away the license to do what is acceptable in other colleges?

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Notwithstanding PG's poort attempts at the positioning of this article and arguments provided thereon, it does indeed raise one valid question - Should explicit attempts be made to imbibe swearing as a part of college culture, as the article hinted at?

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Almost all inter-college sports festivals have their fair share of abusing, but indeed in the name of traditions, it seems to be formalized in IIMC campus - it appears abusing acts are rehearsed before the actual performance.

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No, IIMC is not an exception. IIMA has a top-5 tradition. IIMB has something similar, where the freshers, holding a broom you-know-where and a mug of water tugged just above the fly, recite in ample details their fantasies (often involving females from their batch) during the block parties. Many find it totally amusing, some others disgusting.

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The purpose of this post is not to criticize the IIM cultures, good and bad go along. But still, one should always try and weed out the bad stuff, be it the alleged institutionalized abusing culture of IIMC or utter disrespect for the opposite sex in IIMA/B in the name of tradition.

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The wheels are in motion. Seniors in some blocks opposed this tradition this year around in IIMB and managed to get it scrapped/reduced the vulgarity levels during their block parties. With time, hopefully, it would soon be a thing of past.

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Addeddum: The IIMC sports squad reached IIMB campus today (Aug 8), for the annual IIMB-IIMC sports meet, Samhar. To welcome the guests, the IIMB campus is all pasted with posters "Beware: This campus is under surveliance" . :)

Orkut

I have deleted my orkut profile.

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Orkut was fun, scrapping friends all sort of weird messages was a good enough timepass activity. What with the cool applications orkut just added (someone told me they stole it from facebook), it was just awesome.

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More for me came from the communities. For example, I joined the so-called India Pakistan Friendship Club (IPFC) just to bash some Pakis around. Instead I met some really incredible people from both sides of the border, who had formed a similar and smaller, but a much better community, IPFC Snobs - cheeky name:) Not contributing much myself, but it was thrilling to go through the lively debates these guys enagged in. Made some great friends and still in contact with. Then there was a school community I started, which helped me get back in contact with so many friends - we even managed to organize a couple of get-togethers. Or the IIMB Batch of 2009 community where we had helluva fun before even joining IIMB.

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But my friends list got unmanageable, over 600 and growing. Call it a bane from being a small town, where everyone seems/pretends/tries to know everyone else, or getting ito IIT, where your batch, and the immediate junior/senior hostelmates drop a friend request without even a courteous "hello" to go along with, or the IIM thing, which I mentioned once back here. I don't know, but getting such freind requests from people on pretext of such (shaky) common grounds just didn't work for me. Anyways, I accpeted them all, saamnewala might find it insulting otherwise. Networked, in literal sense.

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Anyhow, the bottom line is, I was spending too much time on it, day-after-day. Good Riddance!

Quartered...

Yesterday, ony of my friends turned 25. Celebrated it in the pure IIMB ishtyle, but also served to remind me that I too am gonna touch the same milestone a couple of weeks down the line. 25...Whoa! One hell of a ride so far...

So many things in life seem set to change at this juncture - college life is almost ending, the nite-outs with friends gonna be a distant thing, carefree laughter might also give way to oh-so-adult look, and what with the talks of nuptial thingy doing the rounds back at home (hah, thats definitely gonna wait dad), seems like the favourite boys' pastime would soon be a thing of the past :P

Time for dinner :)

Reason...

These are some excerpts from a friend's blog I really liked.

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"...So, whether we love or not is not important. What is important is whether we make appropriate pairings and add to our already excessive population..."

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"...Another thought: In Mahabharat, Kunti has the blessing that she will forever remain young. Somebody asks, Yudhisthir, "Don't you lust after your mother?" Yudhisthir says, yes, but I control my passions through reason.

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Reason, be reasonable..."

Of groups and sub-groups...

R(elative) G(rading) - giri, a common phrase used here in IIM Bangalore - almost always in a derogatory sense, i.e. when some students try score points through some seemingly unethical ways over their peers. Well, each to his/her own place :)

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But then, several students (including yours truly) have taken a seemingly high moral grounds on this issue, ridiculing these RG-giri-doers. And yet, I remember umpteen number of times when a prof has announced a group work in class, leaving the group formation to the students. What did we, the anti-RG squad, used to do? Try and form a group with people you know have above average calibre, before others swoosh them away. So much so that 2nd term onwards, as soon as the announcement was made, we, the above-average calibre guys, just used to signal each other through a wink of eye and form the group, while sitting in different corners of the lecture theatre!

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Well, a certain part of it is attributable to the comfort level one develops while working with the same set of people, and indeed, most of those students are today my best friends around. In fact, now it is almost given that everyone will form groups within his/her own friends' group, and this whole group formation exercise is reduced to fitting these smaller 'friends-groups' into the project groups while still observing the constraints of the upper cap on project group membership. But still, this comfort level was on level zero during the first few courses, we knowing each other barely, apart from the one's background (and hence the perceptive measure of calibre).

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But then, isn't one of the objectives of group work - peer learning from a diverse set of people - defeated when students work in same groups for the entire tenure of MBA?

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Working with different people each time has its own advanatges. One, you meet new people, and thus further developing the very network touted as the single most important advantage MBA offers. Two, you stand to gain learnings in terms of working with people with unknown temperaments/skills/mindsets. Three, when you know your groupmates are not your friends, you realize that your every contribution to the groupwork can be openly grilled through frank questions in front of the entire team. Last, but not the least, it tends to develop a real team spirit, taking up someone else's work (who is not your friend) due to time committment clashes for the person concerned.

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IMO, groups here should be randomly formed, course after course. If left to students, they would always take the (seemingly) easier route - dost hai na.

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And yeah, this also means an off-chance you get to work with a hot babe - of course, if Murphy doesn't have his say :)

Birds of a Feather...

It's a common practice in IIMB to party around on the drop of a hat. Now that the new batch has joined, the seniors are busy partying with these guys on pretext of some or the other common ground. For example, today, the 2nd year students in IIMB who graduated from IITD threw a dinner party to their counterparts in the 1st year - kind of a welcome gesture for the newbies. Slightly amusing too, as some of these 1st year guys were my seniors in IITD on account of heavy pre-MBA work experince.

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We already have had the freshers grand welcome party. A separate girls-only party was also organized. Then came the individual "block" parties (IIMB doesn't have big hostels, rather small blocks of 30-50 rooms each, interconnected through corridors). And now, alumni meet from various reputed grad colleges as IITs, BITS, DCE/NSIT etc...Of course, I am not complaining - parties are fun :)

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A not-so silver lining though, which I noticed today - they also have what they call the "tam" party, the "gult" party etc. Somehow, the idea of forming groups based on your native regions has never gone down well with me, more so because this trend seems to be prevalent only in the southern states - I can't, for the life of me, try and organize a Delhi/UP/Punjab meet (Though one of my friends was suggesting a Chandigarh treat, but that was purely because the 1st year has some good looking girls from over there). Two further observations cause discomfort to me:

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1. Somehow, the southies here tend to stick together. Not all of them, but still an all-Southie friends' group is a much more common sight than an all-Northie group. For example, my friends' group has two guys from Gujrat, three from Jharkhand/Bihar, two from UP, one each from Bengal, MP, Chandigrah, Mumbai and Orissa. Somehow, we always miss out on Tamil Nadu/Kerala/Karnataka/Andhra guys and they seem to miss out on us.

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2. I did not observe regionalism to this extent in my IIT hostel life - My hostel had southies in single-digit and they didn't use to hang out together. Ditto for the immediate senior as well as junior batches over there.

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One of my close southie friend (outside the group I talked about above) had an explanation for it - One, there is always this language barrier which prevents southies from freely intermingling with Northie guys; Two, southies in general are more humble/modest and might feel slightly out-of-place in the company of chalaak Northies; Three, the Northies (again, in general) might have some inherent racial color-based prejudice against southies in their unconscious.

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Well, probable reasons these might be for this groupism, justifications they are definitely not. I will try and analyze this further in some future posts, especially what implications it has on Life@IIMB.

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And oh, this also holds true for north-eastern states, but the number is so small that it is hardly noticeable.

The Nesting Place...

What's Peace Club?

"Peace Club was founded by its board members with the single, holy mission in their selfless minds - to spread peace in this war-torn world using the tried and tested medium of alcohol...Till date, several General Body Meetings (GBMs) have been conducted on the roof-tops across various hostel blocks to spread our message of peace emphatically and efficiently. Night outs have been put in during these GBMs; the members have discussed several burning issues facing the IIMB junta at length. Since we had the hostel residents’ best interests at our heart, our efforts have paid off – the voice of Peace Club can be heard echoing through the nights"

In a nutshell, a group of friends whiling away time, partying, on hostel rooftopes here in IIM Bangalore. What we were missing was a common area, a place truly becoming of us peace-lovers. This is what we erected, took us 2 days and 25 grand.

Name is The Lounge...The Peace Lounge...

I love this place. I love my friends. Let there be Peace! Amen.

P.S. As John Lennon aptly put it, "All we are saying is give PEACE a chance."

Connecting People...

"At the end of the day. the biggest takeaway for you from a business school would not be the academic gyaan from classrooms. Rather, it would be the network you build across three batches; the immediate (senior + junior) batches along with your own."

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Thus spoke a senior during one of the facchha interaction/gyaan session when I joined IIM Bangalore. Makes sense, and have seen some examples too during the summer internship.

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However, some of the junta around here has taken it in a slightly more serious colour - desperately trying to connect to all of their batchmates despite having absolutely no commmon ground for interaction with many of them - no common classes/friends/hostel/club activities - nothing. It started off with mass-friendship requests on orkut (My orkut friend list inflated by over a 100 on joining IIMB while I am on talking terms with barely a 50-odd junta). Then came the gtalk add-requests from people I have just seen faces of a couple of times on the campus, which I find fairly intrusive. And finally, the seemingly innocent queries / comments on bracket (IIMB messenger) regarding next day classes/exam syllabi, which could have been answered by someone in their own friends' circle as well.

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Not many do the last bit, only a handful of people come down to that level. Slightly ironical though; the same network might work against you if, in the process of building it, you tarnish your image :)

Me Sai Baba Boltoy

Desi News Channels have long been serving as your friendly neighbourhood laughter clubs. Lately, however, it seems that these channels have taken up this (corporate) social responsbility in a much more serious manner.

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Aaj tak has been screaming for past 3 days how the fake video of Sai Baba is fake (the irony of the poor grammar construct, surprisingly, completely misses the production team). Star News is busy telling how it has been issued a Thank You note by the Sai Baba ashram for bringing it to their notice. "Bhakton ki bhavnaon ke saath Khilwaad" was the tagline on another news channel, not to mention the "Breaking News" caption being used for past 72 hours. Sure breaks something, though doesn't break in.

Of course, one gets such jewels all the time. I remember the time when Star News used to give regular updates on the happenings in its two popular serials - Kyunki... and Kahaani... during the news bulletins. Aaz Tak recently gave what seemed to be a day long telecast of a cellphone recording of strange lightening in the sky with no official version to support the same. Every news channel gave a 24 hour live coverage of the Prince case, while none tried to give a perspective to the viewers on the real reasons behind the accident, and what's the extent of risk of such an incident recurring. (A newspaper reported a similar incident few days after Prince, completely ignored by the TV media). Hike in fares in Vaishno Devi Temple was dished for 2 days with captions as "Ma, ye kya hua". And of course, Arushi episode has been hanged, drawn and quartered. Further examples from two leading news channels -

I remember the days when Aaztak was launched - wealth of relevant information presented in a neutral tone in a flawless and articulate manner. Why has the national TV news media of today completely converted to some page 3 tabloid, hanging on to every catchy news bit, squeezing out the last drop, beating the neighbourhood-ganne-ka-joos-wala in the process. Leave it for the local print media, for crying out loud.

The Hall-of-the-Fame moment however would have to be the one where an AazTak field reporter yelled in that characteristic fake terrorised tone, while in the vicinity of a murder scene - "Dekhiye, Dekhiye, yahi hai wo dukaan jahan Kaatil ne katal karne se pehle chai pee thi......Ye vehshi darinda katal jaisi ghinanuni vaardaat anjaam dene se pehle takalluf ke saath chai pee sakta hai to Sochiye, Sochiye aur kya ker sakta hai......Ye kahin bhi ho sakta hai, yahan, wahan, aapke ghar ke peechhe gali me..."

I sure am loving it...

Musings

Moonlight bathes the road ahead
Stars shining their glory bright
Little blades of grass pave the way
As one sets the next foot in the night.

Breezy air brushes against the skin
A touch so sublime; One wonders,
This journey seems so alive
And the past just flashes by

Those days in school, kids around you,
Dreamy eyes; Slurping away the candy bars
The bell goes, it's time to trek back
Alone, as we have different paths

The birthdays and the cakes
Oft landed kisses on the cheek
The candles just keep gaining numbers
Blazing together; a whiff to bow them apart.

And one keeps walking; making friends
Whiling away time through the nights
Smoking the first drag, (remember)
Things start making sense sometimes

Here comes the graduation day
Lost in tides of orange and blue
Years of slog gets you the paper
Destined again, for a lonely stride

The rosy dew, the sweet scent
Someone's been hanging to your right
One tries hold on, but it fades away;
Grains of sand slip through the hands

And life goes on, as you walk
Right down the road, till the end
Dawn is breaking on the horizon
And the air starts moving again.

Life has meanings locked up deep
Solitude holds the key.

You f*** with us, We f*** with you...

I was going over my macroeconomics book while preparing for an exam, and something caught my eye - "Disadvantages of using GDP growth rate as a yardstick to measure economic welfare of the residents of a country" - one of them being GDP not being able to measure income disparity. 'Aah', I said to myself, 'some frank admission!'

My mind went into a flash back - last year, there was a huge uproar on national scale against the new reservation policy stipulating higher quotas for SC/ST/OBC categories. Merit was the new buzzword - students protesting with banners held high was a common scene outside AIIMS and some DU colleges in Delhi. The IIT Delhi guys too woke up from their slumber and decided to stage a protest outside the main gate of the institute. I was there, and watched them do that, protest that is - a few of them were cleaning windshields of the parked cars, a couple of them opened up fake cobbler shops and were cleaning shoes of the bystanders. Another group held banners, stating that this is all what they, the best minds of the country, were destined to do due to increased reservation quotas, since merit won't be the criteria to get admission to IITs, the incompetent ones getting the ticket riding on the wave of reservation. There was a roaring applause from the amused audience, and the media covered it alrite.

Personally, I felt disgusted as an IIT alumnus, as a person born to "high-caste" parents, and as a fellow human being. After all this pomp and show, the only argument I could see being made was that cleaning cars and shining shoes is the only job fit for the so-called lower caste guys, the premise being that these guys were quintessentially low on their IQ. To me, these bright IIT minds were doing exactly the same thing what the current reservation policy is doing, widening the social divide. You f*** with us, We f*** with you...

My objective of writing this post is not to argue in favor of reservation. Or against it, for that matter. For, I do not support the blanket x% quota for SC/ST/OBC. But then, I am also against the idea of doing away with the concept of reservation, or the alternative being suggested i.e. to provide reservation on the basis of economic condition and not caste. And my arguments against each of these are based on one simple fact - the Indian history. (And no, it is not that garbage of you-screwed-my-grand-grand-grandfather-and-hence-I-demand-reservation-to-screw-you, the same old You f*** with us, We f*** with you).

But more on that some other day. One thing I would like to mention though, we cannot shy away from the fact that social status and economic welfare go hand in hand, there is plethora of empirical data available to support it. Which one's the cause and which one's the effect, I really don't know, it's the same thing as who came first, chicken or the egg - doesn't matter.

To that end, India's position is unique - the complex social hierarchy as defined by caste system is found only here. A much-celebrated paper even cited caste system as the underlying reason why India didn't witness the economic cycle of feudalism->socialism->capitalism and the associated (government-aided) civil atrocities observed in whole of the Europe, US, Russia, China, Japan etc. What can be other, not-so-visible, consequences of caste system? What can be the toll of keeping a section of society deprived of education for several centuries? Add to that the literal ban on inter-caste marriage which confined some things that can be passed on only through genetic means, and the picture doesn't look good any more. A vicious circle is in place - you are born poor in your doomed caste, you don't inherit anything - material or abstract - from your parents, you don't get good education due to your poverty, you don't get a decent job and hence a living due to your dismal education, and then you marry someone from a similar socio-economic class and proceed to have children to follow exactly in your footsteps.

The current reservation policy is not a solution to it, as it bestows its benefits upon the already well-off creamy layer of the lower caste population. But instead of crying hoarse against it in the name of merit, we should first think of some other means to bridge this caste-borne income disparity. Merit isn’t something you earned completely through your own efforts, most of it is the IQ you were born with. So why do the kids born in the Indian ghettos not up to the IQ levels of an average kid born to a brahmin/baniya family? Why is that the low-caste students from the creamy layer who get into IITs/IIMs based on reservation perform poorly in academics in general, despite having received decent primary/secondary education? The last question, incidentally, also serves as an argument as to why an economic status based reservation system would not work.

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The need of the hour is to find answers to these questions through in-depth research and analysis, and take steps to correct for the same. But until then, the Arjun Singhs of this world would continue playing vote-bank politics through ever-new reservation announcements, the benefits of the quota-system would keep on accumulating in the laps of the undeserving creamy layer of low caste section, the high-caste guys would continue hating those from low-caste due to the adverse impact of reservation on the former, while the real oppressed ones would remain confined to the lowest rung of socio-economic ladder as they had always been. Then, some day, a couple of them will take up guns and raise the same old slogan, "You f*** with us, We f*** with you".

P.S. The title of this post is inspired from a tee-shirt I just bought. I can't seem to remember the manufacturer's name for acknowledgement - it's not viral marketing anyways.