WGAF Jessica

I received and sms yesterday that if I really really cared about late Ms Jessica Lall and wanted to ensure that her murderers are brought to book I should forward the sms to other like minded people. It went on to say that it was shameful that the accused had driven away scot fre in a government car and so on. I resisted the urge to reply to the sender that frankly WGAF about Jessica. And the only like mindedness that existed amongst these spammers was a mass manufactured shoddily written SMS, written by some TV channel or the other which received a cut of the proceeds every time you sent an sms to them in support of Jessica.

But then I got another sms and another one. I guess that I was the only insensitive bastard who had forgotten about Ms Lall for the last six and half years. Everyone else it seems has been making visits to the Delhi sessions court and keeping in close touch with Jessica's family.
But while I might be insensitive at least I am not as dumb as these other bastards. Unlike the 'outraged' Barkha Dutt and a 'stunned' Rajdeep Sardesai who are the benchmarks for todays intellengtsia I was quite confident back then that the accused will go away scot free.

This is India and when was the last time that we heard a high profile public figure ever being convicted for any crime. I mean it does not take a genius to figure that when a mass murderer is a chief minister, a Rs 1400 crore fodder digester is a minister, and a boy who runs people over with a BMW ends up becoming a business magnate covered by leading newspapers, that justice is not exactly round the corner in this country. I could go on and on with this list but frankly WGAF. And unlike those sms senders I t least remember the old adage that 'A fool and his money soon are parted' and refuse to part with any of my money to these news twits.

Yes Yes I know that tomorrow it could be me or it could be my daughter but if you think that sending an SMS is going to be the harbinger of change then I wonder how you guys ever managed before a mobile phone was invented. It's a scary country and I know that. Jessica' case is at best a reminder that we are nothing but ostriches who bury our heads in the sensex and take comfort from it reaching the 10,000 mark. WGAF

PS
For those of you who might have wondered about WGAF- Who Give A Fuck

The Interview

I am just back from an interview. It was with one of India's leading newspaper dailies for a job as a journalist. And it was quite hilarious (I don't see myself getting the job).

It started off with the giy interviewing me wanting to know why I had quit advertising to join journalism (that was three years ago). I told him rather honestly that I was bored and I had seen an ad looking for journos, applied, got a response and they gave me the job. He then wanted to know if I had found journalists to be different from managers. I replied that the difference I saw is that they did not seem to like managers or management much. That was not the answer he was looking for so he put the question again in a more convoluted manner and I gave him the same reply in a even more convoluted way. He then decided to change tack and asked me what area would I be comfortable writing on. I told him that advertising would be the natural area of strength but my interests were varied and I quite enjoyed writing on anything under the sun.

This answer too did not please him and he said if there was one area which you would like to write on which would it be. I told him that there was no such area and while advertising would be the natural area of strength I take that as a granted. He said but there are some kinds of reporting which needs contacts so where would my contacts be. I told him that would be in advertising and business circles thanks to my previous job. He then told me that in this paper everyone could write across the paper. I told him that was good since it is what I wanted to do. And then he said that even then I must have an area of specialisation.

Clearly we were going in circles.

He then asked me if I would be comfortable doig number based stories. Analysing numbers and such stuff. Obviously if you are an MBA from IIMC you are supposed to be good with numbers. I told him that I would love to give it a try but the truth was that in India numbers were quite unreliable. He agreed weakly and said but still would I be willing to look at numbers.

At this point he decided to ask me why I had quit my previous job. I told him that I was very bored and tired of doing the same thing again and again. And that I had cribbed to my former employers but they kept patting me on my head saying what a great job i was doing and that I should not worry about monotony and lack of work. Another dead end (i am sure a good answer would have been that I was hungry for new challenges or something like that)

He then asked me if I had any experience in production. I told him that I did if they used QuarkXpress. He then told me how when he had been with my former employer he was the one who had lobbied for Quark and implemented it across the organisation. I told him that was great since I could not think of anything else to say.

At this point another guy entered the room and the first man benignly nodded to the new guy that I was all his. That guy also asked me what it was that I would like to do and I gave him the same response as before. He too looked perplexed and then told me that surely there must be something that I would like to specialise in . I told him that I would like to write satire . But that was not the right answer and he said what else. I told him I was OK to writing on everything else. He then asked me that ok which area did I think was an area of weakness for the paper. I told him that I don't really read the paper and even if I did these things were not things that I gave much thought to. Instead, I suggested that he could tell me which were the three weak areas and I could tell him which area I would like to work with. He just looked perplexed.

Then he asked me if I had to make the rail budget interesting what would I do. The truth is that the railway budget is a bore and nobody but journalists make a big fuss about it. Now since I could not say that I told him that I would write about the railways in general. Like it was run by Anglo Indians once (i quoted John Masters' Bhowani Junction), why is the infrastructure so bad and why is it not privatised etcetera. He replied that I would have known about the anglo indians from my days at IIM calcutta since Kharagpur and some other station have large concentrations of anglos. I wanted to tell him that we never bothered about remote places like Kharagpur in IIM Cal but decided to just listen.

He then asked me what was I doing currently. I told him that I was writing, reading and running. He looked at me like I was a raving lunatic and then thankfully for him his mobile phone rang and he left.

The first guy now asked me more of the same andI replied more of the same> he then asked me my salary and said he would get back to me in a day or two.

I am convinced now that I am a bad interview taker but what amuses me more is that I could have said I want to write only on advertising and got this job. I could have said that I love numbers and its such a great idea to analyse numbers and flattery might have gotten me the job. The simple truth that I enjoy writing and I could be of use to them across more than one sphere somehow seemed too far-fetched. What a life!

Book Review: Shantaram

A Big Fat Good Book

I have been keen to buy the book given that one has seen so many slums in Bombay (and elsewhere), heard so much about the underworld but never has one had the opportunity to read an insiders account of these things. However two things scared me. The first was that most of the reviews it got from the socialite press (Shobha De and her ilk) were very favourable - I was scared that I might sending good money after bad things- and secondly the size. A thousand pages just seemed like a little too much even for unemployed me. (The last time I read a thousand pages book, it was The Magic Mountain and just when I heave a sigh of relief at having finished it the author said that for those who had managed to finish the book once they should re-read the book again. Madman!)

I finally narrowed down to two options one was to go and read the book entirely in Crossword and the second was to find someone who could lend me the book. I finally took option two and borrowed the book from Mitali.

I now plan to add the book to my ever diminishing library (all those of ye who have borrowed my books please return them). It’s a great book and one that is hard to put down once you start reading it.

I won’t go into the plot (you can all just go and read the back-cover the next time you are in a book shop) but rather will delve in to what I found interesting the book and things that many reviewers have ignored for some reason or the other.

I have always wondered as to how slum dwellers manage in those tiny tiny sheds surrounded by muck and grime. It seems impossible that one can spend a week in one of those things forget a lifetime. So how do they keep their sanity? What is it that prevents them from mugging me as I walk with a 10,000 rupee mobile phone in a 2000 buck jeans and a 2000 buck sneaker. After all that’s about the money that they might make after a year of hard labour. But all I could do was speculate since no one I knew had a clue of what goes on inside these places. People like them are not known to people like us. We love India and unka bharat mahaan.

As I read the book it seemed rather ironical that I was finally getting to learn about the mechanics of a slum and life in a slum through the eyes of a foreigner. Gregory Roberts, to his credit does not either romanticise or seem agahst with the living conditions. He explains rather matter of factly what keeps life here ticking and how it ticks. Often as I passed by a slum I have wondered how come the children are smiling and the people do not seem angry with all the wealth around them. I wondered how people managed to live in those unruly assortments of plastic and tin sheets. How come they were not at each others throats all the time given their cramped lifestyle and appalling environment. Through Roberts one learns that it is not so unruly and despite its unruly appearance there is a system in place adn rules by which life is led in a slum. Roberts gives a deatailed acoount as to how and why these people live out a life which has little hope of improvement with a smile on their life.

Roberts also dwells on his own kind, the foreigners who have made India their home. Ever since I came to Bombay in 1994 I have wondered what exactly is with this place Leopolds. There are always so many foreigners hanging out there and they all seem to be more at home than the Indians there. Roberts delves deep into the cult of Leopold and it is quite fascinating to discover that many of those foreign tourists are not tourists but residents of the country, who have their own unique stories and live and work here illegally but with a tacit understanding with the cops and relevant bureaucracy. I suppose the next time that I go to Leopolds I will be looking at the foreigners there very differently, thanks to Roberts.


Roberts also give the reader an insiders look into the jobbers of Bombay streets - the touts, pimps, tourist guides, drug peddlars. We all know that they exist and we interat with them sometimes barking at them for trying to fleece us as we step out of airports and train-stations, but at least I have never wondered where do these people stay what brought them to these jobs and how do they think of this nation this city. For the first time through Shantaram's eyes one gets to see what their lives are about and realise that they are no less or no more devious than us. Life on the street is uncertain and while they might make a fat killing today the next few weeks could be completely without pay.

For all his love of for Bombay and India, he does not shy away from talking about the lawlessness, the corruption, the arbitrariness, the inewuity, the nexus amongst the rich and the powerful. What is nice is that he does it as just another part of his jjourney. All of us know that for all our talk of the coming century belonging to India, a model can get shot at party with 100 people present and no one sees a thing. Politicians can be caught taking money on tape and still retain their jobs. Shantaram is a timely reminder that not much has changed in two decades since Roberts was in India.

As to his experience with the underworld what I found fascinating was that it seems to have been more multinational than MNCs in India with people from various countries playing an active part. But perhpas the part that I found most intriguing was the conversations that the author and the underworld don engage in. The true nature of good and evil. Is life about doing the wrong things for the right reason or the right things for the wrong reasons.

And once you have read the book you somehow can just imagine Johnny Depp essaying this role and I guess I am waiting for the movie now.

Book Review: Liar's Poker

Money Talks

This is a book that I was reading for a second time and it was just as enjoyable as when I read it for the first time almost 10 years ago. The book primarily traces the rise and fall of Salomon Brothers in the 1980s. For those of you who are in the high world of finance this a must read given that it is the story of the heady days of Wall Street in the 1980s when Michael Milkin paid himself a whopping $550 million bonus one year, not to mention the very interesting game that lends its name to the title of the book.

I am not a high-finance type and therefore what cuts it for me in this book though is the way Michael Lewis describes students preparing for job interviews, training sessions, the politics of organisations, the insecurities of managers and the smug self-righteousness that all firms profess to have. For anyone who has worked as a manager anywhere in the world the entire situation is totally relatable and makes for engaging reading. He makes the point rather tellingly that there is no such thing as a win-win in business. If you are winning then someone out there is losing. Though he never says it in these many words he does suggest that ethics in business is at best a strategic weapon or a convenient ploy when you find yourself at the short end of the stick.

And that is something that I identify with. As far as I am concerned nothing amuses me more than this debate on ethics in organisations and whether ethics can and should be taught at business schools and such other crap.

We all know that management has legitimised all kinds of subversions under the name of strategy. A hundred years ago if you were fighting a war and switched sides you would have been called a traitor. Today managers who defect from one company to another (armed with diskettes, cds etc) are welcomed as heroes. If you stabbed a man in the back you were called a coward but corporations thump their chests when they indulge in such action calling it ambush marketing. I do believe that hundreds of years from now people will dig up the graves of managers and hang their skeletons on flagpoles and point us out and say "These were the bastards who legitimised all kinds of shady behaviour by calling it strategy. They are the fuckers who mades treachery, cowardice, avarice, traitorous behaviour, acceptable by giving a positive spin."

Coming back to the book Michael Lewis also brings out rather well how most organisations made it because they took risks but once they succeed they invariably want to reduce risk by hiring far more selectively, relying in models rather than gut and therein cede their advantage to younger more entrepreneurial firms. He also deals with the subject of money and how it becomes an obsession for high flying managers who tend to measure their worth in terms of what they earn.

I guess the first time I read the book I was young and wanted to be a big swinging dick (what high flying managers in Salomon were called) and was perhaps a tad disappointed by what I perceived as Lewis’ cynicism at the end of the book. Maybe I am wiser now or maybe I am just too old but this time the ending just seems more apt.

Heard On The Street

These are two interesting conversations that I happened to overhear on the street.
This first one was on a street in Pune (For those of you who are familiar with the place it was on MG Road in Camp). Anand and I were standing and conversing outside a tailer shop which was shutting its doors. A portly woman was shutting the doors of the shop from the inside (it was a shop cum residence) when a swarthy man marched upto the door and started abusing in what sounded like Kutchi or Gujarati. One of the good things about Indian languages is that even if you can't understand all of them you just know when a guy is abusing. The cuss words are never said they are spat out with disdain and contempt that is unique to them. In this case the man was repeatedly referring to an anonymous mother and sister in colourful language. The lady said something that ired him even more and he added some private parts of the male anatomy to the conversation as well. The man finally sped off and the lady turned and began yelling at a man who was presumably her husband, but had remained comfortably in the background while this incident took place.
Ten minutes later the abuser was back and this time the man of the shop/housewas waiting at the door for him. Anand and I imagined that the abuser was going to get as good as he had just given. We were wrong. The abuser let out another string of abuses and continued to be agitated whilst this man stood quietly. When the abuser ran out of breath the shop-man told the abuser that he was making a fool of himself by talking to women. The shop-man told the abuse r rather nonchalantly that how could he take women seriously and did he not know that women have little or no sense. For a good ten minute the shop-man ran down women in general adding his own string of abuses towards some more anonmous mothers and sisters.
And then the two shook hands and parted.

The second one was at a bus-stop in Bandra where one man resting on his cycle was talking to a friend. The gentleman on the cycle was trying to tell his friend to be careful of som woman pointing out that a woman's tongue was like a snake's tongue and therefore the word of a woman was worthless. Everytime the other guy said something the cycle-guy would remind him that he should not trust a woman

Both these incidents coupled with Ms Lalita Pawar in the hospital make me wonder about the status of women in this country and I guess that what Vrinda Nabar says in her finely written book "Caste as a woman" about women being oppressed along the caste lines is rather true.

Sehwag Ya Sania

Parents who are expecting children are often asked whether they want a boy or a girl. But as I was waiting at the hospital I heard a young girl who was waiting for her sister/sister-in-law to deliver say, "nahin abhi pata nahin ki ki Sehwag hai ya Sania." And finally when the baby was born she furiously dialled numbers and announced "Sehwag hua hai" .
Not bad I thought that the younger generation has figured that there is more money in getting children to be sportstars rather than the usual engineers and doctors.
PS
Just to puncture my happiness though I heard later in the ward some old Lalita Pawar types tell the mother how while even girls are good the joy a woman feels when she has a son is something else.

I want a new drug

Spent the last two weeks in Pune and the lack of broadband in my mums house meant that I could not blog. But the good part is that the visit has given me sufficient material for the next two weeks. I went to Pune because my mother was to undergo a cataract operation. Given that the old man served in the Indian army, the old lady had to be taken to the army hospital, in this case the Command Hospital. Usually if you have seen one hospital you have seen them all but believe you me army hospitals are in a league of their own.

The Command Hospital
A brief desription of the hospital is a must since it puts things in perspective. It is probably a 150 acre campus (I am just including the buildings and wards) spread across seven or eight distinct enclosures. By that I mean that you cannot walk through the whole hospital at a stretch without encountering main roads open to public traffic as well. Built in the days of the Raj (my 72 year old mother remembers her younger sister being admitted there a young girl) it is definitely one of those monuments that heritage lovers would be proud of but modern hospital administrators will despair. The ward for example has 40 feet high ceilings, with tubelights which are supnded into the center of the room, a ventilator which has probably been untouched by human hand since independence and large window which are never opened. Many of the departments are housed in old barrack style structures which probably housed World War II soldiers at some point. There are no road names so it is a trifle hard to get your bearings in this place. Moreover given that all barracks lookalike it is possible to move in circles for a long time. The last time I went there almost 18 years ago it took over an hour to find the patient I had gone to see.)


Admission Day
We reach a place within the Command Hospital where all patients are admitted. My mother remains in the car while she hands me and a friend a bunch of papers which I have to use to get her admitted. We enter the place and there are three army-men behind the counter (despite what they show on NDTV the truth is that a large chunk of the army-men are pen pushers). Step one is to gain the attention of one these men. It is a trifle difficult since they are all busy making entries in the good old register.( If you are wondering about computers, then there is a solitary computer (looks like a 386) which is standing in the corner whose use I am to discover in a moment. )
Finally one of them looks up at me and says, "Admit karana hai?" I reply in the affirmative and he hits a button on the computer and it prints a form. He then asks me for the patients name, which i dutifully tell him, my fathers IC number and regiment, my address and so on. Having taken these details from me he proceeds to copy by hand these details in two more places on the form. He then asks for the smart card to copy some details from it onto the form. Unfortunately the makers of the the smart card were not very smart and the information he wants is in such fine print that he lets out a hearty abuse at the makers of this abomination. Fortunately for him people like my mother, who after years of dealing with the fauj, are smart enough to have taken an enlarged xerox which I hand over to him.
That one act makes that man smile at me and indulge in some polite conversation. As he hands the form over to me he looks at his pen and observes that the refill which he had procured in the morning is almost exhausted.
Not having dealt with the fauji bureaucracy in year I take the form and wonder what to do till he tells me to get it signed by the doctor in charge. So i got to a room nearby and get the form signed by the doc. I come back with the form and asks for 200 bucks for getting the patient admitted. My mom however has told me that I should show him the previous receipt, which she is supposed to get a refund of and has not yet taken it, and not pay him the money. I show him the previous receipt and he is aghast that I have not collected the refund. Says he, "Why have you not taken the money back? You are supposed to take it two days after the patient is discharged. Refund and admission fees are seperate so you will have to pay the 200 rupees."
I am more than glad to pay him the money and try to get out of this place when another patient or patient's relative tell me that I should not worry about the refund. "This is the army," he says, "they have to give your money back. You go and ask for it now."
I tell him that I will do it later and sneak out of the place.
From this place I have to go to family ward 29 which is about a kilometre away and in a different complex. So we go to the ward, give the papers to my mother and deposit her in ward 29, room number 10. The operation is the next day at the Upper OT at 7.30 I am told.

Operation
I reach ward 29 at 7.15 am and my mother is gtting ready to go for the operation. A army three tonne comes to take all patients who are being operated that day. And while I drift a little off-topic those of you who do not know a three tonne vehicle might find this quite engaging.
The army would describe the three tonner as a vehicle which is somthing betwen a one tonner and ten tonner. A better description would be imagine a vehicle one and a half times the size of a scorpio and about twice as unwieldy. Now this vehicle might be a fine one for troops who are rushing into battle but it is hard to imagine who conceived that it could be used as an ambulance as well. For starters there is a iron drop ladder with no railings making it quite difficult for old people to climb up into the vehicle and just as difficult for them to climb out. Shock absorbers are unheard off and the inside is crammed with a number of addition making it extremely cramped and uncomfortable.
nevertheless the old lady manages to get on to the three tonne and I follow the vehicle on my bicycle since I have no clue where the Upper OT is (asking directions is meaningless since all people say is it's near the dental center, which is close to the MI room, opposite the training ground - none of which I known in the first place). So the three tonner makes it way out of the family ward 29 complex and proceeds to another enclosure where the Upper OT is.
My mother goes into the operating theatre. So there I am waiting with numerous other relatives of patients and we all are just standing around. A coupl of hours go by and out comes my mother. Now I have to wait for an ambulance to take her back. the ambulance arrives - another three tonner. We reach family ward 29 and go to room No 10. All my mother's stuff is missing. I seat her on the bed and go to meet the sister-in-charge. The sister on duty tells me that she has just come so she does not know and I will have to wait till the head matron comes to figure out the case of the missing objects. She however assures me that this is the army and so there is no chance that it has been stolen. I manage to source a blanket and a pillow in the meanwhile. Fifteen minutes later the head matron comes and reveals that my mother's room has been shifted to the adjoining one. I move my mother to that ward and finally get away from the fauj for a bit.
In the evening my momtold me that she had forgotten some eye-drops that she was supposed to get from home. The nurse said that she did not have the drops but that the doctor who made his rounds in the evening might have them. The doctor who dropped by said that he did not have them and told me that I could collect them from the eye department which was next to the Lower OT. I decided that it was pointless to ask him where the lower OT was since I would be told it was near the ENT ward or something. I tried asking my mom for directions but hardened army wife that she is she gave me similar instructions. I finally found the place and got the drops gave them to my mom and retreated home for some beers


The Day After

It was Republic day and the three tonne was supposed to start late from the ward to the eye department since everyone had to go for the flag-hoisting and the parade. However, by the time I reached the eye department the old lady had already been spirited away to the eye department. The eye department was another old army type barrack and there were scores of patients sitting outside. My mother being both an officers wife and a senior citizen was seated next to the doctor when I reached. The doctor was busy writing forms and filling registers concerning the discharge papers of other patients while my mother waited. I must say here that I admired the doctors patience, considering the number of patients there, she would spnd as much time with paper-work as she did with patients. (here there was no computer at all). Finally the doctor took my mom in removed her bandage and certified that all was well. And so we took the old lady back to the ward.


The Discharge
Once again I first made my way to Ward 29 and picked up my mother and then went to the eye department. There was the usual paper-work and the doctor finally told my mother that she was fine and she could go home. I was given a bunch of papers and I had to deposit this with the wardmaster of ward 29 to secure her release. The ward-master told me I have to 25 bucks my mom wanted it adjusted against the money she had paid, he said that they were two different accounts and no reconciliation was possible. Finally I paid the 25 bucks and took her home.

Post Script
I had to take my mom a week later for another check up and this time I made a vist o the army dispensary. Nothing much to report there. My mom tried to tell me that I should get the refund for the 200 bucks but I declined and said that she could do it at leisure since this was the fauj and no-one would steal her money.