Random Rant about Pawar and CWG
1) If there was one Indian government body that was respected by one and all, it was the Supreme Court of India. Even the most crooked politician used to sit up and listen when Supreme Court gave its orders. Sharad Pawar seemingly has begun to buck this trend (and the herd shall follow) with an insightful repartee to the Supreme Court. His witty banter includes “not possible to implement”.
Sample this: Sharad Pawar says free gains not feasible
On the face of it, the argument seems to make sense. There is no free lunch et cetera et cetera. We have a situation where some sections of the society are going hungry in many states, food inflation is a frikking 19% and yet the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has found a way to rot quintals and quintals of food grains – rice, wheat etc. Shortage of food obviously then, is a created circumstance to benefit a few. Supreme Court, in its little wisdom ordered that these rotting food grains, instead of being distributed among algae and rodents be distributed among the poor and needy people. But nope. Nada. Sharad Pawar in his Caesar-esque style declared – I heard, I will not listen, I will let it rot.
So much for increasing Members of Parliaments’ pay by 300%. Performance-based pay has acquired a new meaning. The definition of CTC, Cost to Country in this case (instead of Cost to Company as is the usual parlance) has gone up by a notch.
2) We have all read that all star players are slowly withdrawing from the Commonwealth Games (CWG) (Bolt, Powell among a lot of them). We might get to a day when the only player left in CWG is Suresh Kalmadi. After tonnes of money down the drain, we will spend even more to resurrect the situation and make the Games a success for ‘national pride’ (never understood the term). And of course, after Sonia Gandhiji has declared “Corrupt will be punished after Commonwealth Games” (emphasis: ‘after’ – which is of course, in the near future, during my great grandson’s generation), I have nothing to fear. What I do want to bring to your notice is this bit of travel advice on the CWG website:
A peck on the cheek while greeting a female acquaintance is “just not done” when you are in India. Sole exception: Only if the acquaintance is a model or a beauty queen. Tourists should, however, discuss politics. Most Indians love to talk politics and ‘have an opinion on which they will not mind being contradicted’. But equally, visitors should avoid discussing religion.
True. I wonder if former beauty queens are ok? Oh, you mean Amitabh Bachchan is your Chief Guest? Never mind then. And how do you discuss politics without discussing religion? That’s probably one of the chief conundrums that CWG audience have to solve for an audience prize. To me, BJP will always be associated with Godhra, Congress with Sikh riots, MNS with non-Maharashtrian bashers, Shiv Sena with its anti-muslim agenda and so on and so forth. Maybe Kalmadi can explain. Or maybe Sonia. Even better, a joint press conference with Amitabh Bachchan, no?
3) Never understood these sentences ‘I can feel your grief’, ‘I dedicate this win to the people affected by XYZ’, ‘The agenda is to have all systems in place for success’ etc etc. among a million others.
4) I have posted these links of FB. For those of you not yet on my FB list, here are two hilarious videos. Bhangra 101 -
- How to learn Punjabi dance (NOT!) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irQ2zANorxQ
- What not to do when you become a CEO (extremely instructional) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc
Random Thoughts…
1) Nowadays, I am frequented by ‘Why take risk?’ by people(or more exactly, risk kyun lene ka?). People seem to advise that things need to settle down before you make any move (career/stock buying etc. etc.). What I do not understand is if everything becomes clear (and hence almost-risk-free), wouldn’t competition in huge numbers jump in? Ergo, losing the opportunity. Personally, I am firm believer in markets. Markets reward risk assumption. A prime example would be the stock price of Infosys during the 2008-09 crisis. People who assumed the risk (and knew Infy was a fantastic company) bought the stock and right now are sitting at 100%profits. If we had waited for everything to be clear (say, now for example), the stock has already factored that in. So, markets say thanks, but no thanks. You can extend the same analogy to career or pretty much any decision you take.
2) Coming back to India after quite some time, I have seen that Organized labor is the best business opportunity that India would have for quite some time. Especially, cooks and drivers. If someone (I have come to realise that I don’t have the DNA to start a company (not yet, anyway), but I do have a DNA to be a partner) can set up shop to organize this disorganized labor (much akin to the IT companies in the ’90s), there are huge profits to be reaped.
3) We tend to overestimate short term risk and underestimate long term consequences. An extension of ‘We want everything now. At the latest, tomorrow’. I can’t even begin to explain how many times the dilemma of short term vs long term has troubled me. And it still troubles me. But the overestimation vs underestimation analysis has been a terrific savior – every single time.
4) You realize every proverb you ever came across is loaded with meaning only when you experience that proverb. No explanation required. Even the simplest of proverbs has a lot of loaded meaning and extremely difficult to practice.
5) What should people do when they have no goal in life? Or are not clear in their goals? Meditate? Get married? Have kids? At this moment of my life, I don’t even know what my goal is (another car, another bungalow – are they even goals?) or what my goal should be? I have pretty much done what I thought I could by this age (fulfilled life you might want to call – but a strange sense of emptiness prevails) (alternatively, you can say that very achievable goals were set and my potential is far higher – well, maybe. Thanks. But emptiness still prevails 
). I don’t know what lies beyond this? Any pointers?
P.S – Thanks to a friend who reminded me in a unique style that the blog was being followed and something needs to be done about it.
