Random Musings

While going through my blogs today morning, I came across this draft in which I had written the following points: "The 21st century began with a lot of excitement. Y2K scares aside, I remember the hope and excitement we all had for a new century starting. 9/11 in a lot of ways changed everything. And dragged us back to the 20th century reminding us that one cannot just move forward without paying one's dues. As we enter 2020, I really wonder - are we any better off today? Here are the 5 things that I feel might still be troubling us as we reach 2030! Quantitative easing - My theory is that 9/11 also lead indirectly to the GFC and the collapse of Lehmann Brothers. And today we are stuck in a debt fuelled recovery. Will we be able to create economic growth that is not based on cheap and easy money?   Tech terror  Environment Religion China" Now if I were a pretentious guy - I would have claimed that look I predicted that something would come from China. Bu...

What is value? And why is it important? Imagine two cars - a 35 laks SUV and a 5 lakh entry level hatchback. Both are going from Jodhpur to Jaislamer when suddenly a sandstorm comes. They both lose their way and end up on a sand dune. Which car would you bet to be able to tackle the tough terrnain successfully and be able to reach Jaisalmer? I am sure many of you are thinking the SUV! Its a 4 wheel drive - so no brainer duh! However, now put an amateur driver behind the wheels of the SUV and a smart driver behind the hatchback! Now think again? No prizes for guessing the SUV keeps spinning its wheel in the desert while the hatchback reaches Jaisalmer and hence is more "valuable" for its owners. But was the value in the cars or the driver? Ok! Now we are talking! So value creation is what? An art or a science? Now since driving ability cannot be quantified - I would say its an art! So then who are the tue value creators in this world? Apple has created tremen...

Young Turks (Turkish: Jön Türkler, from French: Les Jeunes Turcs) was a political reform movement in the early 20th century that consisted of Ottoman exiles, students, civil servants, and army officers. They favoured the replacement of the Ottoman Empire's absolute monarchy with a constitutional government. Later, their leaders led a rebellion against the absolute rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II in the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. With this revolution, the Young Turks helped to establish the Second Constitutional Era in 1908, ushering in an era of multi-party democracy for the first time in the country’s history. Source: Wikipedia Turkey – a melting pot, a country where two continents, two diverse cultures unite. India as a country is not very different. Today we are a blend of Hindu, Mughal and British cultures intertwined in ways that sometimes it is not possible to do an attribution analysis and understand which part of our culture owes its roots to which tradition. No...

Taking a clue from advanced Math, to make life simpler, let's define "M" as all those mutants with the following distinguishing trait:  an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party (source: Meaning of "maverick" from Merriam Websters)   So what's new you would say? After all human history has witnessed many such individuals. Napoleon, M.K.Gandhi, Adolf Hitler, M.L.King, Nelson Mandela - to name a few. A few of these mutants have always been around in this world. But 2016 has seen the rise of two powerful M  who threaten to shape our world in unimaginable ways. And yes no prizes for guessing the two in question - Trump and Modi. Now before your attention starts waning and you think...so what's new...these two are famed  M, hang on.....this blog is not about them. Rather it is about YOU dear reader. What rubbish you might say?? Hold on....yes it is about you and me, the average joes.  For this is my thesis - the rise of two...

The Polestar Note: This is the first chapter of a novel I am trying to write. It is a work of fiction and imagination . It is not meant to be scientific or accurate. While it may draw from my own life, it is not autobiographical! Chapter 1::A new beginning Jan 5 th , 2030. Mumbai, India. The city of Mumbai looked like a bright shining constellation as Jai looked out from the windows of his plane. His plane journey from Philadelphia had taken him more than 8 hours and after a hard-day’s work, Jai was looking forward to crash in his bed in his sea-facing apartment in Worli. Feeling thirsty, he muttered, “water” to his personal digital assistant and immediately a bottle of water sprung out from the refrigerator beneath his couch. As he reflected back on his day, he noted with satisfaction that he had finally managed to close out the last leg of the project he was engaged in with an Australian firm. The Aussies were always tough to negotiate with. But after multiple video-ch...

India. What does this word mean to you? In these times of social media, it is increasingly becoming clear that the circumstances we are passing through as a nation, are bringing out different versions of this out into the open. As an Indian who grew up in the 80s, my first impression of India was that of an old glorious civilization that had post centuries of foreign rule become poor and decadent. First it was the Muslims who invaded India and then it was the British. And while the British were truly oppressive and never integrated with India (unlike some of the Muslim rulers), finally they left and the modern Indian state came into existence.  This state though was nowhere close to the ancient splendor of "Bharat". It was inefficient, poor and grossly unjust and unfair. And under the great concepts of "unity in diversity" et.al. lay an ugly underbelly - the horrors of partition and a wide Hindu - Muslim divide. This divide erupted from time to time in riots i...

Bullies! They are everywhere. And come in all sizes, color, shapes and gender. Sometimes they take the form of a parent, a teacher, a boss or co-worker, a relative (mother-in-laws seem to top the list here) a friend or most tragically - even a spouse or a lover.  While every bully is unique and has his/her own reason for being a bully, one thing is clear - they cause tremendous heart-ache and stress. And based on how you are as an individual, dealing with these bullies might be easy to stressful to outright damaging for you.  I, as a kid was fairly gentle and usually happy minding my own business. However it soon became pretty apparent to me that whether at home or school, there would be people who would want me to do things the way THEY wanted them to be. And sometimes it was baffling because the people bullying me would be people very near and dear to me.  As I grew older and developed my own personality, the bullies still remained a grey area. I could never reall...