Bollywood song

An american friend described a Bollywood song as "an expression of love between a man and a woman in the company of their 60 best friends of either sex". I just found this quite hilarious! We get to watch Tamil and Hindi movies on the regular local channel in Singapore - called Vasantham central. So the other day, an Irish friend sat through and watched "RHTDM" of Maddy and Diya Mirza fame - and he said he was watching without his wife's knowledge ;). He didn't want her to catch him watching a hindi movie :))).

Where is Ramar Pillai?

Has anyone heard of what happened to this guy called Ramar Pillai. This guy claimed to have invented the 'herbal' petrol. He apparently demonstrated that he could convert water and a concoction of herbs and boiling water into petrol. He was then supposedly harassed by all oil companies. Then scientists from IIT, Madras proved he was a bogus. To refresh your memories of what then, here is a glimpse from history.

 

Today we are talking of bio fuels and bio-diesels from Jatropha plantations. What's the difference? Taking a long shot, could he have accidentally found jatropha like herbs? He was apparently selling this herbal petrol stuff near his village for a while. Hmmm .. food for thought!

Vande Mataram

Today's India's Independence day! We are 59 years old now. Despite all the cynicism and apprehensions on where we are headed, it's time to look back. We have definitely progressed - may be not as fast as Ashoka's chakra is supposed to have - but still we won freedom on this day. The famous Tryst with destiny was delivered by Nehru on this day.

Independence day could mean so many different things to different kinds and types of people. To many poor people, it might not just mean anything. To the poor and unaware, it might not even make sense. To the ultra-rich, it means a day to recover from last night's hangover. To the political class, it's day to deliver big promises of words and garlands on the thousands statutes. To the Armed forces, it's a day of pride and hoisting the tricolour. To the middle class child, it means a proud moment at school and a little sweet distribution.

The day means different to various people because the country or the nation itself means so many different things. But one thing in common to all people, who live in the country, who were born in the country, who have even visited the country - India is this nearness to life! It's this land of uncertainity - a roller coaster ride. It can take you up on a such high one moment only to drop you down to feel like an inward spiral. It's a land of enormous beauty and charming people, to a country mis-governed and wronged by so many rulers.

The day is to remember the sacrifice of a generation - of Gandhi's leadership and Nehru's statesmanship and of all the millions of grand fathers and grand mothers who gave their everything to see the light at the end of the tunnel of foreign rule. Parts of Northern India(Delhi region) were free for the first time in 800 years on this day!

Saulte to the motherland! Vande Mataram!

Zen and the art of network maintenance

Till six months ago - networking meant only one thing! Computer networks. Layer to layer protocols and stacks. Never really got the full hang of it, frankly!

 

Then came business school. Networking means talking to people and making acquaintances of them. There are events called 'Networking events' to facilitate people who want to make these superficial conversations - unite! There are websites like Linked in that help maintain and grow this 'network'.

 

When we started b-school, this was such a big deal. You had to land up at every party to make these so called insightful conversations that evaporated from people's brains when they woke up the next day. Though I must admit there are some people who are much better people when they're drunk - in sobriety - I don't even want to stare at their faces!

 

So networks again can be classified as professional or business related and social or fun networks. Very often you can cross-pollinate between the two types of networks. In fact it's the informal or fun network that gives you better insights into a problem than the formal or professional network.

 

There are some people who have mastered the art of networking. For a lot of others, it's a science. It's a formula. So they land up in these parties and start talking the same stuff. When you are standing with them, and they see a new node in the network walk in, you somehow seem to have become transparent to them - you are only a node in the network - if a peripheral node, too bad! There are some others who make you feel like you are the God, you are important! And they seem to give that impression to everyone they meet.

 

Just like a motorcycle, a network needs maintenance. It needs some oiling and service. Very often people walk in and older people walk out - a huge churn occurring all the time. The most important in networking is conversation. Conversations are your fuel in the tank. Networks don't work without conversations - they need to be interesting and likeable - to the listener of course!

 

I like stereotypes now. That's what business school teaches you. The idea is to get a general idea - that's why stereotypes are useful. Conversations are of several kinds in different settings. When a bunch of desis have a long conversation, especially in b-school like ours, we always end up analyzing the current situation in India - give a competitor analysis .. take the best case example of Singapore works and conclude and recommend how the problems facing India should be solved. When it's with a bunch of south Europeans - it's always single track - how do you get the women! When you speak to Americans, they talk so much in circles and bushes - you have to dig deep into the conversation to find information content in that! Now, these are stereotypes! I know there are a million exceptions and sometimes it's tough to tell which is an exception and what is a rule.

Happy birthday Singapura

Today's Singapore National day. The country's 41 years old now. It's pretty sweet how there are national flags flying around and the brute capitalistic malls are making business out of the national day. No harm done - I completely support the business environment that's created here.

I managed to read Lee Kuan Yew's book - "From third world to first world". It's the story of transformation of a sleepy British outpost from a near nation of slums to what Singapore is today - a real first world country. In fact, in my opinion, it's ahead of most first world countries in a lot of respects!

So today was a holiday. I decided to work from school. When I was walking in school, it felt good to be back to student life. In the past month and a half I've been back in the corporate world. The comparison between school life and corporate life is striking. We have had the chance to sample both during this one exciting year in INSEAD. In fact Pooja's got to sample to two companies and a school!

Corporate life is the same old - lot of cynical people, challenging any new thought saying - "Yeah! what's he going to do that I didn't try earlier!". There are no real synergies between divisions, departments, regions and markets. School life is just the opposite. There are discussions and opinions floating around so much - everyone has a solution to every problem!

Being Vegetarian

My jounrneys in search of food in Singapore have led us to the weirdest of places and taken our thoughts to even weirder directions. People eat stuff like the intestine of a pig - the picture is put on the stall! Other things eaten I believe are turtle soup - for which they just slow boil an unsuspecting turtle till it breaks up to shreds. Even listening made me puke one day.

Luckily there are one or two Buddhist places in the foodcourts where they serve vegetarian food - which is definitely edible, but not too very tasty. Taste and fragrance are very subjective matters, I agree! It's a bit unfortunate that I get to try only Indian and Italian food in the whole of Singapore. But the Indian food here is yummy - pretty much like how it's made back home - and more importantly available in plenty.

This led me to think of why am I a vegetarian. I am a vegetarian by upbringing - my parents and folks do not eat meat. As a child I always thought that people who ate meat became like the animals they ate. Somehow, the same concept of people eating plants becoming trees never occured to me then. But, anyway childhood aside - at different points in my life I have come in close encounter with meat eating. Again there used to be a time when I couldn't stand the smell of meat - fish especially. Now, as survival becomes more important, I can even remove the stuff from my plate and eat the rest. But I still can't eat meat. I once chewed into a chicken piece in salad. Now, I think that's the most cruel thing a chef can do - put a chicken piece into an otherwise vegetable looking salad! I somehow tried to chew it up and said to myself that I would somehow swallow this one! But I just had to run to the loo to throw it out.

There are different types of vegetarians - spiritual, psychological, health and vegans of course! I am by upbringing a spiritual vegetarian - which means I was always told that meat eating is not good. Then I guess I have become a psychological vegetarian now. Even as I was chewing that piece of chicken in my mouth - I could here the slaughter and screaming of a poor unsuspecting bird. I once mentioned this to a buddhist friend and he told me I was very lucky to be able to be able to 'feel' for life. I don't know why I feel for life.

The other argument is what I read in Anand Bhavan in Little India, Singapore. The restaurant has a whole wall dedicated to explaining the concept of vegetarian. There's a quote from Thiruvalluvar on the wall explaining why man should be vegetarian.

Then there is the intestine and stomach comparison. The intestine of humans is long resembling that of a horse or cow. Predators on the other hand have small intestines because they do not want meat to rot in the tummy. The acid levels in carnivores is also 20 times more than that of the herbiovores. We are pretty close to the herbivores again.

The final argument is that of instinct. If you gave a child that has just developed teeth, an apple and a chicken - the kid would automatically eat into the apple and play with the chicken. If you did the same thing with a cat, the cat would eat into the chicken! That explains how by physiology we might be herbivores. Then there are these arguments like - we drink water more like horse and cows by sipping; whereas carnivores put their tongue out to lick water! Again, pretty convincing.

A lot of people keep asking what percentage of India is vegetarian. To be honest, it's so difficult to generalize about the whole of India. Again many are vegetarian by religion, many by economics! So I would guess it's around 20-30%. Atleast in the south, especially in Karnataka I think there are a lot of vegetarians.

I also read that if the amount of land used in growing crops to feed livestock was put to use to grow vegetables and crops, we would not have to destroy any more forests! There will be enough grains to feed everyone in the world. I really hope that the movement for vegetarian food grows. A lot of times, I am shocked on seeing what all people eat - and they seem enjoy and relish the taste! How long is it before we become cannibals? Afterall, human flesh is also food - who knows may be it tastes really good :-(