A year to remember

2016 was definitely not a dull year. Yes, personal experiences differ. Some of us personally have had a boring year, with nothing much to reminisce about. Some of us unfortunately remember the year for not-so-good personal reasons, while some of us probably got our first job or got married or traveled abroad for the first time or came out of a turbulent relationship this year. Personal experiences and achievements aside, if you aren't someone who keeps yourself completely isolated from the world outside, I'm sure you'd agree that 2016 was an eventful year.

This post of mine could be tagged as a tirade against something that I'm going to remember this year for. I shall remember 2016 as a year in which for the first time in my country, I saw a complete disregard for (and in some cases, dismissal of) others' suffering on a large scale. Inherently, we are all selfish. There's no denial that most of us have always been occupied in solving our own personal problems. We waste water, dump garbage on the road, drive recklessly, never miss a chance to abuse each other and so on. However, when there's, say an earthquake, a bomb blast, a drought or any other event that leads to a large scale human suffering, my understanding has been that although not many of us go out and do our bit, we sympathize with the victims. Worst case, we do not dismiss their sufferings. 

2016 has been special. After the famous announcement on the 8th of November, farmers had to struggle to buy seeds, numbers showed that agrarian economy suffered,  there were cases reported where admitting critically ill patients to hospitals had become tougher, laborers ran out of work, a few small scale industries were shut down and businesses suffered. And if we chose to be cynical about newspaper reports, it didn't take too much effort to see people waiting in queues in front of ATM machines under the sun, uncertain of whether there would be cash left by the time it's their turn to withdraw cash. People died while standing in queues. Although I've witnessed the extent to which the hard core supporters of a certain political party, government or an individual (All three are the same in some cases!) defend some of the actions, I haven't been able to figure out why I still find it shocking that a lot of us have convincingly bought the "short term pain for long term gain" argument and continue to publicly state that it is absolutely fine if people suffer. This suffering, mind you, is because of a decision taken somewhere in a closed room, purely based on personal imagination and optimism. 

While no decision taken by the government can be resistant to criticism, arguments in favor of the decision should always be welcomed and I've no doubt in my mind that there are strong arguments in favour of scrapping old notes. However, the refusal to accept that there could be people whose lives have been adversely impacted and that we shall never be able to understand the inconvenience that they've had to go through was shocking! A panelist in the Bangalore Literature Festival this year, when questioned about the hardships that people are going through, said "People die everywhere. They've died while standing in queue for ration cards, people die on football grounds, so what?". I've lost count of the number of people who have effortlessly said "People will have to suffer if the country has to progress". To me, this is one of the indications of how fast our society is degrading.

I could be blind, but in my lifetime, I hadn't seen such a public display of insensitivity on such a large scale in my country. I do tend to believe that most people who've been saying these things do sympathize with the sufferers and it's just that they haven't learnt how to argue in favour of the decision while wholeheartedly sympathizing with the victims. Nevertheless, I'm tempted to not give ourselves the benefit of doubt and would like to believe that 2016 has set a stage for people like our Prime Minister to take any decision without having had to worry about its repercussions for his political party because a part of our society is now both courageous and shameless to publicly endorse human suffering. Acche Din is definitely here.

Demonetization: A nice move at the wrong time

The idea of a country going cashless is very exciting, since the best way to get rid of black money is to get rid of cash. One of the most exciting things that's been happening in our country is the coming together of all forces that are needed for a country to go cashless. There are government's financial inclusion programmes complimented by the fact that RBI has been issuing licences to payment banks, small finance banks and financial technology companies like never before, there are mobile wallet companies competing aggressively to attract customers, there's the Unified Payment Interface, authentication has been simplified through Aadhar, more people can afford smartphones now and there are network providers reducing data charges, eyeing higher market share. Recently, as part of an assignment in my MBA course, I roughly predicted that India would become a cashless economy in the next 10 years. Although I'm being over-optimistic about this,  I really think India has what it takes to achieve this.

There are real challenges though. There is the reluctance and in most cases, the inability to embrace the opportunities to go cashless. Debit cards have been around in our cities for a fairly long time now, but over 80% of the times, they are used to draw cash from the ATM machines. We all know people who are still very reluctant to swipe cards instead of paying as cash. We also know folks who don't even use their cards. They go to the bank in the beginning of the month, withdraw cash as much as they want for the month and manage their household expenses. To be fair, the facilities for cashless transactions aren't great either. Most places do not accept cards because those transactions cost them more. In the tier-II towns and in rural areas, the situation is even worse.

Internet penetration in India is around 19% and this is a major hurdle for India to go cashless. The government and the private sector have to work together to swiftly increase internet penetration, and as the penetration improves, incentivising cashless transactions, improving internet banking literacy, continuing to aggressively improve access to banking for everyone and many more programmes can strengthen the eco-system that is already there now, though in its infancy.

The hardships that people have been facing because of the recent demonetization show how dependent we as a country are on cash. Over 80% of the transactions happen via cash. The long queues outside the ATMs are depressing, not just because they show how ill prepared the government and the banks were for such a move, but also because those queues also mean that so much of cash is coming back to the market in the form of new notes. How much ever this government and its ardent fans tell you that this move would curb black money, as long as there's so much cash in the economy, black money in various forms will continue to haunt us. Unless we do everything that it takes to reduce dependency on cash as fast as we can, the recent exercise that has been wrongly and popularly called "demonetization" will not just be proved futile, but will only be remembered as something that caused great inconvenience to honest citizens.

Apparently, it took about a year of planning before the PM announced that the old notes are scrapped. While this thrilled a lot of us for the apparent secrecy, I wonder what the preparation was about. Perhaps the right preparation wouldn't have led to people dying. It wouldn't have risked rural consumption, which is already low. It wouldn't have caused so much of distress to people who had nothing to do with black money. The government has got its timing terribly wrong, but it isn't too late. The new notes for sure will proliferate in the economy and the priority for the government should be to speed up the transition to cashless economy. Next time a PM goes on air to announce that our notes are worthless, we should be able to just shrug our shoulders and say "Who needs cash!"

A few favourites and a few complaints in and about Mumbai

I spent two months in Mumbai and I think I'm now in a comfortable position to talk about what I liked and what I didn't like in and about the city.

First, the favorites. These are in no particular order.

1. Mani Bhavan: Mani Bhavan served as Gandhi's residence in Mumbai from 1917 to 1934 and it plays a very significant role in the independence struggle. See here to know more. Mani Bhavan is today, a tourist attraction, mostly visited by foreigners. Indians who are attracted to this place are scholars and researchers, thanks to its collection of over 40000 books in the library. The library is housed on the ground floor. The first and second floors house some of the rare photographs of important historical events of Gandhi's time, Gandhi's room, quotes from and about Gandhi and the beautiful miniature figures depicting Gandhi's life. To me, Mani Bhavan's library, its interiors, the exhibition and the thick greenery along the road has been very refreshing every time I've visited the place.

2. Prithvi theatre and the NCPA: As someone very fond of watching plays, I've always wanted to go to Prithvi theatre. As a frequent visitor to Rangashankara in Bangalore, I couldn't help compare the two when I watched my first play in Prithvi and to my surprise, Rangashankara beats Prithvi! Rangashankara houses a bigger stage and a much better seating arrangement, it's probably double the size of Prithvi and its cafe is more spacious and better maintained. In the cafe, I once found Shashi Kapoor, the founder of Prithvi on a wheel chair, barely being able to understand what's going on around him while people were busy taking selfies with full co-operation from his assistant. While I initially felt terrible, after a few moments, I wondered if all the attention he gets does make him happy. Even if it does, does it give anybody the right to take a picture without his permission and post it on facebook? I don't know. All I know is that I left the place with discomfort.

The NCPA (National Centre for the Performing arts) houses multiple theatres and is much more sophisticated compared to Rangashankara and Prithvi. One reason I'm jealous of theatre enthusiasts in Mumbai is that they get to see performances by some of the finest Hindi actors. I was surprised to see that there are quite a few actors who despite being active in Bollywood, continue to direct and perform plays. After watching a play written and performed by Pankaj Kapoor and a play directed and performed by Naseeruddin Shah during my short stay in Mumbai, I haven't been able to decide who's luckier - Me or the theatre buffs in Mumbai.

3. Fort: I fell in love with South Bombay, specially the Fort area. Most of my time on weekends were spent here. I even stayed in the fort area for four days. There's something really nice about this region around Church Gate, the Oval, flora fountain, the book stalls on the pavements, the cafes, the museums, all those by-lanes and the road that takes you to Victoria Terminus. Just like how I've never been able to explain to anyone why I like Church street, St Marks Road, Vittal Mallya Road and the entire area in and around the Cubbon park in Bangalore, I'll probably not be able to explain why I like Fort so much. 

Mahesh Lunch Home at Fort deserves a special mention. Every time I've been to Fort, I've had lunch at Mahesh Lunch Home, although there were so many other options available. I don't know if it was just because of the awesome sea food or if it was because of the people who work there, most of them from coastal Karnataka. After half a dozen visits, they started treating me like I've gone to their home for lunch, which probably nudged me to visit them half a dozen times more. I've been to the one in Juhu too, but the one in Fort is my favorite. 

4. Marine Drive on Sunday mornings: I'm not denying that Marine Drive is beautiful on evenings, but I like it more on Sunday mornings. I probably like the crowd better. A walk or a run on Marine drive is one of the nicest ways to start your Sunday if you don't stay too far. I like how places like Marine Drive so visibly destroy class apartheid. There's no way you can enjoy special privileges there no matter how rich you are!

5. Sewri mudflats: How often do you get the luxury of seeing thousands of flamingos and other birds in the heart of a city!? And the fact that the folks from Bombay Natural History Society often arrange a birding tour to this place also gives you the option of using their binoculars and telescopes to get an excellent view of these beautiful species along with some education on these birds and their behavior if you are a novice. Ideally, you should reach there by 6 30 a.m and stay till 9. As the tides rise, the birds move closer and closer to you, so much that at some point, you don't even need binoculars. Some pictures here. Apparently, these mudflats aren't the only place where you can see flamingos in Mumbai. 

6. Rickshawalas: I haven't had one bad experience with Rickshawalas in Mumbai. This is one area where Mumbai beats Bangalore hands down. It took me a little while to get used to arrogance of these guys here in Bangalore after I returned.

And now, a few complaints, again, in no particular order.

1. The scarcity of real breakfast: I now understand the value of having Sukh Sagars, Shanti Sagars and Darshinis every 200 meters here in Bangalore. These are places where you get real breakfast. I'm a big fan of South Indian breakfast and I wish I could convince people in Mumbai that Vada Pav, Burji Pav, Misal Pav and God-knows-what Pav aren't breakfasts! And the unavailability of filter coffee sucks. I've had situations where waiters didn't even know what filter coffee is.

2. The lack of participation by renowned corporates in solving city's problems: I'm willing to stand corrected here, but I don't see prominent people from Mumbai participating in city administration. If you have lived in Bangalore, you often see renowned folks from corporate world coming together and engaging with Government and urban reform agencies to help them through their expertise and aid. I see this missing in Mumbai. If you are wondering what I'm talking about, you should read about BPAC. In a city where 60% of the population lives in slums, public-private partnerships to tackle urban issues might help a lot. But somehow it feels like the rich and influential are indifferent towards city's problems.

3, Weather: I've nothing to say about this. 

The Mahatma and the Poet

  Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore, arguably two of the greatest Indians, were friends. Evidences of them saying nice things about each other and recognizing each other's importance for the country are easily available and one may read the book "The Mahatma and the Poet", a compilation of letters and debates between Gandhi and Tagore, to be acquainted with their mutual admiration for each other. But that's not why one should read this book. The friendship between Gandhi and Tagore wasn't just based on mutual admiration. They had serious disagreements about various political, social and economic issues and neither of them hesitated to be vocal about their opinions.

  The arguments and criticisms by Tagore were on very important issues. While a few were on large philosophical issues, a few were on issues of immediate concern for the country. By 1917-18, Gandhi was already a national figure. Gandhi's ability to mobilize hundreds of thousands of Indians for the independence struggle could clearly be seen during the non-cooperation movement of 1920-21. When Gandhi's Satyagraha became popular, Tagore criticized politicians who mindlessly used Satyagraha for politics. Tagore argued that their "minds were corroded by untruth, they cannot understand what an important thing it is that the Mahatma's supreme love should have drawn forth the country's love". Tagore believed that they had converted Gandhi's message into a "mindless mantra". Gandhi's call to boycott government schools when those were the only option available for children was also severely criticized by Tagore. Tagore was also skeptical of the burning of foreign cloth and advocacy of Charkha as the solution to India's problems. Also, Tagore famously criticized Gandhi's tendency to view everything that's western with severest skepticism. In one of the letters, Tagore tries to convince Gandhi to give up his fast for the sake of larger issues and in another letter, Tagore expresses his shock and displeasure over Gandhi describing the Bihar earthquake of 1934 as God's chastisement of upper-caste Hindus for their oppression of Harijans. While most of Tagore's letters to Gandhi on these issues were translated and published in a Calcutta magazine called Modern Review, Gandhi published his responses in Young India, a magazine that he ran from 1919 to 1932. 

  Thanks to Dr Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, former Vice-Chancellor at Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan, all these exchanges between the two greats are available in this book, with a nice introduction by the editor . I mentioned earlier that this book isn't supposed to be read just to understand and appreciate the mutual admiration between Gandhi and Tagore. In my view, the book needs to be read to understand how one can put forth one's argument or criticize an opponent's views or actions, however strongly one wants to, without being disrespectful or abusive, without dismissing or disregarding the opponent's point of view. Needless to say, twitter trolls, journalists who shout at the top of their voice, and politicians who hurl abuses at each other everyday have a lot to learn from this book. Moreover, the eloquence with which the letters are written by both these men makes "The Mahatma and the Poet", a thoroughly enjoyable book.

Mumbai local

I had two pick one - To pay for the office bus or to buy a Mumbai local monthly pass. My relatives here in Mumbai wanted me to travel by bus. They scared the hell out of me and tried their best to help me visualize how before I make out which train to get on, people would push me from all sides and sometimes might even step on me while making way for themselves. I decided to give it a try and my experience on day one was not very different from what they told me. I had to get my priorities right. I first tried to make sure nobody stamps on my feet, only to realize in a couple of seconds that making sure nobody's underarm becomes a nightmare for my nostrils was more important.

Having been extremely lucky to have my office situated less than half a kilometer away and with most of my friends staying close to my place, Bangalore had pampered me so much that my intolerance level for the crowd, dust and traffic was at its all time high. Also as app based taxi services proved to be ridiculously convenient, I shamelessly started looking for excuses to not use public transport. And here in Mumbai, after a frustrating first day, I decided to give it a couple of more attempts and guess what, by the third day, I not only got used to it, but started liking the experience! After finding out the ideal time to leave home and office to ditch the crowd, most of my reading started happening on trains. Sometimes I manage to work too. And on those bad days when I can barely manage to move, I know for sure that unlike in Bangalore traffic, I'm at least fairly certain about when I'm going to reach and that is comforting. And when I look into the eyes of any random guy on the platform after I get off the train and they tell me "I know. I went through it as well. Now let's move on", I vow to take the train the next day too. What a spoilt brat I am though!

Time to be back

There was a time when this blog saw a minimum of one post a month. This went on for a couple of years, so although I wrote much lesser later, the blog had close to a hundred posts. However, recently, I deleted most of them and retained only a handful of posts because I found most of them either silly or pointless or badly written. A sign of growing up?

Last year, I almost stopped writing, partly because I was occupied with everything that fetches me marks in my college and mostly because of my laziness. I think it's time to get back. There's so much to write about, rant about. A close friend of mine incidentally told me, "I really used to enjoy reading your blog". Also, I was checking traffic stats on my previous posts and it was encouraging. So, watch this space, dear readers!

26

I turned 26 last Saturday. It's nice when the birthday happens to be on a Saturday but I couldn't reap the obvious benefits of it since some work came up and I had to get up early the next morning. As it happens every year, I got a lot of attention and I enjoyed every bit of it. A couple of new friends I've made this year were very sweet and after a lot of brainstorming, came up with some nice gifts for me.

This year has been very different from the last few years. For about first half of the year, I was unemployed and spent my time doing random things like teaching kids at a school, writing for a startup, travelling, spending hours together reading at the Central Library and at Koshy's or Indian Coffee House. And then in July, I entered into a completely new world. I joined a B school, thinking of systematically learning what I had been casually reading. More importantly, I thought it was going to be exciting to be among the folks with similar interests, creating an environment conducive for such learning.

However, I was in for a surprise. Conversations that I heard the most were on the lines of "He's so hot", "She's sexy", "I've heard he's rich", "Have you started watching season 5 of game of thrones?",  " I was so high last night". This annoying list is endless. As someone who joined a B school expecting peer to peer learning on economics, on the global economic scenarios along with basics of everything that a business leader should know, what I was introduced to, to mention a few, were David Guetta, pubs in Bangalore I had never been to because they play loud music and I prefer having comfortable conversations, gym and body builders that I had always stayed away from and folks who just need a reason to start dancing with an invisible placard that says "Please look at me". Looking at the kind of relationships, friendships, interests and attitude, I've lost count of the number of times I've felt like an old guy. In fact with a lot of fresh college graduates around, folks who are 3-4 years younger to me, I've struggled to have a normal conversation, may be because most of my friends that I had made earlier are either much older than me or are too matured for their age. After much struggle, I've come to terms with the fact that we all have our priorities although we are doing the same course.

It isn't all that bad though. I have a fantastic professor who has not only been a great mentor but is very inspirational. I also met a few guys, my roommate being one of them, who seemed to be interested in the kind of learning that I was looking for. We started conducting peer to peer learning sessions and were delighted to see a very positive response. I've also made a few good friends for life . A  rich curriculum and an experienced set of professors has been another positive aspect, although I wish there was more focus on research work and case studies by cutting short the number of hours spent on classroom teaching.

After I started doing my MBA, my mentor for bird-watching is disappointed that I don't recognise a lot of birds that I used to, my mom is upset that I don't call her often, my friends and relatives complain that they don't see me ever,  I've been reading lesser number of books, I've missed out on some plays that I wanted to watch, I've booked jungle guest houses and have cancelled them multiple times and except for a trip to Goa, Pondicherry and a couple of trips to Mysore, I haven't travelled. Also, I've almost stopped writing. Only time will tell if this was all worth it.

How can I end this ritual of annual writing without mentioning the books that I read this year! Here we go -

1. And then One Day - Naseeruddin Shah (Special mention : This is the book that made me watch some brilliant movies like Nishaant, Manthan, Ankur, Bhoomika and other Shyam Benegal classics that had an outstanding set of actors)
2. Restart - Mihir S Sharma
3. Gandhi before India - Ramachandra Guha
4. Nehru - A contemperory's estimate - Walter Crocker
5. Makers of Modern India - Ramachandra Guha
6. Wealth and Power - Orville Schell and John Delury
7. Ambedkar's World - Eleanor Zelliot
8. Karvalo - Poornachandra Tejaswi
9. Mahapalayana - Poornachandra Tejaswi
10. The Fault lines - Raghuram Rajan (incomplete)
11. The world of fatwas - Arun Shourie (incomplete)

Looking forward for the new year!