Say it loud - Modi, you have failed

If you are one of those who voted for Modi in 2014 because you genuinely believed in his capabilities and intentions, and not because you were a insecure hindu, this post is for you. 

You cannot be entirely blamed for who you voted for. Given the alternatives we had, you probably took a sensible decision. You thought that India was in deep trouble and only Modi can do something about it. Modi deserves an opportunity, you said. When he was tirelessly travelling across the country and kept launching his attacks on the UPA, you didn't ask him how his government shall be different. He didn't even have to give you a broad overview of policies he supposedly had in his mind. You simply trusted him, like you trust god. Exactly like how you say "God has his own plans", you believed Modi has his plans ready to take our country forward. "Achche din aayenge" wasn't just one of those political slogans. You genuinely believed that things are going to improve in this country.

Some voices here and there were raised, asking if that belief in one person is justified, only to be suppressed by the loud, crass, nasty political campaign by Modi and his men, which was widely applauded by the majority. Political aggressiveness and shrewdness was mistaken for capabilities to run a diverse and complicated democratic country.

Modi did win and how! That is when even those of us who were a lot more critical of him than the majority, congratulated and accepted him as our Prime Minister as any decent democratic country would do. "The scrutiny shall begin now" I told myself after he was sworn in. I was wrong.We gave Modi too much leeway. Following were some of the commonly heard excuses -  "Only if he had more numbers in Rajya Sabha", "This is too early to judge a government", "He can't be making a statement every time somebody from his party makes a sexist or a communal remark", "Slowly he shall isolate the Hindu fundamentalists like he did in Gujarat", "We gave congress 60 years, let him complete one full term first" etc. It didn't end there. Slowly, probably without your notice, Modi convinced you that every decision he takes is good for the country and it's just that there could be a few negative implications here and there. When experts explained to you in detail why a few of those decisions were bad and that he should have taken those decisions after adequate consultations, "at least he's trying something" was your default response. 

A few days after Modi announced note-ban, I went to a salon. Noticing that it was unusually less crowded, I asked the guy what happened. "Business has gone down after the note-ban sir. It has created problems for all of us" he said, and quickly added "It's ok. It is good for the country. No?". I realized then, that Modi had successfully separated "country" from all of us and was creating a narrative that he was doing something extraordinary for it. We foolishly bought that narrative. We forgot that we are the country and that "we" includes farmers, daily wage labourers and others who are part of the unorganized sector, adivasis, small scale industries and so on. What was supposedly a surgical strike on black money decided to change its track and just be an impetus for digital economy for sometime, but was in fact, a disaster for the Indian economy. "At least he tried something" - some of us continue to say.

This needs to stop now. Economic indicators have been raising alarms lately and the fact that by most measures, Modi and his government have failed and have performed worse than the previous government is not a secret anymore. This, apart from the fact that critics of Modi and his ideology are not just bullied these days but are eliminated, folks are being lynched for what they eat and are abused in the name of nationalism and trolls on twitter continue to harass women.

Let those who need Modi to serve their own purpose of feeling powerful in some weird ways continue to defend him, but if you aren't one of them, speak up! Say it loud and clear "Modi, you have failed this country, you have disappointed us". Ask questions and demand answers before it's too late. Although I'm personally not too optimistic about this making any difference to the self obsessed and self serving Prime Minister that we voted for, I just hope this shall send a signal to all politicians that Indian electorate is getting smarter and that politicians cannot rely on blind worship forever.

A Professor who inspired

As he walked into our classroom in the first semester of MBA to teach a course titled "Business Environment", he convincingly carried the no-nonsense and intimidating look on his face. I was personally looking forward for his class only because I thought the course was going to be interesting. The course had been designed to help us understand some fundamentals through the assessment of the current business environment. As someone who is too impatient to wait and realise the relevance of any course much later in life, I found it exciting that this course would deal with what was happening around on a daily basis. Little did I know that the professor who walked in was going to be one of the most brilliant teachers I've come across.

Prof V. Ravi Kumar (or "Ravi sir" as we call him) , an alumnus of St Stephen's, worked at various banks for about three decades before switching over to teaching. What's striking about him is his desperation to nudge his students to keep learning. He has often told me that the whole point of higher education is to develop right attitude towards learning and to be more inquisitive of the world. Despite being the placement head of the institute, he has repeatedly lamented over the general attitude of viewing placements as end goals. Also, not many have shown the courage to discuss examinations and marks with him. However, the methods that he has employed to instill in his students the urge to learn, have been a little unconventional, if not controversial.

The popular school of thought is that appreciation and rewards work better than intimidation if you want someone to perform well. Ravi sir cares less about popular opinions. "B School is about raising the bar and getting people out of their comfort zones" he once told me. At the risk of appearing to be belittling us and attracting criticism and anger for being rude, he constantly tells his class that it is a bunch of irresponsible folks who are clueless about a lot of things that they should be aware of. He often mocks his students and is sometimes visibly annoyed at them. While a few criticize him, interestingly, I've also seen folks sympathizing with him for not being able to meet his expectations. Yet, he effortlessly commands respect and the charisma is hard to miss.

Unlike a lot of my friends who've sat through his lectures for multiple courses, I've attended Ravi sir's classes only in the first year, since I didn't pick finance as my specialization subject in the second year. Yet, I've known him personally for these two years through our various conversations. I've repeatedly gone to him to discuss what I've read and he has not only helped me improve my understanding, but has helped me form perspectives. Never have I walked out of his room without learning anything new. These meetings also made me realize how empathetic he is towards his students. Not many know how deeply he admires the efforts that some of his students put in. Technical discussions aside, our conversations have ranged from his corporate life experiences, to higher education systems across the globe, to books, to cycling, running, travelling and nice masala dosa places in Bangalore.

With increasing commodification of higher education, metrics such as pass percentage, placement record, institute's rank and students' approval ratings have taken the center stage for institutions. Students on the other hand, eye on good grades and decent jobs. Although I agree I'm generalizing, I think that these narrowly defined standards for institutions and students have resulted in, among many other things, the gradual erosion of student-teacher relationships, especially at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. A professor can play a much bigger role than just completing the course and evaluating the students and students have a lot to gain from professors apart from mere classroom learning. It is up to the students to find someone who can inspire them, guide them, foster creativity, leadership, critical thinking and so on. I'm happy to have found one, and I'm sure there are many others.

Lakhs of rupees, two precious years and a changed worldview

Back in June 2015, when I joined a B-school for my MBA course, the Modi government had just completed one year in office. While there was a lot of chest-thumping on the change in business sentiment and the newly found optimism in the country, there were arguments that there was so much that could've been done with such numbers in the parliament. The most common opinion, however was that it was too early to say. The new monetary policy framework was in place, which brought increased focus on Raghuram Rajan and his team's policies, given the supposedly increased autonomy of the RBI due to the new framework. The Fed hadn't hiked its key interest rate since 2006 and there were talks that it would hike it soon, which they eventually did in December that year. Maggi had just been banned all of a sudden, a textbook example of how external factors can cause quick disruptions in the market. Also, in Europe, all eyes were on the referendum on a bailout agreement in Greece and folks in India were trying to understand its impact on their country. I just finished my course last week, and in two years, a lot has changed. Maggi is back as the market leader, Raghuram Rajan is back in the US, banking and payments system in India are no longer the same, Flipkart's valuation has been slashed to around 5 billion, which is nearly one-third of what the company got when it raised funds in July 2015, America has a new President, and as I write this, four of the Indian states will have new chief ministers.

Without doubts, all of this would have happened even if I had continued to make software for Americans like I did for three years earlier. However, I've seen these events using new lens and with better clarity in the last two years. I've changed from being a passive observer of what is going on, to being able to analyse them and form my own opinions and judgement. In some cases, I've also developed the confidence to predict outcomes. On multiple occasions, I've been pleasantly surprised to realize that some of the domain experts have had the same views that I had on certain issues, the most recent one being on demonetization. This makes me wonder if I've finally gained the ability and confidence to have original opinions on at least some of the issues impacting most of us. I've also been able to appreciate the fact that it is an exciting phase to be in India at the moment and I'm broadly aware of the areas I can contribute to in India's growth story. Pages in the newspapers that I skipped reading earlier are read with much interest now and my reading list has books that I wouldn't have thought of reading earlier.  I also can say with some confidence that MBA has opened a number of gates of opportunities, not necessarily because of its value in the market as a degree, but just because of the general awareness it has brought in. It somehow gives me an impression that I can experiment more with my career now than I could have, had I continued to be a software engineer.

This isn't a fairy tale though. At the end of the day, it is still a race to outperform one another to get higher salaries and better grades, which takes away the joy of learning. Also, given how diverse the subjects are, the curriculum expects you to spend time and energy on a few things that you probably aren't interested in, and that can be frustrating, especially when you are forced to compromise on your other interests and plans. And of course there's peer pressure of needless distractions.  Also, we celebrated the end of the course by throwing away tonnes of papers and other junk in the air at the hostel for about an hour, without realizing that for the next couple of hours, a few folks who are in charge of keeping premises clean for us will have to break their backs clearing everything. To me, that summarized what else is wrong with the system.

In my opinion, what one walks out of a B-school with depends more on how individualistic one was for two years and what the priorities were.When asked about what you've gained while spending two important years to get one of the most expensive degrees in the country, you could make vague statements like "I've grown so much as a person" or "I've developed leadership abilities" or "I think I can now be a good manager" or "I've created so much memories for myself" or you could say that you now have the confidence to manage businesses, if not to start your own business, or that you can explain with ease why the stock market crashed on a particular day or that you can recommend what the TCS or Infosys should do urgently to survive or that you have a strong view on the ongoing consolidation in India's telecom sector  or on why "Make in India" is struggling.

Have I personally made the best use of the course? Not at all. Sheer laziness, negligence and distractions have constantly constrained my learning and I feel terribly guilty. Not many are fortunate enough to afford such expensive education and to not show complete dedication to make every penny count is a sin. Also, given how much you can learn sitting at home today, the excuses that one can come up with for the lack of learning are only diminishing. I think with one's ability to afford expensive education, comes a sense of entitlement that best things should happen easily for oneself. The real challenge is to fight that and replace it with a sense of responsibility towards oneself and society. I've seen some of the folks working day and night to perform well and while I'm not a big fan of the end result that most of them were looking for, I really wish I had that dedication.

The most common mistake that we all tend to do is to view completing a course as an end, while it is in fact the beginning of an even more important journey. We now have another opportunity to try and make every penny and all the time spent count, and I hope I wouldn't disappoint myself this time.

Post Birthday post

I turned 27 couple of days ago and scribbling about the year that's gone has been a ritual. So this post is that ritual. In my post last year (read here), I wrote about how I joined a B school with certain expectations and thanks to lack of my research, I was in for a few surprises. However,  I also wrote of reasons to be happy. Not much has changed after I wrote that, except for some new lessons learnt both professionally and personally, new friends made, and some new plans chalked out with respect to my career post MBA. Two years of life at a B School deserves a separate blog post, which I'm eager to publish as soon as possible.

Travel

I started my year with a solo trip to Jaipur, Pushkar and Udaipur. While I had been to Jaipur earlier and I knew what to expect in Udaipur because of my readings, Pushkar caught me by surprise. I never thought I'd like the place so much. Despite being a beautiful town, Pushkar has a lot to offer for solo travellers, one being Zostel, a chain of hostels that are a boon for backpackers. Zostel has it's presence in only a few places in India for now, and I hope they will expand soon. I also went to Goa twice this year and have made multiple trips to Mysore and  Chikkamagaluru. A bike trip to Bandipur and a trip to Hampi were great fun too.

Mumbai

The highlight of the year has to be my stay in Mumbai, arguably the most cosmopolitan city in India, for a couple of months during my summer internship. I had made a short visit to Mumbai earlier, but this time, I had about 8 weeks to explore the city and I did manage to live the city to the extent possible. A period of two months in a new city is ideal to explore it. It's neither so short that you can't find enough time to roam around, nor too long to make you lazy enough to procrastinate the things that you wanted to do. I lived the city through its trains, beaches, theatres, movies, nightlife, diversity, history, architecture and so on. Also, there was something about the slums in Mumbai that alternately fascinated and bothered me. It nudged me to reread one of my favourite books "Behind the beautiful forevers".

Plays and Movies

Unfortunately, last year, I must have hardly watched 4-5 plays that I loved and would watch again. The rest of them were pretty dull. However, this was compensated by some great movies that I watched, both old and new, in multiple languages. Notably, a few new talented folks in the Kannada movie industry have laid the foundation for the much needed revival of Kannada movies. It all started with Lucia and Ulidavaru Kandante back in 2013, the two fine movies that encouraged a bunch of fresh talents to make some interesting movies without having had to worry much about their acceptance. And 2016 was even more special because of a fantastic movie called "Thithi", which was internationally acclaimed. Thithi was followed by a few other decent movies in Kannada, but none of them could even come close to it.

And thanks to YouTube, I could enjoy watching some of the finest works by Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Mani Ratnam as film-makers and Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Anant Nag and Mohanlal, to name a few, as actors.

Reading

And finally, here's the list of books that I read in 2016. The priority this year, was to re-read a few books that I had read a few years back.

1. The Fault Lines - Raghuram Rajan
2. The Argumentative Indian - Amartya Sen
3. The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
4. The Mahatma and The Poet - compiled and edited by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
5. Swami and Friends, Bachelor of Arts, The Vendor of Sweets - R K Narayan ( Reread)
6. Sophie's Choice - William Styron (Reread)
7. Behind the beautiful forevers - Katherine Boo (Reread)
8. An era of darkness  - Shashi Tharoor (incomplete)
9. Old Path White Clouds - Thich Nhat Hanh (incomplete)

Of the above, The White Tiger and Behind the beautiful forevers have made it to my list of "all-time favourites".

As I'm about to complete my MBA and then waste time for a couple of months, I'm looking forward to get back to work after 3 long years. And now it's time to end this self obsessed post.