In the Ancient land of 'Erg If Knish'

In the ancient land of Erg If Knish lived the ageing but age-defying ruler Fresh King I nicknamed Yo Tarmac Doll. The nickname; it was whispered, was due to his two passions in life, flying and … er… dolls.

With his old friend, the god Bacchus, in his corner Yo Tarmac Doll conquered the whole wide world of Hic Hic land. Hic Hic Land was the world of fabulous wealth, and having conquered it he was the lord and master of its bottom less riches. The richer he grew the more good times he had… in fact Erg If Knish began to be called the Land of Good Times and Yo Tarmac Doll the King of Good Times.

He encouraged art and crafts much like later, lesser rulers like Samudragupta and Akbar and Shahjahan. He encouraged paintings, especially of ethereal beauties, which were so craftily done that one could not realize where the skin ended and the outfit began. Such was his greatness and the power to give the masses what they wanted. And year on year it went on.

Yo Tarmac Doll was a generous monarch. Not only did he encourage art and crafts he also encouraged sports; such as it was in those ancient times. He was the first in Erg If Knish to have a chariot that raced against the best in the world. It never won, but the objective was not to win but to give the others a chance to win. He even had 11 kids, in coloured clothing; fool around with sticks and balls in his playground. And he would pay them handsomely for doing so. Such a kind hearted man….

Not just the arts and sports, he brought back the sword of the ancient Sultan that had been robbed from his land as a tribute to the glory of Erg If Knish. And for this act he was put on a higher pedestal. If, such a thing were possible.

But with success came arrogance. He began to think big. He began to think he could challenge the gods. He began to think he could fly… and be one with the gods. And that is when the gods spat at him. He did not realize that conquering Hic Hic land with Bacchus in his corner was one thing and flying too close to the sun was quite another.

It is never a good idea to fly too high or too close to the sun. Ask Icarus. Ask Hanuman. They flew too close and suffered. So did Yo Tarmac Doll. He tried to re-create the good times in the air and came a cropper. So much so that his flights of fancy stopped taking off and the King of Good Times was grounded.

So what did he do? Well, he did what everyone who has their hubris shattered would do. He went up to his Mai Baap – The Sarkar and prayed for help. He of the arrogant past went with a begging bowl so that he could continue to fly. All the while he was seething with indignation. How dare the population treat him, Yo Tarmac Doll, the King of Good Times like this? Life was indeed unfair.

But his problems did not end there. If he felt that he could quietly go to the Mai-Baap and ask and receive moolah, he had another thing coming because, suddenly, there was another problem. While Mai-Baap was willing to give him the moolah, some ungrateful people began to question why Mai-Baap’s money should be used to help Yo Tarmac Doll. After all did he not conquer Hic Hic Land all on his own? Did he not plunder the land when he conquered it? And did he share this moolah with others? Nope. Not one paisa. Then why should Mai-Baap help him? Where was the moolah that he plundered? Surely all was not spent in his pursuits of art and crafts? Or was it that his young prince, Hard Shit, spent it all when out with princess Pea Dike.

At any rate the pressure on Mai-Baap not to help him increased. And when that happened, Mai-Baap very intelligently pushed it onto the Banks that had lent him money. After all how did it matter if a few friends helped a few others? It was all part of the divine game plan of which Yo Tarmac Doll was an indispensable part.

But the Banks were smarter this time, smarting as they were under the fact that Yo Tarmac Doll had in the past too said a whole bunch of things but had failed to honour the commitment. If they helped him in his flight of fancy then they would surely sink to oblivion.

And there they left Yo Tarmac Doll to think about what might have been had he not flown too high.

So this, children, is the sad story of the King Yo Tarmac Doll. Of how one man could rise to the top and then topple from that perch because of his arrogance and also because of his incompetence perhaps. I know a few of the older children are whispering at the back that this is all legend and myth and stories. But I would like to differ. These things really did happen in the distant past. These people did exist then. Learn the lessons children and never try to fly too close to the sun.

The F1 Mania --- oops --- Manager

Now that the India F1 is done and dusted, time for me to give my non-expert comments. And I challenge any one to be as much of a non-expert as I am. I am truly un-challenged in this arena.

I frankly don’t get the fascination with the F1 race. I mean; these guys, who you cannot see, just go round and round the circuit making a lot of noise and polluting the environment.

There might be some deeper meaning to it, but given my non-expert status I can only comment on what I noticed today while watching it at my good friend and boss’s house. Yeah today was my first!!! Here it goes….

First up was the tedious pre-race program on TV. God! They just went on and on putting even the pre-cricket match program on the assorted Sports channels to shame. And that needs some doing!!! But what really struck me was the asinine, almost fawning, question that was put to all the drivers, “How do you find India?” And, boy, did the drivers struggle to be nice. The effort was really showing. Nice, warm, chaotic but different, poor but happy blah blah blah… one guy, I don’t know his name (I told you, today was my first) did have something like ‘I don’t like spicy food’ pop out of his mouth but the rest of his statement was edited out. I am sure that would have been good.

Give them a break. Don’t put them in a spot like that. They have no option but to be nice about us. Can’t afford to piss of Bernie who is looking at making money here in India. It almost reminded me of a boring and rather painful neighbor whose dinner I regretfully attended and was ambushed into stating that the dinner was oh! Gosh, something to die for.

The second thing that I noticed was Mallya saab in a T-shirt… with a humoungous paunch… hmmm underneath all those uber cool suits… :p And of course how could I forget that the Sahara boss was also there. Pssst…. How and where do these guys get their money from? But who am I to try and figure out? Even the RBI has not been able to do so. Anyway these two worthies with Sachin is what I noticed.

Now what else did I notice? Hmmm … The race started and after about 5 seconds it ended for one of the blokes. Again, no names please I have no bloody clue. This was hilarious. Spending all that kind of money, flying in all that equipment, hiring so many people. All of this to spend 5 seconds on the track. Hehehehe… It would have been like my walking out of the CAT after attempting the first two questions.

So is this a rant against the F1? Not really. It is just that I don’t see it being fun.

But yeah I did find one thing fascinating. I would probably love to just watch a montage of that. And that was the Pit Stop. Boy, I was super impressed. The actual activity was done in less than 5 seconds. WOW… That was something. If I had been responsible for changing a tyre in under 5 seconds, let me assure you that the same tyre would have come off in under 3. It was a supreme display of, Out of this world co-ordination and a Fantastic team effort. Focus. Dedication. Concentration. Technical Knowledge. Nerves of steel. And above all, an all consuming passion to be part of this circus.

In fact I am so impressed by it all that suddenly I am surprised that no hot-shot Management Consultancy has put together the Pit Stop Strategy of Management. Or the Two Second Lesson in Management or some such crappy management crap that would be lapped up by corporate India. After all it was quite well represented there….

Wait ……. Wait ….. Wait…. What am I doing???? WTF am I doing??? I think I know just the right person who can create something like this. Meeee…. I mean I know nothing about F1 and I sure as hell know nothing about management (just ask the faculty at my Bschool and my boss). What more is required to create a Management Paradigm a la the famed Management Consultants of the world…..?

The 2 Second Manager… here it comes…. And … er… um… now F1 suddenly, for some strange reason, does not seem sooo uninteresting after all… It is indeed a wonderful exhibition of .. um…. something. I will think up some shit.

And now for the first chapter.

Gone in 16 seconds

Aah! how the mighty have fallen. Rajat Gupta, the poster boy of the Indian media, the corporate world and also the rarified world of the Indian MBA has been charged with insider trading in the US.

The bare bones of the case are that Guptaji misused his position as a member of the Goldman Sachs and P&G Board of Directors. As a Director on the Boards of these two companies Guptaji was in the know of certain confidential information that was, obviously, not in the public domain at that moment. He was under obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the information provided to him and not give that information to others for securities trading.

The accusation is that Guptaji passed on the information that he received due to his position on these Boards to his dear friend and business partner Raj Rajaratnam who then proceeded to transact in these securities and profit from the same.

An incident quoted in the chargesheet filed by the District Court in New York is how Guptaji participated in a special meeting of the Goldman Sachs Board on 23rd September, 2008. This he attended via telephone. This meeting was called to approve the 5 billion dollar investment by Berkshire Hathway in Goldman Sachs. Given the financial state of affairs at that time, Lehmann Brothers had just filed for bankruptcy, this was indeed big news. The public announcement of this deal came after the 4 pm close of the NYSE on 23rd September.

Now for the juicy part of the charges, 16 seconds after Guptaji disconnected his call from the Board meeting (at about 3.54 pm) his assistant connected him to Raj bhaiyya. And Raj bhaiyya purchased about 3,50,000 shares at about 3.58 pm. Now if this is not a ‘DO IT NOW’ method of living ones life I do not know what is. I mean this explains why he achieved so much success. If I was in his position I would have thought seriously about calling my friend and would have continued thinking about it. No action. Which explains why he is where he is and I am where I am…. Er… um… actually as of now that is super news, but then I digress.

There are other accusations listed in the Indictment that has been filed. There is another one about Goldman Sachs and the loss that it reported for the first time in its history as a public company. Raj bhaiyya received this information from Guptaji within 23 seconds of the meeting having ended. Information that helped him stave off losses by selling the stock that it had.

There was another incident where Guptaji as a member of the Board of Directors got information about P&G’s less than impressive organic sales growth. He was in Switzerland at that time, probably participating in the Davos circus, but found time to call Raj Bhaiyya who immediately sold short approximately 1,80,000 shares.

Now these as I have said are accusations that have been leveled against Gupatji. They have yet to be proven. Guptaji has denied these charges and is out on bail.

Is he guilty? Or is he not? I do not know. And it is always prudent to presume a man innocent until proven guilty.

I really am not concerned about whether he is guilty or he is not. I am interested in seeing how the Indian media and the corporate sector react to this news. I missed out on what they had to say yesterday. What with Diwali and all the sweets that needed to be dealt with.

I am interested in understanding how we treat his fall from grace. We rejoiced in his elevation claiming that it showed that Indians are taking over the world or some such crap. How are we going to deal with these accusations?

Are we going to hyper-ventilate and go over the top and call this action a racist one by the American judiciary against one of our own? Or are we going to go hammer and tongs at him and hurl insults at him for letting us down so badly? After all, some sections did live vicariously off his success. Or better still are we just going to pretend that this did not happen and get on with life. I mean we do have so many other crooks to think about that we may not have time for this guy who, let’s face it, is accused of activities that resulted in gains of about 4 cr in one transaction and some unspecified millions in the other two. I mean, what is 4 cr in relation to 1.76 lakh cr. No competition.

So, this is what I am interested in – the reaction of all and sundry to this issue, rather than the issue itself. Watch this space.

Ps: I wonder if we are going to transfer all our adulation to Preet Bharara who is the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and responsible for the mess Guptaji is in.

Addendum: This is what Guptaji had to say in his Graduation Day address to the students of the Indian School of Business (ISB) on April 8, 2006

".... The third lesson I learnt was an interesting one, which is not always obvious. You will work with lots of other people. Try to make them successful. Don’t try to make yourself successful necessarily. Obviously you should work hard, but in life you have to work through others. No matter how brilliant, no matter how good you are, you can through your own merits, only succeed so much. But if you make other people successful, help them do their best, they in turn, will help you succeed and with the power of everybody helping you succeed, you will succeed beyond your dreams....."..... Looks like he took his advice rather seriously. I mean he really did try to help Raj Bhaiyya. A lot. And I am sure these charges are beyond Guptaji's dreams too...

Will there be talk of Match Fixing?

When my friends and I played cricket in our school days, some of us used to play with the 'big boys' because we were ... er... slightly better than the others in our own age group. Though these 'big boys' were only about four or five years older, it did mean quite a bit of difference in levels of performance. This 4/5 year age gap would not make much of a difference later on but when we were eleven and played against those who were sixteen and seventeen, it did. Quite a lot. This was especially true when facing the faster bowlers. Our reactions were just not quick enough to deal with the pace and bounce of the rubber ball. Needless to add this was a great source of entertainment for those idiots. But, I digress. Because some of us could not handle the pace of these 'big boys' we would get out deliberately when we knew a real fast bowler would be bowling next. And the results would be either very comical or wounding to our egos. But at any rate they were very obvious.

While I did not watch too much of the match today between Pakistan and New Zealand, I was tuned in when Shahid Afridi got out. He got out to a straight ball which did absolutely nothing. He played all around the same. It reminded me of the good old days when we were trying our damnedest to get out.

Now Afridi is not afraid of the 'big boys' who are going to bowl next, so what could have been the reason? He did not see the ball? Possible. He was trying out some new stroke. Yeah, why not. He was er... um... approached by some other kinds of 'big boys'? Well, I suspect that might be the suspicion of a few people.

Would be interesting to re-visit opinions about this match in a few days.

And while I am at it, congratulations to Ross Taylor on those brutal last few overs. And yes, Happy Birthday too.

EU Observers in Chhattisgrah high court

I am not certain about how I should react to the presence of EU Observers in the Chhattisgrah high court, but I think I am pissed off. I am normally quite quick to get pissed off about various things - things that concern me and those that have no relation to me but not this time.

The reason is pure and simple.

I have no clue about the role that these observers from EU are going to don. Are they there in the Chhattisgrah HC to ensure that there is a free trial? Are they there to ensure that charges against Dr Sen are dropped? Are they there to ensure that the trial is run according to what they perceive is the right way to do it? I am mighty confused. So I shall wait till the time I am sure of their role to get all vitriolic.

But as of now my thoughts, broadly, are: Should justice be served to Dr Binayak Sen? Without a shadow of doubt. Should EU observers be present in the HC to ensure that it happens? Like hell, NO. We are not some tinpot little country that needs that needs the ‘White Man’ to ensure that we behave in a civilized manner. I am not too sure if they visited Guantanamo Bay and/or Abu Ghraib so I see no reason for them to visit us and check if we dispense justice appropriately. (Sure, the one reason that they did not visit these places could be because no one invited them to visit, like our dear Teesta beheji did, but still I think the logic stands.)

While there is no doubt that there are individual cases of omission and commission, deficiencies in the upper judiciary are not so pronounced. I think we can do without these worthies here.

Of course the other thing that strikes me is that the Indian government should pick a case and tell the EU that it is not satisfied with the way their courts are handling it and say that it wants to monitor the same. And then let’s check their reaction. Would they allow us to do so or would they draw themselves up and stare down at us condescendingly? Now, that would be an interesting experiment to carry out.

26/11 - My take

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26/11 once again!!! The date evokes so much emotion that is hard to separate them and talk about them in a logical sense. First up my homage to the victims of the attack in Mumbai on 26/11.

I was holidaying in Hyderabad when the attacks happened and as a consequence did not get to know of it immediately. But I did soon enough. I saw enough and more of the attack, the rescue, our brave commandos and unfortunately our shrill & pain in the ass TV presenters on location. I don’t want to say more as I do not want to get into any litigation….. kehte hain akalmand ko ishara kaafi hai…..

Then the final shots were fired and there was collective euphoria and then soon enough collective anger.

The moralistic middle-class and the blaze upper class both got together to berate a whole range of people/institutions from the effete government to sleazy politicians to the main stream media to an extent and finally Pakistan. Funnily no one thought of blaming ourselves. We the people. Oh no. How could we be the ones to be blamed. After all we were the victims. Victims of an attack on our Taj.

And then started the candle light vigils and rallies. Even at that time when the entire atmosphere was charged and all Indians (well almost all) were wearing their patriotism on their sleeve I had nothing but contempt for this action. I mean what is this gonna achieve? (I also noticed and commented that there seemed to be more commemorative events/candle light vigils at the Taj and the Oberoi as opposed to the CST where the attack was worse. I remember even mentioning this to my students – in class – and splitting the class right down the middle. Some felt that I was right the others that I should not be seeing things from such a narrow prism. Anyway I digress… coming back to the point.)

So there were these rallies and these righteous affirmation of “enough is enough“ and Facebook Groups and Orkut Communities and then the Home Minister was removed and PC was in the saddle and then the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Vilasrao Deshmukh was removed and then a day or so later R.R. Patil was removed. There was euphoria. The middle-class had changed the dynamics of power. So Orkut and Facebook and bundles of candles really had the power to change things.

Well!

Really? Look around and let me know what exactly has changed? I do not see too many changes. The Facebook groups have not had any updates in ages. (Though I have not checked today) The muddle-class … oops the middle class warriors have gone back to their desk jobs/appearing for GMAT/GRE/CAT etc the politicians have gone back to their work and some in the case of RR Patil have come back.

We continue to be as apathetic as before. If any terror strike were to happen today I fear that the same things would get re-enacted. I hope I have got it wrong but I have a dirty feeling that I am not. It is so frustrating. What can I do to channelise this anger in a meaningful way? Rather than in some PR seeking manner that will get me acres of coverage but not get anything concrete done on the ground. Why is there this ennui about the coverage of the events of 26/11? Why am I still sitting on my bony ass and not doing a shit for my city for my country? And worst of all, the question that I dread answering: Were the inspired idiots of the candle light fame better than me. They at least got out of the house and held a candle. Doesn’t matter that the terrorists might have been laughing at the same. But at least they did something. Is that better than sitting around moping and wondering what could be done even a year after that carnage?

Questions and more questions. And I don’t pretend to have the answers. Would be glad if I could get some of them…