One train rushed into another. The aftermath looked exactly borrowed from a child’s imagination when two of his toy trains are made to collide with each other. I remember having created many macabre mass catastrophes as a child with my arsenal of aeroplanes, cars, trucks and trains. One wagon is flattened; the other is thrown twenty five feet in the air, crashing onto an overhead bridge; the rest of the wagons jerked out of the tracks tilted in agony. ‘If God were a child, this is one hell of a tantrum’, I thought as I looked on aghast at the images of Uttarbanga Express crashed onto the Vananchal Express on the news.
I came to know of this accident after I returned home from office. My mother usually develops a dramatic touch the moment she has gathered all the facts and figures with regard to a piece of news; so her depiction is usually replete with pauses, gesticulations, adjectives, conspiracy theories and opinions. And she would say all of it, calmly seated on the sofa; relating the story in a piece meal fashion, as if blurting out all the information in one go would demean her reputation as an effective raconteur.
To expedite the entire process, I switched on the news. Consider some of the options that the Indian press gave me in lieu of my mother’s ace reporting. A Hindi news channel. Their reporters somehow feel that a salt and pepper beard helps lend them a Clint Eastwood charm and makes the issue at hand look as grave as a Clint Eastwood movie. So this reporter ventures into one of the smashed compartments, raises his left hand towards the ceiling of the train and says (in Hindi), “So as you can see, this compartment has been completely destroyed. All the seats and windows have been smashed. The scene looks terrible......”, looking around briefly wondering what else evident things he could extract out of that debris. “Imagine you were sitting in this compartment”, he suddenly said as if a brainwave had just struck him “Imagine what would have happened to you!”
I actually took a moment to reflect what the reporter had just suggested me to think. What would have indeed happened if I were in a compartment that was reduced to pulp? ‘I don’t know, let me see...I think I would have died, you ass’! I screamed internally.
Click, next channel. I get an animation movie here. The entire catastrophe is now presented like a case study, with one cartoon train rushing into another cartoon train. And a red flash and bang! One bogey flies up and hits an overbridge above. The sequence is then again repeated for the people who missed any particular second of this self-explanatory analysis. Meanwhile a person in the background is busy dissecting the one sentence statement issued by the rail minister; discussing with gusto the minister’s career plans henceforth.
Click, next channel. ‘Ah, NDTV’, I think relieved. ‘Atlast some decent stuff to look forward to.’ A senior reporter is on the scene with her fashionably faded kurta and distraught look. She spoke in a condolence filled tone, “What has happened here is truly tragic. People are frantically searching for their loved ones. I have with me one of the villagers..... ‘ Kya aapka koi kho chuka hai’ (have you lost anyone)?”, she asked switching from English to affected Hindi.
“Humra bhateeja huspataal mein hai. Taang tut gaya. Baanki to log honge andar.” (My nephew is in the hospital with a broken leg. There must obviously be others inside still)
Not satisfied with the nature of this villager’s personal calamity, she again tried. "Aur aap”, thrusting the mike before another bemused villager. Before he could complete his sentence (which did not seem to be having much potential for sensational grief), the reporter nodded her head vigorously and snatched the mike back. “As you can see, people here are frantically searching for their relatives. This is a very painful situation indeed. How long will this ordeal last? This is..... reporting. Thank you (pause, glance, pause) very much.” she finished as if she was on stage. And then suddenly turning to the villagers, added hastily; “Asha hai aap logon ko sab mil jaata hai” (Hope you all manage to find everything); as if they were out there searching for lost marbles.
And finally came my personal favourite- Arnab Goswami, and his media circus on Times Now where he invites every night half a dozen guests as audience to listen to him talk. As a viewer, it looks a bit confusing with seven passport size photos all talking at one go, and from the centre Arnab Goswami bellowing like a raging bull. “What happened to the anti-collision devices? What is wrong with Mamata? Are you trying to tell me that the rail minister has nothing to do with this? No, no, no...this is not done...” Ultimately one or two of the guests have to take the onus to calm down the moderator to prevent him from suffering a mini stroke on the sets. On one of the windows, Suhel Seth with his grey dishevelled hair gives company to Arnab in his Mad Hatter’s Party. Pronouncing his English words with an erudition that suggested that he had ultimately fallen in love with his own voice, Suhel Seth went on and on in an orgasm born out of eloquence; not realising that with every passing sentence he was making even lesser sense. By the time Mr Seth stopped to take a breath, it sounded like unadulterated nonsense to me. Why Times Now was making me listen to an adman’s commentary on accidents, politics and safety devices....remained entirely lost on me.
In this cacophony of the irrelevant and the ridiculous, my mother brought me my dinner and in my mind I quietly awarded her the best journalist award. Going to the TV in search of crispier news was perhaps too ambitious of me to expect. Indeed if we were on the look out for the best way to desensitise any disaster in India, I strong believe that the press owns very capable hands. The only channel that could be exempt from this dubious reputation is perhaps ‘Lok Sabha News’, which in pursuit of its own sensibility; was showing a snapshot of Delhi’s Commonwealth plans while other news channels had their cameras trained on the mangled steel remains at Sainthia.
Moral of the story – mom’s always the best. Well, usually atleast!
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
Retirement Benefits
I am retired. Retired of studies. I will be remembered by maximum two generations of juniors, after which I will join the crowd of unknown faces and names. Or, I might also become somebody really successful some day and be heralded as a case study in my institutions’ career prospectus brochure. I talk benevolently of days that have passed, to anyone who cares to stop by. Or doesn’t care much, but has been unwittingly trapped in a situation where the only way out is to hear my rambling days of the yore. I talk of those tough courses I had taken. Of professors. Of friends. Of foes. Of exams. Of results. Of ranks. It’s all part of a proud album now.
Somewhere in this album is a photo with my parents standing in the background beaming at their son. Somewhere there will also be tucked a photo of my father’s disgruntled face over a botched entrance exam. Somewhere else my mother would be explaining to some ever-inquisitive ‘aunty’ how her dear son is not actually lost in life; but is actually completing a brilliant secret science project underground. Somewhere in that album, my father would be juggling before me words like CA, CFA, MSc, BTech, MBA with unnerving adroitness. And somewhere in that album is a picture of my parents inviting all their friends over to celebrate their son’s first campus placement.
Which brings to my current state; having encapsulated atleast six years of textbook toil in the past two paragraphs. Now I go to office daily. Sit in a cubicle. Open my laptop; an instrument that had stopped looking dashing after my very first week at work. Attend meetings. Work against deadlines. Occasionally if things go right, I receive a pat on the back (literally, and no more!). If things go wrong, you go back home licking your wounds, being philosophical about life as a whole and the world as a globe. At the end of every month, a pay cheque comes- usually enough for me to watch new film releases, dine expensively and buy myself a monthly gift. But still it is dimunitive enough for my father to still nod his head disappointedly and say, “You can do better”!
People like my parents, and probably yours, and probably thousands and millions of others who expect a race horse out of a child…..come under the butt of a lot of idealistic disdain. Movies are made denouncing their mentality. Newspapers columns bemoan the poor child. ‘If the child wants to paint, let him’ ‘It looks like with the child, parent is also studying’ ‘Why make your child join the rat race’…….are things that are regularly intellectually hurled across to the average middle-class parent in India.
I had joined a theatre workshop recently. These are the kind of things that I’ve realized bored corporates often catch fancy for. It joins right in the category of salsa, pottery, guitar, piano, cha cha cha or yoga. Whenever some colleague gave me a questioning look on spotting me running in jogging gear from the office restroom; I reply quickly saying ‘theatre workshop’ and the person nods his head understandingly as if to say, “It’s okay, this too shall pass!”
“Hi, I am actually a…….model”, a pretty face sitting to my right said. “I have done print ads mostly. And yup, I am interested in acting”, she ended with a smile that carried from one end of her petite face to the other.
Others went on introducing themeselves; and I ended up nodding my head in acknowledgement to an array of actors, models, air hostesses, choreographers. Finally eleven pairs of eyes finally rested on me and I gauchely replied, “Hi, my name is Aurodeep. I am an Economist.”
‘Haanh?’, an audible hush went around the circle. “Wow”, the instructor finally said as if summarizing the group’s sentiments. “So why acting?”
“Imagine that the person is standing opposite you”, the instructor said in a droning voice as we all stood facing the wall. “Suppose you are mad at the person in front; how would you say this dialogue? Come on, shout.” Twelve people started barking like a pack of rabid dogs at the wall. “You are angry”, she continued, raising her voice and moving behind us like those really agitated coaches do in American movies while addressing a defunct basket ball team or an army unit. “You are very angry. That guy in front of you is your enemy. Come on more louder, Louder, LOUDER”
“Aurodeep”, she yelled as she came near me. “Be more fierce. More angry, I can’t see it in your face”, she ranted as I was increasingly failing to draw inspiration from a blank wall.
Additionally I was quite disturbed by the others. Pack a room full of people gesticulating and shouting their lungs out at the walls, and the end product looks sickeningly disconcerting. But on the top of everyone’s voices, one voice bellowed with great intensity, “Arrghhhhh, Mera aur main kaha baanki bancha hai !”, he screamed with theatric extravagence. He was a tall guy; handsome built, deep, resonating voice, a hero-like swagger. I looked around the room; and realized that there were actually quite a lot of my classmates who, like him had turned red and flushed in their faces, fuming and puffing at the wall. I looked back once again to my strip of the wall and muttered under my breath, “Sorry but I can’t offer you anything better.”
On the last of the six days, owing to incessant rains, I decided to share a taxi with four others in the group who were also going in the same direction. It wasn’t exactly a physical impossibility, since the other four with their showbiz aspirations had kept themselves conveniently thin to accommodate any such contingency. So I got seated in the front seat with the rest fitting themselves in the back. The guy with the vehemence and swagger was also in the group.
“Arre, koi contacts de na”, C asked him. “I want some serial roles.” R quite matter-of-factly pulled out his cell phone and announced as if he was giving dictation, “Duggu….93******. Then there is Aki. Aki; runs an event management company. Accha and take this number too…..you need to pester him a bit, but strong contacts hai uska”. The girl who had by now recovered from the frenzied typing on the mobile asked curiously, “You know so many people, man….how many years have you been in Mumbai?”
“Two. This September would make it two.”
“Wow, so any assignments?”
“I did a small role in a serial. My ad with Nokia will be coming out soon. And I am currently shooting one for a garments’ company. Arre you just need to be in the right place at the right time. Bas. Life is set. You know the guy who starred in Udaan? The lead role. He was a no one before that. One ad film. The director noticed him, and bas….I am doing theatre now to work on my acting. If you are a good actor, some day or the other, you will get the break.”
“Where do you exactly stay?”
“Evershine, Lokhandwala.”
“PG?”
“No, five of us have rented a flat.”
“My parents in Allahabad still think that I am doing hotel management.”
“Even me!”, another girl chimed in. “My father strictly told ‘no’. In our family everyone has studied something or the other. I didn't feel like doing MBA. I have auditioned for some plays, but getting into professional theatre is tough though. Mostly there are these close knit groups; there is hardly any scope for auditions. You need to be really good.”
"Auditions, na", another girl joined. “Does any one of you know how auditions for films work. Tried so many. Abhi tak kuch hua nahi (nothing has worked out yet),
For quite some while, having no such experience to contribute to the conversation, I continued to look ahead at the road and listen to transition plans of an airhostess into a model; a model into a hero; a choreographer to a model and a theatre artist to a film actor. All of them spoke fervently- of dreams, of aspirations, of hope and latently of desperation.
In an effort to be more social, I twisted my body and looked at the back seat packed with pretty people.
“Hey, what is your job like,” one of the models asked, as if in cognizance of my stunt.
“Well its basically understanding and forecasting economic variables. Forex and interest rate modeling. We give economic intelligence to companies- regarding growth prospects, industrial production, inflation…..”
As I went on, alarmed at how intellectual and heady I was sounding even to myself, it suddenly dawned on me why the tall guy was executing every instruction in that workshop with such aggressive meticulousness. Why others would look pained the moment the instructor would say that she expected better. Why most of them would shout, scream, jump, cry, breathe in, blow out…..all in a do-or-die fashion.
What was hobby to me, was profession to them. For me the workshop was a recreation. For them, it was a flight of stairs to another set of stairs, up a seemingly infinite staircase. A six day workshop had got over. ‘What would they be doing tomorrow morning’, I wondered. Call up some regulars for work? Scan newspapers for an odd audition? Preen themselves up for some forgettable shoot? Go for an appointment with a photographer, or a shady modeling coordinator, or beautician?
What would I be doing tomorrow?
Going to office.
I might like gallivanting from theatres to movie to workshops. I might enjoy reading plays throughout the day. I think I would love to play Hamlet. But waiting for a big break, seeking material salvation; I don’t think I would have liked to be in their shoes. I would not like to not dispense off with a nice, monthly pay cheque. I would not like to do a mental calculation before servicing any expensive desire.
They are indeed very brave people to have embarked on that path. Of uncertainty and personal calling. But somehow the coward in me is satisfied under the garb of a company ID. For all the tyranny that I faced from the education and social system; I think it atleast spared me of the war that I would otherwise have to fight on the street daily. I am glad that my parents stuck to their guns, put their weight behind me and pushed me up. I am glad that I burnt the midnight’s oil behind some excruciating exam. I am glad to have been beaten, and in turn beaten some in that conventional rat race. And I am glad that somewhere all that pressure and unambiguous communication of academic aspirations that an average Indian child receives dictation of; somehow worked in my favour.
In conclusion, I am glad to have lived the life of a slogging student.....and comfortably retired now! Making anything beyond office seem so much like an idyllic post-retirement cruise!
Somewhere in this album is a photo with my parents standing in the background beaming at their son. Somewhere there will also be tucked a photo of my father’s disgruntled face over a botched entrance exam. Somewhere else my mother would be explaining to some ever-inquisitive ‘aunty’ how her dear son is not actually lost in life; but is actually completing a brilliant secret science project underground. Somewhere in that album, my father would be juggling before me words like CA, CFA, MSc, BTech, MBA with unnerving adroitness. And somewhere in that album is a picture of my parents inviting all their friends over to celebrate their son’s first campus placement.
Which brings to my current state; having encapsulated atleast six years of textbook toil in the past two paragraphs. Now I go to office daily. Sit in a cubicle. Open my laptop; an instrument that had stopped looking dashing after my very first week at work. Attend meetings. Work against deadlines. Occasionally if things go right, I receive a pat on the back (literally, and no more!). If things go wrong, you go back home licking your wounds, being philosophical about life as a whole and the world as a globe. At the end of every month, a pay cheque comes- usually enough for me to watch new film releases, dine expensively and buy myself a monthly gift. But still it is dimunitive enough for my father to still nod his head disappointedly and say, “You can do better”!
People like my parents, and probably yours, and probably thousands and millions of others who expect a race horse out of a child…..come under the butt of a lot of idealistic disdain. Movies are made denouncing their mentality. Newspapers columns bemoan the poor child. ‘If the child wants to paint, let him’ ‘It looks like with the child, parent is also studying’ ‘Why make your child join the rat race’…….are things that are regularly intellectually hurled across to the average middle-class parent in India.
I had joined a theatre workshop recently. These are the kind of things that I’ve realized bored corporates often catch fancy for. It joins right in the category of salsa, pottery, guitar, piano, cha cha cha or yoga. Whenever some colleague gave me a questioning look on spotting me running in jogging gear from the office restroom; I reply quickly saying ‘theatre workshop’ and the person nods his head understandingly as if to say, “It’s okay, this too shall pass!”
“Hi, I am actually a…….model”, a pretty face sitting to my right said. “I have done print ads mostly. And yup, I am interested in acting”, she ended with a smile that carried from one end of her petite face to the other.
Others went on introducing themeselves; and I ended up nodding my head in acknowledgement to an array of actors, models, air hostesses, choreographers. Finally eleven pairs of eyes finally rested on me and I gauchely replied, “Hi, my name is Aurodeep. I am an Economist.”
‘Haanh?’, an audible hush went around the circle. “Wow”, the instructor finally said as if summarizing the group’s sentiments. “So why acting?”
“Imagine that the person is standing opposite you”, the instructor said in a droning voice as we all stood facing the wall. “Suppose you are mad at the person in front; how would you say this dialogue? Come on, shout.” Twelve people started barking like a pack of rabid dogs at the wall. “You are angry”, she continued, raising her voice and moving behind us like those really agitated coaches do in American movies while addressing a defunct basket ball team or an army unit. “You are very angry. That guy in front of you is your enemy. Come on more louder, Louder, LOUDER”
“Aurodeep”, she yelled as she came near me. “Be more fierce. More angry, I can’t see it in your face”, she ranted as I was increasingly failing to draw inspiration from a blank wall.
Additionally I was quite disturbed by the others. Pack a room full of people gesticulating and shouting their lungs out at the walls, and the end product looks sickeningly disconcerting. But on the top of everyone’s voices, one voice bellowed with great intensity, “Arrghhhhh, Mera aur main kaha baanki bancha hai !”, he screamed with theatric extravagence. He was a tall guy; handsome built, deep, resonating voice, a hero-like swagger. I looked around the room; and realized that there were actually quite a lot of my classmates who, like him had turned red and flushed in their faces, fuming and puffing at the wall. I looked back once again to my strip of the wall and muttered under my breath, “Sorry but I can’t offer you anything better.”
On the last of the six days, owing to incessant rains, I decided to share a taxi with four others in the group who were also going in the same direction. It wasn’t exactly a physical impossibility, since the other four with their showbiz aspirations had kept themselves conveniently thin to accommodate any such contingency. So I got seated in the front seat with the rest fitting themselves in the back. The guy with the vehemence and swagger was also in the group.
“Arre, koi contacts de na”, C asked him. “I want some serial roles.” R quite matter-of-factly pulled out his cell phone and announced as if he was giving dictation, “Duggu….93******. Then there is Aki. Aki; runs an event management company. Accha and take this number too…..you need to pester him a bit, but strong contacts hai uska”. The girl who had by now recovered from the frenzied typing on the mobile asked curiously, “You know so many people, man….how many years have you been in Mumbai?”
“Two. This September would make it two.”
“Wow, so any assignments?”
“I did a small role in a serial. My ad with Nokia will be coming out soon. And I am currently shooting one for a garments’ company. Arre you just need to be in the right place at the right time. Bas. Life is set. You know the guy who starred in Udaan? The lead role. He was a no one before that. One ad film. The director noticed him, and bas….I am doing theatre now to work on my acting. If you are a good actor, some day or the other, you will get the break.”
“Where do you exactly stay?”
“Evershine, Lokhandwala.”
“PG?”
“No, five of us have rented a flat.”
“My parents in Allahabad still think that I am doing hotel management.”
“Even me!”, another girl chimed in. “My father strictly told ‘no’. In our family everyone has studied something or the other. I didn't feel like doing MBA. I have auditioned for some plays, but getting into professional theatre is tough though. Mostly there are these close knit groups; there is hardly any scope for auditions. You need to be really good.”
"Auditions, na", another girl joined. “Does any one of you know how auditions for films work. Tried so many. Abhi tak kuch hua nahi (nothing has worked out yet),
For quite some while, having no such experience to contribute to the conversation, I continued to look ahead at the road and listen to transition plans of an airhostess into a model; a model into a hero; a choreographer to a model and a theatre artist to a film actor. All of them spoke fervently- of dreams, of aspirations, of hope and latently of desperation.
In an effort to be more social, I twisted my body and looked at the back seat packed with pretty people.
“Hey, what is your job like,” one of the models asked, as if in cognizance of my stunt.
“Well its basically understanding and forecasting economic variables. Forex and interest rate modeling. We give economic intelligence to companies- regarding growth prospects, industrial production, inflation…..”
As I went on, alarmed at how intellectual and heady I was sounding even to myself, it suddenly dawned on me why the tall guy was executing every instruction in that workshop with such aggressive meticulousness. Why others would look pained the moment the instructor would say that she expected better. Why most of them would shout, scream, jump, cry, breathe in, blow out…..all in a do-or-die fashion.
What was hobby to me, was profession to them. For me the workshop was a recreation. For them, it was a flight of stairs to another set of stairs, up a seemingly infinite staircase. A six day workshop had got over. ‘What would they be doing tomorrow morning’, I wondered. Call up some regulars for work? Scan newspapers for an odd audition? Preen themselves up for some forgettable shoot? Go for an appointment with a photographer, or a shady modeling coordinator, or beautician?
What would I be doing tomorrow?
Going to office.
I might like gallivanting from theatres to movie to workshops. I might enjoy reading plays throughout the day. I think I would love to play Hamlet. But waiting for a big break, seeking material salvation; I don’t think I would have liked to be in their shoes. I would not like to not dispense off with a nice, monthly pay cheque. I would not like to do a mental calculation before servicing any expensive desire.
They are indeed very brave people to have embarked on that path. Of uncertainty and personal calling. But somehow the coward in me is satisfied under the garb of a company ID. For all the tyranny that I faced from the education and social system; I think it atleast spared me of the war that I would otherwise have to fight on the street daily. I am glad that my parents stuck to their guns, put their weight behind me and pushed me up. I am glad that I burnt the midnight’s oil behind some excruciating exam. I am glad to have been beaten, and in turn beaten some in that conventional rat race. And I am glad that somewhere all that pressure and unambiguous communication of academic aspirations that an average Indian child receives dictation of; somehow worked in my favour.
In conclusion, I am glad to have lived the life of a slogging student.....and comfortably retired now! Making anything beyond office seem so much like an idyllic post-retirement cruise!
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
R (unning) B (ehind) I (nflation)? NOT YET!
“Do you have any idea what potato prices have become....it’s now twenty three rupees a kilo! It’s hard to imagine that they used to once come for eight to ten rupees!” my father commented while trying to balance the plate passed on to him during dinner. Now I am not quite sure what small talk the RBI governor D Subbarao indulges in during dinner time, but I am quite confident that he too must be sharing my father’s concern for that rising CPI graph that refuses to be tamed!
Not surprisingly the run-up to the much touted Second Quarter Review of the RBI’s monetary policy was occupied by discussion on how it planned to tackle inflation. The famous debate in economics between growth and inflation once again claimed limelight. Would the RBI increase interest rates to quell inflation? RBI’s answer this time was, “No, but we have it in mind.” Much to the relief of industry captains, the key policy rates remained unchanged at previously benign levels while the SLR requirement was nudged back to its pre-crisis level of 25%. The other policy decisions taken by RBI (like doing away with refinance facilities) were similarly cosmetic in nature; all indicating that the RBI was shying away from any affirmative roll-back of its monetary prodigality this time around; but was signalling of stiffer action to come.
But why did RBI have to increase SLR? Well of course it is a step towards containing liquidity, but the fact remains that most banks are currently satisfying their SLR requirement comfortably; as a matter of fact they are exceeding it. A minor rectification of this ceiling is really not of much consequence to them. One might argue that it is a signalling device for tougher policy later. But again, why does the RBI need that? The moot question is: What would have happened if the RBI had not indulged in these token policy measures now, and directly attempted to target inflation by raising policy rates later?
The crucial missing piece of the jigsaw is that the RBI is really not interested in targeting inflation now. What the RBI is really concerned about in this review; is ‘expected’ inflation. And there is an important reason behind this concern. If people perceive a lethargic central bank that does not seem to worry about inflation, they would revise their expectation of inflation upwards in the coming months. This would in turn lead to the hoarding of commodities since people would expect prices to escalate. However paradoxically, this very action would lead to an upward spurt in the spot prices of commodities. Hence ultimately the same inflation that people ‘expected’ to materialise in a few months would in turn end up haunting them immediately.
Hence the RBI understands that howsoever superficial may be its policies in this review; some good marketing is necessary! People need to have cause to believe that the RBI is going to take proactive action, and that there is not going to be the case of a runaway inflation. And this feeds into a virtuous cycle since the RBI in turn requires this perception for its policies to succeed. Or else it would be grappling with inflation on a week-to-week guerrilla basis!
However the larger question is that instead of indulging in this charade, why didn’t the RBI in the first place increase key policy rates in this quarter itself. After all there were many allusions in the media of Israel and Australia hiking their rates. It can also be argued that monetary policies come with a lag and with WPI already nearing 6% and the base effect disappearing, there is certainly a case for urgency. Secondly, huge liquidity in the market leads to a potential for an asset price escalation. This compounded by large capital inflows could lead to bludgeoning asset prices. Infact in some ways, RBI has attempted to address this issue in the current review by hiking provision requirements for loans to commercial realty (which in my opinion can backfire since developers would pass on the increase in cost of funds to the buyers, and if demand refuses to be daunted there could be another rally of real estate price hike)
Finally some could argue that even if the RBI increased interest rates or upped the CRR; it need not have necessarily translated into higher costs for borrowers. This is because credit growth in India remains quintessentially weak, and banks would be hesitant to extinguish any demand for loans by increasing lending rates. And if their assets are not growing, banks would have no incentive to chase liabilities by providing higher deposit rates. So even tampering with policy rates would be akin to a token gesture.
However with the look of things, RBI is certainly not willing to let its growth objectives be hijacked by the whims of banks deciding whether to change their deposit and lending rates in response to RBI’s rate hike, or to demand and supply conditions in the market. Secondly a reversal in monetary policy would lead to increased yields on government bonds which in turn could thrust interest rates upwards and hence affect consumption and investment demand negatively.
But in my perspective the primary reason why the RBI refused to compromise on growth in this quarter, is because 60% of the Indian populace is employed in agriculture and the drought situation threatens to hit their disposable incomes badly. This drought promises not only to accentuate inflation, but also create a huge growth deficit. Which is why emulating Israel’s or Australia’s rate hikes may not be the best alternative for us. Finally an increase in interest rates could also lead to further capital inflows; which apart from inflating asset prices, would also be putting pressure on the rupee to appreciate.
The RBI seems to have got the trade-off right this time; but I doubt if tough choices are going to excuse themselves any time soon! It is indeed time for the tiger prowling on its emblem to prove its mettle. This quarter it has just growled; next time, get ready for its roar!
Not surprisingly the run-up to the much touted Second Quarter Review of the RBI’s monetary policy was occupied by discussion on how it planned to tackle inflation. The famous debate in economics between growth and inflation once again claimed limelight. Would the RBI increase interest rates to quell inflation? RBI’s answer this time was, “No, but we have it in mind.” Much to the relief of industry captains, the key policy rates remained unchanged at previously benign levels while the SLR requirement was nudged back to its pre-crisis level of 25%. The other policy decisions taken by RBI (like doing away with refinance facilities) were similarly cosmetic in nature; all indicating that the RBI was shying away from any affirmative roll-back of its monetary prodigality this time around; but was signalling of stiffer action to come.
But why did RBI have to increase SLR? Well of course it is a step towards containing liquidity, but the fact remains that most banks are currently satisfying their SLR requirement comfortably; as a matter of fact they are exceeding it. A minor rectification of this ceiling is really not of much consequence to them. One might argue that it is a signalling device for tougher policy later. But again, why does the RBI need that? The moot question is: What would have happened if the RBI had not indulged in these token policy measures now, and directly attempted to target inflation by raising policy rates later?
The crucial missing piece of the jigsaw is that the RBI is really not interested in targeting inflation now. What the RBI is really concerned about in this review; is ‘expected’ inflation. And there is an important reason behind this concern. If people perceive a lethargic central bank that does not seem to worry about inflation, they would revise their expectation of inflation upwards in the coming months. This would in turn lead to the hoarding of commodities since people would expect prices to escalate. However paradoxically, this very action would lead to an upward spurt in the spot prices of commodities. Hence ultimately the same inflation that people ‘expected’ to materialise in a few months would in turn end up haunting them immediately.
Hence the RBI understands that howsoever superficial may be its policies in this review; some good marketing is necessary! People need to have cause to believe that the RBI is going to take proactive action, and that there is not going to be the case of a runaway inflation. And this feeds into a virtuous cycle since the RBI in turn requires this perception for its policies to succeed. Or else it would be grappling with inflation on a week-to-week guerrilla basis!
However the larger question is that instead of indulging in this charade, why didn’t the RBI in the first place increase key policy rates in this quarter itself. After all there were many allusions in the media of Israel and Australia hiking their rates. It can also be argued that monetary policies come with a lag and with WPI already nearing 6% and the base effect disappearing, there is certainly a case for urgency. Secondly, huge liquidity in the market leads to a potential for an asset price escalation. This compounded by large capital inflows could lead to bludgeoning asset prices. Infact in some ways, RBI has attempted to address this issue in the current review by hiking provision requirements for loans to commercial realty (which in my opinion can backfire since developers would pass on the increase in cost of funds to the buyers, and if demand refuses to be daunted there could be another rally of real estate price hike)
Finally some could argue that even if the RBI increased interest rates or upped the CRR; it need not have necessarily translated into higher costs for borrowers. This is because credit growth in India remains quintessentially weak, and banks would be hesitant to extinguish any demand for loans by increasing lending rates. And if their assets are not growing, banks would have no incentive to chase liabilities by providing higher deposit rates. So even tampering with policy rates would be akin to a token gesture.
However with the look of things, RBI is certainly not willing to let its growth objectives be hijacked by the whims of banks deciding whether to change their deposit and lending rates in response to RBI’s rate hike, or to demand and supply conditions in the market. Secondly a reversal in monetary policy would lead to increased yields on government bonds which in turn could thrust interest rates upwards and hence affect consumption and investment demand negatively.
But in my perspective the primary reason why the RBI refused to compromise on growth in this quarter, is because 60% of the Indian populace is employed in agriculture and the drought situation threatens to hit their disposable incomes badly. This drought promises not only to accentuate inflation, but also create a huge growth deficit. Which is why emulating Israel’s or Australia’s rate hikes may not be the best alternative for us. Finally an increase in interest rates could also lead to further capital inflows; which apart from inflating asset prices, would also be putting pressure on the rupee to appreciate.
The RBI seems to have got the trade-off right this time; but I doubt if tough choices are going to excuse themselves any time soon! It is indeed time for the tiger prowling on its emblem to prove its mettle. This quarter it has just growled; next time, get ready for its roar!
Sunday, 18 October 2009
The Ghost
Dear Sir/Madam (How anti-feminist indeed.....if it’s a lady reading this, she might prefer Madam/Sir)
I would like to apply for the position of.......
I have recently completed my MBA from London Business School; previously MSc Economics from LSE, and graduation from....... (you better be reading this very carefully- it took me over two freaking decades of my life to fill up this paragraph)
I am really interested in the Investment Banking profile of the job. It is something that excites me tremendously (oh yes, I have wild, rave dreams about companies in the night)
In support of my leadership qualities, I have been the (President of the United States), and also spent some very constructive time during my previous internship (where I found out that I had a rare talent for online stick cricket)
Please find my CV attached. I am sure I can value-add to your company (Oh, I so love this term)
Yours Sincerely (Pleadingly, Grovelling-ly, Begging-ly)
Arijit Sen (Have a heart!)
“And now, ‘Send’ “. The button mocked a push with a light click of the laptop touch-pad. Immediately to be sent across cities and oceans and mountains, to join other applications into the e-dustbin of another company’s HR office, Arijit thought . Would he be really awarded this time for his absurd stretch of imagination? “Well somebody should fall for it", he soliloquised.
“So, Arijit.....”, with special emphasis on the ‘so’, was usually the way any of his mother’s friends would begin a conversation with him, just as he tried to sneak out unnoticed. “So, Orijit; akhun ki korcho” (Arijit, what are you upto now). Arijit realised that till not so long ago, the name of an exalted university and an impending exam would be enough to shut all of them up with an impressed smile. This time, Swapna aunty gave a long slurp to the tea and with remarkable snugness went on, “Don’t worry. With your qualifications, there are lots of jobs out there”, pointing her tea cup towards the open expanse from his ninth floor window. “You just need to keep trying. You know, my daughter. See, now she is working with TCS. Ofcourse hers was campus placement. For you, you need some experience. Puchhh. It’s not easy. But don’t worry”
Arijit wondered if Swapna aunty with her versatile daughter was infact his greatest worry; with his sordid condition of inaction being treated by her as biscuits to be moistened with her tea. “I need to go, aunty”, he replied, standing up abruptly,and giving a sweet smile that could have easily landed him a job of a butler at a five star joint. "Doesn't she have anything else to do?", Arijit rumbled under his breath
It’s been roughly two months. Two months since he came back from London. And reformed the contact details on his CV. And though every HR personnel had become intensely ‘Dear’ to him in cover letters, none bothered returning his affections. Some did, and then an odd interview would occur and then everything would again go deathly quiet between the company and him as if the subject of jobs was too taboo a topic to be discussed.
Back at home, his father would brew tea in the morning with an Armageddon look on his face. “Why don’t you apply to Analytics jobs? There are so many of those”.
“But Baba, I am not interested in those...”, Arijit would say wondering why there wasn’t a faster way to have tea than by luxuriously sipping it.
“What do you mean, not interested? Not interested. Job is job”. After a while, “Then government?”, Baba would explode with renewed energy. “Why not government services? Give an exam, clear it....”
“And then sit on a table and clear files”, Arijit mentally completed Baba’s sentence. In the big, cruel, cold world out there, his father still had admirable resolve in the behemoth Government sector to tuck his son in with paternal benevolence.
Arijit discovered that tea could be had faster when it grew a bit colder. One gulp and he earned his salvation from the living room that had turned into a career-counselling clinic.
“Yaaaaar, what are you doing today, man”? Arijit never really managed to give a coherent answer to that ebullient question of Rohit. In response to his mumbling, Rohit would quickly drown it by saying, “Chal yaar, movie pe chalte hai”.
Rohit was Arijit’s friend, who had risen from slumdog existence. Unknown colleges, unspoken grades, rocking parties.......an oblivious speck in the world of insecure toppers. When he started off with a job, he looked bit like a pet Labrador being thrown into a pack of street dogs to spend his life with them. Two years hence, and Rohit had transformed himself into a deft street-fighter. Into marketing and sales, he could churn out industry jargon in conversations as if it were being sprayed from machine guns.
At the mall, Rohit went on mindlessly chattering how he was marked for crucification next week, for not generating enough sales figures. “Arre, arre....please, I will pay”, Rohit stopped his monologue to prevent Arijit from taking out his wallet at the ticket counter. On the way up the escalator to the top floor where the multiplex was located, Rohit completed his interrupted oral sales report, and then asked, “So, wassup with you, dude? How’s the job search coming along?” Arijit’s summary lasted for barely one floor of the escalators’ ascent. As they handed the tickets to the usher, Arijit decided to summarise it with a ‘Chal raha hai, yaar. Let’s see.”
Back in McDonalds, after the movie got over, Arijit watched Rohit’s eyes move around with undercover stealth. Then suddenly in the middle of a bite of a burger, Rohit hissed “To your left, behind, in front of the glass wall, having a cold drink.” As Arijit attempted to turn around, Rohit stopped him saying, “What do you think you are doing! Turn slowly man; don’t turn like somebody is pointing out something to you!” Arijit this time turned with an orchestrated James Bond nonchalance to see a slim girl in a black dress sipping from a towering McDonald carton and staring out of the window. “Hot, na”? Rohit smirked with devilish intent. “Even she was staring at me.”
Arijit returned home tired. Normally he found Rohit’s newly acquired corporate sheen and his imaginary tryst with girls sitting a dozen tables away, quite amusing. But this time, he felt different. While he was tasting the new icecream-dipped-in-coke at McD’s, something that Arijit had immediately voted as one of the worst culinary innovations ever, and watching Rohit rattle alternately between sales figures and girls; he noticed a sense of pride and satisfaction in the guy. He was talking his heart out, as if he had earned the weekend. He was taking out his wallet with the relish of having worked for the notes ensconced in it. That girl by the window side was his affordable hobby because he was standing on his two feet. Arijit realised that he, on the other hand was standing on the red carpet of some exotic paper certificates. Pull the carpet, and he would be on the floor. Mentally Arijit told himself that any further movie with Rohit would have to wait.
Days inched by. Weeks crawled on. Diwali came. Amidst an outrageous cacophony of blasts that seemed to occur eternally outside, Arijit sat in his room with his laptop cradled on his legs. Nothing. No one. Yahoo mail tauntingly revealed no new mail, inspite of him refreshing the page with frustrating regularity. For the past half an hour, Arijit had been watching new status messages being posted in Facebook. “4 new posts”. After a while “1 new post”. Arijit felt like he was on National Geographic watching and recording when one lion would yawn and the other would sit down. Gtalk obviously had an array of red and green bulbs beside names of several of his friends. But nobody bothered dropping by for a chat. “Nobody really cares, do they”, he wondered. “I am after all the unshaven unemployed couch potato, writing flattering letters and boastful CVs, while all of you are leading smart lives in a smart jobs”. Arijit felt a kind of childish hostility against them all. “If they don’t bother chatting with me, SO WON’T I”.
Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen minutes. His Gandhian protest seemed to go unnoticed. “HELLO GUYS CAN’T YOU SEE ME”, Arijit felt like yelling. But each one seemed to be absorbed in their own parallel universes. Even if somebody did stop by, Arijit wondered if he really had any answer for the question, “How was your day”. The day was ............Arijit realised that he was decaying from inside. Nowadays if his mother would ask him to get something thing, he would idly stare at the object for some time wondering why it did not suddenly grow a pair of legs to walk past him. The ultimate shocker came to Arijit when he realised that he was watching FRIENDS....and wasn’t laughing at all. It was as if he was okay with the recorded laughter of the audience doing it for him. “I am going mad”, he told himself.
“Yaar, Wasssup”, Rohit’s enthusiastic voice came with the phone ring that suddenly flashed on Arijit’s mobile phone. “Hey listen, I need a favour man. It’s this babe, yaar. Met on the bus. And guess what, this one actually talks to me! So here’s the deal. I want to ask her out, but before that I want to sort of make her feel comfortable. So I thought that I would call her for dinner with my friends; you know just to make her feel as if I am not really dating her, or something..” Arijit decided that if there was indeed a low point of his dismal day; listening to Rohit make Bush-like plans to woo a girl, was most certainly it.
“So great, go ahead”, Arijit replied.
“That’s the problem, no one is free yaar.” Rohit replied as if waiting for the cue. “Why don’t you come along?”
“Hi, my name is Arijit”, Arijit replied to the slightly overweight girl at the side of Rohit. “Great, so let’s go then. There’s this really cool Chinese restaurant on the way. Let’s go guys.” Rohit suggested with orchestrated enthusiasm. “So what are you doing, Arijit?” Pooja asked over a glass of beer, once they walked into a plush restaurant that Arijit suspected would lighten Rohit’s pockets dearly once the bill came. “Well, actually nothing. Rohit here will tell you that I am even available for hanging his coat. But the answer to your question is that I am just out of LBS and LSE. Looking for a job.”
“Wow, that’s something, isn’t it? What do you need for getting into LBS.”
“Nothing much, actually; you need some profs who think that you are a prodigy. And some great essay writing”, Arijit replied.
At the end of the dinner, as they came out of the restaurant, Pooja gave him a rather penetrating stare as she said, “It was lovely meeting you, Arijit.”
“Bye, Pooja”, said Rohit.
Days later, Pooja Gupta’s friend request came on Arijit’s Facebook profile. There were three hundred and twenty nine faces lined up there already who did nothing more than just smile at him constantly. Another one could do no extra harm. “Just need to tell Rohit that she doesn’t seem his type”, Arijit thought as he accepted the request.
It was Diwali again. This time Arijit found himself in his office party wearing a rich sherwani, putting his life on the line for lighting a fire cracker. As he faked a laugh with some of his colleagues, he managed to efficaciously slide the paneer tikka off the serving-spoon onto his plate. Finding a quiet spot he seated himself, giving a royal brush to his sherwani to prevent sitting on it. Butchering the paneer into two neat halves, his thoughts flew to the evening last Diwali. Where he met Pooja. The only person who went on to poke him on Gtalk, saying “Hiya, how are you doing?” The one who turned out be his greatest support during those unshaven days when he had nothing to do but watch the screen for a mail to drop by. In all those days of inaction, she was the only one to reach to the phone to get his call, and return them back if she missed him. She was such a great friend.
But was he so absorbed in himself that he did not realise that she had actually fallen in love with him? Arijit would have perhaps never known. His new job started. Life suddenly picked up frenetic pace. Long philosophical conversations got converted into quick “Hw r u. Im fine” messages. New places, new people, new friends......without realising it Pooja faded to the background.
Arijit munched on the paneer piece as he remembered the day when in one phone call one evening Pooja admitted that she could no longer keep the crush to herself. Yes, she loved him. The words stung him like something he had never felt before. “I do like you”, was all he could cough out. In a fraction of a second, Arijit suddenly found himself delving into his own self like a person thrown off a cliff, wondering what he really felt for her.
“That’s ok”, came a gruff reply from the other side of the phone. “Hey listen Arijit, I need to go now.” Arijit could now feel Pooja’s pain float out pungently with her discretion. ‘Was I using her? Was I being selfish... But I never wanted to hurt her’, Arijit screamed out silently. Groping for words, he finally said, “Hey Pooja........I...” .“No probs Arijit” came a calm reply from the receiver; “ I wasn’t expecting it either. Good bye.”
Click. And then silence.
It was as if Pooja was there all though the darkness of recession, and then like a spirit disappeared theatrically when the first rays of recovery found its way into Arijit’s world.
Pooja never called after that. Neither did she answer calls. And Arijit had to accept the inconvenient truth that he was not doing bad at all. Yes, his good friend was lost. But several not-so-selfless ones emerged. Pooja was a small, itching blot on his conscience; the gnawing feeling of having let down a friend.
"Hi Ari", from the seat below, Arijit could only see a long expanse of legs till the skirt hit his view like a saving grace. "How are you doing? Aren't you the new guy who joined......."
Arijit forced a smile as the attractive lady sat beside him. "Have I seen you somewhere. I mean before this ofcourse. Would you be knowing....."
Arijit went on answering in his polite self. But in his mind there was a red flag that was billowing furiously. And he realised that he was giving guarded replies; smiling, but not laughing; conscious of an unease. Suddenly he found himself deeply analysing every word of the lady in the unknown recesses of his mind, wondering if they concealed anything more than what it seemed. It was as if something in the bottom of his mind rattled as if warning him of something dire.
The lady soon walked away, unimpressed by Arijit's muted and strange replies. "Rohit would have killed to be in my position five minutes back", Arijit chuckled.
But as he idly gazed at the slim hips of the lady oscillate off to another corner of the hall, Arijit knew exactly what was happening. Why he was behaving so charmlessly. Why he was being afraid of the unforseen circumstance of harmless flirting. What was stopping him from exploring anything else with anyone else.
It was the ghost of Pooja that was haunting him.
I would like to apply for the position of.......
I have recently completed my MBA from London Business School; previously MSc Economics from LSE, and graduation from....... (you better be reading this very carefully- it took me over two freaking decades of my life to fill up this paragraph)
I am really interested in the Investment Banking profile of the job. It is something that excites me tremendously (oh yes, I have wild, rave dreams about companies in the night)
In support of my leadership qualities, I have been the (President of the United States), and also spent some very constructive time during my previous internship (where I found out that I had a rare talent for online stick cricket)
Please find my CV attached. I am sure I can value-add to your company (Oh, I so love this term)
Yours Sincerely (Pleadingly, Grovelling-ly, Begging-ly)
Arijit Sen (Have a heart!)
“And now, ‘Send’ “. The button mocked a push with a light click of the laptop touch-pad. Immediately to be sent across cities and oceans and mountains, to join other applications into the e-dustbin of another company’s HR office, Arijit thought . Would he be really awarded this time for his absurd stretch of imagination? “Well somebody should fall for it", he soliloquised.
“So, Arijit.....”, with special emphasis on the ‘so’, was usually the way any of his mother’s friends would begin a conversation with him, just as he tried to sneak out unnoticed. “So, Orijit; akhun ki korcho” (Arijit, what are you upto now). Arijit realised that till not so long ago, the name of an exalted university and an impending exam would be enough to shut all of them up with an impressed smile. This time, Swapna aunty gave a long slurp to the tea and with remarkable snugness went on, “Don’t worry. With your qualifications, there are lots of jobs out there”, pointing her tea cup towards the open expanse from his ninth floor window. “You just need to keep trying. You know, my daughter. See, now she is working with TCS. Ofcourse hers was campus placement. For you, you need some experience. Puchhh. It’s not easy. But don’t worry”
Arijit wondered if Swapna aunty with her versatile daughter was infact his greatest worry; with his sordid condition of inaction being treated by her as biscuits to be moistened with her tea. “I need to go, aunty”, he replied, standing up abruptly,and giving a sweet smile that could have easily landed him a job of a butler at a five star joint. "Doesn't she have anything else to do?", Arijit rumbled under his breath
It’s been roughly two months. Two months since he came back from London. And reformed the contact details on his CV. And though every HR personnel had become intensely ‘Dear’ to him in cover letters, none bothered returning his affections. Some did, and then an odd interview would occur and then everything would again go deathly quiet between the company and him as if the subject of jobs was too taboo a topic to be discussed.
Back at home, his father would brew tea in the morning with an Armageddon look on his face. “Why don’t you apply to Analytics jobs? There are so many of those”.
“But Baba, I am not interested in those...”, Arijit would say wondering why there wasn’t a faster way to have tea than by luxuriously sipping it.
“What do you mean, not interested? Not interested. Job is job”. After a while, “Then government?”, Baba would explode with renewed energy. “Why not government services? Give an exam, clear it....”
“And then sit on a table and clear files”, Arijit mentally completed Baba’s sentence. In the big, cruel, cold world out there, his father still had admirable resolve in the behemoth Government sector to tuck his son in with paternal benevolence.
Arijit discovered that tea could be had faster when it grew a bit colder. One gulp and he earned his salvation from the living room that had turned into a career-counselling clinic.
“Yaaaaar, what are you doing today, man”? Arijit never really managed to give a coherent answer to that ebullient question of Rohit. In response to his mumbling, Rohit would quickly drown it by saying, “Chal yaar, movie pe chalte hai”.
Rohit was Arijit’s friend, who had risen from slumdog existence. Unknown colleges, unspoken grades, rocking parties.......an oblivious speck in the world of insecure toppers. When he started off with a job, he looked bit like a pet Labrador being thrown into a pack of street dogs to spend his life with them. Two years hence, and Rohit had transformed himself into a deft street-fighter. Into marketing and sales, he could churn out industry jargon in conversations as if it were being sprayed from machine guns.
At the mall, Rohit went on mindlessly chattering how he was marked for crucification next week, for not generating enough sales figures. “Arre, arre....please, I will pay”, Rohit stopped his monologue to prevent Arijit from taking out his wallet at the ticket counter. On the way up the escalator to the top floor where the multiplex was located, Rohit completed his interrupted oral sales report, and then asked, “So, wassup with you, dude? How’s the job search coming along?” Arijit’s summary lasted for barely one floor of the escalators’ ascent. As they handed the tickets to the usher, Arijit decided to summarise it with a ‘Chal raha hai, yaar. Let’s see.”
Back in McDonalds, after the movie got over, Arijit watched Rohit’s eyes move around with undercover stealth. Then suddenly in the middle of a bite of a burger, Rohit hissed “To your left, behind, in front of the glass wall, having a cold drink.” As Arijit attempted to turn around, Rohit stopped him saying, “What do you think you are doing! Turn slowly man; don’t turn like somebody is pointing out something to you!” Arijit this time turned with an orchestrated James Bond nonchalance to see a slim girl in a black dress sipping from a towering McDonald carton and staring out of the window. “Hot, na”? Rohit smirked with devilish intent. “Even she was staring at me.”
Arijit returned home tired. Normally he found Rohit’s newly acquired corporate sheen and his imaginary tryst with girls sitting a dozen tables away, quite amusing. But this time, he felt different. While he was tasting the new icecream-dipped-in-coke at McD’s, something that Arijit had immediately voted as one of the worst culinary innovations ever, and watching Rohit rattle alternately between sales figures and girls; he noticed a sense of pride and satisfaction in the guy. He was talking his heart out, as if he had earned the weekend. He was taking out his wallet with the relish of having worked for the notes ensconced in it. That girl by the window side was his affordable hobby because he was standing on his two feet. Arijit realised that he, on the other hand was standing on the red carpet of some exotic paper certificates. Pull the carpet, and he would be on the floor. Mentally Arijit told himself that any further movie with Rohit would have to wait.
Days inched by. Weeks crawled on. Diwali came. Amidst an outrageous cacophony of blasts that seemed to occur eternally outside, Arijit sat in his room with his laptop cradled on his legs. Nothing. No one. Yahoo mail tauntingly revealed no new mail, inspite of him refreshing the page with frustrating regularity. For the past half an hour, Arijit had been watching new status messages being posted in Facebook. “4 new posts”. After a while “1 new post”. Arijit felt like he was on National Geographic watching and recording when one lion would yawn and the other would sit down. Gtalk obviously had an array of red and green bulbs beside names of several of his friends. But nobody bothered dropping by for a chat. “Nobody really cares, do they”, he wondered. “I am after all the unshaven unemployed couch potato, writing flattering letters and boastful CVs, while all of you are leading smart lives in a smart jobs”. Arijit felt a kind of childish hostility against them all. “If they don’t bother chatting with me, SO WON’T I”.
Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen minutes. His Gandhian protest seemed to go unnoticed. “HELLO GUYS CAN’T YOU SEE ME”, Arijit felt like yelling. But each one seemed to be absorbed in their own parallel universes. Even if somebody did stop by, Arijit wondered if he really had any answer for the question, “How was your day”. The day was ............Arijit realised that he was decaying from inside. Nowadays if his mother would ask him to get something thing, he would idly stare at the object for some time wondering why it did not suddenly grow a pair of legs to walk past him. The ultimate shocker came to Arijit when he realised that he was watching FRIENDS....and wasn’t laughing at all. It was as if he was okay with the recorded laughter of the audience doing it for him. “I am going mad”, he told himself.
“Yaar, Wasssup”, Rohit’s enthusiastic voice came with the phone ring that suddenly flashed on Arijit’s mobile phone. “Hey listen, I need a favour man. It’s this babe, yaar. Met on the bus. And guess what, this one actually talks to me! So here’s the deal. I want to ask her out, but before that I want to sort of make her feel comfortable. So I thought that I would call her for dinner with my friends; you know just to make her feel as if I am not really dating her, or something..” Arijit decided that if there was indeed a low point of his dismal day; listening to Rohit make Bush-like plans to woo a girl, was most certainly it.
“So great, go ahead”, Arijit replied.
“That’s the problem, no one is free yaar.” Rohit replied as if waiting for the cue. “Why don’t you come along?”
“Hi, my name is Arijit”, Arijit replied to the slightly overweight girl at the side of Rohit. “Great, so let’s go then. There’s this really cool Chinese restaurant on the way. Let’s go guys.” Rohit suggested with orchestrated enthusiasm. “So what are you doing, Arijit?” Pooja asked over a glass of beer, once they walked into a plush restaurant that Arijit suspected would lighten Rohit’s pockets dearly once the bill came. “Well, actually nothing. Rohit here will tell you that I am even available for hanging his coat. But the answer to your question is that I am just out of LBS and LSE. Looking for a job.”
“Wow, that’s something, isn’t it? What do you need for getting into LBS.”
“Nothing much, actually; you need some profs who think that you are a prodigy. And some great essay writing”, Arijit replied.
At the end of the dinner, as they came out of the restaurant, Pooja gave him a rather penetrating stare as she said, “It was lovely meeting you, Arijit.”
“Bye, Pooja”, said Rohit.
Days later, Pooja Gupta’s friend request came on Arijit’s Facebook profile. There were three hundred and twenty nine faces lined up there already who did nothing more than just smile at him constantly. Another one could do no extra harm. “Just need to tell Rohit that she doesn’t seem his type”, Arijit thought as he accepted the request.
It was Diwali again. This time Arijit found himself in his office party wearing a rich sherwani, putting his life on the line for lighting a fire cracker. As he faked a laugh with some of his colleagues, he managed to efficaciously slide the paneer tikka off the serving-spoon onto his plate. Finding a quiet spot he seated himself, giving a royal brush to his sherwani to prevent sitting on it. Butchering the paneer into two neat halves, his thoughts flew to the evening last Diwali. Where he met Pooja. The only person who went on to poke him on Gtalk, saying “Hiya, how are you doing?” The one who turned out be his greatest support during those unshaven days when he had nothing to do but watch the screen for a mail to drop by. In all those days of inaction, she was the only one to reach to the phone to get his call, and return them back if she missed him. She was such a great friend.
But was he so absorbed in himself that he did not realise that she had actually fallen in love with him? Arijit would have perhaps never known. His new job started. Life suddenly picked up frenetic pace. Long philosophical conversations got converted into quick “Hw r u. Im fine” messages. New places, new people, new friends......without realising it Pooja faded to the background.
Arijit munched on the paneer piece as he remembered the day when in one phone call one evening Pooja admitted that she could no longer keep the crush to herself. Yes, she loved him. The words stung him like something he had never felt before. “I do like you”, was all he could cough out. In a fraction of a second, Arijit suddenly found himself delving into his own self like a person thrown off a cliff, wondering what he really felt for her.
“That’s ok”, came a gruff reply from the other side of the phone. “Hey listen Arijit, I need to go now.” Arijit could now feel Pooja’s pain float out pungently with her discretion. ‘Was I using her? Was I being selfish... But I never wanted to hurt her’, Arijit screamed out silently. Groping for words, he finally said, “Hey Pooja........I...” .“No probs Arijit” came a calm reply from the receiver; “ I wasn’t expecting it either. Good bye.”
Click. And then silence.
It was as if Pooja was there all though the darkness of recession, and then like a spirit disappeared theatrically when the first rays of recovery found its way into Arijit’s world.
Pooja never called after that. Neither did she answer calls. And Arijit had to accept the inconvenient truth that he was not doing bad at all. Yes, his good friend was lost. But several not-so-selfless ones emerged. Pooja was a small, itching blot on his conscience; the gnawing feeling of having let down a friend.
"Hi Ari", from the seat below, Arijit could only see a long expanse of legs till the skirt hit his view like a saving grace. "How are you doing? Aren't you the new guy who joined......."
Arijit forced a smile as the attractive lady sat beside him. "Have I seen you somewhere. I mean before this ofcourse. Would you be knowing....."
Arijit went on answering in his polite self. But in his mind there was a red flag that was billowing furiously. And he realised that he was giving guarded replies; smiling, but not laughing; conscious of an unease. Suddenly he found himself deeply analysing every word of the lady in the unknown recesses of his mind, wondering if they concealed anything more than what it seemed. It was as if something in the bottom of his mind rattled as if warning him of something dire.
The lady soon walked away, unimpressed by Arijit's muted and strange replies. "Rohit would have killed to be in my position five minutes back", Arijit chuckled.
But as he idly gazed at the slim hips of the lady oscillate off to another corner of the hall, Arijit knew exactly what was happening. Why he was behaving so charmlessly. Why he was being afraid of the unforseen circumstance of harmless flirting. What was stopping him from exploring anything else with anyone else.
It was the ghost of Pooja that was haunting him.
Saturday, 18 July 2009
The Matter that Matters
The salesperson at John Lewis repeated the final statement twice, just to make sure. And I suspect it was nothing to do with his British bearings. The British have this peculiar habit of answering any question by first repeating the question. There is nothing dim-witted about it; infact it is a very clever strategy. It has the advantage of beguiling the other person with a very long and impressive answer though it is only fifty percent productive!
This person’s reaction however had a different source. As an employee to a major retailer on London’s famed Oxford Street, I imagine that he must have been quite used to people treating him like a museum curator- looking cautiously into the shelves, and then barraging him with questions about something that they otherwise have no plan to buy. Infact I had long been in that pestilential category; disappointing many a sales assistant with hopeful questions on ipods, cell phones, cameras, books, and at the climactic moment giving a quick ‘Thank You’ to tell him or her that my debit card was off their limits!
This time, it was quite different. My father very casually asked about camcorders. Telling him that he wasn’t too sure which one to buy. The sales person guided us mechanically through the shelves of camcorder exhibits, each one as if curling itself up in a tight cocoon of compactness and economy. His final stop was a resplendent Sony model in steel and black, where his guided tour demanded a recitation of the camcorder’s excellent features. While he went on nonchalantly with the zoom, mega-pixels, screen, looks, hard-drive....my father cut him mid-way, saying, “That’s okay; we will buy it.”
“Right......” replied the salesman, suddenly appearing to take his job seriously for the first time. “So,you want to buy it! Okay, so why don’t you pay on that counter sir; and then collect it from the customer service desk on the ground floor. If you show this receipt...............”
I don’t think my father had any choice. The fact is that we are leaving London in about a month. And fanciful tales of frequent flyers entangled in time zones does not really apply to our modest family. So most of us have already prepared ourselves for the inevitability that as the plane will taxi itself to the runway of Heathrow airport, it would be the last we will see of this disciplined land in a very long time to come.
Ordinarily, it should be time to feel sad.
But then that’s such a waste of time. There’s infact no better time to get busy!
Belonging to an Air India household for the past twenty two years; I was quite used to listening to stories of officials coming back from foreign postings and decorating their living rooms into a mini inspirational model of the imperial Victoria and Albert museum. Now, as I observe our house in London get cluttered with impressive boxes and wrappings of cameras, camcorders, laptops, cutlery, clothes, watches.....I have a feeling that our Mumbai flat is all set to become a very crowded place to live in. Every day has become a frenzied shopping extravaganza, and much to my mother’s ecstatic delight; there is seldom a day that does not end with pushing the door open with large departmental stores’ bags biting into the palms.
And it’s not just to do with shopping. In every discernible activity; there is the feeling that ‘It’s the last time. Make the most of it!’ Statues of semi-clad angels agonisingly stretching over ceilings and gateways; large framed photos of kings, queens and their family; palatial palaces on public display; parks; memorials; museums; theatres; skidding over river Thames in a ferry that could easily put our speed boats to shame; Madam Tussads; standing foolishly on the Greenwich Mean Time line, trying to feel historic.......it is a trek that can easily make you allergic to archaic objects for a long time.
“Paris, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium....and where was that other place...yes- Germany!”- the demure recital of one of my friends did not surprise me. She simply joined the long list of Indians here who believe in the sacrosanctity of a Europe tour all gulped down in one orgiastic schedule, before the visa for London expires. These are after all places where all Indians salivate to visit; and once visited, proudly brag about them in communal gatherings with a sufficiently loud voice, intercepted by an occasional belch originating from their overloaded plate. Coming to London, and not visiting Europe is akin to a touristic hara-kiri!
These are indeed turbulent times. No, I am not talking of the economy, stupid! I am talking of all these trips into British history, or with dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, or digging my teeth into a delightfully warm Belgian baguette on Bond Street; or worse of all, waiting for a shopping list to be ticked with bureaucratic lethargy. All these have managed to evoke one universal reaction—namely hitting the bed with a violence that otherwise came after a hard day at the university.
But the reality has yet to sink in. That what is turbulent is indeed the economy, and in this Alice-In-Wonderland world; I am being the stupid person! Soon after all these sights and sounds have been photographed, recorded, shared, tagged and labelled; after every suitcase has been strenously zipped through sheer human perseverance; and after the final hug has been exchanged..........
.....the same stewardess on flight who will mention "The outside temperature is 15 degree celsius"; will ten hours later, on reaching Mumbai be mentioning, "We have landed at the Chatrapati Shivaji Intenational Terminus. The outside temperature is 33 degree celsius......"
The heat will be turned on. Figuratively and literally. And something tells me that the expensive camcorder whose purchase helped make the day for the salesman in London; will come of little aid then!
This person’s reaction however had a different source. As an employee to a major retailer on London’s famed Oxford Street, I imagine that he must have been quite used to people treating him like a museum curator- looking cautiously into the shelves, and then barraging him with questions about something that they otherwise have no plan to buy. Infact I had long been in that pestilential category; disappointing many a sales assistant with hopeful questions on ipods, cell phones, cameras, books, and at the climactic moment giving a quick ‘Thank You’ to tell him or her that my debit card was off their limits!
This time, it was quite different. My father very casually asked about camcorders. Telling him that he wasn’t too sure which one to buy. The sales person guided us mechanically through the shelves of camcorder exhibits, each one as if curling itself up in a tight cocoon of compactness and economy. His final stop was a resplendent Sony model in steel and black, where his guided tour demanded a recitation of the camcorder’s excellent features. While he went on nonchalantly with the zoom, mega-pixels, screen, looks, hard-drive....my father cut him mid-way, saying, “That’s okay; we will buy it.”
“Right......” replied the salesman, suddenly appearing to take his job seriously for the first time. “So,you want to buy it! Okay, so why don’t you pay on that counter sir; and then collect it from the customer service desk on the ground floor. If you show this receipt...............”
I don’t think my father had any choice. The fact is that we are leaving London in about a month. And fanciful tales of frequent flyers entangled in time zones does not really apply to our modest family. So most of us have already prepared ourselves for the inevitability that as the plane will taxi itself to the runway of Heathrow airport, it would be the last we will see of this disciplined land in a very long time to come.
Ordinarily, it should be time to feel sad.
But then that’s such a waste of time. There’s infact no better time to get busy!
Belonging to an Air India household for the past twenty two years; I was quite used to listening to stories of officials coming back from foreign postings and decorating their living rooms into a mini inspirational model of the imperial Victoria and Albert museum. Now, as I observe our house in London get cluttered with impressive boxes and wrappings of cameras, camcorders, laptops, cutlery, clothes, watches.....I have a feeling that our Mumbai flat is all set to become a very crowded place to live in. Every day has become a frenzied shopping extravaganza, and much to my mother’s ecstatic delight; there is seldom a day that does not end with pushing the door open with large departmental stores’ bags biting into the palms.
And it’s not just to do with shopping. In every discernible activity; there is the feeling that ‘It’s the last time. Make the most of it!’ Statues of semi-clad angels agonisingly stretching over ceilings and gateways; large framed photos of kings, queens and their family; palatial palaces on public display; parks; memorials; museums; theatres; skidding over river Thames in a ferry that could easily put our speed boats to shame; Madam Tussads; standing foolishly on the Greenwich Mean Time line, trying to feel historic.......it is a trek that can easily make you allergic to archaic objects for a long time.
“Paris, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium....and where was that other place...yes- Germany!”- the demure recital of one of my friends did not surprise me. She simply joined the long list of Indians here who believe in the sacrosanctity of a Europe tour all gulped down in one orgiastic schedule, before the visa for London expires. These are after all places where all Indians salivate to visit; and once visited, proudly brag about them in communal gatherings with a sufficiently loud voice, intercepted by an occasional belch originating from their overloaded plate. Coming to London, and not visiting Europe is akin to a touristic hara-kiri!
These are indeed turbulent times. No, I am not talking of the economy, stupid! I am talking of all these trips into British history, or with dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, or digging my teeth into a delightfully warm Belgian baguette on Bond Street; or worse of all, waiting for a shopping list to be ticked with bureaucratic lethargy. All these have managed to evoke one universal reaction—namely hitting the bed with a violence that otherwise came after a hard day at the university.
But the reality has yet to sink in. That what is turbulent is indeed the economy, and in this Alice-In-Wonderland world; I am being the stupid person! Soon after all these sights and sounds have been photographed, recorded, shared, tagged and labelled; after every suitcase has been strenously zipped through sheer human perseverance; and after the final hug has been exchanged..........
.....the same stewardess on flight who will mention "The outside temperature is 15 degree celsius"; will ten hours later, on reaching Mumbai be mentioning, "We have landed at the Chatrapati Shivaji Intenational Terminus. The outside temperature is 33 degree celsius......"
The heat will be turned on. Figuratively and literally. And something tells me that the expensive camcorder whose purchase helped make the day for the salesman in London; will come of little aid then!
Saturday, 16 May 2009
Welcome back to....INDIA'S GOT TALENT!
Like most things Indian, even the title of this note is plagiarised from a western concept (or rather ‘inspired’ as many film makers choose to term it after translating many Hollywood scenes in Hindi). In the UK, there is something of a craze with respect to a talent show called BRITAIN HAS GOT TALENT. The rough equivalent of American Idol, or our very own Indian Idol. I believe that the American one and the British one is graced by the charismatic smile and acidic remarks of Simon Cowell, whereas Indian judges try their level best to grimace, claw and behave like tough cops. Simon however remains quite unbeatable.
India chose its winner today in what was the world’s largest talent show- namely India’s assembly elections. Millions of people, countless districts, action-packed newsroom drama, hilarious political rallies, madness and dust-saw Manmohan Singh flash the V sign. The reluctant politician, whose squeaky voice is more suited more for lectures in classrooms than on microphones across acres of open spaces where election rallies are generally held in India. An inoffensive, quiet, retiring and gentlemanly person. And he was voted victorious on an arena dominated by arguably the most eloquent, vociferous and rhetorical participants that politics from anywhere in the world could possibly have.
I say Manmohan Singh, but news channels across India would correct me by saying that it is the Congress Party who has won the landslide victory under Sonia Gandhi’s stewardship. But that is for the record. Off record, I think that it is the prime minister who stole the show. Had the Congress Party not had Dr Singh as their poster boy, there would have almost surely been another coalition mix-and-match taking place now in India.
So what saw an Oxford educated Economics professor, an ex-governor of India’s central bank and former finance minister; capture the imagination of a billion plus people?
Now I find this quite strange and funny. India has a rich history of lawmakers who have should we say, rather dismal CVs. Not only have most of them never visited a school in their lives, but have alternatively done enough to spend the rest of their lives in prison had the system been more utopian. And they have been repeatedly voted to power. As if voters were blind. Or plain apathetic. There is infact no one more suited for the prime ministerial berth than the sagacious Dr Singh. But what surprises me is that the same huge population suddenly started to collectively feel the same way. It was as if there was a huge untapped market for a clean, educated and level-headed fellow, and bang- brand Manmohan captures that market.
Which sets me thinking that nothing is really impossible in India. Tell any well-to-do family in India to send their child to politics, and the general comment is that, “Oh Indian politics, it’s too dirty. That is no place for an honest man.” Well Manmohan Singh just rubbished that claim. And he made it to the top job. And he reminds me so very much of all the other Indian miracles that nobody initially believed in, but eventually happened. Like a couple of decades earlier, nobody believed in the fable of 8% growth. Nobody ever believed that a country where telephones were once considered a luxury good, would become the world’s largest consumer of mobile phones. A country that was on the verge of rejecting computers, becoming a global leader of IT. Indian companies acquiring global ones.
All of them, once impossible dreams that the Indian mind was incapable of dreaming. But all these did happen. Indeed if you woke up once in every five years, this country assures you of a new morning. And yet if you woke up every day, you would never notice the change. There are strong, invisible undercurrents that shape this nation that otherwise habitually looks hopeless to its own people.
Yes, Indian politics is still a dirty quagmire. Yes, there is a gross abuse of power at all levels. Yes, Manmohan Singh’s own colleagues could be a bunch of imbecile money minters. But they dare not touch the guy who has found the favour of the public. That force is too strong to challenge. And this could very well be a quiet symbol of a new reform in India’s infamous polity. Like most of the other ideas, this is also a laughable one. But if like the Indian economy, Dr Singh’s coup represents a fresh chapter in Indian politics, I think it goes well to call him a true hero.
Back here in London, I am just happy that I will once again be proud of the guy from my country, who will be shaking hands with foreign presidents and prime ministers. I am proud that my country is represented by a person who has a reputation for talking sense. A person who is known to carry with himself, his own audience.
You know, India has this talent show every five years (unstable governments make you wait even lesser!)
Its just that the right contestant takes a while to come!
Saturday, 25 April 2009
VOTE FOR NANDAN NILEKANI!
Nandan Nilekani existed for so long only in the Economic Times for me. For all my non-Indian readers, Economic Times represents the Indian attempt at producing a fashionably serious financial newspaper that borrows its paper colour from London’s Financial Times. Nandan Nilekani is the co-founder of Infosys, the behemoth Indian software company whose success story is used much beyond prescription, to put forward the case of India Shining. Mr Nilekani came to the London School of Economics to launch his new book on ‘Imagining India’. And by virtue of the fact that for some reason, many great people discover a past-time in impressing LSE students and professors, Nandan Nilekani floated right out of the Economic Times to brush past me to the back stage as I waited outside for the doors of the lecture theatre to open.
'Nandan', as most of the people on stage chose to repeatedly addressed him as; was the second CEO I had seen in my life so far. The first was Vikram Pandit, head of CitiGroup, who happened to be exceedingly lucid in all topics, except on those related to finance and banking. And so he took from me the pride of being a student of Finance, given that I had quite failed to read his lips. And filled me with apprehension that Nandan’s domain being software, could prove to be completely out of my league.
Nandan Nilekani comes to the podium to talk about his perspective on India. And what I immediately get from him is a content page of...... ideas-
Ideas that in Nandan’s view have already struck India,
Ideas that are in the pipeline, and
Ideas that will eventually strike. Three+Two+Two. "Seven ideas", Mr Nilekani solemnly announced as if they may be some holy commandments about to be dictated from the scriptures.
But he is the founder of Infosys after all; and these are after all His ideas.
So I listen.
1. Population is now considered as a human resource than a social liability.......
2. Indian corporate houses started from being sceptical, and are now receptive to globalisation........
3. Primary education needs to be boosted.........
4. Infrastructure needs to be prioritised................
.........how higher education needs bureaucratic freedom, how politics needs to change, how climate change was important and to summarise, how India is a great country with great potential.
I was accompanied by two friends of mine, geeks whose currency of conversation usually entailed words like markets, funds, private equity holdings, returns, companies etc. Infact one of them had come geared to ask many uncomfortable questions on Infosys and other matters of corporate importance. But with Mr Nilekani suddenly getting all worked up about demographic patterns and climate change figures, I could not but miss a kind of bemused silence from my neighbour.
Because who we got to see today was Nandan Nilekani, the ace politician- campaigning for his book. Politician-type discussion into our problems, our strengths, our weaknesses. As if all the while we were waiting for the cofounder of a NASDAQ listed company to spell it out to us. Telling us that primary education is important and so is infrastructure. Which is absolutely fine, except that it was coming from a person whom one associates with the Innovative Indian Brain. It’s the kind of person we would look to for answers. The kind of person who gives keys to questions. Instead we got a Nandan Nilekani who provided flourishing question marks at the end of questions, and questions that we already knew.
Can the cofounder of Infosys attempt to tackle any of these problems using his experience as a CEO? That answer we are interested in, and that answer we do not get. What we get instead is what happens on bringing five argumentative Indians on a group-discussion table. Exactly the kind of good-to-hear rambling with no conclusion that you get to hear in overdose during election time in India.
But Nandan started his speech by some joke on Indian politicians during election time, and we all laughed. So even at the end, we still failed to think any less of our hero. In India, once a hero, forever a hero; and once a villain there is no way out of the public’s sentimental disdain. It was announced that Mr Nilekani would be around to autograph books in case you wanted to buy it from the stand outside. Immediately a serpentine queue to the stage materialised, every Indian student clutching a copy of the twenty pound book.
Perhaps when they will get home, look beyond the autograph and unfurl the pages, they will realise that there was nothing in their twenty pound purchase that they did not already know. Twenty pounds was just the price of some excellent packaging and memoir jotting.
And ofcourse, of the autograph.
'Nandan', as most of the people on stage chose to repeatedly addressed him as; was the second CEO I had seen in my life so far. The first was Vikram Pandit, head of CitiGroup, who happened to be exceedingly lucid in all topics, except on those related to finance and banking. And so he took from me the pride of being a student of Finance, given that I had quite failed to read his lips. And filled me with apprehension that Nandan’s domain being software, could prove to be completely out of my league.
Nandan Nilekani comes to the podium to talk about his perspective on India. And what I immediately get from him is a content page of...... ideas-
Ideas that in Nandan’s view have already struck India,
Ideas that are in the pipeline, and
Ideas that will eventually strike. Three+Two+Two. "Seven ideas", Mr Nilekani solemnly announced as if they may be some holy commandments about to be dictated from the scriptures.
But he is the founder of Infosys after all; and these are after all His ideas.
So I listen.
1. Population is now considered as a human resource than a social liability.......
2. Indian corporate houses started from being sceptical, and are now receptive to globalisation........
3. Primary education needs to be boosted.........
4. Infrastructure needs to be prioritised................
.........how higher education needs bureaucratic freedom, how politics needs to change, how climate change was important and to summarise, how India is a great country with great potential.
I was accompanied by two friends of mine, geeks whose currency of conversation usually entailed words like markets, funds, private equity holdings, returns, companies etc. Infact one of them had come geared to ask many uncomfortable questions on Infosys and other matters of corporate importance. But with Mr Nilekani suddenly getting all worked up about demographic patterns and climate change figures, I could not but miss a kind of bemused silence from my neighbour.
Because who we got to see today was Nandan Nilekani, the ace politician- campaigning for his book. Politician-type discussion into our problems, our strengths, our weaknesses. As if all the while we were waiting for the cofounder of a NASDAQ listed company to spell it out to us. Telling us that primary education is important and so is infrastructure. Which is absolutely fine, except that it was coming from a person whom one associates with the Innovative Indian Brain. It’s the kind of person we would look to for answers. The kind of person who gives keys to questions. Instead we got a Nandan Nilekani who provided flourishing question marks at the end of questions, and questions that we already knew.
Can the cofounder of Infosys attempt to tackle any of these problems using his experience as a CEO? That answer we are interested in, and that answer we do not get. What we get instead is what happens on bringing five argumentative Indians on a group-discussion table. Exactly the kind of good-to-hear rambling with no conclusion that you get to hear in overdose during election time in India.
But Nandan started his speech by some joke on Indian politicians during election time, and we all laughed. So even at the end, we still failed to think any less of our hero. In India, once a hero, forever a hero; and once a villain there is no way out of the public’s sentimental disdain. It was announced that Mr Nilekani would be around to autograph books in case you wanted to buy it from the stand outside. Immediately a serpentine queue to the stage materialised, every Indian student clutching a copy of the twenty pound book.
Perhaps when they will get home, look beyond the autograph and unfurl the pages, they will realise that there was nothing in their twenty pound purchase that they did not already know. Twenty pounds was just the price of some excellent packaging and memoir jotting.
And ofcourse, of the autograph.
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