IndianMaze

It was an interesting time at Holi last month. This festival is celebrated with full involvement of participants but with two view points. There are ones who celebrate it with a religious fervour and so wear new clothes etc. Then there are the ones who play with colours with same amount of intensity but use old clothes as clothes need to be discarded after all the colours that are used. This led to a clear thought as to how Indians are apt at recycling almost everything at home. This is not accounted for the carbon credits but is quite a phenomenon in both urban and rural India. It has become a part of the social norms as well. In a random manner, I recall instances where this has become a thread in Indian fabric. - ALL Indian households are visited by a कबाड़ीवाला ( a trader in discarded goods). Old newspapers, magazines, clothes, utensils, plastic goods are all sold and subsequently recycled - Every city has specialist tailors who have mastered the art of making clothes of children fr...

India has always been a country where the spread of wealth is skewed. Last decade or so made middle class become richer at a rapid pace. Interestingly, it is this very "rich" middle class that is treating the downturn differently. In my travels across the country this week combined with visits to some shopping malles on the last weekend have given me this insight. The shopping trip to a mall and supermarket saw very thin crowd and the long queues were missing on the checkout counters. This was the case at Spencers, Big Bazaar and Reliance. Even Bikanerwala that is always buzzing with activity was quiet. PVR and DT cinemas have started a Rs 50 cinema ticket that was unthinkable for a multiplex till recently. Airlines claim that low fares in January did not entice anough travellers. Contrasting this with a monday morning flight of Kingfisher to Mumbai and that was absolutely full. Airport terminal was rather busy in Delhi. I must hasten to add that Kingfisher has removed "...

India has become a significant market for the screen oriented products - mobiles, TVs and PCs. India has already become larger than US household market with more than 110 million houses with TVs. As far as mobiles are concerned, it is the fastest growing market in the world and as far as PCs are concerned - it is in the middle of the road. But the story is about convergence. It seems all converging towards dual screens - mobiles in hand and TVs at homes. It is changing the consumer habits in a manner that could not be envisaged. SMSs in India created a kind of world record in terms of numbers sent per annum apart from creating a new language altogether (very nicely used by Vodafone in their campaign in India). TVs have created a complete new era of knowledge, entertainment, talent hunt et al. Though a great event in a corner of India (Tilottama in Kolkata organised by a Bengali magazine called Sananda) has given many Miss Indias but it is music talent hunts like Sa Re Ga Ma Pa on Zee T...

This is a unique feature of Asian (and particularly Indian) that what is communicated may not necessarily be what is meant. This becomes even more complicated when combined with the expressions and body movement. I have been utterly confused at times when the answer is yes but the head movement is from shoulder to shoulder which to my understanding depicts a no. Is it because of subconscious disagreement or is there another issue that is linked to more social issues? In any case, yes or no is also a function of the context of discussion. As is an old adage in Sanskrit मौन स्वीकृति लक्षणं (silence is an indicator of agreement). Is it a universally acceptable practice? Psychologists, NLP specialists, please decipher for my benefit!

This one is for the spirit of the most popular R situation world is in! This situation has given the opportunity to all organisations on a silver platter to do what they want and blame it on R. There are cases being reported that replacements are decided at lower costs and then current set of people being asked to go. Travel levels being downgraded from business to economy, economy to budget airline and budget airline to train to correct the cost base. Salaries and "perquisites" are being "rationalised" (euphemism for cost cutting) with a vengeance. There seems to be a case of sadistic pleasure that owners/bosses are having in squeezing subordinates/potential employees. The balance has suddenly shifted. But are they forgetting that reputations are built over a longtime but tarnished in a moment. A company is known to have downgraded the perquisites of all managers and recently the CEO was seem as wining and dining in a plush top class restaurant with his cronies. Wi...

I must say that this mail has quite a bit of emotion in it. It was earlier in the week that I was awestruck with two bits of media information that I was exposed to. 1. Some person of reasonable responsibility in US administration mentioned (as reported in media) that for issuing pink slips, corporates must first target "foreigners". 2. In a hard hitting 1-on-1 interview, an experienced journo asked a very senior business magnate as to why his company is shrinking manpower in "West" and increasing in "East" or Chindia. Answers that business is shrinking in "West" and growing in "East" were completely brushed aside. At the same time is it not " immoral " (my interpretation from the interview) for the company to float subsidiaries in tax havens and, therefore, avoid paying tax to a "Western" country when the country needs all the money. Above two examples are from the countries that have been propagating the spirit of ...

The message was clear. US is facing a financial crisis. Americans need to contribute to get out of "conveniences". But the statements like "it will get worse before it gets better" without a timeline and references to a time of slavery etc are not comforting. American era may be ending faster than anticipated. Obama's inaugration speech was truly indicative of a man under pressure from the start. As any sportsman will confirm, it's all in the mind and followers just follow the leader and Obama has not set the bar high at all. My view is that it is heading south fast...... Contrast this with the situation in India. All that leaders are talking about is security and resolve to protect Indian at ANY COST. Economic issues are tackled with a view, yes it is a slowdown but we will still beONE OF THE BEST IN THE WORLD. No talk of worsening things, less spending by government. News headlines are all talking about shrinking bottomlines for profit and NOT LOSS issues....