Kolkata

I moved from Bengaluru to Kolkata a month back. Kolkata was one of the cities where I always wanted to live once. Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, London and NY make up the list. So when the opportunity came up, I grabbed it with glee.

Kolkata is more Mumbai than Bangalore. It has a character which Bangalore doesn't. It would be unfair to compare Bangalore to either Mumbai or Kolkata. But Bangalore has grown into a large city and hence will draw comparisons.

I arrived at, what colleagues who work here told me, the best time to be in Kolkata. Its cold, and since its December has a festive look to it not seen in Mumbai or in Bengaluru during this time of the year.

Kolkata is also cheap- cheap transport, cheap food, cheap housing. Cheap of course does not mean poor quality of life. Not once have I ever had to look for change- the coins in circulation are plenty and no tea vendor or bus conductor has ever asked me for exact exchange. In Bengaluru, the auto drivers and the bus conductors always round it up to the higher denomination. Rs 25 is always Rs 30 if you don't have exact change to give to the auto driver.

2014 has been the year of travel. I hope 2015 gives me the opportunities to explore the world. As JRR Tolkien wrote "Not all those who wander are lost".

Two years.....

...after passing out of IRMA, life has been boring and at times extremely saddening.

Amidst the good news of so many of my batchmates tying the knot, I had to deal with news of the death of the King..Dr Verghese Kurien, my finance professor Prof Shiladitya Roy and my batchmate Abhishek Tiwari who lived on the same floor as I did in IRMA.

Hopefully I shall resume blogging on a regular basis.

Drucker on the privileged access to management

"No greater damage could be done to our economy or to our society than to attempt to "professionalise" management by "licensing" managers, for instance, or by limiting access to management to people with a special academic degree (empahsis mine)"
                      -Peter F Drucker in the "The Practice of Management" first published in 1955.

Manoharan

I was busy in office preparing a spreadsheet about a pilot I was running to gain customer insights. My mobile buzzed and I saw an email on IRMA's alumni page. It was about an alumnus named Manoharan who passed away due to cancer. He had passed out from IRMA in the late 80s and was working in tribal areas of Tamil Nadu.It was indeed a sad moment as one always find some attachment towards fellow IRMANs no matter which batch they belong to.
After a few days, I stumbled onto Manoharan's blog. He also had a photo stream on Flickr. Reading his blog and looking at his photos left an impact. His blog postings and photos reveal a man with extraordinary strength. He took the illness in his stride and appeared to be absolutely unaffected by it. He seemed like a gentleman with extraordinary willpower.
As mails from alumni poured in, one came to know so much more about Manoharan. Son of a top Agriculture Government Employee he rejected IIMB and came to IRMA. He topped his batch and went on to work at the grassroots. When he was working in AP, he was abducted by Naxals. But as an alumnus who recounted the episode put it "Naxalites kidnapped him suspecting him to be working for the government against them,interrogated him,got charmed by him and left him"

It is disappointing and sad when such beautiful people suddenly leave us. In the late 90s it was Sanjoy Ghosh who left us abruptly and now Manoharan. Beautiful people in the true sense of the word.

The Rajan Memorial Lecture by Prof Prabhat Pattnaik

Last year, Prof  M S Sriram had delivered the Rajan Memorial Lecture. I had written about it in my blog. This year, Prof. Prabhat Pattnaik of JNU delivered the lecture. Prof. Pattnaik is one of India's leading economists and political commentator. Though I would have loved to be in IRMA to hear him speak live, the video of the talk is on youtube.

IRMA in the news

It is close to one year since I passed out of  IRMA and in the last few weeks, I have received some good news about IRMA and IRMAns.

1. PranbDa making a grant of Rs 25 crore to IRMAin the Annual Budget. In true IRMA style, a lot of IRMA alumni have questioned what it means for the autonomy of the insititute.
2. Two of my immediate seniors have been admitted to the John F Kennedy's Public Policy Programme at Harvard.
3. Mamta Murthy an alumna of IRMA won a National Film Award for her documentary.

It is always a proud moment when the Institute and its brands (the students) achieve any important milestones.

On the consuming class and the destitutes

I make my way through the security and the large crowd gathered to watch a movie shooting. I pass by (now) familiar names-KFC, Taco Bell, Casio, Pizza Hut, Samsung, etc. I go to the box office and take out my Phone and check the booking number of the movie that I have booked online. I enter it into a touch enabled monitor. It throws out the ticket and I enter the  movie hall. There are a couple of foreigners sipping on Minute Maid. I look around and I see people busy on their Blackberries and Iphones.
 So I am at a multiplex in a mall situated in a very middle class locality in Bangalore. I am there to watch "The Descendants". The tickets are obscenely expensive. The minimum is Rs 260 and the maximum is Rs 350. The last row has these leather couches which turn into 180 degree recliners. All those recliners are taken. As the movie begins, I realise that the car Clooney drives, the phone he uses,etc are all available in India. And used by the so called "middle class".
So whats the point? The point is that the consuming middle class has increasingly become global. In 2005, Mckinsey had divided the Indian market into the "global indians" and the "aspiring class" and some more segments. In less than six years, my guess is that a large part the "aspiring class" is now part of the" global Indian" segment. This is co inciding with the recession in the developed countries.
 One part on why businesses are restless with  Indian policy makers is largely because of fewer opportunities available elsewhere in the globe. In an age when companies are filing for bankruptcy over a weekend, businesses are getting very impatient with Indian policymakers.

So while  the middle class educated Indians are enjoying the fruits of their labour, it is a disturbing trend about the" have nots". In developed countries, the have-nots have started believing that they will now become "have never". In India that pessimism is not there as yet. But it will only be a matter of time before the middle class will be accused of being parasitic.Of not having done enough to ensure that income disparity is reduced.

In that regard, opportunities for the less fortunate should be made available. In my own case, I have been extremely fortunate to have been given the opportunity and choice by a "welfare" state. The whole of my education was subsidised by the government. So it is surprising that many of us are for privatising large part of the education system. Perhaps we are more proud of IIPMs than IIMs!

We need to understand that most of us today who are working in top notch companies, having globe trotting careers are a product of a welfare state and maybe brought up by a generation of parents who believed education was the best investment! And that education was available to all who were willing to work hard.

While we can be extremely proud that most of us are living a life comparable to those of the developed world, we need to be on a constant vigil to avoid the mess that they find themselves in today!