The gift of maggie and cereals!

This blog has got little to do with O' Henry's gift of Magi or Maggie food controversy. Based on a real life incident, but any interpretations are yours and yours only!


I was on my way to ASDA with a mission on hand - I had to buy a few things and one of the items was a cereal for the kids - Kellogg's Rice Crispies Multi-grain Shapes cereal. Well as usual heard half of it and assumed - ah! big deal I can get that. I was a bit annoyed with the missus for reminding me ten times and let me forget the fact that I forgot to buy the cereal twice in my previous visits to ASDA.

Today I was destined to buy or at least I thought so. Happily set off with the shopping cart, I got a whatsapp text with all groceries in the list with the cereal name shortened like MGSR cereal... Oh my - for god sake, I run a proper function at my office, am I a kid to be reminded like this with a whatsapp message?

Bought all the stuff properly and I entered the aisle 22 - 2 is my favourite number, how much better can it get? A casual walk and I couldn't find KRCMGS... I am casual, so I should have missed it. I need to get a 10/10 today, so I spent an extra careful 1 minute walk around aisle 22. What?? I couldn't find that box. ok ok, let me go to a different aisle and come back - another 2 minutes later, I was back in aisle 22 - 10 minutes later I was still there; there were so many combinations - rice crispies, multi-grains, kellogg's, and shapes but I couldn't find the bloody KRCMGS. I must have started talking to myself, because I had a few curious eyes on me. I was getting really anxious!

Then the socialist in me started cursing the brands and the brand tactics of manipulating the families and deep down from somewhere the "male chauvinist" started blaming the women and moms... I suddenly remembered how the world is driven essentially by 7 brands etc. etc.

Well whatever be the macro-politics, this evening I will be a laughing stock at the dinner table and the next day morning kids are going to be cranky - especially the little one. The boy likes porridge, well you never know there are another 100 brands and flavours of porridge too - omg! I am not buying something else that was not on the list... I will be off her list then.

Reality kicked in - after all I am faced with a real problem, and I am not afraid of asking help. So I called the missus and she re-defined KRCMGS crystal clear - I decided to use technology to my help. Took a photo of the racks and whatsapp-ed her.

360 days back...

Headline - About an year back, India voted 4 change; Change is visible, but when issues are systemic and deep rooted, it takes time; The broad direction is still hazy and fundamental "step change" plans are unclear.

A lot of my friends have asked me, I send a lot of memes on RaGa and AK67 but none Modi. In fact memes on AK67 have died out as well. Simply because both of them are down in the business and the noise has gone down. RaGa also has started to get his sleeves rolled up, but till a time the shi(f)ts in Congress are visible, memes will continue.

Year 1 Review: CAG has just published a view about our situation on military ammunition stock and the number of fighter jets is also under the minimum advised stock level (re. French deals). India's national security has been dealt in such a careless manner by previous rulers, Media should stop treating UPA with kids gloves (Coalition never would have stopped them on this count) Seriously don't know why SoGa or RaGa (MMS) have not been asked about this question on the above two highly important national concerns;

Sorry it seems like I digress, but this is a fundamental point to take note when we discuss/measure two government performances - the baseline has been so poor. Performance has to be compared against a baseline. Our media and various BJP spokespersons should set this when in a fortnight's time, every Indian Media team will be reviewing Year 1. The Y1 performance should be on a baseline on a key set of factors that is in the scope of Union government- If Media doesn't measure do it this way (I am sure none of the outlets would do), then people who read this should reflect on the baseline.

First my disappointments:

1. Indian PM talked about so many acronyms - where is the policy for skill development? This I remember was his main point - What is the direction and strategy on Skill development?

2. Indian PM recently spoke about democratic values to the Times - why doesn't he set-up something up a forum like NITI Aayog, where all Parties debate on policies regularly and use Parliament to rubber stamp on important policies? This is healthy for democracy but more importantly opposition's voices can be then managed pro-actively? - Handling of bills and opposition has been appalling

3.  To top it all, the messy handling of agriculture sector - the land-bill and how this whole sector has been dealt has frustrated me

I believe on an actionable strategy (In the last sixty years, Nehru & Vajpayee were the ones who showed a strategic and actionable shifts, Indira rode on Nehru's back). Overall and aspects of strategy has to be communicated, even if the government doesn't have a clue - The way hype was created before election, I expected a roadmap of strategic changes - Some changes are taking shape, however a comprehensive direction and policy/approach is missing and that would set the discourse in right direction.

With, the absence of thought leadership in previous 10 years, I was hoping to see some strategic shifts - The two areas with a bit clarity 1) in International policies, 2) "intent" in centre-state joint governance. Apart from these two, there is little clarity on many key topics.

So here you go this is what I am frustrated with BJP government and Modi.

Some positives to note: no scams till date, swift action on auctions (though on SC push), interesting policy debates on NJAC (see what has happened last week in Chennai HC), swift relief on international operations, setting the perception about India in international stage, no riots till date, no terrorist incidents (touch-wood), approach to NITI Aayog, even Nitish has started getting cosy with Modi, Mamta di is now on board smiling.

So all in all, it is not as scary as UPA and associated Media outlets have been projecting. To emphasise again, one needs to compare the government against the base line and also some of the scary thoughts that Media members like Guha, Shiv N etc. were projecting - nothing of that sort has happened.

1 Subtle but strong Voice P. Chidambaram has been writing about the Government and its actions regularly in Indian express since day 1 and has been putting up very good arguments - Except PC no sane or clear views from Congress.

Will I vote Modi again? - Yes (still no alternative from any National party)

NB1: A lot of us debate on multiple issues when we talk about Modi's governance, but we forget about what are Centre's responsibilities, where it ends and what are state's roles... This complicates the debates big time...

NB2: The comments and discussions that happen between UPA vs. NDA or Pappu vs. Feku is slowly edging into borderline riots in the internet arena... This is not safe, the Media should find a way to manage this... a lot of anonymous and false ID comments are twisting the debates into Hindu vs. non-Hindus - this is a very dangerous and alarming trend. It has to be Media, if Modi intervenes on this, a lot of us will say that the government is curbing Media freedom.

NB3: I have omitted a lot of areas of interesting happenings and issues - simply because it is just Year 1 and expecting changes all of the place in Y1 is too much. Let us wait till 2016, when RS strength would get shifted...

Bye for now!