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.

Mumbai T2: Why do we need to spend lavishly?

My friends in India are quite pleased about the way T2 has been done. Needless to say that Media are
excited about T2.

The Hindu: "The T2 terminal is touted to be larger than Singapore's Changi T3 (3.80 lakh sqm) and London's Heathrow T5 (3.53 lakh sqm)"

Ibnlive: "The four-storey glass marvel, whose design has been inspired by a dancing peacock"

NDTV: "The terminal boasts of tens of thousands of artifacts and paintings, housing arguably one the largest collections in the world at an airport."

Indiatoday: A three kilometer long 'art walk' titled 'Jaya He' has been built inside the T2. It displays Indian art pieces between the 8th century and 19th century

Is it actually worth it for a developing country like India? While we try and throw spanner into Mangalyaan type of space projects, actually these T2 type of wastages should be culled. This a classic example of just copying existing implementations, with no attention to what is actually required today and in future. Actually India has gone beyond aping the western world's model of airport building.Who defines that airports should be built in such a way? If the passengers can get in and out in a queue, receive their bags in time and fly out & in in-time then the purpose is well served.

I read on the net that people on average spend 4-10 hours on airport layovers. I also understand for Airbus a380  needs more landing space, but where is the need for a lavish layover when there is a billion people in the country who would need a lot more space in future.  There is an argument that if you are stuck in delays, then the layovers could be useful to spend your time. Seriously? I don't think this is a sound argument... if you are stuck because of delays, you may be keen to window-shop but would you go visit the art gallery? I think if you did, you might miss another flight and get further delayed.

Why is nobody thinking about alternate designs and building things suited to Indian context? In fact this should be the case for all countries. When the world is reeling in recession and billions are starving, Countries need to plan and build in a sustainable way. As internet and Kinect type of technologies are enabling virtual presence, business related travel might actually start to drop off over the next few years. Leisure and tourism might be the key travel reasons, Even if this is not the so - why overload airport infrastructure for very little returns? The maintenance cost over years is going to mount on the public. Am I the only one who is concerned about such extravagant, no-purpose layovers?

Let me clarify that I am not against building new terminals or expanding infrastructure, I only advocate for minimalistic and effective use of funds, acreage in such infrastructure projects. There is no point in competing with China or West on these projects. There are also additional indirect expenses like electricity utilisation, people and maintenance costs. This money could have pooled for building multiple bus-stands or local train stations.

Above all, not many would know that India's aviation policy under UPA-2, allegedly 200,000 seats a week has been magnanimously given to middle-east sector through Jet-Etihad deal (Ref: https://medium.com/p/ab752d0cf543). If this is the case, how will T2 operate successfully as a Hub?

Literally on a very bad foundation, a multi-story T2 has been built. Even if the above posture of Jet deal is a farce, still it begs the question - why should India lavishly spend on airports in a needless and meaningless race of sprawling airports? 

Do you relish your paydays anymore? ...

It’s about 10 PM and the night has started off with some strong philosophical debate. I was lost in thoughts about the value of IT, automation and how sometimes the ‘real’ value of humane consciousness may be losing after all! Let me forewarn this is a philosophical yet valuable thought-train for technology leaders and an interesting question for fellow bread-winners to take away…

First the question: are you relishing the salary that you draw especially in current macro-and micro-economic period?

In my school days, I remember how the 1^st of month set the expectations rolling and how the family prepared itself to the run up-to an end of month. Planning started at least a fortnight in advance and the joy of being born in a middle class family means – it allows the family members to gain a concept of ‘planning’ – This prepares the younger members of the family to understand the concept of money, planning and more importantly saving. Straightaway as a kid, I got myself the hat of project manager – Planning and Commercial acumen on the mould.

There was a little hum of joy for the first few days, the cash would be counted and the old man would go to a state run bank to deposit… Subsequently this element disappeared as the cheque came through and very soon, the money was directly deposited and cheque as well disappeared, but now there was a payslip.

Fast forward to 1990s when I began to earn. This was a time where IT bloomed in India and I earned much more than my dad would have in a decade – Soon I was in the land of opportunities where the pay cheque was delivered twice a month. The feeling was double and the payslip was a good feel-factor.

Subsequently with good business cases for IT automation and ‘value’ to employee, HR departments have totally done away with the payslips and now it is just a downloadable pdf. The situation is I don’t download the payslip that often. In fact I even forgot the last payday, which is what set these thoughts rolling… I will throw in a piece of info: every month-end, I still review the accounts, debt etc. Anyone who knows me, will surely concur on my management accounting skills and how I apply it on my household finances as well to review my investments and debts… I share this coz’ it’s not that I am at a position where pay-cheques are not important – I give due consideration to finances, but the very fact of automation means that many of you like me, wouldn’t be receiving a pay cheque or a pay slip – so back to my opening question – do you relish your paydays anymore?

How many of you enjoy or carry the feeling of earning money? Have the HR teams made an incorrect decision about doing away with physical payslips – has this concept subconsciously made us the humans lose the very concept about relishing what we earn and would this impact our productivity? According to me, this is quite an interesting concept in the days of ‘everything on social media/cloud’ and ‘smart-computing/tablets’ – How humane are we? How is technology impacting us subconsciously?

PS: If I have money and time, I would be keen to do a research on this topicJ!

சந்தைக்கு போலாமா ?

Many of my friends know my life began in Neyveli. People from Neyveli rarely have anything negative to talk about the township. I have been to many places in US, Europe and a few cities in India, but Neyveli has a special place. May be simply due to the fact, that it was my birth place...

Santhai (சந்தை) in Tamil means a market place. Usually people can get groceries at small stores next to their houses and for veg they tend to go to Santhai. This market place has to be described... Imagine a huge vacant land probably a size of two football grounds. A part of this is marked off for two-wheeler parking (I mean bi-cycles) and a bit for motor-bikes and scooters. The rest of the ground is neatly plotted into long rows of shops.

A mile early, you would know that you are passing the Santhai zone, simply through an unusual traffic and people carrying a lot of veg/other products stuffed in wire-knit-bags. These wire-knit bags have a place in Neyveli's home-makers (aka) house-wives' life...They buy bundles of nylon made wire and knit to make them bags with all sorts of designs. As in any town, people borrow such bags, lose it and get into a bit of tiff. Anyway with people carrying big bags of veg in bicycle handlebars and balancing those bags and their plump home-makers sitting in the rear (career-seat) and shouting at their husbands for not driving carefully, you can make it out, that the markets must be nearer...

Usually when my Mom, Dad or Brother/Sister calls me for aide to a market visit, i try and come up with new excuses every time. Simply coz' it's long way from the house and not only that, they go around haggling and sometimes it becomes a scene, though i would never realise that every one around creates a scene, it is just not my family folks. But more importantly it takes ages to go and come back. Sometimes they would chose to take a bus to this market which is a lot worse than taking a bicycle or our infamous lambretta.  A - is our home and B is Thursday market, and the round black circle over in no-man's land is Sunday market. There are certain key differences in these market places (according to my mom and other Neyveli folks). However I never got to understand those key differences. It would be along the lines that in Sunday market the prices are high and in Thursday market you get better green veg and the unsaid reason being everyone goes over to Sunday market as it is a day off. But i guess everyone just did go to Thursday market, simply coz' of this unsaid secret rationale.

The farmers would 'directly' bring their produce and sell it off. I have learnt the dynamics of life through shopping in these market places... Things like even though you see tomatoes at the front of market entrance, one should not buy it as the first choice of veg, but buy it as the last choice and that too while returning. (That depends if you came last, you got only leftovers... there is a lesson too). One is not allowed to mix veg like root-veg/ripe-veg/leafy-veg/fruits. But its a joy to watch people buying these vegetables in an order and packing them in different bags. In the end, you get to drink a coconut sometimes or a bit of sugar-cane juice.

Those Sundays were challenging, but I did enjoy my 'Santhai' day-outs. When I grew into a teenager, I started volunteering (no big secret here...), I just became responsible. So once there was a situation, where my dad was to do his annual Shrartham (click on hyperlink on what Shrartham means) rites to his father... I chose to go with him and support as we would buy a lot of stuff and more importantly a lot of long-banana leaves to serve food. He suggested that I wear a drawer (Half-pants/shorts) and not come in a dhoti. But I wanted to show I am a grown-up man and not a teenager. So decided to ignore his advice and chose to go wearing a dhoti. Needless to say, we took our embarrassing lambretta scooter and it is the best 'device' to get a girl notice you... I mean riding a lambretta, not wearing a dhoti and driving a lambretta. So

Interestingly all through the row of shops, every 10 minutes I would stop, re-tie my dhoti and it became such a nuisance. When we had finished shopping fully, I was loaded in both hands and my dhoti started slipping. Needless to say my Dad smirked and gave me a look-u. I learnt another lesson.

I guess as every grown-up in my teenage use to say -Gone are those days where the milk sold for 3 anas and oil sold at 12 anas... I can safely repeat the history.... Gone are those days of Santhai and welcome Wal-Mart! An elected government for 65 years could not get rid of agents and middlemen, an elected government for 65 years could not get the best price for its farmers, an elected government for 65 years with no means to control proper agri-chain has decided to put its trust on private bodies that are meant as profit-only organisation, is self-proclaiming defeat and has prostrated in front of capitalism.

We have Tirupurs and the Punjabs where with foreign investment the clothing and agriculture industry are controlled by different middlemen - the difference being its pocketed by a few individuals, whereas in erstwhile market, it was a shared livelihood. I am not against FDI, but not many know that FDI <51% has been there for years and has not resolved anything... (for many of our news-media, FDI and 51% still don't mean anything, they are just writing junk in the name of FDI - it bother me very much - am i the only one?) Siddarth Varadarajan with a leftist voice is a loner in the crowd like mine... I am yet to see some good arguments. But I want to build a 'Capitalism with Indian Characteristics' (Vasudeva Kutambakam)  and will write my thoughts in the next post... Jai Hind!

Wealth in the name of Padmanabha Dasa? to use or not to use?

One of my elderly family member felt that the wealth found in Kerala should be left alone. We are educated, emotionally intelligent, seen what happened to that wealth in Tamil Nadu. So if the atheist Kerala governors or the unpopular corrupt central government, took to this wealth - would they rob it or use it properly?

Two Views

Largely two groups of People on twitters, fb are the ones who make the view that it should be properly spent. But there are people on FB, Twitters say it should stay in temple are sayng it in name of faith. Both are emotional view. 

The first group seems the downtrodden poor and feel they should be helped.

The second group sees Bakthi or fears that corrupt government rob and feel that the wealth should stay put.

Both those views raise from different viewpoints and culminate in two opposite feelings.

What is my feeling?

I am on the fence. What ever is used daily for Pooja should still be used. However I also think that they could set some trusts and use the wealth to help people. My sister runs a non-profit charity - Chiraag. She strongly feels that this should be put to use. She interacts day in day out with downtrodden people through Chiraag. When she sees them suffer, the humanity emotion flows and makes her think what is the use of wealth if you can't help a person next door? 

I am a man with Bakthi at heart as well as the good heart to help the needy. I am sure India with its rich history and culture should show me light as well as to others. I sat there thinking and recounting history.

I hit on Shri Kurathazhwan "a clan head who turned into a Spirtual" story need to be recounted:

For full story - click here

"It was a turning point in the life of Kuresan. The same night husband and wife walked out of their homes with nothing but the clothes they wore. They set out for SriRangam by foot. Along the way, Kuresan and AndAlamma had to journey through jungle infested with wayside brigands. 

AndAlamma was mortally afraid of nocturnal robbers and made no secret of her fears to her husband. WHen he heard of his wife's anxieties Kuresan quickly replied,"AndAl, watching your agitation I suspect that your fears are founded in something you have not fully disclosed to me. I asked you to renounce all our belongings back in our village of Kura. Have you renounced everything? I mean really EVERYTHING?".  

When questioned so intensely by Kuresan, AndAlamma had no choice but to confess,"My Sire, I did renounce everything save for this little golden goblet which I secreted in the folds of my saree. I thought I would need it during the journey to serve you some beverage and relieve you of weariness".  

Kuresan looked at the golden goblet that his wife pulled out from her saree-folds and then mildly chided her,"My dear woman, when I wanted you to renounce everything I meant this little goblet too!".  

So saying Kuresan took the vessel from AndAlamma's hands and threw it away into the night and deep into the forest shrubbery. "There now!", he said turning to his wife, "There now, my dear wife, has been cast away the source of all your fears". Kuresan and AndAlamma were received into Srirangam with great joy and fanfare by SriRamanujAchArya."

The reason I recount the story, is the Travancore kings really were/are to become dasas, they should have thrown away the wealth, I mean don't care what happens if the wealth is thrown into gutter or robbed. However no offence to them, they wanted to govern but in the name of God. So let us accept that position.

However the key point of the story, if you have spiritual call and want to serve God, just do it and wealth should not matter. Reach God through whatever means, but hiding the wealth backyard doesn't make sense. 

So:

If the Travancore King renounced it because of Bakthi and wished to be a dasa, going by the above Kuresan story, the wealth should not matter to that so called Royal family.

இயற்றலும்  ஈட்டலும்  காத்தலும்  காத்த

வகுத்தலும்  வல்லது  அரசு.

A Good king's (Government) primary responsibility is to earn, protect, and govern the wealth. ages ago, for the fear of Dutch/British - the king may have hid it and that seems to be the only logical conclusion.

Today what do we do?

Our fear is that the government might just rob the wealth back door if its put to use. Just for that reason, we should not shy away from voicing the idea of how to use wealth. After reminiscing Shri Kurathazhwan story, I strongly feel that the wealth should not matter to the King and the current Kerala (not Central) government should take control. (no Trusts please)

However given the trust in governments and the size of wealth, people will strongly feel against this. So an idea may be to bring in transparency. Appoint a separate ministry and make the entire wealth, expenditure transparent. Preserve all historically worth items (not for sale or any type of investments - just for future generations to see). Take the coins, rice trinklet type of articles and preserve it. Initially for the first term of government take 1% of whole wealth and let people decide on top 10 spending plans, schools, hospitals, agriculture etc and spend just 1% of the wealth. Yes just try and spend 1%, if this works out, increase the spend by 2-3 times i.e. when the money is fully spent draw 2-3 times and govern how this is spent. 

To explain with an example: Oman Chandy's government has just formed, so they have an opportunity to spend 10 crores in their tenure of 5 years. Spending merely doesn't mean everything on expense account. a % of 10 crores should be invested and aim to get back some good portion by end of 5 years. The rest of the % should be spent on social cause with complete transparency. Appoint people (creation of jobs) to make this work. However if the government does not spend this 10 crore fully and for example 2 crores remain unspent, then the next government can only take 2-3 times of 8 Crores. Also the current government cannot withdraw more than 10 crores for the whole 5 years. if the government is dismissed or looses majority and goes back to poll, whatever is spent at the time of dismissal should be the starting point for next government. key to this is Transparency. In the internet world, this can be achieved. RTI can be applied. This is possible. Fellow people - believe on such a model, we can definitely up-lift our community. 

Please be reminded of Rajini's movie - Arunachalam Spending 1 crore in 30 days is not that easy.

I am also reminded of another historical incident - Chithra Pournami. Tamilian history portrays that the Pandiyas created this festival of Chithra Pournami in their Capital City - Madurai. They found that the economy was dwindling and a good way to increase the cash-flow was to create a spending occasion - So they initiated a festival for newly weds - they go to the Vaigai River in Madurai for enjoying a full-moon lit river side dinner. Strictly for the newly weds. It is still followed in Tamil Nadu. The economy prospered.

A wealth well invested and spent comes back to you multiplied.

Please keep in mind that if the wealth is 'properly' distributed, people become rich and contribute back to economy. People miss this very important point. A wealth invested and properly governed multiplies and comes back to government.

Share your thoughts, if this model has got a loop hole.

Happy Diwali To All

India is most often referred by western world as a package of surprises and puzzles. We have many things that are rich in value which we ourselves don't know. Before i continue further, let me wish all readers a happy and prosperous Diwali. Across India and world people celebrate Diwali day for quite a few reasons. Some call it New Year, some say it as Narak-Asura's demise day and a day for celebration of good winning the evil etc. North of India celebrates Diwali on the New-Moon Day and it's a start new year. For South it's tomorrow or the 14th day of the lunar cycle. Unity in diversity.

Some of Indian festivals have many reasons for celebration, but the common underlying theme is to celebrate and share with others. One such in South of India is observed during the full moon of summer - April and it's referred in our literature as a festival organised by the then Pandya king to revive the economy. What a simple but fantastic lesson for the economic sector today. The literature's notes that he ruled with Madurai as his Capital and the economy was in bad shape; so he came up with ingenious idea of organising a festival during the summer full moon - 'Chithra Purnima'. All newly wed couples were meet in the river bed of Vaigai and spend the evening with all fun & frolic. Obviously newly weds, so would spend a lot money in meeting the demands from their spouses... So a way to channel money out!

Diwali is a time when money rolls literally rolls in India out of all sections of Indian society. If your ignore all the religious reasons, this one reason is indeed a great reason to go out and have fun. I will pick up this thought to another blog one day.

Today it's more of Diwali. I spent this evening with a few friends and we talked about our Diwali celebrations when we were Kids. Traditionally on the day of Diwali, we used to wake up early hours around 2:30 to 3:30 and the whole family would place all the sweets, savouries, new clothes, fireworks and a spicy Diwali medicine called 'Legiyam'. This is a mixture prepared out of different spices and ghee. Since it's festival time, we would obviously eat a lot and will get into gastric related problems. The aforementioned 'legiyam' is a medicinal mixture which will cure the gastric problems. Given that all the sweets and savouries have a lot of sugar, ghee and other saturated fats, you are sure to get a bit of Indigestion at the very minimum.

Anyways once all the items are placed before God, then the parents would smear a bit of oil , turmeric, sandal and kumkum on the family members; When the mother smears the oil, she would say 'ashvthama, balih:, chirnjeevi' - its a way of wishing good health and prosperity to the person who gets smeared. Then the head of family lits the first firework to start the celebration.

Then everyone takes a good oil bath followed by a steamy hot water bath, and a powder from Shika-kai is used to wash the oil and cleanse. After such a steamy bath, we would all get dressed up in new clothes and dash off to burst fireworks and crackers. The whole thing would take an hour or two before starting of firework celebration. So we would get up at 2-3AM. These celebrations include sharing of sweets, playing fireworks together etc. We would see which house has burst the most number of fireworks, by checking the amount of cracked papers and rubbish from fireworks leftovers. We had fireworks such as the 'Train', Lakshmi, Bijili, Elephant, Country, rockets, 100 wallas, 200 wallas, 1000 wallas (these are for the upper middle class), sparklers, chakras, flowerpots and many many types of fireworks. This whole fireworks may bring a lot of noise and air pollution - but a sizable number of families lived coz' of this economic activity.

The celebrations went on for 2-3 days as a matter of fact, even starts a week early. Schools, colleges, parks, where ever people met, they talk about Diwali. Ladies would chat about the silk saris they would have bought, Men talked about the wallets that lost the rupees, still proudly mention the cost spent in fireworks or the special sweets their missus made. Children would talk in lenght about the new type of firework that would have introduced just that year etc etc. For more than a fortnight people talked just Diwali.

In a decade if i read/say this to my son, who is just about to be one year, he would say i am just lying! Coz' if you go in today to a Indian city, people wake up around 7, just crib about oil bath and smear a bit, would have bought sweets the day before, new dresses did not make a conversation - coz' people buy new dresses just for any occasion - a decade back, new dresses were just for a special occasion like Diwali or Pongal. So people take a quick shower with Pantene or 'Head and shoulders' shampoo, dress up, make a big fuss about diet and still have a plate full of sweets and savouries; Switch on TV and watch the shows whole day, do a firework just as a mark of formality. That's it... Call up people on phone and wish (or their ties would be less sought after and may be considered a liberal or a rebel)... Who cares about economics or the reason behind Diwali. So in 10 years down the line, if it becomes much more a Diwali in virtual world i won't be surprised.


Changes are always constant... But i still haven't lost the fun and frolic, even though I am home alone, i have taken enough pains to go out and carry out the celebrations - I wish my type of fun carries over and the next generation shares it as well. So Happy Diwali, Have a safe firework.