Soorat Unlimited

When Mom, Masi and Mamaji left for Soorat, I imagined the trio would return with stories from a different era - bumpy rides on horse drawn buggys and lambs squealing by gravelly paths. I was a bit surprised when their odyssey sounded more like a trip to Portola Valley. My distant cousins in Soorat whom I had never even heard of except, perhaps, while scaling the telescopic stretches of our genealogical tree, seem to have created a little self-sufficient universe for themselves there. One which, in many ways, emulates a Silicon Valley venture capitalist's home. A relatively close cousin of mine lives in the valley. He does not have a movie theatre in his basement. My mom saw 3 idiots for the 3d time in a private multiplex, and she feels inspired to build something on those lines. Sometimes, I wonder if it would have been easier to be a doctor, and to have owned a hospital of sorts. Even bankers do not make as much. These guys worked hard. They had almost as much as we did, if not lesser, when they started their hospital. Not just them, the entire town of Soorat is littered with luxurious homes.Thanks to the timeless gujarati spirit of enterprise, India might regain its "sone ki chidiya" glory someday, with Soorat as a diamond in its crown.

Is Chidambaram a shetty ?

I never get this thing exactly right. I know many Chidambarams who are highly educated, but it seems they are Chettiars, or something like Shetty from the town Chidambaram in Chettinad, Tamil Nadu. Did I get that right ? Gosh, this thing really puts me off. How do you identify someone's caste, without actually asking a native. Here are some places a foreign student or NRI could make blunders. Shashi Tharoor sounds similar to Shashi Kapoor. Only after his marriage to this enigmatic "businesswoman" Sunanda Pushkar, did I note that he is a Malayalee Nair, not a punjabi born in Kerala. Mira Nair aint not a nair but actually Mira Nayyar, a hardcore Punjabi. Ambani and Malani could be related to Balani but it turns out they are usually gujarati speakers from the Kutch in neighboring Saurashtra. Sachdeva sounds like a south Indian but is usually Sindhi from south. Maniar sounds like Nambiar but is not a south indian; is gujarati. Yes! Chittal sounds like Mittal, but is not an agraseni. The great musician Milind Chittal posted a note informing me he was something like "Chittar", a GSB from Karwar. I have made certain huge errors trying to come up with formulas to identify castes in India, for whatever it was worth; this effort promptly abandoned. It goes out of rhyme pretty often.

Learned Sobreity

Following his objections to the proposed Vedanta resources mining project in Orissa, a local newspaper dubbed environment and forestry minister Jairam Ramesh an Indian Dr. No.

Is Jairam Ramesh a Dr. No "Evil"

Ramesh is obstructing 622 projects, taking note of small print acknowledging environmental destruction and tribal displacement. One of these projects is the Navi Mumbai airport, from which I personally stand to benefit. I always regarded Jairam sahab as a hero. He is our man in New Delhi.  By 'our', I mean the engineering & medicine community; the educated middle class, la Mr Bhalla and Mr Wagle. Though, since he obstructed the Navi Mumbai proposal, I am beginning to suspect him and the entire highly educated south indian community, of a stereotypical bulldozing emphasis on high education and morals. Running down business interests can spare the nation in the sphere of education but yield sobering results on overall development. Clearly, the Sobra were never oblivious of the misgivings of federal bureaucracy. After all, it was diplomat Mani Shankar Aiyer, a former member of the Marxist society at Cambridge, his brother Swaminathan Ankleswar Aiyer, also an economist and columnist, and long term congress coalition cabinet minister P Chidambaram, who flushed opinion columns with meaningful comments helping India's confused intelligentsia through the early years of globalization. To his credit, Chidambaram has been on the board of directors of Vedanta resources and once represented the controversial Enron project. But he may be a little bit of an oulier.

P Chidambaram

Swami Aiyer

Mani Aiyer

My suspicion of Sobra interest in national development derives from the relative scarcity of Sobra owned businesses. With no malice to any community, can we ask why the Sobra have stayed way behind the "gang of four" namely the Marwaris, the Gujaratis, the Sindhis and the Punjabis. Here is a list of the most prominent Indian business people : 
1. Ambanis of Reliance
2. Birlas
3. Laxmi Mittal of Arcelor Mittal
4. Tatas
5. Godrej
6. Jindals
7. Mallya of Kingfisher
8. Ruias of Essar group
9. Agarwals of Vedanta
10. Jagtiani of Landmark
11. Hindujas
12. NarayanaMurthy of Infosys
13. Azim Premji of Wipro
14. Tulsi Tanti of Suzlon
15. Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail
16. Hiranandani of Hiranandani builders
17. Rahejas of Raheja builders
18. Grandhi Mallikarjun Rao of GMR
19. TVS Srinivasan of TVS
20. Oberoi

Note that NarayanaMurthy is an accidental businessman. GMR is focussed on the rather federalistic business of national infrastructure development and maintenance. Mallya is a party man and poster boy of liberal capitalism.  All are unconventional. If you look at the list, it is dominated by the gang of four plus parsis and bohris. The latter are speakers of Gujarati.

Real Estate developer Tarneja needs to grease Commissioner DeMello in Kundan Shah's classic Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron

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Harpreet Singh Bedi, an unlikely CEO

Karthik Shankar : stuck in second tier, despite being a topper

Kulwant Bhatia( Manmeet Singh) asks a suited-booted presenter : what are the effects of floating long term debt in a potentially inflationary economy. The lady sitting by lowers her nose rims "do you know anything about inventory management ?". Yes, Indiabulls is creating smart investors.

Here is a link to the Manmeet Singh Indiabulls ads. Although Punjabis and Sindhis have sparked ire over media portrayals of their ilk as stereotypical back benchers, they have never thanked the media for advertising their stereotypical leadership skills, which matter more in the business world.  Either fortunately or unfortunately, both sides of the stereotype might hold up against the morass of empirical data. The Sobra however, are comfortable with their academic genius, musically gifted conservative-moralist image.

But is it true that the Sobra community intends to obstruct India's economic progress ? In the the light of the fact that there are a number of pejoratives associated with being highly educated in the business world, it is possible that prejudice may exist on the side of the businessman as well. The learned men in white linen need to get their hands dirty; without that it is unlikely that the seemingly undereducated business community of India will lose its thought leadership.

Is the SS putting mumbaiites over profits ?

SS(Shiv Sena) activists are known to devour neighborhoods like Amazonian Piranha. At other times they feed on constricting liberals. Since when did they put the environment above people ?  They seem to be obstructing the Navi Mumbai project with green vigor.

Look who's going green

Arun Shourie, journalist, social commentator and politician dedicated state funds towards environmental friendliness :

http://www.iitk.ac.in/news/ese/


 

To deforest or not to

Recently, I encountered a classical dilemma. I had invested in some property next to an upcoming airport. With the initiation of the promised construction, the land would rise in value. I learnt lately that there is a small hitch. The area is a mangrove reserve and various environmental organizations have been lodging letters of protest against the constructive act. The green brigade has a point or two about saving the environment that I might like to empathize with. In principle real estate geeks like myself could even be green freaks, but were the airport project to not take off, the implications on my personal health, wealth and happiness look less than beckoning. What if I was the sole arbitrator. Would I allow the construction ? The dilemma is smarting my wits. Am I unthinkingly contributin to a Mad Max future while profiting on paper ?   To a silicon valley suburban resident, there is no contradiction between an appetite for construction and green friendliness. Why in this country is every construction project in abeyance on such grounds. It would be easier if  we could just blame it on politicians. They always pick controversial land to do their development. Or maybe a section of the green freaks, an otherwise liked minority in Hindu dominated india; they are hell bent on finding some or the other issue with every major developmental project. I tell you, it is the neo-ludditism that keeps this country down. Look at the chinese. Or even the malayasians. They are getting ahead of us, if not way ahead of us. Arre koi kuch karo.

Hiranandani in trouble

Real estate moghul and doctor Niranjan Hiranandani looks like he is on the run:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/CBI-issues-look-out-notices-to-airports-against-Hiranandanis/articleshow/6252154.cms

CEO Profile : Bhavin Thurakia

Check out entrepreneurial geeks Bhavin and Divyank. They started from scratch in college. Directi.com today is worth more than $300 million and growing.

East meeting west

Karsh Kale and Buddha Bar (album cover)

What brought pentagram vocalist Vishal Dadlani and classical musician Shekhar Ravijiani to compose together is probably fickle chance but they appear to have struck the right chords. With 'I hate love stories', the duo who prefer to sign off as Vishal-Shekhar have created another popular album to follow up the retro-remix mood of 'Bachna Ae Haseeno' and OSO. Over the years have tried listening to various fusion artists. I remember pulling out Shakti, Buddha Bar and Karsh Kale labeled CDs with great curiosity. More often than not the discs bounced back into their dust jackets returning me to my prosaic little island of quaint compositions.


(clockwise) Vishal and Shekhar, Atif Aslam, Sukhwinder, S-E-L, Kailash Kher Rahman





Bollywood music since Rahman filled in the gap in an adorable way. Shankar, Ehsan and Loy, a trio with classical and western classical expertise appeared with a few notable scores. It is an arena we could interpret as fusion, for lack of a better alternative. Maybe it is because of our jugalbandi tradition and the strict popularity meter aur audience imposes on film music that these hybrid products could well be among the best in the world of fusion music.