Gesundheit

Small battles of another age

2011-08-23T19:16:00.000+05:30

Corruption seems to be the flavor of the season, so I'm dusting out an email from 2002 sent to close friends and publishing it.

Again. This time with the traffic police. Now that it's over I don't know whether I should feel triumphant, righteous, sore or plain sad. I don't even know why I'm telling you all this. But here is what unfolded this afternoon:

I had gone to meet a friend over coffee. Two hours later, I discover my bike missing. When I show my friend where I'd parked it, he points out that it's on the law-abiding side of the "No Parking" board, but outside the (barely visible) line drawn on the street. So off we go to the nearby police station, and sure enough, there's my bike in the parking lot.

Traffic cop: "Show me your license and hand over 150 bucks, I'll give you a receipt that you can show to the parking lot attendant (PLA) and drive your vehicle out."

Fair enough. But I had forgotten my wallet at home so my friend assumes responsibility. He displays his license, but finds only 70 rupees in his wallet. He starts fishing out 10s and 20s from different locations on his person.

The cop leaves us "I'll come back later when you have the money. Now I have to go and impound more vehicles."

The efficient bastard.

We are at the coin stage now. 130-135-136-141. Stop. That is all he has. Should we ask someone for money? Or go to an ATM? Where's the nearest? Deep thought.

PLA: What's the matter? Which is your vehicle?
Friend: That one.
PLA: Didn't you get the receipt?
Friend: No. We have only 141 bucks on us.
PLA considers a scrap of paper he is holding with the vehicle numbers on them. "Okay, hand it over and take your vehicle." He scribbles "141" on his paper in front of my bike number.

It all happens so fast. I am holding the money. I hand it over and we take the bike outside. Something doesn't seem right.

Friend: There, for the lack of 9 bucks you had to bribe the guy. Now in addition to losing the money you can feel guilty about it too.

I: You know what? You're absolutely right!

Riding back home there seems only one course to follow. I grab my wallet and some change and speed all the way back to the station. Hardly half an hour has passed. I walk up to the PLA. Of the officer there is yet no sign.

"Which vehicle is yours?"
"I already took it. I've come to pay the fine."
"What!"
"Yes. Look at your paper. That's my vehicle. I have brought nine bucks with me."
"You want a receipt."
"Right."
"You'll have to wait for the officer. He's the one with the receipt book."

I wait for the officer to return. Other defaulters come by. The PLA starts talking with one of them.

I suddenly catch a drift of his conversation. "...but the officer is not here. Look, I told this guy to go back home and get the remaining money. He's back now, and like you, is waiting for the officer to return."

I turn upon him savagely with blazing eyes and smiling lips.

"Is that right? Is that what you told me?"

Silence.

"I don't remember you telling me to come back with the money. If I hadn't returned, where would the 141 bucks have gone? What's your cut and what's the cops?"

The PLA is avoiding looking at me. "No, see. The tow truck charges 100 rupees per vehicle and 50 rupees is the fine..."

"That's if I have the receipt. Look in my eyes and tell me. Where would that money have gone?"

He avoids my eyes. "Into the pockets sir". His voice is suddenly small. I pat him on the shoulder and lapse into a silence that is comfortable on my side.

Definitely not on his. "I wonder what's taking the officer so long."

More silence.

"He should be here by now."

More silence.

"Why are you taking tension sir? Why don't you sit down on this bike ?"

I smile at him politely. "No tensions here. Thanks, but I don't want to sit on that bike as it is too dusty. I prefer to stand."

The cop soons returns with a fresh haul of vehicles. The PLA steps up to him and gives him 150 bucks. "Please give this man a receipt."

A few minutes later, receipt in hand, I step out of the station building. The PLA comes up. "Everything fine?"

"Yes, thanks." I offer my hand and we shake. "Be good."

The PLA looks distinctly uneasy. I calm him, "I'm not angry at you at all. I understand. It's just me. I'm like that."

The PLA escorts me out "The next time you come here, I too would be like that."

I laugh. "Hopefully there won't be a next time for me."

Talk about the weather

2010-05-14T20:17:00.000+05:30

I don't remember what it was that made me volunteer to hold the key to Sushim's apartment. He had been living away from the city for a while and listed his old digs for sale, but was reluctant to hand over the key to a broker since he was in fear that the broker might start using the place himself. In a moment of weakness, I volunteered to be the Key Guy, to trundle out over weekends and show the apartment to the prospective buyers and brokers that Sushim coordinated over phone and the internet.

It isn't all that taxing, really. I get to interact with some interesting people (and sometimes their brokers) and delve into their shelter-seeking psyches. Most ask me all kinds of personal questions that I find unrelated to their apartment-buying decision making process. Such as what I do, how I am related to Sushim (one broker asked me if I was his brother, and I confirmed) and where I live.

Last evening was the first time I ventured out to the apartment on a weekday, and an evening. Arriving before the tourists, I faced some initial dismay when I realized the electricity mains were turned off all this while, and confusion when I tried all possible combinations of switches and fuses to get them back on so the place would be lit. On Sushim's advice, I approached the neighbours and copied their switch settings... without success. While I was thus fiddling, the tourist started probing the neighbour about the flat and the society.

One concern that most buyers have is with the location of the apartment, on the top floor of a high-rise building. These usually have a tendency to heat up faster than the average, and nobody wants to buy into an oven. Having stayed over at Sushim's a few times in the good old days, I knew the builder had constructed it well, with both a cooler roof slab construction and a great cross-ventilation. However, I was hardly surprised when the prospect, currently residing in the next suburb, asked the neighbour, "So, how hot does it get here in the daytime?" Without batting an eyelid, the neighbour replied, "42 degrees C".

I gazed at the man, amazed. Here was someone after my own heart. He must have been an engineer - his answer was technically correct (that is indeed Pune's typical maximum temperature) and yet the tourist had no idea what to make of the information. Kinda like the manager in the hot air balloon.

Rather flustered, he turned his attention to the electricity problem, and we soon discovered that the mains were fine, it was the light that I was using to test that was fused. With the aid of other lights, he managed a satisfactory dekko of the apartment and all was well.

Learnings from a startup: Part 2 - The Purchase Guy

2009-03-22T19:26:00.003+05:30

Every large company has a Purchase Department through which all orders it places must pass. If managed well, this is a good thing for the large company. It has a bunch of people who, in theory, are always on the lookout for efficiencies in purchases - leveraging purchases across departments, finding products or services of lower cost and ensuring that someone in the Materials Dept is not favoring his brother-in-law against a lower-cost supplier.

For the vendor to the large company, this translates to the grim fact that the purchase guy exists for the sole purpose of driving your quote down. He will point out deficiencies in your offering. He will compare you against larger vendors who have efficiencies of scale. He will inform you of competing quotes that are much lower than yours. He will hint at a continuous stream of orders in the future if you manage to sell this one at a discount. And so on.

I am not trying to say that the Purchase Guy is Evil. On the contrary, I know of instances where the Purchase Department has worked with vendors to bring down their costs without impacting their bottomline. One of my friends, who is a vendor to a large automotive company, narrated how his client actually brought down his costs - and consequently his billing - by getting him better deals on some of his input services, which in turn he used to strengthen his margins with other clients.

However, if you're running a specialized services startup, chances are that the Purchase Guy is completely clueless on what it is that you do, and unable to offer any constructive criticism on your operations. However, his mandate of reducing his company's costs still remains, causing much frustration to you. In such situations, the only way you can stand your ground is to:

Do a great sales job, so much that your end client wants you and nobody else.
Give a higher quote in the first place, thus giving some satisfaction to the Purchase Guy when he brings it down to your original figure.
Offer a product or service that is unique and not yet commoditized
Have nothing to lose, or at least pretend that you don't

Sometimes 1 and 2 are at odds with each other, since there is a chance that quoting too high might scare off your client contact, ensuring the proposal does not reach the Purchase Department at all. In my company, we continue to have considerable confusion regarding quote values, and largely follow what we consider a fair approach of quoting a uniform price to everyone and sticking to it. This way, the message is not sent out that discounts are available for the asking, and if the client does not ask for one then he is a fool.

It is sometimes unclear whether there is a purchase department at your client and whether it is going to be involved in the sales process. Purchase has popped up at random times with existing clients, after we have done several projects without them. Sometimes, new clients have given the indication that the proposal will only be a formality, and they are ready to begin working with us. This idyll was then broken with a phone call from the Purchase Guy.

Thankfully, although we are weak on both 1 and 2, we have done a good enough job on 3 and 4, so that conversations with the Purchase Guy are always pleasant and occasionally humorous. Sample the following:

1. Help me find meaning in my existence

Purchase Guy: I see that you have quoted Rs <100>. This is too high. Let us bring it down to say, <75>.
My Colleague: Yipes! Where did you spring from? If I knew Purchase would be involved, I'd have changed the strategy. Let me requote you Rs <110>, then we shall bring it down to <100>. Both of us are happy.
PG: (slightly unsettled) Er, unfortunately your proposal is already recorded in our system.
MC: Well, your engineer really wants this work to begin fast and is ok with the quote, so how if we go ahead with the existing figure of <100>? That way, we don't lose time in requoting and waiting for the fresh purchase order.
PG: If you don't bring down the price, we shall consider other vendors.
MC: Look, this project is really urgent and we are the only ones around who can deliver the quality needed on time. If you want to look at other vendors, all the best explaining that to the engineer.
PG: (helpless now) Please help me out. My performance will be evaluated on whether I can bring the price down.
MC: Giving discounts is against our policy, but for you, I'll make a special exception and change our quote to Rs <99>.
PG: (slightly relieved) Thank you. Have a good day.

2. Offense is the best form of defense

PG: Hi there! I'm calling from the Purchase Department. I notice that you've quoted Rs <100>. This is too high, can it be lowered?
Me: No.
PG: But it really is a high figure.
Me: On what basis do you say it is high? Have you compared costs among other vendors?
PG: Er, no.
Me: If you do that, you'll find that people will quote you 1.5 to 2 times what we have. And those guys will definitely not have the background that we offer.
PG: Well, that may be so, but your quote is still too high on absolute terms. It is out of our budget.
Me: That is strange, because when I met the VP of your company on his invitation, and agreed to his proposal on the project, he did not tell me he had no budget for it.
PG: So shall we say Rs <90>?
Me: Let's say Rs <95>.
PG: (brightening) Great!
Me: ... but only if you pay me completely in advance.
PG: Hm, our finance department won't agree to that. But do reduce your price, we'll give you lots of projects in the future, and this would be a goodwill gesture from your side to begin the relationship.
Me: Great! If you give me a commitment for 10 such projects in the next one year, I'll bring down the price considerably.
PG: Er... unfortunately, I can't do that.
Me: A good negotiation always involves give and take. I can't give you any discount unless I get something in return. Realistically, what can you offer me if not advance payment or a bulk contract?
PG: Nothing, really.
Me: Then the quote stays at <100>.

(two days later, we got the purchase order for <100>)

3. Completely clueless

(Background: My company is into Finite Element Analysis. Involves looking at mechanical structures and seeing how strong they are. This proposal was for a small half-month project involving Finite Element Analysis. I'm guessing that after seeing the purchase order request from his engineer, the Purchase Guy must have done a quick search in his database of the vendors doing analysis work. Resulting in...)

PG: You know, your quote is very high.
KP: Well, we deliver an equally high quality that justifies it. You've noticed it in the past projects we've done for you, and also the good reports on us given by your clients.
PG: That's all fine, but if I divide the quote for the project by the amount of time it will be completed in according to your proposal, I get a figure of Rs <100> per man-month. This is too high. Why, Lehman Brothers charges us Rs <90> per man-month.
KP: But aha, there you have it. If you give us continuous long-term work, we can definitely offer you the Lehman Brothers rate. But given the one-off short nature of this work, the overheads are bound to be high and thus the rate.
(...)

I learnt about the above since I was in the same room as KP, and overheard Lehman Brothers being mentioned. Later:
Me: Lehman Brothers? Why?
KP: Yeah man, they must be doing some financial analysis for our clients. I thought it futile to explain to the Purchase Guy how it is completely different from finite element analysis.
Me: But there's no way they could even charge Rs <100> a man-month. Why, their starting salaries for their employees were higher than that.
KP: Well, it was a purchase guy, he was most likely bluffing.
Me: You should have told him that was probably one of the reasons they went bankrupt...

"Wilt thou?" "Hee, hee, hee..."

2008-09-29T07:36:00.003+05:30

Useful, no doubt, for sham weddings...

Karve Road, Pune

The Pangara

2008-09-14T14:32:00.004+05:30

I was a BIG environmentalist as a kid. When I was twelve or thirteen years old, I decided that the society I was living in had too few trees and an open ground, and hence set about planting a few of the former on the latter. My parents gently reminded me that the ground was also used for other purposes, such as playing games and parking cars, and so my original grand plans of planting about twenty trees on the expanse got trimmed down to just two, on the boundary just inside the fence.

Now with just two to plant, I could not afford to be indiscriminate in my choice of tree. After some searching in the library (the internet was non-existent in those days), I went to the local branch of the WWF, of which I was a member. There I asked Mr Samuel - a mustachioed gentle guy with a booming voice - which two trees I should plant, that would be the most beneficial to the birds, the environment and the world in general. Mr Samuel immediately brightened to the idea, and asked me to return in a couple of days while he conducted his research.

Two days later, he presented me with a list of about twenty five trees, which I looked at with some dismay. I just wanted two, and here I have been given a list of probably all the trees that grow in India? I probed gently as to which of these trees were most favored by Mr Samuel, and left after about half an hour, with my brain full of the qualities of all the trees on the list, but also with a firm decision - I would plant one Singapore Cherry, and one Pangara.

None of the nurseries around had the Singapore Cherry in stock, so I finally settled for an ordinary cherry tree, which I later realized belongs to a different plant order altogether. However the Pangara, or Indian Coral Tree, was easily procured, and planted next to the cherry for company. Over the next few months, many hours were spent lovingly tending these trees, watering them, giving them fertilizer and spraying them with pesticide. The latter did not prevent the Pangara from being persistently attacked by stem-borers, though. After wracking my head looking for a solution, I decided to let the stem borers be, since the tree was anyways growing at a rapid pace, leaving the poor cherry looking like a dwarf in comparison. And once the fleshy stem of the Pangara hardened into bark, the stem borers would be less of a problem, I reasoned.

In a couple of years, my family left the rented apartment and relocated to our own place, a few km away. I slowly lost touch with my former neighbours and the trees I had planted. Every few years I would make a trip down to the society specifically to see how the trees were doing, and felt proud to watch them grow large and beautiful. Soon none of the nameplates on the doors indicated that any of my former neighbours had remained, and I contemplated the permanence of trees, as compared to people.

Last week we moved office since we had outgrown our earlier space. I found the new place to be within walking distance of my earlier residence, and decided to take a stroll and see how the good old trees were doing. I was in for a surprise. The cherry had grown up, and was finally looking like a respectable tree. However, in place of the Pangara, there now stood a... car.

I stood a bit and wondered about about this turn of events. Had the tree been diseased, and thus been put down? Had it grown too large for its own good, and been hacked down by the electricity board to protect their overhead wires? Or had this callous car-owner decided to pave paradise and put up his personal parking lot? No, that could not be - there were only two cars parked on the grounds, with lots of space for any more. Too, the society in general looked dilapidated and hardly lived-in. Which was surprising, since it was close to one of the hubs of the city. But there it was - only one tenth of the apartments showed any sign of life, and of the once-flourishing garden in the premises, there was no trace.

While I was about to leave with a heavy heart, something caught my eye - just outside the fence, near the cherry tree, was a small Pangara, about ten feet tall.

I smiled, and could feel the cherry tree doing the same, in its own way.

Financial incontinence

2008-04-28T08:59:00.000+05:30

Outside ATM, Aundh

Tree-hugging Painter

2008-04-18T15:29:00.001+05:30

Flyer on tree in Aundh

Innovative Scaffolding

2008-03-13T14:41:00.006+05:30

Last week I was in NOIDA, on a rushed business daytrip. After much wheeling and dealing, our partner company took us to show off their new office. It was quite impressive - a three-storied building exclusively for their business. However, I was more curious about the building coming up next door:
I took this snap with my cellphone camera, so the photo is not as clear as I would have wished. But note in particular the scaffolding to the right of the structure. Since I did not have the time to go closer to this phenomenon, I shall enlarge the above photo

On each of the "steps" of the scaffolding, there is a man, possibly a daily wage earner. There are about 25 steps, which would increase as the building grows. Together they are hauling up steel reinforcing bars to the top, one after the other. They were apparently involved in this activity for many days on end.

I wonder if this practice is followed anywhere else?

Thank God mom's around

2008-02-21T11:49:00.001+05:30

Learnings from a startup: Part 1 - finances

2008-02-06T04:05:00.001+05:30

It's four and a half years now since I started an enterprise with a close friend and classmate, and it has been one rollercoaster ride all the while! I've been thinking a lot lately about what I've learnt from the experience, and decided to write down my thoughts in a series of intermittent blogs.

Today's topic - The importance of working capital

I'm writing from the perspective of running an unfunded services business in India (the laws and practices might be different in other countries). Requirement of working capital is obvious in a product-development environment but more insidious, and harder to justify, for us services guys. Let me build up the perfect storm pointwise:

1. Accrual accounting: I had no idea what this term meant before I started out. It means simply that the incomes and expenses for a time period are calculated based on the invoices issued during that period, and not the actual cash flows. So, in a year if I have done work and invoiced projects worth Rs 2 million, then my income for that year is Rs 2 million. Similarly, if I can produce employee payslips, phone bills and travel receipts dated within a time period, I can claim those as expenses. Let's say the sum total of the above is Rs 1.2 million. This system does not look at how many of the invoices and bills have been actually paid.

In a services business, it is fair to assume that all the accrued expenses would equal the cash expenses, being for things that demand to be paid on time or face the threat of eviction, disconnection or walkout. However, it is common that clients delay payment for quite large periods of time without penalty. Nobody complains too much if they are fined by the phone company for delayed bill payment, but try the same when you are a startup company servicing a large client and they cry foul and will likely not give you any more business. Thus, one has to grin and bear the receivables to build up long-term client relationships.

Assume the receivables for the year total Rs 1 million. This is not too farfetched, because in a growing company you would have more invoices issued toward the end of the year than the beginning, with a higher ratio of those remaining unpaid when the year ends.

2. Depreciation: Simply put, this is the percentage of an asset that is counted as an expense in a year to account for its loss of value. Let's say I buy computers worth Rs 300,000 during the year, cash down. Since purchasing a computer justs converts my assets from cash into computers, this in accounting is not counted as an expense. Instead, a percentage of the computer asset value (say Rs 100,000) is taken as an expense, to account for the fact that these computers would need to be replaced over time.

Let's see what we end up with:

Reported gross profit = Income - Expenses = 2 - 1.2 - 0.1 = Rs 700,000
Tax to be paid on above = Rs 245,000 (say)
Net profit = Rs 455,000

Quite neat. The company is profitable. However, on the cash side, we see:

Incoming cash = Rs 1 million
Outgoing cash = 1.2 + 0.3 + 0.245 = Rs 1.745 million
Shortfall = Rs 745,000

Now wait a minute! The company is clearly profitable, and yet there is a net outflow of funds from the shareholders pockets that is much higher than profits? This is something that can be very hard to swallow. Family would have to be leaned upon for that loan to pay taxes on money you haven't received yet. Friends would need to be convinced why you actually earn more than the guy next door who works for an MNC, and yet ride a motorbike to work while guy-next-door has a car.

Things get worse in a situation where the company is growing. If the cash policy does not change, the profits would increase, but so would the receivables, until it reaches a level that it overwhelms the shareholders, who realize their original plan of reinvesting profits back into the company to fund growth is not achievable. Thus growth suffers due to lack of available funds.

So what's the solution? A series of hard decisions:

Have better cash policies. Give incentives to clients for early payment and (perhaps) penalties for late payment.
Recognize and book bad debts before the end of the year.
Focus on improving cash flows, even if it results in lower growth. Give preference to those clients who pay promptly.
Take on explicit debt. Too often, shareholders end up financing the shortfall by delaying their own salaries, leading to a loss of quality of life. Putting up money upfront as working capital while starting the business, and funding any shortfalls along the way through external debt while continuing to take regular salaries, might cost the company some money on interest but gives tremendous peace of mind and a feeling of fairness between shareholders.

To be continued...

Images from the road

2007-11-24T01:11:00.002+05:30

Some pics from my trip to Panchgani...

On NH4

I realized that there are subtle differences between roads in India and roads around the world:

Road Signs

In Australia
(courtesy kleinmatt66)

In India

Pedestrian Crossings

In England
(courtesy Wikipedia)

In India

Public transport logos

In USA. Well, ok. A greyhound.
(courtesy Moworld photos)

In India ...a snail??

We Puneites, the anarchists

2007-11-20T00:35:00.000+05:30

I recently went to a neighbourhood hardware store, to repair a voltage stabilizer that was preventing our office fridge from fulfilling its destiny, viz. to keep the beer cold. There, I saw this sign:

The sign says "कृपया काऊंटर समोर मोबईलवर बोलु नये", which is Marathi for "Please do not speak on a mobile phone while in front of the counter". I decided to record this addition to Pune's rich heritage of direct, impolite or downright offensive signs. Scarcely had I finished taking the picture, when I noticed the electrician had a customer, and...

Creak! Grind!

2007-11-07T18:19:00.000+05:30

Uh... been so long since I was here that the area of my brain associated with blogging has become rusty. I am spurred into activity by Senti, who pointedly told me that I hadn't been blogging of late.

"Nor have you!", said I using my quick reparteeing skills.

But Senti was not to be outdone. "Well, you haven't been blogging for longer than I haven't", said he, to which I had no repartee until now.

So there, Senti.

Let's see, what's been happening in my life of late? Quite a bit of diverse stuff, in no particular order:

Yet another takeover offer for the lil' ol' startup, which we rejected after some thought and introspection.
A long-deserved bike trip, during which I took some interesting snaps of the road, which will be put up in future posts.
Spending time in a picturesque house in Panchgani with two girls and a purry furry friend.

A shorter (photo-less) bike ride to Lonavala, where I spent a relaxing weekend reading comic books.
More half-hearted attempts to restart swimming (brr! cold!!) and get back in shape (yawn! boring!!)

Back to my hibernation. Over to you, Senti!

Girl you hit me with da bomb...

2007-07-15T20:52:00.000+05:30

Miffed couple’s bomb defused
Express News Service

Pune, July 14: A Live crude bomb, sent in a parcel and addressed to the city’s postmaster, was defused by the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) on Friday evening. The police though ruled out the possibility of a terrorist link.

Faraskhana police said the bomb was sent from Anantpur in Andhra Pradesh by a couple angry over family opposition to their marriage. The box had a note attached to it, saying: ‘Handle with care, as it is a bomb.’

Source: Today's Indian Express, complete story at the Pune Newsline website.

Targeted Advertising

2007-07-04T11:10:00.000+05:30

Flyers in Koregaon Park

(thanks, Senti)

Small Is Beautiful

2007-06-25T11:50:00.000+05:30

Working on a startup is a tremendous learning process. Along with the technical learning, I also get to meet and work with a diverse bunch of folks. I firmly believe in the power of partnerships as a means for small firms to survive and grow, and have been lucky in forming a set of crucial tie-ups with firms that complement our own skills and abilities. Some of these have turned out to be mutually beneficial relationships that have provided a steady stream of work both ways, and crucial inputs on trends in the industry and what our competition is up to. Others have been more psychological comfort than hard cash, however their presence on our portfolio would have indirectly helped generate sales, as clients gained confidence in the spectrum of services we could provide through our partners, although they were only interested in the stuff we did.

However large or small, there is one thing that all my partner companies share - a desire and a passion for growth. In fact, I do not think I have ever met a businessman (and I've met quite a few over the years) who did not want growth. Until yesterday.

I was on the lookout for a partner company that could assist us in targeting a market that is currently facing a lot of growth, and an acquaintance referred me to this one. Looking at their website excited me so much I could not sit down - they were such a perfect complement to our work. Of late I've received so many enquiries that I've had to put on hold because I did not have the requisite experience and knowledge to execute it all. But if this company were with us, we could easily double our strength in a year, and more than double our revenues. If the partner were our size, it would be even better for them, as their share of the work was higher. Together, we could be the Very Large Finger that could tickle the market and make it purr.

However, the owner of the company did not want to grow.

I sat across the table and gazed and wondered at him, thinking if he was for real. I asked him no fewer than five times, in different ways, if he was interested in taking up at least a part of the work I was offering him. It was right up his alley. He seemed a very professional and meticulous person leading an organization that delivered on schedule. However, he didn't want any of it.

I rode back through the rain, nonplussed and frustrated. As KP pointed out, so far we had divided the world of startups into two kinds - the venture funded ones who grew explosively, and the internal-accrual funded ones (to whom we belong), who grew more slowly. We now had to add a third category - the ones who did not grow at all. And I am sure the fertilized startups would have an equally hard time understanding us organics, as we organics had in understanding the bonsais.

I also was reminded of "Small Is Beautiful", an influential 70's book by E F Schumacher. I first read it about ten years back, and liked the way Schumacher married economics and environmentalism. His views on GNP being an insufficient measure of progress, and the need for a quantity that measures well-being instead of money started a school of thought that eventually had some success in Bhutan. However, I had (and still have) a tough time swallowing the main theme of his book viz, that small firms are much better than large ones. To me, that somehow implies a denial of growth, which would lead to stagnation. But perhaps the MD we met was one of those enlightened ones, who had read Schumacher and been transformed. He had been in business for the past twenty years, and would have definitely seen the extreme highs and lows of the Indian Economy during that time. And yet he had a team that was about the same size as my four-year old firm. Or perhaps those kindly eyes knew things about the market that they did not want to disclose, lest it discourage us.

Of the two possibilities, I somehow hope it was Schumacher.

Intense concentration

2007-06-17T00:21:00.000+05:30

My niece, trying to catch an ant.

Physics in the morning

2007-05-17T17:52:00.000+05:30

I had a good laugh in the morning, thanks to Messrs Raimi and Sargent.

(Location: Open-air particle physics laboratory in the heart of New York)
Scientist 1: Sir! There seems to be an increased silicon mass in the de-molecularizer!!
Scientist 2: It's probably just a bird, it'll fly off when the engine gets started.

(Location: College physics lab)
Student: What is it?
Professor: (peers through microscope) Don't let any of that get on you.
Student: Why?
Professor: It has the characteristics of a symbiote, which needs to bond to a host in order to survive. And once it binds... it can be hard to unbind.

(later)
Professor: (The symbiote) enhances aggression...
(view through microscope - symbiote molecule colliding violently against other nearby molecules)
[the symbiote slithers towards the student, but is quickly trapped under a glass]
Professor: It seems to like you.

Grandeur amidst nothingness

2007-05-07T23:33:00.000+05:30

Bhuleshwar temple, near Pune

I forgive you boy, but don't leave town

2007-04-19T13:13:00.000+05:30

Sunday was weird. It started off all right; I woke up late and stared out the window, wondering what to do. I saw a Murakami book of short stories lying on the bed where I'd tossed it the previous night, and picked it up and read "The Fall of the Roman Empire, the 1881 Indian Uprising, Hitler's Invasion of Poland, and the Realm of Raging Winds". It's a fairly short story - shorter than the title would lead you to believe. For those who have not read it, the story is split into four sections:

The Fall of the Roman Empire
The 1881 Indian Uprising
Hitler's Invasion of Poland
And the Realm of Raging Winds

Although the Realm of Raging Winds is just one of the four sections, it is the central idea of the story, and is vividly described in the other three sections too.

Which is why, when later in the day the sultry still Pune summer gave way to a Realm of Raging Winds, I stopped what I was doing and paused and thought.

This was uncanny. Weird, as I've mentioned earlier. This was a definite Sign. I felt like God.

I told this to my friends, who laughed at me. Mat called it a random coincidence. But then, lots of people call God a random coincidence too, so I was not terribly put off by that.

Mat called me a nutcase.

But you couldn't deny the existence of the wind. A few sprinkled showers accompanied it, and made things much pleasanter, clients more tolerable and friends more forgivable. Thus, I suggested to Senti that we ride our bikes to Bombay the next morning.

This was not a whimsical thought. We were to visit clients in Bombay on Monday anyways, but had so far been thinking of busing it there. The winds, however, changed everything.

It was one of the best decisions we made in a long time. The ride to Bombay on Monday morning was effortless and comfortable. Bombay was still hot and muggy, but we were coddled by our respective clients in their AC offices. And we caught the winds and the rain on the way back in the evening. As Kehlog Albran once mentioned, The Wind was a friend - it made the weather very pleasant and our rides memorable. The Wind was an enemy - it was so strong I was nearly tossed off my bike near Lonavala. However, unlike in Albran's time, the Wind was definitely not neutral, like Switzerland. I guess I'll have to mature some more until I can fully grasp Albran's philosophy.

Bur-grrr!

2007-03-20T15:45:00.000+05:30

Our very own Burger Nazi
(Burger King, Koregaon Park)

Garuda

2007-03-19T13:18:00.000+05:30

I don't remember when I read my first Amar Chitra Katha. Along with Target, Chandamama, Champak and to a lesser extent Tinkle, it is an indelible part of my memories of growing up. Some of my closest friends claim I haven't grown up yet, but I digress. Although I wasn't as much a fan of ACKs as I was of say, Detective Moochwala, I found them interesting, adventurous, and educational.

I went on a nostalgia trip recently when KP bought, for an unknown reason, a huge number of Amar Chitra Kathas. Apart from the pricing, little seems to have changed. I still find them interesting, although for quite different reasons. Here, for example, are a few pages from Garuda. This snippet explains how Garuda got his name:

As can be seen, enjoying these comics demands a suspension of disbelief equal to that required while reading Superman, or watching Crank for that matter. I pity the poor parents when their kid, as precocious as they come these days, starts questioning them on some very obvious questions thrown up by Garuda: Why are the tortoise and elephant the same size? Why is it so unremarkable that four people are hanging upside down from a tree in the midst of nowhere? Why does Garuda have to eat the elephant and tortoise?

All that, of course, provided the parent can provide a satisfactory answer on how the rishis intended to pursue their vocation in the Himalayas. All very mysterious and unexplained. If any of you can understand and translate, pray comment.

Short story inspired by the Literary Ace

2007-03-08T19:18:00.000+05:30

"Good night", she sang, "Sleep tight!"

And so he got into his sleeping bag.

I have a trustworthy face

2007-02-24T23:16:00.000+05:30

I recently made one of my now-too-frequent trips to the hospital, where the doc gave me her practiced severe look for not taking care of myself, and prescribed pills for gastritis. One of these pills turned out to contain bacteria, something I find slightly disgusting and very cool.

Damn. Five missed calls. And an sms: "Pl cd u call back? I just needed some information".

Unknown number. My curiosity piqued, I decided to return this call first.

"Hullo, this is Shrik."

"Hullo, this is Mrs _____. I wanted some information from you as a mother."

Interesting! "Sure", I said. This had all the makings of something that would make my day.

Mrs _____ continued that she was going through the profiles on bharatmatrimony.com for her daughter, and both of them were quite taken by this boy who's from my undergrad college. She searched around on the internet and found that I'm from that college too. "I looked at your alumni page, and felt I could trust you. So could you help me out?"

I was knee deep into this by now, and there was no way I could turn away from it. It looked very much like a crank call, but I had to investigate further. "Thanks, m'am, how can I help?"

"Do you know this boy? He's from your hostel, and plays a lot of sports. Seems to have graduated around your time, too."

"Well, can I have his name?"

It turned out (thankfully) that I didn't know the suspect. From my hostel? Yes, of course, isn't there only one hostel in your college? Er, no. There were about eleven when I graduated, and they've added a few more since, on a passing whim no doubt.

I cautiously asked Mrs _____ how she had come upon my personal cellphone number. Quite easy, really. She'd traced me to my company website, called up the contact number there, and wrangled the number out of my poor colleague who picked up the phone.

"Don't you feel, m'am, that you should call or meet this boy and speak with him, instead of trusting the words of a complete stranger?"

"It's my only daughter, you see. You'll understand when you have a daughter of your own."

With which homily, and the fact that I had a trusty face, I had to be content with the rest of the day.

Geriatric pulchritude

2007-01-16T10:57:00.000+05:30

Near Nal Stop, Pune

Yosemite

2007-01-14T16:33:00.000+05:30

Remembered this when looking at Anurag's pics. Yosemite is one of my all-time favorite places. I've been there twice, and know that I can spend many more vacations there before I get tired of its overwhelming beauty.

The last time, Baap - a friend from undergrad days - and I spent Christmas there. Dismissing the tourist village and going backcountry, we hiked along a little-frequented trail, and reached our campsite by a lake beyond twilight. Too tired or lazy to pitch tent, we unrolled our sleeping bags on the rocks by the waterside and were soon asleep.

The next morning, we woke up in heaven -

We were so awed, we didn't want to move or breathe, lest we disturb the stillness. Thankfully my camera was close at hand. After fifteen minutes, a wind stirred up, creating ripples, and we finally got out of our sleeping bags.

Stabbed in the Bag

2006-11-28T21:11:00.000+05:30

I was recently robbed. In, as they say, broad daylight. I let a stranded commuter (or so I thought) hitch a ride on my pillion seat. He alighted at what seemed a funny place for a commuter to alight - no buildings or bus stops or road junctions nearby. Much later, when I fished out my wallet from my backpack to pay a shopkeeper, I noticed something seriously amiss. My wallet had contained many thousand rupees and a twenty when I tossed it into my bag at home. Now, it contained only a twenty. Very smooth.

It was clearly an opportunistic pinch - all my cards and other important stuff were intact. The only thing missing were the big bills, which I'd just withdrawn a couple days back, since I'd intended to do some shopping for the home.

My mind was such a whirl of emotions, that I had to sit down with a coffee to disentangle one from the other and make sense of where I was. The first thing I felt was betrayal. It's not about the money, I told myself, it's the feeling that I was doing someone a good turn and he turned around and harmed me. The next thing that bubbled up was righteous anger. How dare he invade my privacy! What gave him the right?

Then came a deep sadness. In one flash, the thief had spoiled my cheerful camaraderie with the city I'd grown up in, and whose ever-changing face I'd grown to love, for better or worse. Never again would I offer a ride to a stranger, no matter how deserving. Instinctively, my mind began recollecting the kind deeds done to me by strangers in other places I've lived in, and struggled to find a recent incident of kindness I'd experienced here. That was the final emotion that lingered - one of bitterness.

I suddenly paused, and searched for a feeling that I knew should have been there, but wasn't. It's not about the money... hold that thought!

I felt no sense of loss.

Which was funny, because I was quite the penny-pincher, sometimes to the point of selfishness. And this was the largest amount of money I'd been separated from in my entire life, but I felt not a pang of deprivation. My mind never dwelled on the amount, nor on the things I could have done with it. I wondered what it meant, this realization that I could take that much cash or leave it alone.

It was much later, as I was lying in bed, that I realized what it meant. My accountant had been persistently, though good-naturedly, lecturing me every year to set aside some money for charity. And although I'd researched the causes I felt strongly for, and the organizations that did good work in them, I'd always postponed the actual giving to another day, since there was always something else that I wanted to do with the money at that time.

I signed the cheques the next day. Another first for me. A person who didn't even know me, had changed my life in a matter of hours.

The Photographer

2006-10-12T20:10:00.000+05:30

I don't pride myself on my photography skills. In fact, when Anurag and Senti get started on one of their all-too-frequent photography discussions, I feel embarrased to know I have an SLR too, but can't differentiate between a Kodak BW400CN and a Konica VX 100. Senti used to borrow one of my zoom lenses till the point it was more his than mine, and then he bought one for himself and returned mine.

I had hardly noticed its absence.

One day, I realized that a roll of film had been lying in my camera for close to a year, and thus jumped at Senti's call inviting me to go photographing in the countryside. We rode our bikes beyond Sus on the Pashan-Sus road. Senti firmly resisted my entreaties to go climb a nearby hill, and settled down to do some macro photography. Here he is, contemplating the scenery, and wondering if it wouldn't look better at f4.5 with a slight bit of overexposure.

Thank you, Sentiman! We shall go on more such trips in future... and next time, we shall also climb a hill.

My landlord, my employee

2006-09-26T22:46:00.000+05:30

I am as amazed by the amount of effort we put into creating new devices to make our lives complex, as I am by the number of simple loopholes that exist to resolve them. The red tape that's been on my mind for the past few weeks is called "The Address Proof", and the loophole that extricates one from it is called "The Company Letterhead". Let me elaborate...

The first time I was introduced to the Address Proof was a few years back, when I went to the bank empty-handed (but for a cheque from my previous bank) and asked naïvely to open an account please, and bung my doubloons into it. The banker tried to shoo me away, asking me to return with an Identity Proof, and an Address Proof, since I no longer stayed at the address on the earlier bank's record.

I dug out my drivers license, which the banker accepted as Identity Proof. There remained the question of Address Proof. Did I have electricity bills? (no, not in my name.) Telephone bills? (nope, yet to apply for said telephone.) Credit card statement? (are you kidding?)

My options to open an account seemed to be running out fast. "How about", I offered optimistically, "I write a letter stating that I live at the address mentioned and sign it?" It was a fair shot, thought I, since we were all gentlemen here, and who can doubt a gentleman's word? However, the Banker gave me a slightly queer look, and said that it wouldn't do. "Well, you could send someone over at a random time to look me up there." "Sorry sir, we don't do that", Banker said stiffly. I pursed the lip. Did he want my doubloons or not? That was when he said the magical words: "Perhaps you can get a letter from your company stating that you stay at that address?"

I immediately brightened. Yes, of course, that could be done. How deviously simple, and how convenient! I went to my office, and typed out a letter on my letterhead saying that Shrik indeed stayed at the address below as on date. I signed it, which I was in my full rights to, since I own the company. I then gave it to the Banker, who accepted it without a word, and opened an account for me right away. Leaving me wondering how my signature was phony on plain paper, but on my company's letterhead it became the irrefutable unadulterated truth. And no, they didn't even check to see whether I had a company - the letterhead was proof enough for that.

Cut to the present. Over the past many months, I've been struggling to find a good internet service provider. The firm has long outgrown a dial-up connection, and I've made the rounds of every internet service provider in town (whose names have been changed to protect the innocent.) I started with A, who asked me for such a large bunch of documentation related to my company that I immediately shied away and went to B, who said they didn't offer broadband service in our area. Followed up with C, D and E, who all gave some reason or the other, which ultimately boiled down to the commercial one - the building in which my office is situated is too far from any other customer for laying cables to make business sense. And thus I was stymied.

Enter my colleague KP (The Dynamic). KP had been brought up to question all basic principles, and his never-say-die attitude has extricated us from many a precarious situation, and keeps the firm morale up. He started off by asking why we hadn't taken the service from A. On hearing that A makes it really really difficult for businesses to take connections, he suggested, "Why not take it in an individual's name i.e. our landlord's?" We would then only need to produce an Identity Proof and an Address Proof for our landlord. Brilliant idea!

We made a beeline to our landlord, only to discover that he wasn't actually our landlord. I mean to say, he took the monthly rent cheque and took care of repairs and all that, but he didn't actually own the property - he was just a power of attorney holder. Thus, he could provide an I.P., but no A.P.

At which point of time, we drew upon our rich experience and found a way out. I wrote a letter on the company letterhead stating that my landlord was an employee of the firm, working with me for the past many months, and he stayed at my office address. Which was swallowed whole by A, and we now have broadband at office.

And a new employee, who I hope doesn't come and start sleeping on our couch.

Wheels in Motion...

2006-08-16T00:56:00.000+05:30

These days, I get the eerie feeling of living in a soap opera. Where I'm hardly in control of the circumstances, and the said circs. are leading me, slowly and inevitably, to Valhalla.

But wait. Rewind. Restart. Such are not the wheels I intended to blog about. The wheels under scrutiny are literal. Namely, one shiny new rear tyre, bought when I was facing an average of a puncture a day, and an old cracked front, which "can go for another 250km", or so the tyre guy said about 500km ago.

The last two Sundays were starkly different - one was spent at work and the other in leisure - and yet, they had a common thread (other than the fact that they both were Sundays, that is...) They both involved bike rides in near perfect weather. I was considering a hike on the Sunday before last, when at the last minute but one a client called and said he wanted to meet. Argh!

Determined to make the best of it, I rode my Pulsar all the way to Ranjangaon, about 50km from Pune. It was a rainy day, and all the rivers and streams en route were awe-inspiring in their muddy rage. (For those of you who look askance in my usage of the word "perfect" for a rainy day, I ask them to take a bike at 100kmph through a downpour on a smooth four-lane highway after spending months on the potholed Pune roads, and tell me what comes closer) The meeting itself was a let-down - five minutes of issues that could have been discussed over the phone. But after the bike ride, and in anticipation of the one back, I hardly cared.

Last Sunday, I had a pillion in the form of Gina, another ardent traveller, though not too fond of the high notes. And we went to Wai, with no fixed agenda. Wai? Wai not? :P It was a lovely day, with not too much rain, and the temples at Wai and Menavli completed the feeling of all being Right with the World. Another chance discovery was the dam at Dhom, from where the spectacular beauty of the countryside could be drunk in. We lay on the grassy embankment, doing just that.

Sorry folks, no photos from either ride - my camera already seems to be culturing some fungi, and I don't dare risk any further misadventures in the rain, having already abused it on the last few beach trips.

Two Rupees

2006-07-29T22:33:00.000+05:30

It's been more than four years now I'm back in India. Yet, the reverse culture shock still hits me, often without warning. The following incident happened a couple of years back, but occasionally comes back to haunt me, especially when I get other reverse shocks.

It was the middle of monsoons. Being completely bored at staying indoors all day, I took my bike one evening and went on a ride. After watching the sun set from the hills, I re-entered the concrete jungle and parked at a bookstore.

As I was lugging the bike on to its stand, a kid approached me. He had a rag and a bucket in his hands. Stereotypical vehicle-washer.

"Saab..."

"No." (vigorous head shaking)

"Sirf do rupai saab..."

"Sorry" (commiserating look. I'm a pro at this now)

"Khana saab..."

"Nah." As I walked away from this everyday incident, I reflected and wondered if I'd heard right. Two rupeees? The kid must be either incredibly desperate or naïve. I decided on the former. Rummaging about, I found a coin in my pocket and handed it to him, saying "It's a good thing you're working, but don’t wash my bike." The kid didn’t seem to understand this. "No wash...?" "No. Please. I'll wash it myself." (I was telling the truth. Those were the days I'd lovingly wash my bike every day, and wouldn't allow anyone else to lay a sponge to it) So saying, I pushed the incident from my mind and entered the world of books.

A couple of hours later, I said goodbye to the comics and the travelogues and went back to the parking lot. I was about to take the bike off the stand, when I halted.

A dirty rag was neatly entwined around my number plate.

I wondered what this meant. I looked around. Of the kid there was no sign. I waited a few minutes. The kid hadn't washed my bike. Why then had he left his rag so neatly tied to it and disappeared?

I wondered if the two rupees I gave had made a difference to the kid's life, but this delusion didn’t last long. What does two rupees get? It cost me that much in petrol to make it from my house to the next major intersection. A one-minute call on my cellphone was about two rupees, and I had made so many that day. Even at the realistic exchange rate of ten rupees to the dollar that I often use, nobody would be willing to work at such wages anywhere in the world. Definitely not in a big city like Pune. Had I imagined it all? But no, there was the rag as evidence.

I carefully removed the rag, folded it and placed it on a nearby wall, hoping it would come of use again to someone, if not the kid. Making my way home, I hoped the kid had had his khana.

The Rajai Incident

2006-07-02T12:40:00.000+05:30

The other day, KP and I took an afternoon off from work and went to the Cantonment to buy some trousers for him. KP was scheduled to attend some marriages, and he felt that his current set of four trousers wouldn't do the occasions justice. Since I anyways had to buy replacements for my existing pair of held-in-place-by-Fevicol shoes, I promptly agreed to the outing. Plus, I like going to M G Road. It's a vibrant place and frequented by shoppers from such diverse cultures that I never get bored people-watching there.

KP is quite a particular shopper. He is very meticulous to detail, and always seems to know the right questions to ask of the salesmen. At the trouser store, he asked about the fiber content of the trouser-material. The salesman pointed to the information printed on the cloth, which mentioned that it was made of a certain percentage of Merino wool. On reading this, KP turned at me and gave a knowing smile. He drew a blank. He then said, "Merino Wool!?" and laughed. I still didn't get it. He patiently continued, "Remember Jaipur?"

And then, in a flash, it all came back to me. Of course! He was referring to The Rajai Incident, which occurred a few years back. There we were in Jaipur - KP, PS and I, three people without a care in the world who had decided to attend Ani's marriage. I ordinarily shy away from marriages, but Ani is the whitest man I know, and my ex-apartment mate. It would be fun to reconnect with him, and at the same time warn his wife-to-be about the impending dangers of Living With Ani.

One Tuesday afternoon KP, PS and I found ourselves staring at the prospect of observing some long-winded wedding-related religious rituals. Ani helpfully suggested that we could skip this, and instead take off and visit the walled city of Jaipur. We could walk around, look at the Hawa Mahal, Jantar Mantar and City Palace, and perhaps shop for the famous Jaipuri rajais (quilts) in the vicinity.

And thus began The Rajai Incident.

We alighted from the autorickshaw at Ajmeri Gate and walked our touristy way into the pink city. A couple of kilometers and we were standing in front of Hawa Mahal. ("No point going in", Ani had said) We took pride in this insider knowledge, staring curiously at the tourists we saw in the windows of the façade.

One down, two to go. We asked a passerby where the City Palace lay and he provided the necessary directions. The passerby then began on fundaes on what else lay in the vicinity and carried on so long that we initially suspected him of being an aspiring tour guide. However, he showed no signs of wanting to pile on to us. Helpful dude, thought I.

"One thing you should not miss", concluded the passerby, "is the weekly Government Sale taking place further down the road. This takes place only on Tuesdays and closes at 4pm. This is arranged by the government to provide quality goods to the consumers, who often get fooled by all the shops around. Hundreds of people come here on Tuesdays just to shop at this sale."

Impressive, thought we, but we had come for the sights. There also remained the question of food, with the clock showing a latish afternoon and we still in an un-lunched state. Walking ahead, we debated with each other whether we should go see the Palace first or have lunch. The problem was that we couldn't see any decent-looking restaurants around. We asked another passerby where good places to eat could be, and he told us about this decent place that lay just around the corner.

"Have you already been to the Palace, Jantar Mantar and the sale?", he asked. All these places close early so it might be good to see them first and then go have grub. We admitted we had been lax in our planning.

Walking further on, PS became interested in buying some souvenirs for back home. His logic was that although he would be around for some more days, the sale being a once-a-week affair ought not to be missed. He caught hold of a third passerby and asked him for directions. Fortunately the passerby was going in the same direction, and he led us nearly to the gates of the place. En route, he plied PS with fundaes. KP and I, walking behind, could not hear the conversation but we marveled at how helpful these Jaipuri people were.

I was a bit taken aback when I entered the place. I was expecting a fair ground with stalls here and there and everywhere. The sale, however, was a single shop, and not a large shop at that. In any case, I had no enthu to buy anything, so I set foot inside the shop disinterestedly, resigned to give my opinion wherever required.

One of the salesmen sat us down and told us of the funda behind the sale. Apparently the shop was promoted by the Handicraft Board and normally dealt only with wholesale customers. However, once a week on Tuesdays, they condescended to sell to the general public at the same wholesale price. Thus the price was fixed. They were in the business of selling sarees, kurtas and the famous Jaipuri rajai. He proceeded to show us the various qualities of rajais.

The first was a rajai with 100gm of filling and a thin cotton cover. This one sold for 250 bucks. It was filled with the finest Merino Wool imported from Australia. While other rajais in the market had transitioned to using fibre filling, this was one of the rare rajais that stuck to the traditional Jaipuri ways of rajaimaking.

At this point PS had a question: If this rajai was indeed filled with Merino wool, why do you say it is made in the traditional way? Ah, said the salesman, we fill it with Merino wool imported from Australia to provide the best quality to our customers. But, persisted PS, what did the traditional rajaimakers use in their traditional rajais before they knew of the existence of Merino wool? The salesman brushed aside the question and proceeded to tell us about how the rajai could withstand Jaipur colds. What's more, it could be washed without the filling all coming together in clumps, no doubt a useful quality for a rajai to possess. But, he admitted, the cover cloth was a bit weak and would tear in some time. We could either cover it with one of our own cloths or consider buying one of the better rajais on sale. We took a look.

There were four different types of rajais ranging in price from 250 bucks to 650 bucks. The 650 bucks one was filled with 450 grams of wool and had won a Presidents Award for rajais. It could be used in summers as well as winters. In summers one would just lay it down as a carpet and sleep on it under a fan and one would think that he was sleeping under a tree in the forest. In the winter, the rajai could withstand negative temperatures. Armymen serving in Kashmir had bought these rajais. The cover, moreover, looked as if it would last longer than the 250 bucks one.

PS considered a rajai with a red color. It quite caught his fancy, until the salesman told him it was a good "suhaagan color". KP tried to persuade PS into buying a double rajai, but PS was more interested in the single. He considered various colours before settling on the suhaagan color. He also enquired about some exotic-printed rajais we saw in the rack behind the salesman. The salesman told us that they were rajais too, costing 825 bucks. But those rajais had not won the Presidents Award, while the rajai PS was buying had. He recommended the 650 bucks one in favor of the 825 bucks one. He also requested us to take a look at their sarees. As PS's parents were going to be visiting in a few days, PS asked whether he could come later with them. No deal, he said. They did not allow retail customers on other days of the week than Tuesday. So we took a look at the sarees, but the sheer madness of buying a female article of clothing without any females present finally struck us and we declined politely.

The salesman said it was unfortunate, because such sarees normally sold at three to four times their cost outside. A 450 bucks saree was worth at least 1800. Benarasi people would come to the shop and plead to be sold the sarees for 1800 bucks, but the shopkeeper had some strange anti-Banarasi bias and refused to sell sarees to Benarasis at any price. I began to have some serious doubts on the sanity of the salesman as he said this.

As PS attempted the vain task of bargaining with the salesman to bring down the price of the 650 buck suhaagan rajai he had bought, I had had enough and stepped outside. After a while, so did KP and PS, KP slightly sad that PS had not bought a double rajai.

I was slightly dismayed that some sidey shopping had consumed so much time that could be have been better spent in going around the sights, but consoled myself that shopping and sightseeing were both touristy activities. While one introduces you to places, the other makes you interact with the local people. I didn't care much for the latter, since I am not an extrovert by nature.

But KP is. He also has a remarkable memory for faces. Which explained his confidence when, as we made our way back and passed in front of the Hawa Mahal, he pointed out to us the three passers-by that we had encountered on our way to the sale.

They were sitting on scooters by the roadside, chatting away with each other.

Weird people I know

2006-06-12T18:41:00.000+05:30

The phone rang.

Which was a relief, since Arjun had dropped it just a few moments back, breaking it into three pieces and hastily joining it back together. And I was curious to know, without appearing too rude, if the thing still worked.

"Yo!", I said. It was Senthil, and it is always a pleasure chinwagging with Senti. Plus, I have to be on my best behavior with colleagues who have - and exercise - the power to ruin my vacation plans by giving me work to do.

"I say, are you at the office now?", asked Senti.

I replied in the affirmative, since it appeared from all sensory inputs that I was.

"Are you very busy with work? I mean to say, do you have some time?" I have known Senti a while, and this is how he usually leads up to asking for a favor. Quite the polite gravedigger, he is. This time around, I decided to pull a friendly leg. "Well, actually, I am quite deep in work. Up to my neck, in fact, and getting deeper by the minute. But for you, I am always free. What's up?"

There was a dejected "Oh" on the other side. I didn't expect Senti to take me so seriously. I hastened to make amends, if amends is what one makes in such situations, and assured him that I really wasn't doing much, anyways.

"Well, I wanted to go and buy a rucksack and sleeping bag for my Ladakh trip, and was wondering if you could help me select one. You, after all, are the Trekking Expert."

It was the good old oil. But he had touched a raw nerve here.

"Hardly the Expert", said I, a bit testily. "In fact, I have not trekked in the last two years. I would have been trekking right now, if you hadn't decided to give me that assignment this week and vanish to Ladakh."

If there was irony and sarcasm in my voice, it was lost on Senthil Kumaran. He continued: "Anyways, you know more about trekking than I do. Plus, I am planning to trek regularly from now on. Your comments on gear selection would be invaluable." More oil, this time with a carrot. Senti knows I have had a hard time finding nice trekking partners. So, although I was tempted to remind him of promises made (#10 here), I zipped the lip, upped, and left for Pune Cantonment, where the rendezvous had been decided.

With me riding, and Senti acting navigator, we reached the shop in no time. Senti surprised me with the navigation bit, since he is the sort of person who would confuse left from right, or rather the other way around. This time, however, he gave a detailed series of directions that ensured we made it to the shop by an optimum path.

After I parked the bike, Senti immediately entered the shop purposefully, looked the shopkeeper in the eye and said, "I want a Peak F-52 rucksack."

I was amazed. Senti reminded me of that old TV ad where the hero strides into the chemists' shop and, while the sidey is humming and hawing, asks the chemist for Moods by name.

While the shopkeeper nodded intelligently and went to fetch the indicated item, Senti added, "..and an SB-7 sleeping bag, too."

Once in possession of the goods, Senti turned to me and asked me what I thought of them. I was literally speechless at this time, and could think of nothing to say since here, in front of me, was this completely new Senti. One who not only knew the entire range of rucksacks the shop stored by their favorite acronyms, but also the price that each one commanded. I feebly ventured a suggestion that he look at the different colors they had, but since this was the only one in stock, that suggestion went nowhere.

Later, to recover from the day's excitement, Senti and I decided to stop by Roopali and have coffee. Senti insisted on picking the tab: "Dont worry, it's on me. After all, you helped me in shopping for my rucksack and sleeping bag today."

I nodded weakly. A day would come when I would be strong enough to pay for my coffee. But not today.