On morning walks

Inspite of me staying at hostel for so many years and living away from parents, I take pride in calling myself an early riser. I have been an early riser throughout. Right from school till today, I have been waking up early. I believe that one takes less amount of time to complete a work in the morning when compared to night.
This habit I believe has been inherited from my father. He has been an early riser as far as I can remember. His routine of going for a morning walk has seldom been broken and he has been following this routine of going for a morning walk since almost 15 years. The morning walk has made him increase his contacts in the city, make new friends and develop his business. He has obtained quite a lot of clients due to the network developed during the morning walks.

For me morning walk means to enjoy the sunrise, meet new people, talk to them, make a plan for the day and enjoy the nature. Specially during winters. A sense of discipline is inculcated because of this habbit of getting up early and going for a walk. I am not very regular for a walk but make it a point to go for it whenever possible.

However, a few things I see at Mumbai disturbs me. Lack of walking/ jogging parks, long commuting hours and the lifestyle of people has made it really tough for people to be regular for morning walks. Reaching offices on time is by far the biggest tension in minds of most of the people. Also, the evolution of the 'gym culture' has made the people who have time to go to the closed spaces for exercises.

I, fortunately have a good walking track nearby the place I reside. I've been able to know some people in the society I stay. However, most of the people who come for walk [During the time I go] aren't regular. I fail to locate an interesting person the very next day. Nevertheless, it provides me an excellent time to plan for the day, think about work and watch young people playing sports on the ground.

Hope to be more regular at the morning walks, develop good contacts and (show-off :P) get some discipline restored.

Happy New year

I was thinking of putting down how the last year has been for financial markets and stuff like Anna and other political issues :P. But looking at the sheer brilliance of Deepak Shenoy in his year review post (Here), I no longer feel the need anymore. A crsip, humorous & a great sum-up post indeed. Cheers.

So, the year 2011 finally ended. It has been a year when I learnt a lot about human behavior through observations, faced a lot of tough decisions - some with and some without parents' approval, took upon a tough journey hoping for a fruitful end and also spent a lot of time alone introspecting. It has been an year when I spent a lot of time online - both using the desktop and the smartphone onTwitter, FB and more importantly Google reader. I think I have spent more time surfing these sites than that at my home.

Hope to be more productive in this new year and learn lot of new and exciting things.

To all those who read this, wish you a happy new year.

Dependency

Google has been making a lot of changes ever since it launched google plus - trying to integrate all existing functions. Gmail was revamped recently with quite much publicity but very quietly, Google has revamped Google Reader, a reader which has enabled me to read so many things on one platform. Now after revamp, the facility which enabled it to be viewed on my non-android phone has been discontinued and now it takes more time to open articles and to read things on this platform. The seamless reading experience is gone. There being not many good alternatives to this reader, I have to change accordingly now in the way Google wishes to.

Sometimes I wonder how much dependent I am on this company. My job exists because of google since it empowers a novice like me to get relevant information. Had google not been there, the job would have to be done by a much more experienced person. Its like I am too much dependent on the products of this company.

Generally to avoid overdependency on one particular vendor, OEMs develop alternate vendors. Big chemical firms help develop alternate source of raw materials by investing in smaller companies. Investment is done in a lot of instruments to avoid overdependency on one particular instrument and possibly also maximize returns. So, everywhere possible, we try to develop alternatives thereby avoiding dependency, enhancing competition and improving service/product.

But in the case of Google the entry barrier or the technological and data barrier is very high for a new search engine and similarly developed product. I cannot envision even one search engine even close to Google. Alternatives of Google Reader all have major issues with integration and quite a lot of them do depend on google reader for feed as well. There seems no alternatives to these widely used product.

I can't imagine what hell will break when google fails to function even for a single day. So much dependence.

Damn.

Today, we adjust according to them because we have no alternatives. Who knows Google will start charging for conducting searches in the future. What shall we do then?

Its high time someone develops a viable alternative to these useful applications so that if anything undesirable occurs to Google, our lives aren't affected.

Having no other option I have now adjusted my phone according to the new url settings and read but the experience is in no way same. May be thats the price I am paying for not using Android operated phone.

Erosion of shareholder value

Here's an example of how shareholder value is destroyed by PSUs on a continuous basis.

I've come to a conclusion that PSUs do not have the shareholders value in mind at any point of time.

 MOIL:  Share price since its IPO.

If this is what is going to happen, I would prefer there is no disinvestment in the PSUs. 

Heights is how the hell did the lead book managing bankers ( IDBI Capital, Edelweiss Capital and JP Morgan India in this case) manage to price the shares so high. One should learn from these companies to create a hype, make the pitch and sell a useless product with audacity. These I believe are the pure markting companies, guess even better than those FMCG companies. These bankers know how to use their brand power to mobilize money.  A perfect way for government to get public money.

I was thinking of investing in MOIL but thankfully I didn't do so because of my habit of delaying.
No investing in PSUs.

On Bus conductors

I've now got used to traveling by BEST buses in Mumbai for daily commuting and have been observing and talking to the bus conductors about their life and experiences. I used to think that the job of a bus conductor is quite simple but looking at the mental and physical effort put in by them, I have come to a conclusion that the job is really a tough one, especially on crowded routes like Sakinaka where the buses are perennially overcrowded.

The job of a bus conductor not just issuing proper tickets to the commuters but management of a lot of things simultaneously, especially during short crowded routes.He has to see that bus waits for adequate time at bus stops, interact with people with all sorts of background for tickets, not allow the bus to be overcrowded, resolve quarrels, give directions to people to reach their destinations and move back and forth the crowded bus aisle where it is nearly impossible to move. The working conditions are pretty harsh with space barely enough to allow him breathe. At times, they get pretty much worse than a factory worker too.

Their work involves problems like getting exact change especially during mornings when everyone is helpless, getting on time for the next assignment, the union issues, manager (HR) issues who cannot understand traffic conditions and schedules things quite impossible to achieve, etc. The introduction of new ticketing system has made matters worse especially when 1 out of 7 ticketing machines doesn't function as required.
All this for a salary starting with around Rs. 12k/ month and a yearly increase w.r.t an inflation adjusted index.

Yet, despite all these harsh work conditions, the bus conductors, most of them, are some of the most humble people around. Most of them love talking to and are glad to discuss all about their jobs and the BEST when they have free time. "It was very smooth & enjoyable some years back when it wasn't so crowded" said one of them while describing change in their work loads.
This Khadi clad public servant, who is is taken for granted by people, remains one of the many unknown faces who make our life comfortable.

Makes me wonder how come the younger generation which has more hospitable working conditions & better salaries are not be so humble.

I simply love this scene from  'Swades' where a combination of stars depict the simple plough.

Crib

There are times in life when you start thinking about your life and your future. A time when one starts questioning the decisions made by him during crucial junctures of life - future determining decisions. Sometimes I think, I'm generally only operationally sound yet that basic strategy of life (to be followed) is missing and I am taking life as it comes without adequate planning. How different would life be had I accepted the US university offers or had done a PhD or had taken up the bank job offered at my B-School or had not left my first job. Destiny it seems always has different plans, especially for me. I did masters in operations, finance management and, thankfully,  landed up in a marketing job. Never has the normal course of action taken by peers been my course. While it is nice to hear of such absence of strategy in movies (like Jab we met, znmd, etc), implementing it becomes an issue especially when you have financial obligations and peers who are doing way better than you in this regard.

Wonder what life has in store for me in the future.

Arranged marriage

One of the tougest decision in life is deciding whom to get married to - especially when you plan to get married in an arranged manner. I call it the biggest gamble in life. It is very difficult to judge a person and decide whether you want to spend the rest of your life with that person in just 2 or at max 3 meetings with that person.

I have now been in this arranged marriage market of my community for quite sometime and found that it is extremely difficult to take this risky decision especially in my community.

Now that I am currently based out of Mumbai, my parents are looking for bride from Mumbai. While it may be true that I like Mumbai, I do not like it anymore than the growing and enterprising Sangli. I may or may not continue to stay in Mumbai for the rest of my life. But its wierd that girls (whom I met) insist that they want to be settled in Mumbai -reason being that Mumbai is a place they have been brought up and that Mumbai is a land of opportunities and blah blah.. I might even consider thinking about this demand if the girl has a decent enough job and is planning a career in the corporate world. But for a girl with not too many ambitions of a corporate career, such a demand is not justified - especially when the reason they give is that they do not want to be away from their parents. Even I stay away from my parents and my house back home. I will try to be settled in Mumbai / Pune but it is not a given. Putting such a condition for marriage is way too much.

One more condition I saw which the girls' parents put forth is that the boy with whon their 'princess' will marry should own a house of his own in Mumbai/Pune. This is just too much. How can anyone expect a young boy who has just started his career to own a house in Mumbai? Why should the boy own a house? Can't their 'princess' stay in a rented house? Kahin raaste mein toh nahi rakhne wala mai usko. Why do they want the boy to take up a huge debt or money from his parents? One side they want the boy to be independent with a job and on the other hand they want him to be too much dependent on his parents for buying a house.

One more thing I found wierd was that it is the oy who has to visit the girls' place. (May be this is the system only in my subcaste). Also, when the boy goes to visit the girls' place, she appears in the living room for a very short duration only to serve some coffee or snacks (almost always not prepared by her). The boys parents get to only see her for a while - no conversation with her possible in that short span. The onus of judging the girl entirely falls on the boy when he is allowed to spend some time with the girl alone. So, the whole purpose of taking parents along for judging the girl is defeated.

I intend to change some of these things if not all when I go for the exercise next time.

Should have chosen one amongst the 100 odd girls at my B-school :P
Anyone reading this is advised to strictly go for a love marriage.

Working with promoters

Working with the promoters of an organization on a daily basis has a lot of advantages like being a part of the larger picture, getting to know how business decisions are made under uncertainities, getting to interact with important people of the organization, getting to know their management style, etc.
While all of this is true, it also has some disadvantages:
1. The promoters do think along a lot of things simultaneously and it becomes difficult at times to catch up, especially when you have promoters who do not give away all the information to the managers. While reporting to them you have to be thorough with not only the current work but also work done previously. You never know when their mind will race from one project to another, from marketing to strategy to operations and finance.
2. Promoters generally do not reveal the complete picture to one person, specially to a newly joined person. Hence, it becomes most important for him to keep a track of all the current happenings of the organization through networking and work accordingly in a dynamic manner.
3. I have generally observed that promoters have a firm grip on numbers. One must be sure before passing on numbers to them. They quickly do mental calculations and use thumb of rules to come at approximate answers. Also, one must be very careful while passing off numbers because major decisions are taken based on these numbers. So, whatever work you do must be carefully done.
4. One must be very careful when disagreeing with the promoters. They are the ultimate authority in the organization. (Except the shareholders of course) it might lead to serious consequenses. Also, the work assigned must be done in as timely manner as possible, else getting into wrong books of a promoter can be detrimental.
5. Working with promoters and getting to socialize with them is a great experience in itself - you get to go at expensive places, know about their lifestyles, etc. But here the employer-servant distinction clearly becomes visible and might also cause inferiority complex at times.
6. Promoters generally work under uncertainities. They have to take decisions using limited amount of information. A person reporting to a promoter has to do the hard task of collecting the data good enough to help them take decisions. At times, the getting the relevant data to take logical decisions becomes very tough and might test your patience in case you have tough task masters as promoters, which generally is the case.

These are some of the things that could be issues faced by a person reporting to the owner/promoter. Yet, the task is highly rewarding and an ideal platform to learn a lot of things about business.