It's all about oil

The moment I read this article in ET (about gas price rise hurting the US lifestyle), my immediate reaction was “Wasn’t this so very predictable? Do you need a gas price rise to tell you this is going to happen?”

I don’t know what people think the first time they visit the US, but I felt something was odd. The country was designed around cars and the mobility that they brought. I did not want to rent a car the first time I visited the country, simply because I didn’t want any adventure without someone to help me out with the logistics of renting for the first time and driving the first time outside Indian shores, but I was forced to rent a car since I just couldn’t survive without it in the place I lived. I happened to be put up in a small town with no public transport, and the nearest grocery store was about 2 miles away. It was high winter in Connecticut.

I guess about 95% of the people in the US can’t lead their regular lifestyle without automobiles. I mean, if it comes to it, I guess a lot of us in India or in other Asian countries could manage to live commuting in trains, buses, two-wheelers or even bicycles, primarily because everything you ‘need’, and a lot of what you ‘want’, is accessible within 3-5 Kms. US is startling in comparison. Consecutive shops were spaced 250 meters apart, which means that you can’t park your car near one shop and walk to another shop due the distance in between. You ‘have to’ drive down. Distances between residential locations and grocery stores were in miles, something you cannot walk or bicycle down. There were no small stores catering to small 100-250 households, but only single Wal-marts that catered to entire towns. Public transport was available in cities, but it was generally the lower middle class that used them. Add to it, people in US generally prefered to live in the outskirts – some 20 miles away from the city for ‘calm’ and ‘peace’.

And then, there are those BIG vehicles. Vehicles bigger than those share- vans in India (that could transport about 10-12 people when jam-packed) were carrying just a single passenger (the driver). My first thought was: if you want to drive single, why would you buy a mini-bus? Why can’t you buy a flashy but small car? Two reasons: 1) The fuel in US was cheaper than in most countries, and 2) People were rich. People continue to be rich now, but since fuel price has risen, and food price has risen, people are forced to face the pinch.

The US model is just not energy efficient. It is designed without a backup plan. What if the rampant car culture cannot be sustained? Will the country survive if the gas prices rise 10 times? I think India would. I am not an expert in optimum use of energy solutions, but the basics of supply chain management tell you that your design has move things from A to B paying the least cost. And that is something that’s been overlooked for decades in the US, simply because theirs was one of the few countries that was rich and could afford fuel. Now with other countries getting richer, fuel is THE premium product. It’s all about oil.

All said, it would really be interesting to see the US getting energy efficient and transforming the way the country travels. There is no alternative since fuel price has only one way to go: Upwards. When so many million cars get energy efficient, it is certainly good for the people around the world.

Ignorance is bliss

Found this image on a recent Freakonomics blog - the happiness index for Religious vs. the secular people. Looks like whoever said ignorance is bliss has got it damn right!

A peep into the Emerald Islands

After a little bit of contemplation, I had decided to head to the Andaman Islands for my honeymoon.

Day 1 – Port Blair:

Port Blair was our ‘base’ for the initial part of our journey. Port Blair has nothing to write home about as a tourist location. You get very good rates for hotels, and the food is very nice – pretty much like the rest of India, but it isn’t a significant tourist spot. The Carbyns Cove beach is very ordinary. The Cellular Jail has a great background to it, and the Lights & Sounds show was ‘different’, if not amazing. Other tourist infrastructure in Port Blair is truly lagging compared to western standards.

What I really hated about Port Blair is the crowd, which is the point of differentiation between Indian tourist locations and elsewhere. People keep staring at you, and since there are a lot of people in Port Blair, privacy is literally non-extant. And of course, you have that leany-meany bunch of youth in their striped greenish yellow jeans that hang all over the place intruding into everything they see. I hated this bit.

Day 2 – Ross Island, Viper Island and North Bay:

Ross Island was awesome. An erstwhile penal colony, it’s an amazing smallish little island full of coconut trees and nice little beaches.



Viper Island was boring. A yet another Tsunami stuck island with an official population census of one man. An inspiring speech from the tourist guide did nothing to spirit up the sun-burnt sweaty existence.

North Bay has an amazing little beach and beautiful corals. And you are supposed to do snorkeling there. But wait a minute. Where should one change ones clothes? People do it behind trees and run-down huts. If the Government is serious about tourism and it’s revenue potential, why can’t build some decent changing rooms with shower etc – and charge money for using them?

Day 3 & 4 – Havelock Islands

Havelock (92 sq. km) was finally THE place for tourism in Andaman. Almost totally isolated and underdeveloped, it has very fine white sands and amazing emerald beaches, and - hold your breath - very, very less people. Radhanagar beach in Havelock was just amazing in its size and beauty. And there were hardly 10 tourists, mostly foreigners. Havelock is the place in Andaman. You get neat villas with private beaches to stay overnight for charges Rs. 1000 to Rs. 4000.





The Elephant Beach in Havelock is even more splendid due to the corals. Inaccessible by road, you have to take a private jetty to the beach, which costs Rs. 1500. Reach the place, and all you have is the beach. The cost also gets you a guide and snorkeling gear. It was my first snorkeling experience. Watching the hundred-colored corals and thousands of amazing fishes moving among them, in their own natural ambience, was straight out of the National Geographic. I could go there a thousand times again. Corals were beyond beautiful. It made Havelock picture perfect.



Day 5 – Jarawa tribes, and the Baratang Islands

Sometimes, you have to admit that the things you get to see in India are truly not possible elsewhere. Baratang island is a 100 miles away from Port Blair. You get to move through tribal reserve forests in convoys flanked by police. We got a chance to look at the Jarawa tribes. 4 feet tall, pitch black, with spears, harpoons, axes, dancing with sticks holding dead pigs, they are the truly tribal. They don’t like mingling with “us” the developed humans. Past encounters have left many humans dead.



Jarawas live in the jungle, eat jungle food and haven’t seen civilization. You are not supposed to talk to them (because you can’t), offer them food (because cooked food is not good for their health), communicate (you may end up sounding hostile) or photograph (they could bow-arrow you!). They are arguably humans, but they haven’t developed the immunity to human diseases since they’ve never interacted with humans. You get the idea. If you want to understand how humans lived 2000 years ago, come down here.

The rest of the trip was taking a boat through Amazon-type Mangrove forests supposedly containing crocodiles, and watching stalactites, stalagmites and live mud volcanoes. The Rs. 10,000 we spent for Day 5 was worth every bit, more so for seeing the Jarawas.



All said, the weather (scorching sun belting 32 degrees in mugging humidity) was a killer, Port Blair and its crowds were spoilers, but Havelock and Baratang more than suppressed the negatives.

Checkout the 'OUT campaign'

Audacious, to say the least.

Desire the DZire!

Maruti has made a relatively nonchalant but a very brave move bringing in the DZire. As I’ve maintained in the past, after Accent’s phase-out (it is a phase-out for all practical reasons, although I guess they still sell one model) there is a big gaping hole in Segment B+/C- (which is in the price range 5-6 lacs). You can’t choose any of Esteem, Logan, Indigo, Swift, Ikon etc without compromising on something. There was no “one” default choice.

That said, the reason why I mention Maruti’s launch of DZire as significant because DZire has features that erstwhile (before launch of SX4) used to be only part of Class D (10+ cars). Its launch effectively means that Skoda Fabia is out of the window. I can’t see a single person going for Fabia since it’s a little smaller, got pretty much the same features - including power, and is a whole 1,00,000 costlier!

Dzire’s features include integrated stereo, steering mounted audio controls, automatic climate control, dual airbags, ABS with EBD. Most of the people who paid through the nose during 2002-2007 have cars (such as Honda City) that don’t have these features. I guess it must be real fun for one of the DZire owners to buy the car at 5.5 Lacs and sport these features while Honda buyers who used to shell out 8+ Lacs don’t have them! DZire is certainly an easy choice given the other options. With its launch, you really don’t need to go for cars such as SX4, Verna, Fiesta etc since you get most of the features at a much cheaper price (difference being 2 lacs+), presuming that the power difference between SX4/Verna/Fiesta etc and DZire (103 BHP vs. 87 BHP) is not something many Indian customers would die for.

DZire is certainly not amongst the best-looking cars around. Its back is a little force-fitted into the body and its looks would take some amount of time getting used to, but I personally don’t think it’s ugly. The white piece looks pretty neat compared to other colors. For its price, it is Value-For-Money redefined. The very fact that Maruti has provided features in a 5.5L car that used to be present only in cars 10+ Lacs a couple of years ago is quite something. This is a bold move that would permanently change the features that Indian automobile industry would provide in the years to come. Competition rocks! At this rate, I would expect cars in the range 4+ lacs to sport such safety and luxury features. In the end, we, the customers, are the winners. Hats off Maruti!

How many Gods do we have?

I was watching the trailer for 10,000 BC (movie) and a crazy thought struck me. Has anyone ever tried to list all the Gods that humans might have worshiped - over the years of evolution? I was curious to know the count of Gods that are/were being worshiped. Jesus, Allah, Siva, Brahma etc are present day favorites, but they didn't exist 4000 years ago. 4000 years is peanuts in the time-line of humans and human-looking ancestors, which is 1000,0000 years.

Wikipedia has tried a high-level listing of all Gods. Hindu, Finnish, Chinese, Lisutani etc.... make up the current list. And then there are the mythological Gods - Atlas, Prometheus, Zeus and a host of others.

Was a Neanderthal (100,000 years ago) or a 'Homo erectus' (1000,000 years ago) technically developed to think about a possibility of a supreme creator? If so, what would a Neanderthal's God be? Water, Sun, Stars and the Moon perhaps?

This is just the beginning. As you deep dive into evolution per se, there are enchanting and very interesting possibilities. What would a Dinosaur's God be? Godociferous, perhaps.
Dragon-fly, which is supposedly the ancestor for the entire animal kingdom has been around in earth for 700 million years (Compare humans!). If dragonfly worships a God, that would be the longest serving God in the entire chain perhaps.

I mean, if there can be Hindu-Islam and Christian-Islam wars, why can't we fight with the Dragon-flies over their Gods? Who is superior? Dragon-fly God has probabaly been around for hundreds of millions of years, and we rule the roost now. Was there a fight between Dragon-flies and Dinosaurs in history over the superiority of Dragon-fly God and Godociferous? Immense intellectual possibilities.

Wow. Life gets interesting as you think about it.

Into the Wild

I knew I was lucky when I roughly had 20 hours worth of flight journey staring at me and there were about 15 movies to choose from to while away the time. Best part is I hadn’t watched most of those movies, thanks to my work schedule in the recent weeks. Of course, when you get down to it, you really only have a handful of movies to actually choose from – if you keep aside teen movies, immature comedies and other retarded stuff.

I read the plotline for most of the movies, and chose three: 1) Michael Clayton, 2) Into the Wild and 3) Bourne Ultimatum. Boy, didn’t I have a great time! I had watched Bourne once and knew it was great stuff. As for Clayton, the only thing I knew was that it was nominated for Oscars and there was George Clooney (which was reason enough). I had zilch idea about “Into the wild”, but I knew I had made a great selection just minutes into the movie. Talk about adventure and off-beat movies!

Where do I start? Well, the movie is a real-life story of a guy named Chris McCandless - a great student who feels claustrophobic amidst the chatters of capitalism and looks for ‘life’ amidst absolute wilderness. He chooses to live in the wilderness for some years essentially as a gypsy - as man would’ve lived some thousands of years ago, and he chooses Alaska as the place to live out. Remember, this movie is based on a real-life character. All our guy takes with him is his spirit, a book on ‘edible wild plants’, an essential belief on human spirit, some clothes, the love of absolute strangers, and loads of attitude. The rest of the movie is plain beauty as it just flows past you. If you are into adventure movies, you need to watch this.


Do not expect the movie to make you happy. It’s deep, real, adventurous, disturbing, and very touching. Not for the rookies.

I just checked the IMDB listing looking for an image, and there you have it: “Into the wild” is ranked 135 all time. Didn’t I expect it?

The author of the novel is Jon Krakauer, the same guy who wrote the book on the Everest disaster - “Into thin air”, which was so touching and daring. May be I should just try out all his books!

Another one scores up!

It's not too often I look back and wish I hadn't done something, but this is an exception. Regrets for having missed this movie in the theaters. 'Evano Oruvan'. Lovely movie. Remake of Marathi Dombivli Fast. No frivolity, no running around trees, very down-to-earth, real and point-blank.


If you watch Tam flicks and have missed this, this film deserves better. Shades of erstwhile hits here and there, but its great for the most part. Kudos to Madhavan too... I thought he did a nice job.

The deadly duo - Diet Coke & Mentos

I take a lot of Mentos, and the only Coke I drink is Diet Coke. But chance has it that the combination is deadly – literally, that is. Message is: Do not take large of Mentos AND Diet Coke, or any carbonated drink for that matter.

Here is the reaction between 500 Mentos and 200 litres of Diet Coke. Absolutely no gimmicks. Here's the original link: Link.

24 hours ain’t enough

It’s been almost a month since I penned down something here. I never believed people saying they don’t have time to blog, but I realize they were probably true, and the truth is staring at my face right now: I want to blog, and the blogging josh within me hasn’t waned a single bit, but there it is, as a writing on the wall: I don’t have the time.

A couple of things that happened in 2007 permanently changed the way my life cruises by. Number one, if you have less than a couple of months to go for your marriage, you need a lot of time. And when that happens, when you realize you are entering into a wedlock that you, for so long, were wondering how it’s going to be, your outlook towards life changes. I wouldn’t say the time you spend is an investment, coz saying that would be an understatement, but you need a lot of time. You can’t throw away your time a couple of times every week in the Satyam theatre, or the deserted beaches at midnight, or in searching for the elusive Stanley Kubrick flick in the dark alleys of the Godforsaken places in your city. You can’t be detached to people, your friends, your relatives, the world around you and just be fixated on your work and still lead an unobtrusive and unsuspectingly happy life. You need to get involved. Or, better perhaps, you want to get involved - in invitation cards, attire, travel, tickets, and logistics - all perhaps with such intensity for the first time in your life.

Add to that, I booked a flat. It’s one thing to think about booking a flat, but it’s another to actually do it. There are questions; really hard and difficult ones. Can you shell out so much every year for the next 15 years? What makes more sense – a 10 year EMI, or a 20 year one? Would you have the josh to shell out so much for so long? Will you be able to take a break once in a while? Is that a right investment decision, from the return stand-point? ROI doesn’t look too interesting – is that ok? What is the opportunity cost? Do your finances look ok? And then, there are the chores. Home loans, document submissions, site inspections, listening and convincing people working in PSUs who seem to have all the time in the world; putting up with really outdated procedures and retarded people; selecting tile patters to appease your imaginations; a tired 6-hours-sleep-a-day existence; explaining the builders where and when you want to have your this, that, and everything else.

That apart, you have your work. Office, work, responsibilities, aspirations, and all related assortments that you can’t shy away from. Right now, sitting in Atlanta, all alone in an office in one of the sky-scrapers in the downtown, where I need to pay $9 per day as just parking charges, I’m wondering how life was just a year ago. I was in the US for the first time. I had all the time I wanted, and as the first time visitor to a far-away land, I felt like a kid that ran amok. I wanted to explore every bit of the world, and the momentum and verve were insatiable. I was too busy to notice.

Now, life is even more busy and interesting, but I need time to stand back, relax and enjoy the suspended reality. 24 hours ain’t enough.

Any advertisement is good advertisement!

Something I stumbled on. A Merc nailed to the roof at the Moscow airport.
[via Japancarblog]

Been seeing some good advertisements of late, but being out of the broadband network sucks! I hope  my connection gets fixed in a day or two...

In city, out of network!

As much as you’d wish to believe that things are changing as far as the connectivity and customer experience in India is concerned, there seems to be a long way to go. Wishes, for the most part, remain hearty wishes.

To cut it to the meat – I shifted my place of stay; moved into a relatively up-market place; applied for internet connection transfer, and there was no ruffle for about a fortnight. We kept trying to track the transfer request, and about 10 calls later, someone in the service provider (Airtel) conceded that they cannot ‘transfer’ my connection from ‘A’ to ‘B’ because the broadband capacity in ‘B’ is full and will take some months before the bandwidth is increased to accommodate new connections/transfers.

My first reaction: I thought it was a joke. And then, it started to sound ironic.

I just had to dig out an ET article I read a couple of months ago.

India’s experience with broadband is a bit like the cricket team. Both look better on paper. Both have more potential than performance. And both have enormous money riding on them. This year may have been declared the year of broadband by the government, but in every other way, the targets look as distant now as they have been in past two years.

India has just 2.3 million broadband subscribers. That translates into a 0.2% broadband penetration compared to 19.6% in the US, 20% in the UK and 32% in smaller countries such as Denmark and Iceland.

In other words, the Government is bent on making service a reality, there’s a market for it, but the existing service providers don’t have the capacity to even retain existing connections.

My biggest grouch is why I was not even informed of this problem. If there is a problem, I would want to know. It’s a fair deal for any long time customer. I didn’t travel to the Airtel office in the city center wasting my time & petrol for nothing. For me, being out of internet makes me something similar to claustrophobic. And I wasn’t even informed of the problem. Grouches.

I’d most likely shift to a different service provider.

Happy New Year 2008!!!

2004 was awesome in Brigade Road, Bangalore. 2005 was icy-cool in Manali, HP. 2006 was colorful in our hilltop (campus, Indore). 2007 started boozey in Chennai and proved to be splendid overall.

Here’s hoping that the good times keep rolling - for everyone. Cheers.

Wish you a very happy & fantabulous New Year 2008.

Petrol bunk fraud and caught Red-handed!

In less than a month since I came up with the petrol bunk fraud post [Link], I was duped again. Well, I got duped, and by virtue of – let me say – my fraud-identification skills, I came out (almost) unscathed.

This time around, it was the Hindustan Petroleum petrol bunk right next to Guindy flyover in Anna Salai, Chennai. Their objective was the same (which was to fraud), but the modus operandi was different.

As I entered and parked near the dispensing machine, which was to my left, the guy near the machine asked me to check the ‘zero’ reading. A lady to the left then collected Rs. 1000 from me. Simultaneously, another guy appeared near the right car window and asked for my credit card. I retorted that I had already paid cash; he apologized and gave a little longish explanation; and I shifted my gaze back to check the reading. The reading showed ‘300’, and the dispensing guy was done with the loading. I told him I had paid ‘1000’, and asked him to start from zero and go till 700 for the second round. He complied and I watched the dispenser reading slowly move from zero to 700.

I received the bill receipt and started my drive. The fuel indicator slowly inched up and then refused to go beyond the 75% mark. I did a quick retrospection and figured that I had noticed the ‘zero’ and the ‘300’ readings but not the progress from zero to ‘300’. I figured they must’ve cheated me in this stretch. I dialed the bunk operator even as I was driving and threatened to call the police; I reached the bunk in 15 minutes, quite determined to go to any level possible. It’s not the monetary value of the fraud that irritates you. The sheer feeling that you got duped sucks. I just had to fix the fraud to get my mood back on track. As soon as I stopped at the bunk, even before I started talking or demanding an explanation, the lady and the guy came down and explained that they checked with the operator who originally loaded the fuel (who was now, obviously, ‘out of shift’) and that there was an error and they would load Rs. 300 worth of petrol. I asked for Rs. 50 worth of extra petrol since they made me ride 6 kms and wasted my time, and, surprise of surprises, they complied!

It didn’t take me long to figure out the way they work. They routinely cheat customers, and if any customer finds out, they give up without a winker. If people don’t figure out the fraud, the amount is split across the operators. And this is in a petrol bunk on the most important road in Chennai (Anna Salai) near the most important junction (Kathipara). What was most shocking was that all the fraudsters wore Ayyappa garlands (which mean they were on penance) and there was a lady involved.

The larger question is: how do you get out of this very common menace? Looks like petrol bunk frauds are very common. A search on Google yields me other common petrol bunk frauds. After a bunch of research, here’s what I figured out:

• Avoid PSU bunks and go to private operators who have stringent quality standards. Shell or Reliance fuel supposedly gives 10% to 15% better mileage
• If (1) is not possible, go to Company-owner petrol bunks of PSUs – BP, IOC, HP etc
• Ask for the bill, even if it’s a bunk that you routinely visit since it’s the only proof in case your fuel indicator doesn’t behave the way it is supposed to
• Get down the vehicle and stand near the dispensing machine. It shows that you mean business.

Rising residential rates, and the real culprits

For me, its house-changing blues yet again.

For some reason, changing my place of stay has almost become a routine in my life in the past 7 or so years. This is the 12th time I’m changing my place of residence in the 7 years (I’m counting moving all my things from Y to Zee as one change). You could almost say I’m used to moving my things around, but I guess these are things you never quite get used to.

This time though, I’ve picked up a place at a hefty price in a seemingly ‘hep’ location in Chennai – Adyar, in Chennai (for those who know the area). Of course, when you got to stay in the area where things are currently ‘happening’ you go to pay the right price. And I am. A 2BHK comes at 15 grand a month and that in Chennai. That’s 180,000 a year, and I couldn’t help but wonder about the per capita income in India – it is 29,000 a year, which means there are a LOT of people (more than 50% of Indian population) is living with less than 29 grand the whole year. And of course, 15 grand a month is a nice salary even for Indian city standards. You could run a family, and not be a pauper!

When a colleague of mine told me he picked a place for 15 grand last year, I thought he had gone nuts. Who would pay that much and, most importantly, why would you agree for that price and slowly jack up the price for others too? It’s very unfair, but I guess you eventually fall into the very same muck that you hated looking at. These days, you just don’t find a place to stay if you don’t shell out this much.

Who’s the culprit, anyway? I guess it’s a combination of three factors – (1) A growing economy that pumps in more money with people, (2) Cockroaches - I mean, brokers, and (3) Shortage of housing supply.

If you are an economist, is there anyway to arrest these? You wouldn’t want to mess with (1), of course. As for (3), you could reduce interest rates so that the housing sector picks up, but it most certainly can’t match the march of the economic growth. That said, I have a big problem with (3). It’s unfair. I don’t want to shell out 15 grand for a broker that just directed me to a house. It’s a cartel, and a very unfair one. It's the definition of improper market. I’ll be ok with a max of 5 grand, but not this much, especially when I know that they have ALL the incentives to increase the rental rates since it would directly mean more money to their kitty. I can’t think of an immediate solution, but there is one – an internet enabled network for house owners and people seeking accommodation, a la Craigslist which seems to work in most global destinations. Of course, that isn’t happen going to happen any time soon in India what with our internet savvy population (sarcasm directly intended), and I better be looking at a house to buy.

P.S: Had a forceful blogging break coz of the shifting. And I haven’t fixed my internet connection yet.