Dream: Coastal Living in India

I have often been asked by some people abroad, about the apparent lack of interest Indians have in 'living the coastal life' despite having a long coastline. I must admit, I did not have an answer, except mumble that the Indian idea of 'living the life' is different from what the Americans, British or the Australians may have. Indian kids in general do not grow up on the rich feast of sports and active lifestyle that kids in such countries do. Our kids are anyway constantly prodded by their parents to do three things: study, study and study more. And when these kids grow up, they don't change; in most cases active lifestyle may mean watching the next T20 cricket match, firmly ensconced on the couch with that bowl of potato chips.

Fortunately i spent my childhood in the coastal cities of Visakhapatnam (aka Vizag) and Paradip - as a child i remember awaiting our weekly trip to Ramakrishna Beach in Vizag. In Paradip, our school gang used to tear up the beach after every major exam. The tremendous feeling of post-exam-mania release would always find its vent near the Bay of Bengal. And the summer holidays had numerous bike trips from our township nestled in Paradip Phosphates, were always to the deserted beach. But all this was raw energy with absolutely no supporting infrastructure for sports like sailing, yachting, parasailing, canoeing etc. The same is true even today though some sports are faintly picking up in places like Rushikonda near Visakhapatnam. Indians are slowly waking up to a more active lifestyle, what with increasing global exposure of the IT generation: groups focused on Running (eg: Hyderabad Runners), Cycling (eg: HBC), Adventure (eg: www.hydventura.com), etc have emerged speaking of only one place - Hyderabad.

Now coming back to the coastline theme, India has all of 7,517 km of it, and except for pockets such as Goa or a few kilometres of beachfront property in major cities like Mumbai, Cochin, Madras, Visakhapatnam there is not much of Real Estate activity. Even the big boom of the last five years did not differentiate Coastal areas per se, as a hot zone. In my home state of Andhra Pradesh, the big Coastal Corridor project that was hatched by Chandrababu Naidu in his term and then continued by the Congress government was dropped due to political pressure - the government could not figure out an easy way of compensating the displaced and since it was an election year, they developed cold feet and scrapped it.

Big development is required in the coastal areas - to attract industry, the services sector which bring in jobs and hence people who will spur demand for quality houses on the beaches. Such demand will also carry a niche that demands quality coastal living.

Tata Launches Nano

It is finally out! The Tata Nano is almost as cute and sexy as the Ipod Nano and holds the promise to revolutionise the way automobiles will be driven in India (potentially even the world). It portends a significant socio-economic revolution in the smaller towns of India and will potentially spur the development of more roads and allied infrastructure in the remote corners of the country. While that will take quite some time, be ready for crazier traffic in the big cities and saturation in the smaller ones. Some argue this is retrograde and screws up the environment but then one could argue development in general is bad? As long as this growth in mobility for the masses is balanced by better roads and infra, things should turn out well.

My admiration for the Tata Motors and Ratan Tata runs even deeper now post this launch. This Nano has established India solidly in global arena of automobile design. The perseverance of Ratan to hold on in West Bengal is admirable in the face of the daily brinkmanship by the vested elements to shut down the Nano factory. The guy is out to do good for Bengal by letting industry take roots once again. Let us hope that 'common people' in their thousands drive out to Singur a year from now with their little Nanos to express their solidarity and gratitude.

Flyovers wreaking more havoc

Last month I had posted about the long pending flyovers in Hyderabad. Unfortunately tragedy struck earlier this month and a portion of the one of the flyovers under construction at the busy Punjagutta junction crashed after heavy rains. Two persons perished in the incident which was caused by nothing but the gross negligence by the authorities.

Even now several days after the tragedy there are no findings on the root cause not any action taken on guilty personnel. The same dirty politics that dogs the construction is holding back any remedial action.

Unfulfilled Potential & Avoidable Suffering

Jayaprakash Narayan, the founder and head of the Loksatta Party speaks of two cardinal sins widely prevalent in our country. One is unfulfilled potential and the other is avoidable suffering.

Each time I see a construction worker building yet another swanky glass building hosting an IT company, I am reminded of the first phrase; where did this man/woman/boy/girl come from? The same person with some education and exposure would have easily blossomed into an average blue/white collar employee.Instead she is stuck in a menial job with a bare minimum wage, no insurance, no benefits and in fact there is some risk to life.

A few days ago, I came upon an accident scene on the Gachibowli highway, four auto rickshaw passengers lost their lives as a truck zoomed through the median gap in the highway. Couldn't the gap in the highway been placed away from a direct street entry point? On the health care side there is a litany of such stories all speaking of massive avoidable suffering.

For some reason these two phrases have stuck in my mind, and summarise our country's state in simple terms.

Selflessness Vs. Self-Interest

Last Wednesday I jumped on the opportunity of listening to Gurcharan Das in person. Gurcharan is the former CEO of Procter & Gamble India and is a leading thought leader. I make sure I read his bi-weekly column in the Sunday Times. Though the occasion was the eve of the International Telecom Day celebrated by the IEEE at Hyderabad's Viswesvaraya Bhavan, he chose to expand the scope and cover what is bogging India today.

"One is the idea of selflessness and how it does not help making a nation prosperous. The likes of our Communists, Medha Patkars and even Mother Teresa, are at times condescendingly presumptuous that their acts help bring the nation prosperity. Their attitude ridicules people who espouse self-interest as not self-less. Our politicians too romanticise heroic acts of selflessness rather than encourage enilghtened initiative which stems from self-interest.

"Take an example of a carpenter using a cellphone - he is able to take more customer calls and plan his day better and make more money. The cellphone as a technology device increases his productivity and hence adds to the nation's wealth. Neither Nokia, nor Mr Mittal (of Airtel), nor the cellphone dealer, not even the carpenter is engaged in selfless behaviour here - yet their combined actions have resulted in a massive revolution in the nation's productivity and wealth! As Adam Smith said about this more than 200 years ago - 'The invisible hand that transforms self-interested behaviour to the good of society and the prosperity of the nation'.

"Selfishness and Self-interest are two different things with the latter being guided by principles of wealth creation. Perhaps Bhishma was wrong in The Mahabharata, when he took a self-less vow to remain celibate. Had he demonstrated self-interest by growing the clan, the history of India would have taken a different turn!"