More 'Aaraha hoon India' ads

Six months ago, I wrote about an ad which shows a youngster chukcing his US visa to stay back in India, of course riding a Hero Honda bike. It is very exciting to see a few more ads in this genre:

• GMR the Infrastructure major has a series of ad that simply announce India to the world. One of these shows an elderly couple waiting in tension for the result of their son's US visa appointment. The son knocks the door and bursts into a dance and is all smiles. Turns out he did not get the US visa and is celebrating the opportunity to stay back in India!
• Saakshi (సాక్షి) a Telugu newspaper being launched this month, has some interesting ads about kids and youth who have there dreams centered in India. One shows a girl wanting to be a world famous Kuchipudi dancer, another has a girl dreaming to become an astronaut and my favuorite finally is the one showing a youngster riding a boat (a la Shah Rukh Khan in the movie Swadesh स्वदेश) and imagining a scenario where foreigners queue up to obtain a work permit in India!

Something simply unimaginabe just a few years ago is now being visualized and projected to the masses! Needless to say if these ads reflect what the popular imagination is, then India as a country is indeed seeing a turning point in its history. Let me know if you come across more such ads.

Nike+ Goals

Some more on the Nike+ coolaid I have been drinking of late. Here's my Nike+ goal that is helping me get into those running shoes more often.

What next in IT Services?

The blog post here by Basab in 6ampacific captures well what is going on (wrong) with the Indian IT Services industry. The stock prices of Indian IT biggies have taken a massive drubbing while the Sensex in general has been going from strength to strength in 2007. The recent market meltdown impacted IT stocks the least, partly because they were already beaten up black and blue.

With the rupee appreciation, larger volumes and the expected recession in the US the future is certainly not so rosy. What could turn around the futures of these companies? One or more of the following:

• Some bold and aggressive acquisitions in the global market place taking their reach to new markets. Indian companies in general (not just IT ones) have a huge potential to acquire inefficient operations overseas and use their low cost models to deliver significant improvements in gross margins.
  
• The rupee reaching a level of Rs 40 again on the back of a potentially deeper stock market correction, could mark a psychological threshold. With elections in India round the corner and the global recession there will be enough volatility around to make that possibe if not probable.
  
• Launch of some bold IT products may still take some time, but that could kick in big time non linear revenue streams and not on mere head counts. TCS is already more than 100k heads, a humongous number and I clearly don't see them replacing the Indian Railways as the world's largest employer.

Nike Plus Rocks!

I have been using Nike plus for about a month now and feel compelled to write this. Nike plus is an excellent example of a social network engineered by Nike and Apple together. The gadget itself is a combination of a Nike+ sensor and an ipod nano accessory. Of course you also need a ipod nano and a Nike+ capable running shoe that has a built in socket to hold the sensor.

Once you are set up, the sheer joy of integrating your music/podcasts with running is beyond words. Each time the ipod syncs, the run data goes to the nikeplus.com website where one can track the runs, goals, challenges, resolutions, trophies, route maps etc. The route map feature is great - noticed though that Hyderabad did not have as many maps as Bangalore and went about creating a few myself. All the running related activity has been superbly organised, letting one focus on getting motivated and staying the course. I am now close to completing my target of running 40kms this month and hope to set more targets in the coming months to eventually accomplish my goal of completing a half marathon.

Joker In The Pack - Life at IIMs

One of the few books I managed to complete last month is titled "Joker in the Pack". It is a racy read and gives a pretty good glimpse about life at an IIM startign right from the graduation days to preparing for the CAT entrance exam and then cracking the interview. The story of how the protagonist then unleashes all the tricks in the trade to get ahead in the crazy rat race is well written. Of course he finally lands a plum job in a consulting firm though ends up losing out on his pre-MBA romance (only perhaps to go on to 'greener pastures'). The shamelessly opportunistic streak exhibited made me squirm at times but clearly the protagonist believes that any price is good as long as you win.

Bottom line: I will recommend the book to any MBA aspirant for the big picture view it provides for succeeding in life at an IIM.

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.

The Backwaters of Kumarakom

Kumarakom is considered to be the epitome of Kerala's backwaters. I always had a fascination for Kumarakom: having read about the time former Prime Minister Vaypayee spent there penning his famous muse, having seen nice pictures of the Taj Heritage resort and having heard about Arundhati Roy spending time there getting inspired for book 'God of Small Things'.

We had some filler time after our trip to Sabarimala and before our journey back to Cochin to get to Hyderabad and headed straight to the Taj resort after a brief search for other options. They had a 2.5 hour trip through backwaters that was very expensive but we went ahead being a bit misled by the Arundhati Roy village story. We quickly realised early on in the trip that there was no separate destination and that all the nondescript things we saw were already part of it. Though our enthu was down, we went ahead but decided to cut short the trip by an hour or so.

The backwaters were idyllic with paddy fields on either side of the canals and lots of kids having fun in the water. I noticed several not-so-poor-kids asking for pens (used to asking the phirangis I guess). There were several houseboats of various sizes and hues. Some very four bedroom mansions on waters (costing 60-70 lakh rupees and rented out for Rs 30k per night) while others were more modest. We soon hit upon the open backwaters which was actually a huge lake that separated Kottayam district from Alleppey. The huge lake was like a sea and the boat sped like an arrow. We spotted sea birds too in addition to the cormorants and snake birds we saw earlier. The view here reminded me of the boat ride near Clearwater Beach in Florida, only thing missing was waterfront mansions owned by the movie moguls.

Once we were back the Taj staff were gracious enough to refund some of the money since we came back earlier. Overall it was a short and sweet trip leaving me longing to come back once more, this time to spend a leisurely day on a house boat.

Sabarimala

Last week I had an opportunity to go on a short but intense pilgrimage to Sabarimala, the abode of Lord Ayyappa. Ayyappa is known to embody the two divine aspects - Siva and Vishnu. What I did not know was that there is a Masjid in the foothills involved in the story of his avatar; devotees pay their respects there as well before trekking to the main temple.

Guruvayur
We landed in Cochin on the night before and quickly took a cab to Guruvayur temple situated North of the city. There was a huge rush at the temple and it was reverberating with thousands of Ayyapa's devotees. The devotees were ecstatic chanting loudly and literally bouncing in the air. The darshan at Guruvayur was extremely brief and the light was very low, nevertheless my second visit to the historic temple was good.

Sabarimala
We made a quick halt at Erimeli the gateway to Sabarimala hills on the way back from Cochin. It was 2 am but the place looked like what Paris would on a similar Saturday night bustling with devotees. They were dressed like tigers, kinkaras and ascetics and chanting loudly running across the town. Somehow this verve and bounce was not that much visible in the actual climb to Sabarimala.

We then moved to Pamba and reached there by 4 am and took some time to get the climb started. The climb to Sabarimala is done barefoot and is about 6 km long. It must have taken us 3-4 hours to climb and the crowds were huge with the wait time for darshan rumoured to have been 12-18 hours! We were in the 'civil dress' queue not having taken the 41 day deeksha (vow), and the advantage is that the wait time was hardly 15 minutes. I managed to make a couple of more darshans and felt the trip was worthwhile after that. Prasadam was scarce due to some artifical crisis created, undoubtedly by the corrupt temple administration there. So ineffective is the administration that, inspite of a reputed 20 million devotees visiting each year the sanitary facilities enroute were pathetic and even inhuman. Attempts to have a setup similar to Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) appear stuck (see yesterday's article in the Hindu).

After a good darshan, the climb back started and it was definitely much tougher than the climb up. Walking downhill barefoot hurts the feet due to the sharp stones and one is forced to control the impact pulling on the calf muscles over 2-3 hours. Finally it was a huge relief to get back to Pampa and the comfort of the vehicle. We headed to Kottayam our place for the night halt.

Kottayam
Kottayam is a quaint little town that reminded me much of Mangalore. We stayed at the Mali hotel (next to the railway station) which had a decent room but everything else about the hotel was a sham. The Multi-gym was nothing but a dingy basement, the dinner was stale and stinking (an 'Andhra meals' board was setup to attract the majority Telugu crowds) and contrary to the promises there was neither a massage center nor a Jacuzzi! I ditched the meals there ended up having a hot Chapati based meal at the vegetarian restaurant in 'down town'. The next morning we purchased a lot of Kerala plum cake (it was Christmas eve!) and some golden stuff (Kerala is famous for less adulterated gold) before heading to the famous backwaters of Kumarakom.