Global Curry

Aung San Suu Kyi - The most beautiful

2010-11-13T21:58:00.000-08:00

At 65, She is never more beautiful.
Collage of profiles - some has stoic and unshuttered eyes,
Others profile the subtle shy of a newly wed asian woman;
Fist propping up the chin and a teasing squint in her eyes!

Bold and beautiful - flowers ornating her hair,
Bouquets of roses springing up her frame; always thin.
Hairs falling on to a corner, shadows and cover - still plenty of forehead to shine.
At 65, She is never more beautiful.

Some angry, some determined.
Some assured and others waiting in anguish.
Anguish no more - she may not stay free for long,
As she will not bend the truth and submit to tyrants.

But Myanmar will be free - free from timids.
The beauty is contagious - especially it is of the mind.
The courage is beautiful - especially it is of a woman.
At 65, She is never more beautiful!

Chief Execration Officers Vs Politicians - a silly new class warfare!

2009-10-23T00:52:00.000-07:00

We are a very trendy society. Jack Welch and Robert Kiyosaki were trendy when I came to the US in the late 90s. 10 years later, any one who talks about money is a pariah in the newly emerging class system. Post Lehman collapse, any top executives of any company, whether bailed out by US govt or not, taking huge compensations (I guess they just take them - unlike ordinary employees who receive them) will be scorned first by Robert Gibbs and eventually by the president. Actually, time of scorn has passed long time ago, its time for action. Top 25 executives of the companies that received substantial help will see their salary cut by 50% until they pay back all of tax payer money. Federal Reserve is proposing to review pay practices of 28 unnamed giant banks. They are no longer Chief Executive Officers - they are Chief Execration Officers!

Politicians have their fare share of excessive risk taking and wasteful spending. US treasury is deep in debt. Chinese kept bailing out US in the last decade by pumping around 800 billion of recycled dollar. Japan did that a decade earlier and holds around 700 billion of US treasury.

They were also greedy; for the shining legacy of protectors of freedom and proliferates of democracy.
US spent around 700 billion to over-throw Saddam from Iraq and to transform Iraq into a beacon of democracy in the middle east.

Bankers leveraged big time to play the sub-prime game (a noble side-effect of expanding home ownership to every American family) and US borrowed big time to pay for two wars at the same time. Bankers took excessive risk and got rewarded handsomely. Politicians (both Republicans and Democrats who voted to authorize the war) took excessive risk to get reelected and to be placed on the right side of history - if history turned out to be the way they thought it would.

When the Bankers fail their company and bring the world to the brink of economic collapse; they loose billions of their own money (James Cayne, Ex-CEO of Bear Sterns lost a billion), get sued (Richard Fuld, Ex-CEO of Lehman is sued by State of New Jersey) or get fired (John Thain, Ex-CEO of Merrill got fired after losses at Merrill far exceeded what was projected during the merger with BofA). All of them get humiliated.

Politicians act irresponsibly and fail to provide leadership to combat world's severe problems. Melting ice, rising sea levels, hunger, HIV, religious tensions; the list is long. When Politicians fail their people and ignore inconvenient truths, how are they punished? President got reelected in the middle of two seemingly unending wars. Senator who voted for war in Iraq became the Secretary of State for a president who came to power primarily for his opposition to Iraq war from the get-go. Henry Kissinger won Nobel peace price despite his role in starting many wars and being accused by some for war crimes! Former Secretary of the Treasury who praised Gramm-Leach-Biley act of 1999 as 'historic legislation that will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy' is the economic brain power to a President who thinks de-regulation was a mistake and it caused the subprime crisis of 2007-2008. If we think Gramm-Leach-Biley caused the subprime collapse, how about every politician who voted and supported this bill take a 50% pay cut until foreclosure rate returns to normal levels?

So here is an advise to 'angry' politicians. Get some perspective. If Chinese were to declare a forced pay cut on all US politicians until we pay back all of 800 billion dollars, will that be an easy pill to swallow? What goes around comes around. The public is with populist politicians these days; that's because they have short memory. They forgot how bad the politicians were and how much they disliked government in their lives - until the CEOs did worse and made politicians look like angels!

Health Care by Numbers - Right and Responsibility of Individual Health

2009-08-16T16:19:00.000-07:00

According to the proponents of health care reform, the biggest problem with current US health system is that there are so many uninsured people in this country who drives up cost of health care for every one when their ER visits could have been avoided with access to primary care . Another problem is that Americans are at the mercy of insurance companies and they need relief from insurance companies who put profit ahead of people. But are these really true? Let us look at some numbers.

Highlights from LA Times Aug 16, 2009 report

Total Insured in the US: 253 million (84% of people)
Total Uninsured: 47 million (16% of people)

Assuming that insured people pick up the cost of the uninsured, our health care cost should only be 16% higher than what would be considered as a normal cost. US's per capita health care spending is almost twice that of industrialized nations! So the first argument is inaccurate and there is some thing else driving up the cost.

What about the second argument? According to a TIME poll Aug 10, 2009, 86 % of people are satisfied with their current health care plan. So 72% of all population has coverage and satisfied with their current health care plan. So Does that sound like a demographic in trouble seeking help from uncle Sam? Not to me. 14% of insured people who are not satisfied will need legislative help keeping their insurance for perpetuity at the existing rate even when they are out of job, have a pre-existing conditions or diagnosed with chronic illness.

Now, why 16% of population does not have insurance? Do you think they are too poor to afford insurance coverage? From the LA Times report:

Uninsured below federal poverty line: 15 million
Uninsured who make at least 4 times federal poverty limit: 4.5 million

Note: Federal poverty line: $10,830 for individual and $22,050 for a family of four

32% of the uninsured does not have any means to buy health insurance and will need help. 10% of the uninsured is making 4 times federal poverty line and would not need any help.
While we embrace the noble goal of health care for all, why not we start with 1/3 of the uninsured who are at or below federal poverty line?

Did any one tell you that illegal immigrants camping at ER is causing your cost to spiral out of control? Only 7 million illegal immigrants who are uninsured. They are adding just a few cents to the 6-dollar Tylenol at the hospital!!

So what is really driving up the cost? The problem is more fundamental than everything that is being discussed these days. Its individual responsibility for their own health. Our politicians keep talking about 'right' to health care but unfortunately we don't have a leader who can tell us about our 'responsibility' to take care of our health.

"Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices" - John Mackey co-founder and CEO of whole foods.

We are fascinated why Canadians and French spend less on health care and live longer but we don't bother to ask how many of us are living our lives irresponsibly and sheepishly expecting some one else to pay for it. There will always be health care surprises even if we all made healthy and affordable lifestyle choices, not including shopping at whole foods for organic bananas. But as a society, it is easier for us to take care of a few unfortunate than to carry the burden of irresponsibility.

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

Sockeye Sam - Eulogy of a soon-to-be-extinct Hummer

2009-05-09T16:54:00.000-07:00

It was almost midnight and I was at the rental car counter at the Anchorage airport. I forgot to ask at the counter which rental car I was getting into. As I walked towards my marked lot, I was a bit disappointed to see an "upgrade" to a minivan. I was too tired to go back inside and request a car. (I dint want to drive around in a 7 passenger Minivan in Alaska for all places all by myself).

Next day, I went to exchange the minivan for a car. But they didn't have any cars and I could only get an SUV instead. They gave me two choices. Ford Expedition and Hummer H3.

I was not very happy to get a super sized SUV considering that I am an Environmentalist attending a conference on Climate change. Besides, I promised to give ride to a top EPA scientist,who helped author some of the toughest air quality standards, to do some sight seeing in the evening. Looking from any perspective, Hummer and Global warming didn't go along well. But then my only other option was to get an Expedition which also doesn't get high marks for environmental friendliness. Also the fact that GM will no longer make Hummer, made me want to ride a soon to be extinct species. I never rode a Hummer and this is my last chance, I said to myself.

The lady at the counter was getting a bit impatient. She asked in a higher than normal voice, "Expedition or H3". I said H3!!

It looked intimidating at first. It felt tedious to operate. The window sill was too high. I couldn't even reach to the ticket machine to pull out the parking tickets. Gear knob was too bulky that it didn't fit in my rather large fist. I couldn't find the headlight switch. After fiddling around for a while, I found it on the dash! I looked for gas tank cap release button inside. There isn't any because it is a manual twist and turn cap. The doors are too heavy that you feel it is better to use both hands to avoid back injury. The wheels are too tall and bulky. Over all, it was like a muscle man walking in the gym with tiny shorts and namesake brief to show off. All muscles and a little cloth.

The last day afternoon of the conference, we set out to a small harbor town Seward (120 miles south of Anchorage) in the hope of getting a glimpse of the Glacier. It started raining as soon as we left anchorage. We said to ourselves, "well it is better to be in an all wheel drive when it rains". The rain intensified and we started seeing snow in abundance along the freeway. We said to ourselves, "well a heavy SUV is more stable on ice than a minivan but a car definitely handles well on curves".

After a few curves and potholes later, we said to ourselves, "this damn thing handles well and glides over potholes like it never existed". It had a pickup of a rocket (ok, you get the point) and had a turning radius of a Sledge Dog!!

The more we drove, the more inviting it became. It taunted and teased us to be bold. I tried to finish a U turn on a narrow street hoping that the wheels will run over the curb. But it finished the turn without touching the curb! I drove through a puddle of water and it just cut it through. I braked sudden in a turn out and it stopped in a heart beat with a giant jerking of the ABS.

We took some great pictures of him standing majestic with snow clad mountains backdrop. We were not sure if we wanted to leave a proof of our affair with the prodigious creature that is hated for its carbon foot print. But decided, "what the heck, this is our last opportunity to be seen next to a dinosaur". So took some photos of ourselves standing close to a Hummer.

After 260 miles of fun along the highway, it was time for payback. Pulled over to a gas station and filled him up. 20 gallons for 260 miles of highway!! That is 13 mpg. All the fun we had for the last 6 hours seemed like a forbidden pleasure. Not very proud of what we did but felt very good.

We parked him at the curb to end the day with a good Alaskan salmon dinner. We felt that we need to christen our friend. The hummer is red and we are in Alaska. What name could be more appropriate than "Sockeye Sam" ( as in red sockeye salmon), we thought. Sockeye Sam it is....We miss you Sam. Not just today but years to come. But we will wait for a day you are reborn as an H2O emitting darling on the road (and off road too). Till then, peace to your soul :(

Why Dr Shashi Tharoor Matters

2009-04-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

Outside is inside when you look from outside! People call him an 'outsider'. It is a matter of perception. For a Keralite, some one born in London, educated in Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi and US, worked at UN in the New York office until 2007 and wrote English books is a total outsider. But for me, who is born in a village in Kerala, educated in Kannur and Delhi, working in the US as an NRI, Shashi is an insider. That is because although he was born and lived outside, he went to his roots and embraced the place and people he consider his own after passing opportunities to become a citizen of the western world. My four year old son is born in the USA. Will he ever identify himself as an Indian and run for a public office in India to better the live's of Les Miserables? The depth of Tharoor's committment to India and Indian people lies in the answer.

Win or lose, Tharoor already made a difference. First, he put money where his mouth is by offering himself as a candidate for election. Second, his candidature has instantly raised the standard of conversation about the purpose of election in a chaotic democracy like ours. Third, he set an example for highly qualified and successful people who are sitting on the side lines hesitating to test the dirty waters of Indian Politics.

American people are better served because successful people from other walks of life enter politics and take public offices. A B Film actor, fighter pilot, a professor at University of Arkansas, part owner of a baseball franchise and a community organizer; all became presidents of USA. People who ran big corporations, those who went to Harvard and Yale, those who are Rhodes Scholar, bankers and accountants, surgeons and physicians, lawyers and engineers; all come to politics. Sure, there are people who enter politics because of pedigree but people with sheer merit walk straight into American politics and achieve great heights. Obama and Bobby Jindal are no accidents in American Politics. They are the products of American's willingness to invest in smarter people even when they disagree with them.

Unfortunately in India, it is easier if you come from the rough and tumble of local politics. It is easier if you speak local dialect but with fewer thoughts about how to solve local problems. It is easier if you dress up like a local but does not represent the struggle and aspiration of the locals. It is not easy for Dr Shashi Taroor. Having a PhD in law and diplomacy from Tufts University does not make it easier. Being a number 2 man at UN does not make it certain. Having written many books of international repute does not guarantee an election victory in the capital of India’s most literate state. He is accused of as ivory tower intellectual by men of fewer merit and accomplishments. Youth wing of his party of choosing has publicly protested against the ‘imported candidate’ only to be told to back off by Ms Sonia Gandhi.

I am afraid that this very writing will be ridiculed as an NRI love shown by a fellow NRI in the US to a man who spent most of his adult life in New York. It is not. I don’t know Shahi Tharoor personally. I didn’t even know that he had Kerala connections until he announced his candidature from Thiruvananthapuram. I didn’t even know he could speak fluent Malayalam. But I know this. Shashi is a once in a lifetime rarity that manifests in Indian political landscape. I am sure temptations of good life in New York and Dubai might have gave him countless sleepless nights before making a decision to enter into Indian Politics. I am sure he offered deaf ears to lucrative consulting jobs that were his taking. Instead he chose to sweat it out among the locals in the scorching April Sun in Kerala. He could have waited for an opportune moment to get nominated to Rajya Sabha and found his way to Union Cabinet. Instead he chose the path that is chosen by many great men in world’s largest democracy. And like those men, win or lose, he will be keep coming back to his people and constituents to make life better for everyone.

I have only one thing to say to voters of Thiruvanathapuram. If you worry that he does not understand common man’s problems and not vote for him, you are not doing justice to the historic opportunity that is presented to you. To elect a candidate who represents a new attitude in Indian politics. You have given chances to many men who did not change the landscape of your capital city in any big way. Give a chance to this honorable and able man!

United States of Anger - How to redeem the true United States of America?

2009-03-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

President of United States of America said he is angry. An angry Congress passed a constitutionally questionable retroactive and punitive tax bill as a response to massive public anger over AIG bonuses paid out to same executives who brought AIG to ground. John Stewart is angry at CNBC and Jim Cramer, understandably so. Rush Limbaugh is angry at Obama and want him to fail.

Alan Greenspan's fall from grace has been painful to watch. Bill Clinton's push on Fannie and Freddie to underwrite subprime mortgages looks thoughtless at best. Phil Gramm's 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley bank deregulation bill is identified as ground zero of the financial implosion by Obama. Quantitative Analysts (once fondly called Quants) are blamed for fusing quantum mechanics and human behavioral dynamics to mystic levels while predicting the risk of subprime derivatives. People those who lost their jobs are angry. Those who lost their retiremnent savings are angry. I lost more than 50% of my 401K. I lost 150K of my home value. I am young and I have time to recover most of what I lost. Fortunately I still have a job. But I am also angry. Very angry.

Not at the wizards and Quants at AIG and Lehman any more. Not at Alan Greenspan. Not at Gramm-Clinton-Summers. Not at Jim Cramer and CNBC. I am angry at any one who is instigating anger and fear in American People. That includes media screaming 'worst since.......' fear mongering. I am angry at Congress for getting angry at their own omission and commission and for not being unable to contain and channel their anger into anything productive and constructive. I am angry at the president who keeps warning American people 'it will get a lot worse before getting better'. I am angry at American people for getting angry. Because every passing minute of anger is costing a job, retirement and a home some where in this great land.

Dont get me wrong. I am not writing this to defend legal but questionable operations pulled off by a select few in Wall Street that is now holding the entire world hostage. They deserve blame to the highest order but not anger. In America, people don't like anger. Or that is what was told as a reason why Obama professionally managed his anger during his campaign.

Coming from a country where credit was hard to come by, I saw with starry eyes how US created credit out of thin air. The prosperity of US, compared to any other developed world, is largely due to the so called 'greed' of bankers and investors and, to some extent, 'stupidity' of American people chasing American dream. You might be thinking how irresponsible is to say such a thing at a time bankers and investors are the most hated people in the world.

I dont have a PhD in economics but I will give it a try :)

US has seen many booms and busts. Each boom brings a level of prosperity that was not seen before. Each bust erodes some portion of the wealth that was created during the boom. But after every bust, we have more jobs, more homes, better cars, better infrastructure, longer life, better technology than what we had before the boom. We lost about 6 trillion in home values since its peak in 2006. But we added twice that much in the years leading upto 2006. So we still have a long way to go before we hit pre-bubble prices. Median net worth of American households is still higher than that in 2004 even after falling 13% in 2008.

What we as a society fail to see is the "macro economic tectonics" that happens during the 'irrational exuberance' years leading up to a crash. For economic activity to thrive, we need credit. And we need credit available to all classes of people including the so called "sub-prime" borrowers. This does not happen in many parts of the world. First, it is extremely difficult to get credit. Second, credits are the privilege of the few. But in the US, credit is freely available. It is available to all classes of people albeit with higher interests and fees to "sub-prime" borrowers. Sure some people will default and foreclose. Some will file for bankruptcy. But increased credit provides a mechanism of shifting massive amount of money from those who can invest to those who need money. In the process both the investor and invested prosper and living standard of the society improves dramatically. If you tell the rich to donate money for a housing project in inner city, they will do a little. But if you tell them to buy a sub prime mortgage security insured by AIG, they will invest a lot. It takes mass hysteria and hype to create capital flow. And almost always, the market over shoots. It comes up with mind bending complex derivatives in a frenzy to push more mortgages and securities only to realize that it made gigantic blunders.

Almost always it is impossible to see a bubble when we are in one except if you are Greenspan. Even he decided to let the market bubble over by itself than trying to pop it. Once the credit has flown so much so that it over shoots the capacity of people to borrow money, everything comes to a grinding halt and then follows a high speed retracting. The investors loose money in toxic securities. People loose their home values, retirements. Then market corrects. The correction also over shoots. It corrects more than necessary since we are in a reverse bubble. After a while a sense of normalcy prevails and market and asset values corrects to a normal valuation. Not so strangely, the valuation of assets are higher than what was before the hysteria started. After all, all the new homes built, new streets paved, new water and sewage lines laid, new cable and phone lines connected, new parks and play grounds built will continue to serve American people for decades with only periodic maintenance. These are hard assets and no one can take those away from America. Not even the foreign treasuries whom we owe trillions.

We built 73 million homes between 1950 and 1979 and only 45 million since then. We thought we had the biggest housing boom in the history between 2000-2005! Brace for the next housing boom in 10-15 years and a quadrillion dollars bust a few years after that!! So much for the recently acquired national resolution to end "boom and bust cycle".

Apologies if I sounded overly insensitive to people lost their jobs, homes and retirements. But US would not have had that many jobs, homes, retirement savings and net worth if we did not have the greed of the investors and stupidity of American people. Also having a money printing press at Federal Reserve helps too :)

This may give socially minded readers a reason to calm. Roughly 3 trillion dollar of sub prime mortgages were funded since 2000 to low income people. At least 8 in 10 of the sub prime borrowers are still living in their homes. Only 2 in 10 are foreclosed. Without the now hated subprime loans, 8 out of the 10 may never have owned homes. Rick Santelli can scream on live TV that those are losers but that is precisely what anger can do to a great country's psyche. They are American heroes working hard and paying off their mortgages and raising their family in a place they call home. Anger blinds the mind and it is the easiest route to destruction. And I think it is time for Americans to redeem their country devoid of anger but full of excitement and optimism that always defined and redefined America. So no more anger please.

ABC News: The Middle Class Is Doing Just Fine, Thank You

Slumdog – a plausible explanation of success!

2009-02-11T23:57:00.000-08:00

Bollywood movies request a very high degree of suspended disbelief from its viewers. Details are not very important. People are allowed to fill the holes in the story using their own imagination and preferences. And that’s the point of Bollywood production. It leaves room for perfection. While great Hollywood movies leave you disarmed of criticism, Bollywood movies invite it. Hollywood makes sequel to tell a new story but Bollywood makes them to say the same story with new cast and new crew.

I thought Bollywood movies are not appreciated in the west because it defies logic and realism. It’s too cheesy. It is musical. It has lip-sync. It always has happily ever after ending. It has predictable story line with few twists and turns. No complex plots and subplots. It’s usually a story of young couple falling in love, not of ogre falling in love with a princess. A singer singing for the hero and heroine is common place, not a hero or heroine speaking for one eyed monsters and mammoths.

Slumdog has holes in it. A lot of them. The kind of gaps you usually expect from Bollywood flick, not from a western production. In Bollywood movies, long lost orphan twins grow up and recognize each other after decades by looking at birth marks. In Slumdog, small kids grow up into big boys in a train ride. Jamal and Latika recognize each other, both in their adulthood by then, just by staring at each other for a while. Jamal recognizes his brother Salim’s voice over the phone when they talk for the first time after they became adults! In true Bollywood tradition.

Slumdog require a high degree of suspended disbelief. Indian police can be brutal. But they will dare not touch a slumdog who just came out of a show in which he answered all but the last question on his way to win final price in front of millions watching on TV. It is cheesy. I have seen Amitabh and Sharukh hosting Indian version of ‘who wants to be a millionaire’. They usually take extra care to be friendly with contestants when millions are watching them on TV. Any perceived ill treatment or arrogance will damage their popularity and brand value and knock off millions from their endorsements. A non-Indian audience will conclude that calling someone on live TV ‘chai wala’ is an Indian way. It is not. We may call ‘chai wala’ when the camera is off and mikes are pulled off, but not before. India is a land of caste and class but cant be accused of a land of stupid people. Oh, I didn’t tell you this one. Amitabh gave autograph to a kid without even noticing that this kid is covered in feces. In fact, no one among the crowd seems to smell! But again, that’s Bollywood tradition.

So how is Slumdog different from a Bollywood production? Not much. Bollywood movies do not pretend that what they show on screen is nothing more than a fiction . It’s a means of illusory fulfillment for ordinary people to see miracle happening on screen while their day to day life is spent pulling rickshaws and serving tea in call centers. In this movie, like many bollywood classics, its characters fight poverty and refuse to play victims. This is what Bollywood has been teaching Indians for almost a century now. They show how to fight grinding poverty and grueling injustices albeit in their own filmy ways. They show the wealth and flamboyance of the rich to help poor folks dream of good life.

Sometimes the fights are won when a retired police inspector, whose hands were chopped off by a dacoit, takes revenge by crushing him to death with his feet (Sholay). Some other times the fights are won using cricket bat and ball (Lagaan). Wealth is made by the hero breaking rocks in a hot Indian summer day. Wealth is also made by the taxi wala when a rich business man forgets his suitcase full of cash. Every movie shows a way to happiness. Depressing ones usually don’t make much money. They can’t afford to depress already stressed Indian people. After a day of sweat, spit, and trash all around them, they want to go back to their 10’ x 8’ jannath (heaven) and turn on their TV and watch song scenes from a Bollywood movie and constantly remind them of life’s plausible surprises.

And that’s the Bollywood experience Slumdog offers to western audience. Indians who are seasoned by Bollywood movies may not find much new in this movie. But its a new experience for the west. The magic of believing in unbelievable things, the liberty to imagine what is missing, the idea of enthrallment to all senses and the healing power of watching young and beautiful falling in love!

At a time people saw collapsing home prices, plunging 401Ks, massive job losses, widespread breach of trust in business and government, story of underdog becoming a topdog offers poetic justice. After watching Mumbai under siege on CNN for 3 days, it is easy for the west to break into AR Rehman's music and Bollywood's dance and song number. Jai Ho....

Indeed, we live in times of HOPE. Oscar will want to recognize that.

Mumbai Under Attack - Pakistan's Failure and India's Misery

2008-11-27T15:46:00.000-08:00

TIME magazine is probably going to press, as I write this, with a cover story 'India's Muslim's in Crisis'. TIME reports -

[The disembodied voice was chilling in its rage. A gunman, holed up in Mumbai's Oberoi Trident hotel where some 40 people had been taken hostage, told an Indian news channel that the attacks were revenge for the persecution of Muslims in India. "We love this as our country but when our mothers and sisters were being killed, where was everybody?" he asked via telephone. No answer came. But then he probably wasn't expecting one.]

Article continues - [The roots of Muslim rage run deep in India, nourished by a long-held sense of injustice over what many Indian Muslims believe is institutionalized discrimination against the country's largest minority group. The disparities between Muslims, which make up 13.4% of the population, and India's Hindu population, which hovers around 80%, are striking. There are exceptions, of course, but generally speaking Muslim Indians have shorter life spans, worse health, lower literacy levels, and lower-paying jobs.]

It is a huge mistake to call this an act perpetrated by Muslims in Crisis in India, to say the least. The facts are facts. If Muslims in India are unable to join the progress India made since Independence, it is a National Shame. But to suggest that Islamic Terrorism in India is the offshoot of economic underclass status of millions of Muslims in India is being dishonest to extremist's long harbored wounds from the decline of Islamic prominence since its golden years. To suggest that Islamic Terrorism in India is the child of perceived 'institutionalized discrimination' and persecution of Muslim minority in India is being ignorant of extremist Islamist's long harbored desire to return to golden age of Islam that ruled most of Indian Subcontinent, Middle East, Northern Africa and Persia.

[We (Muslims) were the legal rulers of India, and in 1857 the British took that away from us," says Tarik Jan, a gentle-mannered scholar at Islamabad's Institute of Policy Studies. "In 1947 they should have given that back to the Muslims."] - The Article narrates.

For extremists, the world history starts and ends with Islamic Golden Age. There were emperors and empires that ruled the world before and after Islamic supremacy. Asoka conquered and established Indian Subcontinent as we see today. Moguls conquered the subcontinent. Akbar took Mogul Empire to greater heights until subsequent rulers loosing to British. British lost the war of the subcontinent to Gandhi and his people. How far back one wants to look? For extremists, its as far back as it suits them. British lost its colonies where sun never set. But they don't harbor any desire to go back to their golden days. British fought,ungracefully, to keep their colonies. But once they lost it, they became graceful losers. Content with a Queen and a Common Wealth. The root cause of Islamic Terrorism in the world will take us to extremist's inability to loose gracefully.

The days of emperors and colonialists are over. The world will never go back to the days of Alexander, Asoka, Genghis Khan, Moguls and Emir of Timur. The world will not repeat British, Spanish and Portuguese colonies. After Afghanistan and Iraq, world may never see an American invasion of another country as seen in the past. So most moderate Muslims no longer harbor any thoughts of territorial supremacy on some other land. But extremists ability to steer young moderate Muslim men away from bright and promising future into sheer self destruction to achieve mass destruction of innocent people is helped largely by some of the most volatile unresolved issues of post colonial rule.

What seems to be burning the Muslim psyche all over the world is not only their lost supremacy of the bygone past but also a perceived denial of Islamic existence. In modern days, it starts with nonexistent Palestinian home land. It includes Kashmir's lack of independence. It includes Chechnya. It includes demolished Babri Masjid and thousands of their mothers and sisters lost in Gujarat. It includes Afghanistan where they once thought established the first true Islamic State in the modern era.

As I write this, the terrorists are beginning to be identified as Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals came via sea from Karachi to Mumbai. If this is proved to be accurate, TIME's notion that these attacks are some how the result of India's Muslim's in Crisis doesn't hold much weight. If at all this has anything to do with Muslim, its failed Islamic Republic of Pakistan. When the subcontinent was divided to form Pakistan, the Muslims hoped to create a "modern, moderate and very enlightened Pakistan,". Indian Muslims, with all its perceived and real crisis of confidence in Indian State, have the opportunity to become APJ Abdul Kalam, Azim Premji, Khans of Bollywood and much more. But the Muslims in Pakistan continue to slide into hopelessness and despair that beget young men willing to give up their precious lives to kill hundreds of innocent people why were living a normal life. Unfortunately that is what Pakistan failed to provide Muslims in their country, a Normal Life!

It is easy for Indian's to direct outrage against its neighbor cousin. It is easy for the world to lament Pakistan for not being able to stop extremists operating in their country. But it is not productive. Pakistan doesn't need an earful. They need help. They need help in providing HOPE to its people. They need help in giving decent jobs and dream of living a normal life to its people. The kind of opportunity they see in an India that is increasingly going global. When people loose hope, their ability to think diminish. When they shut their doors to the world, they become disillusioned. They become impressionable to the point of destroying the gift of love :(

Behind the Mumbai Massacre: India's Muslims in Crisis

'Credit crunch, what credit crunch?'

2008-09-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

Listening to the car dealer on TV reporting massive reduction in sales due to lack of credit and Arnold seeking 2 billion loan from Fed does not support this sentiment. But is it all that bad? Is the sky really going to fall lacking a 700 billion bonus from tax payer to the bankers? Probably not. What is the basis for me to say this? I am no expert in the complex matters of finance and do not have any credibility to question the financial acumen of the best and brightest like Paulson and Bernanke. But hey, this is a free country and every one can have their opinion. In my opinion, the present credit freeze is the result of bankers trying to over correct their excesses of last 5 years. It is like the cat refusing to drink cold milk after burned once while sipping it hot. For years, they lend to any warm body and now they don't want to lend to any one who is "sub prime". They are hoarding cash fearing that there are few safe hands these days they can trust. Aren't they lending to their "prime" customers? How are they able to do that if there is truly a cash shortage?

I wanted to test out my opinion with a real world credit exercise. I tried to get banks to lend to me in this "credit-freeze" environment. Like many of you, I still keep getting balance transfer or cash advance check in the mails from my credit card companies. I almost always shred them but decided to cash out some money before the cash completely "dried up". I decided to cash out a large sum from JP Morgan Chase. I got immediate approval and pulled money into my checking account with 0% APR for nine months. During the height of 700 billion bail out plan negotiation in the capitol hills, I pulled out another sum from BofA credit card with 0% APR for a year!!! Now that we established that banks still lend to credit worthy customers (I have a FICO score north of 700 but I am an average middle class person who is among 95% of Americans who will get tax cut under president Obama), let us explore what is happening at the home mortgage business which is the root cause of the current mess. My friend in LA just got funding for home purchase with less than 20% down payment and a 30-year fixed loan at 6.5%. Not bad in the days of credit freeze. He too probably has a good FICO score. What about small business owners? I know a gas station owner who got a large loan albeit large amount of paper work. But the point is that banks do have cash and they are still lending to credit worthy customers. They are not lending to each other probably because they are protecting their cash from one another just like the kids protecting their favorite toys from their friends afraid that they might break it! But when the price is right, they will lend again. How long they can hunker down with the cash without doing their primary business of lending?

Now that bailout plan got a second life in Congress, you would think Banks will start lending more freely? Absolutely not, at least for next few years. Once bitten, twice shy! They will hoard all that cash until next batch of whiz kids from HBS (Harward Business School) come up with innovative things they can trade. It will neither be dot com nor CDOs. But it will be some thing quite mind bending stuff. More complex and logic defying than CDOs and CDSs. According to some reports, the wealth of world's High Net Worth Individuals is in excess of 40 trillion dollars! They not only need a place to park their cash but investments that they can buy and sell for a profit. An American, even with a FICO score below 600, is a better borrower than any one else in the world. Because only in America, you will see a bailout package of this scope and ramification gets introduced to the law makers, gets debated, gets defeated after angry calls to Congressman's office and then finally getting passed after local business owners call and plead and president signs into law within hours of House adopting the motion. All in a matter of a fortnight! Americans have the audacity to do mind bending, logic defying stuff. Be it dot com or it Subprime or borrowing almost a trillion dollar more to pay off some bad loans. That too when the treasury is running half a trillion deficit already. And the world wonder in amazement in her triumphs and tribulations and buy her treasury bills like a clock work. I love this country :)

The Credit Cruch:Where Is It Happening? TIME article

My previous post on 'Defending Subprime lending - case for democratic economy'

What is common between Thai Yellow Curry and North Kerala Yellow Curry?

2008-09-08T22:10:00.000-07:00

Or you could ask why the gorgeous looking air hostesses of Malaysian and Singapore airlines wear colorful Lungis. Ever since I ate Thai yellow curry from a neighborhood Thai house for the first time in 1999, I was perplexed by its likeness to North Kerala Thenga Curry and Thanjavur Kulambu (vegetables or sea foods cooked with coconut milk and spices to thick yellow or red gravy). I knew there was some material connection between the lungi clad waitress at the Thai house and the Lungi clad waitress at the local Tea shop in my home town in Northern Kerala, but couldn’t figure out what. After years of sitting on this, I finally decided to dig deep. The boring lessons from school on Chola, Chera and Pandya dynasties of ancient India started resurfacing.

Well, the answer to the mystery might be King Rajendra Chola of Chola dynasty who expanded the Chola kingdom’s influence to include most of South India, part of North India (Bihar and Bengal), Sri Lanka, Maldives, Malay Archipelago (Malay Archipelago constitutes the territories of Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, East Timor, and most of Papua New Guinea) and part of Burma and Thailand. Around 1130 AD (or CE to be politically correct), all these geographic entities were ruled by or under the subordination of the great expansionist and navigator Rajendra Chola.

After this new found information, I stopped wondering why people in Bangladesh wear colorful Lungis just like south Indians. I don’t wonder how Kerala Porotta (bread made of flour and forms circular flakes) is almost the same as the Malaysian porotta stacked next to it in an Indian store. Who would have thought of putting fish in Sambar? Well, I had the opportunity of trying it out during a Malaysian stop over! It is hard to guess if Malay people decided to put fish in Sambar or south Indians decided to replace fish with Brinjal and Okra!

Rajendra Chola expanded the trade route between South India all the way to China. Iron utensils were imported from China almost 1000 years before Walmart did it! Cheena Chatti (deep skillet made of iron) was used by my mother till it was replaced by the non-stick craze of the last 15 years. Trust me; the cheena chatti was the best non-stick ever after it aged a little. Cheena vala (shore operated lift net used for fishing) is part and parcel of every day portraits of Kochi, Kerala. Cheena/Cheeni means China if you don’t know that already. World has always been flat I guess! But the modernity didn’t know until Friedman told it that way. Well, never too late.

The map of Rajendra Chola ruled or subordinated territories. He had established active trade with Mainland China through Malay Archipelago.

Koshi and Katrina – The sorrow of Bihar and New Orleans

2008-08-29T15:41:00.000-07:00

Two million people in New Orleans were displaced after strong surge from Hurricane Katrina stormed through the levees and drowned most of New Orleans. Exactly three years later, in another August catastrophe on the other side of the globe, another two million people are displaced after the monsoon flood broke the embankment (levee) for almost a mile! The river furiously broke the manmade shackles of embankment s, made to curtail her meandering tendencies, and started flowing in a new path which it abandoned 100 years prior.

Why do these things happen? Could these be prevented at all? Well, the answer lies in understanding how river systems work to create new landscape through which it flows and how we interfere with this natural process. Water flows from higher altitude points in the mountain to the lowest point in the sea. How does it get there is the story of how civilization is made and destroyed. As the river flows from the mountains to the valleys and eventually to the sea, it transports and deposits soil in the channel bottom and at bends. As the deposit at the bottom of the river piles up, the channel depth reduces and water starts overflowing the banks and creates new channels. As the deposit around the bend increases, the water starts shifting sideways to find new path. It is like when you squeeze a gel pack and you see gel finding it ways to go against the direction of your squeeze.

When a river makes a new path, the path abandoned by the river is so fertile that it attracts large immigration of farmers and associated civilization. They live there for generations oblivious of the fact that the river might come back to the path she abandoned decades or centuries ago. As her current path gets loaded with soil sedimentation under her belly and around the bends, the river gets lifted up so much so that the place around her is much lower than the river itself. It is like an overhead river! After a while, the river goes back to its first principle and flows to low again.

When she does this, millions of people who settled in the low lying land get in her way. Lives lost and property damaged and everything is under water. So what do we do to prevent this? Well, we use our engineering and technological knowledge and advancement and try to tame the Mighty Rivers. We tell the river not to flow freely. We tell her to stay her course regardless of what happens to her morphology. We build massive levee system around the banks to prevent the river from changing its course. We spent billions to create and maintain very complex levee/embankment system. As the river gets choked and can’t find a place to deposit the silt and soil it brings from upstream, the river level rises. When the river level rises, we increase the levee height by few meters. This catch-up game goes on for decades or even centuries before the river swells really big and devastate everything in her way to flow freely again. When that happens, we get Katrina and Koshi disasters and millions are left to suffer the fury of the Mother Nature.

So what is wrong with restraining a river that meander all the time? Can’t she make up her mind? Isn’t taming of natural forces that made humans what we are? Isn’t that fighting trait made civilization possible? Yes it is. But he is the difference. Good judgment is to know when to stop fighting. Good judgment is to know which fight to pick.

British knew when to stop fighting when they demolished the embankments around Damodar river (Sorrow of Bengal) in 1850s. Learning from Damodar experience, they refrained from building embankments for Koshi River (Sorrow of Bihar). But since independent, armed with the vision of engineering and technology serving to help eradicate poverty and human sufferings, the governments started building complex levee systems. This mirrored US’s initiative to build series of complex levee and pumping system in New Orleans since it bought Louisiana from the French. The government and people in both countries (India and US), doesn’t quite realize the futility of this fight. New Orleans is sinking every day and according to some predictions, it will become a sunken Atlantis by 2100.

Image from Wikipedia – Ever sinking New Orleans, Vertical cross-section of New Orleans, showing maximum levee height of 23 feet (7 m) at the Mississippi River on the left and 17.5 feet (5 m) at Lake Pontachartrain on the right.

According to the latest reports, government of India is working to repair the breached embankment and redirect the river into the confinement again. Koshi River is now flowing approximately 60 km (38 mile) east of its last path. Looking at the picture below and realizing the magnitude of the shift, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to bring the river back again. Not to mention about the amount of money that will need to be pumped in to reconstruct the breached embankments.

Even if we assume that the government of India and its engineers will be able to redirect the river into confinement again, is this is a sustainable solution? Should we mess with Mother Nature once again only to be punished harshly yet gain in next 50 years! According to Hindu Legends, King Bhagiratha had to spend 1000 years praying in the wilderness to bring river Ganges from heaven to flow on earth. These girls are not easy to tame. Even when they are tamed, they are tamed to flow from heavens to earth not the other way around. That’s the lesson 101 for all the governments and their brilliant engineers. Water flows from high to low and the prudence is in letting her flow that way!

Satellite View of Koshi River in Bihar before the river changed course by approximately 60 km east during the August, 2008 flooding. See the barrage (looks like a bottleneck near the India-Nepal border) that diverts water from the river into two separate canals one to Nepal and other to India. The embankment leading upto the barrage is breached by almost a mile long and created a new flowpath cutting through the valley to join river Ganges at the bottom.

Living With Floods - Article by Naren Karunakaran

My previous blog - Owens river valley, Kaveri, Mullapperiyar - water disputes in the world and lessons learned

French Public Health Insurance System (PHIS) – An insider story of the reality.

2008-08-13T22:06:00.000-07:00

According to World Health Organization’s ranking of health care systems in 191 countries, France came first. The ranking was based on things like the number of years people lived in good health and whether everyone had access to good health care. The United States ranked 37th. Also two researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine measured something called the "amenable mortality”, a measure of deaths that could have been prevented with good health care. France came first among the 19 industrialized nations and United States was last.

So looks like French system is the best public health system in the world to me. But since I know of someone with firsthand experience of French Health System, I decided to hear from horse’s mouth. Christine is a French citizen, working in the US, and enjoys the benefits of French health care system. Although she is currently in the US, she is eligible for health care benefits under French System since she contributed to this system while she was working in France. I asked her which system she likes better, US or French system. She said, she likes the US system better. Her reason; she spends € 30 when she visits a primary doctor in France where as she pays $15 copayment in the US. It is cheaper for her to go to her primary doctor in the US.

Copayments:

It is no secret that copayments are high for many out-patient services in France. For example, patients must pay 30% of Social security's tariff for a physician's visit; moreover, roughly 40% of specialists and 15% of GPs are allowed to charge more than the tariff. Copayments are also high for dental prostheses and eye-ware.

So if Christine had visited a specialist, she would have paid a copayment of more than € 30 versus still $15 in the US. So I can understand why she wants to do her annual physical exams in the US before taking off for a vacation to join her mom in France.

What if she were working for an employer in France? The story would have been different. Half of her copayment of € 30 would have been picked up by a supplementary private insurance (employer pays for most of the private insurance premium) and would still have € 15 out of pocket expense. These numbers will be higher for specialists while in the US, it remains the same as long as it is an office visit.

Cost of Insurance:

So how much does it to cost this type of insurance? Since she is getting a lower benefit and higher out of pocket expense, you would think she would be paying a lower premium in France. About 21 percent of an employee’s income is deducted through payroll towards the national health care system. Employers pick up a little more than half of that. In addition to this, employees may be able to join group private insurance sponsored by employer to cover much of the gap between what is covered by the national plan and the actual medical expense. Or they can buy a private insurance at an additional 3-4% of their income. Between the employer and employee, the total health care cost in France per employee is around 25% of the individual income. In the US, according to Department of Labor March 2008 report, the health care cost to the employer stands around 7.2% of the total compensation. Assuming another 3-5% is passed onto employees, the health care premium in the US stands at around half of what French are paying in percentage terms. In absolute currency terms, US might be spending more on health care per person, and that’s because of the higher wage and cost structure in the US.

Universal Healthcare Insurance (CMU):

What if you are among the 10% unemployed in France? Since you don’t have a job, you don’t have a supplementary insurance and then you are stuck with high out of pocket expenses. Most of them stayed away from seeking care. In January 2000, public supplementary insurance program called CMU (Couverture maladie universelle) was implemented to ensure the poor access to health care. For those whose income is below a certain threshold, this insurance covers all public copayments and offers lumps-sum reimbursements for glasses and dental prostheses.

Does this sound too good to be true? According to published articles, in a city like Paris, only a 20% of specialists are willing to take CMU patients. This confirms what Christine told me, “The provider may not give an appointment when they know the patient is on CMU program. They may say we don’t have an appointment for next six months!” Essentially, CMU created a two tier class system of health care which it sought to alleviate in the first place. Have you heard of “HMO Bounce” lately?

There must be something right about French:

This is what is right about the French system. In France, for people with one of 30 long-term and expensive illnesses — such as diabetes, mental illness and cancer — the government picks up 100 percent of their health care costs, including surgeries, therapies and drugs. This is probably the most important lesson from French system. In the US, since the insurance is tied to employment, long term sickness can lead to job loss and subsequent loss of insurance.

Why shouldn’t we go down French Lane:

It is expensive and it has higher out of pocket expenses. Nobody in the US wants to see 25% of their income going into health care insurance. The cost doesn’t end there. To fund the new universal health care (CMU), French government is channeling funds from other welfare programs. France funds their welfare system by taxing the employer and employee to very high levels that is uncommon in the US. According to a CATO institute Article, “The top marginal income tax rate (in France) is 48 percent. When payroll taxes are included, the French can pay as much as 65 percent of their income in taxes. The top corporate tax rate is 34 percent. There is also a 19.6 percent value-added tax (VAT). Overall, taxes consume nearly 44 percent of France's GDP. And even this isn't enough to pay for the French welfare state. France's national debt tops 68 percent of GDP, quite aside from the unfunded liabilities of the French Social Security system -- a debt some estimate to exceed 200 percent of GDP.”

You think CATO is too much libertarian? You can believe Christine’s pay checks. For every 100 FRF paid to her, employer paid another 100 FRF to the government. From her share of FRF 100, government took away another FRF 50. So government kept roughly three times of what she got to keep!

Even after spending all these tax payers’ money, there is no guarantee of government efficiently running business. Think 10% unemployment. Think poor and shut away youths in their dismal neighborhood projects, rioting in the suburbs of France for weeks to protest the lack of educational and economic opportunity. Think Katrina. Think FEMA.

Governments give hopes to people. That’s all it can give and that’s all it should ever dare to give.

Here are some ideas that might work in the US:

1. Make it mandatory for everyone to carry health insurance. The logic of insurance is shared risk and when we have so many people outside of the pool, the risk is magnified. When more people join the insured pool, the cost of insurance comes down for everyone. Enforce this through payroll deduction or employer group insurance
2. If the employee cannot afford health insurance premium due to low wages (when cost of insurance eclipse the wage and employer does not want to pick up part of the insurance cost), the minimum wage should be adjusted upwards to cover cost of insurance (e.g. increase minimum wage by 7.2% to reflect the US Department of Labor average employer cost of health insurance)
3. Let employee buy their own insurance. Employees should be given an opt-out to skip employer sponsored group plan and buy insurance directly from insurance companies. The studies are already suggesting that the rate of private insurance premium is much lower than the employer sponsored group plan and it grows much slower than group plan. Employee should be able to keep this insurance indefinitely regardless of the employment status. The rate of increase in premium should be less than or equal to the rate change by the same insurance provider for an employer sponsored group plan for any given year. In the event of a company defaulting, due to insolvency, individual health insurance can be protected under an insurance guarantee like California Life & Health Insurance Guarantee Association.
4. Under COBRA, the employer is required to provide continued health care coverage for 18 months of termination. But if the employee could not take up a new job due to health reasons, he/she will lapse the coverage and mounting hospital bills will lead to bankruptcy. A possible solution might be to change the COBRA rules to allow employee to continue with health coverage and pay the group rate, regardless of his/her health condition, until the person takes up a new job. The coverage does not have to continue through the employer (due to administrative reasons) and can continue with the insurance company. If the person is unable to take up a full time job due to health reasons, the coverage shall continue indefinitely. During such period of extended coverage, the same out of pocket maximum limit would apply and will put a cap on medical expenses (couple of thousand dollars per year) especially when it is needed the most. Government can give tax credit to offset some of the medical premium paid during the illness period.
5. Just like in the Y2K days, bring lots of overseas programmers and IT Engineers into the US and build a national Electronic Medical Records system. This will be the best investment US can make since Y2K and Internet.
6. Allow Health Care providers to import drugs and medical supplies from less expensive countries. FDA can use some of the savings to beef up inspection of imported drugs and supplies.
7. Allow Health Care providers to bring in MD doctors from overseas and start practicing as Nurse Practitioners/Physician Assistant for a year and then allow them to practice as MD Doctors. It is absurd to make them go through a 3-5 year residency again. Doctors are not among the top 10 overpaid professionals in the US and hence I am not proposing to reduce their wages. But there is a severe shortage of qualified doctors which in turn manifest as shortage in qualified health care facility. With more doctors, there will be more health care facilities and there will be more competition among them. This will result in a tighter and efficient management of health care facilities and establish as a lean and business units. How about a Costco drive through clinic? How about buy one lipid profile test and get one free for the partner!

Health Care Lessons from France - NPR Article

The French Health Care System - Medical News Today Article

Employer Costs for Employee Compensation Summary - US Department of Labor

Universal Healthcare Insurance introduced - EIRO Article

Welfare Lessons from France - CATO Institute Article

Will he or Won’t he? Why Obama will not pick Hillary for Veep

2008-06-04T23:19:00.000-07:00

Lincoln took all of his chief rivals into his Cabinet. Lyndon Johnson put this subject in less noble fashion, "better to have your enemies inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in."

Obama himself said, “And, you know, one of my, one of my heroes is Abraham Lincoln. And a while back there was a wonderful book written by Doris Kearns Goodwin called "Team of Rivals," in which she talked about how Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his Cabinet because whatever, you know, personal feelings there were, the issue was how can we get this country through this time of crisis? And I think that has to be the approach that one takes”.

So why am I saying that he won’t pick her for the dream team? There are three reasons.

Reason # 1: Only a victor can be magnanimous not a warrior. The fight is not over yet. It is one thing to pick a cabinet after you win but totally another to pick a running mate. Obama is in the trenches, digging in, to take aim at McCain. He can’t afford the distraction of Hillary’s ice woman image; leave alone the 200 pound big Bill that comes with the package. One just can’t imagine Hillary next to Obama when standing under a larger than life banner that shouts “Change You Can Believe In”. Can you believe that Change?

Reason # 2: “Running Mate” word means a lot in presidential politics. One of the definitions of running mate, according to Webster, is “a horse entered in a race to set the pace for a horse of the same owner or stable”. Can you imagine Hillary setting the pace for Obama? If the elections were held before the invention of TV, people may not find much difference between the two. But in the days of presidential elections first won on the TV screens and ‘sound bites dominating the TV stories’, one can’t help notice Hillary’s inability to produce decent sound bites. One also can’t help notice the profound differences in their body language. Obama is like a kid in a candy store. Hillary is like a mom telling her child to behave. She is experienced to run the house but he is enthusiastic about changing the neighborhood. She is boring in her pant suits and he is crisp in Michelle picked attire. She is clean and he is smelly (by Michelle's own accounts). She is a predictable lanline and he is Voice Over IP (VOIP). She is still useful and dependable VHS and he is fancy but scratch able Blu-ray. She is old school and he is new age. She is we-tube generation and he is you-tube generation. She is the mom and he is the cool kid. Ask any kid if they wanted to be spotted with his mom outside of the soccer ground.

Reason # 3: Obama doesn’t fear losing this campaign. He is smart enough not to negotiate under fear. He will not fear to negotiate her out of the ticket. The presidency is his to take with or without Hillary. It is truer without Hillary on ticket than with her. He knows, in politics, that momentum is everything. Simple arithmetic of adding her voters to his side doesn’t work. He will get them; on his own. He won’t trade the opportunity to negotiate with the rust belt for anything in the world. He will not choose Hillary shortcut to get to them; being mindful of history is being made here. He will want to help shape the history. How a white collar black man won over the elderly blue collar white men and women to become the first black president of the most powerful country on earth. It will be a sensational but grainy and shaky you-tube story not a predictable but stable VHS story!

Kannur killings - modern day gladiators

2008-03-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

Seven men killed in the First week of March, 2008 in Kannur, Kerala. It started off with a group of people chasing and killing a young man from an opposition political party with long Sickles and hammers made to order from broken truck suspension leaves and such. Then the dominos killing one after the other. Young men between the ages of 20-30 mostly from the lower caste 'Thiyya' (ezhava) and living in extreme poverty were slaughtered in broad day light on rural roads, leaving the surviving family to the mercy of compensations provided by the respective party. (I was told that even the compensation is not handed over to the surviving family in full but they get the interest on the fixed deposit made by the party with withdrawal restriction on the the principal amount.)

Political killings in Kannur is not new. According to a report:

'Kannur has been limping from murder to murder since the 1970s, when the RSS began to grow influential in the area. In 1981, RSS and CPM workers were locked in a two week-long bloodbath that claimed 24 lives. Since then the cycle of violence has continued unabated, despite innumerable peace initiatives. In the past five years, some 3,500 incidents of political violence and 36 killings have been officially recorded in Kannur'.

In a state that boasts 100% literacy and near first world human development indexes, what makes one region resort to these extreme medieval violence? Hasn't the civilization made inroads into this part of the world where first Malayalam-English dictionary was written in 1872? Believe it or not, this region had a well established administration as early as 14th century AD under 'Kolathiri' Kingdom. It's history is ornated by 'vadakkan pattukal' (gladiator stories of chekavar men dueling to death to resolve the quarrels of the local rulers) and 'kalari payatu' (an indigenious form of martial art dating back to 12th century AD).

Chekavar is a warrior section of the Thiyya (Ezhava) caste who formed the militia of the local chieftains and kings. These men were skilled assassins and skilled in the deadly art of killing. Women folks sang the glories of the historic chekavars while working in the paddy fields. They do that even today in the fields; whatever is left of it after the Persian gulf remittance fueled massive farm land filling for construction.

Well, that history continues even today. Young men with little means dying for the ruling class. The ruling class is no longer the kings. The kings and chieftains are replaced by politicians who are groomed in a culture of violence starting as early as high school leader elections. But the chekavar's remains the same. In a rural system, aligning with a political party is the easiest way for the poor and aspiring youth to glory and redemption. They don't have the means to go to Persian Gulf to make a living. They dont have the education to get a job in the largest employer in the state, the state itself. They don't have the entrepreneurial skills to do business. The state has the highest unemployment in the country (by some accounts as high as 20%). So most of them work hard in the labor market to make a decent living and mortgage their lives to political leadership who promises salvation through struggle. They have even coined a word 'varga shathru' (Archenemy) to refer to people belongs to a different political party. With Hindu right wing trying to lure the lower caste men into their fold away from class based polarization, there is plenty of fuel for the fire. But both factions exploit the poverty, aspiration and above all the legacy of the chekavars who died killing fellow men for the ruling elite, leaving their family in a cyclic pattern of poverty, helplessness and violence.

Kerala High Court remarked 'Manslaughter is a sport in Kannur. Lucky are the ones who die a natural death in Tellicherry'. The Romans could be forgiven for the blood sport. But should the kannur politicians forgiven for pushing modern day gladiators into this heinous blood sport?

Murder’s On The Manifesto Here - Tehelka artcle"

Benazir Bhutto - making of the assassins, the poor choice to die

2007-12-27T20:44:00.000-08:00

1948—Jan. 30: Gandhi, 78, shot dead in New Delhi, by Nathuram Vinayak Godse
1959—Sept. 25: Prime Min. Solomon Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, by Buddhist monk in Colombo
1984—Oct. 31: Prime Min. Indira Gandhi shot and killed in New Delhi, by her body guards
1991—May 21: Ex Prime Min. Rajiv Gandhi killed in election rally, by a female suicide bomber
1993—May 1: Ranasinghe Premadasa, pres. of Sri Lanka, killed in a bomb blast in Colombo
2007—December 27: Benazir Bhutto shot dead in election rally in Rawalpindi

South Asian history has many assassins. From Hindu extremist to Budhist monk. From own security guards to female suicide bomber. From cyanide tablet worshipers to Islamic extremists. What makes them an assassin? What makes them loose everything they have in life in return of precious blood? Loose their spouses, loose their children and loose their family time around the dinner table? The reasons are plenty. But the underlying thread is the same. The poor choice to die for a cause than to live for the loved ones. Both the assassins and the assassinated!

This happened during the 90s in a 100% literate state of Kerala in a country when half of the country did not read or write. We were playing marbles or some thing like that in our courtyard. We had loud cries and commotion from a farm land a shout away. We all ran towards the field and what we saw was beyond narration. We saw pools of blood spilled all over the field while attackers chased one of my very distant cousin to death. People who reached before us told that he was lying in the middle of a drainage trench, carved in the middle of the field, soaked in blood. They saw 10-15 people running away from the scene with blood dripping weapons in their hands. He had 30 or so deep cuts all over him from knives, axes and other rudimentary weapons. His limbs were hanging off his body while people scurried him away to the hospital. Doctors spent hours in the operation room but could not save his life. Soon after his death, he became a 'Martyr' to his party and thousands thronged at his funeral. He was killed for an angry exchange with his opponent party workers some time in the past, 'I don't fear death for speaking out against your tyranny'. He died at the hands of the tyrants.

The people who killed the man belonged to a different political party. Thats is right. No ethnic cleansing, no religious riot, no communal violence. Political killings! Some past accounts of frivolous rivalry turned into a brutal killing. Those who got sentencing spent years in Jail. But they get heroic welcome by the party men when they came out on parole. Very young men, with simple desires like any other young men in the rural life. Watch a movie from a local theater, play cards with friends, get drunk over the weekend and find ways to get laid, which is forbidden until one is married. But they lost every thing in a jiffy. They lost precious years of their prime life inside the walls of the central jail. And they thought they were destined to be the heroes of the party which they foolishly served like herds. Martyr lost his life for nothing. But the party gained a 'Martyr'. The story repeated many times over. With parties trading places, some times creating martyr and some other time gaining one.

Every society celebrated martyrs. Martyrs who gave up their life for a cause larger than their life. Larger than their love for their spouse. Larger than their desire to hold their children's hands. Larger than their desire to get back home and share a meal with family after a day of back breaking chores of the day. People were told that their life is worth sacrificing for their religion. It is better to die for their country than live for their kids. The martyr's life after death is more tantalizing than a living man's struggle to live.

Societies do this to recruit volunteers to advance their organizational goals. When you need volunteers to kill, the reward can not just be monetary. Because you cant put a price on a man's life which will be taken away from him after he kills. So the price has to be higher. Something that is abstract and intangible. Something that can not be quantified. So the martyrdom is born.

The killed also contributes to the sense of dying for the cause than living for survivors. Three attempts on Gandhi's life in 1946 and 1947 did not mean much to Bappu. Indira Gandhi famously said, 'If I die today, every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation'. Rajiv Gandhi ignored threats to his life when he desperately tried to get back to the rank and file of ordinary people after loosing touch with them after the Bofors scandal. Benazir Bhutto told reporters few months before her death that she does not fear death and no one kill any one until his or her time to die. She almost got killed on her day of return to Pakistan. But she considered her life worthless put against the larger scheme of things. She preferred to be killed than watching Pakistan election on a TV screen from exile.

It took 78 years to make a Gandhi. Bhutto is no Gandhi, but she represented the best of Pakistan. With all the corruption charges against her and her family, she represented the moderate liberal and peace loving Muslims in a country where extremists thrive to impose a Wahhabi version of Islam on to its people. 54 years made into the making of the promise of Pakistan's democratic aspirations. All that years of work is shattered with her desire to emerge through the sun roof of her Land Cruiser or so says Pakistani establishment. Is she better off dead than alive with all her flaws and missteps? Is PPP better off now than before? Is Pakistan better off now than before? No. But she didn't see it when she was alive. But the assassins could see it. The sad part is that assassins were just living the fake glory of martyrdom, created by the society so that it could dispense some cheap lives to take away some pricey ones. Alas, the assassins doesn't see that trap.

Has death ever been better than life? Is there any cause that is worth trading one's life. If you ask me, I will say NO. Not only that I hate to be survived by wife and son but I hate to be survived by the cause!

Musharaf and Sharif - You shall not become the Law;Law is Blind!

Dollar Vs Euro - Why Warren Buffet will be wrong on this or I wish he is...

2007-12-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

Every time dollar hits a new low, I remember a discussion I had with my cousin brother, who works for Saudi govt, back in the winter of 2005. I argued that dollar will appreciate against Euro in 2006 due to the rate hikes by US Fed and expanding US economy. Indian Rupee will also weaken due to India's increasing energy bills to support expanding economy and maturing foreign investments in Indian stock market. In fact, both Euro and Rupee gained against dollar in most of 2006 (Dollar gained against rupee in the first half of 2006 but then started shedding value in the second half) . 2007 saw a steady erosion of Dollar against Rupee and most other currencies. So in the nutshell, if my cousin converted his US dollar pegged assets (Saudi Riyal is pegged to USD) into Euro in early 2006, he could have averted a 20% slide in value. If he had migrated to Euro in early 2003, he could have avoided a 30% slide. So clearly I was wrong and I feel partially guilty of directing him in a wrong direction.

Part of the reason for my lack of love for Euro was personal. We were in Europe for two weeks just before Europe adopted a single currency system. We were very excited to go to Europe and see first hand the mystery of Europe. The old port town and diamond capital of the world Antwerp, European Union's capital Brussels, The fun capital of the Europe Amsterdam and then of course the sophisticated Paris. We liked what we saw. High speed cross country train ride. Went to Louvre and saw Davinci Code! Had crape on the streets. Struggled to communicate to the French. Enjoyed the hospitality of the Brussels Business men at a very large brewery. Took a peek at the wax and sex museum in Amsterdam not to mention the lovely canal rides. Small cars and narrow cobble stone streets. Notre-Dame cathedral and Historic buildings. War memorials. Overall, a sense and sensibility of history guiding even a stroll to McDonalds. BTW, we were so homesick of US and ate McDonalds and Soda in Paris skipping famed Pinot Noir and breads!

Credit card rip off by a taxi driver in Antwerp who put an extra zero in the credit card slip, a scam artist at a Paris central station who buys non French speaking tourists one way train ticket saying that it is for a week unlimited travel, glass of water is billed the same as glass of soda, no free soda refill at restaurants, sleeping on small crammed beds, paying extra for having my wife as a guest in the room and paying lot more for everything else made us miss US so badly. It also taught us never to forget the boring common sense travel tips from grandma even if you are in Europe!

Putting it all together, we realized that Europe is no US in many good ways and many not so good ways. Just months before the Europe trip, we had a marathon tour in the US where we drove from Baltimore to DC to New York to Niagara. Got a free SUV upgrade from the rental counter (this is when the gasoline cost was $1.50 per gallon) from a compact car, Slept in oversize Eastern King beds, had free refills of extra large soda everywhere, almost always we could split a single meal into two, paid less than $50 per night at Sheraton through internet deal, over all we had a super sized experience. But the most historic places are not quite historic by European standards. Most historic down towns in US are as old or as recent, as a foreign tourist will say, as Route 66.

That is when the realization started sinking in. Europe represents the past and US the present and possibly the future. Europe is expensive and exclusive while US is efficient and inclusive. While America does not have the burden of history pulling it down, she also has no frame of reference about building great things. So she builds THE greatest! The greatest gold rush, greatest sub division madness in the west, greatest trading markets, greatest banks and investment companies, greatest technology companies, greatest movie industry, greatest universities and greatest junk food companies. On the flip side, even when they make blunders, that assume great proportions. Greatest market meltdowns, Greatest military blunders in Vietnam and now in Iraq, greatest corporate scandals, greatest automobile disaster brewing in Detroit, greatest sub prime credit crisis in modern day economics, greatest trade deficit by any country, the list goes on. When US makes a mistake, the world punish her very harshly. The Dollar hating going on in the world right now is no exception. It is a statement and warning by the world that they want US to make amends. Not an outright rejection, but because the world has higher standards for US.

It is no secret that us trade deficit with other countries would have an impact on the dollar value in the long run. The oracle of the US, Warren Buffet warned in 2003 of dire consequences if US did not act on reducing trade deficits in a war footing basis. (See the link below). But what is surprising is that Europe is not growing any faster than US and Europenas are not working any harder but still people have a new found love with euro. It is mostly sentimental and euro in the long run will not stand up to $. Not until the French unions stop acting like trade unions in Kerala (An India State where you pay workers to unload tiles for your kitchen or you pay them and do it your self if you are DoItYourself type). Europe's iconic Airbus engineers drew the wiring for A380 in 2-D and fell much short when they tried to wire the 3-D space. Engineering Drawing 101! (Read my previous post on Airbus A380's wiring problem)

Once the envy of the world, German cars are loosing market share to Lexus and Infinity. So from no angle, I see a resurgent Europe except in exchange rate graph. Euro is the new fashion statement to people who does not like US and Bush. But it will fade as new president takes charge in early 2009 and by that time US would have wiped out a lot of trade deficit simply by allowing dollar to sink. In fact that is a calculated move by the US to increase US exports and decrease imports and there by balancing decade long deficit spending. So this trend will continue for some more time until foreigners with excess forex like Chinese, Indians, Arabs and find US assets too cheap to resist and start buying them in bulk. Dubai poured in billions into Citi bank. Even Mahindra is buying a us auto plant. Believe it or not, I found a MADE IN USA TOY at target. Finally, manufacturing is making a come back to the US. US has the most advanced market in the world and as long as foreigners have a liking for us assets and properties, dollar will not melt down as many fear now. But another 20-25% slide in dollar will not be a surprise in the next couple of years. But that is my assessment and you know how I was wrong in the past and have no credentials on this subject :)

Dollar to rupee relation is much more complicated. If India continues to grow at the current rate (which might be difficult considering the impact of rising oil prices on india's growth) rupee has to appreciate to reflect the new wealth. But the reality is that rupee has gained unusual momentum in the last 6 months due to hedge fund and pension fund managers from the us pouring billions into Indian market riding BSE on steroids. With sub prime securities no longer an investment option, us investors are flocking into emerging market. The hedge funds are like herds. They go together and come back together. So there will be a coming back home time for all the us $ some time in the next two years and rupee will slide back to 45-47 range. Having said that, rupee will be around 25-30 in next 25 years because of the huge growth potential india has over US in the long run.

So brace for a stock market crash in India some time in 08-09 as the hedgies pull out with a huge sucking sound. It will give a temporary window of opportunity to transfer some $ denominated instruments to rupees similar to an opportunity when BJP govt fell and left backed govt came to power.

Long post. Let me stop by repeating the cliche, dont put all the eggs in one basket. You will never loose if you diversify. Have assets in many instruments. Some stocks, some forex, some dollar, some euro, some real estate, some cash, some gold. Even an emergency preparedness kit is million dollar worth when it matters the most.

Pardon my foolish audacity to write about something I can claim no authority. But one thing I can say with conviction is that a country which can produce Warren Buffet and Bill gates will not be an easy push over for centuries to come.

Warren Buffet's prediction: Growing Trade Deficit and Dollar Decline 2003 article

Dhoni’s Devils – Enjoy while it lasts!

2007-09-24T20:16:00.000-07:00

Being an underdog is a good thing since it takes away the pressure of high expectations. Expectations can be a very bad thing for a team especially when you are not Aussies. Oops, you can’t say the same about even the Aussies after you see Dhoni’s devils steal the victory away from Aussies from the jaws of a certain defeat. ‘Chak De’ will play 24x7 on national TV with split screen images of Dhoni and Kapil lifting the world cups.

Enjoy while it lasts. Replay your recording many times over until you get bored of camera zoom to the ‘Chak De’ Khan. Because…. This may not happen again for a long time to come.

The newly found camaraderie and team work will slowly fade to individual records without team win. The ability to fight back will again be replaced by surrender of the herd. The courage to experiment will soon be replaced by reluctance to force follow-on. Last over thrillers will no longer be decided only in India’s favor. Another Miandad will send another Chetan Sharma for a last ball Sixer.

The young bloods like RP Sharma and Gautam Gambhir will start getting huge endorsements and become veterans and eventually loose form. The Captain will try to do a ‘Dravid on Virender’ on out of form player by saying ‘this chap made a triple century in the past’.

Having been such a cynic in this moment of joy, i must end this with a positive note. That is, Dhoni promises a lot of devilish acts in the years to come. Just like the original devil Kapil except that Dhoni became the devil little too early for any one to predict :)See my previous post on Cricket's dirty way of life

Musharaf and Sharif - You shall not become the Law;Law is Blind!

2007-09-09T23:39:00.000-07:00

As I write this, reports of Nawaz Sharif being forcefully deported back to Saudi are flashing the TV Screen. Regardless of what happens to him in the days ahead in Saudi one wonder what made him return to the troubled country amid the prospect of him deported back to Saudi or arrested by Musharaf's police. Is it the love for the people of Pakistan or is it his commitment to a democratic Pakistan? Or the astute politician in him sensed the right opportunity to stake claim to the higher office of the land, which was taken away from him by Musharaf in a bloodless coup.

Whatever might be the answer, this poses a bigger question. Is a country better off with a corrupt politician returning back from royal and luxurious exile or with a Military dictator who ousted the corrupt leader and promised to clean up the dirt from the public life? Nawaz accepted a deal to flee the country when the public opinion was against him and when the life in jail was a certainty. He chose to trade his power for a princely life in Saudi. Majority of Pakistani people then considered Nawaz's exile a victory for democracy. Having celebrated a Military dictator taking over the country from a democratically elected premier, Pakistan demonstrated one of the nuances of budding democracy in the third world. Now it is time again to demonstrate yet another contradiction by sympathizing for Sharif, who amassed disproportionate wealth while being in power at the expense of the poor Pakistani common folks. General Musharaf's public support is wafer thin and it is now seen as the victory of human soul against the military might that leader of the 7th largest military in the world find himself in the middle of a quicksand of loosing power and place in public imagination. It is not enough to be right. One has to be right at the right time, which is always in a land of eternal conflicts, physical and idealogical.

The US demonstrated their idea of democracy when they supported an Army General, who threw out a democratically elected Prime minister, when he promised to help the US crack down on Taliban. But it is not unusual for US to support undemocratic leaders when it helps the US interest. So there is no surprise. Condy Rice is probably working over time now to formulate a policy when Musharaf will have to give up the power to another civilian leader. But her concern over the Nukes will be of utmost interest to her than her love for democracy, when formulating US policy.

There are no simple answers to these contradictions. Democracy in neighboring India is much stable and is the most populous democratic country in the world. But even after 60 years of democratic institutions and exercises, India still tolerate very corrupt career politicians. Politicians routinely escape corruption charges amounting millions of rupees. Seldom a politician spent time in Jail for corruption charges. Unlike Pakistan army, Indian army resisted the temptation of taking over the executive. They tolerated corrupt and inefficient leaders. In some instances they adopted the policy 'If you cant beat them, join them'. Expensive military gears bought for the army men's use in world's tallest battle field, Siachen, were found in the local bazar for public to buy.

That is the lesson for the world. A country gets its leader they deserve. They get corrupt leader when the corruption is rampant in the society. They get inefficient leader when the entire system is inefficient. They get monarchy when they are loyal to the royal blood. They get military dictator when the civilian leadership fails.

When some one else try to impose ethics and efficiency and democratic values from outside, it wont last long. The country will fall back to the mean eventually. It is just a matter of time. There is a saying in my language. 'If you beat the fruit to ripen, it will never be sweet'. Hope Condi and Bush can learn from this lesson. Never beat IRAQ to ripen to the democratic fruit of the middle east!

There is one more important lesson that shall not be forgotten. 'You shall not become the Law;Law is Blind'! Musharaf took the rule of the land in his hand when he ousted Sharif and took control of the country. Musharaf negotiated an unconstitutional deal with Nawaz to allow him escape from the law of the land. Sharif now questions the existence of the agreement which required him to stay in exile for 10 years. Musharaf forced the then president to retire and assumed the dual role of President and Army Chief. Musharaf threw out Supreme Court Chief justice only to be brought back under intense public anger. He now deported Nawaz Sharif back to Saudi against the Supreme Court order allowing Sharif brothers to come back to Pakistan. The official position is that technically they met Supreme court order 'allowing them to come back to Pakistan' citing that they allowed Sharif to land in Pakistani soil only to be deported in few hours of landing! What a silly argument to come from the head of a state. Musharaf is blind. He cant see what he has to be seeing now. His fall from grace to just another military dictator who lost love with the masses;albeit unfortunate. It does not matter if John Stewart would prefer to have High Tea with the General. He might just ask the staff not to sweeten it with the sugar from Sharif's questionable sugar mills.

Defending Subprime lending - case for democratic economy

2007-08-18T21:56:00.000-07:00

There is not a single day goes by without the media do not report the subprime meltdown unfolding in the US credit market. As much as I admit my ignorance on the intricate details of how my mortgage is split into million little pieces and sold to million little investors around the globe, I want to share my own experience of subprime lending if I could call it that.

Years back, actually 15 years back, I was in charge of a rural financial investment and lending scheme that was setup for the mutual benefit of the rural labor class people who did not have enough means to do transaction with a commercial bank. Here is how it worked.

The setup is a small wooden bench, an accounting book and myself sitting at a public open place between 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM every Saturday. I was in college then and they thought that they could trust me with their hard earned money. The members brought a small share of their weekly earning and I made a proper record of the deposit. The amount varied between Rupees 2 (5 cents in today's rate) and Rupees 100 ($2.5 per week). You must be beginning to wonder what we did with the money. Well, we lend money to people who wont qualify for a loan from the traditional banks especially the then notoriously credit tight nationalized Banks. Remember, this is before Muhammad Yunus's Nobel win and days when many did not know much about the concept of micro credits.

The amount of loan varied too. We loaned as small as 5 cents and as high as few dollars. They come to loan to buy school supplies for their kids, to buy weekly ration or some times to pay for the doctor's fee which ran anywhere from 25 cents to a dollar. Doctors were very mean most of the time. They would prescribe the newest medicine concoction cooked up by the pharma companies and ask them to 'come back in a week after trying this medicine'. The poor men and women would go back next week after 'trying' the medicine for a week only to be given prescription for a new medicine. Medical issues apart, they would come for money to make donations to conduct a marriage in their neighborhood, to buy some glass bangles for their loved ones in the annual village festivals. And some other times to buy the coconut leaves to cover their leaking roofs.

Of course, there was credit risk. Some of the loans were never repaid. But we compensated it by charging higher interest rates to every one who borrowed. We did not know that it is called 'Sub prime' in the economic lexicon. But it was the wisdom prevailed among the villagers for decades if not centuries. Even those who made regular repayments knew about the defaulters name. But they did not mind since they knew about the circumstances that caused the person to default and hoped to hedge that risk with higher rate they charge for their lending. It was a social understanding. Some times, well to do families also put their money into the scheme. They would get higher return on their money through this scheme since we lend money at higher than normal interest rates. We charged higher interest rates than Yunus's Grameen Bank. But like grameen bank, the profits were shared by the members proportionately. The high interest rates went to finance the subprime credits.

So what is the difference between the subprime lending in my tiny village and the subprime lending that created unprecedented real estate wealth in the US in the last half decade? It is the scale and complexity of the enterprise. Apart from that, both represent the same intention. Finance credits that are not credit worthy by mainstream banking standards and potentially benefit from it. The investors benefit from it as well as the person took the loan. Sub prime loan enabled them to put a new thatch roof to their humble abode. It enabled people with less than 600 FICO score own a piece of the south land California who otherwise were told by the glass box bankers in the past that they were not worthy of credit. Credit was the privilege of the few but sub prime made it the passion of the many. Sub prime did what Internet did to information. Information is not the privilege of network TVs and syndicated journalists any more. It is the passion of Matt Drudge and Ariana Huffington and alike. Subprime allowed the free flow of capital and credit across the US landscape that created dreams, hopes and immense wealth. Sure few hiccups and defaults. The melt down may take Countrywide along with it plus many frothy real estate markets. After the bubble burst, a new sub prime lending will emerge. Quite like the Web 2.0, Sub prime 2.0! Never underestimate the power of YOULOAN.
TIME article - Real Estate's Fault Line

The courage to return and fear of failure - Gandhi My Father

2007-08-11T18:51:00.000-07:00

M.K Gandhi went to South Africa as a young lawyer to handle a law suit involving an Indian firm. He was supposed to work in South Africa for a year. But he stayed on and worked his way up in the profession. He bought a bungalow in the luxurious Cape Town suburb Fresnaye. He sent his eldest son to the best western style school in South Africa and eventually got a law degree from Oxford. Gandhi established one of the top law firms in South Africa and Harilal joined his law firm. Years later Harilal continued to create and amass wealth and professional clout that is unmatched by any other law firm in the history of common wealth.

Harilal, eldest son of Gandhi

You know the history, it did not turn out to be this way. Gandhi went back to India and liberated millions into a new world of freedom and liberty. But he paid a huge price for his return. Gandhi rebelled everything western and did not allow his son Harilal to study law as Gandhi's rebellion against western education. Harilal rebelled Mahatma. 'Gandhi My Father' is born.

Century later, in the new millennium, immigrant parents are grappling with the same dilemma. To go back or Not? This is the same question every first generation immigrant parent tussled with. Even when Bhagat Singh Thind and likes were fighting their right to naturalize in the US supreme court, many parents were fighting the internal urge to go back to the home land. The fundamental struggle was to find an answer to the nagging question. Will their sons and daughters rebel against the parents for taking them away from the land of opportunity to land of poverty, despair and ruins of the bygone glories of the ancient heritage and history.

Will their sons and daughters be better off with a western education in the west or do well in India? Will they ever be capable of being a world citizen that can match the best personalities of the world, if brought up in India? Could they have become Bono? Could they have become Oprah? Gates or Warren Buffet? Page or Brin? Could he/she have ever overcome the grueling competition to get away from mediocrity without loosing the greater purpose in life? Can my son ever intern for John Stewards without worrying about IIT-JEE exam or GMAT?

That is the old story. The times have changed. The table is turned upside down, well, almost. If you probe little deep, the anxiety of the current generation of immigrants, like myself, about the children's education and their personal development gives way to something that is more deeper and pervasive. The fear of failure in the emerging India! Once they were the best and brightest in their home country. The ones who dared to take on challenges. The ones who rose from the millions and became a few. Not any more. Many of my friends candidly admit that they will never make it it in new India if they go back. I tell myself that it will be incredibly challenging to survive, let alone succeed, in the new corporate India where the smartest, sharpest and most informed work force compete for triple digit salary hikes. And without those triple digit salary increases, one cant hope to make the payment on their three bed room flats in Koramangala, let alone dream of a dust in Malabar Hills or Chanakya Puri.

But the economic reasons to go back are ever stronger. The dollar is falling slowly and steadily. The salary in the US grows at lower single digit while in India it can double every 3-4 years. The net savings gap is closing in fast and furious. Triple digit real estate gains in India shame the US housing boom. Noida buyer bought a piece of land for 30 lakhs and sold for 165 lakhs in 3 years, a whopping 500% gain!

Your kid could be crushed aside by the millions of young and assertive Indian kids raving to prove their place in the world. 95% marks for your kid wont get you a place in Delhi University. It will be far easier to get into MIT than IITs. It will be far easier to win American Idol than Voice of India. It will be far easier to win Miss US than Miss India. Miss USA Tara Conner will never pass the first round of Miss India not because Indian girls are better but because they are smarter not to do the things Tara enjoyed doing. Bollywood will eclipse Hollywood by its sheer volume and billions of viewers it attracts across the world in a rush to prove to the world, 'Billion desis can not be wrong'!

Billion people are watching you, through the prism of thousands of years of artistic and intellectual excellence trying to find a reflection of the eternal greatness once achieved in this land. You simply cant walk away from the rigor with tight jeans and iPods. Gray matter needs to outweigh Gadgets. Your voice and your steps will be judged against the scriptures of Natyashastra of Vedic Times. There is no place for mediocrity. Period.

So what will make you return to modern and raving India? It will sure not be for an easier life. It will be very tough for you and your kids. You will never be able to make peace with the sub par material world . You will return only for some thing larger than our life. Some thing that is worth trading the easy life in the west. Like the hope of freedom of the millions of fellow Indians that made Gandhi return. There is a new freedom struggle waiting to brew in India as you read this. That is the struggle of the rural India to be financially free from the dal roti grind. The boys and girls who never heard of IITs and NIFT. The parents who never ate a pav wrapped in paper with meat patty in between. The only motorized vehicle they ever rode was Tractor but no Camry.

It will take immense courage and determination to be part of the economic freedom movement. To sacrifice everything west has to offer and work to make a difference in millions of fellow Indians who are left out of the new found wealth. The courage to realize that the only fear we have to fear is fear itself. The kind of courage that was eventually ridiculed by his own Son when he took a new name 'Abdulla Gandhi'.

Bazar boys, GOOPPLE men and Selfish Me

2007-07-04T17:46:00.000-07:00

Apple and Google are the coolest corporations in our life time and it is an irony that neither of them seems to be thrilled at the idea of open source development, which is the new religion of the coolest. It make me wonder why they don't develop their products in the 'bazar with ample eye balls to make the bugs shallow'. The reason might be simpler than you think. You don't wonder why religions prefer to cross swords than cross their paths to make friends.

It is religion at Apple. It is another religion at Google. They don't think that the bazar has any eye ball worthy of zeroing on the iPods and AdWords before rolling out to millions of people in near perfection. It is not easy to get a job with Jobs (Steve). It is not easy to keep that job with Jobs. They believe in the superiority of their team among two legged Homosapiens roaming the larger earth without any purpose other than to eat, mate and procreate. Same is with Google. They post math puzzles in billboards to challenge passers-by to solve complicated math problem that leads them to a website which eventually leads to Google web page asking to submit resume of the brainy ones who solved many complex puzzles in the process to get there. They don't believe that John Smith from the bazar is any good to make their perfect software or hardware. They are the chosen ones.

If you don't have a computer science degree from Stanford to work for Google, or don't have the iVision to work for Apple, then you have two choices.

The first one is obvious. To work for other companies who do not provide gourmet dinner and washing machine in the campus along with other services to let you live at work. Work for a company who does not make sexy products like iPod and iPhone.

The second option is tricky. With this option, you will not get free hair cut at work. You will not get free car wash and oil change while you are coding. You have to do your laundry at home. But you will be able to feel the emotional energy of the Apple employees working on the coolest products. But you will have to make the mortgage payments on PayPal donations. I am talking about open source developer if you have not guessed it already.

By no means I am downplaying the smartness of the open source programmers. In fact, they are probably the only ones who can challenge, and probably succeed, the infallibility of the GOOPPLE boys. But they are like the romantic communists of the bygone era. Remember Che? The smartest, youngest and brightest young man fought in Cuba and killed in Bolivia to bring justice and equality among mankind. Little did he know that his sweat and blood would later be used by Castro to amass power and wealth enough to be named among the world's richest heads of state by Forbes. Thousands of programmers spent sleep less nights to program Linux and now Red Hat is making money on it today. Sure they dreamed of a better software system and better world where every poor child in the world can run a computer without paying for Windows. Noble cause indeed; just like the cause to make a better world by spreading world's wealth among the starving poor and laboring men and woman. The world had seen cold war and walls crumbling. The world hasn't changed a bit since communist manifesto. The gap between the rich and poor is exponentially growing. Today, an average CEO makes 500 times more than his/her average worker. That is going up north with private investors luring the best of them with many fold higher compensation. So why do you think a bunch of bright bazar programmers can change the world this time around?

Meanwhile, mere mortals like me will forever be playing third fiddle to GOOPPLE and Bazar boys. But I get paid every other week for writing some code that is as good as the one written in sand. I rewrite the code pretty much every day to fix the bug that I created while fixing another. I swear to god that I would have never imagined something like an iPhone. My vision is limited to what I see today, not what the world will see tomorrow. I have no hopes of working for GOOPPLE. I have no smartness to build tabs in a web browser. So my only option is to work for a Non-GOOPPLE company and make a paycheck. And for that noble cause of survival, I consider the bazar boys to be threat No 1 to my existence.

If they wrote open source google, no one will use it. If they build open source iPhone, no one will buy it. But if they write open source software to compete with the software my company makes, people from France, Germany, Korea, Japan, India and host of other countries will use them instead of my company software. Software sales will plummet and my company will lay me off from the job. My mortgage payment will stop and bank will foreclose my house. My son will stop going to school. We will sell our cars and buy a cheap bike from Walmart. That is a very scary thought and my American dream will be in deep trouble.

Apart from selfish reasoning, like any other human being, I want better systems and better world. In fact, I am using Firefox to write this blog. I want to see the poor kids in Indian villages use computers and one day pull themselves out of the poverty and hopelessness. But I just don't know how open source model can be sustained in a world where millionaire investors pay few millions to hire the smartest AI brains to build web 3.0 a.k.a semantic web. People line up all day in front of Apple stores to get the first iPhones. Kids and parents sleep in front of book stores to get the first copies of Harry Potter. People are ready to pay for the stuff that originates in some one's brain. VCs are willing to invest in ideas in the hope of making manifold return of their investments. If everything is to be given away free, America as we know today as the hotbed of innovation is dead. In the US, people work for money and good life that comes with it. I just don't see how philanthropy and noble ideas can beat American's desire to make money. If only every one told the secret of mining gold to passers by on Route 66. That is what killed communism in the very early days when Engels wrote to Karl Marx that the discovery of gold was a case "not provided for in the Manifesto: the creation of large new markets out of nothing."

Why I wont be a 'Happier' Billionaire

2007-06-30T18:39:00.000-07:00

You may be thinking that I am a billionaire already and not very happy about that. No, that is not true. I am yet to become a millionaire let alone a billionaire. But every one is telling me that money does not buy happiness. The happiness research reveals that gross happiness income for a US family is 50K per year. Below 50K, you are unhappy and above that you are happy but no less happy than some one makes millions. So why bother making lot of money or at least that is my tortured logic on money matters.

But still, there must be some thing that the rich people love about money. What could be that?It is definitely not happiness because I have seen rich people cry in live TV. But sure, Larry King will talk to them for a full hour on live TV when they get in trouble. But then family friend Barbara Walters will say every thing about Paris Hilton getting into jail for violating the probation is "beneath me". Wealth does not seem to help the rich much in this country except that they can hire Johnny Cochran to say 'If the glove does not fit, you must acquit'. I am neither planning to drive drunk on the opposite direction of the freeway nor planning to write a book 'If I did it'!

So what is it then? Is it the charm of flying a Cessna? But that cant be much fun since I never enjoyed a ride in a much larger Boeing. I hate the plane toilets. But there are some benefits of flying your own jet. You don't have to take off your shoes at the security. Plus you don't need to cram the quart size zip lock bag with 3 oz shaving cream and gels.

It must be the exotic tropical islands the billionaires own. But then can you live in an island just by yourself? I thought it is pretty tough to be in a cast away island just talking to a valley ball all day all week all month all year! May be one could bring their friends and family to the island but then the whole point is to live exclusively in tropical islands.

Another possibility is that I could pay my way into space in a Russian rocket. I never had the courage to take one of the magic mountain rides yet fearing the zero gravity falls. Why would I then spend my millions to be crammed in a space that is perhaps narrower than the statue of liberty crown. I wont.

So my options are really limited. Oh I almost forgot that I could run for New York Mayor office using my own money. Then I realized that being an Indian national I cant even run for city council. I could run for higher office in India but there is no precedent in Indian history of a billionaire premier or a president. Having a degree from Oxford or London School of Economics is a much surer path to power than making lot of money.

The only option left is to give away money like Bill and Buffet. But that just reinforce what I have been hearing all along from happiness experts. Money does not buy happiness. In fact, they had to give away the the billions to be truly happy.

My first pay check, first car and first home; all gave me lot of happiness until I got to used to it soon. So getting the first million dollar will also pass just like any other material firsts. My best recollection of happiest moments had nothing to do with money. When my short story got published in a children's section of a magazine, when I scored then highest ever score for my school among the 1000+ students in the state exams, my cousin who came with me to check the admission list to IIT shouting to me, 'I see your name in the list!', weekend get aways to Sarojini Nagar market, first time I kissed my wife (of course after we got married; you stupid!) and first time I saw my son's face in ultra sound; these memories last a lifetime.

So the consensus is that I will not be a happier billionaire than what I am today. Yes, I can use couple of millions to buy a condo overlooking the pacific coast. I really don't enjoy the inland heat waves in summer. But by the time I have a million, a bottle of coke will cost $1,000 thanks to the sky rocketing price of corn syrup. All the corn in the world by then would go into to making flex fuels. Along with that, bulging US treasury debt and gap in social security would drive the inflation and tax rates to unimaginable heights that I would be lucky of I could buy 10 GOOG with my million!

The Bet - Anton Chechov's short story on Million Dollar Bet

This Ethanol madness must stop

2007-06-30T16:21:00.000-07:00

We are a nation that can be easily swayed in one way by Oreilly Factor at 8:00 PM and in exact opposite direction by John Stewart at 11:00 PM. In some instances we take longer to change our mind. We believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction when we invaded Iraq. But not any more. We believed organic food was better few years ago. Now local food is the fashion. We believed that driving solo in Hummer is the coolest thing to do. Then it changed to alien looking European sized hybrids. Now the madness is ethanol fuel E85. Some people call it flip flop but some call it brilliant Harvard material course correction.

We all believe the infallibility of our belief when we believe in some thing. Then we go to war, line up at whole foods, hang out at farmers market to get local food, buy Lexus hybrids and send the corn harvest straight into ethanol refineries instead of Kellogg. At this point in time, we decided to take side with 800 million people who own automobiles against 2 billion low income people, many of whom already spend more than half their income on food.

Engel's law (for Ernst Engel, a 19th century statistician) states that as you get rich, you spend proportionately less to eat. So for the rich folks in the the US, 10% of the total expenditure goes towards buying food where as people in Thailand spends 29% for food. If you go to a village in Etawah district in Northern India, that percentage might shoot up beyond 50%. So sky rocketing prices for food grain is not really our problem. Our problem is to reduce the cost of automobile ownership against the billions of people who survive on US food aid. Good people like Bono and Angelina will continue to fight the raw hunger prevailing among the poorest of poor of the world. We no longer will have surplus corn to send to distressed part of the world. Soon we will see bumper stickers in Los Angeles that reads 'I skipped cereal to buy ethanol' or 'I would rather not eat Tortilla'.

I have no shame in admitting that I was bread on US food aid in the late seventies. Star and stripe paper bags full of corn, soy and wheat distributed in elementary schools. Big cans of Corn oil to make the lunch meal. Not that we were starving like other unfortunate kids in other parts of the country, but I went to a rural village where there were still some kids who would have dropped out of school lacking free meal. By later seventies, we were beginning to be self sufficient in food and no longer needed US food aid as much as it needed in the fifties.

But poverty and malnutrition is still an evil among mankind. We are reminded of that only when Angelina adopt a girl from Africa or Bono appears on the cover of TIME. Rest of the time, we are busy crushing corn and soy into something that we can use to fill up our dream machines. Alas, E85 days ahead of us!

Two necessities, fuel and food, create spiral of rising prices

My previous post on Organic and Local food

Granite box and Bamboo Ceiling

2007-06-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

If you thought sky is the limit, you were not born in an Asian home. For “those Asians”, we have granite box and bamboo ceiling for our dreams. Heavy and non-abrasive walls of granite and light but sturdy bamboo canopy for the roof; abode for our dreams. We looked at the moon through the bamboo ceiling, never thought of going there. We took pride in our ancient mathematics that formed the basis for the astronauts to compute their path to the moon. We took pride in inventing zero without which the computer revolution would not have been possible. We, for long, tried to take solace in the fact that most of the modern scientific and technological advances in the modern times had a Vedic past. Be it Atoms, be it medicine and surgery, be it mathematics and astronomy or be it the concept of flying an aircraft. We banked heavily on the foundations laid by our forefathers without really being successful in advancing them. We were boxed in a granite cage; each stone telling glorious stories dating back thousands of years.

If you are an Indian kid, lot of time and energy is spent to make sure that you think inside the box. Lot of work is done to train the kid to win spelling bee even before they are potty trained. They all get a “doctor’s kit” toy to entice them of the joy of becoming a doctor. They solve math puzzles with such an ease and joy which adults can’t derive playing Grand Theft Auto. At age 3 they all learn to count and add! By age 5, their report card will say ‘extra ordinary in math and science and average in verbal and social skills’. Even when the parent does not try to raise the kid the “Indian Way”, this will happen. I don’t know if it’s in the genes or gene mutated to accommodate the box.

But they all have bamboo lattice through which they look at the skies and starts. They all grow up to get higher degrees in Science, Engineering or Medicine. The handful will end up making Sixth Sense (M Night Shyamalan) against their parent’s wishes to become neurosurgeons. But most actually become neurosurgeons and some get to practice on live TV (Dr Sanjay Gupta). When a newly wed couple walks into a car dealership, the sales person asks them with an air of sarcasm, ‘you guys don’t test drive before owning, do you?’ For which most of us will nod our head east west and north south in a classical Indian nod of the head.

I grew up in India, before India opened up to the world; we were told that we could become a high ranking officer within the prestigious and highly competitive Indian Administrative Services (IAS), if studied hard. Nobody told us that we could become politicians whom the IAS officers worked for with subordination and expected servitude. We were not told to become leaders but were told to work for the leaders. That was the time when an Indian woman lost an Olympic medal by thousandth of a second. Nobody told us to become an Olympian. Other options presented to us were doctors and engineers. Everything else was considered the options for the failed ones. Nobody dared to dream to be different. The cost of being different was very steep for middle class boys and girls. If they failed, they not only failed themselves but also the family. It doesn’t matter whether we did not dream to become Abraham Lincoln or Beatles or the dreams faded within the granite walls we were boxed in. I can’t blame my parents for telling me what I had to become. They wanted me to be an IAS officer. I could also become a doctor or engineer, in that order and anything else would be deemed “failure”. I did not even think of any other goal in life. I worked hard to fulfill my parents’ dream of their son bringing monthly salary that exceeded manifold to theirs. I finally became an engineer, their third preference, and when I brought home my first month wage, it far exceeded their combined monthly wage after working 30 years for the government. They declared me “successful”. My siblings were not that lucky. They started working for the government almost at the same level as my parents at retirement. They were just short of declared “failure”. I declared victory and felt very happy to be successful not realizing the world of success waiting outside of the box. But I never saw them, never bothered to see them. It was not my world.

If you grew up in the US to an India parent, you may have similar stories to share. Replace “IAS” with “Neurosurgeon” or “Engineer” with “IV League”. Your dreams were assigned to you. You did not pick your dreams. Except if you are Night Shyamalan or Russel Peterson and few others. I can’t blame the parents. Their generation saw famine and starvation. They saw poverty and death. They saw people with college degrees pulling themselves out of the misery and hopelessness that prevailed all around them. They believed that education is the only way to succeed. Because an entire generation of doctors and engineers and other professionals pulled off break from conditions ranging from middle class agonies to abject poverty. That became the gold standard for them. They did not grow up seeing school drop outs starting up tech revolutions and becoming millionaires and billionaires in the process. They did not grow up seeing million dollar endorsements to players. They saw people working hard to make it big, not working smart. Plus all the hard work guaranteed to take them somewhere ahead and nothing else guaranteed that.

So they ran dry clean machines and gas stations 24 x 7. They did more surgery than they would want. They worked very hard and paid their kids school bills. Asian kids did not have to work at burger joints or car wash. Their parents made sure that they paid the college bills in time. That does not help much with the boxed kids. While white kids work at Star bucks and Whole foods, they are learning the most invaluable lesson that no IV League can offer. Social skills to seamlessly fit into the society! Some of the kids get frustrated so hard that they end up shooting other helpless kids locked up inside the class rooms. A bloody reminder that isolation can never be a pleasant thing whatever may be the reasons for the isolation.

I am not being an ungrateful kid to my parents. They did what they thought the best for their kids. Their economic condition influenced their parenting style in a big way. Now that our generation is financially on a better footing than our parents, we have an opportunity to raise our kids outside of the granite box. Their survival will not be threatened if they failed to become a singer or football player or a movie maker. But then, there are no set rules for parenting. It all depends on the kid. I am sure the Hilton's did not raise Paris Hilton to go to jail for driving drunk on the opposite direction in a freeway.

Sophomore's film suggests cultural differences impede Asians' success

Capsicum Mushroom Chicken - Restaurant Style

2007-05-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

I don't know if this is an Indian recipe or Indian Chinese recipe. May be a combination of both. In any case, this is one of my favorite party buster.

Here is how I go about doing it.

Get fresh cut whole chicken and cut into further small pieces. Wash until the blood is pretty much washed and marinate with salt, paprika, ginger powder, garlic powder, freshly ground black pepper, paprika and chicken masala powder. Adjust the amount to get desired taste.

Cut red onions into half rings and saute in a large skillet with desired oil. Once the onion turns brown, add ginger garlic paste, long cut green chili pepper and saute for a while. Then add cut tomato and saute until the mix becomes a pulp. Add marinated chicken pieces and cook in low flame until the juices start flowing. Add quarter cup of water if you don't see much juice. Cook for 20-30 minutes with a lid to cover. Remove the lid and add finely chopped spring onions and cilantro and cook in high flame for 5-10 minutes till the juice disappear.

Meanwhile, on a separate woke, stir fry cube cut red bell pepper (Capsicum) and sliced mushroom on high heat. Once the sides of the pepper and mushroom turns brown and you don't see any moisture in the pan, add salt and crushed chili to taste. Pour the contents to the chicken prepared in above step.

Serve in a large bowl. Squeeze half lemon and garnish with chopped spring onion and cilantro. (Curry leaves if you like south Indian flavor).

Note: The picture shown is taken today while we are vacationing in Seattle. Hint....to our other friends....you have good reason to have us come over for a visit :)

To save or use - that is the question about carbon credits

2007-05-06T17:59:00.000-07:00

My parents never owned a car in their life time. They mostly walked to their schools and studied books during day light. They took public transportation to get to work and worked without fan and air condition on hot and humid days. Our annual electricity usage averaged below 30 KWH (US average is around 9000 KWH per year) when we were growing up. Even that was very high among our many neighbors. We did not have a refrigerator until we started going to college. Many families in my village still do not have refrigerator. We bought our first television when I was 20 years old. I am just 34 years old, Thank you very much if you thought I am a very old man!

When I got a job that paid well, I bought a car. It had three quarters of a liter engine, two cylinders and four crammed seats. It probably gave me 50mpg (miles per gallon). But that was too much petrol (gasoline) compared to the 150mpg I was getting from my old Vespa scooter. But it was worth the prestige and mark of success it brought to my otherwise lower middle class Indian life.

It was an opportunity of a life time to come to the US and see the prodigal life styles of baby boomers in the US. McMansions, Hummer Limousines, larger than wall TVs, 8 passenger SUVs for the soccer moms and 400 horses for the NASCAR dads, the list is end less. But it did not tempt me to buy a V8 as my first car. I went with the Asian bet on Honda Civic. It had four cylinders, 100 horses and five comfortable seats and gave 32 mpg. Not a bad upgrade from the two cylinders. I found my peace in my civic among the gas guzzling SUVs and roaring sporting machines crowding southern California freeways.

Then all of a sudden, the largest contributor of global warming (US) realized that the way of extravagant life at the expense of the unsustainable fossil fuel is at risk. Celebrities lined up at Prius dealerships until Toyota started making it in abundance. Al Gore bought a hybrid lexus SUV as a brand ambassador for inconvenient truth. He also bought carbon credits to offset the global warming caused by the energy costs of his Tennessee Mansion. Oscar went green by buying carbon credit.

That made me realize the pile of carbon credit I have been sitting on all my life. As a legal heir of carbon free ancestors, I inherited lots of carbon credits. I also managed to collect quite a lot of carbon credit on my own. I walked to work for many years until I moved to a place that was beyond walking distance. We used very little electricity to cool and very little gas to heat by continue to practice thermal management as in the old days. Thermal management is a fancy word for opening windows in summer nights and wearing warm clothes in winter. Thanks to Victoria Secret, sleeping with nice warm sweater in winter is so un-cool these days. We switched off lights when not in use. We bought CFLs in place of ordinary bulbs. We used home filtered water instead of the plastic bottles from Fiji. We banked online with paperless e-bill.

So we decided to use some of the carbon credit slowly but cautiously. We just didn’t want to run out of it in my life time. Using those credits, I decided to buy an SUV. I saved some credits by buying a super low emission vehicle (SLEV) with above average SUV mpg. Later I lost my Honda civic. So I had to use more of those credits once more to buy a Honda V6 instead of a 4 cylinder. But I believe I still have more credits left even to buy and heat a McMansion at some point in my life. So I have to be careful not to spend too much of my carbon credits. I would rather save the habitat for Sundarbans tigers than owning a McMansion habitat. But then that is what I though when I did not own a car. 'I would rather save the ozone than save a walk'. Saving planet is awfully difficult when you have the means, especially in a 'Super Size It' and indulging society. When some one is urging the public to ride public transportation, they mean what they say. The 'public' to ride public transportation so that there are less cars in the freeway when they cruise along in their Lexus RX 400h.

Save a buck, save the world

The cricket - the dangerous way of life

2007-03-23T18:34:00.000-07:00

Pakistan team coach Bob Woolmer is found dead in his hotel room after some one strangulated him for reasons unknown at this point. The story is still unfolding with unbelievably sketchy details of corruption crime and betrayal. Entire cricketing fraternity is praying that the investigation does not lead to any one from cricketing world. Money corrupts cricket. Black money kills it.

When British first played cricket, they did not play a sport. It was a way of life for them. The pass time of the aristocracy. They broke for tea and lunch in between. They played days non-stop in the sun, clad in white. It is no longer a gentleman's game. It is a game of black money, match fixing and death. Yes, you can get killed if you coach a team or play cricket.

It was before the television popularized the game of cricket in erstwhile British colonies. My Chacha (Father's younger brother) introduced me to the wonderful game of cricket. I was not presented with a cricket bat and a kit by my rich Chacha on my birth day as you may have betted. My Chacha was a disabled person from childhood polio. He could walk but not without falling down frequently. So he preferred to sit down. In the verandah of the ancestral home, he sat on a wooden bench all day, from dawn to dusk. Waiting for a test to begin.

Cricket was his life. He would listen to BBC radio commentary of every single cricket match that was played. Back then, it was played in 5 days and players did not wear colorful outfits. They wore white trousers and T-shirts. Early mornings and evenings, they wore half sweaters. They broke for tea in the morning and evening. They took an hour lunch break. It was slow and boring at times. They played 5 days of 'outdoor chess' and still did not produce any result. But it was the real 'test' of patience, skills and mind game.

My Chacha went to school and all but dropped out early on after few falls in school. But he learned to understand the English commentary over the years. He could eventually count upto the highest score made by a test team in an innings. (952 by Sri Lanka against India).

Test cricket was his only solace in an otherwise lonely life. He had a small transistor radio and he tuned to BBC sports for English commentary. He took tea break when the test team broke for tea. He ate lunch when the team broke for lunch. When the cricket is played overseas, he quietly listened to the radio when every one was asleep.

India did not win all the time. In fact, they lost most of the times. But they were admired for their sincerity to the game of cricket. The days when the class of the batter is judged by the number of days he camps in the crease frustrating the pace batteries of the world. Sunni's copybook perfection and single minded determination to dominate the fearsome four;Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner.

They were underdogs and they wanted to prove the world that they be taken seriously. Just like the Bangla boys of today. They did not make millions from endorsements but they made billion fans proud when they won the first ever world cup by upsetting the then mightiest West Indies. The image of Kapil clad in Blue blazer hoisting the world cup from the balcony to the fans, never repeated in like or kind.

My Chacha grew increasingly disengaged from life and eventually from Cricket too. The transistor radio stopped playing BBC. It lost its owner and operator. He is no longer in this world to witness India getting out of world cup cricket in the first round by one of the weakest campaigns in recent history. He is not there to hang his head in shame with a billion people. He would be happier dead than living through the times of betting, match fixing and murder in cricket field. Because the purity of cricket meant so much to him. He would prefer the slow boring days of test cricket than the glitz and glamour of celebrity cricketers of India who buckled under pressure every single time without fail since the (in)famous sixer by Miandad of Chetan Sharma. The days when Bollywood actresses flew to Sharjah to watch cricket sitting next to Dawood Ibrahim!

Why organic is not cool any more; Local is the new organic - kitchen 150

2007-03-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

Just when I am about to get cheap organic produce from Walmart and Costco, the game is changed on me. Organic is not good any more. Local is the new Organic!

All of a sudden, transporting organic fish from china and organic apple from New Zealand to far way places like US does not sound politically correct any more. For that matter organic salads from Salinas valley (Northern California) is not consumed in New York without feeling guilty of burning middle eastern oil.

Most of the time it is hard to say what is fashion and what is real. What is sustainable and what is not. What is healthy and what is carcinogenic. Do you trust a cow or a chemist? Do you protect your wallet or earth? What is more important, being able to grind Tellicherry pepper, shipped from half way across the globe, into your platter or use chili from farmers market? Answer is complicated and it changes from time to time and depends on whom you talk.

With food, it has always been very confusing. Some 60 years back, my parents from a small village in Kerala, India, ate whatever they got. Some times it was mangoes from the neighbors trees. Some times it was the rice and vegetables from the family farm. They made yogurt at home. They chased chicken and milked cows. They fished from the nearby creeks. They pulled crabs from the dirt holes next to the running water. They ate pretty much what they could get local and grown organic. But they did not know it had a name. For them it was FOOD.

Well, then they were born at the times of Bengal famine that killed 5 million people in British India. While economists disagree on the causes of the famine, the new government in free India decided to take on the mission of being self sufficient in food. The green revolution in India took roots and India started its mission on industrial scale agriculture with massive dams and canals for irrigation, genetically modified high yield rice and wheat and fertilisers and pesticides. The farming practises changed everywhere including our family rice farms. They used IR-8, high yield genetically modified rice variety. They used Urea and other fertilisers. They used pesticides that included some form of DDT. India started building food warehouses all across India with size larger than Walmart super centers. They transported food across the length and breadth of the country in coal burning rail engines. Famines became a dreadful thing of the past. India started exporting food grains and processed food. Government created a new agency to oversee Agricultural and Processed Food Export Development (APEDA). India became self sufficient in food and assured her children that their photographs will not end up winning the best photograph awards for showing rib cages of poor children in third world countries.

By the time I was a child, we started eating apples and grapes from far away himalayan states.
The food aid from US was beginning to taper. Still saw the stars and stripes for the first time. Vegetables came across the western ghats in the underbelly of the interstate bus routes that crossed mountain divides. We even ate dates shipped from Saudi Arabia.

Then I started reading books. Magazines. I read about vegans. I read how much energy is spent on a chicken before it gives back fraction of it as egg and meat. I was convinced that if we spend a fraction of that energy in producing vegetables, we can feed the entire starving people in the world. So I became a vegetarian. It was tough being a vegetarian in a home where fish is eaten for at least two meals a day. But I survived without chicken, egg and fish. I read about green movement in the western world and swore to god that I will never buy a car that pollutes the air we breath. It was easy for me to decide because I never had any prospect of having the money to buy one. Plus no one I knew owned a car except for the local doctor.

Then I moved to the big city Delhi. I saw people driving imported cars. Scoda Octavia, Opel Astra, Honda City and Even Mercedes. People in Delhi liked to eat at TGIF, McDonald and KFC. They were very impressed with the french fries from McDonald. They thought it was a wonder food. I could not afford McMeal back then! My friends asked me to throw a party at KFC after getting my first job. Fried chicken and biscuits. Meal for 5 cost me more than my month hostel bill. But to be honest, I felt very proud to be able to dine at KFC. It was cool to eat imported food at an imported food joint. Being a vegan did not sound cool in a country where even the predominantly vegetarian Hindus sneaked out and ate chicken nuggets . Being vegan was for the Santa Monica and Mountain View purists who searched for higher purpose in life than just eating good food.

My room mate used to buy pringles and used to give me a few discs. The cucumber from the farmers market did not look very sexy in front of the frozen packaged food the rich started buying in bulk. Traditional lentils curry and wheat roti could not be found in the IT campus cafeteria where hot pizzas were served for free to employees. Dal Roti were served just outside of the sprawling campus in a tin shed dhaba where rikshaw pullers and students ate. There was so much urge to consume everything that was offered in glittering shopping malls and food joints.

Then US dream came calling on me. It was time to come to the US. I told my friends that I will eat KFC when I land in the US. Little did I know about CPK. Shocked to learn that McDonald is a 'cheap' food chain in the US that offerred cheap and fattening fries and burgers. I saw people lined up at In-N-Out drive through. Farmers market was the coolest place to be. I saw people buying tomatoes and vegetables that had far from perfect shapes. The game is changed one me one more time.

Whole foods expanded like corn popping inside the burner. Organic is in and conventional is out. Scare of growth hormones triggering early puberty in kids. Scare of pesticides causing irrecoverable damages to childrens nervous systems. Finally people thought that they found an answer to what causes cancer. It appeared that the the conventional food we bought from Ralphs and Vons caused it all. But the price is steep to buy organic. More over USDA still did not not recognize any health benefits of eating organic. But what do they know about the health effects of chemicals.

For millions of scared parents, the good news came when Walmart announced that they are going to sell Organic produce at fraction of the Whole Foods price. Costco already started carrying organic milk and other produce at reduced price. Organic is beginning to loose its exclusivity. Organic is not romantic any more especially for visionaries like Google food service manager John Dickman who created 'Cafe 150' for googlers where they only cooked that were produced within 150 miles of mountain view. According to him, "Organic was cool at Google in 2004" and now it is local. They cant serve shrimp and scallops since they are not farmed within 150 miles. But that's a small price to pay for being cool.

As a kid growing up in a small village in India, I used to dive at the bottom of the river to collect clams. I never told this story to my US friends lest being ridiculed as Yahoo from third world country. Now I feel cool. I can tell that I ate at 'Cafe 1' that is my mom's kitchen within 1 mile where she cooked the bounty of clams that I collected from river bed. She cooked tapioca roots that I pulled on my way back from school. She grated the coconut that just fell from the tree. She did not know she was a locavore. She was just cooking.

Unlike my mom, Wolfgand Puck knew what he was doing when he served organic and humanely raised French Osetra Caviar for this year Oscar "after party". Next year it will be Oscar 150. That will not include the container of shrimp from China parked at Long Beach!

Local is the new organic TIME Magazine Article

Read my previous post on Organic food. Tips for buyers of conventional produce

Read my previous post on Tellicherry Pepper

New mexico professor finds world's hottest chili in Assam - Need any more proof that India is HOT?

2007-02-27T22:03:00.000-08:00

Once I went to Santa Fe* and went to a local restaurant and placed an order for Chili Enchilada. The waitress asked me how do I like it; Red, Green or Christmas? Well, in the true Indian tradition of nodding the head in all directions, when confused, I ordered Christmas. I was pleasantly surprised when the platter came with one side green chili sauce and on the other red. Boy was it hot! Wait, its gonna get even hotter.

According to Guinness world records, New Mexico professor finds world's hottest chili pepper. Its called Bhut Jolokia (also called Naga Jolokia) from Assam, India and it rates at 1,001,304 Scoville heat units, which measures hotness (Number of times the chili extract needs to be diluted in sugar water before no trace of hotness is tasted). This chili pepper is nearly twice as hot as Red Savina, the variety it replaces. Professor Paul Bosland says Bhut Jolokia translates as ghost chili. The ghost chili grows mostly on hilly terrain and is considered a staple of every meal in the northeast. Next time you see Andhra chilli pickle in Indian grocery store, don't assume that its the "hottest" thing in the world.

After Guinness nod to Indian chili, woman to set record eating it

* Santa Fe is state capital of New Mexico and I drove past 'downtown' looking for it! Its amazing how they could maintain the low profile hamlet feel of this tiny state capital

Can Resveratrol help you age slower - Dont gulp the red wine yet

2007-02-12T21:10:00.000-08:00

Resveratrol, a new medical fad? We thought it was anti oxidants that helps us fight the wrinkles.
David Sinclair of the Harvard Medical School has found that resveratrol increases the activity of a protein called SIRT1. Resveratrol significantly increases the lifespan of yeast and mice. There is hope that it could do the same for humans. A number of beneficial health effects, such as anti-cancer, antiviral, neuroprotective, anti-aging, anti-inflammatory and life-prolonging effects have been reported in non-human species (e.g. rats). Resveratrol is found in the skin of red grapes and as a constituent of red wine but based on extrapolation from animal trials, apparently not in sufficient amounts to explain the “French paradox” that the incidence of coronary heart disease is relatively low in southern France despite high dietary intake of saturated fats.

Millions of dollars are pouring in to the research of Resveratrol in the search of cure for "disease of aging" and Sinclair and his team is in the forefront of that research.
Wine molecule slows aging process

Wahhabification of Kerala? - How a cultural melting pot is begining to show signs of boiling

2007-01-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles Times ran a front page story today (Jan 28, 2007) about how migrants returning from the Persian Gulf with stricter views on Inslam are altering the melting pot in an Indian province of Kerala.

It was not long ago when hindus visited islamic shrines and offered prayer before a sufi saints. I was there in one of the jungle shrine on the way to a hindu temple called Mamanam Temple in North Malabar during my school days. The islamic shrine is called Nilamuttam (Courtyard of moon light) in the midst of green forests of western ghats. I stood with my parents infront of the shrine with equal if not more reverence and god fear with which we stood infront of the hindu diety we prayed an hour ago. It was mesmeric and was an early education to me about the organic harmony with which two religions coexisted in Kerala.

Last time I checked with my parents, the hindu visitors are not visiting the islamic shrine any more. I dont know the reasons. It could be that hindu extremists started spreading word that its an insult to their god that the hindu visitors stopping by an islamic shrine after the temple visit. It is also possible that doors of the shrine are closed for hindu visitors. Either ways, its a sad thing that happened to Kerala psyche. It looks like the trend is not singular. The pull to the extremes are getting stronger as years pass by. Los Angeles Times article chronicles the wahabi part of the story. But other side of the story deserves mention. When my cousin showed up at work in Saudi on Dec 7, 1992, the day after Hindu extremists demolished a disputed centuries old mosque-temple Babri Masjid, his arabic manager asked him, 'Are you guys getting more intolerant towards our brothers in India?'. He did not have an answer. Let us hope that Kerala find her answer by keeping its tradition of beinga true melting pot that never boils over.

Read the Los Angeles Times report

Dor; a must see movie for every Indian - Nagesh Kukunoor's Jodhpur Blues

2007-01-27T23:24:00.000-08:00

Nagesh is not the regular Bollywood type and you can always expect something special, something different from this chemical engineer from Georgia Institute of Technology.

A young man from Jodhpur dies in Saudi. Another man from Himachal is accussed of pushing the man from the balcony and waiting for a pardon from the victim's wife to avoid execution. Wife of the accused travels to far away jodhpur to find the victim's wife and convince her to get a pardon to save her husband's life.

From Merril Diniz in Rediff movie review:

"Dor is a must-watch for all Indians; the core message transcends religion, community, strata and gender and it has a superb anti-climax. The film is entertaining and also has multiple messages that are delivered in the subtlest manner. And there are many highlights. The film is aesthetically shot against picturesque locations in Himachal and Rajasthan and some of the scenes shot in Jodhpur simply take your breath away. The script is engaging; the dialogues entertaining, witty and yet quite profound. You also have several sub-plots that surround the main story. And every scene seems to have been well etched out."

If you wonder how the pardon letter can remain in the dessert sand after hours of dropping it, loosing hope of getting a pardon from the victim's wife, then you are not alone. If you wondered about the transformation of the con artist Behroopia from a bag stealer into a companion in the search of pardon, then also you are not alone. Even Kukunoor has his blues! He is too parallel for Bollywood and too bollywood for Satyajith Rai school. No wonder why he looks at a loss at Filmfare night. But no probs. What you show to us is worth all the pardon!

I am yet to see the Malayalam film Perumazhakkalam directed by Kamal, starring actresses Meera Jasmine and Kavya Madhavan, which inspired the storyline of this movie.

Read the review

Longest ever speech delivered in the UN Security Council - 50 year anniversary of V.K Krishna Menon's speech

2007-01-23T22:28:00.000-08:00

It was 50 years ago today (Jan 23 1957) V.K Krishna Menon started delivering a marathon 7 hour 48 minute speech in UN Security Council on Kashmir issue as a reponse to Pakistan Foreign Minsiter's speech a week earlier. Not Menon's flow of words but a single nyet (NO in Russian) uttered by Russia's Arkady Sobolev called a halt to the U.N.'s efforts to mediate in Kashmir, little over a month after his speech.

By casting the Soviet Union's 79th veto in the Security Council, Sobolev effectively killed a resolution, jointly sponsored by the U.S., Cuba. Britain and Australia, to send Council President Gunnar Jarring of Sweden to Kashmir as a step "toward the settlement of the dispute." The resolution did not mention plebiscite, but noted in passing that former U.N. resolutions calling for demilitarization and a plebiscite in Kashmir had so far been ignored.

If you have time to read the 8 hour long speech click the link below.

Read Krishna Menon's Speech at UN

Trivia: V.K Krishna Menon probably is the most famous tea drinker in the world. He used to drink as much as 30 cups of tea a day which made him collapse in a heap at UN. His doctor said he was "a very sick man" who had been working too hard while sustaining himself on "about 30 cups of tea a day, absorbing all of the salt in his body." If you want to know what happens when you drink too much fluid, read my previos blog.

Too much water?

Pronunciation tips for Desi tongue - lucky you, if you are trained at a call center

2007-01-20T19:12:00.000-08:00

The problem most desis (including me) face when speaking English has similar pattern. I am not talking about the accent or emphasis on certain sounds but something more basic. Most of the time the problem is in translating the English vowels into Devanagari. We mix up अ and ए for A, इ and ए for E, ऐ and इ for I and अ and ओ for O. Most of the time we get it right. But some times we mix up.

May be the examples below can be of help to you if you are like me who frequently gets 'I dont understand what you are saying' look from walmart associates when asking for pecan (p-ई-k-अ-n) aisle (अइ-l) :) OK I exaggerated a bit...but here are some samples that we often goof up.

Note - The dash is just to separate english letters from Hindi. Not to suggest any phonetic pause.

Aisle - Do not ask for an अइ-l seat. Ask for अए-l seat
Apple - This is a classic mallu (thats me) issue. Do not eat आ-pple, eat ए-pple
Can't -Do not say K-आn't, say K-ए-n't
Configuration - Do not say k-ओ-nfiguration, say k-अ-nfiguration
Data - D-ए-ta and D-अ-ta are OK
Deposit - Do not D-ए-posit your money, D-इ-posit it.
Detail - Ask for D-इ-tails or D-ई-tails, you will get it either ways.
Dinosaur - D-ऐ-nos-ओ-r
Direction - Ask for D-इ-rection, not D-ऐ-rection
Economy - Indian इ-k-ओ-n-अ-my is booming. Not ए-k-ओ-n-अ-my
Feminine - Appreciate F-ए-m-इ-n-इ-n beuty NOT F-ए-m-इ-n-ऐ-n beuty
Finance - F-ऐ-nance OR F-इ-nance - bot are fine
Garbage - G-आ-rb-ए-j NOT G-आ-rb-ऐ-j
Garage - Your car is in the G-अ-r-आ-j or G-अ-r-आ-sh NOT in G-अ-r-ऐ-j
Hi - Say H-आइ NOT Hऐ
Hello - Say H-अ-llo NOT H-ए-llo
Manager - Ask for a M-ए-n-एइ-jer.
Naive - N-अई-v. Dont be a N-ऐ-v
Narrate - N-ए-rr-ए-t a story. Dont N-आ-rrate
Oven - Heat in an अ-v-ए-n NOt in ओ-v-अ-n
Oscar - Watch ओ-sk-अ-r awards, NOT ओ-sk-आ-r awards
Pecan - Never ever ask for buuter p-ई-k-ए-n icecream. You will NOTget it. Ask for p-इ-k-आ-n OR p-इ-k-ए-n OR p-ई-k-ए-n
Valet - Park your car with v-आ-l-ए or v-आ-l-एt. Both will park your car.
Vinyl - Do you have V-ऐ-n-अ-l floor or V-इ-n-अ-l floor? You have the first one.
Wallet - I have a long story to tell about this. I had to spell this to walmart associate. Never ask for v-आ-llet ask for v-ओ-llet
Walnut - v-ओ-lnut

Its really Nअts.. but cant help it :)

Colbert corrects himself to pick Amitabh - Why its all part of the plan to woo Indian audience

2007-01-20T11:32:00.000-08:00

Colbert show did not become what it is now for nothing. He is smart and knows how to market his show. He highlighted the celebrity feud between Bollywood's King and Prince, Amitabh and Sharukh in his show. He picked Sharukh for his toe teasing dance using Bhangra-Meter. (Hint to webster: new word of the year??)

Read about the previous show

Now he does it again but this time picked Big B, citing his dancing performance in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (KKKG). He did this in an apparent attempt to cool the nerves of the edgy tech support guys in India, upset about his pick SRK in his previous show. Folks, it is all part of the plan. Don't be surprised if he invites Karan Johar to have Koffee in his show. He also dropped the 'H' word when mentioning about his Hindu audience. Little did he know that an Afghan muslim in Kabul and a Saudi Prince is equally hurt first and rejoiced later. Bollywood is secular (why do you think we have a Hindu King and Muslim Prince in Bollywood?). But we accept your aplogy Mr Colbert, since you are our well wisher and we like your show more than papa bear's.

Watch Video on Youtube

Owens river valley, Kaveri, Mullapperiyar - water disputes in the world and lessons learned

2007-01-18T21:33:00.000-08:00

This is the tale of three rivers and how tricks, deception, imperialism, coercion, false science and historically established use took water away from its real owners for good. No one will be able to deny Los Angeles its established use right over water from Owens valley. No one will try to deny Madras its established use right over Kavery and Periyar water without risking bloodshed. There are lessons to be learned. The most important of them all is 'Water is precious. Find ways to preserve it.'.

Owens River in Northern California:

Owens river runs through the ill fated Owens valley in Northern California. The valley is approximately 75 mi (120 km) long, trending north-south, and is bounded by the Sierra Nevada on the west and the Inyo and White Mountains on the east. The mountains on either side (including Mount Whitney) reach above 14,000 ft (4,300 m) in elevation, while the floor of the Owens Valley is at 4000 ft (1,200 m), making the valley one of the deepest in the United States. The bed of Owens Lake, now a dry alkali toxic flat, sits on the southern end of the valley. The valley provides water to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the source of one-third the drinking water for Los Angeles, and is famous as the scene of one of the fiercest and long-running episodes of the California Water Wars.

1898 - Frederick Eaton, mayor of Los Angeles created the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and appointed his friend William Mulholland as the superintendent.
1898-1905 Eaton lobbied Theodore Roosevelt and got the local irrigation system cancelled and used the inside information from Bureau of Reclamation to learn about the water rights in Owens valley.
1905 - Through purchases and bribery, Los Angeles purchased enough water rights to enable a gravity-fed aqueduct to deliver the Owens water to Los Angeles.
1913 - Completion of the 223 mile (359 km) Los Angeles Aqueduct to divert water from the valley to Los Angeles.
1924 - The water right purchases by LADWP using questiuonable practises led to anger among local farmers, which erupted in violence in 1924, when parts of the water system were sabotaged by local farmers.
1970- LADWP completed a second aqueduct from Owens Valley. More surface water was diverted and groundwater was pumped to feed the aqueduct. Owens Valley springs and seeps dried and disappeared, and groundwater-dependent vegetation began to die. The valley became a alkali dust bowl. Years of litigation followed.
1997 - Inyo County, Los Angeles, the Owens Valley Committee, the Sierra Club, and other concerned parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding that specified terms by which the lower Owens River would be rewatered by June 2003. LADWP missed this deadline and was sued again. Under another settlement, this time including the State of California, Los Angeles promised to rewater the lower Owens River by September 2005.
2005 - LADWP announced it was unlikely to meet this extended deadline.
2006 - Water was returned to the Owens River on Dec. 6, when Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Inyo County Supervisor Susan Cash symbolically concluded the most celebrated water war in American history. Hollywood movie China Town is based on this epic water war.

Water wars in India is equally full of high drama and politiking. Raw emotions are plenty among the neighbors Karnataka, Tamilandu, Kerala and Pondichery over Kavery water and between Tamilnadu and Kerala over Periyar.

Kavery River in Southern India:
Kavery originates from Karnataka and flows through Tamil Nadu and discharges in Bay of Bengal. There were disputes as long back as 1807 between Mysore Prinley State (Now Karnataka) and Madras Presidency (Tamil Nadu) states. The center of the dispute is the agreement signed between two states in 1892 and 1924 which required Mysore to obtain Madras' consent for any water it wished to utilize or for any project it wished to undertake to utilize the waters. Karnataka deems these agreements as having been between unequal partners because while Mysore state was a princely state, Madras formed a part of the British Raj. After many Supreme Court interferences, Tribunals, Interim Awards, River Authority, Monitoring Committe etc, the dispute continues even today with occassional flare up of emotion between the states and its people.

Periyar River in Kerala:

Periyar river originates from the western ghats and flows west ward to Kerala and then discharges into Arabian Sea. The center of the controversy between Kerala and TamilNadu is the Mullapperiyar dam commissioned in 1895 to divert water from the river to arid districts of Madras Presidency through a tunnel cut through the watershed divide. 999 year lease was signed in 1886 between princely state of Travancore and Madras Presidency for the construction of the dam for sum of Rupees 40,000. Kerala deems these agreements as having been between unequal partners because while Travancore state was a protectorate under British Rule, Madras formed a part of the British Raj. Sounds familiar?

Kerala always believed that its a water surplus state. So it never found itself frugal in giving away her water. They now realise that it is a myth based on very old and inaccurate water data. But they realise the impossibility of denying water Tamil Nadu enjoyed for centuries. Kerala agrees to give water to its neighbors rain shadow areas (The monsson winds hit the western ghats and rains in Kerala leaving rain shadow on the other side of the mountain range). Their main contention is about the safety of the century+ old masonry dam made of lime and sugar mixer. It has been showing signs of aging and leaking for many years. Kerala wants the century old dam to be reconstructed using modern day technology while Tamil Nadu sites the central water commission report regarding the dam safety to increase the dam height to 143 feet from the current height of 136 feet. Supreme Court gave Tamil Nadu permission to increase the heigh considering the report. However Kerala Assembly had passed a legislation in August 2003 reserving for the State the right to decommission a dam, if found unsafe, by draining out the waters stored in its reservoir. Kerala maintains that Central Water Commission did not consider the earth quake risks to the dam while preparing the report. Supreme court gets involved again and asked both parties to find a political solution. The discussion broke down and the ball is in the court again. Some politicians from both sides takes extreme position. Some Kerala politicians want the lease cancelled unilaterally siting lack of maintanance of the leased property and unequal nature of the parties in the lease agreement. Some in Tamil Nadu wants the dam height to be the original 152 ft.

So what are the lessons learned from these water disputes?

1. Never enter into an agreement of unequals. Owens valley farmers were tricked into selling their lands (water rights) to LADWP for paltry sum. State of Mysore, a princely vassal (a person/entity under the protection of a feudal lord to whom he/it has vowed homage and fealty) state under British Raj, had to be content with an unfavorable agreement with the British Province of Madras. State of Travancore signed a less gain - all pain 999 year lease agreement with the British Province of Madras for a sum of Rs 40,000. (Inflation was not something they were mindful of back then)
2. Settle the disputes sooner than later. Prolonged water usage , even if the water right is acquired by questionable means, renders some degree of legitimacy which becomes harder to nullify later on. It is impossible to reverse the water usage pattern without huge human sufferings.
3. Do not try to put a price on water. Water is priceless. If you want to sell water rights, sell yours not your grand grand kids. They will not pardon your short sight.
4. Water is precious. Find ways to preserve it rather than wasting TMCs (Thousand Million Cubic feet) to water logged irrigation lands, seeping canals and man made sodic lands.

pizookie - easiest recipe for another party hit

2007-01-13T18:31:00.000-08:00

What is pizookie? Its a warm chocolate chip cookie, seved with ice cream on top right before it hardens. Wonder why the name pizookie? It is coming from Pizza Cookie. Cookie served with toppings of ice cream, thats all. (We had it first at BJ's restaurant)

All you need is chocolate chip cookie dough (we use ready made pillsburry dough) and ice cream. (Our favorite is classic vanilla. Any other flavor will interfere with the freshly baked cookie).

1. Pre heat the oven at 350 F. Cut the dough into small scoops and put it on baking tray over aluminium foil 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the dough melts and turning brown. 2. Let it cool for 1 minute and serve immediately in a bowl with one or two scoops of ice cream.
Cook and Cool it more or less if you like the cookie hard or gooie.

Your friends will think that you are a pro :)

Amitabh Bachchan vs. Shahrukh Khan - Comedy Central decides with Bhangra-Meter

2007-01-13T13:59:00.000-08:00

Almost two minutes in his 30 minute show Colbert Report on Comedy Central, Steven Colbert talked about the reported feaud between King and Prince of Bollywood Amitabh Bachchan vs. Shahrukh Khan.

He looked undecided between the distingusihed old gentleman and the young dancing machine. He finally used his internal Bhangra-Meter to decide the winner. He had hard time pronuncing names of bollywood actors showed up at Sharukh's new year party but he did a good job of reaching out to the young desi viewers in the USA by picking SRK. Big B fans, no hard feelings about that. It is just show business :)

Watch Video on Youtube

Renter's insurance - Tenant's liability and subrogation procedure

2007-01-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

If you are renting and don't have a renters insurance? Think again. Whether you just landed in the US or a long time tenant, you need to consider renter's insurance. In the event of a fire or any damage to the rental property caused by your negligence, then the property owner or their insurance company may collect the damages from you.
The property owner can transfer the legal right of the claim to their insurance company (called Subrogation in legal circle) and they may collect the money from you if the damaged is caused by your negligence. It is more difficult to flight with a big insurance companies and their pricey attorneys than fighting with the property manager or property owner.

The Landlord/Tenant subrogation rule in California holds that a tenant's liability to the landlord's insurer for negligently causing a fire depends on the intent and reasonable expectations of the parties to the lease as ascertained from the lease as a whole. (Does your lease agreement mention Subrogation waiver? Are you a co-insured in the property insurance purchased by the owner?).

For complete description of the rule in each state, visit the site:

LANDLORD / TENANT SUBROGATION

If you buy renter's insurance, then your insurance company will cover your liability and pay for your personal belongings. You can either buy Liability insurance (covers the damage to the structure due to your negligence) or Personal property (any covered damage) or both. It is fairly inexpensive to get renters insurance from your auto insurance company ($12-15/month)

Gajar ka kheer - easy recipe for a party hit

2007-01-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

This is not gajar in kheer as you might have feared. This is cousin to the delicious 'Gajar ka halwa' and no less cousin that is. Here is the recipe from my wife who makes this well. As usual, we wont tell exact measurements. Not that we don't want to but that we don't know either. Do what feels right. Andaz apna apna :)

1. Grate 3 carrots and fry in ghee/butter (2-3 spoons) until carrot color fades (10 minutes). If you take a bite at this stage, it should not taste raw.
2. Add sugar (as needed) and stir fry for 10 minutes till the mix tightens
3. Add boiled milk (one cup milk microwaved for 2-3 minutes) and stir for 5 minutes or until the right consistency is reached.
4. Add one cardamom powdered for flavor
5. Add some condensed milk (3 spoon)
6. Add cashew and raisin fried separately in ghee
7. Serve hot or cold, you cant go wrong either way.

No health benefit from organic banana?

2007-01-08T07:49:00.003-08:00

Surprised? The reason is simple. Any pesticide residue in banana is probably discarded along with the peel. This article is not to confirm or deny the health benefits of organic food. Try the following tips if you are on a budget or just don't like the price tag of organic produce.

1. Fruits and Vegetables: Wash the fruits and vegetables thoroughly under running water before consuming. Peel the skin of apple, pear, grape and straw berries whenever possible (especially when giving to small children.) The risk of pesticides outweigh nutritional benefits of the skin.

2. Milk, meat, poultry and eggs: Buy fat free/low fat milk, lean meat, remove excess fat from meat and poultry to reduce the exposure to pesticides. Pesticides residue is found almost always with the fat. Growth hormones and antibiotics injected to animals has been a concern, however US and UN health agencies concluded that these do not pose any health risks to human since these get destroyed in the pasteurization process or broken down during digestion. If you are still concerned, consider rBGH and rbST (growth hormones) free milk which is cheaper than USDA organic milk. Foster Farms chicken is hormone and steroid free.

3. If you are growing fruits and vegetables in your back yard, do not use any pesticides 2-3 weeks before harvesting.

Read more on the latest in organic industry:

Article in Business Week

Fighting Cholesterol , Triglycerides and loose some weight - No dal roti, rice for dinner

2007-01-08T07:49:00.001-08:00

I weighed 210 pounds and had an elevated Cholesterol and Triglycerides couple of years back. My wife wanted to loose some weight after our son was born. We tried diet and some indisciplined exercise regime. Sure it failed.

Then we tried something different. Skipped carbohydrate for dinner. Ate moderate carb for break fast and lunch but skipped for dinner. No roti, rice, dal and aloo for dinner. No sambar, idli, dosa, uppuma tiffin. Some times we baked chicken wings. Some times we baked fish (mostly salmon). Some other time we ate lightly fried hard boiled egg whites. Egg omelets with just one or two yolks. In between, we made pasta with lots of chicken, shrimp and vegetables and very little noodles. Before the E-Coli scare, we made salads with baked chicken strips and boiled egg whites. Whenever we baked, we baked lots bell peppers and mushrooms to fill up. It was a welcome and interesting change. In less than 6 months, I lost 15 pounds and my wife lost 10 pounds. The best part is that my Cholesterol and Triglycerides are normal. So are able to maintain the lost weight for more than a year now. Since we enjoy the diet change for dinner, we have hopes of sustaining it for long.

One more change was to have early dinner. We finish our dinner by 6.30- 7.00 PM with no snacks after coming back from work.

Changing the dinner helped in two ways.

1. Rice and Roti is mostly ate with sambar/dal/potato/other lentils curry adding more easy calorie to the diet. Having only one item to eat reduces the total calorific intake.
2. Since baked fish/poultry is not native to our (Indians) palate , we don't tend to over eat.
3. Since the protein makes you feel full faster and deprive the body of fast energy (carb, sugar), the body breaks down the fat from storage and thereby help body spend more energy.

This is not to suggest to go carb free. We eat more of unprocessed carb (grains, par boiled rice, fruits and vegetables) but less of processed carbs (sugar, flour, maida, polished rice, basmati rice). I wont call it protein diet. But tipping the scale from carbohydrate diet to carb neutral diet.

Remember what your grandma warned you. Skipping dinner will make you loose a dove's weight. Skipping carb for dinner will help you loose half a dove.

Chicken biryani recipe -This is how we make it

2007-01-06T10:41:00.000-08:00

What is Biryani?

According to noted Biryani Chronicler Vishy Shenoy:

Biryani is derived from the Persian word "Birian". In Farsi, Birian means "Fried before Cooking". It could have come from Persia via Afghanistan to North India. It could have also been brought by the Arab traders via Arabian sea to Calicut (Calicut Biryani). We know the history little better during 1800 to 1900. During Mogul empire, Lucknow was known as Awadh, giving rise to Awadhi Biryani. In 1856, British deposed Nawab Wajid Ali Shah in Calcutta, giving rise to Calcutta Biryani. Aurangzeb installed Nizam-ul-mulk as the Asfa Jahi ruler of Hyderabad, as well as a "Nawab of Arcot" to oversee Aaru Kaadu region (Six Forrests) south of Hyderabad. These moves gave rise to Hyderabadi Biryani and Arcot Biryani. The Biryani spread to Mysore by Tipu Sultan of Carnatic. Needless to say it was a royal dish for Nawabs and Nizams. They hired vegetarian Hindus as bookkeepers leading to the development of Tahiri Biryani.

Now if you want to skip the history and get straight into kitchen to give it a shot of making your own version, here is the helper.

Recipe for chicken biryani - Apartment style*, servings 6

1. Get a whole chicken and cut into medium size pieces
2. Marinate with ginger garlic, green chilli paste, black pepper and chicken masala. Add 2-3 spoon yogurt if needed. Or add one spoon lemon juice. (The adventours can make the chicken masala from ground up but it will take longer time and no guaranteed result.)
3. Fry 3 cups of Basmati rice in 2 spoon of ghee or butter for 2 minutes
4. Add 6 cups of water and add bay leaves and salt. Bring it to boil and keep it in very low flame till water dries up almost completely. (15 minutes or so)
5. Add 2-3 spoon oil and Fry Red/white onions in a pressure pan/pan till brown
6. Add ginger garlic paste and fry till brown
7. Add diced tomatoes (3-4 large) and cook till it becomes a paste.
8. Add marinated chicken and cook for 5 minutes without adding water
9. Add 1/4 cup water and whistle the cooker twice. (only once if the chicken is young). Do not add water if you have residual water in chicken from washing.
10. If cooking in a pan, cook it closed until chicken is well done.
11. Dry the juices on high flame till the gravy has disappeared. If the gravy is watery, remove chicken and bring the gravy to thick.
12. On a glassware or oven safe wide bottom deep vessel, add layers of rice, chicken, chooped cilantro, mint leaves, fried ring onions (if needed), freshly ground cinnamon, clove and cardomom. (You can use packet garam masala but risk poor flavor)
13. Add safron/food color mix (mixed in rosewater or water) as patches on top of the rice if needed
14. Keep the vessel closed and keep it in oven at 300F for about 10-15 minutes
15. Serve hot with chicken pieces at the bottom of the platter covered with rice.

If you wonder about the measurements of the ingredients, then I cant help you. Because you should know how much of of each spice you can tolerate. If you are unsure, keep it simple. Remember, less is always safer and better.

One more thing. If you made your biryani and ate too much of it, then you can make sulaimani tea (black hot tea with lime juice). People in calicut belive that it helps digestion :)

Happy Biryani!

* To cook biryani in the traditional way, you need specialized vessels to dum (cook in a sealed vessel with light heat from embers from above and below) the layers of meat and rice. Plus you need embers from coconut shells to make Calicut Biryani. So hence this recipe is for people who cant make embers from their Apartment balcony :)

Tellicherry peppercorn

2007-01-06T09:31:00.000-08:00

You may have heard of Tellicherry Pepper from one of your favorite cooking shows. Or you may have just bought McCormick Tellicherry pepper from Costco.

Tellicherry is an old port town in Kerala and it was a major export hub for British East Indian Company to trade spices from South India. For centuries, europeans enjoyed the flavor of Tellicherry pepper in their gourmet meals.

What exactly is Tellicherry pepper? By definition, it is 10% of the largest and ripest of the peppercorn harvest from Malabar region. What makes Tellicherry pepper so special?

The tropical heat, monsoon rains, and iron-rich laterite soil creates the best growing environment for the pepper. Better location to receive extra sunlight, location of the fruit on the vine to get better nutrient and time a fruit gets to mature before harvest etc contributes to make bigger, better pepper. And chefs across the globe swear by its rich aromatic oil and flavor when they grind Tellicherry pepper into their platter.

Soft vinyl toys and clear bottles - Toxic?

2007-01-04T22:42:00.000-08:00

San Francisco recently banned toys containing two chemicals bisphenol A (BPA - pronounced as bisenol A ) and phthalates (pronounced as thalates). European Union also has a ban on these substances in toys. But US states did not impose a ban yet. Toy and chemical companies suing San Francisco for the ban arguing that the ban is not supported by science and will have a devastating impact on San Francisco toy retailers.

bisphenol A (BPA) - found in soft vinyl like teethers, pacifiers, nipples, "sippy cups" and heavily mouthed toys made of soft plastic, unless they are labeled as PVC-free or phthalate-free.

phthalates - found in clear, shiny plastic baby bottles, unless the manufacturer states they are not made of polycarbonate (which is made from bisphenol A)

Animal and human studies have linked these substances to a broad swath of health problems, including prostate and breast cancer, and altered genital development. Experts suggests parents to take steps to reduce/eliminate exposure.

Read Time Magazine Article

Crocin (Paracetamol) is the same as Tylenol (Acetaminophen) - Did you know?

2007-01-04T15:42:00.000-08:00

Did you ever carry packets of Paracetamol for overseas travel from India thinking that you cant get this cure-for-all pain magic outside of India?

Do not worry.

Paracetamol (Crocin - brand name popular in India) and acetaminophen (Tylenol - brand name popular in the US) are essentially the same. The words acetaminophen and paracetamol both come from the chemical names for the compound: N-acetyl-para-aminophenol and para-acetyl-amino-phenol.

Common brand names for the drug include Tylenol in Brazil, Canada, South Korea and the U.S., Paralen in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Panadol in Taiwan, Australia, Greece, Central America, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the UK, Sri Lanka, Romania, Portugal, The Netherlands, Finland, Singapore, Kenya, and Hungary, Perdolan in Belgium, Doliprane, Dafalgan, and Efferalgan in France, Tachipirina and Efferalgan in Italy, Crocin in India, Gelocatil and Efferalgan in Spain, Benuron in Portugal, Alvedon in Sweden, Panodil and Pinex in Denmark and Iceland, Acamol, Dexamol and Rokamol in Israel, Pinex and Paracet in Norway, Depon in Greece, Lekadol and Daleron in Slovenia Plicet and Lekadol in Croatia , Adol in Oman and Biogesic in Philippines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol

Malayalam cult movie - classmates

2007-01-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

If you are a Malayali from Kerala, then you have seen this movie many times over. If you have not, then you must.

If you are not a Malayali and want to know why this movie is becoming a cult for the new generation Keralites, then you should watch too. Is this a musical with songs and dance? Sure it is. Are people falling in love in this movie? Sure they do. So what is the difference?

The difference is the subtle ways in which the lovers fall in love. What is granted to lovers as a right in today's bollywood is a mere luxury in this movie. It is kind of a journey backwards. It is not about the freedom of expressing love. But the lack of it. It is not about the happily ever after end. But the lost opportunity to live happily ever after. And you kind of feel that love from a distance is a bit bitter sweet than the love from near.

The one song that captures the mood of the movie is 'Ente Khalbile Vennilav Nee Nalla Paattukara.....'

Ente Khalbile Vennilav Nee Nalla Paattukara.....
Thattamittu Nhan Kathu vachoren Mullamottiloorum....Atharonnu vendee...
Atharonnu Vendee....
Ente Koottukaraa...Suthante Chelu kara......

Continues..........

It is a very powerful song and unfortunately you need to know malayalam to fully appreciate it. I tried to capture the essence of the song in the following lines. My apologies to Vayalar Sarath Chandra Varma (writer of this song) for taking the liberty of translating the song for non malayalai readers.

In the movie, this song is penned by a muslim girl, clad in black burqa and veil, for her secret admirer. The guy is the popular singer in the college and manages to get hold of her poetry and gives life to her secret desires.

Here is the translation.

You beautiful singer – moonlight is upon my soul.

Moonlight is upon my soul listening to your tunes
Take; my good friend; the scent treasured in Veil
The jasmine buds are for you to sniff - Sultan of mighty charm
Hidden are my desires behind the screen of my veil – the way I lived
You beautiful singer – moonlight is upon my soul

I could be the sweet thing in your smile- milky bright
Could be your beat – forever mine
Wished you saw me dancing in a wedding eve
Hands were made with mehndi - wished to see my sultan’s charm
Hidden are my desires behind the screen of my veil – the way I lived
You beautiful singer – moonlight is upon my soul

Guitar strings – tense and ready for music
That’s how you stood near me
My hands were for you to take – but you did not
I was ready to hum with you, let loose the claps
Anklets teased me to break into steps – many times over
Hidden are my desires behind the screen of my veil – the way I lived
You beautiful singer – moonlight is upon my soul.

__________________________________________________

The full version of malayalam song

Ente Khalbile Vennilav Nee Nalla Paattukara

Ente Khalbile Vennilav Nee Nalla Paattukara.....
Thattamittu Nhan Kathu vachoren Mullamottiloorum....Atharonnu vendee...
Atharonnu Vendee....
Ente Koottukaraa...Suthante Chelu kara......

Ninte punchiri palinullile panchasarayavaam...
Ninte Nenjile thappu muttumay ennumenteyavaam.....
Oppanacku nee kooduvan.....Mylanji monjonnu kanuvaan....
Enthumathramennagrahangale moodi vechu njan....

Ente Khalbile Vennilav Nee Nalla Paattukara.....
Thattamittu Nhan Kathu vachoren Mullamottiloorum....Atharonnu vendee...
Atharonnu Vendee....
Ente Koottukaraa...Suthante Chelu kara......

Thottu meettuvan ulla thanthrikal pottumenna polee..
Thottatuthu nee ninnuvenkilum kye thodanjathendee...
Lalanangalil mooluvaan..kyethalamittonnu paduvan....
Ethra vattamen kal chilankakal konjiyennoo.....

Ente Khalbile Vennilav Nee Nalla Paattukara.....
Thattamittu Nhan Kathu vachoren Mullamottiloorum....Atharonnu vendee...
Atharonnu Vendee....
Ente Koottukaraa...Suthante Chelu kara......