My Musings

It was 1975, at the thick of the Vietnam war.   A US general was baiting Viet Cong guerrilla fighters to come out of their trenches. He was at the fag end of the war. All strategies to gouge them out failed. Days turned to nights and the sun sunk twice over. The four star general was restless to call victory. He pounded the land, rained bullets and pulverized the sky. Still the guerrillas were entrenched and holding the ground. The cat and mouse game went on at an immense cost for America. The NATO army had the best of the equipment, finest of the strategies, deepest of the resources and valorous of the men. The Guerilla’s had only one resource as they sneered at the general “ you may have the clock but we have the time!” . That alone determined Vietcong’s indomitable spirit. In war games often, the only winning move is not to play and time out your opponent. In a parallel world, venture  capitalist rushed in and out of PowerPoint meetings and invested scores of million...

This is a modern take from an old Chinese fable that is appropriate for our times. A young Indian graduate gets his MBA degree and lands a great job abroad. His college mates congratulate him. Professors say he has ‘arrived in life’. The graduate quotes wryly…" good or bad, time will tell" . There is a financial crisis in 2008 and the young man loses his job. His family is shocked at the abrupt turn of events and dismay sets in. The young man quotes wryly…" good or bad, time will tell" . He is forced to pack his bag and come home to his parents as an unemployed adult. He finds the love of his life back in his country. He eventually marries and has a lovely family of his own. His well wishers share his joy and congratulate him. The bridegroom quotes wryly…" good or bad, time will tell" . As he works through the vagaries of life, he slips down the career ladder as peers move up! “So sorry for the lost opportunity” says his concerned wife. ...

The COVID-19 Game-Changer By now it is pretty clear that Covid 19 is a black swan (Or a black bat!) moment. The only person to not recognize this global pandemic is your nitpicking spell checker! An ir-retractable line has been drawn in the annals of world history. We have clearly woken up to our own vulnerability. We will fondly reminisce the good old days of globalization. As long as Chen assembled your computer in Guangzhou and Vijay provided remote tech support from Bangalore, you cherished the global village. Globalization never had to contend to the fact that one’s eating habit in Asia would endanger another in Europe. As long as the virus remained in the omnipresent CPU, it was a technical problem. When it crawled out to our very being, it became an insidious pandemic that was more deadlier than a war and the world was never the same thereafter! The Seen and the unseen To be clear, Corona virus was not the first to have had pan-world impact and it won’t be the l...

An oft repeated but a tired critic in Hafta by now is an imaginary conflict between Left liberal and right conservative ideology. Somehow in the din of the heated debate, liberals, including self proclaimed ones like Abhinandan, have become an epitome of illiberal-ism.  The conservatives are clue less on the causes that define them. It is because Hafta panel assumes that they have to fight the liberal cause that they often overlook fleshing out various aspects of an issue. This used to be the USP of the Hafta. If you had a panel with wider outlook, Issues like Sabarimala or Balakot would have made for riveting debates. Unfortunately for the listeners that was not to be.  I believe majority of the Indians are actually "centrists" who don't carry the baggage of the either of the above.  Centrism is not moderate but rather supports strength, open mindedness and policy based on evidence not ideology. Centrism is not constrained by a liberal or conservative camps ....

A cliché doesn't make the truth any less cliché.  2019 elections will be a seminal moment in India's election history. When 91 crore voters reached the booth for there ultimate moment of truth, they demolished the entrenched caste structures and voted for India. They either voted for Modi or against Modi . The fact that he/she was a Vokkaliga , Kayastha, Yadav, Jatav, Brahman was inconsequential and not the cornerstone of his/her vote. One and half crore first time voters failed to even recognize caste barriers as they reached the booth for there first tryst with democracy. Only an echo chamber in the leftist cabal or a dynastic political private entity can deny this inconvenient truth. In an eclectic sense this is effectively a Hindu reform that may stand the test of time. One of Hinduisms biggest fault lines has been its caste lines. Politicians and media merely exploited the status quo and nurtured the wounds to fortify the entrenched market share of there political ...

2 weeks is up and I am back in HK. after the first couple of days, didnt know what I was doing, roaming around aimlessly and without purpose. Rammed my car to a lorry. punctured the Bike, Car and Activa. Slept through the day, watched TV thru night. If that was'nt enough I misunderstood my flight timings. I would have almost missed my flight but for some divine intervention !! Thanks to my dad for not flipping over this outrageous mistake from my side. This wont be the last time I am screwing it up. There has been other instaces and there will be and that scares me out of my wits!! One another thought brewing in my mind is that I didnt like being in India as much as I thought. The quality of life is very poor, the air you breath, the water you drink, the roads you travel, the noise you hear and the dirt in the pot holes all seemed to bother me and I am as much a perpetrator to this as anybody else is. It's in our culture and Spic and Span is not a very Indian thing I guess....

I am back after nearly a decade. Phew! It is cliched to see that a lot of water has flown down the river in the last decade. But isn't life a cliche.  I have been married and have a daughter. I was never a banker as I claimed in the last post 9 years ago. It turned out to be a mirage. I am a ..... hotelier! for 9 freaking years. To start from where I left The last post was on March 9th, 2009. I was frantically job hunting. Crossing out one option after another. Then one fine day after many a cold calls, I got a glimmer of hope. I was told that there is some hotel which is looking for an accountant, An asst. finance controller.  Marriott did not ring a bell at that time. I didnt care either. I was clutching at the straws and faked an accountant-ish experience at the interview. Lo and behold, they thought I was a perfect fit!! I joined the company on 26th March, 2009. I told myself that this is just a transient arrangement and I would get back to big things in life. Hat...