the fattest lady in the building taught her kid to call me 'aunty' today in the lift...the sudden change in my colour from a usual wheatish brown to a sudden flaming red didn't send the message across...as she continued to hammer it down the kid's memory bank...

all i could do was smile at the kid like an idiot all the while chanting an ancient voodoo charm in my head to mutilate the mother...i was convinced that any more time in the lift and the smoke alarm would have gone off!

and as if to console...the conductor in the bus asks in all innocence..."half ticket?"

do you think i am sufficiently qualified to be clinically diagnosed with Schizophrenia?

you know how you always wished you came across a teacher who wasn't judgemental about you...never scoffed at you for not knowing enough...never mocked at you for asking stupid (and you thought that was a valid question) questions...simplified a concept using stories out of tinkle...and used those stories whether you were 13 or 30...no matter how difficult the concepts got...

and everytime people got very solemn about something...he knew exactly when to say something funny to crack everyone up...just like he always knew the exact part of the sentence to stop and wait for you to absorb what you were listening to...and

the teacher who didn't care how old you were...the teacher..whom the world didn't know much about...but was quite the world for his students...

well..now you know why most IGIDRiites respect the Big B!

attended a paper on a Comparative Study of Labour Markets of India and China yesterday..courtesy the Big B of course...

so he attributes China's success with reforms and the resultant double digit growth to their strategy..to begin with..Reforms were not imposed upon China..like it was in India after 91 forex crisis...so there was no consultant role to be played there...China's reforms were a bottom up approach...coz it was acute food crisis...essentially...it came from the people...coz peasants led the reforms process...they demanded that they be allowed to produce as much as they could and give a certain quota to the govt and retain the rest for themselves...

and the Chinese govt went on to spread reforms phase wise....not in one sweep by but by careful experimentation...i guess the fact that it was dictatorial govt also helped...Chinese growth is also fuelled by the manufacturing sector...China prioritized on the privatisation of the small enterprises...while the big enterprises are still in the govt domain..(i guess this fixation for retaining power over big industries has got to do with the whole Big is Better obsession of Communism...big industries seen as symbols of power..just like Nehru saw Big Dams as the temples of modern India)

another thing i learnt about China yesterday was that they do not have the right to migrate within the country in search of employment that best suits their needs...they get a card at the place where they are born and stay...and employment is given to them by the govt. no chance of rejecting it...( i was thinking...most of the people who hated my blog on the Mumbai Shanghai makeover would have loved to impose this on the Biharis...)

so houses are also given on the basis of that card...so you can't just migrate anywhere you like within your own country...and hence there are NO SLUMS in their cities! (i think i can now hear those who hated my mumbai shanghai blog saying 'thank you!')

but wait a minute that does not mean there is no poverty...that does not mean there is no unemployment...their unemployment rates are as high as ours...10 to 12 per cent...rural poverty is rampant...urban poverty is not visible...not non existent...

so anyways...at the end of the lecture..with loads of fundas about the need for labour reforms in order to boost growth and reach the enviable double digits...i still came out wondering..so what happens to all the people who don't have jobs and can't do a thing about it coz the law doesen't permit them to do so...so what really are the poverty figures for China?

and...is there any scope for ethics in economics?

well..as i stepped out...i heard someone quip, " The world only likes winners...doesen't matter how you got there."

only the double digits matter...how many people it reached out to doesen't.

well..all i can say for now is that the latter does matter in Planet Vibzoid!

and someday when i present a paper on that...hopefully two wide eyed kids will be sitting by the sea and arguing about it...and at the end of it decide to go back and read some more coz they want to outdo each other at arguing...

and it just won't stop now...the rain that is...have waded through shin deep water to trek to work today...every single human that passed by me today, with vehicle and without...ensured that they splashed water on me...one bus conductor even grinned broadly after speeding over a huge puddle of water to drench me...hmph! grr!

so are there any brownie points for motivation?

am here at the computer centre..have worked for 54 hours (that's not counting 5 hours spent travelling everyday to and fro) straight on!! wow! that's an achievement..what say?

so. yesterday I went to this place called Alfa (colleague wanted to buy rain footwear) which I call the hub of consumerism in the suburbs of Mumbai...it's stocked from shelf to shelf with all kinds of foreign goods...from chocoates...to paper...to footwear...to electronics..to stationary...to tissues...to i dunno...just name it and you will find it there....and yesterday being a sunday..it was choc-a-bloc with people of all shapes and sizes...the ratio of people per counter had to be at least 10:1...what a sight! it was middle class obsession for phoren goods and consumerism at its peak...you know i always get irritated with everyone who says..."the slum dwellers have poiticians to look after them..the elite don't need anyone...what about the middle class?" from now on it will be "the middle class have Alfa!"

you should have seen that place...people were elbowing each other out of their way...

actually the distinction between the middle class and the elite is not so obvious in our country..the middle class unlike in other countries is not really a buffer between the lower class and the upper class...in fact the top 10-15 percent of the population is clubbed together..coz in other countries..the distribution of population as per income brackets is done by considering the tax brackets...but in our country..since tax evasion is so high...we distribute our people as per consumption expenditure...

so when we say middle class..it's a mass of people at the top...the working class as it used to exist during the 60's and 70's does not really exist in the true sense of the term anymore...

anyways...sunday was swell with six hours at work and two hours with suhas spent laughing our heads off watching geo make a complete ass of himself! and here i am today dripping wet...at work!

so finally the heavens gave way!

the rich kids stayed up in their houses and stuck their hands out to feel the drops...while their mothers yelled at them to stay away in case they caught a cold...

the poor ones just ran out and stripped and soaked it up! after all later on they had to worry about draining out the water that would enter their houses in some time...

so am at work on a sunday! and am quite kicked about it...IGIDR looks like a hill station today...IGIDR...where you trek...not walk...

i have never been so enthu about work! ever!

you know what is the saddest part of it all...Prof Eye Candy teaches a really interesting paper called Public Health/Health Economics...and i can swear he is really good at teaching...(coz i have been interacting with him for almost a month now) but year after year no one opts for it...coz public health doesen't pay like Morgan Stanley or Amex!

as of now...it is going to be a rainy afternoon analysing suicides...depressing as ever!

The Day the City came to a Standstill...

well..almost..at least for about fortyfive minutes...today.

coz the Electricity Board dared to cut off electricity in that part of town where the Ambanis and the Tatas stay...

so kaput! there it goes..just like that..at 6:15 a.m...manage to run down fourteen floors and catch the bus to Churchgate...but wait a minute...have never seen Churchgate go standstill...i mean i was kinda overwhelmed...everyone looking expectantly at the indicators as if waiting for divine intervention...

and then suddenly as if God did say, " Let there be light"...the fans in the trains whirred back to life and the lights shone bright...and Churchgate almost witnessed a rebirth...

i know i am jara overdramatizing the whole episode...but what to do...once in a way when something unimaginable happens...something that the rest of the state has almost accepted as a way of life...it tends to stir you...

in case you are wondering what i was doing so early in the morning at Churchgate station...please do not fail to note that i am high on motivation right now with my new found occupation...

and of course June 14, 2005 will go down in my personal version of history as the day that I almost became Superwoman!

moi decided that confidence is not my forte...hence provisional admission in our very own mumbai university is a must...hence set out early in the morning loaded with all the requisite documents bright and shiny at Kalina campus at 9: 15 am...which by the way happens to be about one and a half hours away from home...and what do you know..i have everything but for proof of residence...why would they want that? and the damned office opens only at 10.30 am..so no way of collecting a form until then..hence vibha turns into superwoman and makes arrangements with sanyam to pick up a form and wait in the queue until she zooms across the city and jets back with her ration card...except that i didn't have the required costume for doing the 'up, up and away' bit...so back to the humble western railways...trudge all the way back...and finally reach kalina at 12.30 pm...

good ol' sanyam was right there waiting with a form..and i filled it up and stood inthe queue to stake my claim to a masters in the hallowed university, when at 12.45, precisely fifteen minutes before the desginated lunch hour...so decide to stuff my face as well..after all Superwoman needs refuelling as well...and it makes sense to taste the fare at the place that has the possibility of being my regular hangout a couple of months from now...

so back at action at 1:30 pm...and finally get done with form 1 at 2:00 pm...now the bank where the fees have to be deposited is located outside the campus (which by the way is quite extensive and the heat at 2:00 pm (especially after having travelled more than 50 kms already by various modes of transport since 7:45 am) makes the jaunt to the bank seem like the Tour De France...fortunately happened to meet an old acquaintance (and a pretty one to add) offers a car ride...coz she too was rocking in the same boat as mine...so off we go after filling the second form...and the bank official asks in all innocence.." challan kuthe ahay?" (which for the marathi morons is " where is the challan") so we stare like idiots and ruch back to the admissions office and blurt out, " challan kuthe ahay?" the officials have a hearty laugh and hand us the challan...and off we rush back to the bank which shuts by 3:00..and we are there by 2:55 pm...

finally after paying up our fees rush back to the campus for the fee receipt and by 3: 30 we are finally MA students...hey..but Superwoman decides to go to work...and reaches work at 4:30 pm...and works till 7 pm and reaches home spanning 35 kms across the city at 9.30 pm...

and phew! what a day! but ma makes it worth it when she looks and me and beams..." so you will finally be doing an MA after all!" yes ma..i will be...and hopefully more than that as well...

hello junta!
please to be noting...have recovered from the previous phase...and have been devouring literature on the green revolution, contract farming in punjab, Bt cotton in maharashtra...so on and so forth...

in between breaks...have been discussing jinnah and gandhi with dudes from bihar and orissa...the latter from orissa has an interesting combination of names for a name...he is called Hippusalk Crisalnathan ( i hope i got the spelling right!) apparently his parents found him to be last opportunity to be named weirdly...

on a more serious note..he is named after four great guys..Hippocrates, Edward Salk (polio vaccine dude i think...) and i have already forgotten the people who have contributed to his last name...but will put it here when i find out again...obviously hippu is going to have one helluva problem with the passport officials...

so anyways...very interesting conversation on jinnah...and of course his secular credentials...for a really interesting peek into the history of jinnah and some gyan on the context of advani's statements...please check out prathamesh's blog

have read this really interesting paper on the history of cotton farming in India and the science behind the Khadi movement...
so long staples of cotton were not really India's forte...except for Gujarat..but Britain primarily imported cotton from America when it industrialized..and American cotton was of the long staple variety..hence the machines in Britain were designed accordingly..but when India became a source of raw material, the machines were unfit for the short stapled coarse variety of cotton..hence indian cotton was deemed inferior by cotton traders from britain..
although indigeneous spinning techniques knew how to turn this short stapled variety to fine yarn by spinning higher counts...(case in point being the muslin from dhaka which was the finest in the world but spun from the shortest and coarsest staples) they were scrapped coz Britain's industrial revolution needed mechanized mass production...hence the trend of importing exotic varieties of cotton to india and killing the indigenous labour intensive spinning industry in india...

sadly even after independence...policy makers continue to remain obsessed with imported technology from pre independence and zealously promote long staples...

the Khadi movement sought to decentralise the manufacture of cloth...generate employment in households as well as revive the faith in the home grown varieties of cotton which are more durable, take colour easily and are generally more fit for our climate...

now this can prove to be an interesting context to see the promotion of Bt cotton in India..and the crisis amongst cotton farmers...

It's amazing how much history can contribute to understanding the origin of certain accepted axioms of progress and development...

no more regrets over my rejection now...coz all you need are the tools...the perspective is for you to add...

well what do you know...you recover from a viral..think that the rest of the days will have something good to offer you...but just when you think you are happy...and are going in the direction that you have decided upon...the bad news begins to flow in...

the first of my rejections came in today...it's funny how one rationalises failure...but i am beginning to learn all about it all over again...

well..what the heck...it's all just a @#$$ phase!! someone just make me travel in time so that i can cope with it....

The Anatomy of a Sore Throat!

Day 1: There is slight discomfort in swallowing..and you can feel you tonsils slowly swelling..but you put up with it, bravely, coz you think Day 2 will be brilliant with a husky voice et al!

Day 2: The pain is really bad...and your tonsils make sure you will starve through the day! no sign of the husky voice as yet...although by evening you are able to do a pretty good impersonation of a frog for people to stare and laugh at you for all the wrong reasons!! the fear of sounding like the amphibian's mating call makes sure you are left pretty much speechless through the day...still praying for the husky voice!!

Day 3: Alleluia!! There is a God up there...coz the husky deep voice is here...deep enough to put all the call centres of the world out of business! but ALAS!! there is an attack of viral fever now that makes sure you look like a dead duck!! worse still...the most avoidable people on earth call you on this day...only joyie (amongst the list of favourite people) was priveleged enough to listen to the desperately awaited for and much celebrated voice!!

Day 4: You are desperately praying for Day 3 to continue...but Murphy decides to strike...your tonsils swell with a vengeance and block your vocal chords and you sound somewhere between a cricket and a frog (interesting combination nonetheless..) please to be noting....the most important people in your life call you on this day and hang up real quick either out of sympathy or coz they have better things to do than listen to a freak! to make things worse...friends call (in particular Geeks) and poke fun at your voice and laugh endlessly...the fever soars and you are bedridden for a couple of days...which makes Day 5 and Day 6 pretty much useless!

Day 5: you are desperately praying for your original voice now...coz the pain and weakness just aint worth it!!