Circle of Mistrust - Part 1 - Kachori Economics

I was visiting my hometown after a gap of 2 long years and my excitement obviously had no bounds. Apart from being excited to see my parents, spend a few days at the home I grew up in, and many such things, I was thrilled to finally get the chance to put an end to my long standing cravings for Shiv’s (name changed) kachori – a spicy snack hugely popular in north India. I am sure you all have at least one - may be many - such place/s. That mom-and-pop kind of place in some old nook of the town, serving the most delicious food in the world.

So, without wasting much time, here I was, on my first day in town, at Shiv’s (a food cart on street). While patiently waiting for my turn, I couldn’t help but notice how many times Shiv (the owner) was interrupted by constant barrage of calls on his two phones (an iPhone 6s and a Samsung Galaxy Note). Thankfully, these calls didn’t come in the way of me and my kachori because Shiv was not directly involved in the process. Mostly, he was coordinating and fine tuning a very smooth running assembly line involving multiple workers (I counted at least 6), producing kachoris, samosas, bhaturas, etc. by the dozens. Being the son of a Punjabi businessman, I am wired to start crunching numbers in my mind once I see a successful business running. How many kachoris he must be selling everyday, how many samosas, what is he paying monthly to his workers, what is he paying to the local policeman, etc. Suddenly, I was happily interrupted by my kachori plate and the next 5 minutes were pure bliss.

Anyhow, I continued my calculations on my way back. Shiv starts at 7 am and runs out of his raw material usually by 1 PM. He sells at least 1000 kachoris everyday. At ₹10 per kachori, that’s ₹10000. Add all the other stuff (samosas, bhaturas, etc.) and even by the most conservative estimates, he is making sales worth at least 20000 everyday. He takes one day off in the week so his monthly sales must be around 500,000 rupees. Although, I believe that his actual costs would be much lower but let’s assume that they are around 50% (wages to his workers, rent/bribe, raw material etc.). Wow, Mr. Shiv is earning ₹250,000 every month; No wonder he has two of the most costly smartphones. A small business owner earning good money through some old-fashioned hard work and making a lot of people happy in the process. That’s great.

But wait, he earns more than most white-collar workers do in India, what kind of taxes is he paying? Does he pay any tax at all? I had to know.
I have many relatives who, unlike me, stayed in family businesses. I know for a fact that they are earning up to ₹ 500,000 every month. When I casually asked one of my cousins about his taxes, he dillydallied, but after constant probing he gave up. He told me that he underreports his income by 90% and that’s usual practice with all the small-medium business owners he knows.

Now, a moderate size tier 3 city has thousands of such people running unorganized/semi-organized businesses. Imagine, how many are there across India – hundreds of thousands. Don’t get me wrong; I am not saying all businessmen are cheats. There must be a small % of people who pay every penny they are suppose to, but all my instincts and experiences tell me that number is low. I am also not claiming that all working class people are ideal citizens. The difference is that for them, income tax is deducted from their salaries even before they get it. Given a chance, I am sure an equal % of salaried people would underreport their income.

Government data shows that only 1% of Indians pay income tax. Now, why is that? What does that say about us as people? Can you put the blame solely on citizens?

When I asked my cousin why he doesn’t pay his full taxes, he retorted – “us se kya hoga, jitna dete hai wo sab ye neta khaa jaate hai…aur denge to wo bhi khaa jaayenge” (What difference will it make? Whatever we give, goes into the pockets of politicians. Even if we pay more, they will snatch that too). He is not completely wrong. Rajiv Gandhi once famously said that only 15% of the government money reaches the common man. Widespread corruption at every level of government is a fact of life so it’s no surprise that common people do not trust the government with their hard earned money.

The way I see it, this deep-rooted mutual lack of trust and respect between the government and the people has formed a vicious circle of mistrust. Imagine what can happen if we can somehow break this circle. Imagine what can happen if, instead of 1%, 50% of Indians start paying their taxes and instead of just 15%, 75% of the government money is used for the benefit and convenience of the common men. 100% tax collection and 0% corruption is only possible on Mars; there will always be some leakage, but these numbers are very realistic. So, the government would collect 50 times more and of the collected money, spend 5 times more. Effectively, the total money spent on public infrastructure & services would be 50 X 5 = 250 times more.

Imagine, what if our roads were 250 times better, our public hospitals were 250 times better, our government schools were 250 times better. If only we were to break that circle of mistrust.

In the next part (coming soon), I will try to explore few ways in which this circle of mistrust can be broken.

It's 90's...all over again

With the wicket of Umesh Yadav, Nathan Lyon finally brought an end to India’s misery in Australia. I suspect the saddest thing about the final day of the series was that, like many of us, many in the Indian team too were just waiting for it to end.

It is sad because it is against the quite essential spirit of sport. Many have told me that winning is not everything. I listened silently and nodded (deep down inside, I am not sure, but that is me J). One thing I am absolutely sure of, however, is that the WILL to WIN is everything. Losing is no shame but even the thought of accepting defeat before fighting every inch and every breath is horrific and repulsive. That is what has happened to the Indian team and that is why this is one of the lowest plains they have hit in the years I remember. The cries from Sehwag and Gambhir (esp. when the series was not even over) about the invincibility of our team on Indian pitches were nothing but vents of frustration and hopelessness.

I don’t want to spend too much time writing about the collective batting failure and the reasons behind that. Enough words have been/will be said by wiser people. In short, yes, our batting failed and changes should have been made to the batting lineup/order, but, for me, batting failure was only one of the four reasons we failed.

Apart from the two I already mentioned – defeatist frame of mind and poor batting - there were two more: poor bowling by India and excellent bowling by Australia.

Usually, against top test teams (Australia, England, South Africa, Pakistan), India’s fate heavily depends on the contest between the opposition’s fast bowling (their strength) and India’s batting (our strength). This series was no different.

If the joker were a cricket expert – maybe he was J - and he was asked to predict the results of this series on Dec 24^th, he could have just quoted his line from the Dark Knight – “This is what happens when an Unstoppable Force (Bunch of inexperienced yet exciting fast bowlers from Australia) meets an Immovable Object (the legendary Indian batting lineup).

Alas, in this case, the unstoppable force proved too much. The consistency, discipline and ruthlessness of the Australian attack were beyond words. If you can, just have a look at all of Laxman’s dismissals in the series one by one, you will know the Australians came out a plan and executed it to perfection. They kept probing him just outside off stump on a good length and he kept edging it behind the stumps.

Moving on to the other extreme, Indian bowlers were, at best, average. This was perhaps the weakest Aussie batting lineup I can remember. Watson was out injured, Warner was a T-20 player asked to play tests, Ponting was fighting for a place in the team, Marsh was not completely fit, Hussey was being asked questions about retirement…and yet, India lost two matches by innings margins.

Zaheer was predictably good, but what about others. Yadav and Ishant bowled good in patches but, at this level, patches are just not good enough. You have to keep bowling good balls, one after the other. Bowling 3-4 good balls in an over and then gifting one down the leg/ short on off is simply not done.

I almost cried watching Vinay Kumar bowling at Perth. He is 27 years old and got his first match of the tour at arguably the fastest pitch on earth, yet he starts off his spell with a 122 kmph loosner and maintains an average speed of 125 kmph. He cannot swing the bowl either way and can’t get the ball to pitch on its seam. If he was really the best we could send to Australia as a replacement, then god help Indian test cricket.

In the end, we are not unfamiliar with these losses. Look beyond a few years in past and it is just like the pathetic 90’s we spent under Azhar. Only, I really thought that the great Ganguly had turned it around forever.

Yes, we are a cricket crazy nation but I am not sure if have our priorities right. We won’t play another test match until 7-8 months from now and in a flurry of ODI’s and T-20’s, many will forget what happened in England and Australia. Personally, I can only hope that we don’t.

For me, winning test series’ in England and Australia would have been a greater feat than winning the ODI World Cup in India and I suspect/hope many in the Indian cricket team share this ambition.

Rockstar - An honest attempt

A few days after the debacle of ‘Delhi Belly’, I saw the first promotions of ‘Rockstar’. Initially, I tried to follow the good old proverb that my Hindi teacher once taught us - “Doodh ka jala chhach bhi phhonk phoonk kar peeta hai”. Isn’t it funny that we now realize how true all these sayings are, years after we first heard, read and obsessively memorized them without ever understanding anything about their meaning. 


Anyways, my attempt to practice this cautious optimism did not last long and I realized, once again, what a hopeless romantic I am when it comes to the things I care about (Good cinema will always be among them). So, I went ahead and read, watched and listened to anything and everything about the movie before the release (even went to the theater a day in advance to get the tickets).

I think the movie will incite extreme reactions from different people. As far as I am concerned, I thought that, despite all its flaws, it was a very honest attempt at telling a simple yet engaging love story. The experience of watching a movie is a very personal one and I would rather not put a ‘RATING’ on it. But for those of you who are skimming through this post just to get a feedback that could help you make the decision to go or not, I would say go ahead and do it. It is better to watch it and be a little disappointed about what a great movie it could have been, had Imtiaz Ali (Writer and Director) been a little more thoughtful and cautious in the second half, than not watch it and miss a usual Bollywood love story told in a not-so-usual way. 


Let me talk about a few highlights. 


To start with, dare I say that even A. R. Rehman has outdone himself with this one. Going in, I had a few favorites: the refreshing “Sheher main”, the passionate “Saada Haq”, the truly beautiful “Jo bhi main”, and the haunting (for those of use who are away from home) “Nadaan Parindey”. Today, “Kun faaya Kun” and “Tum ho” are on repeat mode on my Spotify ☺. As one of my dear friends had pointed out, in Rehman’s early days, the only possible weapon his critics had was that his music had a certain feel/theme. Being the genius he is, he took away even that from them. I doubt that any other music director can pull off two songs as different as ‘Kun Faaya Kun’ and ‘Hawaa Hawaa’ (with the use of all western instruments) with same eloquence. 


Further, for which song should Mohit Chuahan get the highest award possible in Hindi Music seems to be a tougher question than how to save Europe. It was yet another piece of genius from Rehman to pick him for the voice of the protagonist and to say that Mohit did not disappoint would be an understatement. 


Despite the risk of this becoming a music review, I had to mention that when you understand and appreciate the depth of lyrics from Irshad Kamil, you start wondering if names such Javed Akhtar are used too often in conjunction with great song writing. 


After a long time, the visuals seem to add beauty the vocals. The narration just before ‘Kun Faaya Kun’ is especially touching and the song slips in at just the right moment and takes you away into a different zone altogether. 


Moving on to the actors, it is Ranbir Kapoor all the way. He has not only played his own part to the perfection, but also seems to go beyond that to make up for Nargis Fakhri. Visually, Nargis fits into the role perfectly but it is the pure lack of skill on her part that does not allow the chemistry between the couple to flourish, something which was very important to make the movie more realistic. 


Back to Ranbir, a lot of actors can learn a lot from him, esp. some of his seniors such as SRK. You realize how good he is when you almost feel his pain in the later parts of the movie, in which his character dons kind of a dual personality: the lost, indifferent and angry rockstar to outside world, yet the most innocent, bubbly and hopelessly in love middle class Delhi boy in the company of his lover.

Sachin Fanatics vs. Sachin Fans

Today was the last day of the first test match between India and England. India needed to bat a complete day against arguably the best attack in the seeming and swinging conditions of England to avoid what seemed an inevitable loss. I started my morning with cricinfo.com and found that India were five down with about forty-five overs to go. They were fighting but the task seemed too daunting (eventually, they were bundled out with more then 28 overs to spare).

My next, almost natural, move was to open my Facebook account to see what my friends had to say. Most of the updates went like “Sachin will not fail”, “Sachin will make a hundred”, “Tendya will kill the English attack” etc. and not a single word on the fact that there were ten more players fighting the wobbling piece of leather directed at them at 90+ mph speeds. This is, of course, not the first time that I have witnessed what I like to call ‘Sachin Fanaticism’.

Let me quickly put that I consider myself as die-hard of a fan as any and I too, like millions of my generation, grew up watching the Master blast his way through thousands of runs piled up across all the different bowling attacks and conditions possible. I too have sat for hours in the same position, glued to the TV, with the superstition that my faint little move will cause his departure and consequently India’s loss.

But there is a difference between a ‘Fan’ and a ‘Fanatic’ and I am afraid that Sachin seems to have too many of the latter. In my opinion, not only this radicalism puts extra unnecessary pressure on the great man, it also takes away the much-deserved glory from some of the other greats of our time. Did someone realize that Rahul Dravid has now scored 33 centuries in test cricket (one short of the great Sunny Gavaskar)? Never mind that most of these centuries came in extremely difficult conditions outside India and the team has only lost twice despite Dravid’s ton. I always thought that Kumble (In my book, India’s greatest spinner ever) never got his due credit (He might be the last man on earth who will go looking for it). With the short stint at captaincy that he was given too late, he showed what a big mistake it was to not make him captain right after Azhar’s departure. I could go on and talk about Laxman, Saurav, Zaheer etc but you get the point.

One of my friends seemingly hates Dhoni just because Dhoni felt that the extra 10 runs that the team could get were more important than the five that Sachin needed to become the first man to score 200 runs in an ODI. This fanaticism may have been somewhat justified 10-12 years back when India was at best an average test side (especially outside India) and relied too heavily on the star batsmen who was at his attacking best then. But a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then and the success of this team, as is the case with all great teams, is characterized by genuine team effort. When needed, an injured Ishant Sharma can pop some painkillers and hang in for two hours to clinch a win from right under the Aussie jaws. After failing in the whole tournament, MS Dhoni has the guts to promote himself ahead of Yuvraj and finish Sri Lanka at the biggest stage of them all. When Zaheer gets injured in the middle of an innings, Praveen will give you five. Every member in this team has the talent and attitude to walk-in at a big stage and perform.

Some of the blame should go the media, news channels and some below average commentators who earn their bread by simply praising the master blaster in 80% of their commentating time, but we fans should be equally mindful of the fact that the team consists of eleven very high quality players (chosen among the 1.2 billion of us) who toil hard together for ONE cause. I am sure the great man himself will want the same from us ☺.

When the history was being written...

This is a piece that I had written (then on another forum) just after Indian cricket team's win over Pakistan in WC 2011 Semifinal.

They say records are meant to be broken. Well, most of them…It is still 5-0 in India’s favor when it comes to ODI WC matches against Pakistan. It was clear from the beginning that this was not going to be a one sided contest and it wasn’t (until Afridi got out). You could feel the two teams tussle it out – Sehwag delivering a ‘Uppercut’, Wahab coming back with a ‘Hook’, Sachin taking a host of ‘Jabs’ but standing…and you knew that this is not going to be a knock-out in the third round…it’s going to go right till the end.

Sachin would usually score 100+ runs without making a single mistake but today he struggled - esp against the quite brilliant Azmal – but more importantly stayed for a good part of the innings – many thanks to Pakistan fielding – and made those vital 85 runs. It is only Pakistan who can drop four catches of a batsmen like Sachin, loose 20 odd runs via shoddy ground fielding but still manage to contain the Indian behemoths to 260, which I felt was quite chasable.
Pakistan started well and were on their way until Younis and Misbah adopted a batting style that only they can explain…It’s not the first time that they did this or shall I say, this happened to them but they need to go back and have a long hard look at the way they approach their batting… at the moment it seems very one-dimensional – either blocking every delivery or trying to hit each one out of the park. Maybe take a clue from Dravid’s book who faced similar problems at some point in his career.

Earlier, Dhoni had surprised everyone by dropping Ashwin, but you have to admit that there is something about this team that he knows and we all don’t or maybe it’s just instinct…whatever…who cares as long as India is winning…they must be very happy with the way they bowled – very few extras and all the five bowlers bowling their full quota. Munaf and Nehra were particularly impressive and it is great thing for a team that someone else picks up the ball when your main bowler (Zaheer) drops it (kind-off).

Now the action moves to Mumbai and a Sachin Tendulkar fan (which is pretty much another name that you can call an Indian with) could not hope for a better setup. The local boy – yeah…you could still call him that – is due for his 100th century and should I say long due for a world cup win. Both teams know each other too well and you can expect another fierce contest between two well deserved finalists.

Cries of a Bollywood fan...

The first promotions that I saw of ‘Delhi Belly’ got me excited and I am sure that millions of movie buffs like myself were eagerly waiting for the movie. It is no secret that, more often than not, Hindi cinema fails to give us the treat that we passionate fans so thoroughly deserve. After all, movies and cricket are all most of us have/had when it comes to recreation. I admire the quality of Hollywood cinema - although both industries regularly dish out crap, I feel that on an average Bollywood produces only 2-3 memorable movies per year compared to at least 10 from Hollywood, but having grown up on the fantastically average movies of the 80’s and 90’s, the first whiff of a decent Hindi movie generates incomparable enthusiasm.

After waiting for a week to hear reviews (most of which were good) and crowds to wither down, my wife and I finally went for our Bollywood feast along with a couple of friends, one of who is an ardent Bollywood fan and one not so much. As it turned out, both of my strategies failed miserably: Even after a week, 11:55 PM show of a Hindi movie in California was full to capacity (we had to content with second row seats) and more importantly, the movie turned out to be a huge disappointment.

The opening, with wonderfully shot sequences of a perfectly shoddy apartment (I don’t know what else to call it) housing three bachelors, gave further hope but as soon as the three protagonists (Imran, Vir and Kunal) started talking in complete unadulterated English in their slumbers, I got an odd feeling. Okay, there must be people in some parts of India who are as conversant in Hindi as I am in Chinese but they certainly don’t live in houses like the one shown in the movie. Also, later in the movie, it is shown that Poorna who is a colleague of Imran lives in a pretty decent house. This mismatch further strengthened my belief that the director was trying too hard to show things that are wonderfully reminiscent of the Indian lower-middle class (The toilet, the wash basin, the street food that Kunal eats etc.) while maintaining a super cool urbane theme. I do not have a problem with depicting these very different versions of India and her people in the same movie, but it starts to look desperate when you try to infuse both into the same characters. A guy like Arup simply does not go to a barber with ancient tools in a trashy shop, charging 10 Rs for a haircut. So for me, the biggest problem with the movie is that it is not honest. I would much rather watch a movie by Sajid khan that is unabashedly stupid but stays true to its intent and identity.

One of my friends mentioned that some of the good movies in the past too had English-speaking characters when they were not meant to. He gave the examples of 'Gandhi' and 'Slumdog Millionaire'. Well, although 'Slumdog millionaire' was a much better movie overall, I did have my reservations about it. Call me nitpicky but I am just not ready to compromise with the originality and believability of the characters. My trust gets broken when the director tries to infuse something unoriginal due to an ulterior motive. In the case of 'Slumdog Millionaire', the movie was primarily targeted towards the western audience and although the director has every right to chose his target audience and make the film accordingly, I had a hard time digesting the fluent English coming out of Mafia Dons and Hawaldars.

Moreover, English speaking characters are not the only problem with Delhi Belly: The plot is predictable and dialogues are very average (take out the curses and nothing much is left). The best thing about the movie is its brilliant music and creative song picturization. Unfortunate​ly, the movie has only glimpses of both.

The movie hits its lowest point right before the ‘Jaa Chudail’ song when Anup shamelessly boasts about the oral sex that he has had with his girlfriend who is abandoning him and marrying an NRI from Canada. Although the song is his imagination just after being betrayed, the words used here look forced.

Moving to performances, as usual, Vijay Raj was a treat to watch and very original in his portrayal of a goon from Delhi. A pleasant surprise was Poorna Jaggannath. With her background (She grew up outside India in many countries and attended college in US), one expected her to breeze through performing a free spirited urban girl but she managed the small sequence in which she plays the contrasting character of a not so urban muslim lady craving tacky jewelry with equal aplomb. Among the boys, Kunal looked the most comfortable and had the right expressions.

Overall, the movie was a very unsatisfying experience, especially coming from the Aamir Khan production. Even the item number from Aamir was goofy and not up to the actor’s usual standards. I would much rather watch a funnier, wittier, better-written story of another set of three friends – ‘Horrible Bosses’.

Development and Sports

“China and India” – How many articles, how many headlines, how much paper, how many opinions do you see filled with these three words nowadays...A short two word answer would be  “a lot”. Especially, the frenzy that the Indian media and politicians usually engage in comparing India’s growth to that of China’s is mostly obsessive and unwarranted.

The reality – of course – is different. Dr. Amartya Sen has talked about how the economic growth that we are never too tired to boast off is just a mean to a larger end - the overall health, education and development opportunities that a nation can provide. The reality is that Bangladesh does a better job of converting GDP numbers into prosperity of the average citizen.

So the point is that the elephant, sadly, is still very far from the dragon in the prosperity race and it will take some catching up before we can justly put them in the same category for comparison. I can talk about the fantastic roads that china has built, the higher number of world class universities that they can proudly list, the influence that they wield on the international political matters but yesterday’s French Open women’s final gave fresh insight into another set of facts that tell the same story.

Li Na defeated Schiavone and became the first Asian to win a grand-slam singles title. In the 100+ year old history of tennis grand slams, it was just yesterday that someone from the most populous continent claimed the glory. No wonder the winner came from China.

If you turn to Olympics, you will find that starting 1992 (fourteen years after the reforms started) China has consistently been among the top four nations in the medal listing and has only gone up from number four to number one as the years passed by.  They qualified for the FIFA world cup in 2002 and have a decent record at the Asian Cup. They have the strongest Basketball team in Asia. One could list more sports but their Olympics record itself tells you a lot.

Compare all these records to what Indian sports has been able to achieve. What does this comparison tell you? Are the Chinese naturally better athletes, are they better competitors or do they have a deeper burning desire to win? Well…although one or more of the above statements might be true but they are definitely not the primary reason behind the huge difference in the sporting success of the two nations. What it tells is that an average Chinese kid has better sports facilities at school, has a wider range of sports to choose from, has a more balanced course work at school, eats a nutrient meal more often, has a better chance of making a decent living out of a sporting career and overall has better development opportunities compared to an average Indian kid inclined towards sports.

So going back to whole means (Economic Growth) to end (Prosperity) theory, would you think twice before you talk about development in China and India together the next time?