October 13, 2011
I have been reading some manuals towards clearing some modules of the National Stock Exchange's Certification in Financial Markets. These are a must-have to do any kind of financial market related business in India today. As soon as I get the all powerful PAN card, I hope to start knocking these certifications off one by one.
At IIT, among other things, I was exposed to textbooks written by foreign authors. The utter unfriendly nature of Indian textbooks was obvious immediately. Numbing passages packed with unending sentences is the norm of Indian texts. They are written as if the author is ashamed if the reader manages to grasp the meaning in a single reading. What a disaster it is if the poor reader manages to enjoy reading the scholastic outpouring! I haven't seen the new editions of Indian school and college textbooks but I think it is safe to assume that the attitude of whatever is serious has to dull and fun means frivolous still continues. At least it does in the NCFM manuals.
These manuals trace the growth of Indian stock markets from the early 90s to the latest innovations like the introduction of the volatility index. So it is surprising when in some parts, there are instructions for saving your work to the A:\ floppy drive! The manual urges one to save to C:\ before going to A:\ to avoid delays. There is a generous sprinkling of MS-DOS related commands as well. When I mentioned the anachronistic tendencies of the text to Achan, he recalled having an old history professor in his college in 1970 who used notes from his own college days thus leading to lectures that start "Recently, during second world war...".
The booklets reflect the society remarkably well; gently incise the ultra modern veneer and the past bleeds out!
Early in the morning, I read and study while walking on the terrace. The child's cry from the neighbors at the back has become my 7:30 alarm. It must be a 4 or 5 year old boy. He is absolutely against bathing. Staunch anti-bathist! Shrill shrieks and gut wrenching pleas continue for the 10 minutes that his dad struggles to give him the bath before school. I hope it is entirely psychological and there is no physical pain he suffers from contact with water. Considering how most of us completely reverse our childhood likes and dislikes later in life, he will one day be a great swimmer or model for Lux soap in a candle-lit bubble bath with rose petals like Shah Rukh Khan.
Went with Amma in the afternoon to the Hercules car dealership to get the invoice. The shop looked bombed. A strange kind of bomb that had selectively gutted the floor and ceiling of the building leaving the walls and pillars in all their glory. Sanoj, the sales rep, explained that it was indeed a corporate bomb. Maruti has decided that all its showrooms should look exactly the same across the nation.
I am not going to point any fingers but I will leave it to your discerning intelligence by mentioning that all the dealers have been instructed to get the new material for flooring and roofing from the same Delhi-based business that wasn't having much sales in the last few years! You don't need an MBA to predict that in a couple of years some MBAs will advise Maruti that sales will improve if each showroom had its own distinct local, ethnic look.
Sanoj prepared the paperwork amidst all the debris. I felt I was in the set for a shoddy, low budget world war movie. Thankfully there was one airconditioned office still left intact where we could hear each other over the banging and scrapping. Amma signed off on all the papers for her new red Alto K10. Delivery is expected by next week.
While coming back from the car dealership, I noticed two men on tall stilts and clown costumes handing out pamphlets near the entry road to our housing colony. A "Party Factory by Rebecca" dedicated for "all your party needs" has been inaugurated. I used to look at such shops in the US, dedicated to partying "needs", as a symbol of wretched American profligacy. Now I have one right outside home here!
Achan was wrestling with an obstinate stone when I returned home. He had begun digging a hole for the tissue culture banana saplings bought yesterday in the backyard when the stone blocked his plans. Pick-axe, spade, 'paara': all the tools had come out for assistance. I turned on the hose to wet the soil around. After ten minutes of patient prodding, the little rock gave up. A solid piece of granite with a lovely flat face glistening in its wetness. It could be big business if we install it on a pedestal, sprinkle some sandal paste, saffron and turmeric on it, garland it and create some stories of its effective interference with human fate. May be such reverential treatment is not in its destiny! Perhaps in next birth!
Thanks to social networking sites, learnt about the death of Dennis Ritchie this morning. It went unnoticed compared to Steve Jobs passing though Ritchie's contributions have been equally important to the world. The Malayalam newspapers had all honored Steve Jobs with front page coverage and they all managed to get photographs of Jobs in which he resembled Mahatma Gandhi. Manorama had a well-written editorial dedicated to him with the title "Nandi Steve, ee lokathe mattiyathinu" (Thanks Steve for changing this world). I feel very lucky to be alive in a world that is so connected. Thanks, indeed, to the tremendous talent and effort of personalities like Jobs and Ritchie.
Here's the Hindi music trivia for the day. The first solo song of this all time great singer shows his imitation of K.L. Saigal just like Mukesh had done in "Dil Jaltha hai" song. To get to the studio for the recording, this new singer followed Lata Mangeshkar from the railway station, scaring her into running to the studio as she suspected him to be a crazy stalker!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-KCGt1za0M
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