Observations of a Quasi-Gypsy - 1

My last blog was on the 1st of January 2007 and i said i would try writing an entry everyday like diary but as usual new year resolutions remain new year resolutions :-)

However this new year has been pretty much eventful that i have toured a lot of places (mostly on account of work. Yet to reach the self financing status!!!) and have almost lived like a gypsy. You can call me a Quasi-gypsy. Places i visited this year - Delhi (i have lost count how many times), Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Salem (hometown), Karaikudi (Native place), Coimbatore (nearest operational airport to my hometown), Mumbai (where i stay), Ahmedabad, Pipavav and Kolkota.

Some things that i noticed in common - (a) There is so much energy in people to do so much business given the current economic buoyancy (b) Real Estate as a result has once again caught on (c) Movie halls are brimming with huge crowds even though no movie has really ran that well all this year (d) Inflation on ground seems to be much more than whats reported (e) Politics, elections and the aftermath remain as eventful as ever (f) Industries are capacity constrained and we are operating at more than 100% levels, as usual to the utter amazement of all across the globe (g) the short sighted and slow planning of infrastructure which is under strain from day one.

The real reson for this growth i feel is as below. India being an agrarian economy (65-70% of the population supposedly still depends upon agriculture for livelihood) availability of water through the year plays a quintessential role. Thanks to the highly bureaucratic nature of working we still depend upon our Rain God - Varuna (i think!) - year on year to bless us with sufficient rainfall. Thanks to Him, we have seen a continued good bout of rainfall across most parts of the country in the last three-four years. This i feel is the real reason for the sustained 8+% growth in the economy during this period. The multiplier effect of this has been there for all to see.

But whats been interesting when i visited most of the places is that how this has affected the Indian populace or rather the Inclusive growth the current UPA government is talking about.
(a) all the educated bunch of youngstars are more than happy to be coders which pay them handsomely. This group by any imagination forms only around 0.1% of the population.
(b) The second rung which has just managed to speak a little english has enthusistically agreed to be call centre executives (again at a handsome salary). This crowd again forms only of another 0.2% of the population.
(c) The bottom of the pyramid however is hardly employable in any of the service sector. The manufacturing jobs are more mechanised these days and they dont want people either. Construction, agriculture and trading seem to be the mass employment providers.

Also there seem to be two underlying problems with regards to this employment situation in India - a big chunk is difficult to be employed and the other minor group (major by absolute number) is under employed. What we need is for this underemployed group to become entrepreneurial and generate employment for this bottom of the pyramid.

It pains me to see such wonderful minds acting as coders who work like dogs for 20% of the time they are employed and spend the rest 80% on the bench waiting for their billion dollar companies to get them newer projects. This crowd is 'oblivious to the fact' is what i seem to get and the basic reason for this is the handsome package that they get upfront which over a longer term hardly moves up. This does not perturb them either as they seem to end with an onsite employment for an average of two-three months a year which pays them 4-5x the domestic salary. However as people continue to work in these places they seem to be stuck to this industry as no one else wants them and they get frustrated doing the same monotonous jobs.

Why i really hate this is because irrespective of the engineering stream - Civil, Mechanical, IT, Textiles, Instrumentation, EEE, ECE they are employed in this sector while these industries which actually need this crowd does not get enough of them. This constrains the infrastructure building in the economy.

My personal opinion - employ Science/Arts students to work as coders. let the engineers do what they are suppposed to do. But the Laws of capital/Money have their own ways and that dictates economics. we got to accept this fact and see how we can improve.

that brings me to the end of this post and i feel i need to improve on a few things - A gassing arnd factor acquired during the glorified MBA that i got. I got to write to the point and not bore the reader (which largely is me and myself).

Year 2K7

Year 2K7 has arrived and like every other year this year too I have made up my mnd to write my diary regularly. Well though i have not zeroed in on what to write on this new year's day i just thought i needed to kickstart the process and hence i am writing a mail for the sake of it. But the positive side to it is that atleast i have made a start.

I celebrated the New Year's eve at kandivli with my friends Souveer, Karan, Avis, Divya, Honey and Ashish Jha. Was a nice get together as we all met after a quarter or so. Some of them were busy talking about where to make their next strategic shift in their career during the year ahead. Was very interesting knowing each one's point of view especially when most of them were about to be married in this group. It really changes the equation as a lot of them actually came forward with their views. I am happy that i am still sometime away from that situation :-)

Souveer and Ashish Jha were at their witty best as they started taking poor sehgoo's case. But our sher did not give up that easily and fought his way through the session. Some good old memories from college were revived as usual. Then the news of the day came ---- Our own Nariyal Pani man Kris had left for Texas. He had reached and we had a brief chat on the net with him. But the icing on the cake was from the Prince Rajkumar - Our man was working his regular night shift on the new year's eve as one of his colleagues in the project had an accident. Poor guy first new year post marriage and he had to celebrate at his big software firm's campus :-(

Otherwise we got up pretty late on the new years day and went for some shopping for Ashish's marriage. post that me and karan saw a very emotional flick on TV - Baghban. Amitabh was really at his emotional best. I saw it for the first time and realised why this movie was such a huge hit. It made one emotional all the way through.....

Then after that we discussed on some financial modelling and then i left Kandivli for my own sweet South Bombay. but only when i reached south bombay did i wake up to the reality that CAS has been implemented in the island city and hence only free to air channels are visible in the hostel. Finally one drawback of being in South Bombay. But yeah got to live with that. Rounded off the new years day with some shopping at Westside.

Thats about what i did today....keeping my fingers crossed to update the blog everyday....hope something useful comes out....
Cheers!!!