The Mirage that is the Modern Indian Woman

Being a mother is possibly a wonderful experience. But why do so many educated women, in this day and age, make a career out of it, rather than put their education to better use? I have always wondered what would my grandmothers have done, had they been given an opportunity not to marry young but pursue an education and then a career of their choice? I don’t think it would have included having eight children each, at home, from the age of 14 onward. Would they have willingly looked after huge homes and in-laws and the unmarried siblings of their husbands as well as their own kids. Not to mention work on the family land.

Delving into their minds, which knew nothing better than what was ordained for them by their parents, is not easy. I know there must have been regrets and longing for some amount of freedom from the monotonous chores and the constant pregnancies. But did they both make their peace with their lot or did they do a wonderful job of hiding their discontentment? These questions will never be answered by them because after all this time, it wouldn’t matter at all. For better or worse – their life is over and lived the way it was set up for them.

Ironically, marriage and children are the very things that most modern 21st century women in India, are still going after. They do have careers but a lot of them throw that up to raise kids. This is what our grandmothers did because they had no other choice and they were hampered by lack of education. So, what have we educated women done that is so different from our semi-literate grandmothers?

Here is a list:
1. Had children later and fewer of them, yet we need more servants to run nuclear- family homes. We also have the aid of electronic appliances, which they didn’t have and yet we can’t seem to do as much work as they did.

2. Have more servants – sometimes one servant per family member – and still claim we can not have a career and kids at the same time and therefore, drop out of the job market entirely. I mean even women with MBAs don’t seem to find ideas to do something from home, apart from changing diapers and helping their children with their homework, when their slightly older.

3. Only some women have it all – career and marriage - and these women are really the exceptions and still not the norm. So, that’s how long the list is, of the difference that education has done to women’s lives. It has done wonders for women with drive, organizational skills, intelligence and some amount of ambition. For the rest, it’s really a case-study of how education was wasted on some women who wanted to do nothing more than what their grandmothers had done, for lack of a better choice.

The modern Indian woman, despite having a choice, some of them are content getting married in their early 20s and raising kids. True, family pressure begins to build up around the time that a woman graduates from college and everyone says that one should have children early and get that out of the way. But the fact is that, I’ve now seen enough women who’ve had their first child after 30. I also feel that by then they are emotionally and mentally mature and they have accomplished goals - apart from marriage and children – that they set out for themselves.

This is not to say that women in their 20s don’t have it all but most of them have willingly sacrificed their own aspirations because they chose to go with the flow. I do think this herd mentality does cause regrets later, in some of them. If there is some amount of envy at the freedom I enjoy and which so many of them have willingly given up for love, convenience or just sheer laziness, then it shows in the kind of advice I've got over the years. Some of these friends of mine told me 'why are you bothering to work, get married and let your husband look after you.' They are financially bound to their husbands and want the same thing for me. How wise is their attitude is doubtful.

Here is an anecdote - I once bought a diamond ring with my savings and flaunted it at an office Diwali party. A lot of my colleagues loved it and the next day, one of them had bought an almost identical pattern with bigger stones, at considerable expense...to her husband. She admitted this, so I'm not just assuming it. Besides, having known her for a while, I had seen how she never saved her money anyway and she actually told me that she earned to burn the money on herself. So, I’ve often wondered why they have opted for this botheration of kids and marriage early in life rather than later?

When marriage happens later, by then you’ve enjoyed a successful career and made money for the children you can still have. Why give into family pressure when you are supposed to know your mind and have the backbone to stand up for yourself? Isn’t that what education was supposed to have enabled? Thinking through the pros and cons of being married is still not something that 21st century women in India do a lot about. Honestly, they just find the right man and hitch on to him like a crutch. I know this sounds crazy but, I have seen enough women of my generation who have thrown their education away and they might as well have never bothered to get one.

After all, our grandmothers were denied an education because their fathers decided for them, that they were anyway going to be married off and, to make babies, cook, clean and pick up after their husbands, you didn’t need an education. They also wouldn’t be given control of any finances, even to run the household. But it’s not all that different for my generation either.

I know of many who have never worked for any decent length of time to have built up a bank balance. So, they don’t know anything much about investments or taxes either. Most of the time, they have not earned the money to buy any of the jewellery they wear at their own glitzy wedding receptions. It's all done for them by their parents. So, after an early marriage such educated women still run to their husbands for everything, as a result of not having some ‘mad money’ of their own. Hence, husbands oblige with the add-on credit card. Most husbands pay off car and home EMIs – not only because they earn more because their wives are not earning at all! So, how does being educated benefit, either the woman or the man, in such an antediluvian situation is a mystery.

The big difference now is that, fathers are paying for their daughters’ education and some of those daughters want their grandmothers’ job profile! What a waste – I know atleast one of my grandmothers who would have swapped places with these modern doormats in a jiffy. She would have taken that education bit between her teeth and galloped away with it, to pursue another life for herself. Marrying and having children wouldn't have been the sole purpose of her existence.

After all, education is like money - if it's not put to good use, then it's of no use.

Here are three women entrepreneurs - two of whom have also defied life's odds and done something with their lives, apart from marriage and motherhood.

1. Sarala Bastian - http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2009/sep/30/slide-show-1-how-with-just-rs-15000-she-turned-an-entrepreneur.htm

2. Patricia Narayan - http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/jun/08/slide-show-1-from-50-paise-to-rs-2-lakh-a-day-success-story.htm

3. Srividya Rabindranath - http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/feb/11/slide-show-1-she-became-an-entrepreneur-by-accident.htm

Nature's fury teaches Mumbai a lesson

Ever since the flood devastated Mumbai on July 26, the spotlight has been on the Mithi river. Well, this river has been systematically reduced to a stinking drain, thanks to politicians encouraging rampant encroachments along its way. Environmental experts and the government are unanimous on the sustained damage being done to the river as the cause of the July 26 floods.

Uncovered traced the path of this now infamous river - from its origin to where it finally meets the sea - every curve of the river was altered by greed and neglect over time. Mithi river consists 1,600 acres of water and the Vihar dam is the source. It flows South meandering its way to Powai, a Mumbai suburb. Another dam at Powai feeds into the river.

From here, the river begins its journey to the sea, which is 15 kilometres away and it is from there that it is relentlessy battered. The river passes a four kilometres stretch, where lakhs of illegal hutments and industries that have been dumping waste for decades. It then moves toward the airport to its final stretch at Bandra-Kurla complex where it was once at its widest. What finally opens out to the sea is a tiny drain. The mouth of the river was once 1,200 metres wide and is now shrunk to 300 metres.



But even as citizens of Mumbai have slowly recovered from the equivalent of the biblical flood, there are some who have lost their homes and loved ones. For them, all the buck passing between the BMC and the politicians has just added to their grief and devastation.

So as the relief work carries on, MLA Nassem Khan vehemently blames the Municipal Corporation. But this is his constituency, so the hundred odd lives drowned or buried under debris or the fifty thousand houses on the banks of the river that was washed away, were just a vote bank for him. These people were living in illegal encroachments and no one saw it fit to move them from there. The minister, predictably, refutes that he was under the influence of any politicking.

Nawab Mallik is responsible for the Kurla, Nehru Nagar constituency, which was one of the worst hit areas. This politician told CNBC-TV18, "No one paid heed to my warning and the BMC is responsible for the damage." Ironically, he should know. His area, Kurla, has numerous illegal industrial belts and illegal hutments by the riverside. So water up to 12 feet high got hemmed in and could not find its way to the river and it stayed there for days because the surrounding areas had been raised.

Mallik's constituency is right next to the airport. For the first time in its history, flights were halted for four days. The reason ran beneath the runway. The airport has been built on reclaimed land and the airport authorities have often sanctioned projects to lengthen runways.

But how does one alter the course of a river, which kept getting in the way? Airport officials permitted the use of embankments to divert the river's course. This was done thrice and the diversion caused the river to turn 90 degrees. Yet the airport's expansion plans are far from over. When contacted for explanations, airport authorities refused to comment.

It's not like the floods were not anticipated - letters of warning, reports by the pollution board - were all sent out but people who make decisions for Mumbai city refused to read them. These documents and reports clearly pointed out the danger and the state government and the every successive administration was warned on many occasions.

In fact, the Pollution Control Board asked for immediate action in 2003. Corporator of Vakola, George Abraham says, "I had asked the BMC to take immediate action." He wrote a letter as late as June 15, to clean the Mithi river or else Mumbai will flooded.

In May 2003, the Central and state pollution control board sent notices to the municipal commissioner and the state government. The notices categorically stated that the Mithi river had to be cleaned urgently. Numerous meetings took place and letters flew back and forth but nothing happened.

Kirit Somaiya, a former MP has been writing letters to all concerned authorities since 2001 and now, as a concerned citizen, he has filed a public interest litigation, PIL, with the Bombay High Court, over the failure of the state government to protect lives and property.

In 1992, the road to Vihar dam was closed to the public for 'security' reasons but behind the high walls, the Mithi is in for trouble and no one is talking. Ten years later, even in 2002, the road remained close to the public and now a reason has been discovered.

Tonnes of earth is being dumped every day there, which is burying a valley of trees right on the riverbanks. Behind the high walls, machines work for hours into the day because the road is being widened. No one knows for what reason, only that it passes by two seven-star hotels.

Naseem has lived by Powai lake all his life. He's a caretaker at the Angling Society. He was stuck for two nights at the dam on July 26. He explains what he has been observing for quite some time now, "The water level in the lake is rising steadily and there is dumping of waste happening there."

Conservationist Debbi Goenka adds, that the river is important for Mumbai but the siltation, concrete and water level is rising every year because of so many buidlings coming up haphazardly, around its vicinity.

Before it finally meets the sea, the Mithi used to be at its widest - that's till the majestic Bandra-Kurla complex, BKC, was built and the river was in the way and needed to be diverted yet again. The Secretary for special projects, Government of Maharashtra, Sanjay Ubale says that environmentalists were consulted before building the Bandra-Kurla complex.



Now, in a typical case of pointing fingers and doing what was needed to be done almost 10 years ago, committees are being formed to clean up the river. This in itself is an indirect admission of guilt about the disaster. But will the government be able to clean up its act before the next monsoon?

At every point, a force of nature has been battered and abused and it's only fitting that she would strike back with fury. So, when finally the rain poured down on the city, the river coughed it right back in Mumbai's face.

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Plantation firms leave investors uprooted

They promised to make your money grow faster than their trees. Investors put in Rs 15,000 crore into these plantation companies, only to see their money vanish along with these companies. This is a scam no one talks about any more. The trees don't exist, and perhaps they were never supposed to. Regulators have thrown up their hands but many cheated investors wait in hope, to get their money back.

One such innocent investor who was led astray by false promises was Chandrahas Tiwari. He was looking for a safe scheme to invest his retired sister’s savings. He was on the look out for a scheme that would give higher returns than banks and yet be safer than investing in the market. Then one morning, he saw the pamphlet in his newspaper, which was advertising Anubhav Plantations' scheme. The ad was enticing enough he recalled. He told CNBC-TV18, the ad said, "Put the money and they will double it in three years. They were also giving away 2 gram gold coins for people above 65 years."

The Chennai-based company owned 2,600 acres of land, on which teak plantations were to be cultivated. The saplings were already planted and insured. The deal was simple - invest money and own a part of the land. The money that Tiwari and other investors put in would be used to tend to the plantations. He immediately invested Rs 30,000 and waited for it to turn into Rs 60,000. He told CNBC-TV18, "He gave us post-dated cheques too." And then, one morning, he heard rumours that the company was going to shut operations. He did not want to take a chance with his savings. Immediately, he rushed to their office in the city to withdraw from the scheme but it was too late.



He recalled, "In the evening, I went to the office to tell them I want to withdraw from the scheme. They said come in the morning for your money." By the next morning, he says the office was shut. The operators had left town. Tiwari tried tracking the company for two years, till he finally gave up.

The reason behind Tiwari’s problems was a failed project in a small village in Chennai. On October 21, investors of Anubhav Plantations were asked to attend a meeting at the head office in Chennai. Thousands arrived in the hope of receiving repayments. When they arrived, the office was deserted and none of the officials were present. The crowd, then, went on a rampage. The owner C Natesan was arrested the same month in Chennai by the Tamil Nadu Crime Branch. In early May this year, liquidators asked investors to submit their claims. It's been seven long years since Natesan's arrest and there is still no sight of any cash showing up.

The modus operandi was simple. Newspaper and television advertisements promised the moon and returns that no other instrument could ever give you. You just had to buy a tree for Rs 500 and this would magically multiply to Rs 50,000 or even a lakh in a couple of decades.

It was just such a innovative campaign that caught the interest of Nirmal Punwani. So impressed was the 32-year-old with the whole idea that he invested in not one but three plantation schemes - Enbee, Parasrampuria and Okara.



He explained, "I saw their ads everywhere - on the television, in the newspapers. Even my insurance agent was recommending them to me. I that thought that by the time I get the returns I will be able to buy my own house." In one year, from 1996-97, Punwani invested Rs 2 lakhs in these schemes. The schemes offered him returns between 21%-27%, which was a massive amount, compared to the interest being offered by banks at that time, on long - term deposits.

His faith was reinforced when the companies gave him post-dated cheques for the interest along with the principal amount. Punwani’s dream of owning a house seemed so much easier now. He elaborated, "They gave me contracts on a stamp paper. Each contract made me an owner of a tiny plot of land. It seemed all so genuine. I never imagined eight years down the line, I would have to write that money off."

His cheques bounced one after the other. When Punwani contacted the companies, there was no response. The agent who had recommended the companies to him was untraceable. Finally, Punwani had to take a loan from a bank to help finance his house. Reports of default began to replace the ads that had once filled newspaper pages.

Meanwhile, as usual, it took a while for authorities to even figure out who should be regulating these companies. After the initial confusion between the Reserve Bank of India, RBI, the Department of Company Affairs and Sebi, a press release was issued by the government on November 18, 1997. Such schemes would then on be called Collective Investment Schemes falling under the Sebi Act, 1992. Just another instance, of shutting the door after the horse had bolted!

Even while regulators were setting up guidelines and researching these investment schemes, the post-dated cheques began to bounce. In January 1999, a committee was set up under the chairmanship of Dr S A Dave. The committee had representatives from the government ministries, regulatory bodies, consumer forums, professional bodies and the plantation industry.

The Dave Committee started analysing information submitted by these plantation companies and visited the plantation sights. It was found that a large amount of money was collected and most of them did not have any experience in agro-based activites. There was also high risk associated with these ventures due to the long gestation period that was involved. Thus, Sebi made it mandatory for all existing plantation schemes to get a credit rating from a rating agency.

When the plantation companies applied for ratings, there was a big shock in store for the investors. Almost all plantation companies got a high risk rating from the credit agencies. It also meant, that once the ratings were out, the companies would have to carry them in all their advertisements, which were aimed at mobilising funds.

Both Anubhav Plantations’ teak scheme and Enbee Plantations were assigned a Grade 5 or the lowest grade by Duff Care Rating, DCR, and CARE respectively. The ratings only confirmed the investors worst fears - they might never see their money again. Angry investors did everything from agitating in front of offices of these companies to filing petitions in courts. All through, the companies said that they ran genuine schemes and that each and every investor would be paid.



While investors were still trying to come to terms with the fact that these schemes were never going to give them what they promised, in November 1999, the Dave Committee drafted guidelines that were to regulate these companies. Today, there is not a single Collective Investment Scheme that is registered under Sebi. The units that small investors were given have never found their way to the stock exchanges.

On January 18, 2002, Sebi filed an affidavit in the Delhi High Court, according to which 513 companies had failed to wind-up their schemes and repay investors. The high court passed an order to freeze the bank accounts of these companies and their directors. The order was circulated in all the leading newspapers and the RBI was ordered to circulate this order in all the banks.

Even after court orders being passed and the properties put under liquidation, investors still haven’t got their money back. So will they ever see any sight of their money? Former Executive Director at Sebi, Dharmishta Raval who headed the legal division and was also a member of the Dave Committee admitted, "It took Sebi 4-5 years to frame regulations for these Collective Investment Schemes and these regulations were not too stringent." He added, "Sebi went to court to freeze accounts of promoters of these schemes. Also, Rs 1,200 crore has been repayed to investors."

Primary Market expert Prithvi Haldia who has culled out enormous data on these plantation schemes remarked, "Sebi had stopped new plantation schemes from coming in."

But this is cold comfort for people whose money is still in some other grubby hands and not in their own. The lesson to be learnt from this story is, to not fall prey to promises that sound too good to be true. After all, you owe it to yourself to be sure when you part with your hard earned money.

Pictures are representative.

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Source code theft may blight BPO bubble

India is at present, a favoured haven for outsourcing. Whether it is data or software research, here brilliant minds come with a cheap price tag. This is where every foreign company wants to move its back office or its services end of their business to save on costs.

While everybody is celebrating India’s great outsourcing success, there is a darker side to this sunny, happy ever after picture. What do you do when the product you spent years and money researching on, is stolen and sold with effortless ease on the internet and having stolen your cyber - identity, the criminal roams free on the streets, while the law stands and gapes in amazement.

The Managing Director of Geometric Software Solutions, Manu Parpia said, "The source code is a readable blueprint copy of any software. Anyone who has access to the source code can alter the software dramatically and the dangers of it falling into the wrong hands are great."

A source code looks like a string of letters and numbers jumbled up. Get your hands on the code and you can easily make a lookalike copy of the Adobe Pagemaker software and print identity cards for high security firms. A source code holds the key to a product, that could give any software firm the upper hand in the market and change the security dynamics of a nation. Today, stealing these lines of code is also the latest buzzword in the world of computer crimes.

CNBC-TV18 reports on this darker side of the world of outsourcing. The seamier story of what sometimes occurs in swank looking buildings with their laptops and blinking monitors and as more and more international companies furiously outsource their core functions to India, along with critical products, India is also fast becoming a haven for source code theft.

In August 2002, a former employee of software firm Geometric Software Solutions Ltd, GSSL, was caught red-handed trying to sell a data source code. It was the property of GSSL’s American client Solidworks. The employee had demanded a price of $240,000 for the code. It was the first reported case of data source code theft in India.

During his tenure at GSSL, Ashok Mehta left to go home like his other colleagues. He was frisked by the security guards but no one noticed an innocent CD that he carried on his person. On that CD was the data source code, for a product that GSSL was developing for Solidworks. The product accounted for sales between $60 to $90 million.

Mehta left the company under mysterious circumstances but he was not finished yet. A a year later, in 2002, someone from India contacted a firm in the US, offering to sell the source code for a Solidwork product. With this, Mehta was back in business. The company got suspicious and informed Solidwork and GSSL. They got in touch with the Central Bureau of Investigation, CBI, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI.

In August of that year, Mehta set up a rendezvous for a buyer at a five star hotel in New Delhi. No sooner was the transaction through, that the CBI moved in and arrested Mehta for attempting to sell the code. The buyer was an FBI agent Nanette Day. He had offered to sell the code for $200,000 to Nanette Day.

However, it was not the price that had GSSL worried. Says Manu Parpia, "I cannot say exactly what it was worth, but the product was getting Solidworks sales of around $90million every year at that time."

While the CBI and the FBI celebrated, Solidworks had more worries on their mind. While a case had been filed, the trial was nowhere in sight. It was a long wait. One that lasted two entire years and in the meantime Mehta was out on bail. All Solidworks could do was pray that there were no more copies available for prospective buyers.

Meanwhile, GSSL is still recovering from an immediate loss in business and probably loss in prospective clientele. Parpia said, "There were many American firms who were in touch with GSSL but after the incident, they vanished. I don’t know if it was the incident that scared them away but they never came back to India for any projects. I think GSSL and India lost a lot of business.

Then two months later, in November, the biggest hit-of-them all occurred. Cisco, admitted that they were looking into a source code theft. A group called the Source Code Club, SCC, claimed they had the code and demanded a price of $240,000 for it.

A Cisco employee on the condition of anonymity said, "My friend used to find means of cheating company security systems. He used to use his bluetooth enabled devices to upload the source code files to the internet, and then sell it to other companies or pretend it was his own work and get better jobs with other companies."

Sources say the Cisco code has allegedly been stolen by former employees based in India. If that is confirmed, then this would go down as the third high profile source code theft in the country to have been reported in the last two years, all within a span of four months.

Sources told CNBC-TV18 that after initial investigations were through, the leads are now pointing towards India. How groups like the SCC get their hands on a data source code is not so easy to trace but there are employees who are on the constant lookout for a buyer.

A huge faction of the foreign media and many American firms are now branding India as every outsourcers nightmare, in terms of security and the enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights, IPR.

Some players feel it is too early to call the thefts in India, a rising trend. What is worrying however is the way the Indian judiciary has responded to such cases and that is what differentiates the US from India.

Parpia added, "The essential difference is in the enforceability. In the US, people are more relaxed because they know the law will take its course. But the judiciary in India works on a precedent and there are none right now. The outcome of the GSSL case will be of great importance to the IT industry in India, in that sense."

Another situation which came to light is of Sandeep Jolly, the owner of Jolly Technologies. He was operating from San Carlos in the US. Then in 2004, he decided to cash in on the hottest outsourcing destination - India. He began research and development for his products in Mumbai, from an apartment in Powai. His products included identity cards for security firms in the United States including the US army.

He hired a group of young enthusiastic software engineers and began operations in March 2004. A few months into the operations, Jolly’s executives say they noticed one of their recruits spending a lot of time on the internet. Taking precautions, he moved her to a different department but according to him, the damage had already been done. His investigations revealed that the employee had been uploading several source codes to an unknown e-mail account. Gathering further evidence, Jolly and his employees restored deleted files. He took these to the cyber crime department, but he says they took no interest.

Sandeep said, "They (the police) were not of too much assistance. They told us that property enforcement rights are not there in India and they cannot do too much about it." He adds that the links in the case are details of the files that were uplinked by the employee to various mail IDs. He approached Yahoo for the details but was asked to get a letter from the local police. Jolly claims this has not been done yet.

While the police refused to comment officially, sources in the cyber-crime wing told us that they did not believe the Jolly case was genuine. The company had not kept records of computers on which their employees were working and as a result it could not be ascertained if there was source code theft or not.

Jolly Technologies has sued the Mumbai Police. But the police have their own version of this case. They say that the employee alleges that Sandeep Jolly sexually harassed her and persistently asked her out to movies and dinner. Apparently it was not anything overt but but there was something happening here, which has led the police to believe that Sandeep was making a preemptive move.

In a recent hearing, the high court has asked the Mumbai Police to file an affidavit of what actions they have taken so far. Jolly fears it may be too late. The FBI officials say that since the matter has already been reported to the local police, it would not be proper for them to investigate. Jolly has pulled out of its operations in Mumbai.

Those directly affected by such thefts, say that many major firms in the US are watching these cases and will act depending on the outcome of the trial.

Vice President of Zinnov Technology, Vamsee Tirukalla said, "Every client meeting I go to, they ask me what has happened in the GSSL case. Every major player in the US wants to know what the outcome of the case will be and here in India the case has only just gone to trial. I guess in the US, when someone is arrested for a source code theft, the organization knows the law will take its course. However in India, people think they can steal a source code and get away with it."

Analysts however say that the benefits of outsourcing are too many, for an international company to pull out of India entirely.

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Burnout: First sizzle and then fizzle out

A great career and having achieved everything early in life is a sure sign of success but it may come at a very high price. Burnout is evident, when too much is done at a breakneck pace. Stories abound of players in their teens who shone and had a lot of promise and then fizzled out in their early twenties. Hot shot popstars, sportspersons and movie stars are more prone than most to this phenomenon

Former cricketer, Javagal Srinath agrees, "It (burnout) is a real issue, if you see the demands on players these days, as well as the length of the season, these two factors definitely contribute to burnouts. And burnouts is just not for everyone, it’s for the people who have really achieved and the overly dedicated people.

Managing Director & CEO, Deutsche Bank India, Gunit Chadha told CNBC-TV18, "Even though one would argue that the longevity in the corporate world, of an average life span is much longer than in the cricketing world. But increasingly, I think a combination of peer pressure, of the reward which goes with success, is making a lot of young talent actually burn themselves out by the time they enter the late 30s or early 40s. So I think it is a real phenomenon, which has started to emerge in India."

Burnout - the very term connotes an ending. It may be true in extreme cases but most people mistake a slump for a permanent fizzling out. Even though retiring from centrestage for players may be due to their physical condition, psychological condition or motivatio levels. Ironically, these are the same factors that also characterise people who have burned out. Srinath prefers to call certain temporary down periods as a "slump or staleness."

Both the physical and emotional aspects affect a person's preformance. Srinath explained, "If your mind is really stressed, then obviously it reflects in your body and if your body is really tired then it reflects in you mind. So I think both equally contribute to the staleness or burnouts that we are talking about."

In the corporate scene, there are certain people with extreme perfectionist tendencies who are at a high risk of fading away at a younger age. The employee who spends 70-hours a week in office and does not take any vacations or it may be a person who is really a perfectionist and hugely competitive and is struggling under a lot of peer pressure.

Chadha said, "I think it’s a convergence of the the two. The two prototypes really become one prototype - aggressive, competitive - who wants to put in those extra hours, wants to have excellence plus be a perfectionist."

He added, "One thing is that I lead by example - I take my 3-4 vacations a year! So that’s a good start. But on a more serious note - at Deutsche Bank for instance, we have Friday dress downs, which again inculcates a little amount of relaxation in the office. We recently had a Deutsche Bank cricket tournament where we invited Deutsche Bank teams from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India and Singapore to come down and spent three days in celebration."

"We do a lot of Deutsche Bank off-sides. So in various respects, we try to make employees have fun, build team work and not let people become the victims of their own success. So I think leadership in an organisation has a lot to play in this as well." However, Srinath reiterated that spotting this tendency to overdo things is half the problem solved and is a great preventive measure.

Chadha opined, "I think most of it is because of the pressure that you put on yourself. As you build longevity in your career, you start judging yourself in your own mirror, in your own soul, within ourselves rather than in the eyes of the beholder. I think when you reach that realization, I think you can cut back the pressure because then you are not doing it for public opinion, you are doing it for yourself."

Corporates are taking the issue of burnouts seriously. But with corporates tightening their belts, "people are moving from 40-50 hours work weeks to 72-80 hours work weeks. The pressure on individuals is growing and burnouts are starting to increase. I think it’s a very clear phenomena in this century," says Chadha. The flipside is that managements are also encouraging the habit of burning the midnight oil by rewarding such hardworking employees with bonuses and thus perpetuating the vicious circle.

Chadha explained, "Very often what happens is when employees burn out, people make wrong judgments and rather than remodify the situation, the employee probably leaves the company or takes VRS or does something to that effect and that’s what the competitive pressure of life makes you do."

"But I think as employers start respecting talent more and creating preventive conditions in organisations that are more amenable to employees ie. creates balance between work and family, I think the problem will correct itself. Companies' responses would get more preventive driven, but at the the same time I think the social stigma, which is associated with burnouts and losing jobs will come down. People will just accept it as reality."

Written eons ago for my former employer www.moneycontrol.com but it's still valid today.

Cut the crap

Indians are travelling a lot these days, which is a good thing because travelling widens your horizons considerably. What I really enjoy hearing about is how amazed they all seem at the level of cleanliness and civic manners found there.

It’s such a pity that we need to go abroad to learn it ourselves. I have some questions to ask such globetrotters.

* Do you not know that defecating, urinating, spitting and worse in public is not exactly entertainment for others? These things are not done only by the lower class and illiterate people in India. A lot of educated people throw snack wrappers out of their cars or spit in public or get out of cars and water the plants, where they can find them!

* Do you know that your pampered pets called Frisky, Rhino, Cocoa etc are not allowed to poop in public? Since they don’t know that, you should be vigilant and pick up after them, the way you would be expected to do if you were walking your pet in New York, Sydney, London or Moscow. I’ve seen so many well-heeled pet owners – yes, the ones who look like they travel quite a bit – who look the other way while their pets are decorating places like Worli Seaface and Marine Drive. No wonder, pets are going to be banned from Marine Drive.

* You can bet some bleeding heart will object to this and it most likely will be a pet owner, who never picks up his/her doggy poo. Why should they? Aren’t they paying a poor BMC worker to do that?

Would they be using this line of argument with a US cop who would have fined them with a look of disgust on his face. The minute he said something like ‘Go back to India and do this because it’s not allowed here’, they would have gone crying to the media and claimed racial abuse. I, for one, would applaud the cop’s attitude. After all, he’s doing his job and maintaining law and order in his country, so obviously he’s not going to accept tourists and immigrants treating his country like a public toilet.

Foreign countries are clean and great places to visit because they are kept that way by their citizens. I don’t think they have started importing our poor BMC souls yet to clean up after them. We need to wake up and take responsibility for our (and our pets’) actions and not expect a ‘clean and green’ country to emerge like a miracle overnight. We need to make it happen.

The only constant thing is change and a drastic change in attitude would help. To start with, importing a desire to keep our country clean would be a great idea. Let’s live and learn the good stuff.

Written for www.dancewithshadows.com

A Sip Tip

 

Every other day or so, going to a coffee shop to unwind and enjoy rich, creamy coffees is what almost anyone can do these days. With Cafe Coffee Day, Barista, Starbucks, DiBella and Costa outlets present in every nook and corner, this is a convenience anyone can indulge in.

The teas and coffees are not 'cutting chai' rates obviously, but they are worth the bucks you pay for them. But I have actually noticed something at the Barista I go to often here in Mumbai and you need to watch out for this cheap little trick as well.

I once ordered Triple Sec, which is a mocha with an orange liqueur in it. I never add the sugar without taking a sip to see if it's needed or not because most often it's not really required and, I like the slightly dark and bitter tang of ground beans to hit my taste buds.

This is personal quirk and in this case it proved to be so right. That's because the Triple Sec drink came - and after a quick sip - I realised that something was off. No, they had not spiked it with anything fishy, but I didn't even get a whiff of oranges. So, I had some more of the coffee, and then asked the staff to add the liqueur in because I didn't feel they had put in any, in the first place. This way they had to even top up my coffee while adding in the liqueur, so I got a free refill as well. Also very clearly visible at the bottom of the glass, was a layer of orange liquid that I had not seen there before. Seeing is believing.

They had tried to fool me into paying them for something that they didn't include in my coffee despite them always asking customers, if they wanted any extras like toffee, hazelnut, Irish liqueur, chocolate sauce etc, and for which they charge anywhere between Rs 40 - Rs 50 extra.

So do what I did - take the sip test and make sure you get what you ordered because if it is not added in your coffee, it will be surely added in your bill.

100 best global brands: Indian brands absent

BusinessWeek put out a list of the 100 Best Global brands in 2009, compiled by the consultancy Interbrand. Some brands have prospered amid the hard times — or at least held their own. Others have slipped a number of places. However, the magazine's website also issued a disclaimer that, "The brand valuations draw upon publicly available information, which has not been independently investigated by Interbrand. Valuations do not represent a guarantee of future performance of the brands or companies."

Overall clothing brands like Gucci, H&M and Zara have risen on this list and so have producers of perishable consumer goods like Kellog’s, McDonald’s, Marlboro, Pepsi, Budweiser, Heinz and Nescafe. Coca-Cola reigned supreme for two years in a row (2008 and 09) – that’s probably because it’s the one thing that most people consume without too much thought given to it. What’s a few liquid calories - it’s not like you have hogged a cholesterol filled meal at McDonald’s, right?

Some electronic manufacturers who did better than their peers are: Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Apple, Samsung, Philips and Canon. Tried and trusted Sony and branded-assembled PC-maker Dell dropped down this list.

The brands who retained their last time’s position were IBM, Nokia, Microsoft, GE and Coca-Cola. While two software manufacturers – IBM and Microsoft – stayed true to their brand perception, Intel and Oracle actually fell down this ladder while SAP climbed up this beanstalk.

Car brands BMW, Toyota and Mercedes also slid down the list but Honda raced ahead. Ford remained at starting position – at No.49.

Bankers like American Express, HSBC and Citibank all fell in this ranking possibly because of all the scandals that continue to keep emerging about how over-extended most banks are in the US and how non productive some of their assets have turned out to be. If after analysing all the data and having all the best brains at your disposal, one can still make goof ups of such gigantic proportions, then some solid, plain ole common sense is the much required commodity now – not some more fancy and abstruse hedge fund. The ones who maintained their position but really lower down the list were JP Morgan (at 37) and Goldman Sachs (at 38).

Online brands, Google and Amazon moved up but eBay stayed stagnant at No.46.

The luxury brands Ikea ranked higher but Louis Vuitton stayed put at No.16.

News service provider Thomson Reuters climbed up this list to 40 from 44, as did advisory firm Accenture to 45 from 47.


The children’s entertainment segment was represented by Disney which dropped to No.10 (from 9) and Nintendo which crawled up to No.39 (from 40). So, what’s happening here - kids were bored with saccharine sweet princesses and were more interested in animated machismo?

What this list also shows is that not a single Indian brand made the cut. Where are all those loudly advertised, publicity hogging 'brands' created by fashion designers, architecture and interior design firms or manufacturers of leather products and furniture and car designers. Our car manufacturers didn't make it either. The reason could be that Indian brands have less recall than the people behind it - very much to their brand's detriment.

India doesn't have any Frank Wright, Philippe Starck, Roberto Cavalli, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson - no one who is globally recognisable and synonymous with either a particular brand or India. So, it's high time, India's businesses let their brand do the talking for them. Make it more about the product and less about the personality...especially if the personality is not going to be à la Richard Branson.

Data: Interbrand, BusinessWeek. To view the table, click here: http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/best_global_brands_2009/

Job hunting: What's the forecast?

More than any other crises, the only one people truly care about is whether or not they have a job. Everything else looks tolerable when you have steady income coming in and shoring up your bank account. With the plethora of job websites up, there are a lot of resumes that can be scanned and there are apparently a number of jobs available as well. These jobs ofcourse don’t fit every experience profile but that’s where head-hunters are expected to do their matchmaking – fixing up the right people to the correct jobs on offer.

Naukri.com has been coming out with a monthly report of what’s on offer with regard to jobs, salary and increment expectations, which sectors are hot and which are not etc. The report is a nice glimpse at what’s going on in the jobs scenario, especially when the hearsay is that recruitment is stagnating or the jobs on offer are not quite in keeping with a person’s experience or expectations.

The former may be a myth but the latter is true. I’ve personally got offers from just about anyone and everyone who wants to do something or anything with writing and editing. There is no saying how long those firms have been around and how long are they likely to last, if you went to work for them. So, I’ve not been tempted to apply for most of those job-alerts I keep receiving from the website. There may be many like me out there – eminently employable but just not eager to grab drab offers.

May be that is the reason why the naukri.com report JobSpeak states that: “Hiring activity dipped across all experience bands in December ’09 owing to the end-of-year holiday season, with the maximum decline of 6.7% in the 4 to 7 years experience buckets.”



Graphic source: Naukri.com JobSpeak Report

As the pie chart (from the JobSpeak report) shows, the number of people who fall in the 4-7 years job experience category is the largest at 36% followed by 31% who are in the 0-3 years category of experience and 22% who fall somewhere between these two – in the 8-12 years experience category.

Here are some other points to ponder from the Naukri Hiring Outlook Survey 2010 that the site has e-mailed with their routine report. Since this is going to be subjective and the nature of the questions require people to ‘project’ a picture, let’s hope that in actuality, things develop along these lines.

Recruiters say that:
- 72.3% of recruiters say that new jobs will be created.
- 24.2% say that replacement hiring will continue.
- 1.2% believe that layoff will happen.
- 2.3% of the population believe that no jobs will be created.

There’s a slight goof up with this one in the report. I’ve corrected it here. Most hiring to take place in the 1-3 years experience bands. So, this is not good news for people with more experience who don't want to do BPO kind of jobs.
- Fresher's- 9%
- 1-3 years- 42.1%
- 4-8 years- 40%
- Above 8 years- 9%

Recruiters say that:
- 43.6% say increments will range between 5% to 10%
- 40.7% recruiters expect it to range between 10% to 20%
- 8.9% expect above 20% increments
- Only 6.7% expect it to be less than 5%

There’s more easy-to-understand information in this 10 page survey report. Read it here: http://w10.naukri.com/mailers/recruiter/Hiring_Surve/Hiring_Outlook_Survey_jan10.pdf?othersrcp=10385&wExp=N

Who created the most wealth in India?

The global economy is dancing all over the scoreboard and the people who have to keep up with twinkle toes – stock brokers, bankers, economists, business-owners – all have their hands full. Everyone is coming out with a set of numbers and studying them for us - laypeople. Motilal Oswal has also done the same but they have come out with a wealth creation study which makes for interesting reading.

This report looks at the top 100 companies who have added atleast Rs 1 billion to their market capitalization over a period of 5 years – 2004-09 – that was reviewed. The report also aims to gauge by when India will hit the next trillion dollars (NTD) high note again after having done it for the first time in the financial year 2008. But the next NTD is predicted to be created a lot quicker – in the next 5-6 years - if India continues to grow nominally at 12%-15% per annum and at the current US$/INR rates.

In the run-up to this NTD era, the report sets down the criteria, by which Indian companies will be significantly adding to their bottomline as well as your portfolio, if you held on to or bought their stocks. These companies all enjoy three kinds of entry barriers and have great managers helming them:

1. Demand-side includes customer captivity due to a strongly differentiated product/brand, force of habit or high switching costs, including the difficulty of searching for substitutes. These brands enjoy strong distribution network. Demand-side entry barriers such as trusted brands are intangible and typically result in firms enjoying very high return on capital.

2. Supply-side entry barrier mainly arise from the company being the lowest
cost provider of goods/services in the category due to one or more of the following:
a. Patent protection for products and/or production processes; and
b. Privileged access to critical inputs (eg captive ore mines).

3. Economies of Scale

4. Great management

So, which companies made the grade based on the above selection process? Here they are:

- Hero Honda Motor because it’s a market leader.
- Maruti Suzuki because it has appropriate product mix with the widest distribution and service network.
- Mahindra & Mahindra because it’s a market leader in UVs and tractors with an excellent track record of innovations.
- BHEL because it enjoys near monopoly in thermal power plants.
- Larsen & Toubro because it’s the preferred engineering/construction company for complex projects.
- HDFC Bank (in private sector) because it’s a high brand equity with the most consistent performance track record.
- State Bank of India (public sector) because it’s the largest bank with the highest reach and which offers play on insurance as well.
- CRISIL because it is the No.1 in India and belongs to the group of global No.1, Standard & Poor.
- HDFC because it is the long-standing market leader with lowest processing costs.
- Dabur India because it enjoys strong positioning in the ayurveda / herbal products platform.
- Nestle India because it’s a near monopoly in instant noodles and infant nutrition.
- Mundra Port because it’s one of the largest ports on the Gujarat coas.
- Sun TV because it has dominant market share in South India.
- Pantaloon Retail because it is a market leader by far and enjoys significant early mover advantage.
- Bharti Airtel because it has the highest market share, lowest cost and is a well-recognized brand.

What also emerged in this study was that:
• Value migrates from basic spend to discretionary spend categories.
• Winner categories emerge when demand hits the J-curve – this means that when product prices match a large section of the customers’ affordability level.
• The categories which can become large in relation to the economy emerge winners.
• Consolidated categories will benefit more than fragmented ones.

Some 66 companies with entry barriers created Rs 8,314 billion between 2004-09. The remaining 34 companies with no or low entry barriers accounted for Rs 1,323 billion in the same timeframe.

Here are some of the other salient points:

• The sensex earning per share (EPS) will grow up to 29% in the early FY11. Beyond this period, it will revert to a median of 15%-20%.

• Interest rates may remain at the same level or may move higher.

• The highest wealth destroyer industries between 2004-09 were: Others – 24%, Oil & Gas – 17%, Banking & Finance – 16%, Auto – 13%, Pharma – 12%, IT – 11%, Metals – 6%.

• The highest wealth destroyer companies in the same time period (in the order mentioned) were: Ranbaxy, IOCL, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank, HPCL, Satyam Computer, Oriental Bank, Tata Steel, Reliance Infrastructure and MTNL.

• Wealth creating companies were mostly new-blood firms that were around less than 40 years. For eg. There were 60 companies that had been around for only 40 years and they had created wealth amounting to Rs 6,700 billion. While the older firms of 50 years and above (there were 40 of them) had created only Rs 2,917 billion between 2004-09.

• 30 public sector units (PSUs) at one time were contributing almost 50.6% of the wealth between 2000-05. After the phased out divestment process, 16 PSUs contributed 27% between 2004-09.

• The best performing PSU sectors were mining & metals (37%), engineering (25%) followed by oil & gas (23%).

• 43 MNCs created a high of 50% of the wealth in the country between 1994-99 and it dropped to 2% (by 8 companies) between 1999-2004. From 2004-09, around 23 companies made 14% of the wealth.

• The best performing MNC sectors were FMCG (63%), Engineering (13%) and Automobiles (10%).

• The private sector created 73% of the wealth – by 84 companies in 2004-09.

The Fastest Wealth Creators were: Unitech, Areva T&D, BF Utilities, Opto Circuits, NMDC, Shri City Union, United Spirits, Jindal Steel, Sterling International and Chettinad Cement.

The Biggest Wealth Creators were: Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, BHEL, NMDC, ONGC, ITC, Infosys, Larsen & Toubro, SAIL and HDFC.

Consistent Wealth Creators - 2005 to 2009
Pharma
􀂄 Cipla (4)
􀂄 Dr Reddy's Lab (3)
􀂄 GSK Pharma (2)
􀂄 Piramal Health. (4)
􀂄 Ranbaxy Lab (4)
􀂄 Sun Pharma (2)
FMCG
􀂄 Asian Paints (3)
􀂄 ITC (5)
􀂄 Nestle India (1)
Others
􀂄 Hero Honda (5)
􀂄 HDFC (5)
􀂄 HDFC Bank (1)
IT
􀂄 Infosys (3)
􀂄 Wipro (3)
􀂄 Satyam (2)
Others
􀂄 Reliance Inds (2)
􀂄 Ambuja Cement (1)

Number in brackets shows how many times these companies appeared in the top 10 list.

For a more detailed study, take a look at the report here:
http://www.motilaloswal.com/MOSL/uploadedFiles/MOSL/Knowledge_Center/Wealth_Creation_Study/Download_Reports/14thWCS.pdf

Destination: Lush & Serene Kodaikanal

Take a holiday and journey through lush Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu via this photo essay.







Click on the images to read the text.

Written for Jetwings.

How business ideas are born

Making changes, as a precursor to moving on to better things is something that most evolving businesses should do intuitively. But waiting for the push comes to shove moment is not the right time to experiment with change but should rather come as a gradual phase and at a steady pace but these early signals should be picked up quickly.

Professor of marketing at Wharton School, Yoram Jerry Wind agrees, "You basically should have a system in place that allows you to continuously challenge your assumptions, challenge your mental models, look for early signals of change in the environment." He explained that's how Starbucks took off because some clever businessmen had the foresight to provide a service that was not there in the US.

Wind told CNBC-TV18, "Howard Schultz went on a trip to Italy and was sitting in a café and it suddenly dawned on him 'Why not create the American equivalent of the café' and that's what led to the creation of the Starbucks experience and the whole phenomenon of success of Starbucks."

He added, "You obviously need a visionary, a person with insight, instinct and the intuition, who says 'Wow this can be a great idea and push it'. At the same time you also want to have companies develop some processes and approaches that allows them to identify when their current model is no longer appropriate."

But all said and done, this kind of decision has to be informed and should not be made in haste. Wind elaborated, "First of all you mentioned competition and it is very important for us to realise that we have to look at competition from outside the industry. If we go back to the Starbucks example, then Maxwell House was a dominant brain at that time. They probably looked at other coffee manufacturers at that time. They never expected competition from a startup like Starbucks and look at the phenomenal success of Starbucks. So looking at the competition is definitely important but broaden your scope."

"There is no substitute for really understanding consumer behaviour. It's funny how consumers behave, even in small segments. That is where I mentioned the weak signals. Because if you look at the average or the big responses, you are missing the little trends and all new trends start with small things.

"In the US, we look at California. Californian consumers are different and very often they are indicative but you need to monitor this and not to discard this type of information. Then there are processes that you can use effectively to try to help you. For example, the process of trying to challenge your assumptions. Do something very simple, ask your manager to indicate what are the assumptions you make in your strategy and lets challenge each one of them."

Country manager, WPP, Ranjan Kapur gives by way of example what Unilever did when faced with competition from Nirma. He said, "I think Unilever has been reactive in the past. I mean what really happened was that they grew up in an era of shortages and brands are never built in era of shortages and their business model was really a distribution business model.

"When competition came up and the markets opened up and lots of people came in, I think they tried to expand their distribution, get into the rural market and cut costs. That was their model."

"It was only in 2001-02, I think, that they realised the power of branding. That's when they went into the power brand thing and in India I think they have 30 brands. And that's really - it was a reaction, the way they were chipped away by local players. I think they didn't even wake up the first time when the signal came from Nirma.

"Nirma produced the detergent in little pits and men and women used to sit there and stir the detergent with caustic soda. They put them in plastic bags, stapled them and sent it out.

"What he (Nirma) realised was that people were looking for cheap products rather than pay for packaging. Anyway, Nirma didn't distribute the product, distributors used to come to them. Nobody recognised that."

Apart from being able to spot the trends early on and challenging assumptions, there is another approach, what Wind calls a "kind of a very powerful approach called 'bring the radicals in'. A great example would be, if you think of IBM a few years back, the major threat for IBM was open source code and the initial reaction when you mentioned that to IBM was that they would immediately bring in all the lawyers and try to sue them. What the research group at IBM did was bring the major proponent of open source to talk with the research group. The result was that they (IBM) were able to change their mental models completely and they designed or brought open source and built over it proprietary products and services that they were selling. So bringing the radical in is a very powerful approach that one can use."

"Another process is a method called idealised design. Idealised design is a process started by Ross Ackoff. A process that primarily says that opposed to the tradition of planning that you have, is where we are now and where we want to go forth, it starts with a radical assumption, which says 'lets assume that our business was destroyed last night'. Now given everything we know today, no futuristic technology, but what we know today. How do we redesign this business without all the constraints and the typical baggage that most business have?"

Kapur explained, "I think if you look at it, there are many who sort of have ridden the wave. You take consumer durable companies, you take electronics. I think if you take MIRC electronics. Take ONIDA for example. All the Indian players were dying. That is the only Indian player which is still there in the top 3."

Moving with the times entails having to adopt new technology but doing it blindly without understanding how consumers are going to use the technology may be disastrous. As Wind puts it, "There is a danger of instead of technology helping to be on the leading edge, you could be on the bleeding edge, which is not good for the company in the long term."

The GEC story was a case in point. It is a very dramatic case of timing where it comes to swapping mental models. Wind agreed, "That is true. It is a great example. In 1996, George Simpson took over General Electric, UK, which is different from the US one. He inherited basically a very stodgy but a very profitable company. His predecessor Arnold Weinstock had a great management system, he ran about 180 companies based on a very strict ratios."

"He was in a less glamorous field. He was in power, he was in defense and electronics and Lord Simpson decided to bet the future on wireless technology and changed the name of the company to Marconi to try to indicate this.

He bet the whole farm on one major change and it did not work. The environment was against him, maybe it was the timing, but he basically went all out after a single vision and the results were disastrous.

And he did not have a portfolio of business protecting him in case the bet was not right, nor did he realise some of the early warning signals that were ready at that time with respect to this industry."

"The result was that a company having a share price of over 12 pounds went to 4 pence a few years later and from a huge cash surplus, when he took over to a huge debt. That is one of the sad stories in terms of an unsuccessful one and the lesson for companies is this - if you really have a bold new vision, first of all have enough safeguards around it and second, don't put all your eggs in one basket and experiment."

At the end of the day, though, it's not organisations but individuals who matter. Wind elaborated, "First of all you have to remember that corporations are made up of individuals and the reality is between 9 & 5 when you are a corporate person, you are still the same person before 9 and after 5, where now you are not a corporate person but an individual. So obviously we are dealing with individuals here. The idea is to try this type of collision and try to see how can we get a better balance between the two and how we can learn from one another."

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Stylish & individualistic homes

Homes are an extension of your personality - believe it or not - which is why people do chose the best possible decor, art, furniture for their homes. So, whatever is your poison, the idea is to do it with some kind of restraint and taste.

This can be tricky especially of you have decided on your home should sport the 'kitchsy' look. That's what restaurateur AD Singh and his wife Sabina Singh seem to have chosen for themselves. This couple have a extremely colourful gola-gaadi in their living which doubles up as a table. Well, they also have revamped an autorickshaw - dumped the front half and the wheels to double up as a loveseat!


Sabina Singh told CNBC-TV18, "Kitsch has to be transcended from the gaudy and basic to something made interesting. So, that has always been my endeavour." She's been inspired by the biggest, kitchsy industry of them all - Bollywood. She's got coasters with Hindi film posters imprinted on them. She's got film posters blown up and decorated with sequins, which she purchased from an arist called Baba Anand.

Their home also has a lot of religious art, which AD Singh confesses he's not a big fan of but all the same, he's got his favourites as well. One is an Imitiaz Dharker painting and another is a bust of Tenzing Norgay (the mountaineer who climbed Everest with Edmund Hillary, which was made by his grandfather.

What's more, the kitchsy look is getting expensive as everyone seems to have cottoned onto the trend. Well, Sabina Singh was among the first, so her instincts may just prove to be right and very lucrative as well.

Italian Inspiration
If homes are meant to make style statements, then the Consulate General of Italy in India, Giuseppe Zaccagnino's home certainly does. This man's walls are covered with art and of the really top class variety. He has been collecting art going back 50 years and in just his living room, he has over 300 paintings!

He says, "This (art of collecting) is acquired by feel. You can not mix up all kind of art becuae then it looks like a gallery. So, this (living) room and the corridor has a theme of Italian brigands. Italian brigands were a kind of social phenomenon in Southern Italy in the beginning of the 19th century. What you see in my home is the traditional Italian iconography - they look like romantic heroes who are goodlooking, wear good costumes - but in reality they were much uglier!"

His collection of paintings have found their way into a coffee-table book, which includes some of his earlier acquisitions as well. But he's been able to bring only a part of his collection to India because as a diplomat, he's keeps moving around and is only able to carry a bit of his collection around the world. But he confesses that he's looking for buyers because this hobby of his is turning out to be quite a burden!

He explains more about his paintings and says, "There were lady brigands who were tough and terrible. Then I have a Middle East collection which I developed when I was posted in Morocco."

His dining room is huge and Giuseppe has made the most of it because he's got even more paintings on the wall here as well. The theme here is 'Fortune Teller'. Then he even has a table made in Morocco, from just the root of a tree called tuya. This is where he has placed his collection of Fatima's hands, most of which were made by the Berbers, who are local Moroccon artisans. Some of these Berbers are Jewish (not all are Muslim) and so they incorporate Jewish symbols like the Star of David, in their work.

If that's not all, Giuseppe has a collection of porcelain, 1970s Italian furniture, and silverware, which includes statues of Lord Krishna and Goddess Saraswati (his favourite) which have been painted over with....nail polish! He's not letting us know all of his secrets because he does use nail polish along with some other things and as he puts it, he's becoming sophisticated about it. But yes, it looks great and what a nice idea!

The Consul General is a collector of everything else as well. He's got thousands of CDs (he's a fan of Indian music like sitar music and not necessarily Bollywood!). He's also got over 600 ties and as many suits! Now this is one man, who knows that quantity is fine, if you have an eye for quality.

Written for moneycontrol.com

Shopping Catalogues: Just eyecandy?

Shopping can be therapeutic for some. So if there is some way to do this not only at your leisure but also by just scanning some beautifully designed catalogues and ordering through the phone, then that’s even better…right? Keeping this in mind, Hypercity had introduced a catalogue called Argos, which had a range of products lined up. The catalogue was printed and designed well and after all the money invested in starting this initiative, it still went belly-up.

When I contacted Hypercity, they didn’t divulge anything about what had gone wrong but I heard talk about how they just weren’t able to manage inventory well at all. Besides this, the India Consumer Complaints Forum has a complaint listed on their website regarding the poor quality of their service.

When it had just started, yet another site had an overall good review of Argos but the reviewer questioned Hypercity’s decision to sell their catalogues instead of handing it out free of cost. So, are malls and stores (or anyone else) looking to bring in customers through shopping catalogues paying attention to these reviews? My guess is, they are looking at only what they want to see.

Giving away catalogues for people to browse through, which cost them money to print, will be a great gesture on their part, if they do it cleverly. For instance, they could allow people to scan catalogues at a separate counter, where they can be served coffee and can put up their feet and take a look at what’s in between the pages. They pay for the coffee but still can walk away without buying the catalogue and if they have seen anything they would like to order, they can do it right there, while paying their bill. All they have to do is make a note of the merchandise code and tell the cashier. They can pay for it there itself and walk home with a receipt with the product being delivered to their doorstep.

If this was allowed, then you don’t have to print so many catalogues and only send them out on request (and then charge for it, if possible). Another Indian shopping catalogue is Elvy - a lifestyle catalogue - based in Delhi. You have to e-mail them a request for their catalogue and then they send it to you. Their catalogue is of excellent quality and they have products priced from Rs 395 to Rs 89,995 across 11 categories.

They have done some catalogues for ICICI, Bombay City Guide, Citibank and American Express in the past. Currently, if you fly Jet Airways, you’ll find they have done the JetMall catalogue. A quick glance shows you that they do have some gorgeous filigree-work candle-holders and good quality leather products. Even the outdoor Cheers tub drinks stand looks like a good conversation piece. When contacted, the Elvy spokesperson wouldn’t reveal how much business they are getting via their catalogue.

The reality is that in India, catalogues are picked up and junked because people still like to do their shopping by touch and feel. On a certain level, there is also distrust that they will not get exactly what is shown in the catalogue. Besides this, there is also quality-of-service issues which Argos faced.

Another big brand which came to India 15 years ago and which was an established name abroad, was Otto Burlington. Any guesses what happened to them? These were people who claimed to have made money in the West but if Indians were not ready to shop through catalogues back then, when it was an exciting new concept, are they ready to do so now? I remember my parents poring over the Otto Burlington catalogue and then I got my chance and I suggested to them that we get a huge set of silver cutlery, which came in a velvet lined box. We ordered that and a curd-maker. The cutlery is still going strong and is still being used but the curd-maker was a damp squib. The end result was that my parents wrote off ever shopping from a catalogue and most other people do exactly this.

Other stores who put out brochures from time-to-time, especially during the festive season are Vijay Sales and Croma. But these two don’t seem to concentrate too much of their marketing effort into their catalogues and it shows. The catalogues are designed to be handed out with newspapers, which is smart of them. It’s also something that people may overlook completely if it falls down behind a sofa, while you are reading your newspaper. What’s more, these brochures are merely to catch the eye about what’s new in their stores, so you can step in and see the things for yourself. It’s not as much about sitting back and ordering your Plasma TV on the phone.

There is an ‘all or nothing’ approach to shopping via catalogues that somehow doesn’t exist with physically shopping for something. I think the reason is very simple. If you see and touch something and then buy it and if it turns out to be a bad decision or a faulty item, then you know the shop’s not going to turn you away when you show up for a replacement. With a shopping catalogue, no matter how much they reassure you, you always remember somebody else’s awful experience of having lost their money completely.

Another reason is an unspoken one. People feel like they have been made a fool of by unseen ‘fraudsters’ where shopping catalogues are concerned. Whereas with a shop, you can always go there and create a scene and demand a refund or a replacement.

Abroad, catalogues might be minting money because the trust factor is high which is not the case in India. Their services are much better and is not as much of a hassle as it is here. So, catalogues that absolutely ape the Western model, might just make it here. Winning over trust is the big deal and if that occurs, the rest will follow. When I wrote to Elvy asking them to share any customer testimonials with me, their representative Anuradha Mishra did not get back to me.

In the West, it’s not only malls which print catalogues. I have a beautiful Christmas catalogue showcasing the collections of 5-6 British museums in the most innovative manner, where they have very cleverly printed say, paintings by Monet onto playing cards or superimposed Van Gogh’s works onto vases or Cezanne’s paintings onto dividing panels that can make for such a stunning and at the same time practical piece of furniture.

When will our museums wake up to such incredible possibilities? Let’s get inspired by the good deeds of the West, especially when you can land up making so much money in the bargain!

PS - Since writing this article, I've received a brochure showcasing 25 historic stamps from the archives of the National Philatelic Museum, New Delhi. The London-based Hallmark Group and the Authority of India Post are issuing a limited edition of these stamps in a uniquely memorable manner. They are engraved on solid silver ingots which are the same size as the stamps and will be layered with 24 carat gold to create a wonderful collectors showpiece. Only 7,500 sets will be produced worldwide.

This glittering collection will be sent to buyers along with a velvet-lined lacquered wood case, a special edition of the book 'Enchanting India, an album of educational Fact Cards, a Jeweller's Cloth and Gloves and an official Certificate of Authenticity, signed by the Swiss manufacturer guaranteeing the purity of the gold.

Fittingly, since this is the first time something of this magnitude has been produced for India and in the honour of famous Indians and their achievements which these stamps epitomise - this collection is called 'The Pride of India Collection'. Each gold plated stamp costs Rs 6,700 inclusive of all duties and taxes.

Go online to order at www.prideofindiacollection.com or call 011-26207151/52/53 or 011-41207151/52/53