The Middle Ground

This blog is about the only guy in the world whom I put up with. In fact there may even be an iota of truth in the ridiculous suggestion made by the trout, that the mater(read Ma) loves him slightly more than me. Outrageous ideas like these are enough to make him the greatest enemy of my life but the curious observer in me decides otherwise. While I often wish that I was not so much like a man - tough, hard-hearted - I cannot be less amazed by how sensible a man my brother has turned out to be. He certainly chose some of the most amazing genes from our parents genetic pool to be born with. Although I may never speak about it, he does have a keen ear for music, an adorable sense of humour, love of math, a sense of responsibility, a kind heart filled with adoration for Ma and guts, gritty enough to tolerate the toughest of the hardships ever. Soft-spoken and gentle-mannered, the bloke turned 19 yesterday, with a bang, literally. Spending one's engineering years in ...

Global organizations follow a three-step procedure to attain growth and profit: innovate, scale-up and adapt. Interestingly, these three steps embody a contradiction. In order to exploit the creativity of the individuals who create innovations, organizations have to deploy them worldwide. But size may distort the innovation. Another paradox pertains to scaling-up and adapting. Cost savings derive from selling standard products everywhere, enabling extended production runs and learning-curve savings. That is, there is a continuous pressure to make products standard. But local markets often differ widely in culture, preferences and tastes. Adapting products for each type of market can be fatal for cost and profit margins. At the same time, excess-standardization ruins the product. General Motors over-standardized its cars, so that the once powerful car brands became homogenized look-alikes. The ultimate goal of innovation is sustained competitive advantage. Thus, it becomes imperative t...

Read part 1 here In a finitely repeated Spouses Dilemma there can be no other equilibrium. Consider this: In the course of their dispute, if John and the Lady(L) learn that they aren’t soul mates and decide to be together just for a finite period of time, say 10 days, they’ll loaf till the 10th day. We can determine this by reasoning in reverse: On the last they, both of them will know that they have no chances to reward or punish each other further, so both of them will loaf. (If either one of them cleans, then he/she is not sticking to the plan and cares enough about the future so as to influence the behaviour of the other. Here we assume both of them behave like androids) On the second-last day, L knows that John will loaf on that day as well as the next day so L has no incentive to clean. So she loafs. John reasons similarly and does the same. Reasoning in a similar fashion backwards, we find that both of them loaf on all days, regardless of whether they part after 10 ...

*In trying to explain this variant of the Prisoner’s Dilemma – a model that involves strategic decision making, I have tried, not to use vocabulary that requires a degree in Game Theory to understand. However certain words need to be understood in order to appreciate the article. I have explained these terms as and when required in  Consider a one stage game in which John and L simultaneously choose between cleaning the house and loafing on a single day. Before moving further, a quick look at some definitions and concepts: Game : A situation in which a number of individuals make decisions and each cares about his own choices and other’s choices. One stage game : A game in which each player makes all of his choices before observing any choice by the other players. Infinitely Repeated game : Is formed by playing a one stage game many times in succession. Strategy : Any rule that specifies a choice based on the history of past choices. Best Response...

Some time back I attended a talk on Microfinance by Kalpana Karunakaran*. There were around 20 other fellow classmates, all post-graduate students, gathered in the little classroom at six in the evening. Curiosity about Micro finance brought most of us there, after a long day of difficult sessions. Kalpana, an excellent facilitator – we were soon to discover, started the discussion by throwing an open question: What do we mean by Micro finance? The answers that came up included almost all aspects of micro credit –people in villages belonging to the low income group have no access to any form of credit, so they form small groups and borrow small amounts of money. But what did the poor need the money for and why banks wouldn’t help them, how SHGs came to their rescue, how SHGs are different from MFIs - were questions which set our grey cells in Brownian motion. What resulted from the interesting discussion were simple answers to the above questions. The following points summarize my lea...

Diwali has always been symbolic of the triumph of the good over evil. In many parts of India, it also signifies the replacement of the old with new, which is why, in many homes, walls are white-washed and dusty corners are cleaned, new utensils and jewellery are bought and old clothes are doled out to the poor. It is this latter idea that is my way of identifying with the festival of lights. However, as Diwali approaches this time, I think about a different kind of cleansing - that of one's inner self. If you are thinking that the rest of this blog would be a patronizing passage on morality and virtuousness or on the infinite powers of yoga and meditation(both are infinitely powerful, though), then you are mistaken. On the contrary, I shall write about some techniques I discovered, to deal with pain. Although these techniques can be used by anyone, they might be more applicable to women, the reason being that women incorporate feelings into their actions and the...

With all those glorious forecasts made about how great the future of India is and all the history rammed into student's impressionable brains of the Freedom Struggle year after year, with all the crap that Bollywood keeps churning every week (with a narcissistic Mayawati building another statue of herself!) I sometimes fear if we are over-complacent during these turbulent times of global political and economic change. A niggling thought at the back of my mind says that my fears aren't entirely baseless. Take for instance, our respectable neighbour country who can't seem to figure out where to accommodate their humongous population, and begins to eye our soil. Yes, I speak about the North-Eastern limb of India which is under threat today, from the shrewd Chinky Eyed clan whom our politicians still want to refer to as kith(Remember 'Hindi Cheeni Bhai Bhai'?) Pretty laughable that the world's fastest growing economy has such moral standards. But sadly, our...

Then there are people whom I met in Infosys who are totally wacky, completely gross, absolutely silly yet loads of fun to be friends with. You'll know what I am talking about: Take Prazy boy for instance. He drops into Chennai from Bangalore as if it were just half-an-hour apart on bike, in the middle of the week even sometimes. The plans to meet-up-have-fun follow shortly and amalgamate pleasantly with my weekend plans. Incessantly giggling, we watch movies mostly or eat out sometimes with other friends. With Prazy boy around you'll be rolling on the floor laughing invariably.Whether it is the Curious Case of the Parrot and the parotta or Rindo's 'play'-tonic relationships with his Transformers(and ahem, Barbie dolls), Prazy's impromptu style with words always amuse me. Like all good things, there is a downside to this as well. Consider this: On demanding a gift on Rakhi , he replied that I was already a 'gifted' person and hence wouldn't need a...

Thodasa Roomani Ho Jayen is essentially a fairy tale set in modern times. Produced by Doordarshan and directed by Amol and Chitra Palekar, this movie tells the story of a girl, Binny, who thinks that she doesn't look beautiful. She lives with her father and two brothers in a city where the rains are late on a particular year. One day a con man arrives at their offering to bring rain within 2 days, in exchange for Rs.5000. He proceeds to touch each of their lives gradually ironing out creases of despair and sadness from their minds. The protagonists portray humane characters, each coloured with different fears, insecurities and strengths. The dialogues are creatively woven into rhymes, adding to the fairy-tale effect. The movies takes us to an old age home full of merry-making old men and to a wedding reception where well-dressed people exchange artificial niceties. It touches the different strata of our society, across age-groups, between the two genders, highlighting very subtl...

I am going to rave some more about my friends. To Guys and a Gal It was one of those usual weekends, when you are a fresher in a city, and you can't stand a single second because the people around you are not like anybody you know and you want to gulp down a couple of pegs and become someone else having to do nothing with the people or the city. Abhishake and Avinash crashed into a discotheque one such weekend. They used to live in Noida then. In Chennai, I was lazing around in my room that evening. My phone went abuzz. 'Abhishake calling...' 'Hello?' A wide grin spread across my face. This guy is a great friend, a very likeable person, sentimental yet strong and understanding. The song 'Desi Girl' from Dostana blared in the background. For the uninitiated, this song features Junior B, Piggy Chops and Johny Bravo having a blast in a stylish disco. 'Hello?' I repeated, my curiosity piqued now. Two voices broke into the...

I have been most fortunate to have some of the most adorable people in the world as friends. Since I am sitting in this little balcony in my room at the IFMR hostel, and its a lazy, sultry Saturday night, let me just write about those whacky old cronies of mine. My brother is younger to me by 5 years. Growing up with him, doing things for him had turned me into someone who always required to do something for people around. During Engineering, the evenings in the hostel were spent in listening to a friend pouring her heart out, or laughing endlessly over nonsense or cramming textbooks together.I needed my quiet time but I couldn't imaging a life without the buddies. After graduation, we were all sad at being posted at different locations for our respective jobs.At the same time we were trying to become serious professionals (whatever that meant). All of us swore that no matter where we were, we would always remain in touch. This was the motivation behind perfectly cra...

The slanting rain across the wide window panes. Do I love him? Fields of endless green move past. Do I love him? Sleep beacons dreams. Funny how useless we become when the lights are turned off. A tree, a temple, a tavern and their silhouettes.The sky, orange-purple behind. Outside, a calf struggles to step on the earth. Where thirsty guillotines and the milking machines wait. Someday. Another mother, a human one, grits her teeth inside. Unlike the calf , this baby will wail after being born, though for no apparent reason. Humans have never quite been silent about anything, have they? Between the stones, the mustard gets ground, the fish gets fried in hot boiling oil. Flies flit in and out of the children some where, I know. Lucky you , a voice quips inside. How can I be useful, I wonder. Answer this one question, God. How can I be useful? Though drenched with sweat in the sultry, summer afternoon, I choose not to switch on the fan. Masochist. I smile sarcastically. Of ...