ponderings & pennings

I was not sure of where we were heading with stock market index zooming past 20,000, INR showing strength at 38, the 10-year paper close to 7%, inflation below 4%, IIP at levels over 10% and the GDP at levels moving closer to double digits.

With the current levels of the above economic parameters (index at decent 16500, INR 41, 10-yr paper 8+%, inflation 8%, IIP 8%, GDP 8%) one gets the feeling that economy is still healthy and will progress without any early fatigue as has been recently witnessed. Breakneck speeds of all of these parameters (simultaneously) always instilled some sort of uneasy surprise in me and my friends and underlying reasons for the pace were not assuring enough. We were not sure if all this was for real.

You can label us pessimist/bearish but we continue to believe that though India is the cynosure in BRIC economies, it does not have the required strong support from other quarters to sustain this pace of economic boom. The other quarters being the socio-political set up in the country. Isn’t is strange that while index of the companies zooms past ecstatic levels of 20,000, India still ranks way below the ladder in ease of starting a business? The distribution system of almost all commodities shouts for reforms and smooth infrastructure. Labor and land reforms are in a perpetual limbo. More than a quarter of Indian population still goes to bed hungry. Bureaucracy is mired in corruption. Legal system is a long drawn battle (DRTs give zero confidence to banks).

I might be sounding as a harbinger of doomsday but the point am trying to make is that there were no tangible and convincing reasons for the overly optimism shown by markets. Given the current level of these and many other socio-political sub-environs in India, the current economic parameters reflect the Indian state pretty well and near authentic.

I dont want to sound inhospitable to our FII friends but I get a (weak) feeling that this exuberance was a result of their quick money making strategies aided by our very own punters & operators (KGN and Sylph kind of operators).

I am back at being comfortable with the current economic parameters though inflation seems to be threatening and I still believe that it is the job of RBI and it should be allowed to play a proactive role in managing inflation rather than ministers of state trying to force down measures on the industry. RBI has many more tools at hand apart from CRR viz. exchange rate (which is pretty potent given the huge reserves that our nation has acquired).

Well lets celebrate a little with another of my fav songs:

When it happened the first time I did not even care to bother about it. But when it happened the second time I was with a friend of mine and he brought to attention this view which I shrugged off as rubbish. However a few days later it happened the third time and my friend, who was with me then too, gave the same explanation which I rejected yet again though with a little less confidence. And then over a period of couple of months it has happened atleast half a dozen times and when it happened today evening again, my friend’s words ehoed in my ears and I actually asked myself if men were really perverts.

OK. No more suspense. The event happening I am talking of is the auto-drivers and cab-drivers prefering women passengers over men passengers. Being a male, you are standing by the road side signalling to the approaching auto/cab for hiring but it ignores you, passes by you and stops near the woman a few feet farther. That they do so because the other passenger is a female was my friends’ reason which "initially" I not only found rubbish but even funny - not any more.

I fail to understand what "pleasure" would that driver derive with a women sitting on the back seat (sorry if I got a bit explicit). Or is it that these drivers consider women (naari-shakti) as divine and prefer to have her grace their vehicles - I am surprised then why only drivers (that too of auto/cab) feel the divinity in women?

Anyway, I have now decided to make sure that when I am looking to hire an auto/cab next time, there is no women at even a distance of several feet!
Here is a video of one of my fav desi bands…

I did not enjoy writing this post

People who know me, are aware of my love and respect for the city of Mumbai. I have been living here for the last 4 years now and can say that the city really has a mystic attraction in it and is in fact a real melting pot. First it were Gujaratis, then south Indians and now north Indians - it seems some elements of the city have a problem with rest of India!

Anyway, despite my discomfort in writing this post, I do so because a couple of days back a book was released titled "Zero Point Bombay - In and Around Horniman Cirlce" which contains essays and photographs of old Bombay, its transformation from a city under Portugese, through British and the modern city under the democratic free India.

Is it ironical that the book jas been authored by three ladies, Usha Thakkar (a gujju), Kamla Ganesh (a southie) and Gita Chadha (a northie)? And this is the very reason I did not enjoy writing this post - I hate classifying humans in categories (whatsoever).