The Rich Beggar

Whoever said that going back to Business school means revamping your thoughts and assumptions was absolutely right. This blog comes after a rapid-fire Financial Accounting class and may hence be infested with uncomprehendable jargon and concepts that come free with every purchase of a Financial Accounting course asset.

So every time I learnt a new concept in this class, I was supposed to debit my "brain" account and credit the "lecturer" account. And every time I indulged in Arbit CP or arbitrary class participation, I credited my "mouth" account and debited the "class" account. However there is nothing positive or negative about debiting and crediting the accounts, as one may have thought thus far. Debiting the brain account may turn out to be a negative since it could get you completely confused. And debiting the class account could invoke the wrath of the people surrounding you if the account is debited with Arbit CP.

Blame it on the banks! No Im talking about the financial crisis for a change. Im talking about the jargon that we have gotten used to since time immemorial, all due to our transactions at the bank. We have been accustomed to the fact that our account will be debited when the bank is taking out money. Whenever Dad transferred money to my account when I was studying, he used to ask me "has the money been credited?". So all we thought was crediting one's account means blessing it with money, while debiting it means stripping it off to some extent. All the same, in the Accounting class, we were made to "un-learn", all in the name of management jargon, what we already knew about debit and credit.

Some were highly intrigued by the concept. Debit and credit are probably the most English-sounding words in Accounting, as compared to words like assets, liabilities, accruals, equity, receivables, etc. And just when you thought that your twenty years' knowledge of the English language was probably the only pre-requisite you had while taking up an Accounting course, that tower of knowledge started leaning like the Qutb Minar. And once you heard the definition of debit and credit in Accounting parlance, the tower just collapsed.

Of course, at the end of the day, it is just a question of practice and working out more and more balance sheets, which most of my accounting friends claim never balance. After a couple of weeks of accounting, I would probably and hopefully be able to rattle off more concepts like "debit what comes in and credit what goes out". But until then I am going to be confusing my friends saying "the sun just rose in the west" or "i climbed down to the second floor from the ground floor".

The Rich Beggar

Forgetting Savage Civilization...

The time was 5 am. The street leading to the Main Guard Gate, usually bustling with activity - vendors selling everything from flowers and garlands to clothes and electronic appliances - was for the first time deserted and devoid of all activity. The distant signboard "Singapore Plaza" reminded me of Singapore's very own busy shopping mall Plaza Singapura - a sprawling 7-storeyed shopping complex, full of eating houses, expensive branded-item shops (where the only type of shopping we did was the type that had Microsoft's famous invention for a prefix), a cineplex and a supermarket, with a train station at its basement. However, the Singapore Plaza in question was basically a row of street shops, each shop large enough just for a row of ten cordless telephone sets (most probably purchased in Singapore for 80% of their current price or less) and a 2-ft square area where the shop owner sat on a cushion - shouting his deals all day to attract the passers-by. But the earliest bird among these birds (pun intended) was probably still at home brushing his teeth with a healthy twig from the nearest banyan tree.

As our car took a turn, the graceful Rock-Fort came into view - the new golden 'vimaanam' glittering in the night lights for the final hour before dawn. The symbol of Trichurapalli or Trichy, the Rock-Fort somehow demanded respect and gave the kind of feeling that Lord Vinayaka was overseeing everything that happened in this South Indian town. As we drove out of Trichy northward along the bridge on the river Kaveri, the spire of the Srirangam temple rose majestically in the distance in the middle of the lush folliage on the island formed due to the splitting and rejoining of the river into Kaveri and Coleroon or Kollidam. To my knowledge, I have never seen water in Kollidam. But Kaveri used to have water to its brim and the speed of its flow always frightened me as a kid. Today the river was but a solitary stream of water a few feet wide, with sufficient water for the washermen to wash clothes. The rest of the river bed was bare, waiting only for the lorries to pick up loads of sand as illegal construction material.

The Ayyan Vaaikaal is a creek off the mainstream Kaveri and flows for more than twenty kilometers in the area North-west of Trichy and is one of the three branches at the Melanai (The Upper Anaikut dam) at the Mukombu (Three branches). A State Highway has been laid along the river, closely following the bends of the river. Drivers who prefer driving on straighter roads would curse this design. But it only adds to the beauty of this eastward road - on one side the meandering stream, and beyond it, the broadest section of the Kaveri river; on the other side: lush green fields of paddy and sugarcane stretching as far as the eye can perceive; and at every third bend, a small temple dedicated to one of the many local deities.

A by-lane into what looks like a banana plantation brought us to our native village - Amoor. We were here for the Balaalayam, or the initiation of the renovation and the Kumbabishegam, of the temple of our family deity - Goddess Angalamman. "Bala alayam" literally means "small temple". The aim of the Balalayam was to ceremoniously transfer the power from the main spire atop the sanctum sanctorum(s) to a smaller replica or painting of the spire, after invoking the blessings or in other words obtaining official permission from the presiding deities to proceed with the renovations. Its amazing how the most complicated of rituals and ceremonies usually have the simplest of meanings.



The Shivaachariyaar, the main priest conducting the ceremonies of the day, seemed to have the same energy and lustre since the last time he conducted the Kumbabishegam at our temple twelve years ago. He and his four assistants kick started the ceremony with the Poornaahuti which means "complete offering" and is meant to symbolize the integration of all our abilities into a particular activity with unified dedication.. The 'aahuti' or the offering contained a dry coconut with nine types of grains and coins all tied in a piece of cloth and was offered to the fire with ghee while chanting Vedic manthras. "Pledging the dedication of every member in a team is the first step in any project.", the Shivaachariyaar explained. Coming to think of it, this simple one liner could be applied to any field as the underlying principle for success.

The Shivaachariyaar moved on to the next ritual which I call the 'Transfer of Power' - the main purpose of the Balalayam. The 'kudam's or the holy pots with water were first consecrated and the 'abhishegam' was done on replicas of the 3 temple towers of the 3 main deities with towers. Apart from these three main deities, there are 4 other deities with colored statuettes and no towers - all the Goddesses incarnations of Goddess Paarvathi and the Gods incarnations of Lord Shiva - all local Protector Gods with fiery eyes and wielding huge swords, one of them is even shown devouring the flesh of a probable demon defaulter. The transfer of power for the deities without a tower was done onto 4 miniature paintings quickly drawn by the chief construction engineer or the 'Stapathi'. The Transfer of Power complete, the Stapathi, followed by a few of us, gently hammered one side of the tower with a sword - symbolizing the official launch of the renovations and painting work for the temple.

One of the best parts of these traditions apart from the divinity of the actual rituals, is... you guessed it right - the Food! Sadly it usually comes at the very end. But the spread is usually something to look forward to. This time too, we were not disappointed. The two cheerful cooks ensured we ate till we dropped. Our street housed the upper-middle class of the village population. Unlike the condominiums or bangalows of the crowded cities which somehow have an element of egotistic pride attached to them, these old-fashioned mud-and-stone houses interspersed with some more modern concrete houses, had an unassuming appeal about them. As we walked past, our neighbor allowed us to take a couple of drumsticks from her tree. I initially struggled with the long stick which had a hook at one end, much to the amusement of the villagers. I couldnt do much until one of them actually taught me the art. Once I knew how to do it, we decided to rid the tree of the burden of carrying so many drumsticks and brought home whatever we could.

A huge mirror in the hall of the house we stayed in, had not too long ago been shattered to pieces, thanks to the bunch of termites who had happily made a mid-day meal out of the mirror's decades-old hook. But for these occasional signs of deterioration, more due to the neglect of the owner than anything else, the house was comfortable. It had a superb ventilation system, no mosquitoes, and a brilliant old-fashioned feel about it. Somehow the entire setting, of the Kaveri, the fields and the rustic scenes made me feel I was in some other world - much more beautiful, much more peaceful and far far away from the hustle and bustle of savage civilization...

The Negative Optimist

Ghar aaja pardesi tera des bulaye re!!

After having spent eight years abroad, I am back in my hometown, for (at least what seems like) good. Although I have lived here for more than fifteen years before I left for Singapore, Chennai today seems to be an entirely different animal. Spending a couple weeks here on holiday is completely different from returning here wondering if this is probably the place I am going to be working the rest of my life. And having resigned, in a downturn, from a company doing considerably well, with my boss begging me to stay, to take up an entirely new career path in a country where I have never 'worked' before - I feel clueless! Indeed I did not make these decisions overnight - to return to India has always been my eventual plan. I had even made a wager with one of my former colleages when I was 21 that ten years hence I would be settled in India. Yet, perhaps one could say as always, the reality about taking a decision to relocate never hits you fully until you have actually relocated.

Take a drive on Chennai roads at 8 pm, and you will agree that chaos is an understatement. Having spent eight years in Singapore where even an ambulance carrying a dying patient would stop at a red traffic light for several critical minutes, I was shocked to see a full-sized SUV overtake me on the left and turn right into a crowded road at top speed, all after the signal had turned red! Talking about these "gas-guzzlers" or SUVs - a concept that was first promoted with vested interests by both the oil and car companies in the then burgeoning American economy - I have fundamental doubts as to why they should even be so popular in India, despite being expensive, low on mileage and bulky on the narrow city roads. Rewinding just a few hours before that SUV zoomed by, however, we had driven over 300 kilometers averaging a speed of almost a hundred kmph on what I felt was an unprecedented stretch of Indian highway. The amazing road quality, beautiful landscaping and the neat exits to smaller towns with white-on-green signboards gave the NH45 a true feel of an international expressway.

As much as one may site these SUVs and expressways as proofs of India's economic development, one cannot hide from the fact that poverty is still rampant even in the metropolis. I took a train journey along the recently developed Mass Rapid Transit System, which has been laid almost completely alongside a meandering sewer which bears little semblance to what it was once upon a time - a river. The Buckingham Canal, with no correlation whatsoever to the royality except for its name, is now the slushy backyard of some of the poorest slums of the city. Even there however, some of the thatched huts have given way to small concrete box houses with electricity - I could even see computers in some houses.

There are basically two aspects in this blog about the entire relocating exercise. First, about India's development, I have always been raised in the school of thought that Indians are best at reaching their high goals amidst complete confusion - whether its the economy developing despite the country's politicians or simply reaching home on roads where not following rules is the only rule. Of course to this chaos, there are both silent spectators and loud complainers, both within and outside the country. There is yet a third category of forward-thinking optimists who want to do their bit to be an active part of India's development - whether it is converting those congested roads to 6-lane expressways or converting the thatched huts to concrete houses with computers. It may be true that India still has its share of poverty, pollution, red-tapeism and that certain aspects of daily life are not as streamlined as in certain other countries. But driving on NH-45 certainly enhanced my optimism.

Second, about relocation in general, it is the perception and mindset that matters. I feel it is a question of whether one considers the glass of water to be half-empty or half-full. Socrates once encountered a man entering Athens, who wanted to know more about the city and its people. The great philosopher asked him in turn about the city the man came from. The man replied that it was a horrible place filled with cruel people, hence his decision to move out of there in search of greener pastures. Socrates replied "Athens is no different" and the man ran away. Another man came to him with a similar question about Athens. But when Socrates asked him about the city he came from, his answer was different..."the city I come from is beautiful and the people there are wonderful." To this too, Socrates replied: "Athens is no different!"

The Negative Optimist