lots of shit

Just how crazy and sick jobs have become these days can be imagined by considering the fact that in the evenings in India, i.e., from the time America shits to the time America goes to Lunch, there are thousands and thousands of people in these two countries just on conference calls. And often for many in America there is no shitting and no lunch coz of other more urgent things lying in those conference calls and and emails. But beyond a point, shit waits for nobody... and thankfully, phones come with mute buttons. Even while they are not muted, it's shit all over these conference calls. There are different kinds of shit. Drink Red Bull and attend a conference call, and blurt out tons of bull-shit. And follow every call with lengthy unintelligible horse-shit in emails without giving a rat's ass about anybody or anything. And then, open a new can of Red Bull, and proudly bull-shit yourself by saying - "This part of my life is called - Leadership".

And leading who?

Well, the Red Bull part is true only for those in America. Coz of two reasons - First, we in India don't drink so much Red Bull. It's still very expensive for us. We drink Tea from the canteen, or better still, free coffee from the coffee machine at the corner! And second, we are not leaders anyway. Leaders are all in America. The IP for all bull-shit lies there. And in India, we have engineers who write code to ensure the bull keeps on shitting, a bunch of old guys who approve their leaves, and MBAs who, while waiting for their moment to become leaders, decorate imported bull-shit with cherries, whipped cream, client name and love you message, and export it back. The 3rd category is the most stupid and clueless one, and I have belonged to it for quite some time now. I can call myself anything ranging from leader to consultant to manager to architect... but deep down, even god is confused how I am any of that. But given the closest to bull-shit nature of my job, my kind are seen as future leaders by the current leaders in America. And god shouldn't have any problem with that.

There has always been a funda that you should get out of large companies and work for start-ups, if you want to come out of all the bull-shit. Not a lot but on a few occasions I got a chance to interact with these so called entrepreneurs - the guys who found and run these start-ups. I felt these guys talk talk and talk. An extremely self-obsessed breed, and each one a fan of Steve Jobs. And they offer people difficult lives for same or low salaries - sometimes high if there's good funding somehow - in the name of challenges and learning. Here's something a startup in Bangalore is offering, copied from an email I got on IIML alumni group advertising their job... first a bit about what they think they do...

At <company name>, we are building the next­generation ­ competitive intelligence­ platform to deliver business insights through extensive data mining and analytics. Our clients include some of the biggest names in the world of Angel investments and Venture Capitalism. We are a small, tightly knit team, growing very quickly and looking to add quite a few high performers over the next few months.

What we have to offer:

• Long hours, Lots of learning
• Fabulous opportunity to network with VCs, PEs, IBs, incubators and CorpDevs
• Extremely flat hierarchy, No bureaucracy
• Meritocracy ­driven, candid culture
• Very high visibility regarding which startups and markets are exciting globally
• Like­minded, intellectually ­curious colleagues from IITs/NITs/IIMs and BITS

What we DO NOT offer:

• CTC to die for
• Frills such as free food and cab
• Swanky office (though it'll be cozy)

Sounds like a job that can screw your life. But there are people who fall for this shit. I sometimes do too. And there are those - very few indeed - who genuinely enjoy it. Most take these up to get higher designations sooner and then switch to bigger companies at higher levels and better salaries. Sounds like one needs to be too lucky and smart to manage all these eventually... it's like somehow getting an opportunity to dance behind the hero in a bollywood dance number and dancing very well - the best you can - hoping some day someone notices and gets you bigger opportunities - like a dance where you lead - then an item number for you like dard-e-disco - then a lead role in a movie... if learning to dance better in the process, even if nothing else works out - not even money, is a motivator, then you can go a long way... at least have a career dancing behind until you're too old to shake whatever you're asked to shake.

I also wonder whether these entrepreneurs are happy doing all the bull-shitting hoping to change the world. I mean, if they say they are happy, they may still be bull-shitting. Some bull-shitters genuinely believe their bull-shit although it may not be true. They are people living in illusions. But possibly we all live in illusions of some sort. It's just the illusion that carries us away that matters. Mine seems a little messed up right now, as you must have guessed.

Resale Home Buying - A few Tips

Although I am not a very real-estate savvy person, but I did get some hang of it in the whole process of buying a flat in Pune, and a very long process it indeed was. It was property resale, and from finalizing the property to the final registration, it took about 3 months. Here are some of the key learnings in the whole process, including property search:

• Property search is a tedious task and requires lot of time and patience. The guiding principle is to not compromise on a few key things you want from your home, and be sure of that. Eventually you'll find what you are looking for. (That's what my wife says, and I trust that, as search was mainly her department :P ... I reviewed once we had a shortlist, then we both reviewed many times and we mutually decided).
• If you care about vastu, hire a good vastu consultant whom you can trust and who is not very expensive. A good knowledgeable pandit, for example. Professional consultants are very expensive...
• Don't shy away from brokers, but beware. Brokers control access to a lot of the inventory out there. And you can't do away with them. Focus on the larger battle and don't worry too much about the brokerage expense. It is better to be clear and upfront on it, though. Make sure the broker agrees to the 1% norm even before he/she takes you to show any flat. And make sure the broker looks confident enough to facilitate the whole transaction, once you finalize your target.
• Ask and agree on all other expenses during the transaction and who bears what. I've had the following
• Society NOC charges - borne 50-50 by buyer and seller
• Other charges on paper-work by Society Office - buyer
• Lawyer fees - buyer
• Electricity Bill name change - buyer
• Property Tax name change - buyer
• Stamp Duty & Registration charges - buyer
• Everything else, and I know I'm missing many - buyer :-)
• If it's the first time you are buying a resale home, or any resale real-estate for that matter, better do engage a broker to handle the entire transaction and related formalities. While the agreements can be in English, a lot of documentation in Maharashtra, especially the Index-2 and stuff like that in the registrar office are in Marathi and if you don't get it, you better have someone handle it for you. Make sure the guy is well-versed with the entire process, and also has connections in banks to help you with your loan application.
• Banks need to review a lot of documents for the property to approve the loan. So it is wise to get a list of the required documents from the bank while you are searching properties. And when you are agreeing to buy the property, do check with the seller on the availability of all the documents you need, as per the list.
• Brokers need to be pushed and questioned. It is true you are paying the guy and he needs to do his job. But the brokers have a habit of overcommitting with confidence like you see nowhere else, and forgetting it altogether. Brokers also tend to get unreachable at times when you need them the most. They are frustrating, they are terrible and they don't care. And you have to pay them. So, although it's some sort of a paradox, don't trust them completely, nor rely on them. Figure out what's needed and be on top of everything.
• Keep xerox copies of every damn paper that you come across or create in the process. You will end up with a huge bunch of paper, but keep that safe.
• Lastly, and most sellers don't know this, and most brokers don't tell this during initial agreement between buyer and seller - 1% of the whole deal value (excluding stamp duty & registration fees), i.e., the cash which the seller gets, has to be paid to the mighty Government of India as TDS. This payment has to be done by the buyer and he/she has to deduct the amount from the total cash he/she pays to the seller. The payment can be done from NSDL website. Read the FAQs here. Quite a few important things to note here:
• This applies for properties with value greater than 50 Lacs INR
• The buyer is responsible for making the payment
• The buyer is responsible for downloading the form 16B and handing it over to the seller
• The buyer has to deduct the 1% TDS value and pay only 99% to the seller
• The seller can use the form 16B to claim tax exemptions
• This is a legal / statutory / whatever requirement, and not doing it can get you into trouble
• It is better to bring it up initially, i.e., before agreeing to buy the property, to make sure the seller accounted for it when quoting the price
• It's a recent rule and may not apply a few years later... so check for similar things that apply in your times... this is for readers of this blog a few years later :-)
• And do keep this in mind - you will definitely end up spending more money than you thought or budgeted for... so keep a few lacs handy, over and above whatever all likely costs add up to, while agreeing for the transaction.

All the best!

Ishita Bhalla ki kathaayein

There was a dog. Its name was Bosco. It used to run here and there after every car on the road. Then one day it found a car it liked on CarTrade.com. Bosco wanted to buy it, but it needed permission and money from its owner - Ishita Bhalla, wife of Raman Bhalla. Bosco never liked this concept of being owned by a human, and wanted to start a movement by all dogs and bitches to demand equality with human kind. But all other dogs were too loyal to their owners to support Bosco. Not that Bosco was not loyal, and not that Ishita tortured Bosco or anything. Just that Bosco was too much of an intellectual to accept being owned by someone. Anyway, Bosco went home to talk to Ishita and also grab a meal.

Ishita and Raman had been married for quite some time. They had 2 kids - Ruhi and Adi - from Raman's first marriage. Ishita loved Ruhi and Adi like her own kids. She loved Bosco also as her own kid. Bosco, Ruhi and Adi called her Ishi-ma. They all lived in Delhi, near the giant Hanuman statue.

Bosco reached home and went running to Ishi-ma with Samsung Galaxy Tab hanging by his neck. He wagged his tail and shook his head so that Ishi-ma noticed the shaking tablet. She did. She quickly unlocked the tablet and saw the open window, which showed the car on CarTrade.com that Bosco wanted her to buy for him. She bought it. The car was delivered the next day. Bosco picked up his gal friend and drove around in the car in Delhi.


Bosco wanted to marry his gal friend and settle down. He drove to India gate, stopped the car and proposed to his gal friend. She said yes. But had only one condition - that after marriage she and Bosco live with Ishi-ma and Bhalla parivaar only. Bosco couldn't ask for more. They didn't kiss, they subconsciously decided to save it for long after marriage, coz in Bhalla parivar, even making out after marriage somehow doesn't happen very naturally, spontaneously, regularly, frequently and soon. But who wants all that!

Everybody loves Ishita. Ishita loves everybody. Ishita is the best. She is mother India. She is Ishi-ma.

Entrepreneurship | Technology | Innovation | Collaboration

So many people are starting companies these days that I am beginning to feel some sort of global peer pressure about starting up. May be there is too much money floating around through a bunch of crazy billionaires that's fueling these start-ups, and may be this is the right time to get a share of that excess money in the world, and thereby make some fortune by pretending to be building some next-gen super-shit. But still I am not able to clearly figure out (a) whether I should do it, and (b) whether I can do it, and (c) whether it is really what it looks like.

The 3 most abused words of this generation are - Entrepreneurship, Technology and Innovation. This is how they are defined these days:

• Entrepreneurship: Doing any shit that is not a salaried job
• Technology: Anything that has anything to do with smart phones and similar devices
• Innovation: There is so much of it that some people literally innovate every second in whatever crap they do. Perhaps there should be an internationally certified authority appointed by the American President to qualify an activity as innovation. (You cannot trust any other heads of states or organizations you see. The American President is sent by God. Also I cannot mock any Indian leader here, coz in many ways they are Gods themselves, and can torture me if I angry them :P.) In fact the sales and presales teams of most Indian IT services companies have ready-made powerpoint slides on how innovation comes naturally to them and is ingrained in every little thing they do. Doing things without knowing much of what and why they are doing also requires innovation built into each individual in these industries! There are also ideas thrown around on how they generate innovative ideas in large volumes like little products in factories - where the product is in demand and the factory is running.

I hear a lot of these so called technology/eCommerse startups are making huge losses by selling stuff very cheap. They run and survive and compete on funding, so I hear. Therefore, it makes a great sense for me to be diverting all my consumption to be sourced from these, so that I decrease my own spending, by playing a part in increasing their losses and pulling a share of all that money which is getting invested.

This thought often leads me to the conclusion that one is better off as a consumer than someone running a company that all want to consume from. And the present times seem great for a middle-class consumer in India. But then, it doesn't necessarily have to be an either-or situation - i.e., one can be a voracious consumer, and at the same time run a company that everyone wants to consume from. But this makes sense only if the guy is making the kind of money that makes it worth all the effort and also enough to consume like crazy, in spite of the losses the company is making. Perhaps he/she does. I know a lot of people would argue that such things are not always done for money and there are other kinds of achievements - intellectual and other blah - that may be more motivating than the money that may or may not be made. And that the stuff starting-up teaches you is beyond what anything else can ever teach. And I agree with all that. But it still doesn't totally help me make a choice.

On another note - a question - is this life meant for going on learning things? I often hear people say - I hate this job coz I am not learning anything - I am okay with any job as long as I am learning - I want to learn - etc. etc. I think they lie, coz there is always something you will learn. The issue is whether you want to learn it or not. And honestly, I don't think we all want to keep learning all our lives. Too much learning either frustrates or bores or intimidates most people in jobs, and they start looking out for job change or may even quit without one. Learning is a necessity to survive in this ever-changing world, rather than a choice. And we cannot take it beyond a limit. We all have areas where we want to learn more, and areas where we don't enjoy learning anything at all. We lie either to motivate ourselves or to fake looking motivated. What do you think?

Of course, there are exceptions coz the world is full of them. My point of view may be biased by who I am and may apply only to people like me - that's how all points of view are, and are therefore not correct representations of reality. And so, share your views and let the reality be built through collaboration (another highly abused word) :). But then, collaboration here is limited to the number and kind of people who read this post! So, reality, as stated, will always be skewed. Share your thoughts, in any case...