Should we read books?

Is too much reading really a good habit or plain waste of time?

The world is full of people who will tell you what you should do and what you should not do including those who write all that stuff in books. And somehow there is so much sanctity assigned to the printed word, that we fail to see that it's written by a human who may just be bull-shitting to make money.

Let's ask some basic questions. What could be the possible reasons why reading may be a good thing to do:

1. It helps you learn things about life - I think a better and faster way is to live life better. However, because of human limitations and those of resources & logistics, there is only so much that is possible to experience first hand. So books are supposed to fill that gap and give you perspective about things you've not experienced. Makes sense, but with advances in technology over the past 100 years, books have become too slow a medium to fill gaps. We have other faster ways, that rock, at least superficially. And even if books are still the chosen medium, the fundamentally flawed assumption in this argument is that people read stuff that they do not get to experience. I think that's not generally true. Most people enjoy reading fiction or stuff about others that they can themselves relate to, at some level (say a similar feeling, situation, experience, etc.). They feel some sort of external acceptance or confirmation of being normal in the process and also feel good about whatever they are. And to ensure this feel-good outcome, people are very careful at hand-picking what they read.
2. Reading for pleasure - Well, everyone has a right to choose his/her ways of giving oneself pleasure. So this motive can't be questioned, as long as it is harmless for anybody else. And as mentioned in pt-1, most reading is for pleasure and self-gratification, including feeling normal in this screwed up world.
3. Reading for knowledge - I can't question this motive as well, since seekers of knowledge deserve their freedom to choose where they get it from. And I think there's an inherent assumption that they are wise and mature enough to choose their source based on what they seek. However wisdom and maturity are vague stuff and can't be defined, nor trusted. Anyway, by whatever means, it's important to be selective and smart here so that one does not waste a lot of time reading garbage. And the reason this is important is related to the reason we seek knowledge, rather the reason we should seek knowledge - to make sense of the world we live in. This knowledge is different from the kind referred to in pt-1, which was more related to human experiences. The knowledge am talking about here is factual information about the earth and the universe - whatever leads to the ultimate truth.

I think pt-1 basically means the same as pt-2 - reading for pleasure... and modes of entertainment should be rated based on the pleasure they provide, not by the pace at which they transmit information, and books do pretty well as entertainers for readers of a certain type.

Books, or rather written content, in various forms, have been the prime means of preserving and communicating knowledge for ages. The only other means I can think of are pictures and word-of-mouth. With advances in technology, we have other ways and means of transmitting information, which are faster and more convenient than books, including books on kindle. But at the same time, our minds have a minimum comfortable rate of processing new information, and it needs time also to evaluate and form a point of view. With books, we have a control over that. Books also have more explicitness in the content, so it is less likely that we'd miss important details which we might while watching a video. And physical books can be touched, felt, seen, stored and carried anywhere. It feels like real knowledge in hand.

All in all, although I started writing this article with the opposite view in mind, I now feel books are indeed a powerful medium for acquiring knowledge. And for pleasure, it varies from person-to-person as to which ones, if any at all, are more entertaining.

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...

Make in India

I am glad that through my blog I am contributing to "make in India"! How? This blog-site is owned by an American company and hosted god-knows-where, but the content for the blog is totally generated in India. With Modiji promoting make in India everywhere, I think we also need to creatively propose what all can be made in India. We are a nightmare for manufacturing hard stuff and shipping them to places in the world, given the pathetic state of infrastructure in the country. But the official make in India seems to be focussing on just that... check out the makeinindia website.

I therefore think we need to look at alternatives... something else needs to be made in India:

1. Babies - We make them most here... and the best ones... I guess we have the right warmth and oxygen content in the atmosphere to get the best stuff to right places... Come here and just do it... deliver kahin bhi kar lena... This in other words would mean promoting tourism, luxury hotels, Osho Ashram, exotic destinations, nude beaches, etc. etc. - whatever makes the mood.
2. Manure - We have more living beings in this country per square unit of area than anywhere else in the world. And together we make more shit than anywhere else. And earth's getting so hot, we need to grow more trees. Come here, collect all this shit and process it to make manure. I am sure we have enough shit to cover all the rest of the world. And believe me, this is very fertile shit, but we are short of land in India to spread it and grow trees over it. It's just that our shit has not been able to cross our shores because of VISA limitations - we have been sending people out to spread the shit, and that's damn inefficient. And our animals are getting no opportunity. Let's manage logistics better and get the shit out. I can assure you this shit will convert deserts to dense forests.
3. Movies - We manage to make a lot of good movies, more than anyone else. From Slumdog Millionaire, the west has seen that India offers a different look and feel in movies through its filth and poverty. We have good amount of it which they can exploit a lot more. And once they get bored of it, we have the modern India as well, which is also pretty decent, and Indian movies are doing okay to showcase it. By carefully taking care of what's coming in the camera frame, we can get views like the west in many locations in India.
4. Textiles - (This is already part of the official make in India campaign, as per their website. But, what the heck, I'll still talk about it :P.) We have our styles of clothing, exquisite textiles and are pretty good at making those. Try Indian clothing - it's really cool. And besides, we have also accepted and adapted all kinds of fashion in the world. We can make everything for you, and for quite cheap. Add some premium for quality and invest a bit for quality control. Raw material is not a challenge for us in this sector. Local logistics before export will still be a challenge, but I guess it's not as bad as shipping machinery. 
5. Problems and Solutions - This one's our USP. We have so many educated young people here without anything challenging to do, and yet alive and breathing - so hungry. And all quite intelligent, analytical and argumentative. We can design academic problems for you - all subjects, all topics. And since the rest of the world is getting dumber and dumber in theoretical academics, we'll also give you solutions to those problems. We're not like cruel Resnik & Halliday who only gave answers to odd numbered problems; nor like I.E.Irodov, who wrote a whole book of problems but never cared to write one with solutions to those. We are kind and we understand that a book of problems is useless without answers to all questions at the back of the book, and another book with solutions by the side.

The above list is only indicative, and there is a lot more we are good at which the white guys can leverage to make in India. But it doesn't look like Modiji is thinking about all these things. If he's only thinking about manufacturing of machines / parts, we are going nowhere. If he's thinking of all the other things we can make, we will take the world by storm!

work, leaders - a few thoughts...

Most of us carry on with our boring meaningless jobs. And yet motivational media continues to talk about pursuing meaningful careers, doing what one wants and all that shit. Perhaps it's an illusion which if adopted, can motivate us to carry on with hope and optimism. Like God, it has the power to make us do stupid things in hope that something better will come out of the stupidity.

 

Belief in God is a fundamental necessity for most humans. For some of the rest, the belief simply does not make sense. And for the remaining individuals, like me, even the concept of 'sense', as we know it, does not apply to these things and therefore, choosing to believe or not believe is simply not feasible based on any rational explanation. I've written about it many times, so will not flaunt my agnosticism again. But brought this up to draw parallels with one's trying to find meaningful work or meaning in work or building meaningful careers.

 

I am not sure exactly when I wrote the above two paragraphs... may be some time last month. However I totally don't have any memory of writing these. I just found this now in my drafts. Happens with me often, when I look back at my old blog posts, I often cannot recollect having thought and written down all that shit past 10 years! But I do think I did a good job making sure they survived this long and will last forever if internet and the content on it can be trusted for its longevity.

 

Going back to where this post started, it seems to me now, that as humans evolved, and so did leaders among humans, the part where the leaders motivate other humans to work became the most critical aspect of leadership. Deep down, the purpose of leadership is to make sure the show goes on. And the biggest show on earth is our human civilization. The illusion of building something meaningful and in turn achieving something meaningful out of it is necessary to keep leaders motivated. However most followers are motivated by lesser incentives, like staying alive. These respective motivations are probably instinctual for both leaders and followers. Their respective concepts of rationality are built on top of basic framework defined by what drives them by design.

 

I am wondering whether the above line of argument leads to the conclusion that leaders are born, but cannot be made. I am not sure. Depends on whether some of these instincts are natural or can be built through nurture when the mind and personality are taking shape. I don't have sufficient information to derive a logical conclusion here. And also, to classify all humans into 2 groups - 'leaders' and 'followers' - doesn't seem very right... There must be many more types, and it might just be the limitation of our language that we can't identify shades of gray, and shades of all the other colors possible.