Good Bye 2016

In all likelihood, this post is going to be my last in 2016. With only a day and a few hours left for 1st Jan, 2017 is pretty close. However, I am more worried about the 2nd of Jan which is the first working day of the new year, and which comes with loads of new work, especially in companies like mine which is an IT outsourcing provider and primarily caters to American and European clients who chill too much in this chilling period. Can't help the seasonality of this business. In any case, ever since I've started working, I've learnt that it's best to look at the present and live life one day at a time, as looking too far into an extrapolation of the present is often very stressful in professional context. And even in the most stressful of the days, living the present helps you get a relaxed sleep at night by letting you defocus from work and relax until the next day arrives, which if you fail to do would screw both your today and tomorrow.

I missed the target of completing 250 posts this year; this one's 242nd. Never mind, hope I stay alive to get there... and it's just a number anyway, significant only because we humans have agreed to use the decimal system of numbering. I don't remember having made any serious resolutions at the beginning of 2016. Or if I did, I wasn't serious enough about them so I could remember. But I am told it is very good to have goals in life - goals that totally drive one's thoughts, ideas and actions. Most people are only constantly searching for such goals all their lives. Perhaps it can be said that finding a goal for their life is the goal of most people. The rest are sure of what they want - a property which can also be a psychological aberration, given that it's only manifested in a few people. But such people change the world in bigger ways than normal people do. They are precious.

Even if one is unsure about goals of life, one can set smaller goals and strive to achieve them. It does require a resolve from a person to pursue goals just for the heck of it, or perhaps in search of some meaning of the time spent living. And little random things can often get together and lead to something big. Big enough to make everything look wise in hindsight.

Lemme set some goals for myself and see where I reach. Wish me luck.

No-Tax Economy

A very fundamental question has been lingering in my mind for quite some time now, especially after this demonetization move by the government and RBI - why should there be tax?

I am trying to put forth my point through this post, but please be aware that being technically accurate or complete in coverage and definitions is not the intent here, as I'm sure the relevance of my point is not lost because of that. Please bring forth if this post comes with any obvious or severe misunderstanding of our systems that would make my point meaningless.

The prime rationale for government pushing for a cashless economy is to ensure nobody escapes from paying taxes. All the so called black money became black coz the money went through a transaction that was entitled to certain tax which someone didn't pay, coz the transaction didn't have a record. This may be too simplistic a definition of black money, but let's say it covers some of it.

Technically, Tax is meant for all the government spending, including salaries of all government officials, spend on infrastructure development, all the welfare schemes and incentives, and maintenance of everything the government is responsible for. I am sure there are lots of other areas the money is spent, so let's just be aware of that and move on, without trying to define tax 100%. It is important to add, however, that one of the key goals of tax is income/wealth redistribution - which broadly means making rich less rich and poor less poor.

Now the fun begins. You have tax. And then you have ways to save tax. And the ways are supposed to help government acquire funds indirectly either through reserves of locked-in funds at individual levels or increased business growth at corporate levels and so on, which will lead to win-win for both parties - the government and the tax payer - in the long term. I don't exactly know the rationale behind offering such options to tax-payers, but I guess it must be to create an illusion of saving partially on what one is giving away and thereby to offer the prospects of additional well-being owing to one's extra application of wisdom in managing one's finances.

Now, the issue here is that people are smart. And those who see loopholes take advantage of them if they can manage to amass a little courage, and if the consequences are not that grave vis-a-vis the rewards. Why pay anything at all when you can not pay anything at all? - this question inevitably comes to everyone's mind when there is a way to escape paying taxes. A government would never like such people, and more importantly such practices. Given that people are what they are, one can only curb the practice - by plugging all the loopholes. Cashlessness is one such measure. But it doesn't guarantee that other creative practices won't emerge, coz still - people are what they are. In any case, especially in the Indian context at the moment, going cashless should be driven by convenience and not by lack of options. It's debatable whether convenience can bring a faster transition or brute force. My observation says the latter may be quick but short lived and temporary.

Doing away with the concept of Tax

Why have taxes at all? Suppose the total income of the economy for a year is x. And the government needs t amount to manage its expenses for the year. In the current model, we take away t from x so that x-t is what remains with all the working and tax-paying entities of the economy. Now imagine a model where the t is allocated by the central bank to the government. With the inflationary, money supply and demand-supply adjustments, the income of the economy will have to adjust to x-t. Or may be it won't, let's say it becomes y. The government spends like it does currently, may be budgeting for slightly more than t. This gap, called the fiscal deficit now, will have to be borrowed from the bank, and returned over time through the profits the government makes from the public sector undertakings, auctions of public property and natural resources, etc. The income redistribution part can be taken care of through direct cash disbursal, which comes from the t amount to be spent. I am sure there would be lot of econometrics involved in calibrating these parameters, including the money supply, to make it work efficiently. And I believe it is workable. It will definitely curb tax-evasion, as there is nothing to be evaded. In a way the government has already reserved its part and would be working with it for whatever it has to do. There still is scope for corruption at various levels, but that has to be modeled and dealt with as required. The needless hassle of creating and the resulting behavior of understanding complicated and funny income structures, benefits and investments would end and people will take what they make. And nobody would have any reason not to declare what they have. The entire money will circulate freely. Getting cashless will be convenient and will be embraced without a sales pitch.

The key challenge would be to transition to a new model like this. The world is so used to working with the tax model over centuries that anything else often seems inconceivable. However, I think there is scope for other models, much more simple and logical. The one I proposed has to be thoroughly modeled with all economic and financial considerations, and piloted very well so as to fine tune. And should definitely be rejected if it is not workable.

Does it have a chance? Please do let me know your views on this.

15-min post: working from home

It is 11.45 PM and I have to post this before 00.00 AM. This would perhaps qualify as my fastest post till date, made in exactly 15 minutes. I am still thinking what the next 14 minutes have to be about. For one, I don't want this post to be crap. I want to still do justice to this post with some genuine content, although it's only 13 mins left now. 12 now - 1 minute lost in typing random stuff and erasing it with backspace.

Working from home is becoming increasingly common in India too these days, particularly in the IT industry. My new job offers complete freedom to do so. For my easily distracted mind, a closed room at home is an ideal setting to concentrate, except for the sleep it induces at the same time, and with an option to crash, it requires tremendous will power to keep going on the table-chair. It's therefore easier to work from home when the work-load is very high and times are very stressful, as then the mind is totally occupied and in such a shitty state that sleep is the last thing crossing it.

8 more mins. In any case, for jobs that can afford, working from home is a really good option, if one can train himself to it. Besides obvious advantages like not having to drive to office and back in extreme traffic nowadays and not occupying office space while most of  the work is done buried in laptops and phones, it also gives an opportunity to an employee to plan his work better in the comfort of the surroundings of his choice, which he can even design the way that suits him (or her... masculine used just for simplicity), and all this can have a less stressful impact on the mind and also generates possibility of more productive employees, thereby offering better outcome for the company.

There are disadvantages of course of people free-riding and not really engaging well. So the companies have to rethink employee engagement and ways of working that suit work-from-home better, as that's the need of the hour.

It's 00.00 AM. I've to post this thing now.

Bass yoon hi...

Although I am tempted to write about demonetization, I will refrain from doing that. One - there is plenty of content and analyses already done on it, most of it claiming things without much of bases. And two - I am not much of a fan of this move, and don't feel the stated motives would be achieved by the move. I can't help being an agnostic in all aspects of life. So, I'll wait until the results start showing up. So far, it's not clear. And I don't want to express reservations as offending the easily offended supporters of Mr. Modi is not worth it at this point.

I am sitting right now in a lake-side restaurant in Kadagwaasla. I got a table right beside the lake, and I am sure it would be a great view in the day time. Right now, I can see the lights far away, and their reflection in the waters. On the other side of the resort, of which this restaurant is a part, my wife's office party is going on. I can hear loud music and cheers. Seems like quite an engaged workforce.

Of all the companies I've worked for, and I've worked for quite a number, the best parties were in Geometric, where I worked from 2004 to 2007, which I guess were the better times for the company. There used to be an annual bash, which was a terrific event with great food and unlimited booze, along with a pick and drop in company buses. The only better parties I had were the insti-parties at IIML, which were more fun and uninhibited, although with plastic disposable cups for booze and onion pakodas for snack, and for food you had to head to the mess. The music was loud and lights were dim, and after a few drinks, I danced like Hritik. And every party ended up with some misadventure by someone - makeouts, fights, etc. etc., and there'd be enough to gossip about until the next party.

It's getting pretty cold here, as I am sitting in the open. One more hour to go, I guess. I've had a cup of tea and cup of soup so far. Tea is drunk and soup is eaten - in linguistic terms. I ordered another soup now. Chalo then. See you later.

let's have panipuri

Trump got elected, Indian Government banned 1000 and 500 Rupee notes and the world that I am a part of became slightly more complex over night - the night of 8th November. But these are minor blips in the time-curve of the world. People move on, life goes on, stuff keeps happening, we live, we die.

I have had to cut down on my regular dose of panipuri since the cash crunch. It's brutal - my denying panipuri to myself. My love for panipuri started in the year 2000, when I moved to Mumbai for studies. Before that, i.e, during all my life before, which was in Bilaspur, I never liked the concept of the thing - it was called gupchup there. (I was more a chaat and samosa lover.) I did try a few times, but never liked it. But when I tasted the Mumbai version, I became a fan. During my 4 years at IIT Bombay, one of my favorite time-killers was to walk to the Main Gate, get on and cross the road outside, walk towards the Y-Point Gate, and eat a plate at every panipuri wala. There were various varieties, each good in its own way. There was a chaat shop right opposite Y-Point Gate that had a particularly exquisite variety and that used to be my last plate. After that I entered back into the campus from the Y-Point Gate and walked back to my hostel or any other of my time-killer hotspots. I did that every 1-2 days. As anyone can tell, this is not the kind of activity for which you can expect to get company very often. Jeetu, Ravi, Anshu - they came along at times. On most times, I went alone.

My love for panipuri continued even after I left Mumbai in 2004. It even grew - so much that I used to search for it and eat strange varieties in Chennai during my 6 months there. Then I moved to Pune, where it's different from the Mumbai versions, not as good even, but still one of the better versions in India. I have lived and traveled to a lot of places in India since then, across its length and breadth, and I make it a point to try panipuri or whatever it's called there. I still find the Mumbai version the best.

A lot of people passionately claim chaat and samosa are the best in their hometowns. I too do that. So lemme tell you Bilaspur has the best chaat and samosa. Period.

There have been lots of interesting experiences around having panipuri. Conversations with the guys making them turn quite interesting; quite similar to talking to cab drivers - you get a picture of what's going on and what really matters - and it sometimes shakes you up. Although I'm shy and not much of a chatter, I do try to gossip sometimes, starting with some funny comment, but only when I am the only one being served.

My love for the thing has intrigued many. My friend Manis often used to wonder how it is even possible someone like me exists. But in fact, a lot of guys are in awe of me as this is how they also want to be, but they are in some kind of a closet. And many ladies find this amusing too, and perhaps think the same as Manis. Some call it a girly trait, but I am convinced it is not from the fact that majority or all in the crowd eating with me on any occasion are usually guys. Girls probably eat in nicer hygienic places, and not so often. I prefer roadside. It tastes best. And every day... or so.

I would have written more, but I must go now - it's evening and I can stop no more. More on this some other time. I have to rush... Some decisions to be made - ragada or aalu? 'Medium' - of course. Kaanda along would be good. And masala-puri in the end, obviously!

Targets

I am 14 posts away from 250 all-time (~11 years, since I started blogging), and I've set that as my target for the remaining 2016. It's not a lot, considering that there are still 53 days remaining in this year, although when I set the target a few days back, there were more than 60. Also consider the fact that I've done only 16 posts in 2016 so far, in about 10 months and a few days. At the end of 2015, my average was 22 posts per year, with the highest of 54 in 2007 - the year I traveled to the US first time, and did some sort of an experience sharing series of posts - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

At this point of time, my target seems achievable, just that it requires me to do a little more than what I generate at my regular pace, with the stretch that is quite significant by my performance standards so far, but not humanly too adventurous. This is not how most companies set their targets - for themselves, for their people. There is an unsaid rule that the targets have to be crazy and overwhelming, demonstrating optimism and hope to shareholders and employees, and pushing the executive leadership - pushing them hard - so hard that they fail, to think of creative ways of achieving the numbers, not otherwise achievable if the company continues on its course. The executive leadership push the guys below them who further pass the pressure downwards and soon the whole company is under tremendous pressure. One of the reasons why this is considered wise may also be the oft advised funda to aim high, dream big, so big that you even need courage for the dreaming. One funda doesn't fit all, especially for targets. What kind of targets motivate someone is totally dependent on his/her personality. And companies have personalities too.

A company's personality is a complex summation of the personalities of all its stakeholders, some carrying higher weightage because of their position and personality. Just like humans, some companies are more suited to focus on limited set of offerings for limited set of customers, and make them best in class. Some companies are more suited for diversity - in products, services, cultures, locations and people. Some companies are more suited to compete hard and grow. And there are many more kinds of course, most of which can't be described in such simplistic terms. And like people, lot of companies are in wrong businesses - businesses that don't suit their personalities. And that leads to misaligned expectations, unrealistic goals, frustrated leaders, stressed and scared employees, poor commitment from everybody, and a lot of inefficiency. And eventually, missed targets. Such companies set themselves on path to decline and perish, which is very sad.

Just like we have counseling for people, I think there must be counseling made available for companies, or rather any group of people with an overall common goal. But to equip those org-shrinks, there has to be a lot of research work to understand the area, model it and bring a scientific approach to define organizational DNA and personality as concepts, and the best suited paths for organizational success. As organizations grow, they do take decisions very early on in what they choose to be vis-a-vis what they choose to be composed of. Perhaps the misalignment can begin at that very stage, and therefore it may make sense to engage these org-shrinks very early on with a company.

Also, the very notion of aiming unreasonably high should be put an end to, and leaders must take a lesson or two on being realistic. Irrational expectations would only lead to temporary irrational exuberance from the insane leaders and temporary fake excitement from the sane ones, while everyone knows they'll fail, yet commit to the ask just to please the boss. Most of the insanity in companies flows top-down and the highest amount of fixing is generally required in the thinking of the topmost bosses - viz. the CEOs, Chairpersons and/or Promoters. They must understand that a company is not just a geometric progression of numbers year on year. It is a whole organism, much more complex than the humans that it's composed of.

Collective and organized human effort towards a common goal is the smartest and the most beautiful capability human civilization has led to. Unfortunately, we still need to cover some ground in making it the most meaningful and successful for all engaged, along with ensuring every organization's success in achieving its goal - which it has chosen and defined in the best alignment with its personality.

The US Elections

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have together made America look like a dysfunctional democracy. Given both their records of questionable integrity, sadly a 2-party 2-candidate election highlights and magnifies everything about the candidates a little too much. In India you can get away with it by just talking about parties till everything's over and the winning party can choose any Prime Ministerial candidate out of the elected lot, and even non-elected ones who seem qualified enough, the winning bit can be arranged later. Clearly we have different versions of the democratic framework with India focusing more on parties and the parliament, and the US more on the person and the Presidential position.

When politicians in India speak, there is nothing clear and concrete in terms of policy or stands on various things. They dwell more on patriotic and nationalistic hyperbole, poetry and emotional appeal. And then we have commonalities with America with all the weaker sections in society, minorities and divisions like religion and caste - with issues of much greater scale and magnitude in India than in any other nation. But the younger generation in India is smart and filters what matters to them, which is generally nothing of what's talked about. In that madness, Modi offered 'growth', with some demonstrable experience, and he's the PM now.

In the US they pretend to be getting more into depth on policy, but I realized there's hardly any content behind all the blabber. Things are said at a very high level. For example this is what Trump stands for - cut taxes, build a wall, no immigration, ban Muslims, repeal and replace Obamacare with a cheaper alternative, protect right to keep guns, restrict abortion, respect women more than anybody and send Hillary to jail. And there are hours and hours of speeches with just this much info and with lots of crap thrown all over. Hillary stands for the following - no tax cuts, state got no business in abortion decisions, immigration - may be, fix Obamacare, guns - not saying no, and Trump is xenophobic, misogynist, sex-maniac, sexual offender, tax-evader, cheap and idiot. Not sure this is a fair summary, but I don't care - I am sure this post is not going to change the minds of those 'undecided' voters. I am no James Comey, and this is no new info. Blogs have become a part of the media... and media can say anything, including create a fake poll and express biased opinions. (It's unfortunate but the only American news channel we get on Tata Sky is CNN.)

Speaking of 'undecided' voters, while looking at this from a distance - at least 13 hours if it is a direct flight, I find it extremely funny that you pick a bunch of idiots, tag them 'undecided' coz they say so, get polls out of them before and after showing them scary videos of an orange-faced rich molester and a smart/stupid lady, hurling abuses at each other - the former more than the latter, and discuss the results for hours like it really means something. I would hope Americans were less stupid than that... not the undecided voters, of course - they are smart, they know how to come on TV.

I feel guilty and embarrassed at going on and on about the US elections while I have little clue about the current political dynamics in India, in spite of the fact that I am neither in the US nor am I an American, although it's possible I could be affected to slight or significant degree by the outcome of these elections. I fear becoming like those angrez Indians in India who know more about America than they do about India. But then I realize that most of my tastes, likes, preferences and curiosity is strictly Indian and about India, and also that I don't know the names of a lot of States in the US and have not seen many Hollywood movies - and I feel better. I still follow the American elections these days as it entertains me like a reality show, similar to how crap like Big Boss are entertaining. But being part of an increasingly globalized and interconnected world, it also makes sense that we do follow these elections, as America and its policies affect our lives in very direct ways - in our jobs, stock markets, trade, etc. And one of these 2 jokers in competition will be powerful enough to affect a lot of shit going on in the world. Whoever wins, the world is definitely going to be funnier.