Why my next door grocerywala shut shop?

Six-lane roads, clean streets that are swept with a machine every morning, green trees lining either side of the road, well-maintained children’s park with manicured lawns and flower gardens for every Km, well planned residential and commercial areas, grocery stores at the intersection of every two streets and a walking pavement all around. This where we live. Not abroad; very much in India; Pune to be precise. This neighborhood is not one of the fancy names that Puneites would easily identify to but is one o the most well kept planned residential areas of the city free of pollution, congestion, traffic and well able to handle the increasing population. The thought of moving out of this place to Bangalore sometimes gives me the jitters - to go back to the dust, jostling crowds and lack of walking spaces.

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Inflation : More to it than the 8%

Lil’ General is 17 months old and still feeds on formula occasionally in the nights when he hasn’t had a good dinner. This evening while stocking on the monthly supplies of formula and cereal for LG, we did a quick mental calculation expecting the bill to be Rs. 345. Confidently, V presented Rs.350 on the counter. The chemist looked at the prices on the back of the cartons and pressed the numbers on  his calci before announcing it to be Rs.361. When you’ve been buying the same products for over an year month after month, there is little room for mistakes. Surprised, we checked the prices and shot silent glances at each other before we chorused “Up by 10 rupees. It’s the inflation.”

A visit to More earlier during the day left me exhausted. This was my third trip in a week’s time trying to procure the rice - the usual brand at the usual price I’m used to buying. The brand has been out of stock for over a fortnight now and the retailer has been waiting to get it replenished and the ones available at the store are a good Rs.11 more expensive for a Kg. Even the brand I’ve been buying all along is known to be in demand and the prices have shot up by over 15%.  And this is not even Basmati which recently made news for crossing the Rs.100 mark.  Same is with tur dal and udad dal. Which means now I have to visit over 2-3 stores before ticking off the items in my monthly grocery list. The bills have definitely shot up. I’m not a stickler for minute details and price of every item though I have a fair idea and maybe off a few ruppess. But the shortage over the past 2-3 months has made me aware of almost all the prices and how I really find them increasing month after month.  Even the king of fruits, mango has been acting pricey this year. Ofcourse, it has little to do with inflation and more with the untimely monsoon at the end of March this year which spoiled the crop.

The business channels have been non-stop harping about the rise in inflation rates for the past twelve weeks with no respite in sight. Different viewpoints have been presented from the inaccuracy of the wholesale price index (WPI) being measured to the ineffective measures by the government to cut rates across commodities to the rise in global oil prices because of supply-demand mismatch. This is economics! Barring the fundamentals, I can’t make much sense of the nitty-gritties involved. But all I know is this 8% is probably not reflective of the entire picture.

Book Review : A Thousand Splendid Suns

It was a few years ago that I first read about Khaled Hosseini in the Sunday literary review section of a national newspaper. His debut novel, The Kite Runner had won rave reviews. I never got an opportunity to read his first book. His second, A Thousand Splendid Suns has been in the top of the best sellers lists this year. Not reading the debut novel book is sometimes a good thing because you have no expectations on reading the second one - nothing to relate to, no comparisons, no familiar characters or even second guessing the plot.

The image of anything Afghanistan is dark, destruction, violence, oppression of women, terror and a complicated society that redefines conservatism. What subsequently follows is sadness, poverty, hunger and death. The afghan-born author makes women the central theme of his latest book, A Thousand Splendid Suns. It focuses on the relationships between women in prosperity and in adversity, their friendships transcending generations, the plight of women in general and the cultural complexities of this war-torn nation worsened with the Taliban coming to power. What is surprising is that the Taliban are not shown too much in bad light in their dealing with the women as the world knows. Rules are rules to all - men and women, non-compliance of which will be met with punishment. It is the punishment that is extreme for women for ofcourse. It is written methodically with the stories of two women alternating chapters as they finally merge into one in the latter half.

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IPL : wholesome entertainment

A month and half has passed since the glittering opening ceremony at Bangalore. But the IPL mania is far from dying. Well into its 43rd day, the matches attract the same number of people everyday and sometimes more. The TV remote is inevitably pressed at the stroke of 20:00 hrs to tune into Set Max. I’m not a cricket fan. Not at all. Totally ignorant of the Test Series when played with only a slight interest in the One Days. I find the game in either format too long to hold my attention. I like games in the fast track - soccer and Formula 1 for instance. In that respect, Twenty-20 is a great format to watch for a few hours and the timings of IPL matches doesn’t get in the way of one’s daily schedule either. Switch in at dinner time and it’e done by the time you turn in for the night.

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I’m a starving freelance writer

Often when other women - mothers and otherwise - ask me what I do, I keep it simple by saying I stay home and have fun with my son. Because that’s what I do. No complications answering I’m a freelancer juggling writing and stock trading with some more fancy terms as stay-at-home mom thrown in. Unless specifically asked neither is the past history of working revealed. Past experience has taught me this works great for two reasons: one, if the other lady has a similar history of working and now staying home with the kid, then it opens a can of worms with non-stop whining and bitching about the lack of support system blah blah that doesn’t help me anymore - it’s just depressing. Secondly, it gives room for other interesting topics to talk about that doesn’t involve kids, notes exchange on their vaccination programs, feeding habits and sleeping schedules.

Working women think it’s cool to be a freelancer earning good bucks from the comforts of your home and staying home with your child. Mothers who quit their jobs feel they wished they could do that too and earn some money while on a break. But the truth is that I’m a starving (so to say) freelance writer with the checks always in the mail and never making it to the bank. People who change tracks or careers mid-way through their professional life have a plan and build on the secondary one slowly before making it their primary source of income. They don’t give up their job that pays their bills first while trying to get the hang of the other one. I planned but executed poorly. Didn’t have no plan B if plan A didn’t work. No backup - it’s good at times not to have plan B because that’s what you give your full - some call it commitment. Per Plan A, I write. A lot sometimes. I’ve been flexible accepting assignments I don’t necessarily enjoy but the check is assured and a little practice and building on credentials hurts no one when you’re starting out. Contrary to what most people think that online writing is easy and pays well, most of the jobs are ugly and pay in the range of Re.1 a word. Imagine if you were to make a living with that kind of payment how hard one would have to work!

The area I’m told to have failed miserably is in marketing. This is an age of self-promotion. I mean look at all the blogs - the bloggers being a good case in point. It’s a vicious circle - people spend hours on end everyday commenting on each other’s blogs patting their backs for every word uttered - be it right, be it wrong all too careful to be politically right and not highly opinionated unless you are very popular. Nothing wrong in that you might say! Sure, if it’s worth the effort and a means to what you ultimately want - traffic, popularity and credibility. Just being good without shamelessly self-promoting will not get you anywhere. Sell, sell and sell - to editors, publishers if you want to earn the moolah. I’m learning my lesson and hope to be out of the starving phase soon enough. Spread the good word. So long!

Tuitions : India’s parallel education system

Spot a dozen bicycles all day everyday of the year outside a house in your street? That’s the one of the indicators a tuition is going on. My neighbor’s daughters study in the 10th Std and 5th Std at one of the most reputed institutions of this city. The school is renowned for producing state rank holders consistently, has a general perception of being very strict with the kids and parents too; has a good range of extra-curricular activities, different color school uniforms/ribbons on different days of the week with the style changing in winter and all the other things that go with convent education. I was not convent educated and all that was different about our school uniform was the canvas shoes on Saturdays for PT; so I’m completely at dark on that one. Infact, I think what a pain it must be for parents and the kids these days to get all those uniforms ready and remember which day of the week is for what color. And I’m told points are deducted if you don’t tie your hair with the white ribbon on Wednesdays. Phew..am I glad to have passed a decade and half earlier.

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Tamil Bride Hunt

Article written for a magazine —

A new breed of marriageable age women are fast emerging - the highly professional and career oriented ones who reject offers from the IBAE (Indian Born America Employed) grooms for fear of relocation and losing their independence and jobs.

Ajay Gopalakrishnan, 27, a Software Engineer working in Ohio, U.S for a health insurance firm was on a month long vacation to India in the winter of ’07. Most of his friends in India were either married or engaged, so his mother broached the topic of his marriage as he had crossed the marriageable age of 26; Ajay officially consented to a bride search after delaying it for months. His mother was on cloud nine and wasted no time in starting the bride hunt; she was on fast-track hearing wedding bells already and planning where to have the engagement. Her biggest assumption: that it wouldn’t take more than three months in finding a daughter (in-law) what with the numerous wedding fairs and matrimonial sites mushrooming like India’s satellite townships. Read more

Back from the dark ages

…for now. Of late, I am often in doubt if we live in the same India the media is proud of - a booming developing nation with growth rates averaging over 8%, the better-off BRIC nation because of its services sector with a energetic young population and a country that is focused highly on its infrastructure.

To begin with I don’t get frustrated anymore. Not worth it..it only weakens the heart and ups the BP. “Resigned” is more an appropriate term to describe how I am. 12 hours of power cut that not even the best inverter can take, no water supply on Thursdays and a dead broadband 15 days a month for the past 6 months which just got worse over the past fortnight. That leaves me in the company of newspapers and my toddler son. My mom jokes if I feel like living in the ’70s.

Just so you know, I don’t live in one of those thousands of village India has without electricity and water. This is Pune for you. The Pune that world perceives as one of the good cities in India to live in - a lifestyle that can you dream of with state-of-the-art IT parks, malls you can spend all day in and still crave for more, a wi-fi city and most importantly a city with no load-shedding. Not my word; it’s all that is said in the papers. The state-owned telecom BSNL (this editorial throws some light on the sad state of affairs) that I use has been down this past fortnight. BSNL is not this worse in many parts of the country especially in South India. Here, the response is bad, customer service pathetic and no helpline that will attend to your number. They just keep pointing you to one number after another until you finally give up because of exhaustion. And when it does work, it does in the timing their personnel work - 10 -5 and automatically switches off in evenings and weekends.
For once, all you folks living outside the country - I’m with you.

Now on a unrelated note, the Tata Second Career guys got back regretting they couldn’t find an appropriate fit for me in the 50 odd projects they have charted out. No disappointment. Alright, maybe just a little not so much for having not made through. It’s the rejection, you see! They sent out a very personal mail to all applicants. It was so personal that the mail was addressed as Dear {name of applicant} - a programmatic glitch perhaps that couldn’t fill in the {} with the actual name. Anyways, it was an initiative worth all the appreciation even if the execution was a lil rusty. A great opportunity to get back all the talent lost to motherhood and other reasons!