ExpertDabbler

I was browsing through one article by Gurumurthy. The writer begins in a manner which will hook any reader – yes the infamous, immortal Khushboo episode gets the first line. Then he goes on about how amoral sweden as a society is and how their family system and the country as a whole has suffered because of that.

The problem with people like Gurumurthy is that they have selective amnesia. And they forget that, a society does not decide like ‘Hey it’s 2007, so lets try to be like Sweden for a change’. No, it doesn’t work that way. A society moves from one set of practices to another for some reasons. It’s a slow long drawn process depending on environmental, economical and a host of other factors. So India will not become a Sweden in the foreseeable future. When it does, it will have its own reasons. So the only reason to cite Sweden in his article is to paint a scary picture to the readers. Never mind that we, like all cultures had a past with some glorious and some not so glorious practices which Gurumurthy will conveniently forget.

Also, since when did morality became equated to virginity and pre-marital sex alone?
According to the dictionary.com
Morality
Noun
1. concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct [ant: immorality]
2. motivation based on ideas of right and wrong [syn: ethical motive] Will Gurumurthy dare to compare Sweden and India on other moral issues/ behavior like law and order, corruption and caste discrimination, etc?

The actress that Gurumurthy talks about is running a peaceful family with her husband and 2 kids. She has made Chennai her home land and tamil her language even though she is originally from North India. As far as the general public knows, she has not spoilt anybody’s life by her acts and deeds.

On the other hand Gurumurthy, who essentially deals with the country’s elite for business purposes, would do well to look around his own friends, find the number of people who screw around, people treat their parents and wives and children badly, who think muscle and money power can do anything in India and give them a lesson on morality. That’s a more honest attempt to make this country a better place than all the gyaan on Sweden.

I was walking on Velachery Main Road this morning and could not help but notice the route number boards in our MTC buses.

The first bus was  some 21 series. 21H if I remember correctly. On the left hand side of the board was written ‘Broadway’ and on the right it had ‘Madipakkam’. I was confused until I realized the bus was going towards Guindy from Vijaynagar terminus. Which means in all probability it’s proceeding from Madipakkam to Broadway. I could figure this out since I am very much a Chennai vasi and I know the directions and locations of  well-known suburbs. I bet someone new to the city would’ve got into the bus thinking it would go to Madipakkam.

I got more curious and started to notice all the other buses which passed through namely in the next 5 minutes -  D70, 5A to name a few.

From what I observed today morning and previously, I think there are 3 types of boards - One with destinations written on left/right style one with destinations written on top/bottom  and lastly, some cut services which will have just a ‘TO’ Destination which is cearly struck off to indicate its a cut service.

All said and done, the best way for the boards is to display only the TO destination along with the route in much bigger font. To my mind, there is no use for ‘FROM’. But the ideas of the MTC folks seem to be funny, at best.

Except for those hailing from middle-east, the rest of the junta read from left to right. So if at all one wants the ‘FROM’ it makes sense to have it on the left and ‘TO’ on the right.

Alternatively, we can have the ‘FROM’ on the top of the board and ‘TO’ below.

Worse, we can assume all of us are from middle east and reverse it, uniformly!

But what the MTC folks have is the worst possible option - there are all types of boards with total disregard for consistency. One bus has the ‘FROM’ on the left while the rest have it on the right. I bet even those who can read Tamil and who is very much a chennai vasi will get coufused once in a while if he or she is not aware of the locations of the suburbs.

The less said about the plight of those new to the city and language, the better. Add our ‘friendly’ autrorickshaws to the equation and their ordeal looks scary enough for them to decide never to visit Chennai again in their lifetime.

I am basically a ‘tubelight’, if it can strike me, it can strike anyone whose voice matter in MTC. But then mysterious are the ways of MTC!

Everyone who has someone in Coimbatore will know about the skyrocketing real estate prices there. Last week I was in CBE for some personal work. As I had some time to kill, I went to some brokers in familiar areas posing as someone interested in buying a property. The rates they are qouting had me stunned.

I am one who felt even Chennai’s real estate was overheating. How else can you explain a demand of Rs. 1 Crore for a ground of vacant land in Perungudi?? I saw a quote in IndiaList.

If Chennai was bad enough, Coimbatore was just insane! The only reason people could come up is that some IT companies are planning to set up operations there. Try a google search for IT companies in Coimbatore right now and all you get is some innocous list of small time companies. Not the ones which would pay salaries high enough to settle the monthly EMIs.

Wipro has bought 12 acres of land in the TIDEL coming up in Peelamedu, TCS has got about 5 acres there. These two projects will take its own sweet time to come to reality. About 18 months is a realistic estimate. Others are expected to follow suit but god knows when. My hunch is that these two would hire about 20,000 people at the maximum. It is an irony that these companies are coming to Tier 2 cities just so that they can hire people at lower costs than metros!.

So, if a 1000sqft. flat in a decent area sells for 2500Rs per sqft in a city like Coimbatore, the EMI. would be about 22K per month (Rs.900 per lakh for 20 years). Right now, there are not many companies which would be glad to give 25K, leave alone 40K in Coimbatore. This leaves the real estate market completely at the mercy of NRIs and other local folks with black money.

Interestingly, the rentals have remained fairly stable. A1000 sqft flat would hardly fetch anything more than 6-7K per month. So, if some X, purchases a 1000 sqft flat and lets it out, he would be paying 15-16K Nett. per month out of his pocket so long as he owns the flat. In that case, I wouldn’t call that an asset. I think it’s a liability. I am no good in predictions but to me, this market trend has ‘correction’ written all over it.

But I guess people are buying because they fear prices are going to go up even further. They come to this conclusion simply because it has doubled up in the past 2-3 years. In the process they’ve forgotten a basic rule of thumb - Never buy in a seller’s market.

Indian Economy had a very good post on the real estate scenario sometime back.