ExpertDabbler

Is thrice good enough to publicly endorse a service? Especially if the industry is travel?

I travelled to Coimbatore last weekend. Yet another night-morning-roaming-night-morning trip for 1000 odd kms in a span of 30 hours. This time the added feature was the entire trip was via BUS.

I think I have to mention this about Parveen travels - they know their business well.
And I define ‘knowing the business’ based on - safety, punctuality and politeness to customer.

I boarded their Mercedes Multiple axle Ernakulam bus in Coimbatore to Chennai saturday night at 11.10PM an I was in CMBT next morning by 6.40 AM. I usually wake up once in a while and notice the place ( my mom thinks I am usually awake but doze off once in a while in any overnight bus journey), bus speed etc. I did not find any instance of rash driving, overspeeding in all the three occasions. They have two drivers and they have a consistent place to stop for changing the drivers in the Chennai-Cbe route - Salem.

The drivers are usually polite and try to accommodate customer’s rest room request - for both gents and ladies.

The buses start late from Chennai - the 10.30 PM Cbe Volvo invariably starts at 11.10 because of a mess that is called CMBT omnibus terminus.They mention 9 hours time and they stick to it. If done without killing anybody on the way, I’d settle for this.

Is twice sufficient enough to avoid a service, especially if the industry is travel?

I tried KPN twice. Once i was conned from taking the bus i had booked the ticket for, and was forced to take the last bus to bangalore.

Another time, i boarded their bus to coimbatore, and it took a sweet 11 hours. And they made SETC buses look superfast. As a bonus, they demonstrated the nitty gritties of logistics business by showing me around in salem one early morning. Granted, this was several years ago, but i have avoided KPN since then. When the ill-fated Tiruppur bound KPN sleeper killed 21 people, some of my colleagues were cursing KPN for the overall lack of concern for customers they show off late. The first step to keeping the customers happy is by keeping them alive.

A famous blogger called Robert Scobble recently wrote a post on why he wants three people working in Apple fired.

I want to add one more to the list, the person who designed and developed the spell check in iPad. Make no mistake, the feature works fine. What I do not like is the typical American assumption that people will write only in American english using English alphabets.

I address my close friends as ‘Dei’ in my emails, and iPad changes that to ‘Die’without fail.
This is just the beginning. ‘Appa amma sowkiyama?’ will turn out as ‘Apparent amma soak Yama?’…

And no, these Apple guys do not just ’suggest’ they assume users are dumb and change it the way they think is right.

I had another grievance, they were not supporting Tamil. Now things have improved for the better:) and its sheer bliss to read jeyamohan ( iPad thinks am stupid and changes the name to Meta Khan ) and savukku in my iPad.

Those who are connected to me via Facebook know that i am more active there than here. Whatever remaining time goes in reading the gorgeous iPad (one year and going stronger).

I specifically wnated to write abbout two apps which has completely bowled me over ( no, not Angry Birds).

Pulse - Pulse has got an Apple Design Award, which is like getting ‘Brahmarishi’ title from… never mind! Try this app and you will know why

The other app is ZITE, ZITE calls itself the personalized magaine for Ipad, and for once lives up to the name to a great extent.

These two along with the ever so famous FLIPBOARD has completely changed by online reading experience.

Those who have iPad should try this and enjoy

i am just thinking out loud here. But this thought is not without any rationale. While many NRis are contemplating R2I. Those who are from smaller towns but currently living in the metros can also contemplate R2ST - that is ‘Return to a Smaller Town’

Here is what I think now,
- whatever the information and exposure arbitrage the bigger cities had till date will go away in future as more and more people begin to consume information from the net.
- Kamal Nath’s 20 km per day road dream going sour notwithstanding, smaller towns will get better roads and better connectivity say 5 years down the line than what it is now. What this means is that commuting to/from a smaller town will not be a problem.
- Thanks to Maruti and Tata, getting a small car will cost less in real terms.
- smaller town means less traffic and less pollution
- smaller town usually costs less in terms of children’s education.
- one does not have to handle this ‘hot hotter hottest’ climate
- no need to provide/pay for 25 Rs. Per can of drinking water.

Let me think and list some downsides.

The smaller towns I have in mind - Coimbatore, Madurai but essentially any Tier 2/3 town in Tamil Nadu which has a corporation in it’s name is a decent candidate is what I think. Or for that matter any small town in the vicinity of 50-100 ams from the metros should not be a bad bet either.

First, decided on a name for my daughter - Sahana.

As I keep saying to my friends, multiple stakeholders had multiple ideas on this name.
-I wanted a short name (seven alphabets or less). I had enough trouble spelling my name to anyone and everyone who asked (I had to spell it all the time, without missing the ‘prabu la H varaadhu’ part.)
-My wife wanted a name which sounded smooth (without -th, -ki, -tha, -ka)
-I wanted both grandmas to be able to pronounce this name.
-The carnatic raagam factor in the name meant this be seen as a south Indian name (if not a Tamil name) rather than a very north Indian sounding name.
- I initally chose a very short one ‘Nidhi’ but my mother vetoed it. She wanted ‘Srinidhi’. I vetoed Srinidhi because guys had this name in other parts of India. (thanks to facebook). I suspect my mom vetoed ‘Nidhi’ because of that infamous family in Tamil Nadu.
-My uncle wanted a name which works according to numerology when added with the initial P.
-My mom wanted Goddess Lakshmi’s name since she was born on friday, may 6th - akshaya thrithiyai.

Bottom line, it was a struggle. But hopefully my daughter likes it when she grows up.

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Second, I bought “Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care: 8th Edition”. My wife looks very impressed with this one for now. Let me know if any of you have any other suggestions.

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A good number of my friends see me as a sort of match-making SME and ask for suggestions. Whether this is a compliment or an insult I do not know. Very recently a friend of mine wanted me to look for a girl for her cousin who is in the U.S.A. She also wanted me to write about my two cents on this topic.

First, the sample space may be small from a statistician’s point of view, but the pattern I found was:

- (1) Majority of the folks who ask me this are searching for suitable girls for the guys they know.
This clearly shows who is in demand in the wedding market.
- (2) The guys initially have high expectations. Because of (1) I tell my friends to remember the proverb ‘Beggars cant be choosers’. It is natural for the ‘expectations’ to be high initially but it usually comes down in the long run. Also, a gentle reminder to look into the mirror, and also see their close friends as a stranger would should do wonders. (one will be bald, another will be fat and short, one will be tall and thin etc, yet they make for good friends)

My prescription usually starts with a heuristic review of the tamilmatrimony profile. Some folks simply have some set of data in the name of a profile and hope to find the right person. I also suggest to look in specific portals/channels according to the community. I try to see if there is someone suitable in the circle I know. For all the effort and intentions, except for my very close friend in whose marriage I played a substantial part (in search as well as convincing that guy) my ‘finishing’ record is quite dismal.

The whole ‘arranged marriage alliance seeking’ system works like a series of filters:

- Community is a filter
- Sub-community is a filter
- Horoscope match is a filter
- Education is a filter;
- Occupation is a filter;
- Age is a filter;
- ‘Good looking’ is a filter;
- Veg/Non-veg is a filter;
- Smoker is a filter;
- Social drinker is a filter; Not sure if anyone calls themselves anti-social drinkers but still…
- Nowadays even ‘chemistry’ when boy meets girl is a filter.

So, one needs to pass all/majority of these filters to be short-listed by some-one else. And interestingly, that some-one else might be in the short-list of some other person. This is only till short-listing stage… then comes the family liking each other etc etc…

It is natural for the concerned person to be frustrated with himself/herself, the parents, the system, the whole world if things take time. In fact I think the whole system is designed to frustrate. Frustration is understandable but sustained frustration does not help. One has to just regain the spirits, allocate time, see through profiles for years, go through contacts, negotiate with astrologers, deal with declines by what one thought as an ideal match, deal with acceptances from what is less than an ideal match, indecisions, insults, etc. And I went through all of the above…People who are lucky delegate this to someone in the family and/or have this cycle short … People who are experienced and seen as SME like me usually get the entire package.
So in a way you can see how lucky or how experienced you are at the end. And sorry, this is not the end, this is just the beginning

If I have my house as the center and draw a circle with a radius of 1 km, I should find at least 8 TASMAC shops. There are at least 2 cases where two TASMAC shops are bang opposite each other. The considerate government does not want the ‘kudi makkal’ to cross the road to get sarakku. In effect, there should be many more TASMAC shops than newly opened ‘potti kadai’s in Chennai today. A bulk of the money made by the laborers goes back to the state government as TASMAC revenue. Tamil Nadu can safely be renamed as TASMAC Nadu.

If one wanted to buy a property in Madurai beyond a threshold, the threshold fixed by ‘his highness’, one cannot do so unless ‘his highness’ has given ‘permission’.

Want power? Why don’t you buy UPS or Generators at home and work? A very useful investment, higher the KVA the better. Not satisfied? Vote for DMK, you will get UPS free as well fueled of coursed by TASMAC.
For a state government run by a party without even a simple majority, the previous government should easily be the most lawless in the history of TASMAC Nadu. And after all this for five years, the senile old man and his cult thought they could make an ‘open offer’ for Tamil Nadu @ 1000 bucks a vote. What was even worse, ardent devotees of this cult thought the open offer will be successful.

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Just to let my blog readers know that someone had conducted funeral prayers for Osama in Makkah mosque, Mount Road, where about 10000 ‘people’ had participated. I heard it was decided henceforth to name new born male babies after Osama, all in the right spirit to uphold the ’secular fabric’ of the nation.

Stay tuned for more such prayers for ‘thiyagigal’ like Ajmal Kasab, and Afzal Guru, the last two may take several years though or may not be needed at all. This is again pure win-win. If they are hanged, the new born kids will be named after them, thus preserving the secular fabric. If they are given amnesty, that again is a manifestation of ’secular fabric’ preservation.

A few months back, one of my colleagues, a new joinee asked me this question. “Prabu, where do you want to go after this”. He implied my next dream job. I told him, ’Seekiram retire aaganum’. Ever since that conversation, the idea has only grown inside me. I had taken off from work for the past 10 days, ever since my daughter was born. I returned to work only yestersday. The more I think about it, the more I feel, ’Yes, that is the one’. Yes, PK, at the ripe age of 34, is yearning for a retired life. It may sound funny for some, but I believe it’s true.
Ever since I moved to my new house four months back, I have felt the urge to go out diminish steadily. I keep mentioning this to my wife and mom now and then. In the last few months, whenever I had free time, I more than wanted to be at home. Gone are the days when I wanted an excuse to go out - weekend dinner in Chennai restaurants, the visits to Landmark book store. And not surprisingly, the more time I spend at home, the more I kind of like this unhurried life style. The only occasion I venture out on weekends, is for buying groceries, which is not what one has in mind when someone says ‘I am going out’.

According to Robert Kiyosaki, the author of ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’, Wealth should be measured not in terms of the money one makes or has made, but in the number of days one can survive maintaining their current life style, without their job. I asked this myself and my answer was ‘Not very long’. So I have to work for some time. But given my predilection, I want to maximize the scope for living this ‘retired’ life style even when I am in a full time job. And I want to plan things in such a way that I can slow down gracefully to a retired lifestyle. Moving towards this is a gradual process.

Right now, Ilayaraja music, books, home food, arattai katcheri with mom, my wife, and with my daughter in the future sounds more attractive a proposition than corporate ‘padavi’, ‘onsite assignments’ and so on. In this context, this video made a lot of sense

Late 70’s:
- Pocket radio. Mom has recounted tales of how a 30 day baby had stopped crying as soon the baby’s uncle switched on a pocket radio Of course I don’t remember a thing.
- Giant ‘valve radios’. I vaguely remember listening to a few of those ‘Murphy’ radios in my uncle’s electronics repair shop in Virudhunagar. Uncle was a sought after ‘radio’ technician. People used to come from nearby villages for radio ‘repair’.

80’s
- Gramaphone records. We had one. Appa used to frequent a shop called Amman Electronics in Town Hall, Coimbatore. The primary business of Amman Electronics was to record music for customers for a fee. What a business model! I wonder what that proprietor Mr. Balu is doing now for a living.

Small Transistor Radios. I remember buying one ‘National’ radio, proudly referred to as ‘Japan set’ on a trip to Rameshwaram.

Tape recorder. Dad bought our first tape recorder, a National Panasonic model 543 when we were in Kovaipudur. This is one model number even my mom will remember now. We gave it to one of my uncle subsequently, and I am sure he had it till like 3 years back. The only music he ever listened to was ‘Sirgazhi Govindarajan’s bakthi paadalgal’. And 543 was more than sufficient for that purpose.

Mid 80’s:
Dad bought a ’stereo’ tape recorder with a ‘DOLBY’ button, from a Burma Bazaar shop, Trichy for 4500 bucks. That was a lot of money then. Again a National Panasonic, the model number was RX-C41. We were in HUDCO Colony, Tatabad, in CBE. That was the golden period of Mike Mohan courtesy Ilayaraja. People who got hooked to IR around this time will find it impossible to come out of that magic.

Late 80s:
SONY walk man. I listened to ‘Idhayathai Thirudadhey’, and ‘Varusham 16′ almost every night

90’s:
- A R Rahman!
- Audio systems with CD players. I and dad bought one for 9000 bucks when mom was out of station, and we got the scolding of our lifetime when mom returned, the amount was several times my dad’s monthly salary then.

2000s:
In 2000, dad was no more. I knew listening to music will never be the same. I am far too calculative to spend lot of money on music systems. I knew I will never be as mad as he was about Music.

2001:
Bought my first PC.
- MP3s CD.
We had close to 400 tape cassettes, almost all bought by dad. I let go of all of ‘em when I moved to Chennai.

Mid 2000s:
iPod/Clones era.
No CDs, No ’systems’. One just needs to ’synch’ music. I was too lazy even for this. I asked my friend to ’synch’ my Zune. Never have I done it even once. I got a Mercury speaker for Rs.1500, a far cry from 9000 buck audio system of the early nineties.

2010:
I completely moved away from Audio systems, asked my mom to give away the Audio system we bought for 9000 bucks to our maid for free. Amma scolded me one last time for buying that stuff in the first place.

2011:
I wonder what all my Dad would’ve bought if only he were alive now, I think it would have been at least BOSE to begin with. On the other hand, I bought an iPad app called Mundu Radio, which for 0.99$, streams music non-stop.

For all the evolution, the favorite music director has remained pretty much Ilayaraja, along with ARR of late

I am no good in telling flashback tales. I tried telling this to my wife over phone today and she almost dozed off
I don’t think my daughter will ever listen to all this flash back stories when she gets old So here i am recording it in my blog

“Akshaya Thrithiyai” has come and gone, but I think this is still relevant.
Everyday I find at least one or two friends in my circle talk about gold prices and how people well known to them are buying gold ‘for investment purpose’. The major jewelry shops in the city are overflowing with customers. Most of the jewellers have started ‘gold chit funds’. Every broken resistance level in gold and silver prices, seem to bring new set of customers. I have at least one argument a day at home with my mother on the investment aspect of gold.

Muthoot finance and Manappuram finance are having the opportunity of life time to milk customers. Both are in a never ending race to expand their business manifold and they are being helped by the ever obliging customers. Even well educated professionals are actively playing the leverage game in the following sequence
- buy gold, pledge and borrow money, and buy more gold.

My colleagues at office claim that gold price has not gone down in the last twenty years, and so it implies it can never go down in the future as well. The price may or may not go down. I may or may not be wrong. What irks me is the confidence people have in their own folklore assessments.

Now, these guys are hardly the commodity bulls we have seen or heard. They are the average IT MNC employee vargam who three years back were having sleepless nights about jobs during the recession. Of course all that is history now. Good times are back and so gold can only go up seems to be the sentiment and logic.

I can understand if folks buy gold for personal use out of a cultural necessity. The thamizh society has alway been obsessed with gold on all occasions from wedding to kaadhu kuthal. Even now there are communities where the first question on a marriage proposal is ‘how many pounds of gold’ so people, however desirable or undesirable it may be, do buy gold as a consumer and that is not likely to stop in the near future. But investment purpose?

If the script is risky in the IT MNC cooliedom, It was downright scary with what my other friend told me yesterday. I was having lunch with him and asked him what he was doing nowadays, since he had no job worth telling about ever since I know him. He said he was into commodity trading! He is trading in commodities futures online, playing around in leverage. He was giving me all sorts of gyaan about technical analysis, support and resistance levels and so on. I have no reason to think moneymaking is so easy. I think this guy will in all likelihood make the brokerages and the commodity exchanges like NCX,NCDEX very very rich.

It is scary to think that folks who are essentially consumers, and who do not know a thing about the macro factors which has led to the spurt in commodity prices, are simply in a gold / silver buying spree banking on the ‘gold/ silver price can’t go down’ logic.

This is like someone saying ‘I know petrol price in Chennai, I know there is always a need for petrol, so let me buy crude futures’. Just because I buy petrol for my bike does not make me an expert in crude futures. If people do not know the difference between the two, I guess they will learn it by paying a tuition fee in the commodity exchanges market.

Will gold prices keep rising?
I do not know.

What about the statistics that gold prices have always gone up in the last 20 years?
Again I do not know. I would like to consider factors like purchasing power parity, and inflation in the last 20 years to arrive at this ‘multi bagger’ conclusion on gold. Not to mention that need not hold good in the future.

To those who leverage and buy more gold - all I can say is best of luck. Such ’sure thing’ mentality and irrational optimism and certainty has rarely yielded good investment results. This time it is different? Let me see. I am not buying gold because I do not know about the factors that drive it.

Am I losing out on a quick fire way to become rich? May be. But I can live with that ignominy.

On the day of Akshaya Tritiya, I did not buy gold. But the crown jewel landed in our lives in the form of our baby girl. I and my wife got the biggest gift of our lives. We waited for more than two days in the hospital for her to arrive, in the course of a normal birth.

I think my daughter inherits my facial features, her skin, fingers and palms reminds me of my father, and I think she will get my wife’s intelligence, and my mother’s character.

Right now I am a thrilled and proud father struggling to find a name for his lovely daughter. I want a simple name which both grandmas can pronounce, my overjoyed mother wants to call ‘akshaya’ no matter what I choose. My uncle wanted to refer the Goddess Lakshmi. My other uncle who is astro-numero conscious has his suggestions. My intelligent wife, who was always sure that the baby is a girl, just wants one name among the forty five names she had carefully written in the Evernote list. I have the task of balancing everything

The jury is still out on the name! But the whole family is overjoyed at my daughter’s arrival. I’ll do anything for that!