Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2012 - A quick bite

I am not much of an arts and culture person.  I wouldn't know a great wine if I were swimming in it, chanting 'There is no 'P' in our pool'.  The only opera I have ever heard is the one on youtube where that fat guy from nowhere shocked Simon Cowell's pants off on Britain's Got Talent.  My considered view on Picasso is that he was anatomically challenged.


Be that as it may, I still found myself complaining in my first year back to India how there isn't much of an arts and culture 'scene' in Bombay.  You know, like one might complain of how there just isn't enough broccoli in the supermarket.  Yes, yes, I do know Bombay streets are an unending series of festivals strung one after another - between Ganesh Chaturthi and Mt Mary festival and dahi handi and eid-ul-fitr and Diwali, and countless other celebrations of forgotten mythologies, it feels like our streets are always being prepared for an upcoming festival, or being cleared of debris from a previous one.  But that is not what I mean - I have been missing a secular, art and culture celebration, readily accessible to the masses, where you can hang out over a weekend day, look at some pretty stuff, eat something 'local', edify the kids' character - the sort of thing that is the mainstay of springtime in America (or fall in New England).


Well turns out, once again, that I have underestimated the city.

The Kala Ghoda Art Festival was first held in Mumbai in 1999 and has since become an annual ritual.  In years past, my suburb-living self, reclining on a comfortable sofa at the end of the week, would consider a visit to Kala Ghoda with the same level of enthusiasm as a stewardess might have for cashing in her air-miles.  So the festival would come and go, and I would read about it in the papers with an other-worldly detachment.  This year, from a geographically more advantaged position, I was more amenable to the suggestion.  So off we went on Sunday, to visit the 14th edition of Kala Ghoda Art Festival.


We decide to walk it up from VT.  Like many things in Bombay, the Victoria Terminus, now reclaimed by the maanus as Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, is an astounding beauty that largely gets ignored in the bustle of daily life.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, it is 125 years old, and it has one of the most impressive facades of any building you will likely every see.  But for everyday Mumbaikar life, it is just a railway station, and a darn crowded one at that.  When you are in a leisurely frame of mind though, and are strolling gently with kids in tow, the beauty of the structure hits you.  We stand for a few minutes across the street, taking in the view, seeing VT as if for the first time.


A short walk leads us to Flora Fountain.  Another iconic point on the map of Bombay, Flora Fountain is a site of strangely co-existing memorials.  First there is the fountain, after which this spot, and much of the surrounding area take their name.  Older even than VT, the sculpture is of the Roman goddess Flora, or so I am given to understand.  But right there, vying for space, is a much newer memorial, one dedicated to the people martyred during the formation of Maharashtra state.  Jai Maharashtra yells out the sign on the grass.  There is an eternal flame burning nearby that has been sponsored by one of the gas distribution companies, maybe HP.  Under the flame, the sign says 'HP salutes'.  In keeping with the confusing nature of this monument, it doesn't bother to explain whom HP salutes.


Our walk takes us past Kitaab Khana.  The newest bookstore in this past of town has been in the buzz since it came up.  I am wondering if I can get away with a quick sneak inside, when the daughter says "Appa, I want to go to the bookstore."  Attagirl!  Turns out, this is the first truly bookstore experience I have had in this city.  Kitaab Khana is a wonderfully laid out store, with enough lounge space for adults and kids alike.  The collection is a bit strange I have to admit.  But the store is certainly worthy of a longer visit.  Note to self ...


Finally, we are at Kala Ghoda.  


The thing that strikes me right away is how many people there are.  They seem, happily, to be from all walks of life.  From domestic servants to foreign tourists, not quite wed youngsters to toddler children (to which we add our own), every part of the spectrum of Bombay's humanity seems to be represented here.

We hang out at the sculpture exhibits, which is where the festival seems to begin.  My lack of artistic nuance is apparent right away.  I am not sure at all whether the exhibits are brilliant or derivative, subtle or just plain boring.  I go on, nodding intelligently at the large exhibit dedicated to the domestic crow.  There is the shocking exhibit of a super-sized ashtray, made entirely of bones, with mega sized cigarette stubs sticking out.  And the upside down table and chair arrangement, with cash, booze, jewelry and other allurements stuck to the underside, the tide, file laden top of the table reflected on a mirror flat on the ground - the arrangement is called 'under the table'.  And so it goes on.  The sculptures are very Indian in their context and content.  And clearly, the viewing public is having a great time trying to figure out what is what.  This is not a shy crowd though.  They have no problem admitting they don't understand the concept of an exhibit.  "Yaar ye kya hai" you can hear them asking one another, quite unabashedly.  


As you go past the weird guy playing the flute through his nostrils, you get to The Wishing Tree, as it proclaims itself.  Visitors have been playing along, hanging out their wishes on the branches.  "A clean Mumbai", hopes one.  "Safety for my daughters" wishes another, with feeling.  "No more hunger" prays a third.  And then there is the truly heartfelt one - "Ek achhi si girlfriend", pleads Raju, address unknown.  


It is a warm day, though not hot by any means.  Nonetheless, the Bisleri stall seems to be doing brisk business.  I walk over to buy some bottled water.  There are three rates listed on the price list - 1 litre: 20 /-; half a litre: 10/-, and (only in India!) if you get your own bottle and just want it refilled:  5/-.  We get our bottles refilled.

We walk around for a couple of hours, take in a street performance, some dances, and some children's theater.  I know we have barely scratched the surface of Kala Ghoda festival.  There are special screenings of movies; an acclaimed Heritage Walk; high voltage artists coming in to perform.  But I have had my fill of culture for today.  A feeling of holiness suffuses me.  Broccoli did taste good.  


Next time, I promise myself, I will do better justice to Kala Ghoda Arts Festival.


We go home, put on some brainless TV, and order Dominoes.

The 10 best books I read in 2011

2011 ended up being a surprising year in reading for me.  In the year before (2010) my reading had been dominated by fiction.  Geoff Dwyer, Colum McCann, Alice Munro, Joseph O'Neill, J.M.Coetzee ... some breathtakingly good authors had books out recently, and every one of them was worthy of a place of pride on my list.  Add to it, there just didn't seem to be much interesting non-fiction going around.  So when I collated my list of 'Best Books of 2010', I extrapolated and made the prediction that 2011 was going to be the same.  Boy, was I wrong!


2011 was a year of non-fiction - at least for me.  There were very few fiction reads that held my attention enough.  Some of the authors I follow most closely did not have a book come out this year, which made it all a bit dry.  As I look back now at the best books I read this year, I find that 7 of the top 10 books I identified from my reading list are non-fiction.


Anyway, without more ado, here is my list of the ten best books I read in 2011:


NON-FICTION

1.  The Emperor of All Maladies - by Siddharth Mukherjee
Deeply researched, movingly felt, and poignantly written.  The best biography of cancer you are going to come across, from the latest in a line of wonderfully gifted Indian American doctor writers.  This book took the largest killer disease of our time, and painted a rich picture of it in all its gore and glory.  Must read for anyone passingly interested in cancer.


2.  Phantoms in the Brain - by V.S. Ramachandran
I know this is starting to look like a trend.  Another medical-ish book written by an Indian American doctor (a neuroscientist in this case).  Believe me, that had little to do with my selection of this book.  Ramachandran came out with a new book last year called The Tell-Tale Brain.  I browsed through it in a bookshop and was spell-bound.  Before I took it up though, I wanted to go back to the original book that made Ramachandran famous.  And so the venture back to Phantoms in the Brain.  The mind is the most mysterious of all human organs - the one we know the least about.  In this book first published back in 1998, Ramachandran takes on some really bizarre sounds patients, and demonstrates how the brain of a 'normal' person behaves, by analyzing the symptoms of some of these abnormal situations.  Why does one patient think his parents are imposters and not his 'real' parents?  Why does another ignore everything happening in the world to her left (including ignoring to comb the left side of her hair)?  Why does a third patient with a paralyzed arm claim that the arm lying next to her in bed is actually not hers at all, but belongs to her brother?  Are these people just 'crazy'?  Ramachandran, in the style of a Sherlock Holmes of the brain, leads us through each of these cases, diagnoses them through simple, intuitive experiments, and tells us what we can learn about how our own brain works based on these.  Unputdownable!


3.  Guaranteed to Fail: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Debacle of Mortgage Finance - by Viral Acharya, Matthew Richardson, and others

This is not a book for the faint hearted.  It is not a book for someone interested in a high level overview of what went wrong with subprime housing in the United States in the years leading up to the crash.  But.  If you are a professional in finance, with an interest in understanding the structural reasons behind the crash in mortgages in the US, this is a must read book.  While many books have been written about the origins of the great recession, the fall of Lehman and others, this book focuses on an oft ignored, but supremely important part of the story - the role of Government Sponsored Enterprises (Fannie and Freddie) in driving the 'race to the bottom' in mortgage underwriting, and how their fundamental design was Guaranteed to Fail.  It is not often remembered that the Fannie and Freddie bailouts cost the US Government more than all the other financial bailouts they embarked on over the last few years.  It cost more than ING, more than TARP, and will continue to be the largest drag on the US Government budget for a long time to come.  This book helps us understand what was so terribly wrong with Fannie and Freddie.


4.  Moonwalking with Einstein - by Joshua Foer

As a journalist for Discover magazine, Joshua Foer visits the US National Memory Championships, to see if there is an article there.  He watches as professional 'mental athletes' memorize the order of ten packs of shuffled cards, recite thousands of digits of the number pi, stare a stack of photographs along with names and biographies and recite them right back later.  Feats that seems beyond extra-ordinary - almost - dare we say it? - miraculous.  He meets some of the contestants, and as one they all tell him that they have just average memories, that anyone can perform these feats if they learn the right technique and train their minds well.  Foer takes on an experiment with himself - to see how much he can train his own brain.  One year later, he participates in the US Memory Championships himself.  And wins.  Moonwalking with Einstein is the story of what happens in that one year.


5.  The Blind Watchmaker - by Richard Dawkins

Readers of Brick and Rope know I am partial to Dawkins.  I like everything he writes.  I like his science, his passion, his narrative style, his intellectually pugnacious attitude.  The Blind Watchmaker is an old book - first published in 1996, where he takes on the question the most profoundly simple question about evolution:  If evolution moves in tiny, random steps, how can it ever create the infinitely complex organs and animals we see in life?  How can random steps lead to the creation of an eye?  How can you explain the existence of a sophisticated Swiss watch, if the watchmaker is supposed to be blind?  If you marvel at the complexity of biology around you, and have ever wondered how small improvement steps led to this brilliant end point, you must read The Blind Watchmaker.  There is one chapter on the navigation skills of bats that is worth the price of the book many times over.  Brilliant, in the way only Dawkins can be.  An all time science classic.


6.  Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother - by Amy Chua

OK, if you don't have kids, this is not a book for you.  If you do, and if you have ever found yourself torn between the strict, achievement oriented, studies-come-first Asian way of parenting, and the more liberal, freedom oriented, let-them-find-out-what-there-are-best-at Western way, Amy Chua has something to say to you.  Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is an in-your-face, take-no-prisoners memoir of a highly successful Chinese origin woman bringing up her two daughters in America.  The Tiger Mom speaks of how she ran her children's childhood with an iron fist, and how they turned out super-successful at the other end of that treatment.  The book faced a barrage of criticism when it came out last year, as much of its writing flies (deliberately and provocatively) in the face of most of the current parenting convention in the West.  It brings out the best aspects of an Asian upbringing style, of learning by rote, of practising and working hard till you feel your fingers are going to fall off.  And, Amy claims - the children come out not just more accomplished, but also happier, and closer to their parents than Western children do.  I challenge you to read this book and not have an argument with your spouse about it!


7.  Half Empty - by David Rakoff

Satire taken to a fine art.  David Rakoff is a journalist with an eye for what is seriously wrong in the world around him, and the language to poke it right in the eye.  The cover of Half Empty shows two cute bunny rabbits playing with each other in the grass.  And somewhere behind them, jutting out of a bush, you can see the barrel of a gun pointed right at them.  Further behind, there is a canoeist, happily paddling away - only he can't see that he is headed right over the edge of a waterfall.  "WARNING!!" screams the cover of this collection of essays - "No inspirational life lessons will be found in these pages".  To quote the blurb, which for once is absolutely accurate - "In this deeply funny (and sneakily poignant) book, David Rakoff views through a dark lens our sunny, gosh-everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that, pretty much as a rule, the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won't come true."  Hilarious!


FICTION

8.  Our Kind of Traitor - by John le Carre
Another one of my favorite authors.  No one does spies better than le Carre.  With the changing times, the spy novel has become more and more difficult to place.  But le Carre seems to have the knack to bring out just the right notes every time.  Our Kind of Traitor is a modest novel, with a modest plot and modest protagonists, as all protagonists in le Carre books tend to be.  The understanding of the inside track of the spy world is deep as ever.  The moral dilemmas faced by the protagonists are tricky as always.  And the language is sparkling as ever.  le Carre up to his usual tricks again, and getting them just right.


9.  Super Sad True Love Story - by Gary Shteyngart

Another satire entry on this list, in fiction this time.  Gary Shteyngart's book is difficult to classify.  It is part science fiction, and part social commentary.  This was one of the first books I read this year.  And what I remember most vividly is the language of the book.  It is sparse and shocking.  The setting is a future world when America has degenerated to being a third world country, the Chinese rule the world, and the hottest area of research is immortality.  Stinging social commentary, ferocious comic power.  At least slightly scary.  A difficult book to get out of your head.


10.  A Visit from the Goon Squad - by Jennifer Egan

Definitely my favorite book of fiction this year.  I love books that experiment with narrative style.  And Goon Squad does that with a flair that is breathtaking.  The cast of characters is super interesting (a kleptomaniac, a punk rock producer, a PR executive for an African dictator - I mean, there isn't a shallow character here if you go looking for it with a fine-tooth comb).  Some parts are written by an adult, some by a teenager, and a particularly amazing chapter is all in powerpoint slides.  This is smart. This is the way fiction is meant to be.  Read it!




So that rounds up my list of the Ten Best Books I read in 2011.


Before I close, I must also mention a couple of books that were my biggest disappointments this year:


Nouriel Roubini's Crisis Economics was a bore.  Nothing that hasn't already been said before and better.  I know the guy is supposed to be a savant of some sort.  Maybe I am too dumb to understand the deeper points he is trying to make.  But what I read, I wasn't jumping out of my seat.


The Booker prize winning The Finkler Question was tiring Philip Roth lite.


Brian Greene is one of my favorite science authors.  But The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos had too far-fetched and thin a proposition.  The book is certainly his worst to date.


Dan Ariely is another one of the authors I have enjoyed tremendously in the past.  But I enjoyed his Upside of Irrationality much less than I had hoped.  Not enough new insights to publish a new book. I hope Daniel Kahnemann's Thinking Fast and Slow revives my interest in Behavioral Economics.




I placed my first book order of the year on Flipkart yesterday night.  The books should start arriving by later this week.  I am itching to start a whole new year of reading.  And this time, I am making no predictions on how the year will turn out.

Ovalekar Wadi Butterfly Park

If nothing else, our membership with the Bombay Natural History Society has changed this -


The wife announces "There's a trip being planned to the Butterfly Park this Sunday".  I don't smirk and wise crack "Butterflies, in Bombay? Are you sure this isn't the punchline of one of those crazy smart ads the Amul guys write up?"  Instead, I groan at the prospect of another weekend morning's sleep sacrifice.  "How early do we have to get up this time?" I ask grumpily.


As we have been attending assorted hikes, nature walks, and garden trails arranged by BNHS over these past months, I have come to see this as a sort of pattern.  Around the day of the said hike, I seem to go through each of the seven dwarf characters.  The night before, I am Grumpy about the prospective sleep deprivation.  On the morning, I am Sleepy - more than happy to hand the wheels of our minivan to the wife.  I am Sneezy the moment I enter the park.  Soon, all the greenery, the sight of other equally sleep deprived men, and an unmistakable feeling of self-congratulatory holiness makes me Happy.  If our younger one allows me to listen to any of the information the volunteer is dishing out throughout the hike, I can quiz our daughter later, feeling like quite the Doc.


In this case, it turns out, the Grumpy act was not really necessary.


We get up relatively late, by hike standards.  The rest of the city is still safely abed I presume because we find no traffic on our way to Thane.  Apart from one brutal left turn towards the end, Google Maps does a good job of getting us there.  We park in a makeshift parking lot in the middle of the two acre plot that is Ovalekar Wadi Butterfly Garden.

Passion Flower, at Ovalekar Wadi

"This is one of the best things about being a butterfly guy rather than a birder" says Isaac, the BNHS expert who is to be our guide for the day.  "You don't have to wake up early."  See, butterflies are cold-blooded creatures.  They need the warmth of the sun to get them going in the morning.  Early mornings don't do it for them.  Just my type of creature, if you ask me.


Butterflies are largely tropical.  For instance, there are only 700 odd species of butterflies in USA and Canada.  And only some 60 odd in the UK.  India, by comparison has between 1,200 and 1,400 species of butterflies.  There are about 150 species just in and around Mumbai, 104 of which, by most recent count, visit this humble garden in the small village of Owla in Thane.


Rajendra Ovalekar is the owner of the plot, and he joins us soon to share the story of his creation.  Turns out he was attending a BNHS program himself some years back when he heard that his village, where he owned some agricultural land, is one of the most naturally butterfly rich parts of the subcontinent.  He decided to convert his land into a butterfly park, and over the years has resisted the lure of big money pumped by real estate developers all around him as Thane becomes the next victim of Mumbai's concrete march.  May his breed thrive.


The Ovalekar Wadi Butterfly Garden isn't quite your regular butterfly park.  For one, it is an entirely privately run affair, with no 'help' from the tourism or forest or environment department guys.  For another, it isn't a confined garden.  There are no glass houses, no nets anywhere.  The owners have created the right ecological environment that invites the butterflies here - the right plants, the right rotting fruits, the right kind of flowers.  But after that, it is all left to the butterflies.  They come and thrive here entirely voluntarily.  No confines that keep them here!  It sounds sort of like an ashram for the winged ones.


The tour starts at the earliest stage of the butterfly life-cycle, the egg.  The ones Ovalekar and Isaac show us are so small, you can barely notice them on the leaves.  I wonder idly whether these guys are just jerking us around, showing us some random bead on a leaf and calling it an egg.  I mean, how are you going to check, right?

Spot the Caterpillar

We walk around some more and there are caterpillars.  This time there is no mistaking it.  There are many kinds here - some furry and woolly, some more stark and woody.  The nature photography gang is out in full force, balancing mini bazookas in their hands as they zoom in on two inches of crawling legs, intent on capturing this short burst of life for hard disk eternity, likely never to be seen again.


The chrysalis is unmistakable.  Once Isaac has pointed it out, that is.  Thrice.  With a little stick the third time, for those especially hard of eyesight, like me.  In my defense, the darn things are too well disguised.  They blend so well into the background, I can't really be expected to spot them.  Besides, it would be rude to spot them right away - I mean, think of the effect it would have on their ego.  All that effort to conceal yourself, and suddenly - "There!".

By now, I am raring to go - hit the color section, so to speak.  The butterflies live up to the billing.  They are everywhere.  Isaac is naming them as quickly as we can see them, but there are too many.  And he seems to know too much about each of them.  I sort of drift in and out of the conversation.  Most of these species have military words as their common names, I gather - something to do with British officers being the first to name them.  We must have spotted a couple of dozen of them over the next hour and a half.  If you ask me about them though, you are likely to get no better than 'black butterfly', 'the yellow one with orange tips', and 'the blue one that was really tough to photograph'.  Later in the day, my daughter asks me a trick question.  "Appa, what color are a butterfly's wings?".  "Well, that is sort of an unfair question", I start, "You've got to tell me what sort of butterfly." "Ha, caught you", she goes, "all butterflies have transparent wings.  There are scales underneath the wings, and those are what are colorful."  So much for me playing Doc.

The little white guy is not a friend

Along the path, we find a butterfly that seems remarkably amenable to being photographed.  My camera is right in its face and it doesn't seem to flinch.  "Hey, this one ..." I start, pointing it out to Isaac.  "Oh that one has been caught by a spider" he says immediately, "It is slowly being eaten up".  I watch closely with morbid fascination - yes, there - there are those tiny white legs of the ghost spider, firmly clasped around the body of its prey.  It isn't really the love of modeling that was keeping my butterfly posing for my pictures.  Eek!


The life cycle complete, we are back to where we started.  Hot vada pavs await us.  And steaming tea, poured into those thimble sized plastic cups specially design to be so uncomfortable that you never ever ask for a second helping.  We gorge ourselves on the modest fare, and are soon on our way back home.  


We hit the highway, and I am already fantasizing about the afternoon nap that awaits me.  The wife breaks in - "You know, they are doing a trip to Elephanta caves next Sunday.  What do you say?".  "Oh come on!" groans Grumpy.

Book Review - Exorbitant Privilege: Barry Eichengreen

The USD / INR exchange rate crossed 50 recently (on the way up, just to be clear - though your macro economic intuition might be excused for imagining the opposite).  This line was last crossed in the last quarter of 2008, when I am told something really big happened in the global economy.  Certain siblings took a fall I hear ... it starts with an L, I am pretty sure of it.


Milestones like this make me curious.  So I got interested in the US Dollar, its story and its future.  There is a broadly prevalent sense of the decline of the US as a sole economic power in the world.  How does that impact the dollar, I wondered, as the world seems perversely intent on pumping more money into dollars while everything around was collapsing under the weight of problems centered in the home of the very same currency.

Barry Eichengreen is a professor of economics at Berkeley, and one of the bigger name experts on the international monetary system.  His columns also appear regularly in Mint, which is my introduction to him.  Exorbitant Privilege is his delightful book on the rise and fall of the US Dollar.  The book was published earlier this year, and has received some great reviews.

The dollar remains far and away the most important currency for invoicing and settling international transactions, including even imports and exports that do not touch US shores.  South Korea and Thailand set the prices of more than 80 percent of their trade in dollars despite the fact that only 20 percent of their exports go to American buyers.  Fully 70 percent of Australia's exports are invoiced in dollars despite the fact that fewer than 6 percent are destined for the United States.  The principal commodity exchanges quote prices in dollars.  Oil is priced in dollars.  The dollar is used in 85 percent of all foreign exchange transactions worldwide.  It accounts for nearly half of the global stock of international debt securities.  It is the form in which central banks hold ore than 60 percent of their foreign currency reserves.

In short, the dollar is a pretty big deal.  Actually, where foreign exchange matters are concerned, it is pretty much the only deal in town.


This gives the Americans some straight-forward benefits - no currency conversion costs for international transactions; no exchange rate risks in trade etc.  But there are also some other much more serious (and controversial) benefits of the dollar's international currency status, particularly in the form of a reserve currency - 

... real resources that other countries provide the United States in order to obtain our dollars.  It costs only a few cents for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to produce a $100 bill, but other countries have to pony up $100 of actual goods and services in order to obtain one.

Or there is the 'artificially' lower interest rates in the US because of all the inflow of foreign reserves into US Government bonds and the like.

This has long been a sore point for foreigners, who see themselves as supporting American living standards and subsidizing American multinationals through the operation of this asymmetric financial system.  Charles de Gaulle made the issue a cause celebre in a series of presidential press conferences in the 1960s.  His finance minister, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, referred to it as America's "exorbitant privilege."

I quote this setup of the book so extensively because I for one found it simple and useful.  As a relative outsider to the world of international finance, I have only had a vague sense of the benefits the US derives from its reserve currency status.  Eichengreen does a great job of putting his financial journalist avatar to work as he lays out the argument in a very crisp and easily understandable 5 pages.  And I have to say, I found the 'exorbitant privilege' phrase delectable!


This is a very short book, taking a chapter each to explain the origin, the dominance, the emerging rivalry, the crisis, and the possible future outlook on the dollar.  The most interesting part of the dollar origin story in my mind was this little nugget:

Incumbency is thought to be a powerful advantage in international currency competition.  IT is blithely asserted that another quarter of a century, until after World War II, had to pass before the dollar displaced sterling as the dominant international unit.  But this supposed fact is not, in fact, a fact.  From a standing start in 1914, the dollar had already overtaken sterling by 1925.  This should be taken as a caution by those inclined to argue that incumbency gives the dollar formidable advantages today.

Food for thought, that. 


Eichengreen isn't one for playing to the galleries.  His views on what the future holds for the dollar can only be described as ... mainstream.  A tad boring I have to say.  No exciting, unorthodox views on what might be in store.  In broad brush-strokes, his take that the two credible rivals for the dollar are the Euro (in spite of Europe's current problems) and the Renminbi.  He discounts the currencies of UK, Switzerland and Canada for coming from countries that are presently too small on the international economic scene to be able to make any noticeable dent.  Japan, while a larger economy, still stands very little chance in Eichengreen's view, due to the many decades of governmental policy there to discourage internationalization of the Yen to retain export competitiveness.  He is not very bullish on non-currencies that can compete with the dollar, stuff he calls 'funny money' - like the IMF's Special Drawing Rights.


His short to medium term outlook on Renminbi:

Someday, perhaps, the renminbi will rival the dollar.  For the foreseeable future, however, it is hard to see how it could match the currency of what will remain a larger economy, the United States.  Regional reserve currency?  Yes.  Subsidiary reserve currency?  Yes.  But dominant reserve currency?  That is harder to imagine.

The thesis that emerges from Exorbitant Privilege is that we are moving to a world where the dollar will continue to be the dominant international currency, but will have to share the spotlight with two contenders - the Euro and the Renminbi.  The 'Exorbitant Privilege' might not remain any longer.  This will cost the US 1.5 - 2 % of their GDP in terms of additional interest expenses and international trade costs.  But things could get much worse (from the dollar's perspective) if the fiscal situation in the US doesn't get reigned in quickly.  And on this last one, he declares himself pessimistic.


If you are a sophisticated Foreign Exchange markets player, and are already aware of the nuances of international trade in some detail, you might not find anything new in Exorbitant Privilege.  If you are looking for polarizingly strong views of the sort that get page views and comments on politico-economic blogs, this is certainly NOT the book for you.  But if you are, like me, an outsider interested in a balanced view of this fascinating story of the birth, maturity and possible decline of the world's largest currency, and you want it all under 200 pages, I have a recommendation to make.

Business lessons I learned from Steve Jobs

{JS steps to the table, clicks the wireless white mouse once, lightly.  The bright screen of the iMac comes alive in a second, ready to serve.}

I am no expert on Jobs.  I am no rabid Apple fan.  I don't own an iPad.

But if you have lived in the business world at all these past decades, it is difficult not to have been influenced by the man.  At conference after conference, meeting after meeting, poll the audience on any question related to innovation, quality, marketing, design, product development ... much of anything really, and it was a fair bet that the name Apple would turn up in the top 5.  So what business lessons have I learned from the man in the black turtleneck?  Here is a quick list:

1. It's about the customer.  Customers care about their stuff, not your stuff.  So forget how your product works, and give them what they are looking for.
2. Less is more.  No clutter.  No pop ups.  No wires.  Enough said.
3. "Design is not just what it looks and feels like.  Design is how it works."  It is so easy to change something superficial and feel like we have enhanced customer experience.  Opening up the hood and changing all the wiring underneath?  That is the real deal.
4. 'Excellence' is a big word.  Strive for it.  Set the bar for yourself really high.
5. Everyone likes drama.  Remember the little flick of Jobs' finger in Macworld 2007?  It flipped the page on the iPhone in his hand.  'Oooooh' went the audience collectively.  And the smartphone industry was never the same again.
6. "You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give it to them."  A customer might tell you the next big innovation idea in your business in a focus group, but don't bet on it.
7. Profits matter.  Just because you are selling a product people line up for doesn't automatically mean you will make money.  Price it where it will make you a profit.

I think it can be said without much exaggeration that Steve Jobs made a difference to people's lives in a way that few people in business do.  Tip of the hat.

{... and with that, JS clicks the little apple icon on the top left of the iMac, hits 'Sleep'.  The screen goes dark.  Simple as that.}

Monsoon in Kerala

It has only been an hour, and Mumbai already seems a world away.


The airplane is languorously approaching Kochi, and I am mesmerized by the sight on the other side of plexiglass.  It is fresh, it is a bright spring green, it is a plush blanket of verdant forest.  These are the last days of the monsoon, and we are in God's own country.


There is something truly jaw-dropping about approaching this land from above.  It seems a thwarting of nature's plans, this stealing of a perspective that should be the birds' preserve.  The hilltops are rolling underneath, wisps of white clouds kissing their foreheads.  A newly refreshed Periyar river is flowing joyfully, a silver streak meandering through dense coconut groves.  The green is everywhere.  Our toddler is standing in his seat, ignoring every safety announcement, staring open eyed at a landscape overwhelmed by a color Mumbai allows but grudgingly.  The other hues, where there are any, seem to pop out against the sage backdrop.  There! There is a brown shingled roof, peaking out.  There - a church spire, standing proud, white and tall, peering over the treetops.


Our first destination is Munnar, a good five hour drive from the Kochi airport.  We settle ourselves down into the minivan the travel agency has sent out to be our companion for this week, and we set off.  While we are still within town limits, the rituals of weekend morning life play out around us.  There are a lot of people on the road this early in the morning, and everyone seems dressed for something.  Church, our driver tells us, and it is Eid today too.  A group of men in crisp white mundus walks toward us, laughing heartily at their private jokes, the women doing the same across the road.  As our car reaches them, the men's group splits, one half walking into the compound of one of the hundreds of churches that dot the Kochi tourist map.  The other half carries on, only to enter a chartreuse domed mosque a block ahead.  There is the occasional temple too, the brightly statued gopurams standing out for their novelty.  We are of course in Guruvayur country so Krishna devotees aren't likely to be far off.  But right where we are, driving lazily past the pedestrians, steering clear of the boldly marked 'bicycle lane', it is all the white of churches and the mosaic green of mosques.

Out in the countryside, on our way now and on every drive over the next two days, the monsoon's presence is everywhere.  Spontaneous waterfalls gush down every hillside.  They aren't tiny rivulets of water either.  These are bold, roaring waterfalls, thundering down tall hills, spattering vehicles passing on the narrow road below.  After the first ... oh I don't know, hundred waterfalls, the daughter finally stops being excited by them. 


We are on one of our daily quota of long drives when the monsoon skies burst open.  We are driving precariously up a mountain slope, with barely enough room for cars on the other side to pass, and with scarcely a moment's rumbling notice, the torrent is upon us.  The wipers are working extra hard as we trudge  slowly up.  Through the intermittently clear visibility of the windscreen, I see in front of us a David fighting the rain-god Goliaths.  An auto-rickshaw, battered for wear, is struggling up the hill.  It is overfull with passengers.  The monsoon rain lashes at it from all sides, the blue tarpaulin curtains that drape its sides proving comically inadequate as they flutter violently in the wind.  A bangled arm stretches out from inside, clutching at the curtains desperately, pulls them inside.  It is fighting the strength of the wind.  As we cautiously pass the auto, I see the wind winning this battle again, the shield of blue fluttering out of control.  It is too loud outside so I cannot be sure, but I think I heard a squeal of laughter from in there.


Munnar is plantation country.  Rubber and tea for most part, from what I can tell.  As you go around, you are likely to be greeted every so often by rubber trees, neatly lined up in a plantation.  Green plastic sap bags are tied around the midriff of rows upon rows of rubber trees, like a prayer assembly of extraordinarily tall schoolgirls, standing at attention in their green skirts.  It is tea however, that gives the vista its distinctive look.  Sloping patterned beds of tea plantations stretch all around Munnar, somewhere brown from having had their leaves harvested, but mostly at this time of the year, bright spring green.  Plantation workers can be seen hard at work, even when the rain is upon them.  These are mountain slopes, where no tractor can be used for harvesting.  The workers (at least half of them women) carry what look like specially designed shears, with a collector box attached underneath.  They keep clipping the leaves, the box filling up as the day wears on.  These workers clip at least 50 kg of tea leaves a day, we are told, and the more skilled ones upto 100 kg.  That is a lot of boxes.


Tea plantations are a truly unique vocation, aesthetically speaking.  Hills upon hills roll out in front of our eyes.  Hills where human industry has displaced nature.  Yet, somehow, the landscape seems to have been rendered more beautiful than it was before we started.  We visit the Kannan Devan Hills Plantation Company, where they show us pictures of these hills over the decades.  Yes, I have to admit, the plantations have made the hills more picturesque.  I might be going out on a limb here, but I don't think we could say the same if we dotted these hills with call centers.


Tea and Tourism seem to be the only games in town.  Every car we pass seems to sport a yellow license plate.  Which has an unfortunate side effect.  There seem to be an acute shortage of local ethnic restaurants. Every culinary entrepreneur seems to be catering to the lowest common denominator of the tourist population.  "Multi-cuisine" every restaurant board proclaims, wearing what out to be its shame with unseemly pride.  Step inside, and we are ushered quickly into what are prominently marked 'Family Rooms'.  We aren't allowed to linger in the 'common' part of any restaurant for any time at all.  What exotica is being served in the outside world, we wonder sitting in our cosseted corner.  It feels like being at the suite levels of the Titanic.  If only we could step down to the sailors level, I am sure there would be loud music and bawdy partying.


After much searching, we do find an ethnic restaurant.  I ask for the menu.  No menu, I am told.  "White or boiled?" the waiter asks me.  We realize that is the only choice we have, white rice or parboiled.  I vote for white.  The water pre-served at the table is warm.  And pink.  Not sure whether to try it, I peer into the jug that has also been set helpfully at the table.  No water in the jug.  Rasam.  A whole jug of it!  As we wait to be served, I watch the middle aged couple at the other table in the 'Family Room'.  The man has ordered ('boiled').  The wife however, seems to be there only to give him company.  She coolly  opens a large doggy bag she has got from home, unpacks her lunch, and starts eating.  No one seems to mind, least of all our waiter, who finally comes out.  He sets out our meal before finally starting to serve the rice.  He balances a huge bowl in his left arm, and with his right, using a dinner plate as a serving spoon, he piles up heaps of rice on my plate.  Using a dinner plate as a serving spoon!  Boy, they like their rice in these parts, don't they?


On our way to Kumarakom, our last destination, the scenery changes.  No more tea plantations.  It is open field time now.  Fields that extend farther than I am used to seeing anywhere else in India.  Along much of the road, there is no cell phone coverage.  The whole population seems caught up in an older era of communication.  Until, of course, I notice the billboards advertising assorted local websites.  "Where Malayalees Marry", claims the tagline of a matrimony site.  m4marry.com the site is called, which sounds hilariously Malayalee if you pronounce the number in its original form.


Kumarakom is Kerala as I had imagined it while we planned this trip.  With birds.  There are birds everywhere here.  Exotic ones.  At one point during the day, our daughter starts crying when I tell her she missed a kingfisher just flew past.  "Why are you crying?" asks the wife dismissively, "you've already seen four kingfishers since morning."  Well, there's the tagline for a great vacation day right there.

We have planned on a day-long houseboat ride through the backwaters.  Grandeur, our baby is called.  It is a pretty grand affair all right, with two well fitted (air conditioned) bedrooms, a large living and dining hall, inexplicably ornate furniture, a captain, a full time cook, and a helper boy on board.  It is late morning by the time we set sail.  The waters are about 90 ft wide here.  They are lined by paddy fields on either side, with little hutments housing the caretakers.  Housewives are out in force.  Across the waters, they are beating clothes on washing stone.  And all the while, they are bantering with each other, shouting jokes across the 90 ft of water.


After a day of lazy drifting along the backwaters (including lunch at anchor across a paddy field, alongside a tiny shack that shouts 'crabs for sale!'), we drop anchor for the night.  The helper jumps ashore before we come to a complete halt.  He is pulling in some long cables from land.  Before we know it, he has rigged up a full power line and - what? - cable TV.  Well, we can hardly be expected to eat dinner without cable, can we?  Hey, we are houseboat people, not animals.


I had feared mosquitoes at night, but it doesn't turn out to be bad as I had feared.  Before we know it, the stillness of the night lulls us to sleep.


It is our last day here.  I wake up to a cock-a-doodle-do for the first time in memory.  I step out to the deck.  Life is starting up.  The boats are already out and about.  A houseboat passes our spot slowly.  It has music on loud.  "Hawa hawa aye hawa" croons Hassan Jehangir (or whoever it was ... what happened to him after this song anyway?) ... "Yaar mila de, dildaar mila de".


"Appa, you know what?" asks my daughter on our way back home.  "When we went on the elephant ride, the elephant's ears kept flapping against my feet.  Isn't that crazy?"


Our car isn't here when we get out of the Mumbai airport.  The driver is caught in traffic.  "Bas sir paanch minat me pahunch raha hoon" he says.

The politics of the clothesline

Never thought I would witness this.  I mean, India is a land of contradictory realities and all that, but somehow, witnessing such an exchange never struck me as a possibility.

The centrally located, relatively new and decidedly yuppie residential complex in Mumbai that houses me, has a residents' Google list.  (And, I am certain, a Facebook page, some twitter ID, and whatever else is the yuppie thing to do nowadays)  On this Google list, there is a constant stream of emails from people listing their views on the community, issues of common interest, 'help wanted' ads for maids and drivers, and what have you.  All nice and neighbourly.  A recent email caught my attention.  Judging by the immediate burst of hubbub it created, I wasn't alone.

"I think it shouldn't be allowed," declared the writer, "for residents to dry their laundry on an external clothesline."

Now, if you have seen, passed by, lived in, any residential community anywhere in India, you know this much for a fact.  The clothesline is a birth-right.  We are the people the have hung our dirty laundry in public for all recorded history.  We are the people that crane their necks out of freshly rented apartments, trying to look for the tell-tale nails and hooks the previous occupant might have left behind.  We have a special kind of nylon rope that was invented for the sole purpose of becoming a clothesline.  I am pretty sure we invented that weird 'three poles triangulating' sort of arrangement that supports clotheslines in open areas.  We are, in short, clothesline people.  "I think it shouldn't be allowed for residents to dry their laundry on an external clothesline"??  Gasp!

"I agree", started the next email.  Wait a minute.  What?  You agree?

Turns out a lot of people agreed.

I am not the most observant of people, so maybe I had missed something all these days.  The next morning, I took a walk around, and looked up at all the balconies in our complex.  Sure enough, no clotheslines.  Except for the offending few that had so aggrieved our emailer.  I can see a blue towel fluttering away from the fifth floor.  A few ... let's say 'delicates' whose colors are indeterminate high up on the eighth floor.  Oh, and one of the offenders, blithely oblivious to the heated chatter about them and their ilk, has a brown bed-sheet hanging out there, in all its yellow floral glory.  Sweet!  But strip those out, and there isn't any other line in sight.  Hmm ...

There are two primary arguments for the 'No Clothesline' movement.  One is purely aesthetic.  'When I sit out on my balcony, I don't want to be staring at your well worn socks' so to speak.  Fair enough.  And the other argument, derived from the same, but one step removed, is economic.  Properties in clothesline strewn buildings lose value, goes this argument.  Clotheslines are for the tacky, the middle class, the old.  Add them anywhere near my apartment, and you are reducing my sale price.  I tried searching for some research that might establish this causal relationship, but no luck.

Electric clothes dryers have been around in the developed world since the 1940s.  By the late 50s and the 60s, they started to be really popular.  It started off, if I understand it right, as a symbol of affluence. 'I am successful, you can't see my underwear any more', in a manner of speaking.  Slowly, like with most household gadgets in the west, they became ubiquitous, and communities could scarcely recall a time when things had been different.  There were still the pesky few who might put their laundry out to dry.  But by now, every community had their own regulations barring such behaviour.

In India, needless to say, communities have had much bigger problems than the impact of sun-drying clothes on real estate prices.  Dryers were practically unknown and largely unavailable.  Electricity was expensive.  There wasn't much of a sense of personal space anyway, so the neighbour's clothesline blended right in to your life.  So the dear clothesline lived on.  Until now, it appears.

The average electric clothes dryer consumes energy at the rate of 4,000 Watts.  Yes, there is no decimal error here.  You read it right the first time.  It is probably the most energy guzzling domestic appliance invented by man, with the possible exception of central air-conditioning.  How much is 4,000 Watts?  Well, let us say you hang the clothes you want to dry on one of those standing clothes racks, place the rack in a room, and turn on a ceiling fan to dry things out ...  You can come back three days later, pick up your clothes and walk out of the room feeling all green, because you still saved some energy by not putting the clothes into a dryer.

"Why would I use the dryer?" my wife asks me, when the email debate comes up.  "It over-dries my clothes, fades out the colours, and is too expensive.  And all the while, I have this bright sun burning its energy out on my balcony, begging to be put to some use.  What a waste!"  That's true, I grant her, but there is something to the idea of not having to look at other people's laundry.  Call me a snob.

"I think everyone should be allowed to decide for themselves", someone bravely pipes in on the Google list finally.  "After all, this is India."  Attaboy!

It is early in the morning, and I am walking my daughter to her school bus.  We are walking past the building that started off the fiery debate.  I look up.  An old lady, sari all crumpled from a night's sleep is out on the balcony.  She is moving slowly, her hands are full, and she is straining with the effort.  Slowly, she is pulling off her clothesline the brown bedsheet, with its yellow floral print.  She pulls it all the way off, and concentrating hard, flips it over, hangs it back out.  She fastens it in place with a couple of clips, straightens her back slowly, takes in the view outside, turns, and trudges slowly back inside, ready to start the rest of her day.

For a moment there, she looked like my mother.