Rest Easy

The calendar's fourth quarter is notable for its disproportionate share of festivities; occasions when circumspect purse strings loosen, accumulating significant spends that greatly aid the cause of private domestic consumption! This is an established phenomenon in the West, building to a Christmas peak, with accepted socio-cultural-economic benefits. Not merely due to an Anglophile tilt, but India too has had Q4 turn into a Consumer Marketing delight lately, albeit with twin summits on either end. Again, of all shopping destinations, if there be one where such a dance of disposable incomes and Westernized lifestyles should be most conspicuous, Millennium City Gurgaon must possess strongest credentials!

Someone stepping into SRS Value Bazaar at Sohna Road, however, will likely make a strong case for the reverse. Rewind back a month and paucity of options in the neighbourhood, plus burgeoning household earnings, meant that grocery shopping at this establishment was a lecher's delight (of the too-close-for-comfort kind often observed in your average DTC bus). Crowded to the core with sundry shoppers and ill-trained staff, one was forced to jostle through narrow aisles and tightly packed shelves, all barely a moment away from disintegration into total chaos, to get to check-out lanes that stretched till eternity. Yet, come last week of Dec and far from an upswing in the footfall frenzy, you may well discern a pall of gloom, the droopy shoulders of salespeople a telltale of dropping revenue.

So what has changed? Almost the entire action in town seems to have moved to a new postal address: Easy Day, opened a block away. In fact, with Wal-Mart pedigree in its wings, this shop appears to have drawn an expanded clientele (with very obvious results on Sohna Road traffic, any case prone to highly frustrating jams). This shopper upsurge may partly be driven by a novelty factor, or high voltage entry-strategy advertising, but there is a suggestion of more. My hypothesis is that the underlying promise in Wal-Mart’s discounter positioning (in our notoriously price-sensitive market), and its comprehensive one-stop-shop concept. has helped pull crowds. In point of fact one must note too that discounts currently offered are minimal and shopping experience (janata express, low staff etiquette, serpentine queues et al) not significantly different from SRS. Yet, for now, Gurgaon's yuppie and not-so- population is voting through their feet (and wallets) there!

The likes of Easy Day may have a larger destiny to fulfill though. In the last few posts we have agonized over a lasting fix for India's Food Security. Yet, despite an immediate inflation crisis and very obvious medium-long term supply inadequacy, our current governmental response is random at best (unless of course one believes conspiracy theorists that see a deliberate, nefarious design in repeated policy and administration failures). In any case, the Government's assertions of control are rendered meaningless by WPI (and more so, retail inflation) figures with sorry regularity. Thus, in mourning what ails Indian Agriculture, it is time to shift focus away from reactive tweaks that is the wont of democratic governments, or hope for one-size-fit-all solutions. Instead, we need to tackle the supply chain in bite-size-chunks. The most conspicuous opportunity seems in storage and distribution: we waste a shameful 20% (likely more) of the food we produce, an abysmal situation by any account (Animal Farm). Granted that our sarkari agencies are not up to the ask of delivering badly-needed supply chain upgrades, the logical option for investment and knowhow (say, cold storage infrastructure) is FDI in retail. Hence the pitch for Easy Day and its kin – the benefits delivered via their backward integration efforts.

This is not an easy cat to bell. We cannot wish away the fears, imagined or otherwise, of thousands of mom-&-pop kirana stores getting overrun. On the contrary, we ought to take a leaf from China’s book on extracting a pound of flesh when framing policies. Let organized retail serve a purpose, with policymakers, producers and customers, all aligned to ensure the best deal. And in time, hopefully, technology shall deliver us irrigation and yield increases; productivity improvements that cannot fructify in one easy day.

Dal is Meat (rhyme Small is Big)

My idea of a delectable meal often subsumes a meat-rich diet. This has worked well for the foodie in me, providing latitude for wide (some would say wild) experimentation in cuisine and ingredients over the years. Indeed, it would be difficult to think of occasions in the past that would have found me shy of conspicuous consumption of the non-vegetarian kind. It is equally easy to remember my preaching from the pulpit to those missing out on similar indulgences.

Alas what use is a tale without a twist, and mine came up against one via marriage when my six-seventh dedicated carnivorous pursuit met its match. (Incidentally the existing Tuesday exception was likely on account of historical habit more than purely religious reasons.) To cut a long story short, one could be pardoned to think my last post (Dal, Not Boring was my first on food; built around an eminently vegetarian delicacy) to be an ‘inspired’ choice! Yet, apart extenuating domestic circumstances (an outvoted minority status), my alibi is a mehengayi-dayan discussion pending from that post. Indeed, not only is the virus of inflation agnostic to dietary preference, but its acute focus on foods hurts dal as much as chicken, making a complete mockery of the Great (veg-non veg) Divide.

With this backdrop, let me hark back to the RBI Q2 Monetary Policy document mentioned earlier. The central bank's pointed concerns about food inflation expressed therein are a good starting point to appreciate the worrisome situation (in case you missed your grocery bills these last few months). Terming it “structural”, the Review referred specifically to prices of protein based foods (despite policy tweaks and good monsoons, inflation in this segment "remained persistently elevated" mid 20s; six months ago it was a whopping 34%). What officialspeak did not make explicit was the fact that the uptrend is over a year old – meaning this inflation is working off an already high denominator. The resultant compounding effect on end consumer wallets is, naturally, stark.

It is not difficult to discern the roots of "structural demand-supply mismatches” the RBI laments, or to build a case for future worsening. Demand is up, driven by burgeoning population and changing consumption patterns (economic progress whets appetite for more nutritious food). Neither of these is likely to recede - in fact one can well expect significant upside in each. At the same time, we are faced with what the RBI calls "inadequate supply response" meaning there is little relief on the other side of the economic equation. Specific to dal, none of the three global producers (US, Oz, Burma) display any urgency to increase areas under pulses cultivation. (We could, of course, collectively root for a dietary switch towards meat - but that puts at stake much more than my personal domestic discord!)

As a conundrum, it is a desperate one - what else could be more compelling for a nation languishing at # 67 in 85 countries on the Global Hunger Index. Unfortunately the much required sense of urgency seems thus far missing from all stakeholders - policymakers, producers, consumers et al (and certainly in our TRP-happy mainstream media, preening with self-proclaimed righteousness, but content to sell the day's news). The logical solution would be for Indian agriculture to step up, even if its immediate ability to do so remains fairly suspect. Else declared national goals like chasing Security Council seats are entirely meaningless.

Dal, Not Boring

Vir Sanghvi's Rude Food is part of my reading staple most weekends. To get to it is not always a cakewalk though: one has to negotiate other HT Brunch features that are often hopelessly inane. Of course, Shri Sanghvi himself, his broad repertoire on his sleeve, is capable of giving any self-respecting foodie more than enough cud to chew. Frequently, his fare is extravagantly esoteric in choice of subject and idiom, more daunting than delectable for the average seasoned traveler. Yet, when confining himself to playing patron vs patronizing, his entrée does justice to his vaunted gourmand credentials - even the pungency of his strong opinions tickles the buds and makes for mild intellectual exercise appropriate for Sunday mornings. In either case, the studiedly exclusivist stance is unmistakable.

This week though, Rude Food was positively brilliant. It swung the spotlight on humble, ubiquitous Dal, justly extolling its virtues as the quintessential Indian dish. As Singhvi points out, though content to play second fiddle to other offerings, the Dal does not suffer from lack in variety. All forms of Indian cuisine profess a version and each civilization coming into contact with it has added to options. At one level it is in fact quite interesting how hard put you would be to find Dal oriented eateries when you think how every household carries its individual specimen; and even the occasional cook's experiments have enriched its pantheon. (My mother for instance, not much given to adventurism in the kitchen, still cooks a memorable Dal, and so one would suspect for assorted mothers, spouses and chefs of varying culinary expertise across the Nation!)

However, there is one facet that Shri Singhvi barely scratches the surface on - owing perhaps to his proclivity for intellectual snobbery, or simply his relative munificence. This is the continued spiral of rising Dal prices and its clearly deleterious consequences on household budgets (one speaks from personal experience of course). In fact, this has worried no less than the RBI, going by the commentary in its Q2 FY11 Monetary Policy Review. Well merited as it may be, it is too early in the weekend to attempt this fuller discussion tonight! Let me therefore leave that for later – perhaps tomorrow, after being fortified with my ritual Sat khichdi lunch :)

Say Cheese!

There's something to be said for junior siblings who harbour grand-motherly ambitions: not only are their intentions unfailingly above board, but they often provide you with eminently sensible advice. My younger sister, forever trying to overtake the few years that separated our births (and not merely due to her head-start in child-rearing experience), gave me one such invaluable tip some seasons ago. In sum and substance her insight was to forsake still photography in favour of video when trying to capture assorted intimate moments with my new-born.

The logic, as most parents shall easily empathize, is simply this: perfect as the cherub may be, one can just not ever make them pose, camera at the ready, in the fashion you want to catch; or be able to whip up your camera in time to catch the pose they already have. Consider too, how consumed one is by an overarching desire to store those magical moments for posterity and future viewing pleasure. As such, among general early parenting tutorials, this visual arts lesson is worth its weight in gold. (There is a school of thought that directly ascribes Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle to be an offshoot of this inability for subject and equipment to meet!) The handycam, video-enabled digicam, or (increasingly) the mobilephone camera in video mode, therefore, are God’s gift to parentkind. You click, point and whirr - you're away!

But whoa – you still have to lug the equipment along; test your hand-eye coordination; and of course keep one hand otherwise engaged, and not in petting one’s progeny or restraining him in mischief! Last month, however, going through some internal communication on digital trends and practices, my attention got drawn to a brand new product. Looxcie, as this device is called, is camera meets your Bluetooth handsfree audio earset. Sitting on your ear, Looxcie’s camera records all you see, all the time - and if you figure out something worth capture (or sharing online in our post-FB quasi-voyeuristic times) you click a button – to save, edit or instantly share the immediate 30 sec clip to your favourite social networking site. Now this may sound premature, but my sense is that the Looxcie (as a product class) represents a new level in the evolutionary relationship between man and technology insofar as it further reduces disruption to your daily life and habit – and perhaps a step closer to the body itself becoming our computing interface.

There is a catch, of course – and it is not the device’s five hour storage limit! As our real and virtual worlds collide, the Looxcie as an accessory for oneself is sure to find many takers. Yet, not all of us may be equally comfortable playing Beatrice to its Dante - lest Divine Tragedies result ;-)

Baal Ki Khaal

This one is dedicated to two childhood friends, each with canine companions that went by the name Snowy. Both wore crowns of flipped up tufts of hair that settled into a more orderly mop by the time it reached the back of their heads (though one believed he took it after Shashi Kapoor!). Both wore their principles on their sleeves, embodying all thought good in boyhood – much the kind that mothers made examples of. And both were only too willing, in their inimitably individual ways, to battle lengthening odds in a world where childhood innocence was rapidly fading away.

The first of the duo now sports a mildly sparser mane, perhaps in deference to ravages of time. Even as his contemporaries get cynical with age, his spunk has not dimmed much: he remains almost as idealistic to a fault. Peddling counsel in a premier brainwasher outfit (aka Strategy Consulting), his worldly ambitions revolve around Pedder Road, desiring future lodgings in its vicinity. Meanwhile, he plays proud papa to a precociously gifted child. On meeting old partners in crime he debates residential choices in modest Mumbai vs garish Gurgaon (purely in sq ft terms), but mostly signs off ruing lost opportunities to ride the real estate boom at either. The script alas has not altered much in a few price correction cycles. Yet, the world would be so much a better place if only a fraction of his fantastic ideas were to change address from his first class brain to take up abode in the real world without. My best for you, Mr M; and hope that, some day, the letter does not stand for Muddle too.

The other hero, equally principled but more action-prone, has the privilege of staying unsullied by tests of time only accorded to larger-than-life fictional characters. He occasionally comes to mind when trying to hook my 14 month old to Cartoon Network for a few moments of domestic calm (and yes, we shall rue this TV pitch later). Meet Tintin, who last week made it to Indian mainstream media with news that his canon is to be translated into Hindi. For sake of the hordes of new friends nee fans he shall inevitably add in the new Indian avatar (he already does Bengali), one hopes Tintin stays Tintin, even as his support cast and the books adopt new name tags. This is important: this space has argued against avoidable tinkering with Enid Blyton's legacy earlier. Equally, word-play is intrinsic to Tintin reading pleasure: its characters indulge in malapropism, spoonerism, cuss-words-that-aren't, et al (google them if need) hence greater danger of being lost in translation.

Fortunately, two differences can be discerned upfront. Firstly, the Famous Five body of work existed and was accessible to the young English reader; and changes focused on style than substance, presentation tweaks presumably due to audience inability to appreciate the books' context. Tintin in Hindi, on the other hand, explores new readership vistas. Second, the English versions, where my friendship with the evil-fighting Belgian reporter took roots, too were brilliant adaptations from original French. The Tintin team has been there, done that (Hindi is translation # 58, with over 200 million endorsing sales). Thus, my sense is largely unaltered plots, even as some props take into account Indian sensibilities. Hence Snowy, originally Milou, becomes Natkhat and Thomson and Thompson aka Dupont et Dupond turn Santu-Bantu without much ado (unless you believe that Bianca became Mallika Castafiore for Sherawat reasons - her crooning 'abhi to main jawan hoon' perhaps for our other protagonist, the adorable Mr M, should easily settle that one)!

And what better way to test the hypothesis than check for Captain Archibald Haddock's colourful curses - 'dus hazaar tadtadate toofan' (ten thousand thundering typhoons) is easy; 'karodo karod kasmasate kaale kacchuve' (millions-and-millions-of squirming-black-turtles, replacing the iconic billions-of-bilious-blue-blistering-barnacles) sounds a wee bit of compromise. There may be more (difficult to replicate 'Thomson with a P like in psychology' in Santu-Bantu milieu) but intent remains ideal and the touchstone (one learns from you sometimes, Mr M) of my vote today. Thumbs up for the Tintin effort therefore; and no elitist position, caught up in (what Tintin's catchphrase 'Great Snakes' has changed to) 'baal ki khaal'!

CIRcle of Life

Generally speaking, from the universe of my acquaintances in the thirty-some years on the planet, the set from School would be in summary the oldest and most valued of relationships. To boot, a majority of this group would rate higher than average in terms of phrenic acumen as well as worldly success. Hence, when no less than three such friends seek me out in the space of a few weeks with queries on financial products, all centred around the theme of credit history, something does seem amiss in the State of Denmark!

Proceeding under the assumption that a general outbreak of penury has not gripped the Class of 1991 (and the financial transactions intended certainly pointed in the opposite direction!) the spate of enquiries was highly suggestive. My direct hypothesis was our collective lack of appreciation for Credit Bureaus and their rapidly expanding sway in India's financial system. (Incidentally, using the plural is accurate, though only Credit Information Bureau India Ltd or CIBIL is completely operational; Experian shall be the second Bureau and more are in the pipeline). A quick primer therefore seems in order.

Simply put, a Credit Information Company or Credit Bureau is a repository of credit histories of individuals and companies. It is premised on the principle of pooled information - all member banks and FIs share credit line and payment data with it - intended to facilitate better credit decisions for lenders as much as appropriate terms for borrowers. Bureau data is formatted into a Credit Information Report or CIR which can be accessed by member institutions and the concerned consumer or commercial entity. It is this CIR that is increasingly being leveraged to assess creditworthiness in India as we speak - a decades long practice in the developed world.

Therein of course lies the rub. The widespread usage of CIR is a relatively recent development and customer awareness has been potentially inadequate. Combined, this has meant low motivation to keep Bureau data entirely accurate and updated, leading to a good chunk of borrowers being not-so-pleasantly surprised by their CIR's contents (and hence those calls to folks like me). Bureaus are mostly not to blame though - apart from their impeccable credentials (CIBIL for instance was cofounded by SBI and HDFC with SME's D&B and TransUnion), inaccuracy of information strikes at their very raison d'etre. Similar vested interest may have been presumed for Banks/ FIs but unfortunately in CIBIL's nascent days a good chunk of members were curiously over-protective of their databases, loath to share vital information with the others. (That this futile stance changed is in significant measure due to the 2008 Crisis, when the industry woke up to dangers of one-upmanship!) There may have been infrastructure issues in data capture and storage in the past too, especially with PSU players. And last but not least, consumers may have been less than responsible with closure of seemingly trivial issues, including occcasional wilful default, all leading up to a messed up CIR.

As things stand, the CIR is now a part of life (a common misconception is that only delinquent accounts get reported to Bureaus - not so, they carry all records). In fact we should consider it a near certainty that CIR usage shall transcend beyond lending decisions to Utilities and other necessities of life. It is also obvious that information capture and permanence will be in a different league post Aadhar implementation. It is indeed not impossible to envision the CIR become an input for employment decisions (say, in BFSI or for company directorship etc), perhaps even indirectly impinge on social contracts (public office for instance) going forward.

Meanwhile, for those with current or future borrowing needs (almost everyone in modern India's consumerist paradigm) and at all concerned with credit availability and terms (pricing is obvious; equally credit delayed may be credit too late - ask folks foregoing cash discounts when buying that new house), an impeccable credit history is highly desired. Also, even as you get disciplined in future payments, check your current CIR from CIBIL at www.cibil.com/accesscredit.htm as first step (errors if any will have to be corrected via your Bank/ FI that has reported them so write to it for rectification). The time to act is now!

Wheels of Fortune

Having tread the more familiar, beaten end of the path last week, ambition drives me to talk glitzy and stratospheric today. My motivation in changing gear from the Bicycle to a Bugatti is not entirely random though. It comes from realization, grudging as much as bizarre, that the Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport that drastically redefined the automobile pricing summit in India, is not merely about libertine luxury but actually a fulfillment of some much humbler prayers!

First things first: it is now three weeks that the Volkswagen (literally, Peoples' Car) family launched the Veyron from its Bugatti stables to add to the options for India's Super-rich. The crown of the nation's most expensive motorcar offering is not quotidian: the Veyron sports a daunting tag, at INR 16Cr onwards a little under 3X its nearest competitor! Yet, my middle-class, nitpicking mind did not miss the claim by its aptly named sole agent, Exclusive Motors, that the gap between Veyron and #2 was much larger. Perhaps they missed the launch of INR 6Cr Merc S-Guard in Feb (for some reason a day after my birthday, if only!); maybe they decided cars not retailed by them did not qualify. Nevertheless the tab is impressive (not to forget an unkind, if pithy, suggestion to rebadge it Veyron 18 next year unless inflation bucks its double digit trend). Equally, for those still stuck to more commoditized mindsets, it is most instructive to note Bugatti's annual sales plan, all of a challenging 60-80 units worldwide, including likely 3-4 Indians globally.

Ignorance and presumed readership interest dictate me to gloss over the car's intricate details (noteworthy stress in launch press releases any how was on components of 'special materials - titanium, magnesium etc' handcrafted at Bugatti's French HQ, perhaps playing to the khadi brigade; or 'Puccini sound system with digital signal processor' variety of abstruse). Certainly, it should be safe to assume the Veyron would be a hedonistic delight, with top-notch safety features and on-tap-performance (unlike me, some drivers are seemingly able to discern every tenth of a second in a 0-100 kmph dash, the car in question clocking a 2.7). Above all, its modest volume target and the excessive hype around price are highly suggestive - what may draw prospective buyers is badge value and exclusivity rather than trivia like its pacy 407 kmph, or worry for the 10% speed compromise with the roof off.

The performance numbers do beg an obvious question: where-on will the Veyron get a chance to perform thus for its privileged owner? Of course, one is not unfamiliar with the analogy of a powerful sound machine providing decidedly superior auditory experience at lower volumes too. The appropriate situation here, however, is of the equipment being mostly forced on mute (disbelievers may try DLF Cyber City early morning, or all evening, to truly appreciate the engine's idle hum). And therein lies Reason #1 to have prayed for the Veyron's ilk: folks who buy this car would be from the ranks of the high-and-mighty, eminently better placed to motivate our civic authorities to build roads instead of potholed dirt tracks (chalo Sohna Road, rather, most of Gurgaon, if you find the depiction pessimistic). Their frustration matters, unlike ours, hence my hope!

Unfortunately the road-building fantasy may come up short against the brutal realities of our obdurate bureaucracy. Regardless, another Veyron attribute makes an even bigger, better case (raison-d-etre if you will) for my fervour. Reason #2 is, simply, its price. One hears (and of late there is little to distract) corruption rajas of contemporary India swindle 1,70,00,00,00,00,00,000 (please check my zeros someone) Rupees improving connectivity; others siphon off the good part of a (relatively modest) few tens of thousand crores when organizing a sporting event, almost killing the goose itself; an ideal housing scheme for Kargil War vets degenerates into a (paltry) some hundred crore scam. It is a struggle to grasp the enormity of these astronomical amounts - arithmetic begs a picture, worth a thousand words (crore actually). For instance, growing up in Middle India, one imagined lakhs via sundry cars; now talk a crore or two and visualize that apartment of our dreams; but, by God, a few hundred crore, and many more? Head-reeling numbers and 'everyday the paper boy brings more'? And how do they make that kind of money? Why want to? What to do with it? Enter Veyron, up the ante for cars, and at least there is the start of improved perspective. Of course, humble India needs more such symbols, if only to help us learn the New Math (of the dubious) and enhance our imagination.

Obviously this is hardly to pull the VW car down (and is too far removed to be a case of sour grapes)! Equally frankly, my congratulations to any actual buyer is half-muted; appreciation of its technological marvels or epicurean appeal has been dulled by a generally eroded conviction in the balance of good and bad karma in the world. Yet, as caprice scales new heights and honesty gets scarce to the point of endangerment, some core beliefs need reassertion. Skeptic yes, shades of grey perhaps, but one ought not succumb to the ogre: no comfortably-numb suicide. Selfishly and for posterity, the choice is to stay angry, lest we get stuck in a Wheel of Misfortune!