The (Ab)Use Of Power

Power Corrupts! We have known this aphorism since recorded history and beyond. But does it inject imbecility as well? George W Bush vows to veto the senate vote! Would like to issue an anticipatory apology to the imbeciles for the comparison. And interestingly, he is not the only person who believes that the war is justified. Almost half of the US senate believes the same as well. I hope someone does a VLCC style ‘Before’ and ‘After’ of Iraq for him. Common people across the globe are being affected in one way or the other. The brutal killing of Suryanarayana in the not so recent past reminds us how neutral countries might be affected as well.

River and her family are moving from Baghdad. This is what she had to say about leaving:

On the one hand, I know that leaving the country and starting a new life somewhere else- as yet unknown- is such a huge thing that it should dwarf every trivial concern. The funny thing is that it’s the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I've had since the age of four? Is there room for E.'s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?

The problem is that we don't even know if we'll ever see this stuff again. We don't know if whatever we leave, including the house, will be available when and if we come back. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends… And to what?

It's difficult to decide which is more frightening- car bombs and militias, or having to leave everything you know and love, to some unspecified place for a future where nothing is certain.

I still cannot believe that Oil and a slightly sluggish US economy prompted the US President and his coterie of yes-men into this conflict. As a bystander, I have the option of doing the helpless shrug and forgetting about this. But the problem is that I am not a bystander anymore. Such conflicts are increasingly polarizing the world. I believe this is the most significant threat to world peace since the cold-war and the nuclear arms race. Images like these can induce indignation and vengeance in the most gentle of souls. However, the political rhetoric around the conflict continues to instigate than to reconcile.

India faces a significant threat from this polarization. The Hindu-Muslim relations have been strained due to a variety of reasons. The report prepared by Justice Rajinder Sachhar highlights the failure of successive governments of assimilating the Indian Muslim into the Indian Social fabric. Given the porous borders and the strong presence of separatist elements in the country, we run a significant risk of disrupting the precarious peace in many parts of India. I do not know if we can afford the indifference of the Indian government on this issue. I do not understand the love-affair of our politicians with the technique of silent protests. What is the reason for this inexplicable silence? At least, the French had the gumption to speak-up!

At times, I think if this scenario is similar to the policy of appeasement that the European powers used during the rise of Hitler. Given the present nuclear balance, the next world war cannot be amongst nation states. It will be a wide-spread uncontrollable skirmish. Are we already into the Third World War? I really hope not!

A Little Dash Of Irrationality

When things like this happen, I start feeling that we are approaching a point where too much money is chasing woefully small number of opportunities. The event might not even qualify as a rounding-off error in the 350$B Revenues for the year that Wal-Mart closed exit January but what makes me so vexed about it is the inappropriateness of the entire affair. They do need to make the right noises to speed-up the legislation for allowing FDI in retail. But, is this the best trick they have got to lobby with the Indian Government? I am sure that it is not and if the Indian management of this firm thinks otherwise it desperately needs a re-jig. I hope someone is inquiring about the results expected from such an exercise.

It is the same with Cricket, all advertising money chasing one game. This year’s ICC world cup is a case-in-point. Every marketing manager worth his salt might have constructed an IMP (Integrated Marketing Plan) around the world-cup. A host of promotional activities, ad-campaigns, event and what-not planned around it. Even if the India-Pakistan teams were to make it super 8s, most of these plans would have fetched a poor ROI for the firms. At best it would have ended as another bullet point on someone’s CV, who would have then moved on to a better role within or outside the firm. As for money spent on such an activity, one can always site the fact that it is of tactical importance to do so since the competitors would be doing it anyway!

And what is the deal with Jhanvi Kapoor? Out of hibernation on the wedding day? The entire drama was outright hilarious. Apart from the Aj-taks and Mid-Days, International Herald Tribune and Fox News could not resist her charm as well. Indeed she got all the hype that she was looking for but where are film offers that she might have thought would come her way. Even Ekta Kapoor is not willing to cast her in Kayamath (Yes! that is the spelling). And what is the deal with Ekta kapoor? Even the Kanadda and Tamil serials are as weird as the hindi names e.g. kadambariii!

Yes, the world is irrational. And that is the reason why economists and statisticians have a job. The more they try to untangle this chaos into identifiable patterns the more arcane it seems to get. Thankfully, the world is not yet, as insane as it is irrational. Anyway, a little dash of irrationality is something that makes it livable, Warna yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai?

The Typical Day

At times, Dilbert is spot on with the day you have had at work. Had one of those days. This strip of three published two days back sums it up really well.

Scott Adams quit working long time back. The fact that he keeps getting these ideas truly amazes me!

गद गद हो गए हैं भैय्या

एकदम गज़ब का आइटम लेकर आयी है गूगल इस बार! बाग़ बाग़ हो गएँ हैं हम तो... आप लोगों का क्या ख़्याल है? आशा करते हैं की बाक़ी ब्लॉगर बंधु भी इसका भरपूर इस्तेमाल करेंगे

इसी आशा से ओत-प्रोत (हाँ भाई अभी पूरी ठीक नहीं हुई है)

आपका
भीड़ मैं एक और आवाज़!

Whatever Happened To The Game!

Yes, I wrote sometime back that I would not talk about cricket for a while! In hindsight, I could not have made such a declaration at a more inopportune time. While the news channels have been smattering the television screens with anything remotely connected with cricket, I have had tried hard to get onto the indifference curve with respect to the game. But have been an utter failure at it!

From the perspective of just the game, this has been the most insipid of world cups in recent memory. While everything else related to cricket grabs headlines, the game itself has taken a back stage. With Woolmer’s death, Coach-Player scuffle in India and with players being dropped for excessive drinking this World cup has the makings of a regular soap. To add to that we have our own Pawar, Vengsarkar, Senior Players and Subhash Chandra to spice-up the proceedings. I think the lure of this gossip is too strong to resist. Even the latest edition of Knowledge@Wharton has an article on the state of cricket in India.

If it were not for Bangladesh, this world cup would have been as exciting as a sun boiled Cola! They have been the source of all excitement at the tournament level. First eliminating India and then defeating South Africa in the super 8s. Arguably, they have the best spin attack in the trio of spinners (mind you – not the best spin bowlers but the best spin attack). Apart from that, Lanka’s bouts with South Africa and England got very interesting towards the end. But over all, most matches have been lop-sided. What is any sport without the proverbial unpredictability? So while one is made to concentrate to everything related to the game, one wonders what happened to the game!

Anyway, let me try my hand at being a soothsayer. As of now, it seems that the final four would be Australia, Sri Lanka, South Africa and New Zealand and in that order as well. So the semi-finals would look like the following:

• SF1: Australia Vs New Zealand
• Outcome: Aussies get a sweet revenge of the pre-world world run down
• SF2: South Africa Vs Sri Lanka
• Outcome: This would be a tough one. But hoping that South Africa wins this one

Now the finals would then be a replay of the 1999 world cup and I am hoping that we see a first time winner. Even if the final clash of Aussies is with the Lankans, I hope the cup comes to the sub-continent. But most likely, the Aussies would take it third time in a row! And I think it will be in line with the bland tournament that we have had till now.

Anyway, I think the composition of the Indian team for the upcoming tour of Bangladesh would make more exciting guesswork. Any thoughts?

Finally, A Cure For The Post Lunch Drowsiness

Most of the readers of this blog have faced severe sleep-attacks after a heavy lunch. In college, it was a matter of great pride. Remember those long sleep sessions so rightfully earned by bunking the classes or labs. However, this prized siesta is one of the first things that a job takes away from you. So while your boss scowls at your hopeless struggle to keep your eyes open through that presentation of gazillion slides, you just wonder if there is a cure for this deadly affliction! So while you wait to become powerful enough to take those 'power' naps, here's a stop gap arrangement for you.

A Japanese puzzle site bailed me out today, as I waited for an important meeting today. You might want to try this (http://www.robmathiowetz.com/) or some other site for the same. It was a puzzle of moderate difficulty but becomes very interesting as you battle a pair of sleep hexed eyelids.

"Everybody has to cross the river"

The following rules apply:

• All of them are on the same side to begin with
  
• Only 2 persons on the raft at a time
• The father can not stay with any of the daughters, without their mother's presence
• The mother can not stay with any of the sons, without their father's presence
• The thief (striped shirt) can not stay with any family member, if the Policeman is not there
• Only the Father, the Mother and the Policeman know how to operate the raft

Let me know if this thing works for you as well!

Say No To...

Back in the 80s and mid-90s, the government wanted the populace to say no to a lot of things that are(?) considered vices. There was a special emphasis on cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, unsafe sex and other members of this party. Not very sure if that incessant messaging from the CPC of Mandi house worked. A back of the envelope calculation shows that all of them failed miserably. However, I have decided that I am not going to be discouraged by this failure of the government machinery. After all, this is what they specialize at.

I have my own agenda today. May be it was because of a sudden flashback in time. A casual discussion with a friend made me recall the Engineer's and Manager's Oath. Yes, they exist and can probably be a part of Chetan Bhagat's list of eccentricities of the IIT and the IIM life. Somewhere the authors of the oaths have skillfully slipped in a line that bounds me to repay my debt to the society. So I have decided to repay my debt and come out of this unintended delinquency!

This is my first working weekend in a long time. Do not remember working on a weekend ever since I quit The Bank! It brought back the memories of those weekends spent pushing files between the twin towers of Jeevan Bhatri and the Surya Kiran building in Connaught Place. I think all the people working in the iBank family of jobs will have a humongous treasure of such memories. Thus, extensive first hand experience and loads of hearsay puts me in this unique position of relying this message in public interest. Say no to working weekends!

In case you are the kind who looks for top returns on every second spent in life, you would be feeling a bit cheated. Am sure that the message lacked the punch for the kinds of you! Therefore, I would offer something more to you before you click on the red cross in the right corner on the top to effect a closure on this browser window. I am about to share with you something that made it a good Friday! A Salman Khan number from the film Yeh hai Jalwa. I would strongly advise you to see the video or otherwise make-do with the audio. As you might have guessed from the previous post that I am turning into an advocate of anti-piracy these days, so I will just share the lyrics. Hope you like them. Here goes:

Nahin fax, nahin xerox

Nahin telex - na computer ki floppy

[repeat along with some dancing]

[some dhinchak music]

main to mere papa ki Carbon Copy... [a half-hearted yoddle] Carbon Copy [sing to a crescendo]

Trust me, I am not making this up. It is for real!! With that, I leave you to salvage whatever remains of your weekend!

Free Fallin'

The music industry worldwide is in a quandary. The sales have been on a decline for seven continuous years. For the first quarter of this year, the sales are down by 20% q-o-q! This signifies a behavioral shift in The Way Music Is Acquired (TWMIA). A cursory look over the history of music tells you that TWMIA changes every few years. So much so, that one is bound to suspect that the music industry is running a conspiracy of sorts. Every time one gets to accumulate a decent collection in a particular format, the format in which music is stored would change. Of course for the better as they would have us believe - from records to LPs to cassettes to LDs to CDs to the mp format - we have indeed come a long long way.


So every time the format changed, as a music lover you were forced to upgrade - not only the music system but the entire collection of music. A neat way of directing the flow of money from your pockets to the sales ledger kept by that stodgy accountant in the room next to the basement loo. But for the first time, the music companies are eying defeat at their own game. In a way Napster started it all. But the honors in round one were taken by the music companies. Napster was shut down. Few of my friends at IIT were served legal notices in the course of legal process as well. Since then, I have been afraid to use my real address for my online accounts. Anyway, that is beyond the scope of this discussion. Internet did prove to be a difficult medium to control for the companies. In an oblique way it was responsible for the consolidation that happened in the music industry (Sony-BMG, Universal-Vivendi etc). It did redefine the playing ground. The balance of power is now skewed in favour of the consumers for sure. Copying a cassette was cumbersome and an audio CD was next to impossible in the early days (no ubiquitous access to CD burners) and the later days (with the advent of copy protected CD) as well. But Mp format changed it all. One can burn hundreds of songs on a CDs/USB drives. Or conveniently carry thousands of them in that cool device given to you by Steve Job's army of dudes.


A recent Wall Street Journal article highlights the plight of the music industry:



In recent weeks, the music industry has posted some of the weakest sales it has ever recorded. This year has already seen the two lowest-selling No. 1 albums since Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music sales, was launched in 1991.



One week, "American Idol" runner-up Chris Daughtry's rock band sold just 65,000 copies of its chart-topping album; another week, the "Dreamgirls" movie soundtrack sold a mere 60,000. As recently as 2005, there were many weeks when such tallies wouldn't have been enough to crack the top 30 sellers. In prior years, it wasn't uncommon for a No. 1 record to sell 500,000 or 600,000 copies a week.



In general, even today's big titles are stalling out far earlier than they did a few years ago.



So is that the end of the music industry as we know it? Would the CD turn into a marketing shenanigan to promote tours, merchandise and future brand equity of an artist? I would reckon that it is too early to write an obituary on the structure of music industry. Online sales of music have been rising at an astounding rate of 54%. Even at this rate, the strong decline in CD sales is weighing heavy on industry giants. It would be hard to deny that these are the make or break years for the music industry. It is so easy to download music, videos etc from the ever increasing set of websites, the myspaces, mp3 blogs and the normal data transfer channels. A research report by BigChampagne claims that about a billion songs are traded on illegal file-sharing networks every month! The silver line being the fact that music is reaching more people in smaller time frames. A music lover has never had it this good ;)

However, this would make it difficult for most music companies to invest in budding artists because the risk-return equation on any album has undergone a humungous amount of change over the last decade. Even the best selling artists are finding it difficult to sell more albums. This trend stares you in the eye at the specialty retail chains like MusicWorld, Planet M etc. As late as 2002, I remember crowds thronging these music retail shops. But in 2007, after a gap of about 11 months, I stepped into the Music world at Brigade road. There were exactly 2 customers other than me in the shop – precariously low for the weekend! A walk across the road took me to planet M and the scene was not very different. The shops are not making money and it is evident in the poor quality of the décor, lighting etc – not the signs of a happening retail destination for sure.

While EMI decides to sell without anti-piracy protection in a desperate measure to improve sales, I wonder if the artists and the fans are looking down the barrel as well! If the music marketing companies meet an uncalled-for demise, what would happen for all the good music that is not mass market? What would happen to the marginal artists who are encouraged (?) by the money these companies invest in them? May be, the ‘middle-man’ would die and some internet based music release forum replaces them. May be, it would be better than the present arrangement… may be it would be worse. Only time will tell! Meanwhile let me download that number from Delhi Heights that refuses to leave my consciousness these days!