On the joys of reading

I love reading books and articles, essays and oh, for that matter everything under the sun. I have read things printed on the wrappers of FMCG products and what’s written on signboards of shops while travelling in buses, whenever I have had the luxury of a window seat.

My roommates ask me what you get by reading. Whenever I think about this question, there are the basic answers that come to my mind – increase knowledge and develop a worldview, improve vocabulary etc. But when I sit down and contemplate, the benefits of reading are far more nuanced and valuable than all these.

For starters, I believe that reading liberates one’s mind and takes it into uncharted territories. You may call it escapism, if you like. Reading is entertainment for the soul and education for the mind. It all depends on what one reads, after all. Whether one is reading pulp fiction or serious literature, there are good chances that a reasonably educated person will feel a kind of ecstasy and joy out of it.

In our limited lifetime, it is impossible to understand and assimilate all the ideas that humanity has thought and expressed in the form of books. And not just books, there’s also so much interesting on the internet to be read. Reading non-fiction is very important to understand in detail a perspective on anything of significance. Fiction, on the other hand, is like chicken soup for the soul. Education can never be considered to be complete if one hasn't read great fiction, and not necessarily the ones in English only.

Charles de Montesquieu, the great French politician and social commentator, had once remarked, “I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.”

When my father, an eternal student of history, told me this when I was fifteen, it didn't make much sense to me. At twenty-five, I realize how true Montesquieu was.
Sadly, most of my generation’s reading habits are confined to Harry Potter, Chetan Bhagat and a few Bollywood-type novels written by authors who think books are like soaps, a commodity that needs to be sold to make money. I am not saying it’s not important for a book to make money. That’s crucial. But more crucial aspects are its literary quality and aesthetics. Even among the professionally educated ones, I seldom come across people who genuinely love reading for the sheer pleasure of it. While travelling in Bangalore’s Volvo buses and long-distance trains, I find people reading books and naturally I am tempted to take a surreptitious peek at the covers of the books, without infringing on their privacy. I look forward to the day when I can see people reading Bertrand Russell, Fyodor Dostoevsky or other writers of similar intellectual quality and stature.

That day, in my humble opinion, is still not in the horizon.

The youth in Indian metros

India is a ‘young’ country. According to reports, close to 60% of the 1.2 billion people in India are under the age of 30. Before I get into the topic, let me clarify the cities I mean by metros – NCR/Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Pune. Kolkata and Hyderabad can also be considered metropolitan cities, for all practical purposes. The age group of youth under consideration is 18-27.

Let us look at the brighter side first:

Good things:

1.Ambitious and career-oriented : The youth in these cities have access to quality higher education and most of them have college degrees in professional courses like law, engineering, management, communications etc. Many smart graduates with engineering and/or management degrees are throwing caution to the wind and starting up on their own, which is a great thing for a nation like India that needs more and more wealth creators to employ its poor millions.

2.Broadminded: Born mostly after the first wave of India’s liberalization in 1991, the youth are exposed to a different worldview compared to their parents’ generation. With proliferation of mass media fuelled by increasing globalization of the Indian economy, the youth are exposed more and more to Western ideas and thoughts. There is a significant improvement in the level of scientific temper and rationality. Superstitions and religious bigotry doesn’t apply to this demographic segment and if trained and skilled adequately, the demographic dividend, which has become a much-clichéd word now, can be fully leveraged by a fast-growing economy like India. In summary, with virtually unlimited opportunities, the outlook of Indian youth has also improved significantly.

Not-so-good things:


1.Addiction to cigarettes and alcohol: This is the biggest cause of concern with the Indian youth and the trend is not confined to the metros alone. The consumption of cigarettes and alcohol have hit the roof despite heavy taxes and the denial of permission for the latter to advertise freely. The fairer sex, as if to display its new-found equality, has also taken to smoking and alcohol in a big way.


2.Complete lack of knowledge and interest when it comes to Indian values, history and culture: Middle-class upbringing and English medium education have enabled the youth to bag jobs and benefit from globalization immensely. But at the same time, there is near-total disengagement from the traditional Indian values, history and culture. This segment has literally accepted the superiority of Western lifestyle and values over that of India.

3.Consumerism at its peak –It’s now or never: With jobs aplenty in such cities for people with the right qualifications and good communication skills, the youth have started to earn starting salaries close to or more than their parents’ current monthly income. Globalization and the rising influence of mass media including the internet have made the youth want to consume more and more. The consumer credit culture that is in vogue in the developed Western countries has now become a part of the Indian social fabric. This often pushes the impulsive youth to enjoy before they earn by taking loans to finance these purchases.

4.Disenchantment with the political system and governance in general: Incessant bombarding of negativity about politics and governance in India – scams, sleaze and dynastic politics – has led to a mental disengagement of the youth from what’s happening in the realms of politics. The word ‘politics’ has assumed a seriously negative connotation, fueled by the feudal and corrupt behavior of most of Indian politicians who consider the country their personal fiefdom.

In essence, for India to be a global power to be reckoned with, the youth need to be proud of their roots and the rich culture of India. Every country that is considered a superpower today is proud of itself – Chinese, Japanese and the Americans. There is not just a need for a structural transformation in the Indian economy but also the Indian mindset. The youth need to drive this change from the front to create India’s true identity in front of the world and help achieve ‘the Indian dream’. The youth in metros can be the beacon to their counterparts in smaller towns, cities and villages in this long, arduous yet highly fulfilling journey.

Living with oil price hikes

It seems there is no respite for the Indian consumer (especially the middle-class) from back-breaking inflation with the latest hike in oil (petrol and diesel) prices coming into effect from 04 November, 2011. There is some noise in the media about a partial rollback, though something like that seems highly unlikely despite the fact that international crude oil prices have softened of late.

If we look at the situation dispassionately, the reasons for this recurring phenomoenon are not difficult to comprehend. India imports about 79% of its oil and the sharp depreciation in the value of rupee against the greenback has offset the gains from the softening of crude oil prices internationally. The rupee has dipped from Rs. 46.29 to a dollar at the time of the last hike (on September 16) to Rs. 49.40 making oil imports costlier.

To put things in perspective, a change in the value of the dollar by one rupee leads to a loss of 90-95 paise per litre of petrol.The Indian consumer has become used to (rather fed up with) frequent interest rate and oil price hikes. Both burn a hole in her pocket. The Opposition along with the Left have decided to take the government to task as the latter battles to save its face in the wake of rampant corruption and a slowing economy. The interesting thing to note here is the withdrawal of support by UPA allies like Trinamool Congress lately.

According to Jayati Ghosh, the prominent Left-leaning JNU-based economist, an increase in oil prices will not just have a direct effect on prices (estimated by the Finance Ministry to add just below 1 per cent to the existing rate of inflation). It will also have a cascading effect – as all goods have to be produced using some energy, usually oil or equivalent, and then transported, so all of their prices will increase subsequently. So the country will have to face a further onslaught of inflationary pressure which is this time entirely policy-induced.

However, chairpersons of state-owned oil marketing companies have enough justification to hike the oil prices citing rupee depreciation. The government had decontrolled petrol pricing in June last year and given oil companies freedom to fix rates at retail level.

All this leaves the common man with a heart full of discontent which might have electoral repercussions in the future. However, for the time being the only avenue at his disposal is increased usage of public transport.The only people cheering at this scenario will be the ecofriendly green campaigners!

World-class in India

A few things that I deem to be world class in India have been mentioned below. Before I proceed, it is important to define the term world-class. To me the term world-class means “having quality that is more or less on par with the best in the world”.


1.ISB: The Indian School of Business, a decade-old institute at Hyderabad is the youngest entrant in the top twenty business schools of the world according to Financial Times.

2.The Delhi Metro: It is definitely the best in India and comparable with the best in the world for its reliability, spaciousness, comfort and affordability. All this despite the accidents which happened during its construction killing a few people.

3.Tata Nano: The cheapest car in the world is fast gaining a strong foothold in the small car market which it created in India. After a slump, it is raking in the sales numbers and is all set to be exported.

4.Dabbawallahs: The Harvard Business School has come up with a case study on the Dabbawallahs of Mumbai. With no technology at their disposal these men put six sigma experts to shame with their impeccable and timely delivery of lunch boxes to thousands of Mumbaikars from their homes.

5.Narayana Hrudayalaya and Shankara Netralaya: These heart and eye hospitals provide world-class healthcare at affordable rates thanks to an innovative business model that makes social service sustainable and profitable.

6.Sachin Tendulkar: The only sportsperson from India to have dominated a global sport ie; the world of cricket as a batsman for almost one and a half decades (out of a twenty two year old ongoing career). He is arguably the greatest batsman to have graced the game of cricket.

7.Indian IT talent: Indian IT workers are considered world-class for their analytical and programming skills, besides their knowledge of English and the willingness to work overtime. From Silicon Valley to Bengaluru, the Indian techies have carved a niche for themselves and are highly sought after, be it for IT services or products.

8.Taj Mahal: It’s majestic monument which is one of the seven wonders of the world. Perhaps, the only monument that has put India on the global tourist’s map.

World-class Universities and Institutes in India

Of late, I got to read a few articles about the Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh’s remarks on IIT/IIM faculty. He had said that the IITs/IIMs were world-class institutions because of their students and not the faculty. His statement was not original and is an open secret.

Research output in India (including the IITs/IIMs) is negligible both in terms of quantity and quality. The primary reason behind this is that there is no ecosystem for research to happen in India. There is neither strong industry-academia partnership nor adequate funding. MIT’s annual budget is about seven times the government funding available to all the IITs put together. (Source: Angela Saini's book The Geek Nation).The whole government funding system should be replaced by an endowment system which is in vogue in the US and other European universities and institutes. The ecosystem is not just about money but a change of mindset as well. In the US, higher education institutions follow the principle of “publish or perish” in letter and spirit. The same culture needs to be imbibed by Indian higher education institutions if they really want to become world-class. Besides, the government needs to give them autonomy and reservations must not exist at all (neither for the students nor for the faculty). The students at IITs/IIMs and other higher education institutions in India should be selected purely on the basis of merit and should be encouraged to do research for which adequate grants and support should be provided by their alma mater. India Inc. should also come forward and donate money generously to set up chair professorships, new departments and high-tech labs as a part of their CSR activities. The bottomline is if you can keep the government and reservations away ( or at least, as far as possible) and change the funding model altogether, there is no reason why we cant have a few Indian universities up there in the global top 100 rankings.

Greatest American business leaders and entrepreneurs

Nitin Nohria, the current dean of Harvard Business School (HBS)in his JRD Tata Memorial Lecture, which he delivered in 2010, mentions about the following American leaders who form a part of the "Greatest business leaders" course being taught at HBS.Most of us are aware of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Jack Welch. To know more about the men who built the world's largest economy, read on. For the entire speech, click here



Andrew Carnegie, who at the turn of the 20th century built the steel mills that provided the raw material for the railroads and transportation infrastructure that connected America and made it the world’s largest integrated domestic economy.

CW Post, who during the 1910s and 1920s introduced Post Cereal and launched the consumer packaged goods industry in America

Walt Disney, who during the 1930s built one of the great media and entertainment companies, even though he started during the depths of the Great Depression

Henry Kaiser, who helped build the Hoover Dam and many other extraordinary infrastructure projects including a shipyard that, during the height of World War II, was completing three Liberty Ships every day.


William Levitt, who created Levittown, the first mass-produced postwar American suburb, in the 1950s and built houses that redefined the American real estate landscape;

Sam Walton, who started building one of the biggest discount retailing companies in the 1970s;

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who ushered in the personal computer revolution in the 1980s;

Jack Welch, who transformed GE during the 1990s so that it remained an iconic company, and the only company that was on the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the entire 20th century.