Jalesvava Jayamahe

Jalesvava Jayamahe

This is the motto of the Navy of Indonesia in Sanskrit. It is the language of the Devas!! Well, I think here the connotation is – language of our forefathers – at least 2 millenium ago.

It is common practice, to ascribe divinity to a language that has fallen in disuse, and is no longer the lingua franca, is spoken just by a handful of elite, and is not understood by common man. Once upon a time, such a language has been a language of the common man, and the import of creation or literature of such language were not considered so esoteric to require a scholars interpretation, but with passing eons, as the language falls into disuse, such interpretation becomes critical.

Increasing disuse and eventual dismissal as the language of everyday use, on one hand curbs the enrichment of the language, but at the same time, imparts an element of divinity to the language, a gain that no amount of literary effort and enrichment would have been able to impart.

The resistance that the Christian world faced from its ecclesiastical cadres against the translation of the Bible into English from Greek and later Latin is common knowledge. Similarly, the Koran cannot be in a language other than Arabic.

Such languages also become, what one may say, the exclusive preserve of a handful few, some of who pursue it with a curatorial quest and others who see it a vehicle to become a part of the infrastructure of divinity and godliness. It goes without saying, the latter do not bring any real value to the language but certainly do benefit from the knowledge they have of it.

Today Sanskrit, extolled internationally as one of the most scientific languages, is on the brink of extinction, as it has no students. An art or know-how which has only teachers and few students is bound to fade away.

Interestingly, there are about 2500 scholars of Sanskrit in MIT. Globally, there are some 4 millions speakers of this language, most of them outside the nation of its origin. In India till date, because of the colonial past and, because of the deprivation, the life of a common man is a struggle, the environment has not been conducive to pursue something that brings value other than that which can be monetized immediately or sometime in the future. English is obsessively pursued not because it is so rich, but because it can be a tool for earning wealth, station and or sometimes simply livelihood.

But, just for the simple preservation and advancement of the science behind this language - sanskrit - which the original speakers conceived, the study of this language should be encouraged. Interestingly, this is the only language in the world, which has tools like sandhi and samas.

SAY BHARAT, NAY INDIA

It was holi last year and I had gone home to my parents. As I walked on the roads on which I used to cycle to tuitions, swinging my father’s penang lawyer I had a queer desire to relive those years. There are, in the English language enough words to describe such wistfulness. Such feelings often called nostalgia are not uncommon to experience when you reach a certain stage in life. I was perhaps just following an established stereotype.

The city was dirtier than when I used to live there. The roads had been encroached by sundry vendors, with their shops creeping ever closer to the margin of the road. Suddenly, a bus, very familiar passed by. When it motored ahead of me slowly negotiating the potholed road, which was now much narrower today than in my times, I read on the rear of the bus “ Bhartiya Praudyogiki Sansthan” my alma-meter.

Bharatiya and Bharat. That is the question. Modern strategic minds, corporate captains and many Gen X politicians tend to distinguish between an advancing India and lagging Bharat. A progressive India is contrasted with a backward Bharat.

Bhimbeteka, 40 minutes off Bhopal, traces antiquity to 40,000 year ago. The Pandavas, seem to have sought temporary refuge here as well, during their agyatvasa. The caves paintings speak of a vibrant society. The Harrappan sites too evidence an urban civilization with sewerage and town planning in an age, when the much of the contemporary world at best comprised cattle grazing nomads.

Having come a full circle, India, even today is 70 pct rural. One of the implicit pledges India made, at the moment of her “tryst with destiny” 60 years ago, was of health, nutrition and education for all. Today, India is not only far away from redeeming her pledge, but has failed miserably, even in providing drinking water.

Yet, Bhaskaracharya, the inventor of Zero, the decimal system with the place value, was of Bharat. Nagarjuna, Varahamira and of all, the illustrious Bramhagupta who expounded the then preposterous postulate of a rotating earth and the trees not falling off it, due to a gravitational force pulling everything on it towards its centre, not contemporarily with the West, but 800 years before the West, were indeed in Bharat too.

Whereas the crown jewel of India, Infosys, is still primarily a code writing company, in Bharat, there was mathematics, astronomy, innovative medicine, and even medical surgery. In India of today, we have nothing of even shade. No reader should construe this to be a suggestion to bask in past glory, but just to highlight, that our forefathers were civilized.

Many facets of Kautiliya Arthashastra appear in Kempo of Sholotu or the Magna Carta, 8 centuries later than the Kempo and 14 centuries later than the Arthashastra.

Sahayya sadhyam rajatwan chakram ekam na vartate – quote from Kautiliya Arthshastra, clearly indicates the vibrance of the Republican thought and structure of government 250 BC - in ancient India – Bharat.

In Bharat, you had universities – Nalanda and Takshila - which were internationally acclaimed. That, China was inviting Buddhist monks to teach physics, astronomy and mathematics in China, in the era of the Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty, is no secret. To my mind, the first Indian expat was Gautam Siddhartha who was the head of Astronomy at the Chinese court in the 800 – 900 ADs. Xuanzang ( Hiuen Tsang ) took horse loads of Sanskrits manuscripts from India.

“Bharat Bhagya Vidhata” – the East India Company – later to be replaced by the crown (and I indulge in the act of defiance and perhaps impropriety by deliberately writing it in common case than capital) itself – had a crucial vested interest in depicting an ancient civilization as barbaric and a burden of the white men, an argumentation, that even Theodore Roosevelt would accept, and at later stage use to justify and even extol the virtue of Imperialism. Being legatees to this diligently propagated myth of Indian backwardness, done with the clear purpose of subjugating a nation, we continue to live in the same shadow, constantly trying to justify to ourselves, our coming of age, by seeking solace in simple achievements like the metro or launch Chandrayana.

Taking a leaf from from the Raj, myopic movers and shakers of the day often egg you to believe, the economically and socially backward “Bharat” needs to advance on the trickle of development that it receives from advancing and modernizing “India”. Well that is the myth that I am intending to challenge.

It is India, which is at crossroads, accomplishing the daunting task - trying to re - attain and realize the station that it relinquished 900 years ago – of becoming Bharat.

There is no gainsaying the fact, that the achievements of India in the last 60 years are in no way mean and cannot be trivialized, much less demeaned, food sufficiency and eradication of large scale famine ranking perhaps the highest, nevertheless, the rationale or the lack of it in wishing Bharat to be India is really the question.

Bharat contributed 24 pct to the world GDP even ahead of China and India contributes only 2 pct, so it would betray common sense if we were to demean Bharat and wish it to be India and not the other way round.

BUSINESS AND LEGISLATION

The story of the economic success of India is now real, in part due to large work force which is trying to procure basic necessities for itself and secure future for its offspring. The success though facilitated in some measure by good POLICY making post 1992, is largely due to lack of it and is more from the pockets of excellence created by Indian corporate houses and the value in niches created in by the small private entrepreneur.

Today, as much as a small entrepreneur representing the supply side, would fly overseas to seek our business / opportunities / orders, the buyer representing the demand side too is wandering on the markets of India seeking goods and services. The latter trend is more recent and growing, due to recognition and realization that there is entrepreneurship, business acumen, a skill - set and faster turn - around in India.

India ranks 75 as per a study ranking countries on the ease of starting a new enterprise index. But not allowing a business to start is big business in India. For a business man time is money. He is not inclined to approach the market with an idea which has lost its novel appeal. There is a huge infrastructure that protracts his time of mind to market. They call it speed money. He gives this. It does not involve bribing a particular person. It entails monetary incentive to anyone in the chain related to facilitating the enterprise. But the enterprise flourishes despite this hindrance. It flourishes with this hindrance.

But clearly, it is good world class policy making that is happening in India. VAT, GST, IT policy and now the PMLA. Over time the culture will trickle down to the level of the block and taluka.

RTI, act passed in 2005 and effective 2005 in India is a very powerful tool, and the government is taking this very seriously. India has been very proactive in enacting this. In the UK, this act was passed in 1980, and in 1966 in the USA. As you can see, India is not far behind. Clearly, unlike infrastructure, where India is trailing the modern world by a century, in rights and legislation and democratic values, the country is pretty much in sync with the best.

NETI - NETI

I think, the word means the end of Veda, but undoubtedly it marks the beginning of the Veda, and more than Veda, perhaps it is Shankaras interpretation of Yagyavalkya, which Shankara calls Advaita.

Yagyavalkya, in his discourse with Videharaj - the illustrious Janak, explained to him the intricacies of the Indian cosmic tradition - recognition of the Supreme power - which is the eternal essence of the cosmos, even of parts which constitute it. The underlying truth that constructs all that is real, true or for that matter even platonic.

Obviously, it is not surprising at all, that such a power, the condensate of the a million universes, defies definition, conceptualization, intellectualization and seems to be beyond the ken of most of mortals who cannot think of god beyond the anthropomorphic Hindu form or a Progenitor of other religions, including the Jains and Buddhists and Sikhs. It is just natural, should there be a progenitor, the commandments must follow, and hence all these religions have commandments, something that philosophers, commentators and students of faiths often keep seeking in Sanatan Dharma, but never can settle down to a universally accepted set. But of course, since Hinduism never did have a progenitor in the real sense of the word, the commandments were also not there.

In such a situation, what can be a better way of describing this Supreme Power or Supreme Being, if that is really the limit of imagination – believing that he is a being, than describing him as “neti – neti”.

Yagyavalkya, who having gained the better of most Brahmins through debates and discourses, and having gained the reputation of a Brahmagyani, described the nondescript and ineffable Supreme Power by “neti – neti”. Of course, at stake were a 1000 cows that Janak was to bestow on him in the event that he is invincible in the debate.

Well, it is precisely for its philosophical import, scholars who have so brilliantly dissected all other religions, find Hinduism ( if it is an –ism at all ) so enigmatic, a concept or philosophy so protean, that it defies precise definition. No book, no church, no institutionalization of congregation.

Would I be naïve, if I would say, Yagyavalkya, was indeed a sceptic? A school of skepticism, that believed in God but not in form of God.

Well, what is clear is, I have set myself thinking. That is important. Generations of scholars of jostled with these ideas and have attempted to decipher the manifestations of truth, and that, I with no shade of scholarliness should be able to do with ease is a proposition equally improbable. Supreme cosmic power, the Creator, the Brahma as "neti, neti" .

Road Rules

1.Rules are for fools

2.Footpath or pavement is for squatting, begging, vending or even parking but not walking

3.Red light is red only when a cop is standing, else it is usually safer than green to cross

4.Zebra crossings are not for humans, jaywalking is always safer.

5.Honking is line with musical tradition of India

6.The road dividing line should be taken in the middle of the car

7. Indicator grants the right to change lanes

8. Bigger vehicles have first right to traffic

9.Flat tyres should be changed in the centre or wherever noticed, and not on shoulders

10.Yellow light means accelerate to cross

CAMINHOS DAS INDIAS

It was unusual to be greeted in Brazil, when I went for a business meeting, with the President of a local Brazilian company, with a NAMASTE. Well it began with business as usual. Then during the course of a discsussion between this lady and her secretary, I felt I heard “thik hai; thik hai”. I thought my ears were resonating, I was perhaps home sick after a long and harrowing trip.

A little later, while talking to me this lady used the words “achha – achha”. I could not be making a mistake a second time. Clearly, something was amiss.

Curious beyond measure, I asked, if the Portuguese spoken in Brazil was different from the standard Portuguese, as I heard her dialog being punctuated with Hindi interjections, and with syntactically perfect usage and placement.

The lady was more surprised than me, as I did not know, having being in Brazil for 3 nights already, that a prime time soap was Caminhas Das Indias, a love story, set in post Independence India, shot in Jaipur, Delhi, Udaipur and Chandni Chowk, with Brazilian actors, in Portuguese, but with Hindi being used where necessary, just to create the desired impact.

More interestingly, the lady, pulled out with a flourish, which even girls in modern India will find difficult to mimic, a mangal sutra that she wore on her bossom.

It is a love story between a Dalit boy and Brahmin girl, a theme, too beaten and hackneyed and soapworn for India, yet appealing to a foreigner, who even today find the India caste system too intriguing and defying comprehension, to ignore. From such a amazingly vast canvas of themes imbued with the archetypically soap type melodrama and sentimentality, they chose one that impinged on the caste system.

But these are soft conquests which Indian culture is known to make, right from the days of the Cholas when India acquired a cognizable marine might. Infact, culture would be the avant guard of the army.

Masai Mara

Trip to Masai Mara, home to still about 2,000 Lions was pretty much a vacation by accident or say serendipity. When I would see my younger son hooked on to Discovery, watching the big cats prowl through the shoulder high grass on grasslands which appeared to meet the sky on the other side but appear never to end, I would always wonder, if they did exist in real world, or were just a fantasy of a nature possessed camera man.

Kichwa Tembo, the tented resort - they have a property in MP/India as well in collaboration with Taj, Mahua Kothi - was the place we lodged in, based upon the recommendation of a friend. Well equipped tents. Very clean surroundings. Set in a jungle and has immaculate hospitality.

This 1500 kms of unrestrained wilderness is home to primates, mammal, birds and reptiles. Well, clearly, there is nothing to match the primates of the Indian subcontinent, who do all that humans do, saving working on laptops - could be just a matter of time.

Animals, terrestrial and others, don't seem to recongnise political boundaries, they, following an age old instinct, ambulate into Kenya from Tanzania, just after the rains. The Mara river too heaves up during this time and crossing the river is an integral and instinctive part of the migration. Mara - meaning mottled - as the grasslands are patchy, and the shadow that a lonesome cloud castes on the grass shuffles like an elephant trampling grass in an intoxicated slumber.

This is true, to Indians, the African elephant is not particularly exciting. It is not a companion. Its looks are not gentle. You cannot expect it to help you climb on to its back with a tug of its trunk. But these tuskers merge very well with the primates and predators alike, walk some 25 kms each day, in search of food and water. The herd sticks together in a pattern resembling a military formation. The oldest and tallest is usually the leader of the herd, being first to take a peril head on, and the baby calves are protected by this formation.

Clearly, the high point of this tryst with the wild was Cheetah chase. An unwary water buck, strayed away from the herd, enjoying a drink from a rain puddle, was the vulnerable one. Cheetah ( apparently from the Sanskrit word Chita ) is a crespuscular creature, and prefers to chase than to stalk its prey. But a high alertness of the buck and an iota of miscalculation of the buck landed the springing cheetah in the puddle which broke her speed and saved the buck just by one inch - we saw the replay in a friends camera.

Well after a long safari, a delectable meal tastes even better, if you, as you return to base, encounter a pride leisurely basking the sun right in the middle of the road, mindless of all at least till the next chase or hunt for food.

LUPIN PHARMA

It may have made a modest start with Suprax, but today the brand business of Lupin is growing close to 70 - 80 pct. After having bought Antara from Oscient, made by Ethypharm on its platform technology, it is now fully poised to enter the branded markets with Oral Contraceptives and Liquid formulations.

Suprax marked the beginning of a new era at Lupin. After Suprax there was no looking back. The best part of Lupin is the professional management. The promoter family is involved, but both Nilesh and Vinita ( more involved with the US market) are very professional.

With 105 ANDAs filed and 35 approved, the company is poised to grow fast on the US market.
The company is not fighting shy of investments either. Oral contraceptives, which the company is now getting into, and has filed about 7 ANDAs for, as per the new guidelines will usually all call for a CT. The cost of the CT could well be USD 10 - 15 Mn depending upon the product and subjects. So the company is getting into high value and difficult to make products.

I hope Lupin, which indeed was one of the benefactors of the debacle that happened at Ranbaxy, will restore the glory that Indian Pharma lost.

You Never Know

The Russians will never leave Afghanistan. Gorbachov is a bluff master. This was indeed not only the line of thinking of Robert Gates who now leads the Pentagon and travels in the Doomsday ( the air machine that he uses ), but also of an average American who believed that the threat from Communism to the American civilisation was bigger and graver than all else.

When Marx wrote Das Capital of which the first 30,000 copies were sold, as publishers positioned the book as a treatise on capitalism, being precious sure, it would not sell otherwise and people bought the first copies looking for methods to make capital, little did he know, he is propounding a philosophy that would that would keep the mightiest economic and military power unsettled for almost a century.

By the time the myth of rising tide of communism died, Gates a go getter, old school soldier had morphed into an anti terror and middle east expert and had upped the ante against islamic terrorism. Many of the promises made by Obama were softened as Gates opposed them. Such is his power of persuasion of this ex Eagle Scout.

Clearly, our chiefs of staff can learn a few things from this rabid patriot and arch exponent of American Exceptionalism and not treat the Chieftancy of the force they head an a pre-cursor to a gubernatorial assignment or license to relax, party, inaugurate and hope to get immortalised by the plethora of commemrative plaques that cite them.

Bringing back the reality of the borders to the corridors of power in the North and South Blocs, shaking the bureaucracy out of slumber and conceit and ensuring decisions that preserve the territorial integrity of the country is a key and critical funtion of the top brass of the army, which apparently they have for long abdicated. They must like Gates, commit themselves for keeping their promise to the country.

The Poster Boy

As a young student and also the President of the student body, I had a desire to organise the annual fest of my MBA College to a perfection that is reveled in and recalled with a feeling of fondness as well as nostalgia.

Well the economy was being doctored a new prescription. The prescription was revolutionary and supposed to bring immediate symptomatic relief to a tired and aching economy that seemed to be suffering with the so called Hindu growth rate. The man in command was Manmohan Singh, an illustrious academician, acclaimed economist and politician who defied the stereotype, and brought in a version of Keynesian Macro economics which even the communist bowed to.

Of course, he was the one who I wanted to invite for my annual fest. Of course, I knew for a student, approaching him, cutting through the layers of bureaucracy was well nigh impossible, of course I knew, a man who was still writhing from the pain of pawning the countries gold to keep the governments head above water, would be much too busy to make an inaugural address at a students function. But clearly something within me drove me into stalking him at a function which he was presiding on, with an enthusiasm that refused to subside.

Well, the FM agreed to Preside on my function and I went to pick him up from his the official residence of the FM, he was already waiting outside for me, to be picked up.

That was the day when the humility of a man so illustrious set me thinking. It did have an impact on me, as I to this day can recall the event so vividly, as though it was yesterday.

In the car, I asked the FM what inspired him to open up the economy. "Well", he said, "for you MBAs, TINA ( there is no alternative )". I could also sense his deep sense of humiliation of pawning the countries gold - 47 tons was shipped to the Bank of England for a mere USD 5oo mn to prevent India for a loan default.

He spoke for 90 minutes with an enthralling erudition. He spoke from the heart. He spoke with facts and figures. He spoke with the zeal of a reformer. He spoke to render all else speachless.

Today, this man who once propounded Keynes, is the guru of economic recovery and counter cyclicality, and guru of modern fiscal management, a man who showed an adeptness and uncanny knack of handling political contradictions with a simplicity and unambiguity of purpose that puts career politicians to shame.

India Meri Jan

India Meri Jaan

It was not even two decades ago, that the corporates in India were struggling to snatch talent from the Government and the public sector institutions. They were professions of choice, nay of status and station as well, and of course gave the necessary sense of security that the people of that generation so much needed.

For 400 million middle class India it was still an arduous struggle to get a gas connection or a telephone connection. The telephone which seldom worked or showed signs of life, was always cloth covered and found a place of reverence equivalent to the idols in the house. The always elusive lines man was always in great demand, the quintessential messiah, who would help us connect to friends and family by bringing the black contraption back to life. When the strowger exchanges gave way to electronic ones, I know, my mother went out of the way to get one for ourselves, though our house was not really in the area where the switch was first happening. My brother studying at a prestigious college in Bhopal was enjoying his freedom a little too much, being away from home news of his well being was too critical not to obtain, and the electronic telephone connection was sought just to accomplish that. But to gain the complete benefit of the electronic technology, it was essential that the call receiving connection was also electronic.

Since independance, the telecom industry has undergone a lot of change, including one nationalisation and one corporatisation. The DOT being changed to BSNL ushered an era of change.
Today, there are 400 mn mobile phone users, a long journey from the first connection in Calcutta in 1851. In some months India has added some upto 10 mn users, and annually numbers which equal the population of Russia.

In the Automobile sector, year 2009 was an year of moderate degrowth though the production figures of 2010 show about a 25 pct growth. Of course to an extent this is due to the low base effect. Within the automobile sector, the Multi Purpose Vehicle did show the highest pace of growth.

IT, the industry that is the hallmark industry of the country is poised to be a net recruiter this year. The domestic industry is poised to grow 10 pct from USD 14 bn last year and the exports have touched a new high of USD 50 bn, although this milestone was achieved just 2 years later than the forecast of 2008 of Mc Kinsey. To the domestic market you could easily add USD 10 bn which is the estimated size of the e Governance market including the Unique Identification Number scheme.

The recession notwithstanding, the pharmaceutical industry has shown a growth of about 17pct in year2009. Today, India is home to the largest number of US FDA approved plants outside of India. Though, medical tourism in India was poised for a growth much more than it actually showed. Yet, the healthcare industry in forecast to be USD 70 - 80 bn in the next 5 years.
The Medicity, built on lines of the John Hopkins may give a fillip to Medical Tourism once again. Mauritius is clearly one country where the medical tourism has made noteworthy advance.