No Bingo Night

Abhishek Bachchan’s much hyped aaram classes officially began on TV on Saturday, 23rd January. Too curious to miss what’s all the hype about, i settled down before the idiot box despite the 10-hour travelling ordeal from Delhi to Mumbai. Far from giving me any aaram that I was direly in need of, it left me all confused. Game shows and quiz programs are a passé and we are used to the deluge of dumb family conspiracies on TV. So we have kinda lost the gaming spirit. Two acting geniuses from Bollywood did not it anymore entertaining. i, at least, wasn't able to involve myself in it till the end.

Abhi certainly lacked the confidence and reassurance of a game host. He seemed to be rehearsing the instructions himself, spelling them out slowly and adding to the confusion. Nowhere during the promos did they mention about downloading the Bingo tickets to be ready to play on the D-day. If i were a serious home audience member aspiring to participate in the game, i would be left scratching my head, at least in the first episode. Before i realise, it turns into a family show with Big B in tow to ensure his son’s TV debut was a hit. There couldn’t be a better reason for his presence. Ms. Rashmi, whose important duty is to look pretty pick up and turn around the bingo ball could be easily done away with (women’s dignity, anyone??)

Despite sitting through the game show for one whole hour, i still am not sure if i know how the game works. To me, it seems like a glorified tambola game produced by a dunce who has crores to throw away for the Big ABs to play it with the nation. Bingo night certainly falls short of the hype and stands nowhere close to Amitabh’s KBC that took the nation by storm.

Rich Dad Poor Dad

Despite DINK and enough investment schemes and instruments around, there still doesn’t seem to be any guarantee for the future. “Investment” is a fashionable word and you belong to a different planet if you don’t know “portfolio of assets”. Despite all this most of us are at sea when it comes to ensuring financial independence in our retirement years.

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter is a path-breaking series that made a huge difference to the way i looked at the whole ‘handling our finances’ issue. Apart from being an absolutely jargon free, it makes an interesting and informative read. It’s not a step-by-step guide to becoming rich but involves a lot of mental conditioning and motivation to achieve financial freedom.

Though i was initially sceptical about the whole idea of becoming rich through investments, i realised it makes a lot of sense to at least be able to manage finances sensibly. If you go on to become rich, that can be a bonus. Seems like a good angle to begin with.

The main premise of the books is to achieve financial freedom by making sensible investments that go on to become passive income generating assets with minimal effort.

The series aims at financial literacy of the common man. Rich Dad Poor Dad begins with how inadequate formal education is in helping people manage their finances for the rest of their lives. Our education mainly qualifies us for a job that might pay us well. And most people have no idea what to go about managing the money they earn. Traditional schooling doesn’t equip us to handle the pressure that the information age puts on us. Gone are the days when people had 9-5 jobs and could rely on their pension plans. New age requires us to change the way we handle our money to make up for the absence of retirement benefits in jobs today. Though it mostly refers to the American context, it pretty much applies to all of us since all of us need money to survive.

The second book in the series - Cashflow Quadrant deals at length with the basics of understanding your cash flow and managing the right kind of balance. The third book is Guide to Investing which I am yet to read and have skipped to a later book Retire Young Retire Rich. The fact that the author draws on his own trajectory from being broke to being financially independent in nine years makes it a lot more credible. The series is well-connected and refers back and forth for the benefit of people who might not have read the previous books.

Looking forward to reading all the books in the series. I’d recommend this to everyone who wants to or even doesn’t want to become rich. It sure gives you a lot financial education. Take a peek...

Back to the college...

i was thrilled to go back to the Arts Faculty of Delhi University in North Campus. A lot of things change over the years but the memories come beating back nevertheless. Walking around the red bricked corridors, it felt as if a familiar face would pop out of the somewhere and smile at me. There didn’t seem to be any time lapse between then and now. Everyday, we would come to the campus, put our bags in our seats in class and come out to sit in the corridors waiting for our friends to turn up. All our breaks were spent sitting there finishing our food that we got from home like good children! A new library has come up for the department and the grass on the lawns had a different pattern. But students sitting on those green carpets basking in the winter sunshine was no different from my times.

How could i go to North Campus and not walk through Kamlanagar! (Knags, as it was later called by our ‘khool’ juniors). The same Bunglow Road has Archies, Barista, CCD and the recently sprung up Bercos with a few nondescript momos joints. McDonalds has shifted from where it was in my time to Bunglow Road. It is an important landmark in the story of my two years in the University. Our group had six friends and all of us found refuge away from Shakespeare and Wordsworth in McDonalds at least once a week. Multiplexes were not yet popular and our pocket money was a pittance compared to what college kids get today. So we generally loafed around ‘knags’ and landed in McDonalds for an economeal of Chicken mcgrill (veg version for the only vegetarian among us) and a coke for only Rs. 29!! We really didn’t mind having it all the time since that was the only decent place around and it fit our budget too. (Though, McDonald’s turned out to be a major turn off with their monotonous burgers over the years, their new additions not improving the favour one bit)

What really surprised me, pleasantly, was the number of eating joints with a variety of cuisines that had come up in the area. Bercos for Chinese cuisine (the strictly Indian version, if you please) has been there for sometime. But i never imagined that i would find students of DU digging into pasta and lasagne in our good ol’ university neighbourhood! The friend i met up with took me to one such place which served Chinese and Italian at extremely affordable prices for students. (of course, the version again being very local, but pasta is pasta, right) The place was a restaurant with clean tables and liveried waiters with good service and manners. Not surprisingly, it was full of students. i wouldn’t imagine going to a place like that as a student. But that’s how the world progresses and youngsters today are lot more exposed to and comfortable in sophisticated places.

It was great to go back in time. i was also happy to see the headway that college life has made over the years. The activities that students do change over time but the joy of being a student always remains the same. It’s only in hindsight that we realise how carefree those days were and we were better off sitting in those corridors!

Pyar tera...aur Dilli ki sardi!!

Coming back to Delhi winters in January after living in Mumbai for more than 2 years is quite reminiscent of the old times. A major reason that helped me settle down quite fast in Mumbai is the absence of really cold days. And i don’t mind that at all. You are free all the year round to jump out of bed and go about your daily chores without the vagaries of weather. i’ve always hated the laziness that settles in my bones during winters that makes getting out of the warm bed a loathsome activity. From brushing my teeth in the morning to washing my face before going to bed - all of it seems difficult. Of course, there’s warm water from the geyser, if you please but who would want to deal with water when you can be in heaven a few minutes longer! i just want to sit in bed, which greatly hampers my freedom to what i want, when i want.

As if having to sacrifice beauty bed wasn’t enough, taking a bath can be a quite an uphill task. First, get rid of several clothes that kept me warm so far. It isn’t easy to step into bath without any of them. Once over, it can be several minutes before i pile on a new set of several clothes that can be quite cold when worn at first. If the hair is wet, extra measures have to be taken to ensure it doesn’t affect my health. Well, there can absolutely no sense of fashion in a lump of woollies that are piled on to save ourselves from winter. Not to forget, the pile that was discarded before the bath has to be dealt with. Even if it means just folding them away for future use.

To top it all, the phone can ring or the doorbell just as you settle down and warm up in bed. If you want to go to the loo, God save you!! Pulling yourself away from the warmth abruptly can send shiver through your body. After getting back to my favourite place, it’s the feet that take the longest to get warm, especially with no socks on! January is the only month i resort to tea as my only source of heat to beat winters. Tea gets a special place in my heart for a month or so!

i’ve always wondered if humans should be allowed to go into hibernation during the really cold months. Why put ourselves through the pain when we, the most intelligent species, have found a way out of so many other pet peeves. We can put together enough winter goodies to keep us warm through the months. After all, munching on the winter favourites like popcorn, peanuts, gajak, rewri, etc is what makes winters worth the effort of surviving it. We can celebrate new year and Lohri without worrying about getting out into the cold. The hibernated world can be our little heaven where everything is perfect for a while...and warm too!

Till then, here’s to the winters in Delhi....

3 Idiots

3 Idiots is a typical Hirani film with all the masala and moral of the story in tow. Though the script loses its hold for a while in the second half, it is worth a watch. It’s after ages that i found almost house full and it’s also been quite sometime since a movie gave you genuine humour you could laugh at. The first half is full of scenes where you just can’t stop laughing! Also, amazing is how young Aamir looks in the movie even at his age.

Chetan Bhagat’s book is borrowed as a framework to suit the theme. The best part is the story moves back and forth keeping you hooked on to it with “What next?”. The second half has a chunk we could do without which would trim the movie down to a decent length. This also leaves a kind of bad taste in the mouth and i am not sure if the overall goodness of the movie balances it out with the unwanted bits.

Playing Rancho is a cakewalk for Aamir who has been into characters much intense and dialogue - driven. i kept waiting for a flash of typical Aamir lashing out at the system or something like that. His profound moments also come with a calmness consistent with his character of an idiot-genius. Madhavan and Sharman Joshi support the story well though Madhavan would look more like a student with a few kilos less on him. The trio share an amazing chemistry together. Kareena is her usual self with no great opportunities to showcase her real talent.

A special mention for Boman Irani who is an excellent actor beyond doubt. Here he does his lisp act to perfection proving yet again his sheer genius!

The message of the film is subtly thrown in but of course things are quite easy for the characters since the ending has to be happy. Might not be as easy in real life to throw away an engineering degree after 4 yrs and make it as a successful photographer. But the movie succeeds in exploring the what-you-want Vs what-others-expect-from- you very well. Another true Bollywood stroke - hence unrealistic - is Kareena eloping away without even knowing where Rancho is or if he is still single!! Well! It’s Bollywood after all!!

It is certainly a fun movie and a must watch.

Tch...Tch....

My latest assignment was to write admission essays for an Indian student looking for admission in a university abroad. I don’t know if it was ethically right for me to assume someone else’s thoughts and write an essay for him / her (don’t even know which one). I took it up as just another writing assignment from one of the companies I freelance for. So I really wouldn't be in a position to even suggest to the student to make an attempt to write the first draft himself. I went online to look for general guidelines to write such essays. Every site mentioned that the admission committee looks for simple but honest and personalised essays that brought out the applicants personality!! Heck!! I didn't even know who I was writing for!

But this certainly set me thinking. Are our youngsters, just out of school, incapable of writing a simple essay about themselves? Does the fear of rejection in the selection process make them seek out professionals to ghost write their essays? They’d rather not take any chances testing their writing skills which might affect their prospects of making it to their dream college. A lot of students in India are under-confident with their spoken English but their writing skills is even more ignored. Even after spending a good number of years in English medium schools, they might manage speaking but still shy away from writing formal English.

Through my years coaching CAT aspirants, only a meagre percentage came up with readable written matter. Most students expected their trainers to write the best answer that would help them clear the written part of the application form. We had to spend hours with them helping them churn out their real life goals and purpose of going for an MBA. As undergraduates, it seemed too late to tell them to drop everything else and develop their writing skills. Enthusiastic students could take it up for themselves and devote time to develop this crucial skill.

Their lack only served to point out that composition writing might just be a part of their English classes. No great effort was put into developing writing as an important skill-set that they would use in their life almost on a daily basis. As students, they must have dealt with routine topics that they learnt to write on using guide books etc. Whatever the case maybe, the moral is that their schooling had finished without imparting something so important to them.

I was also surprised that the parents of this particular student didn’t mind paying up for professional services! Rather than understand why such a need arose, they’ve covered up for their child’s shortcoming by helping him move up another step without the essential skills. Their money helped him buy a skill he didn’t have, teaching him that you just need money to move ahead in life.

I really wonder if such students are equipped to take on the competitive world on their own. Will they have others write their college assignments? (there are sites that cater to this need as well, just flash green-bags around!!) What about their exams, their resume, job applications and emails on the job? With the web world taking over, it’s vital to be able to express oneself with the written word. I wonder what the future holds for such students. Will they move on expressing themselves with money or learn to put words to use, after all!

A taste of tradition

No South Indian experience is complete without a meal on a plantain leaf. Despite having spent the first 16 yrs of my life in Southern part of India, I still feel alien to the whole thing. I am still very much a plate and cutlery person. But the experience is worth it. I’ve done it quite a few times as a good daughter-in-law, though it’s still not a very familiar thing to me. I guess the idea of using these leaves as plates came about because they were abundantly available around. Plantains are used in a lot of African and Central american countries, but only the South Indians have been ingenious enough to invent this use.


The service starts with the leaf itself that is given a sprinkling of water to clean it. The first thing that comes is a little sweet dish in one corner - begin your meal by sweetening your mouth. There is a particular place where each vegetable will be served. It’s the main course that’s interesting. Rice is put at the center of the leaf and then rivers of sambhar, curd or rasam flows all over the leaf. It’s only a true-blue south Indian grown up doing it can have the expertise to manage the tide of the curry!! Sometimes it even mixes up with the sweet dish and you keep guessing which one of the two you are having! I try to separate vegetables that touch each other to ensure they taste like they were originally meant to. And make best efforts with my fingers on a straight plantain leaf to keep the sambhar in control. One look around me and I can see others expertly sweeping the leaf with one motion of the hand which reaches the mouth for a quick lick faster then the liquid can drop back. And the lick is one neat stroke all the way down to where the curry has slipped! There doesn’t seem to be anything as amazing as this. I’ve always tasted some salt in my sweet dish since the same spoon - my fingers- has to be used to eat all your food, but no one around seems to mind the adulteration in the taste. The meal becomes satisfying, despite the travails, because we are doing it the way our ancestors did it. It's the traditional way of savouring your food - with your hands.