This boy was born and bought up in a slum in India. His family was poor and he had to struggle all through his early life. Even though there was lot of challenges, he believed in hard work and in doing the right things. Even while working hard to make a living, he never forgets his true love. He enters a quiz show and got all the answers correct. At the end of the show, he becomes a millionaire. But he is not satisfied. He longs for his true love. Then one day, he gets a chance to meet his true love.

Sounds familiar?

This is the story of Sarath Babu, the independent candidate for the South Chennai Lok Sabha seat. Sarath was born in a slum in Madipakkam in Chennai. He was born into a poor family with 6 members and his mother was the only breadwinner of the family. She raised them by doing multiple jobs that included selling idlis. Metaphorically speaking, Sarath enters the quiz show called life and gets all the answers correct. He worked hard and secured admissions to one of the top engineering colleges of India – BITS Pilani.

After completing his bachelor studies, he worked harder and got admitted to IIM-Ahmadabad. While at IIM-A, he gets high profile job offers but rejects all of them to pursue his passion of starting his own business and of helping young people by providing them employment. After some initial failures, his venture – Food King is a big success and has a turnover of about Rs.7 Crore and Sarath is a millionaire now.

But, is he satisfied yet?

No. His true love is to serve the people and bring about a positive change to people around him. So when the Lok Sabha polls were announced, he did not have to think twice before announcing his candidature for the Chennai South Lok Sabha constituency. This is his way of trying to bring change to the country.

What makes Sarath’s story outstanding is the courage he displayed at every turn in his life and how high he aims. There are other high profile independents contesting in different parts of the country but none of them have achieved so much in such a young age against so many odds. Remember he is only 29 years old.

Sarath is reaching out to the voters of South Chennai and he has a fairly large number of BITS and IIMA alumni volunteering for him and working round the clock. Now, it is an open question whether he will win or not. Most of the pundits have already written him off. But then, not many would have thought that he would succeed when he started his own food catering business. Irrespective of the result, one thing is certain. This guy never gives up and we will continue to hear about him more frequently in the future.

PS: Sarath Babu’s campaign website is http://sarathbabu.co.in/in/about/

Popularity: 48%

Every morning I devour practically the entire Hindu and The Times of India and attempt at deciphering meaning out of the cacophony of our national politics. At night I worship the idiot box and sink in the theatrics of the likes of Professor Laloo, star struck Amar Singh, imperious Behn ji, of course our own Amma and countless others. At the end, I realize I am not any wiser having listened to their discussions. Like people crouching happily around a circle watching the gory fight among a few cocks and hens I allow myself to get titillated by the ongoing bawdy carnival. I resolve to wean myself away from these temptations in future. Invariably, the steaming tea the next day morning reminds me of the steamy headlines in the papers and I start all over again.

Having said this, I understand the grave implications of the elections. All the cocks and hens fighting it out in the middle have the power to make or break our lives.

Kandamangalm’s article on Ms.Meera Sanyal entering the fray as an independent MP candidate from Mumbai South was timely. I admire the idealism conveyed through her web site and I bet she wants to make a difference. But, I feel sad for Meera Sanyal. There is hardly any chance of the miracle win she is hoping for. She is surely a realist, why is she doing this to herself? Perhaps in politics the loser also wins in some ways. The number of votes a candidate gets is like the number of customers a business can boast of. And politics is all about leveraging with numbers.

I agree with Madhavan that Meera should have got into a political party and increased her chances of winning. At any rate, why is she contesting against Milind Deora who has already made a name for working with vision and dynamism? Tell me, what is the use of felling a good, sturdy tree? Are you against him just because he is his father’s son? May the forces be with you, Meera. And, don’t lose heart!

Kandamangalm’s suggestion to vote for the individual rather than the party is okay with me, but there is a part of me that rebels. If a good man stands from Raj Thackeray’s party in my constituency, I will not vote for that candidate. Nor will I consider a very good candidate from any of the archaic communist parties. A man is defined by his ideologies and thoughts.

That brings me to the topic of a very good man who is not necessarily in terrific company. I am speaking of Mr.Pandia Rajan who is the D.M.D.K (Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam) candidate from Virudhunagar constituency near Madurai. This party was started in 2006 by popular Tamil film actor Vijaykanth also known as black M.G.R or ‘Captain Vijaykanth’. Ever since he started his acting career in 1979, Vijaykanth has carefully nurtured his image in the mould of M.G.R, as a do-gooder and a champion of the oppressed. He has been very vocal about the plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. In spite of overtures from several parties, D.M.D.K has decided to approach the people alone, without any alliance.

Mr.K.Pandia Rajan dived into the rough waters of Indian politics more than two years back. He first joined the BJP and after being with them for more than a year he became disillusioned with them and joined the party of Vijaykanth. Why is he in the company of a temperamental film star? Perhaps he loathes being a small fish in a big river. Being the risk taker that he is, Mr.Pandia Rajan smells some heady stuff brewing in Vijaykanth’s party. He is now a big fish in D.M.D.K and is now aiming for the stars. He is surely a person to watch out for in Indian politics.

Pandia Rajan’s story is the stuff of heroism and grit. Born in Vilampatti village in Sivakasi district, he was brought up by his grand father as his father who was a worker at a match factory died when Pandia Rajan was just three months old. After studying in the village school, he went to Coimbatore to study engineering at the PSG College of Technology. He joined XLRI, Jamshedpur for his MBA.

K. Pandia Rajan founded Ma Foi Management Consultants Limited in 1992 with an aim to make it a one-stop shop for all HR needs. With a capital of just Rs. 60,000, Pandia Rajan has transformed Ma Foi which now finds jobs for around 5,500 people every month. Today, its turn over is Rs.550 crore. Very soon, they are likely to provide more employment than all the Government employment exchanges in India put together. Ma Foi is now part of Vedior NV, a 6.85 billion Euro staffing company and the third largest in the world.

Pandia Rajan’s belief in giving back to society for what life has given him inspired him to create Ma Foi Foundation which works towards education for children, women empowerment, and capacity building for NGOs. Ma Foi Foundation, spear-headed by Mr.Pandia Rajan and his wife have made very good impact in several villages.

I have no doubt that Mr.Pandia Rajan has his game plan firmly in place. If he and we are lucky, we have another clean, effective and visionary politician in the making. Whether he makes it big in politics or not, he is another reason for all of us to be proud as Indians. He is a living example teaching us about the importance of being earnest in life and also in politics.

Popularity: 35%

On February 17, Dr.Subramaniam Swamy, President of the Janata Party, got a taste of the ire of a few pro-LTTE lawyers for speaking his mind. They entered the court room while he was arguing a case, and assaulted him in the presence of judges. The unruly behaviour continued for nearly 15 minutes despite warnings from the judges. They also roughed up a policeman, who was in the visitors’ gallery. Some of them threw rotten eggs at Dr.Swamy, abused him and shouted anti-Brahmin slogans.

Two days later, the battle was truly joined. The advocates protested against the arrest of their colleagues in the Dr.Swamy assault case. They taunted the police and set ablaze a police station in the court premises. Then the pitched battle started. Of course there is no second guessing who won this round. Among those injured in the violence was a High Court judge, more than 50 lawyers and several policemen.

A day later, lawyers all over Tamil Nadu protested and condemned police excesses. In a few places they set ablaze vehicles. Advocates staged protests in almost all district headquarters.

During this year so far, Chennai courts functioned only for 9 days. The lawyers have been boycotting the courts demanding that the Sri Lankan government announce a ceasefire and stop all operations against the LTTE. They know only too well, the Sri Lankan government has no obligation to the striking lawyers. Their campaign does not have anything to do with legal matters and has the look of a politically motivated activity.

They are doing this at a time when there are 406,958 pending cases in Madras High Court. Imagine the plight of the hapless litigants. Imagine the plight of justice in our land. I have to agree with Clarence Darrow, “The trouble with law is lawyers.”

26/11 was a defining moment in the history of our country. This type of terror can be countered.

There is terrorism of another kind, called internal terrorism. It happens when a group of powerful persons join together to steam roller the rule of the law and conscience of the nation. This category of terrorism is even more pernicious than external terrorism because the innards of our society get poisoned and corroded like the annihilation caused by cancerous cells.

Unlike the strong and spontaneous reaction subsequent to the 26/11 attack, the reaction to this internal terrorism is very much muted. The ruling party is afraid of out-staring the lawyers. They want to patch up. They even removed one top police official under whose jurisdiction the violence happened. The opposition parties are fishing in troubled waters and enjoying the discomfiture of the government in power. The general populace is mute spectators to the goings on.

On February 26, the Supreme Court ordered that action be taken on four more top police officials. The Chief Justice asked the lawyers to get back to work. Even that does not seem to have any effect on the striking lawyers. They are adamant they will not return to the courts till more number of police heads roll.

It is fashionable in our country to blame the police for every problem under the sun. They are mostly at the receiving end from the media, from the politicians and the general public. They get shunted from one place to another and from one position to another to satisfy the whims of the powerful people.

To me, the police force in our country is more sinned against than sinning. Whether it is day or night, they stay out in freezing cold, under the spewing fire of the summer sun or in the pouring rain, breathing in the bellowing smoke and fumes from vehicles to ensure that we the citizens can move around in the land freely. They have to stand in between warring groups to ensure that there is no blood bath. They do all this with outdated weapons. At the end, they have to accept abuses with folded hands from every Tom, Dick and Harry. If I were in a policeman’s uniform, I would have echoed Shylock and asked:

“If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?”

It is very tragic when we are not able to distinguish between the villains and the heroes. We all get swayed by perceptions and appearances.

Like Don Corleone said in The God Father,

“A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.”

And I like to add – when they are in a crowd, they can terrorize and pillage the conscience of a nation.

And we see this menace, more dangerous than the guns and bombs of terrorists and we go on with our daily lives. We need bombs, guns, thundering sounds and blinding lights to wake up our conscience.

Image Credit: Indi.Ca

Popularity: 15%

I happen to work out of a fancy office complex built by one of Bangalore’s leading real estate names. The complex boasts of a host of convenience factors – the international chain of Gold’s gym, a GK Vale counter to cater to the last minute traveler, a food court with 8 vendors serving the world’s cuisine on a plate, a Coffee Day joint, Food World, Daily Bread – a baker and more to come! A lot of well known brands!

Step out from this super world of convenience and you see what many term is a disaster! – the space outside the complex is a bottleneck for traffic – so bad that a simple U turn from the complex to get back home can take anywhere from 15 – 45 minutes!! I am serious!! The Krishnarajapuram railway underpass is “world famous” in Bangalore for its traffic jams! There’s this huge 4 lane road leading into a loin sized railway underpass that let’s traffic in a single file!

Times of India ran a Bangalore specific initiative, “unlock Bangalore” about 8 months ago and guess what the first featured article was? Yes – this very same bottleneck and it’s ramifications including reader comments on what to do. The magazine went on to contact the area MLA and he promised to escalate the matter to the higher authorities. In an all too familiar sequence of events, nothing happened as well. Time went by and the problem persisted. Frustrated commuters went to the extent of hiring bombers to blow up the underpass in a hope to ease traffic.

The recent few months have suddenly seen free moving traffic in this space! Did someone actually blow up the bottle neck or did the MLA act? None of them happened. Someone just re-laid the stretch of road and this meant that vehicles could move freely without having to stop to negotiate pot holes and hence resulting in a pile up! What was seemingly a big fix was resolved with a fundamental fix – good roads!

Here’s another perspective to good roads: Bangalore – Chennai. The physical distance is about 350 KMs and driving the driving time used to be nearly 7+ hours a few years ago. The fast and furious would argue that you could do it in 6 hours. Recent travelers have been talking of 5 hrs and the fast and furious, me included say we can do this is 3.5 hrs ( out skirts to outskirts). How? Take the expressway and you will see what a pleasure it is to drive. This however comes at a price – Toll roads. A drive up costs you around Rs.130 odd in toll. I was happy to pay and burn some rubber on my last trip there.

Sadly, this and a whole lot of toll roads in and around my city get debated. There’s a general sense of “why pay toll?” feeling doing the rounds and forums to vent frustration around the same – needless to mention, the parties that claim to be domicile to this land erupt with joy when what I believe are trivial issues like this come up.

I strongly believe that convenience comes at a price – just like every other thing that touches our lives. We live in an age where we look for “branded” products – from underwear to eyewear, everything seems to be branded. The brands are across the pyramid with the top of the line brands like Versace and Hugo Boss leading the way! If you are willing to pay top dollar and buy products like these more often than not, why crib to pay toll and enjoy the convenience? (If you are not looking at the top line, are you in the next rung, if not, a rung below? If not another rung below? Unless of course, you want to by “unbranded” stuff),

If we can pay a few bucks more for those “good” things in life, why are roads any different?

Image Credit: Nicholas T

Popularity: 12%

Why on earth do people run?

There was a time (about 6 years ago) when four or five of us would congregate three times a week at Anna University at around 4.30 am or earlier, to run about 21 kilometers each time. Our inspiration was a fitness freak called Sunita. In those days, I had not much of a choice about getting up so early and traveling about 10 kilometers to meet my tormentor.

She made it a point to wake me up around 4 am and order me to the ground. For friendship’s sake I gamely braved the early morning jogs for about 3 years. Those were the days when I even attempted running three marathons which I gave up after reaching the threshold of 32-35 km.

Looking back, those were heady days, when we cherished the long runs, the company of friends, the unpolluted air of the big university campus and the chatter of the birds. We chatted more than the birds did – ceaselessly talking about politics, movies, business and cracking jokes so often.

The days of instant gratification

And then, Sunita got transferred to Bangalore and I heaved a huge sigh of relief. For the next two years I indulged and pampered my body going back to my old, comfortable routine of getting up well after the sun woke up. Our group also stopped going to Anna University.

However, one of them, Suresh, did not stop. He made it a point to raise the bar constantly and ran a mind boggling 31 km every day for several months. He ran so much he tore his ligaments, had it repaired in US and came back with a vengeance to run even more with strengthened muscles.

On my part, I found it convenient to amble across to the park nearby my home and run whatever pleased me. Most of the times, it used to be 5 km or less and there were a few exceptional days I would run a maximum of 10 km. Meanwhile, the protuberance in the front part of my body grew in stature, girth and weight, giving even pregnant women a complex.

Then, about a month back, Suresh and another friend of mine Subba, spoke about reviving the runs at Anna University and I agreed. We now run about 12 kilometers thrice a week, starting the run at a more earthly hour, ranging from 5.30 am to 6 am. Then, one day we decided to run, for old times’ sake, the nearly forgotten half marathon.

Today, 26^th January was the day we had chosen for our 21 km run.

Fighting the cold

I hadn’t however reckoned with the nasty cold and mild fever that I developed all of a sudden, two days back. I decided to run anyway, unmindful of the sore throat and running nose. Getting up at 4.45 am, I reported at Anna University at 5.25 am. I told myself over and over again that I could conquer the discomfort of my body by thinking positive thoughts. And, it was indeed true till we completed about 15 km and decided to stop for water and refreshments.

The ordeal

After the 15 km mark, the run was an ordeal for me. Whatever positive suggestions I gave to my mind, was not accepted by my knees. They began to wobble. After running two more kilometers, I wished my friends would bail me out and save my honour. My subtle hints that I had a nasty cold fell on those cruel, deaf ears. They started running even faster, covering about 18.5 km in all. Then, I decided discretion was the better part of valour and was on the verge of calling it quits.

Just at that point of time, one security guard at the university accosted us and told us not to run along our regular route as Republic Day parade was going on with the Vice Chancellor being the chief guest.

Divine Intervention

I conned my friends into thinking that it was God taking the form of a security man to stop our run. At my suggestion of divine intervention, they stopped, albeit with a nagging thought that we had completed just about 18.5 km. The next half marathon is scheduled on Saturday, 31^st January. I hope to acquit myself better, the next time around.

About Cliff Young

Speaking about how crazy some people can get about running, I recently read about Cliff Young who in 1983, at the age of 61, completed the long arduous run of 543 miles (875 km) from Melbourne to Sydney running non-stop, without sleeping, for 5 continuous days.

This is an awesomely inspiring story about the awesome power of the human endurance. My effort today was pathetic and woefully inadequate compared to the Herculean effort of the 61 year old man.

I end my story of today’s run, very humbled and wishing I had managed to run all of 21 km this morning.

Image Credit: Luiginter

Popularity: 10%

India won the Chennai Test against England convincingly enough by six wickets. Sehwag once again proved that a solid start can change the course of the game and the psyche of opponents.

England was, for once, outplayed in the game and it did when it mattered most – the last innings of the match.

Sachin was brilliant. Scoring his 41st century speaks volumes of the cricket left in him, even at this age. He along with Yuvraj paved the way for an Indian celebration.

With that being said, are we now heading for the Top Spot in Test Cricket ?

We have a Captain Cool in Dhoni, a legend in Tendulkar, a Swashbuckler in Sehwag, A wall in Dravid etc who are raring to go and achieve the unachievable.

The question is even with these stalwarts on the side, can we still make it to the top ?

In my opinion we are just a few steps away from reaching the top. As per the latest ICC Rankings, India is placed 3rd only next to South Africa and Australia.

So, what would it take India to reach the top spot in ICC Test Rankings ?

A few wins. No losses – Slam dunk, isn’t it ?!

Let’s dig a bit deeper. What would it take the team to win matches after matches ? I have given a laundry list of “To Dos” which Dhoni & co can work upon…

1. Dhoni should maintain his cool, as he always has been
2. Sehwag, Gambhir & Tendulkar should continue the way they have been performing
3. Middle Order must be consistent even if it calls for a few heads rolling (Rahul – are you listening ?)
4. Zaheer, Harbhajan, Amit & Ishant need to set higher benchmarks and consistently perform
5. Get the team’s mind off from off-the-field issues

Off-Field Issues ?

• Security Guards are meant for your Security
• Who slapped whom & why
• Bollywood Dreams and
• Of course- Of DhoniLakshmi’s Kollywood Dreams

Unnecessary attention diversion, you see..

Popularity: 23%

Yesterday I was scouring Internet and stumbled upon something, which read “Paul Merton in India“. The title caught my attention and I dove right into it. Well it is about a British Comedian, Paul Merton, and his travel to different cities in India. I watched a few episodes of this series on the Channel 5 website. I was certainly not happy of what I have seen.

Why was I unhappy? Here’s why.

The show lands in Delhi and visits Eunuch extortionists, there ends the matter with Delhi, moves on to Rajasthan to show us a temple filled with rodents, meet sadhu’s who worship Lord Shiva and hang heavy stones off their genitals. The show then moves to south, hits Hyderabad to show a 20-minute coverage of Friends of Snake society, where they catch snakes in neighbourhood.

Travels further southwest goes to Bangalore and guess what the show cover? Visits a jail and shows the details of

Image Courtesy: Wikipedia

caterer supplying food for a jail. Shows the condition of the jail, cramped people taking some strange dance classes. Get’s on a train and sets off for Chennai, meets an artist on train who paints with a brush in his mouth.

Episodes next week will cover the show will visit to Chennai and Mumbai and from what preview shows me, they will be on beach filming people fight, meeting Mumbai railway children who spent their life on platform and a record holder father who gets his genitals kicked by his son.

If this fair is supposed to seem funny, then well it at least did not seem funny to me. What leaves me baffled is purpose of this program? What is it trying to explain to people of Britain? Is it educating them about conditions in India? I disagree; it shows things that give an impression that the land of the country is full of street performers, snake charmers and other lot.

While it mentions cities as IT Capitals, Tourism spots, what follows the description is some content, which will leave a the same image of the country. Any person, who is shown such content, will carry a wrong impression of the country.

I am not denying that what has been shown happens in India, it does. However, I would have been glad for people to see all this along with the magical sculpture works of Belur and Hallebeedu of Bangalore, mind blowing palaces of Rajasthan, all those festivities, culture and lives of people, which depict other side of India. I feel showing only one side of the coin, is not right. People who have visited India might spot the difference, the rest might have a permanent impression and truly tag it “Incredible India”.

I hope Channel 5 comes up with something else, which will show India in true colours, rather than this portrait painted only in grey!

Do watch an episode or two on this Channel 5 and let me know what you think. For me my instantaneous reaction was, “There is more to India”.

Popularity: 18%

Image Credit: Harsh Mangal

By the grace of US economy meltdown Domestic Real Estate sector bubble seems to have busted.  Real investors are regaining their sense. After stock market, real estate is the most affected sector.  Indian real estate market which has grown at about 30% annually is slowing down.

Investors are not the only affected party.  Banks and financial institutions that have financed Real estate ventures, Real estate companies that have mushroomed in hordes in the last few years, brokers who market these ventures, politicians who bought plots near so called Special Economic Zones or what is called ‘corridors of growth’ and suppliers of raw materials who has put up huge investments in production with the notion that grown is real and will never go down, all seem to have been hit by the declining values mounting losses.

99% of the averages Indians still believe that putting money in real estate is the safest form investment and believe that real prices will always go up or remain where they are but will never come down.  They should be made aware of what has happened to real estate in US.  Owning a house or a piece of plot is considered as a status symbol in India.

In the past 4 years dream of own house for middle class India became a reality as they found a decent employment with Corporate India and easily available Housing finance.  With news of  amazing economic growth, NRIS pouring money in real estates (special ventures came up to cater to the needs of only NRI investors), Government coming out with SEZ, IT parks, Ring roads,  promotions held by Real estate companies ..  All contributed to the real boom.  Unknown companies became National companies in no time.

Some borrowed money at abnormal interest rates; some went for IPOs with mind boggling valuations and started huge projects without considering the actual demand and ways of financing and marketing their projects.  Couples of sectors mainly cement and steel benefited most from real boom.

Land and flat valuations sky rocketed.  In most of the metros 1 Crore worth flat has become a normal thing.  Developers started huge gated communities, luxury villas and developed plots.  In the name of projects they artificially increased the prices of the plots.  An acre of land which would have costed 5 lakh suddenly became 5 crore plot.

In Hyderabad alone prices increased 10 fold in 3 years.  Poor peasants became millionaires overnight.  Lush green fields paved way for black top roads and ventures mushroomed around urban areas.  Every other day we had a call from a real estate company offering plots or flats.

When everything was going well, Subprime crisis in US came into light and the real show started getting disturbed. With the recession that has almost set-in in most of the countries, liquidity crunch and falling stock markets, real estate also started coming down. 

Due to increase in Interest rates by Banks, demand started falling.  Real estate companies which were operating on Bank loans, initial booking amounts from customers and private borrowings could not bear the cost of funds as the sales plummeted. Raising cement and steel prices added to the cost and they had to raise the prices of flats and plots.

Infact sales went down not because there wasn’t enough demand.  It was lack of affordability that brought the demand down.  Even an employee of a Multi national company earning 50 thousand per month wasn’t able to buy a two bedroom flat as the average price of a 2 BHK was between 30 to 50 lakhs and his entire salary would go towards payment and a meager residue is not enough to maintain his life style.

Those who initially made money started bigger ventures and those who saw big bucks started fresh ventures.  I personally know a cash rich aquaculture farmer who ventured into real estate…  Totally unknown territory for him and now lamenting about the unsold flats.  Take a look at the valuations of the Real estate companies that came out with high valuations and their stock price in the past few days..

Companies that have taken the reality ‘Bite’

Now most of the companies are sitting on huge built up space and find no takers.  If the situation continues for few more months I am sure we will see more ‘Auction notices’ from banks and financial institutions in place of advertisements. 

If you want to but any real stuff in metros like Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Delhi or Chennai, be patient and wait for another 5 to 6 months.

Popularity: 18%