First Letter from Amsterdam

Lessons on Day 1 of Amsterdam phase. 

Those who have come here please ignore. This may be too commonplace for you. First, there is a separate cycle track on every road and u have to be extra careful about the cycle riders since car riders r supposed to be more careful about pedestrians. Second, a fish named Harang in short locally, is eaten raw and it tastes yummy. Third, you need to be a good walker or a cyclist to really enjoy the city. Sadly I am none. Fourth, cafe is for coffee and coffee house is for marijuana. Fifth, a platter of mix fish fried and french fries in a modern roadside dhaba with a small bottle of water will cost u rs.2000 inr. Sxth, cycle rickshaws like india are here too in city. Just that rickshaw puller may be wearing a coat or jacket and may look replica of Salman Khan. This much for today.

Lessons of Amsterdam Part 2. 

First, at 8pm, there is a sudden increase in sunlight, brightest since 3pm, and see the first picture from 17th floor of my hotel. Some issue with planetary movements. Second, it is a nation of 16 million people but 21 million bicycles. Third, the Amsterdam Central Station (in red) is 125 years old but seems like a decade old. These guys can give a big education in heritage preservation. Fourth, Ajax Arena the football stadium of Ajax Club of Holland given below with 50,000 seats is one big stadium among many in this small nation showing how Football is an emancipation for them. Bigger religion here than our cricket. Fifth, the nation is below sea-level, so the WHOLE border of the nation is protected by advanced dam-technology. Sixth, canals are the best part of A'dam and a big business is of cruises here (shows how we can make big money from Ganges and Sabarmati and Yamuna in India, and Bagmati in Nepal). Seventh, walk on the right side of the road since drivers drive left, and right is right, left is left for the opposite direction people.

Amsterdam Lessons Part 3:                                                                                                                                                                                               First, the Amsterdam University is 350 years old, one of the most affordable one in Europe, has 50,000 students (very large by European standards), and has old order charm in its buildings, cafetaria, old books corner, and is spread all over the city. Second, there are three concentric circles of lakes: of the Prince (outermost), the Emperor (middle one) and the Nobility (innermost one). This is so because democracy in Amsterdam started with franchise for the wealthy tax-paying male nobility only. Third, the city is 700+ years old and almost every building has a few centuries history (the building of my School is from the 17th century). Fourth, the canals have given the most profitable tourism business of Amsterdam: cruising. The one behind me is Lovers' Cruise, 10 Euros (Rs.750) per trip per person. 25% concession if you are a couple. Fifth, Museum Culture is the second most important aspect of A'dam after canals. You have Royal Museum, Anne Frank Museum, Remrandt Museum, Sex Museum, Torture Museum (medieval times torture techniques preserved), Art Museum, and what not. One gets a crash course on museum marketing in this city. Sixth, water and wine are almost at the same price (Rs.250 for water bottle, Rs.400 for wine bottle). Seventh, one has to see traffic decorum to believe it. Even in an empty street a car will wait for green signal, cars will stop behind one another with 4 to 5 feet gap, pedestrians and cyclists will be asked to go first then cars, et al. Eighth, hugely high taxes keep the city very clean (22% of VAT for example), public transport very orderly and affordable, discourages personal cars on street, etc.

A Year In Nepal

Just finished a year of working in Nepal, each month half month, the other half being in India largely, and UAE at times.

It has been a roller-coaster journey, good fun, good learning, and perhaps made some impact as well along the way.

Four organizations I have worked with here as Senior Consultant include two educational and two media houses.

First is the larger of the two Business Media groups here, named New Business Age group with a daily Aarthik Abhiyan (www.arthikabhiyan.com.np) and a Business monthly New Business Age (www.newbusinessage.com) and a business weekly The Corporate weekly.

The key-learning here: the pace of work can be faster, perceptions matter more than the reach, you can build relationship, business and content all through round-table discussions of stakeholders of any business in an area and cover it through special supplements, etc.

The key outcomes I am trying to bring herein are: that events can be a viable and strong division of an integrated media organization and can lead to effective branding, reasonably profits and great content; that standard operating processes must define functions of all divisions in a media house; and that continuous training is must; that ensuring assured revenue through annual deals with patrons is must in today's media revenue uncertainty times, the role of online media and its reach in practice, organizing Best B-Schools and Best HS Schools ranking and awards, etc.

The second organization is the young and fastest growing television channel, Himalaya TV. Key-lessons: concept of composite info-tainment channel with multiple programming genres, even in two languages, in a nation of 17 channels and waking up only in this decade to private television viewing.

The key outcomes I am trying to bring herein are: events as an independent division of the group, viable and necessary; concept of multiple and yet well defined and differently branded programming bands in the channel; and a few other things.

The third organization is the fifth best ranked business education institute King's College of Management to help develop their Quality Policy, their visual merchandising, and soon will start work on their re-branding strategy and action-plan and their Journal of Management: the first ever by any B-School in Nepal.

The fourth organization is International Centre of Academics, ICA, engaged in the mission of Online & Distance Education, being a Partner Institute of IGNOU of India, and having been the best partner institute of IGNOU outside India twice, 2011 and 2013.

My work here in centering around special sessions, upgrading of systems and academic processes, bringing in guests from abroad, developing the concept of ICA as the Knowledge Partner of many corporate, and now will move towards making Corporate Training division and PhD Doctoral Research division of ICA.

As I come for the 12th month, I wrote this Post on my Facebook wall, which is pertinent to note here:

Back to Nepal. For the next 15 days. Not very cold this time. Now may be 11 degrees. But chill. Pleasant. Still with an overcoat. Have to warm up the dinner. I like the expanded roads. The first work on them started exactly a year ago, in Jan 2013, when I had come for the first month for media consulting. So I complete a year of half-months in Nepal, and roads complete their construction-time! Met one-to-one at least five hundred people (going by visiting cards!), addressed at least 3-4000, including campuses and Chambers etc, anchored 8 episodes on Himalaya TV, emceed 4 major events, wrote a dozen major pieces, visited four cities of the country, befriended many, took up assignments with four organizations, and now I am in love with this nation of breathtaking natural beauty, cheerful people and a great climate-food-culture. I can sense an urge of the youth to evolve to the next level and fast. Can I devote the next one year to decipher that evolution and its contours through a book and a documentary? I hope I can make an honest attempt....

Nepal: the Rising Sun in the Himalayas

Just back from Nepal. The Himalayan Kingdom turned the latest laboratory of pluralist democracy born out of a bloody movement.

Task was to train 32 journalists, seniors and freshers, to launch the first set of two business dailies in Nepal: Dainik Arthik Abhiyan in Nepali and Nepal Bizline in English.

Great learning, sharing, fun and serious work for ten hours a day for ten days, a whopping 100 hours session!

From whatever little I could manage to go around and see the city and meet the people, it is clear that the nation is a good case-study to understand the strength and fallacies of democracy, of economic dependence, of painful but luring westernization, et al.

Every major news channel and entertainment program of Indian media has some clone there, local version. There are some good shows too, though! India bashing is a favourite pastime with many, but the dependence at every level on the Big Brother next door cannot be just wished away.

The king once lived on the compensation of the Britishers for taking away a part of the Terai region. A section of the elite lives on the pension of the British army. Another section does loads of currency hawala business around.

The last government budget was of Nepalese Rs.650 billion (Indian Rs.100= Nepalese Rs.160), whereas there are more than 400 banks, savings funds, investment funds, non-banking companies, and insurance companies! Quite a disproportionate one!

A favourite pastime is politicking through the papers and in every corner of the streets! Argumentative Indian of Amartya Sen can now have a new avatar in the form of Politicking Nepali! Good in a sense....strong opinions and awareness leading to some action on the streets as well. But bad in a way as well.....loss of time, energy, nation-building compromised.

Three years are over, the nation still continues with the process of making the Constitution of the nascent republic by its Constituent Assembly!

The Maoists combatants are not there in the jungles, but they are there unarmed in barracks. It is a situation of being there and not there at the same time! Divisions are there in every major political force....

A group of strong entrepreneurs are rising, embarking upon courageous path of creating wealth and employment. An army of fly-by-night operators and quick-fix agents also emerging fast!

A large group of youth are romantically idealist and expect things to happen fast, specially after they have seen the monarchy bite the dust.....at least for now!

From Koirala of Congress, to Prachanda of Maoists, to Madhav Nepal of Communists: all got a chance in recent past....

But none has been able to become a Statesman, in a nation from which the world can learn about democractic movement that embraces the extremists and the centrists alike!

A nation of great possibilities.....

A nation of queer idiosyncracies....

A people of hard work and enterprise and deep faith in religion and culture.....

A people who collectively lack a unified vision and way to move ahead.....

The contradiction was so ably demonstrated by the duality of aarati and burning pyre together close to Pashupati mandir, the co-existence of milk and honey drenched Shiva and stench and filth of the Ganges next door!

While the richest and the most educated youth are leaving the nation for greener pastures, one may look forward to the middle class socially rooted but enterprising youth to come to lead the nation next....

Letter from Manaus (Amazon)

Glasses of Campri and Malibu. Bowls of fish soup followed by Amazonian fish fry. Dishes of Oriental boneless chicken. Sauce and ghee cooked fish, and fish in white sauce with prawns….

Well, well, that’s not the Menu of an Amazonian restaurant, but the list of items which we had the luck to eat over and over and over again in our three memorable days in Manaus, the capital city of Amazonas, and located at the heart of Amazonian region. And, kudos to the Karu Grill Restaurant of the Hotel Tropical Manaus, these items became examples of some unforgettable cuisine for us.

But, that’s not all. We did not go to Manaus just to eat exotic food. That was the bonus.

The real gain was the most enchanting trip of my life: a three hours (extended to five) upstream and three hours downstream journey through the heart of the 3940 miles long Amazon river with hardly the banks on either side being visible when you are in the centre of the river.

Well, no adventure, except going to Mt Everest or to the South Pole, can equal this one on the Amazon. Amazing Amazon mesmerized all of us on board.

The journey started at sharp 6 am on a bright sunny June morning and went on till 11 noon which should have been finished a couple of hours before that. We were shooting on the way and one of the two steamers we were traveling in developed a technical snag for which we waited at the centre of the river and to our glee, indeed.

If you can still see the vague line of huge trees in the forests on your right, the left bank is totally merged with the horizon and it is only the clear slow-paced mass of water on all sides that winks at you.

We went a few hundred metres into the forest, shot a few families therein for the purpose we were there, and visited a makeshift wooden products-and-art gallery made by the folks out there. It was so fascinating to note that even in such interiors far away from the mainstream society and media and culture, simple jungle-folks had their aesthetics right.

Standing amid millions of huge trees and next to a few bamboo and wood houses, our local Brazilian friend recounted the legend of Anaconda, a fictitious serpent character built around myths surrounding the Amazon river and the forest.

On return there was another round of fish, chicken, soup and Malibu waiting for us at the beautiful palace hotel by the beach. In our true Rajasthani style, this was Brazilian royal family’s abode turned into a luxury hotel of today with just two floors and a huge land around resplendent with flowers and greenery, and all leading to the august Amazon flowing by.

As we took the flight back to India via Sao Paolo and London, we met two interesting Brazilian gentlemen.

One is an agricultural scientist, an expert of bio-diesel and a strong votary of the merits of monacinto crops, who gave us an overview of Brazil’s strength of agriculture and water resources. Brazil has the single largest water reservoir of inland water in the world, and Brazil has an agricultural strength equaled by only two other nations, plus the bio-diesel experiment has taken deep-roots in the Brazilian life.

The second gentleman is a professor of History in a university in Brasilia who hates the American way of looking at things and says how different he found Mexico to be from what the American media, literature and images taught him all his life till we had gone to Mexico. This gentleman explained how a large part of Brazilian intelligentsia hates the ‘Yankees’ for their use of the Latin American land and people for ‘trade, sex, beer and natural resources’ exploiting the ‘American’ tag of the Latinos. The ‘Big American Dream’ has been hard-sold by them to the Latinos to make the best business of any and everything.

How I wish the star-struck Indians dreaming of the raining dollars in the God’s own country in the US of A could hear this erudite gentleman who leads the academia in social sciences of a Brazilian University!!

June 18, 2006

Letter from Fortuleza

Today was the Brazil versus Croatia match. A lot of expectations, hopes and excitement in the air all over Brazil today. There is a virtual riot of the yellow and green T-shirts all around. These are the colours of the national flag and the jersey of the national team of Brazil, and the colours which virtually symbolize the Brazilian national spirit. Even the young ladies in the Fortuleza beach are having sea-bath and tanning their skin with yellow and green bikinis.

We saw the match with another 500 young cheering Brazilians in Crocobeach, a beachside restaurant which has a great view of crocodiles coming out of a large lake close by and having ‘sun-bath’!

You have to just see the spirit to believe it. Cans of beer and fruit juice, fried and baked snacks, fish and chicken delicacies, peanuts and cashew-nuts: all flowed like water and sank like sand in these voraciously eating youth in just no time and all eyes glued to the large screens hungry for a goal.

When Brazil gave the first goal you have to see the rejoicing. Strangers hugged and kissed strangers, friends went into a fit of frenzy. And, me and my camera-man had our dose of innocent fun too!! Brazil played badly but won the game 1-0 and the nation had a huge collective relief.

Then, we had a visit the next day to the interiors of the province where we were given a warm welcome by a large group of rural Brazilians, as we were led by the WHO Goodwill Ambassador, Yohei Sasakawa, the Chairman of the Japan-based The Nippon Foundation.

The revelry and spirit of the common man in the villages are also something to admire and get infected with. The common folks, in common dresses had uncommon smiles on their faces and had a hug for every one. They danced, sang, and we shot them to our hearts content.

They forgot the fact the 10% of Brazilians control 90% of the wealth and production means of the nation. They forgot that their average monthly family income was just 400 Brazilian Rheas (1 Rheas equals Rs.22), while the Sonata car we booked for a day is costing us 350 Rheas!

I later heard that commercial sex work is quite common as many village girls go to the nearby beach-towns and earn 100-200 Rheas a night to supplement family income. It also seems that the culture of the nation is somewhat liberal. ‘Have it, so flaunt it’ seems to be the adage.

But then there is a tremendous zest for life, innocence among the children and the teenagers, and a class among the youth. I will never forget that smiling lady in a lovely pink and off white evening gown who could hardly speak English but communicated a lot with her little words, small pieces of information, caring observations and glowing smiles.

Beyond the urban and rural glaring schism which saddened me a lot, the other thing that ruined my time in Furtoleza was the abysmal situation in the airport and the TAM flights schedules rescheduled three times before I had to fly through Terasina and Brasilia to Manaus while we had a direct flight.

What I understood in the process is that since the nation has just 22 crores of people, and rich are very less though they are stinking rich, the flights in Brazil are very few and far in between, highly expensive and with services on the poorer side. There is indeed a large market for low-cost no-frills airlines with reasonable services.

Deccan Air, Spicejet, GoAir, Paramount Air…….. are you all hearing??
June 16, 2006

Letter from Brasilia

As the plane rapidly starts flying down and you get ready to disembark, you see a small part of the city with high-rise state-of-the-art buildings and modern monuments, and surrounding it a vast area of single storey tiles-roofed buildings all around.

You alight from Varig Airlines, Brazil’s national airlines of 79 years, at Brasilia, the current new created and extremely planned capital city, shifting the previous headquarters from the extreme southern city of Rio to keep the northern poorer part of Brazil happier.

As you drive past huge buildings and on wide, clean, spotless tarred roads of a ‘developing nation’ in its capital city, you all of a sudden realize that the city is created on Western and more particularly American model on one hand, and on the other, it is a city of some individuals here and there, but no ‘people’ as such to call it their own.

And, as you meet the Secretaries of Ministries, a few ministers, and visit the Senate and meet its Vice President too, the realization further dawns that Brasilia is a town-planner’s marvel, architect’s wonder with several thousands of powerful individuals, without any mass of people who can call it their own city with a distinct culture.

The aloofness, the pompousness, the ‘systematic approach’, the structured life and living ARE its culture today.

Ironically, the single illustrious architect and town-planner of Brazil who had built this city and its landmark buildings, Mr Oscar Niami, is a left-wing professional and had wanted to create a people-centric transparent city with large spaces, lots of greenery, usually glass-walls of buildings (including the huge Presidential office), avoiding any loss of constructed space in frills, etc.

On the positive side, the capital city and its ministerial buildings are extremely well-planned, as if a master-scheme of the town-planner has just literally risen above the ground straight from the drawing board.

The green and grey ministerial buildings look exactly the same, and unless you look at the metallic names of the ministries on their front walls, you will not be able to distinguish one from the other.

Then the most significant thing to see is the spotless cleanliness in each department of the government, the Senate and the Parliament, the paperless-ness of the offices, the evident e-governance practices, the lack of stringency in security and the aura of confidence and friendliness all around. And, all this when contrasted to our ministerial environs in our Delhi offices, the stark difference is all the more evident.

Move around seven to eight kilometers beyond the city centre, you come to a sea of poorer colonies of single storey buildings, and another twenty kilometers later, the entire area around is vacant land, water, some jungles, et al.

Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, the first of the BRICKS countries with a strong infrastructure and a promise of being Latin American economic giant, was created in a large vacant land out of nowhere, in the heart of the country, with a debt so huge (do not know the exact figure: different estimates are there) that till today the nation and the common man are smarting under a debt-trap.

A modern Tughlaqi creation? A master-plan of American business lobby to sell a dream and all steel and cement of the dream to the largest nation in South America and keep it permanently indebted to itself?

June 15, 2006

Letter from Rio

The biggest landmark of Rio de Janeiro is the huge hillock like statue of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, atop Mata Atlantica, overlooking the entire Rio, with his hands spread into the air, in a gesture to embrace the mankind with his kindest love. And, the road that takes you to him, called Green Line, a steep electrical train railroute, going up for four kilometres amid natural vegetation and overlooking the city from within the trees at times. On the top, it is the greatest sight you may expect to see from such a height. And, with the falling sun, a roseatte sky, Jesus becomes all the more divine and the mankind below all the more distant. The city is like a great master-plan of a town-planner expressed through a live model. And, the day changes from bright daylight to the falling rays of dusk, and so does the look of the city. After seeing hundreds and thousands of men and women, all fair, yellow, tanned, and dark, with clothes next to nothing, and with an abundance of smiles, hugs, beer and kisses, it was a relief in a sense to go to meet Jesus up there. Rio is fun, just fun, a paradise for the tourists, a haven of drugs and drug-lords running a parallel administration in selected areas, a pilgrimage too, and Copacabana and Ipanema beaches providing the perfect holiday for the single ready to mingle, for the couple ready to double, and for the family wanting to pay homilies to one another.
I have come to know first time that across the Copacabana beach and even Ipanama beach, there are some 10-12 points, one point being of say 200-300 metres stretch. One point is for the gays only, one point for the lesbians, one for the intellectuals (artists, writers, media honchos, academics, etc), one for gender activists, one for the plain and simple company-seeking singlers, one for the couples, and what not.
This is the latest caste-system I am enlightened with after the infamous caste-based quota system and the battle against it in the only nation of the world where a section of the citizens feel proud and privileged to be called ´backward´ and take more pride in remaining so.
The economics of World Cup was evident when I had gone to buy a phone card. The usual 100 US dollar phone card was available with 20% extra time given with the request that I pray for Brazil´s repeated championship this time too, and if my prayers are answered favourably by the Almighty, I will get another 100 USD card FREE!! I just could not say to that pretty 20-something Brazilian lady with green and blue attire (in that whatever little she was wearing) that I shall NOT be in Brazil till the end of the games and would not be there to claim the additional 100 dollar benefit!
Merchandise is a big business with a hyped up event, and is proven no better by the sheer speed at which the Brazilian football uniform is being sold: green and yellow T-shirts. Yours sincerely included!Great time in Rio. See you soon, Brasilia, Furteleza, Manaus, Sao Paolo..... Work starts now, after my cameraman reaches in an hour, yesterday was just fun. Love to you all. June 14, 2006