Quote of the Year

 Wall Street Journal July 14th, 2011

Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram said the three bomb blasts in Mumbai were the result of stealthy work by terrorists and don't signal a breakdown of intelligence-gathering by Indian security officials and police authorities.

"Whoever planned this attack worked in a very, very clandestine manner," he told reporters in a Thursday morning televised press conference. "It's not a failure of intelligence."

How Much Is Enough ?

This is a  question  which comes up frequently as we talk to friends  and as we see the level of greed among politicians and bureaucrats and business men.Also of late Bill Gates and Warren Buffet who have given away a substantial portion of their wealth have been going round the globe asking people to follow their example.

Over the last century there have been numerous examples of wealthy families Rockefellers, Fords, Andrew Carnegie, Tatas,  Birlas who have all endowed charities with substantial sums for the good of the community.

However my favorite is Charles Feeney one of the two founders of Duty Free Shoppers. Both the partners are total opposites. I remember from my days in Hong Kong reading about his co-founder,  Robert Miller's lavish parties at his house on the peak with guests flown in from around the world. He had big fat  weddings for his  daughters all married into European royalty or other similarly wealthy families.

Charles " Chuck" Feeney, at one time among the top 50 richest men has been giving away all his wealth through his Atlantic Philanthropies. The total amount is believe to be around $9-$10 billion  Unlike Bill Gates he has done so quietly. He does not fly around in private jets. He travels by subway and lives extremely modestly. I am sure there are numerous other examples such as this - the royal family of Travancore  who gave their wealth to the temple.

However on a lower level over the years I have had this conversation with my friends and colleagues during my life as a banker and now as a wannabe entrepreneur. Is  one million  enough  or is it five  million,or more ? At that time we referred to it as FY money - enough to be able to walk out of a job where you were not happy . For us  the yard stick was to be able to ensure that our children had a good education, no debt  and  to be able to maintain the life style we were used to plus have a nest egg for emergencies.

That was then. However when we meet now we dance around without mentioning  a specific number. The reality is that once you have covered  the basics mentioned above then everything beyond that  is to leave behind an inheritance for your children unless you totally change your life style.

Recently I was chatting with two of my oldest friends from  Hong Kong and that got me thinking .Both  are around my age plus or minus a few years  They have been very successful .

One was an entrepreneur who started a business and sold it off a few years ago. His wife  has ventured off  successfully on her own business. Together with a friend he started another business in a totally unrelated field. That is doing very  well. While talking I suggested another add on alternative to what he was doing. His reaction was " Yes I know and my clients would love me to do that. I could easily double my revenue, but frankly I have enough on my plate to keep me busy. I do not want the hassle"

The other friend a bachelor, is a successful professional who dabbles on the side by investing in  ventures which attracts his interest rather than from a  pure financial investment point of view.. He is a partner in a  business  which has a high profile in Hong Kong  catering to the rising aspirations and prosperity of Hong Kong's middle and upper class. They have over the last few years moved into China. I suggested that they look at India, as it was on the same growth pattern and would be a good market. The response was  similar . " I am in this to  keep busy and to enjoy what I am doing . I really do not want to be bothered ".

Perhaps the best story I have read and which very nicely summarizes the difference of opinions about how much is enough,  is an often quoted anecdote about Joseph Heller - the author of  Catch 22.

During a commencement address at  Houston's Rice University in 1988,  Kurt  Vonnegut ( Slaughter House Five)  recounted a conversation he had with his good friend Joseph Heller.

Joseph Heller and he were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island. Kurt said, "Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel 'Catch-22' has earned in its entire history?" Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."What on earth could that be, Joe?" His response was "The knowledge that I've got enough."

Do we all know when we have enough ? Unfortunately in most cases we do not.

RIP - Joseph Heller - the man who knew he had enough.
 

Observations on Wimbledon

I know I am going to get into trouble here, but having watched tennis matches over the years,it is interesting to see how the physique of the top women players has changed .

In the past going back to the days of Evan Gollagong, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graff the women players were all  slim, played without grunting and won their matches.  Over the last five to seven years the younger women players tend to be stouter and much more vociferous . The men players have not changed. They tend to be slim and while there might be an occasional grunter, it is quite a contrast to the women players. Having said that in spite of their physical appearance the women players tend to move just as fast and probably volley harder then their predecessors from the seventies and eighties.

While Ascot might have its share of strange hats, Wimbledon has its women and occasionally men walking the courts making their own fashion statements. Beating everybody hands down are the William sisters. Their dresses and their "dont give a damn"attitude makes them very different from the other players. Not that they are just about attitude. They have a fantastic track record and now choose the matches they want to play.

On the mens side  the Federer - Nadal duo continue to dominate , but of late Djokovic has been  trying to gate crash the party. The loudest fashion statement is Nadal's sleeveless shirts and his long shorts. Both  have their own slight distracting  mannerisms. Federer gently pushing his hair back toward his head band and Nadal constantly tugging at his wedgies. On the doubles side the players with their high fives, their chest bumping, and bottom patting are a sight.

Having said that the tennis players, particularly the men are a contrast to the other athletes - if I may use the term - in soccer and cricket  and are much lower keyed.The exception to this were the the temper tantrum throwers such as Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe and Andy Rodrick among  others . While their purses and endorsements might be just as big, they tend to be much lower profile and do not strut around or make  the headlines  with their shenanigans.

It is  amazing how over the decades the three gentlemanly games, tennis, gold and cricket have diverged. Tennis and golf  still  continue to be  elitist games whereas cricket has been democratized and now is a common man's game.  Will this also change or stay the same. My guess is it will remain as will golf , both not being team games and only person you are trying to outshine is your opponent.

Flavour Of The Year

Last week I was at the airport on my way to Kolkota and picked up two magazines because the headlines attracted my attention.

It was the first time I have ever bought an issue of Sports Illustrated ( not even the annual swimsuit issue)  May 20th issue. This was  the Indian edition. Its cover read as follows:

DIRT IN CRICKET
Undercover with the betting mafia for over half a year and face to with the biggest threat to the integrity of the game. SI India finds the sports is caught in a web of money, politics and organized crime.

The second magazine was Telekha long known for its bold investigative journalism. Its cover had the following headlines :

Maharasthra Sold

The Politician-Builder Nexus
Sharad Pawar
Vilasrao Deshmukh
Ashok Chavan
Supriya Sule
Ajit Pawar

Thousands of acres of land. Thousands of crores of profit. This is the shocking story of how political leaders turned a state into a private treasury.

What are the odds of the people mentioned suing the magazines for libel ?

In addition to the above,  you cannot pick up the newspaper or switch on the news without the image of the bare-chested, private jet flying yoga guru Baba Ramdev  being flashed at you. He has jumped on to the anti - corruption bandwagon first initiated by a group of activists led by Ana Hazare. Baba Ramdev is threatening to go on a fast to death if the government does not declare war on " black money" among others items included in his list of demands.

There have been numerous marches, and support groups, including web based groups , all actively rooting for them.

We all hope that this will be the turning point which comes in the country's stage of economic development and will result in the decrease of corruption.  However the more cynical among us, are questioning whether Baba Ramdev is the Trojan Horse being used  to dilute the efforts of Ana Hazare ?

Will it result in any significant action being taken or whether as Paul Beckett the Indian Bureau Chief of the Asian Wall Street   predicts that this is a choreographed play and is taking bets against the Baba starving to death.

Keep watching the headlines.

Its Reigning Women In Indian Politics

As has been said many many times, India is a land of contradictions. It it probably the country with some of the states having the highest rate of  female infanticide. At  the same time it probably has the highest number of  serving women politicians among all the countries in the world.

Go figure.

For the record

Pratibha Devisingh  Patil - President of India
Sonia Gandhi ( Madam) - President of the Congress Party - the party in power
Sushma Swaraj - Leader of the Opposition Parties in the  Lok Sabha (House of Parliament)
Meira Kumar - Speaker of the  Lok Sabha
Mayawati Kumari ( Bhanji) - Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh - the largest state in India
Shiela Dixit ( Auntie) - Chief Minister of Delhi - the Capital of India
J Jayalalithaa ( Amma) - Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu
Mamata Banerjee ( Didi) - Chief Minister of West Bengal
Ambika Soni - Minister of Information & Broadcasting

There are numerous other ministers of state and ministers in the states.A recent development is the government reserving almost 50% of gram panchayat seats in the villages for women and women are being elected as sarpanches.

The Cross Dressing Sari Salesman And Other Experiences

About a year ago there was a television commercial  for mens  underwear which showed how people in crowded circumstances managed to "adjust"  or squeeze their backsides  in to find a spot . I feel that way quite often having to adjust to life in India or compromise on things  on a daily basis. 

Over the last five years we have had numerous experiences , some funny, some sad, some good, some bad. Here are a few. Some of them are generalized, since it is repeated whereas some are one off.

Indian sales men are among the best and the worst in the world.

Have you ever been sari shopping with your wife ? The sales men have no hesitation about taking out as many as you want. When she is not sure about a particular sari , he orders a junior sales man or some time get up himself and tucks the sari into his trousers  and hold out his arm with the pala draped on it.He models it for you in different colors or fabrics - great job opportunity for cross dressers.After seeing fifteen or twenty you might walk out and there would be no acrimony unlike Hong Kong, where the sales man would make a rude comment.

Similarly if you go to a shoe shop, you will find that all the salesmen are men and you will find that they will happily show you shoe after shoe in different styles and shapes.Invariably as it happens with my wife, after seeing eight or ten we walk out and the salesman goes on to the next customer without a word of protest . 

I have been to the best book stores in London and New York  such as  Foyles , Hatchards, Borders and you ask the sales staff for a particular book. They will quickly tap into the computer and say "its in the basement in the history section"and you are on your own. You go to a book store in Delhi or Mumbai and ask the sales staff ( who are probably not as well educated as their London and New York counterparts) or the book owners  and immediately get a response and will be taken to the specific location or have the book handed to you.This is even for a difficult to get book.Incredible service.

Similarly if you visit a pharmacy . It might be a tiny hole in the wall or there will be a person on a specially built mezzanine floor. The medicines will be stored in little Tupperware  boxes. Ask the salesman for a particular medicine. He does not need to check the computer. He will automatically reach for the right cubicle where the medicine is stored or ask his colleague on the mezzanine floor and it will be dropped down. I am willing to bet that most, if not all of them have not had any training in pharmacy , but they will know the generic version which have similar salts and will be much cheaper.

However, having said that, if you wish to buy anything electrical or a computer or the new gadgets which are now available, you will find smooth talking salesmen who will assure you that what you are looking is the latest model and at a price you will not able to find anywhere. If you do not know what you are buying and mistakenly make a payment, then you are on you own. Prior to receiving your money, he will call you, he will smile, he will be pleasant, but once he has your money, even if it is not the full amount, then the roles get reversed. This is  not just for local brands. This holds true even if you are buying products or services sold by multinationals.Instead of trying to raise the standards of the local market, the multinationals lower their standards.

When we first came back we rented a flat on the second floor of  a small block of flats in Central Delhi. It was newly constructed , had a nice terrace and faced a lovely park. No sooner had we moved in then problems started. It was owned by a lady who traveled frequently. Our contact was her father. He was probably in his late seventies. Every time we had a problem such as our living room getting flooded because the balcony sloped   inwards, or our roof leaking or seepage through the walls because the waterproofing had not been done properly, we would contact him. He would appear diligently and be polite and try and fix it.However his attempt at fixing was a patch work to minimize the expenditure rather than fixing the problem once and for all.After the first few times, however when I started loosing my temper, he would tell my wife "Please tell Mr.Bindra that he has to adjust to India"or "This is India". However the rent was at the top end and on par with some of the international cities ( ok, not Hong Kong or London) but that point was ignored.

When I started my software firm, a friend of a friend introduced me to an individual running a  small head hunting firm for my modest hiring needs. He kept sending me resumes of young technical professional who kept changing jobs every six months. After about a dozen such rejections, he came to see me. His advice to me was that you have to lower your standards as "This is India ". I said I was paying at market or above. I had to spend six months or more training them and then only to leave. I was not paying people to attend my training school.I wanted to build a firm with professional international standards. I never heard back from him.

After buying a flat, we decided to gut it and redo it. We hired an architect and she brought in a group of sub-contractors . They were a mixed bunch. The air conditioning supplier was very professional and even now we would highly recommend him. I was initially very impressed with the contractor who  was going to redo part of  the wiring. He talked the talk.  In a introductory meeting at our place over a cup of tea quoted a line from Nancy Sinatra's "Summer Wine" . I thought to myself, fantastic. We should be in good shape.However that mood did not last too long. He assigned two individual's who had almost no experience , who could not read drawings and I could go on. Once the initial payment was made, it was very difficult to get hold of him especially when he knew I was calling with a complaint. After a few months he  walked out without completing the work. He then had the nerve to send me a legal notice for unpaid dues.

Now that we have  been back over five years now, we have " adjusted" and we squeeze ourselves in , expressing our frustration  mentally  and sometimes verbally. Based on referrals and our own experiences we are gradually building  up a list of of reliable tradesmen /shops where we  have developed a relationship ( at least we like to think we have ) and hopefully sound less like the  returned NRI's we see in the shopping plazas loudly  expressing their unhappiness.Gradually we are accepting people have similar stories of their experiences of life in Hong Kong, London and New York. Delhi is not that much different.

Why should one buy art ?

When buying art should one view it from buying something that is creative or should it be from the perspective of it being an investment such as buying equity ? This thought came to me recently because of a number of recent conversations.

A few weeks ago, my wife and a  friend visited a Delhi based " senior artist " with a view to buying one of his paintings. While discussing the pricing, he mentioned the price was Rupees xxxx per square inch, instead of pricing each individual painting.  

While talking to an old friend about art his view was that one should only purchase established artists or " masters".

Also one of our friends who is an artist herself, is  initiating an effort to promote some of the up and coming younger artists. Thanks to her, we are beginning to see their works. One day while visiting one of the artist which she wanted us to see, she mentioned that the artist is now willing to sell his work  at one third or one quarter of what his work was selling a couple of years ago. She felt bad that the artist was being forced to sell his work at these prices.

I did not respond but my feeling is that art is increasingly becoming a business which depends on marketing and it is a question of demand and supply. After all if the established  artist quotes you a price on a per square inch basis, you know that it is no longer an issue of creativity, but a matter of producing enough to meet the demand. ( " I think I have painted six square inches worth Rupess Two Lacs today - time for me to take a break "). If you are an artist who is reasonably well established, you will produce only a limited number of pieces every year to maintain its market rate.After all you don't see established artists lowering the prices when times are good.In buying their works you are investing.

In my opinion if you look back in history you will find that art has always been a form of  flaunting your wealth whether it was by the Romans or Greek emperors or the religious orders by building huge temples and Churches.. As the Church accumulated wealth and built huge cathedrals whether it was in Italy or Russia, they decorated it with  icons or religious symbols initially made out of gold or silver. Gradually they decided that these huge edifices needed some color and began to commission artists. During the late fourteen hundreds and early fifteen hundreds, the Italian Renaissance period you had among others,  the “trinity of great masters “Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Their greatest and best known works were for the Church.It was the ultimate patron.The Cathedral was your gallery and your greatest marketing medium with a guaranteed daily footfall. The bigger the Church where your works adorned the walls or ceilings the more visibility you got and became more marketable which lead to further commissions.

Following the Italian Renaissance you had the emergence of the merchant princes such as the Medici's who became art patrons. From glorifying God the artists began to glorify their patrons through portraits or family portraits.  By painting for one of these families you could be sure of getting such commissions from others who wanted to keep up with the Medicis.

Even in India, the patrons of the arts were the rulers and nobility . Some  Islamic art painting which have recently commanded record prices are books of paintings such as Baburnama or Shahnameh, done by anonymous painters,  glorifying   the rulers and their achievements. Most miniature paintings were about the life style of the rulers at work or play,  whether  they were the Mughal emperors, or the hill rajas. The artists were anonymous but employees of the court. They did not have to worry about feeding their families. 

In the eighteen hundreds you saw the emergence of the art dealers and the galleries who represented or knew  rich and powerful patrons whom  they could convince to buy your art. That is when art became an organized  business. These included people such as the famous German family Thurn und Taxis , who made their fortunes in the postal service and breweries, the Rockefeller's and of more recent times, the Satchi brothers.If you sold your painting to one of these "collectors" you could be sure that you were established .


Based on my limited knowledge of art , the patronage is now by the collectors and well established galleries and museums. If you are able to have one of your paintings in their collections, or have a solo show by one of the prominent galleries or auction houses you can leave the line of starving artists. If you are Damien Hirst and you can stuff a dead cow or a shark, or like Subodh Gupta weld a collection of stainless steel utensils and get the Satchi's or one of the collectors  to buy it ,  you will  have other wannabe's wanting to do the same ( " you know one of  his works  is in the MOMA collection ") and  you would be laughing all the way to the bank.  I have seen toilet bowls in museums being displayed as art and if you let your imagination run wild and are able to convince some sponsor to fund you , you could go around the world  like Christo  wrapping  islands in plastic or curtaining a valley  in the name of art. 

I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that buying  art  in today's market is akin to an  investment in the financial markets and hence the emergence of art funds.Most artists,  like every body else are in it for making money. Nothing wrong with that since we all have families to feed, but when they start spinning stories about  what went on in their mind or what it represents, it becomes a bit difficult to accept. Perhaps  the " senior artist" has the right attitude. So don't expect me to shed tears for artists when times are bad. In financial investments at least  you get a dividend or there is liquidity. That is not necessarily the case for art. 
 For that reason I am not keen to pay a large amount for a "master" but would rather buy something that I like particularly if it is reasonably priced. 

Having said that and totally  contradicting myself, if I did hit the jackpot, I would like to gift  my self an Anish Kapoor stainless steel sculpture.