What Ho! Ah! To live with a What Ho on my lips and a Gentleman's Gentleman… {sigh}… Such is life…

Tata Nano – A Real Gold Mine For Tata Motors?

Are you subscribing to Tata Motors’ 8.75% fixed deposits? How, you may wonder? And how on earth can the company pay a paltry 8.75% when ratings agencies have downgraded the company and have forced it to raise debt at the rate of 11%-12%. Well, if all goes as per plan, the mad rush to buy Nano could easily hand Tata Motors a cool US$ 800 m to fund its working capital needs. And if more people decide to wait out the long waiting period, the company could well get a very attractively priced medium term loan.

This is how it works. In order to become an owner of the celebrated car, the company is asking for a huge upfront payment and hence, if one takes into account all the three versions, a prospective owner will have to shell as much as Rs 1 lakh for his name to appear on the bookings list. The company intends to sell 1 lakh cars initially and even if we assume a ratio of 4:1 between the potential buyers and eventual owners, the total amount works out to a cool US$ 800 m. This is the amount that will remain with the company until the dispatches start in the month of July, after which it may have to return the money to unsuccessful applicants. Furthermore, if these people wish to wait and take delivery at a later date, the company will keep the deposits and pay the applicants close to 9% per annum on their down payment. In hard times such as these, even the blue chips could well give their arms and legs to raise money at such attractive rates. Small the Nano may be, but Tata Motors has indeed pulled out a very big rabbit out of the hat.

Driving in India For the benefit of every Tom, Dick and Harry visiting India

An Expert who works in BAAN, Netherlands who spent two years in Hyderabad, wrote this hilarious article.

Driving in India For the benefit of every Tom, Dick and Harry visiting India and daring to drive on Indian roads, I am offering a few hints for survival. They are applicable to every place in India except Bihar, where life outside a vehicle is only marginally safer.

Indian road rules broadly operate within the domain of karma where you do your best, and leave the results to your insurance company. The hints are as follows:

Do we drive on the left or right of the road? The answer is "both".

Basically you start on the left of the road, unless it is occupied. In that case, go to the right, unless that is also occupied. Then proceed by occupying the next available gap, as in chess. Just trust your instincts, ascertain the direction, and proceed. Adherence to road rules leads to much misery and occasional fatality.

Most drivers don't drive, but just aim their vehicles in the intended direction. Don’t you get discouraged or underestimate yourself except for a belief in reincarnation; the other drivers are not in any better position.

Don't stop at pedestrian crossings just because some fool wants to cross the road. You may do so only if you enjoy being bumped in the back.

Pedestrians have been strictly instructed to cross only when traffic is moving slowly or has come to a dead stop because some minister is in town.

Still some idiot may try to wade across, but then, let us not talk ill of the dead.

Blowing your horn is not a sign of protest as in some countries. We horn to express joy, resentment, frustration, romance and bare lust (two brisk blasts), or, just mobilize a dozing cow in the middle of the bazaar.

Keep informative books in the glove compartment. You may read them during traffic jams, while awaiting the chief minister’s motorcade, or waiting for the rainwaters to recede when over ground traffic meets underground drainage.

Occasionally you might see what looks like a UFO with blinking colored lights and weird sounds emanating from within. This is an illuminated bus, full of happy pilgrims singing bhajans. These pilgrims go at breakneck speed, seeking contact with the Almighty, often meeting with success.

Auto Rickshaw (Baby Taxi): The result of a collision between a rickshaw and an automobile, this three-wheeled vehicle works on an external combustion engine that runs on a mixture of kerosene oil and creosote.

This triangular vehicle carries iron rods, gas cylinders or passengers three times its weight and dimension, at an unspecified fare. After careful geometric calculations, children are folded and packed into these auto rickshaws until some children in the periphery are not in contact with the vehicle at all. Then their school bags are Pushed into the microscopic gaps all round so those minor collisions with other vehicles on the road cause no permanent damage. Of course, the peripheral children are charged half the fare and also learn Newton's laws of motion enroute to school. Auto-rickshaw drivers follow the road rules depicted in the film Ben Hur, and are licensed to irritate.

Mopeds: The moped looks like an oil tin on wheels and makes noise like an electric shaver. It runs 30 miles on a teaspoon of petrol and travels at break-bottom speed. As the sides of the road are too rough for a ride, the moped drivers tend to drive in the middle of the road; they would rather drive under heavier vehicles instead of around them and are often "mopped" off the tarmac.

Leaning Tower of Passes: Most bus passengers are given free passes and during rush hours, there is absolute mayhem. There are passengers hanging off other passengers, who in turn hang off the railings and the overloaded bus leans dangerously, defying laws of gravity but obeying laws of surface tension. As drivers get paid for overload (so many Rupees per kg of passenger), no questions are ever asked. Steer clear of these buses by a width of three passengers.

One-way Street: These boards are put up by traffic people to add jest in their otherwise drab lives. Don't stick to the literal meaning and proceed in one direction. In metaphysical terms, it means that you cannot proceed in two directions at once. So drive, as you like, in reverse throughout, if you are the fussy type. Least I sound hypercritical, I must add a positive point also. Rash and fast driving in residential areas has been prevented by providing a "speed breaker"; two for each house.

This mound, incidentally, covers the water and drainage pipes for that residence and is left un-tarred for easy identification by the corporation authorities, should they want to recover the pipe for year-end accounting.

Night driving on Indian roads can be an exhilarating experience (for those with the mental makeup of Chenghis Khan). In a way, it is like playing Russian roulette, because you do not know who amongst the drivers is loaded. What looks like premature dawn on the horizon turns out to be a truck attempting a speed record? On encountering it, just pull partly into the field adjoining the road until the phenomenon passes.

Our roads do not have shoulders, but occasional boulders. Do not blink your lights expecting reciprocation. The only dim thing in the truck is the driver, and with the peg of illicit arrack (alcohol) he has had at the last stop, his total cerebral functions add up to little more than a naught. Truck drivers are the James Bonds of India, and are licensed to kill. Often you may encounter a single powerful beam of light about six feet above the ground.

This is not a super motorbike, but a truck approaching you with a single light on, usually the left one. It could be the right one, but never get too close to investigate. You may prove your point posthumously. Of course, all this occurs at night, on the trunk roads.

During the daytime, trucks are more visible, except that the drivers will never show any Signal. (And you must watch for the absent signals; they are the greater threat). Only, you will often observe that the cleaner who sits next to the driver, will project his hand and wave hysterically. This is definitely not to be construed as a signal for a left-turn. The waving is just a statement of physical relief on a hot day.

If, after all this, you still want to drive in India, have your lessons between 8 pm and 11 am when the police have gone home and - The citizen is then free to enjoy the 'FREEDOM OF SPEED' enshrined in our constitution.

Having said all this isn't it true that the accident rate and related deaths are less in India compared to US or other countries. !!??

Countries With Languages At Risk

India leads the world in yet another aspect - the number of langagues at risk of extinction!

The graph above draws a very disturbing picture. Why are our languages threatened? And in such numbers? How come?

At first I did not understand. Then the definitions of the categories used, Unsafe, Endangered, Highly Endangered & Extinct, helped me understand what's happening around us.

The most damning is the definition of Endangered - "Children no longer learn it at home". Why don't our children learn their mother tounge? Obviously because they no longer hear it spoken in the home nor are they taught their mother tounge. But why? Why would Indian parents discard their own mother tounge? And how can they? Don't they have any sense of their roots?

Roots. Perhaps an archaic term. Many people seem to have no roots these days. I can understand people migrating across the country and across continents. I too am a immigrant living in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, far from my native state of Odissa. I have lived here for 14 years. But I speak Odiya and my children are fluent in our mother tounge. The decision to teach them Odiya was not a conscious one. We never thought otherwise.

Once, 9 years ago when my daughter had just started day care / play school, the teacher at her day care center asked Padmaja to teach her English or Hindi as Mamli only spoke Odiya and they could not understand her. I remember Padmaja retorting "No! That is your job. I will teach my children their mother toungue first! Home is the only place they will learn Odiya!" Padmaja and I had never discussed this topic before. It was almost as if there was no need to discuss it. We just did it.

This episode taught me something new about my (still new) wife. And it made me introspect something I had taken for granted so far. My mother tounge. I am reasonable fluent in 3 Indian languages and English. The Indian languages I know are Odiya, Hindi & Bengali, in the order of fluency. I use English at work. And sometimes Hindi. The only place I speak Odiya is at home with my family. And I realized that day I would never turn my back on my mother tounge, Odiya. I will teach it to my children and instruct them to pass it on to theirs.

I have come across many people who use English or another Indian language in all their conversation. I have heard Odiya parents use Hindi with their children. Or English. Why do they do it? Is it because they are ashamed of Odiya? Or of being Odiya? Or is it because our soceity forces them to "pretend"? To use language as a glittering cloak that hides their origin in the vain hope that they would hence be thought sophisticated?

Or is it about survival? Or even about a misconception regarding the need to use English / Hindi in order to survive in an increasingly competetive world? The HR Managers in IT companies rate you on English fluency. They shake their heads when reporting to the recruiting manager if the candidate wasn't fluent. It is considered a failure and an impediment to productivity and growth.

Maybe. But it still does not explain why our young parents are not teaching their mother tounge to their children!

In the citiy malls and restaurants I hear youngsters or even men and women in their thirties use that horrid, made up, American accent they teach all the call center types. Maybe they all work the call centers. I don't know.

All I know is that my children know their mother tounge, Odiya. And we have taught them to respect it. We hope we have taught them enough sense to never try and hide from who they are. What they are. This is the only way I know to ensure that my children will pass on our mother tounge to their children.