On June 7th, 2010 Arijit Ghosal - a close friend wrote this email commemorating 1 year of moving into his new apartment. It covers me as well, so I had planned to post it on my blog. Got time today to format and publish. Yesterday was June 7th. So what you ask. Looks like a pretty mundane ‘at least once a year’ date. More often than not, in the rigmarole of sustaining livelihood and keeping the EMIs on, we generally forget to keep track and celebrate that very thing which we all are chasing in some way or the other…happiness. It suddenly struck me and couldn’t resist myself sharing with those who were together in those moments and those who will appreciate it. It’s been a year now - June 7th 2009 and the few days prior to that are very special to me, and to Nikhil & Anoop as well, I would assume. June 7, 2009: I kicked my landlord and broker and moved in as the final addition to the list of the tenants at the legendary E 703, Bluefields, Powai. It was a Sunday evening. ...

Another report claiming that "dominance of China and India [would] return to the historic norm prior to the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and 19th centuries" came through today. Its become so boring to read that India and China will re-emerge as dominant economies unless they goof up on their fiscal policies, urban development, educational growth, demographics .. the list is long! I find most news reports and analyses engaged either in extrapolating the economic trends of the past decade or speculating by generalizing trends from certain sectors like manufacturing (China) and software services (India). The point is - has anyone been able to spot the root cause behind the rise of China and India? And is there any theory which can justify why China and India will rise to become economic super powers - without putting riders to the claim. The reasons for rise of India and China have been different sectors, but the source of both their strengths is the same - cheap...

Continued from here . I did whirlwind tours of Bangalore and Chennai in December, went to Singapore to celebrate our first wedding anniversary and then to Ratlam to attend a wedding. Singapore deserves a separate post, but here are my thoughts on Bangalore, Chennai and sleepy Ratlam. Bangalore Bangalore is fast changing, my last lengthy visit to the city was in 2006 - in 4 years Bangalore has changed - the metro track running all along MG Road has changed the way the city center looks now. I could not recognize the square which I so often roamed around last time, until I noticed that the mall on the corner had 'Forum' written on it. Nice to see that the Bangalore metro quietly seems to be moving faster than its much publicised contemporary the Mumbai Metro.  And the 9km flyover that connects Electronic City to the city is an absolute charm - travel which used to take 2 hours can now be zipped in a cool 25 minutes! There are some things that still haven't cha...

I have been busy off late and here's why - for Diwali we (me & my wife) went to Vadodara and drove to Bhopal with my parents and brother, the last 2 days of Diwali were spent at Indore; on my return to Mumbai I made a trip to Shirdi and office work made me travel to Bangalore - Chennai lined up next. Posted below are my thoughts from my sojourns: I have posted similar thoughts earlier under the same title. You can read them here . This time, I plan to restrict my post to a reality-check and not suggest any solutions. Gujarat Narendra Modi has been hailed for his development model across the country and rightly so - Gujarat boasts of fantastic infrastructure - urban or rural. From Expresshighways between major cities to BRT in Ahmedabad or roads in smallest of villages - Gujarat's prosperity is quite evident. This also manifests from the habits of Gujarat's rural folk who prefer commuting to cities on a daily basis than emigrating to them. What I am not sure is that i...