Lemon & Ice

Has Facebook killed the joy of blogging?

I am back to blogging after a seriously long hiatus of 2 years. Lets just say that this blog's loss has been FB's gain. Somewhere along the way, FB morphed from a way to connect with old friends to a lazy person's blog of one liner's and pics. Could FB's rise be the death knell of blogs? Granted, its a lot easier to post on FB than on any blog. However, some of the personal information being shared by seemingly sane folks on FB borders on freakish! Why is FB a safe environment to spontaneously express too much personal information, when a roomful of friends at a house party is not? I gave this some thought during the boring part of my cardio-workout today, having run out of more exciting things to focus on. 

Here's my take on it:

Its that relentlessly blinking cursor on the FB status line! It seems to have a hypnotic effect on even the sanest and steady sorts. The compulsion to 'update' one's status has taken on addictive proportions for some of us. Pray tell me why would anyone care if you overloaded on sweets over the weekend or for that matter if you are stuck in a line at some consulate. Totally pointless to advertise that kind of information, isn't it? However, we would be totally incorrect in this assumption. We do give a damn and that's the beauty of FB. The clever folks at FB figured out that humans are essentially social animals who are hopelessly addicted to voyeurism. FB has become a medium for humans to send out 'breaking news' alerts on their private lives to their tribe members, who dutifully respond with wisecracks and comments. Dr Eric Berne, the late Canadian psychiatrist would have described FB as a giant cyber-factory of 'transaction and strokes' within the context of his psychological framework. But let me not get distracted by Dr Berne's psychonalytical framework, which by the way is brilliant in its simplicity and everyday application. 

FB in its current avatar is a platform to convert all our 'friends' into a giant peanut gallery with a voracious appetite for titbits of each other lives. We feed periodically them with 'updates' consisting of snippets of the relentless inner dialog coursing through our minds, in the vain hope that they would at least be mildly amusing to evince a response. The 'attention exchange' makes all of us feel like minor celebrities for a few fleeting moments or hours, and therein lies the users' payoff, and the key to FB's profitability.

For those of you FB regulars who are now shifting uncomfortably in your chairs reading this, I have a small confession. I too have fallen victim to the FB addiction over the last few weekends, wasting away precious hours staring at 'updates' in my FB page, instead of being out and about. When I caught myself checking my FB page today before breakfast, I realized that I was developing a facebook problem, which is why I am back to blogging as a way to wean off Facebook. If this doesn't work, I am deleting my FB profile!

Rising rates are beginning to pinch

Inflation in India has been hovering around 5.5% to 6% mark for a couple of years and it's been giving Mr Y.V. Reddy (RBI Governor) some very sleepless nights. While we have been crowing about our amazing 9.5% GDP growth rate in recent months, the flip side has been rising inflation, which can become chronic if not attacked vigorously. Mr Reddy has been raising interest rates steadily over the last year and half, and now they have reached levels that are beginning to hurt the common man. The RBI is pursuing a medium term inflationary target of 4% to 4.5% and a sustainable GDP growth rate of 7% to 7.5%.Somehow, this reality has not registered with investors and corporates alike who still religiously believe we will continue to grow at 8.5-10% for the next few decades. Let me share a sampling of borrowing rates in India to drive home my point.

When I arrived here last year, I looked at financing options for buying a home and a car. I found that the rates were a bit rich at 8.5% for a home loan and 10.5% for a car. Since then, rates have gone up by almost 25%-30%! The cost of home loans in India has shot up from a low of 7.5% in Sep 2004 to 11.5%-12% now (on 20 year loans). Car loans now cost 15% (for 5 year loans).

Cost of Living: Banagalore (contributed by reader Paddy)

Lemon & Ice reader Paddy has provided estimate of the cost of living in Bangalore via a comment to this Cost of Living post. My thanks to Paddy and I would encourage others readers as well to share how they are budgeting for life in their respective cities:

Hi,

Living expenses in Bangalore is something I would like to share for the benefit of those planning a return. This will be the cost for a small to medium NRI trying to live a middle class life style. This is cost per month for a family of 2 Adults and upto 2 children:

Rentals 3 Bedroom apartment Rs.30000
This would include your maintenance, cable TV,maid working 2 hours per day, laundry and electricity , gas and water.

Delhi expat Blogger on Lemon & Ice

Lemon & Ice recently completed it's first year of existence. During this time, I have used this blog as a sounding board to express the highs and lows of my life in Mumbai. The feedback from the readers have been very encouraging and the blog's traffic has been rising primarily through word of mouth. I also noticed that the most popular posts have been those pertaining to my experiences in 'Moving to India'.Many of you have written to me with queries about kid's schooling, healthcare, as well as moving to cities like Delhi and Bangalore. As a single person, I am not qualified to answer family related queries. Hence, I have been decided to add a co-blogger who can add a family perspective on moving to a major city in India.Her name is Geet and she has recently re-located from Australia with her family. Geet and I are high school friends and we have stayed in touch over the years, often exchanging notes on how our lives had changed since our carefree teenage years. According to her, mine hasn't changed much as I am mentally stuck at 19! Geet has evolved from high-school rebel to an accomplished home-maker, wife and mother. I must admit she has done a far better job in adapting to Gurgaon than I have done with my move to Mumbai. I feel she can add a lot of value to this blog by sharing her thoughts here. After some persuasion, Geet agreed to join me as a co-blogger and she will start posting here soon.

Moving to India: Long Term Pay-Off vs. Current Reality

'As much as I can psyche myself into relocating after reading progress reports in the popular press, every monthly trip is consistently a buzz-killer when I'm physically there'. Writes Jay Gupta, a Lemon & Ice reader, who is seriously contemplating a move to India from the US to start a new venture. His position perfectly describes the dilemma faced by many overseas Indians seduced by the tantalizing opportunities in India's growth story. Today, a senior level posting in India is a 'no-brainer' for any aspiring corporate chieftain (especially those of Indian origin). The salaries in India at senior levels are just as good, the opportunity to spend time with family is a great sweetener and the chance to be in a position of influence in an emerging super-power (and one's homeland), all add up to an irresistible package. During exploratory trips to India, many expats stay in five star hotels where it's impossible to develop a sense of daily life in India as a resident. Besides, the perpetual self-congratulatory prose adopted by the Indian media can be quite misleading. When I moved here initially, I was staying at a five stat hotel in Mumbai and partying every night like a rock star. I'd wake up happily hung-over after a night of revelry and the first channel I'd hit on TV was CNBC. The anchorman was a sunny young fellow with a perpetually upbeat tone on the economy. He's what I would call a 'bull market broadcaster'. According to CNBC, every new days heralded a day of new milestones and possibilities that brought India closer to super-powerdom.

Vietnamese War Art

I spent much of my weekend in Hanoi walking through the city's streets and getting a sense of the pace of life here. I tried a couple of local restaurants that were recommended in local blogs written by expats posted here. On Sunday evening, I found myself browsing hand-painted propaganda posters from the Ho Chi Minh era, with colorful inspiring images and slogans from the revolution. Then I chanced upon a collection of 61 sketches and water colors done by a Vietnamese soldier capturing his perspective of the Vietnam war. As I flipped through the images, I was struck by the circumstances within which these were created. We read and hear so much about the horrors of this war from the American side and now I was gazing at art being created by a soldier who chose to escape his reality by paradoxically capturing it on canvas. All the pictures were meticulously signed and dated with the location mentioned and occasionally a comment or two in the sidelines. I bought the whole lot (see link to entire collection here) as it reflects an important era in this emerging nation's history. I plan to meet the artist before I leave Hanoi. His name is Traan Huu Chaat and he's a well known local artist here with some of his works on display at the fine arts museum.

What do you think? Love to hear your comments.

Moving to India: Reflections on my first year

I just finished my first year back in the motherland. Looking back, it feels like I have been back forever now. In fact, it feels I have been here so long that I may be ready to leave already! Just kidding!! It's too premature to take any firm conclusion about living here for good. I am still discovering India in bits and pieces by traveling to new locations on my free weekends.

My advice to anyone moving to India from the first world is to try and move to Singapore or Hong Kong on a Pan-Asia role first. Moving to India full time is a big transition and you may be under-estimating your tolerance for ambiguity and inefficiency if you have been away for a while. Singapore and HK are both a few hours away from India and you will have the opportunity to be close to the family and India geographically. If you have already made up your mind to move to India, try and avoid Mumbai if you can. Mumbai is the worst big city in India to live in. It's filthy, smelly, over-crowded and over-priced. In my book, Mumbai has a huge 'sell' rating! Delhi is better but you may find the locals a bit provincial unless you are a hard core North Indian.

I have found the best quality of life in India is in the smaller towns like Cochin and Jamshedpur, not in the big cities. The big cities are bursting at the seams and the infrastructure is just not able to cope up with the relentless expansion and population growth. There are millions of poor people in Mumbai who literally eat, sleep and live on pavements all over the city. As the big cities get saturated, high growth sectors like the IT and BPO sectors are migrating to smaller towns, triggering localized real estate bubbles in their wake. It's only a matter of time before the infrastructure in many small towns gets over-burdened as the government is not investing enough in power, water and transport sectors.

No matter where you go, I believe that the quality of life in India (from an infrastructure perspective) is going to get worse before it gets better.

My two pence on moving to India: Invest aggressively in India, but live elsewhere for the next decade. You should move here only if you are going to have an incredible opportunity to grow personally or career wise. Many Indians are returning home due to loneliness, isolation and other emotional reasons, which are all important but could potentially be mitigated by a few months sabbatical in the homeland.

Doing Business in India: Dealing with the inertia of the legal system

In my years as a deal maker, I have developed some simple rules in business that have served me well no matter which part of the world I am conducting my business:

1. Do business with people who have a reputation of honoring their commitments.

2. Don't skimp on a good lawyer.

3. There is no permanent arbitrage, i.e. there is no sustainable unfair advantage that you can bank on in a business relationship, even if you have a contract that says you have the right to do so.

Finally, pick business partners you like and trust so can resolve your disagreements without legal recourse. However, we are all human and susceptible to making errors in judgment and that's where a good contract comes in handy. However, the legal system can protect your rights only if it works like it's supposed to. This is a fact that is often lost on the majority of western investors who are piling into emerging market assets these days. While the citizens of developed economies have grown to expect fair and speedy justice as a basic right, they err in extending that assumption to emerging economies. India inherited a legal framework based on British common law so it's largely predictable. However, we cannot say the same about it's reliability. Legal cases in India can easily get stuck for more than a decade! Indian civil lawyers are cheap and even the common man can afford to appeal for justice here. The flip side of this commendable aspect of our democracy is that we have become a notoriously litigious society.

Moving to India: Cost of Living

'How much will it cost me to live well in Mumbai or Delhi?' This was the question I posed to many of my friends in India prior to my move. Since the definition of 'living well' varies from person to person, the range of numbers I received was fairly wide. My dear old mother who lives in Jamshedpur was not of much help either as she's still living in the seventies as far as the price index is concerned. Just ask the local vegetable grocer who has to haggle with her to recover his cost price. If you are a native of India returning home after a while, you are going to face some sticker shock till you convert back into your home currency for reference. Here's a quick primer to help you with your budgeting:

1. Cost of Real Estate: This is likely to be the biggest cost factor in your cost of living in India. I will cite price points for the two cities I am familiar with-Mumbai and Delhi/Gurgaon.

Mumbai is one of the most over-priced cities in the world in terms of value for money. South Mumbai real estate costs about $500-$700 per sq ft in a high rise condo building and about $250-$300 per sq ft in crappy buildings that would qualify as a ghettos anywhere else. When you think ghetto quality, keep in mind that even the good quality condo buildings in South Mumbai are so bad that you would find dirty staircases, crumbling exteriors, leaky windows (rainwater floods in) and poor plumbing when you pay $500 per sq ft. Prices in upcoming areas like Parel and Bandra are about $250-$300 for new construction which is superior to anything you will find in South Mumbai. However, living in a Parel condo building is like living in an oasis in the middle of a giant smelly slum. Also, the streets in Bandra and Parel get flooded with knee deep water paralysing traffic in the area during the monsoons. It becomes a nightmare to enter or leave home. Bandra prices are somewhere between Parel and South Mumbai and the location is popular with yuppies due to its nightlife and shopping choices. However, it takes more than an hour to enter and exit Bandra due to horrendous traffic conditions on the main artery linking Bandra to the rest of Mumbai. The rental yield in Mumbai is about 5-6% and landlords here try to push up rents in tandem with rising prices. Mumbai landlords insist on a 12 month advance rent and a large security deposit unless the renter has a large well known corporation's name on the lease. As a rule of thumb, expect to pay Rs 100,000 per month for a 2 BR apartment (about 1000 sq ft) and Rs 150,000 per month for a 3 BR apartment. If you choose to buy instead on renting, expect your monthly loan repayment to be about 2 X your rent in Mumbai and about 3 X the rent in Delhi/Gurgaon. The cost of home loans in India is fairly high at the current rate of 10.5%. The rule of the thumb to calculate your monthly loan installment would be Rs 1000 ($22) for every Rs 100k ($2200) you borrow, on a 20 year loan. If you choose to finance a $500k house with a 10% deposit, expect to pay about Rs 200k ($4350) per month.

2. Cost of Domestic Staff: Domestic help is cheap. A full time maid in Mumbai who cooks and cleans costs about Rs 2500 ($55) a month and a good driver costs around Rs 5k-7k ($110-$155) a month. For Delhi, you can assume approximately 60% of Mumbai salaries, however, I may be slightly off the mark here.

Mumbai Diwali: My Bang is bigger than yours!

I celebrated my first Diwali in India after a long time. I was planning to be home in Jamshedpur with my folks but I busted my knee last week so I was grounded in Mumbai. Luckily, I recovered enough by Diwali to step out into the streets and enjoy the festivities. I drove through Marine Drive where local Mumbaikars had taken their Diwali celebrations to the streets. The entire length of Marine Drive had turned into a street party with fireworks going off everywhere amidst loud bangs and explosions. The skyline was lit with spectacular fireworks funded with millions of hoarded rupees normally lying hidden under the mattress in rich Mumbai homes. Diwali is a competitive celebration amongst the rich in Mumbai where the message to the joneses is clearly 'My bang is bigger than yours'!