There have been many instances, which I have felt fatalistic: a feeling in retrospect that I had been drawn to a particular incident. Some of the end results have been good and some bad. When they were good, I have thanked my stars for having guided me right, and when they were bad, I just consoled myself telling: getting trapped too is a part of life.
At the same time, such incidents have also made me feel that, if not the entire life, at least some parts of it are pre-determined, whatever you do. This latest incident of mine -- fateful, but definitely not tragic -- was a very commonplace event; just a chain of events. But it set me thinking.
As we moved into our new house, we were looking out for curtains for windows and doors. We were told about the new type of "ready-made curtains" that have buttoned loops. We wanted to try them out.
Last Friday, we landed up in a shop in Commercial Street. That was the first shop we were checking out for these type of curtains. We saw a good range, found prices reasonable and decided on a set of them to buy. Also, the shop had a pleasing ambience inside. Something which made me like the place too.
Just after we decided on the purchase, I glanced at the place where the shopkeeper (a tall, fair, affable, suave guy, speaking good English) was sitting (on a stool near a chair and a table), I had a doubt if he would accept credit card, because I didn't find those contraptions there. I asked him if he would accept the card. He said, No.
As it's very hard to find a shop now-a-days which doesn't accept cards, and since we don't walk around with much cash, I asked him, why he didn't have the facility. He said, the shop is new, and that he was getting it.
He then directed me to a few ATM counters near Commercial Street. But since we were running short of time, I told him that we would be back the next day. He said he would keep the entire bundle for us. We were quite happy and decided to return the next day, with cash.
On our way back home, we wondered on the prudence of buying from the very first shop we had checked out, though we did like the material. Why not check out a few more shops? In fact, we saw many shops in Commercial Street itself and in Indiranagar where there were such curtains. Why go all the way up to Commercial Street again? That shopkeeper will wait for one day, and then he sell it to someone else. After all he is a businessman.
Over the next couple of days, we visited some three or four shops in Indiranagar. Of course all of them did accept credit cards. But, either we didn't get the required colour, or the price and quality didn't match.
Disappointed, on Monday, we returned to Commercial Street, and got into a shop. There too we saw lots of curtains. But again, somehow we weren't convinced.
So, finally we decided to go to the that very same shop we had visited first. But, will he have that set still with him? It was very unlikely that he would have, seeing the number of people checking out curtains along with us that day. But more importantly, again I didn't have the required cash in my wallet. Even if I emptied my purse, I would still be short by some Rs 60.
So, I decided to go to the near-by ATM counter. I was third in the queue. The first two withdrew cash and left. When my turn came, the machine developed some problem and just wouldn't dispense cash. The fourth guy in the queue too had the same experience. I went to the bank beside the counter and informed the concerned person. He said the notes had got jammed and a technician will have to be called. He directed me to another ATM near Bowring Hospital.
We walked to that ATM counter. Believe it or not, here the machine wasn't reading the ATM card! Again, not just me, a couple of other customers too had the same problem; and two of us walked into the bank, and informed the officials of the problem. Their answer: it could be a network problem; we'll have to call the technician.
Neither could I buy the cushions, nor could I take the cash. Left with no alternative, we decided to check out yet another shop, where probably we would find the right curtains and where our card would be accepted. We had seen one at the end of the road. It looked good and we were very hopeful that we will find the right curtains there.
But it was a disaster. None of their collections came anywhere near what we wanted. But the sales girl was very enthusiastic and suggested that we get the curtains stitched. When we said we had no time, she promised to deliver them the same day!
We made our exit, and having been really boxed into a corner, for the second time in about half-an-hour we decided to return to the very first shop we had visited. I had less money than I would have to pay and with very slim chances of finding the curtains we wanted. If we did find the set intact, I thought, I would show my purse to him, ask him to take whatever there was in it, and pay whatever little is remaining later. Hopefully he would agree.
When we reached the shop, the shopkeeper had a warm smile to welcome us, back. I said, "We had been out during the weekend..." He was equally apologetic: "I waited till yesterday, kept them for you... I think they are now gone."
Hiding my disappointment, I said, "I neither gave you an advance amount that day, nor I took down your contact number... It's okay... I know you couldn't have waited endlessly for me..."
He then interjected, and told an assistant to confirm that those pieces had indeed been sold out. That guy came back to say that what we had selected were intact, and the set that was sold the previous day was of some other colour!
The assistant brought the entire bunch for us to check. It was indeed the set we had selected. Before confessing that I was again short of cash, I asked the shopkeeper, how much it all totalled to. He took out his calculator. I couldn't believe my ears.
He told us a figure Rs 110 less that what he had told us the other day. Which means, I would actually be left with some Rs 50! Just to make sure that there was no mistake, I got the calculation done again by the shopkeeper.
Not much time was wasted. Contented, we thanked the shopkeeper, and he too thanked us for coming back to him.
On our way back, I was wondered if the shopkeeper believed what I had said -- that we had gone out during the weekend. Or may be, who knows. But why did the price come down, by a good Rs 110. There was not even the slightest bargaining. Since we had returned, if at all he wanted to change the figure, he should have actually hiked it. Or, did he make a mistake the first day?
I just kept thinking about the chain of events: how we began at one place, how we changed our plans, again, and again, and again. But ended up at the precisely where we started.
The typical explanation: It was destined that we should buy the curtain from that very shop -- the lack of cash, the delay, nothing seemed to matter!
This is about everything that is evolving around us with time .... The changing trends .... Their highs and lows .... The changes that are making an impact on our lives .... From technology to social, economic and political issues ... Some books, some sports, some personal anecdotes.
Thursday, April 7, 2005
Sunday, April 3, 2005
Poor are getting better
I have always felt that while our income is certainly important, that is not all.
If we do not have a minimum income, our life can become hell. So, we must make sure that our income gradually rises. But to give income an importance over many other essential parameters of human life is not just wrong but dangerous.
There is a saying: expenditure rises to match the income (unless of course we have a very tight control over our purse.) So, high income need not necessarily be enough income. And, conversely, low income can sometimes be enough income.
I have noticed people who have high income haggling unnecessarily over small amounts of money (which they anyway have to part with). I haven't really understood why. On the contrary, people with lesser income, have their lives better planned and have money to spare.
This is a very important contemporary social issue. We have been seeing a trend wherein youngsters are sacrificing their genuine and innate interest for jobs like those in call centres just to earn a high income. Swamped by sudden wealth, they drift rudderless, searching for an anchor -- which actually is their innate interest in a particular work, which they had dumped for money.
As a consequence, today many youngsters are being counselled to give importance not just to income, but to job satisfaction as well.
Reason.com has a very interesting article: "The Poor May Not Be Getting Richer; But they are living longer, eating better, and learning to read". It's not directly related to my proposition. It looks at things from the poors' perspective. The article by Ronald Bailey is based on another article by World Bank economist Charles Kenny.
The article says, "Even though some of the world's poorest people are not earning much more than they were two generations ago, they're still living much better than they were. In fact, many quality of life indicators are converging toward levels found in the richer countries." Two countries he has picked are Britain and India.
"Incomes have been falling since 1950 in several countries... yet life expectancy, literacy rates and the percentage of kids in primary school have still gone up." One of the reasons for this is... "improvements (in life style have) become cheaper over time."
Read the article here
-----------------------
The Poor May Not Be Getting Richer
But they are living longer, eating better, and learning to read
Ronald Bailey
Wealthier is healthier—and more educated, more equal for women, more electrified, automotive, and computer-literate.
So the conventional wisdom in development economics has long been that to boost the prospects of the world's poor, one needs to boost their incomes. This is still true, but as World Bank economist Charles Kenny points out in a provocative article titled "Why Are We Worried About Income? Nearly Everything that Matters is Converging," income growth does not tell the full story.
Even though some of the world's poorest people are not earning much more than they were two generations ago, they're still living much better than they were. In fact, many quality of life indicators are converging toward levels found in the richer countries.
To illustrate this point, Kenny compares what has happened to life expectancy in Britain and India. The average age span in both countries was 24 years in the 14th century, but Britain then began a gradual rise, and by 1931 its life expectancy was 60.8 years, compared to just 26.8 for its colony. Since then, though, the numbers have begun to converge—by 1999, Indians lived on average to 63, while Brits nudged upward to 77.
One of the main reasons for the gap-closing is the fall of infant mortality. In 1900 Britain, the infant survival rate was 846 per 1,000 births, compared to 655 in India. Today, 992 British infants out of every 1,000 survive, compared to 920 Indians.
Kenny notes that increasing life expectancy correlates with greater caloric intake. "Worldwide, the proportion of the world's population living in countries where per capita food supplies are under 2,200 [calories per day] was 56 percent in the mid-1960s, compared to below 10 percent by the 1990s," Kenny notes. And although he doesn't mention it, one reason is that buying food is a whole lot cheaper than it used to be—the real prices for corn, wheat, and rice have decreased by more than 70 percent since 1900.
Other social indicators, such as literacy rates, are also converging. In 1913, only 9 percent of Indians could read, compared to 96 percent of Britons. Today, 57 percent of Indians and 100 percent of people in the UK are literate. According to Kenny, between 1950 and 1999, global literacy increased from 52 percent to 81 percent of the world. And women have made up much of the gap: Female literacy as a percentage of male literacy has increased from 59 percent in 1970 to 80 percent in 2000.
Kenny also observes that what he calls "non-necessary consumption" has been increasing for the world poorest, too. For example, while the bottom 20 percent and the top 20 percent of the world's population both increased their beer drinking between 1950 and 1990, the bottom quintile's consumption grew five times as fast.
Incomes in the world's poorest countries have been rising slightly over the past 50 years, so perhaps these large improvements demonstrate that small changes in earning power at the lower income levels have dramatic effects? Surely that's been part of the story, but Kenny points out that incomes have been falling since 1950 in several basket-case countries like Cuba, Angola, Nicaragua, Mozambique, and Bolivia, yet life expectancy, literacy rates and the percentage of kids in primary school have still gone up.
So why is the quality of life for the world's poorest people improving, and in fact converging toward levels found in the richer countries? Because improvements become cheaper over time. Kenny notes: "Broadly, the results suggest that it takes one-tenth the income to achieve the same life expectancy in 1999 as it took in 1870.
Consider the virtuous circle of agricultural improvements, such as the way discovering how to properly use inorganic fertilizers boosted agricultural production, which increased the calories available to families, which in turn meant they didn't need their kids to work the fields full time, thus permitting them to go to school to become literate, which enabled them to more effectively adopt even better farming techniques, and so forth. Literacy makes educating people about the germ theory of disease a lot easier. Once-expensive medicines like penicillin eventually cost only pennies per pill. Although building infrastructure remains relatively expensive, technology can leapfrog entire costly steps, as has been demonstrated by the lightning-fast growth of cellular-telephone adoption from zero to 1.5 billion people.
The world's poor have clearly benefited enormously from spillover knowledge and technologies devised in the rich capitalist countries. But they would be a whole lot better off if their incomes increased, too. For that to happen, institutions like private property and the rule of law must be adopted. Poor countries remain poor largely because the incompetent despots who rule over them keep them that way. Poverty was once humanity's natural state, but today it is almost always man-made.
Ronald Bailey is reason's science correspondent. His book Liberation Biology: The Moral and Scientific Defense of the Biotech Revolution, Or Why You Should Relax and Enjoy the Brave New World will be published in June by Prometheus Books.
If we do not have a minimum income, our life can become hell. So, we must make sure that our income gradually rises. But to give income an importance over many other essential parameters of human life is not just wrong but dangerous.
There is a saying: expenditure rises to match the income (unless of course we have a very tight control over our purse.) So, high income need not necessarily be enough income. And, conversely, low income can sometimes be enough income.
I have noticed people who have high income haggling unnecessarily over small amounts of money (which they anyway have to part with). I haven't really understood why. On the contrary, people with lesser income, have their lives better planned and have money to spare.
This is a very important contemporary social issue. We have been seeing a trend wherein youngsters are sacrificing their genuine and innate interest for jobs like those in call centres just to earn a high income. Swamped by sudden wealth, they drift rudderless, searching for an anchor -- which actually is their innate interest in a particular work, which they had dumped for money.
As a consequence, today many youngsters are being counselled to give importance not just to income, but to job satisfaction as well.
Reason.com has a very interesting article: "The Poor May Not Be Getting Richer; But they are living longer, eating better, and learning to read". It's not directly related to my proposition. It looks at things from the poors' perspective. The article by Ronald Bailey is based on another article by World Bank economist Charles Kenny.
The article says, "Even though some of the world's poorest people are not earning much more than they were two generations ago, they're still living much better than they were. In fact, many quality of life indicators are converging toward levels found in the richer countries." Two countries he has picked are Britain and India.
"Incomes have been falling since 1950 in several countries... yet life expectancy, literacy rates and the percentage of kids in primary school have still gone up." One of the reasons for this is... "improvements (in life style have) become cheaper over time."
Read the article here
-----------------------
The Poor May Not Be Getting Richer
But they are living longer, eating better, and learning to read
Ronald Bailey
Wealthier is healthier—and more educated, more equal for women, more electrified, automotive, and computer-literate.
So the conventional wisdom in development economics has long been that to boost the prospects of the world's poor, one needs to boost their incomes. This is still true, but as World Bank economist Charles Kenny points out in a provocative article titled "Why Are We Worried About Income? Nearly Everything that Matters is Converging," income growth does not tell the full story.
Even though some of the world's poorest people are not earning much more than they were two generations ago, they're still living much better than they were. In fact, many quality of life indicators are converging toward levels found in the richer countries.
To illustrate this point, Kenny compares what has happened to life expectancy in Britain and India. The average age span in both countries was 24 years in the 14th century, but Britain then began a gradual rise, and by 1931 its life expectancy was 60.8 years, compared to just 26.8 for its colony. Since then, though, the numbers have begun to converge—by 1999, Indians lived on average to 63, while Brits nudged upward to 77.
One of the main reasons for the gap-closing is the fall of infant mortality. In 1900 Britain, the infant survival rate was 846 per 1,000 births, compared to 655 in India. Today, 992 British infants out of every 1,000 survive, compared to 920 Indians.
Kenny notes that increasing life expectancy correlates with greater caloric intake. "Worldwide, the proportion of the world's population living in countries where per capita food supplies are under 2,200 [calories per day] was 56 percent in the mid-1960s, compared to below 10 percent by the 1990s," Kenny notes. And although he doesn't mention it, one reason is that buying food is a whole lot cheaper than it used to be—the real prices for corn, wheat, and rice have decreased by more than 70 percent since 1900.
Other social indicators, such as literacy rates, are also converging. In 1913, only 9 percent of Indians could read, compared to 96 percent of Britons. Today, 57 percent of Indians and 100 percent of people in the UK are literate. According to Kenny, between 1950 and 1999, global literacy increased from 52 percent to 81 percent of the world. And women have made up much of the gap: Female literacy as a percentage of male literacy has increased from 59 percent in 1970 to 80 percent in 2000.
Kenny also observes that what he calls "non-necessary consumption" has been increasing for the world poorest, too. For example, while the bottom 20 percent and the top 20 percent of the world's population both increased their beer drinking between 1950 and 1990, the bottom quintile's consumption grew five times as fast.
Incomes in the world's poorest countries have been rising slightly over the past 50 years, so perhaps these large improvements demonstrate that small changes in earning power at the lower income levels have dramatic effects? Surely that's been part of the story, but Kenny points out that incomes have been falling since 1950 in several basket-case countries like Cuba, Angola, Nicaragua, Mozambique, and Bolivia, yet life expectancy, literacy rates and the percentage of kids in primary school have still gone up.
So why is the quality of life for the world's poorest people improving, and in fact converging toward levels found in the richer countries? Because improvements become cheaper over time. Kenny notes: "Broadly, the results suggest that it takes one-tenth the income to achieve the same life expectancy in 1999 as it took in 1870.
Consider the virtuous circle of agricultural improvements, such as the way discovering how to properly use inorganic fertilizers boosted agricultural production, which increased the calories available to families, which in turn meant they didn't need their kids to work the fields full time, thus permitting them to go to school to become literate, which enabled them to more effectively adopt even better farming techniques, and so forth. Literacy makes educating people about the germ theory of disease a lot easier. Once-expensive medicines like penicillin eventually cost only pennies per pill. Although building infrastructure remains relatively expensive, technology can leapfrog entire costly steps, as has been demonstrated by the lightning-fast growth of cellular-telephone adoption from zero to 1.5 billion people.
The world's poor have clearly benefited enormously from spillover knowledge and technologies devised in the rich capitalist countries. But they would be a whole lot better off if their incomes increased, too. For that to happen, institutions like private property and the rule of law must be adopted. Poor countries remain poor largely because the incompetent despots who rule over them keep them that way. Poverty was once humanity's natural state, but today it is almost always man-made.
Ronald Bailey is reason's science correspondent. His book Liberation Biology: The Moral and Scientific Defense of the Biotech Revolution, Or Why You Should Relax and Enjoy the Brave New World will be published in June by Prometheus Books.
Saturday, April 2, 2005
Packing, moving, unpacking
Shifting residence can be exhausting, though exciting too. Packing, moving, unpacking. Bangalore is the sixth city I moved to: Bhopal, Indore, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Hyderabad are the earlier ones. In each city itself, I have moved at least twice. That's nothing compared to some government staff who have moved many times than this.
What I found was when I move from one city to another, I am more organised. Probably because of an awareness that I can rush back to the old house to pick up something that I have left behind.
We moved on the 30th to the new house. Someone told me that we should enter the new house before noon or after 1.30 pm. I guessed right: that was the inauspicious time period of Rahu Kalam.
I recalled how earlier we never cared for such things. We fixed the day, when the boss gave leave, and moved when the truck (or the camel cart, once in Ahmedabad, when I didn't have much to move) arrived. Now, probably because we have grown older, and we have been influenced by elders, we decided to keep that time period in mind.
It was 9 am. The small tempo-truck my friend, Suresh, had arranged to come to our house by then, hadn't come. It was 10. Still no sign. Finally, the driver arrived around 10.30, but no sign of the labourers to load the things on to the truck. Seeing the number of things we had to shift, the driver exclaimed: "O, that's all! I and my assistant will load them fast." Within five minutes the professional "loaders" arrived. Relief!
By 11.05 am, loading was over, and we moved. In about 15 minutes we reached the new house, around 4 km away. When the driver saw that he couldn't take the vehicle very close to the house (it's an apartment), unlike the earlier (independent) house, he began his protestation.
I asked him: "What can I do? I can't stop people who are working at the apartment complex. I am not the builder."
But his problem was something different. It will take longer to unload and put the things in the house (when compared to the loading time.) Which means, he will have to stay longer. Which means, he loses his "precious" time. Which means, he will lose another customer. Which means, I should compensate him by paying more money.
He looked like getting ready for a long argument session. But since I got the hint (not just the money, but also probably his plans to ruin my peace of mind), in a flash I offered to pay him a little more; and with a pat on his back, I got him moving. There was every sign he was taken by surprise.
You are momentarily immobilised, and lost in a thought-vacuum, when you reach your goal ahead of time! That's probably what happened to him. He had just a complacent smile to offer.
By noon, all the things were in. Hope that was a good sign! We were back for one more round, and by 2.30 pm, we were through. The driver and the labourers were gone. March 30: the first day in the new house. We were the first to move in. Though our flat is ready, work is still on in the complex.
The evening and night were spent for unpacking and putting things in place. And then, a scare. A few things, like the small wet grinder, were missing. But as usual, in due course, they were located deep inside some carton!
What I found was when I move from one city to another, I am more organised. Probably because of an awareness that I can rush back to the old house to pick up something that I have left behind.
We moved on the 30th to the new house. Someone told me that we should enter the new house before noon or after 1.30 pm. I guessed right: that was the inauspicious time period of Rahu Kalam.
I recalled how earlier we never cared for such things. We fixed the day, when the boss gave leave, and moved when the truck (or the camel cart, once in Ahmedabad, when I didn't have much to move) arrived. Now, probably because we have grown older, and we have been influenced by elders, we decided to keep that time period in mind.
It was 9 am. The small tempo-truck my friend, Suresh, had arranged to come to our house by then, hadn't come. It was 10. Still no sign. Finally, the driver arrived around 10.30, but no sign of the labourers to load the things on to the truck. Seeing the number of things we had to shift, the driver exclaimed: "O, that's all! I and my assistant will load them fast." Within five minutes the professional "loaders" arrived. Relief!
By 11.05 am, loading was over, and we moved. In about 15 minutes we reached the new house, around 4 km away. When the driver saw that he couldn't take the vehicle very close to the house (it's an apartment), unlike the earlier (independent) house, he began his protestation.
I asked him: "What can I do? I can't stop people who are working at the apartment complex. I am not the builder."
But his problem was something different. It will take longer to unload and put the things in the house (when compared to the loading time.) Which means, he will have to stay longer. Which means, he loses his "precious" time. Which means, he will lose another customer. Which means, I should compensate him by paying more money.
He looked like getting ready for a long argument session. But since I got the hint (not just the money, but also probably his plans to ruin my peace of mind), in a flash I offered to pay him a little more; and with a pat on his back, I got him moving. There was every sign he was taken by surprise.
You are momentarily immobilised, and lost in a thought-vacuum, when you reach your goal ahead of time! That's probably what happened to him. He had just a complacent smile to offer.
By noon, all the things were in. Hope that was a good sign! We were back for one more round, and by 2.30 pm, we were through. The driver and the labourers were gone. March 30: the first day in the new house. We were the first to move in. Though our flat is ready, work is still on in the complex.
The evening and night were spent for unpacking and putting things in place. And then, a scare. A few things, like the small wet grinder, were missing. But as usual, in due course, they were located deep inside some carton!
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