The Corporate Alladin's Lamp

From a hardcore caffeine junkie to milk-tea (Chai) drinker, the transition has been as much due to developing gastric symptoms due to half a dozen espressos daily as much as due to the innumerable Corporate Panhandling and Freeloading attempts I had to endure at their expense of 1 cup of coffee(usually a lousy machine made one with the cheapest beans), their wish list encompassing all that is mentioned below for everything from Tyres to Batteries, Industrial Chemicals, Refinery Equipment, Military Grade tech, Amphibious vessels and what not…

So the resolutions for 2021 are: No personal meetings (only Zoom or Skype calls for the preliminary interaction where I first specify my charges and terms or work before starting the conversation) and yes... No Coffee!!
 

Bad "Servile" Blood

Last night, I finished reading the not so incredulous story of the Biomedical startup and biggest corporate scam of this century the - Theranos saga in "Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup" by John Carreyrou. 

Though quite engaging, I can’t  say I am very impressed by his style of delivery which at times is more suitable for House and Garden magazine or a woman centric publication with a penchant for describing dresses and mascara. But, on the whole it was a tenacious labour of uncovering the truth behind a corporate scam shielded by powerful men,  weaponized legal intimidation and absolutely unscrupulous promoters. 

A story of how a young blond blue-eyed woman from a privileged background, a Stanford dropout with a fake voice having all the hallmarks of a psychopath and her unlikely partner, a Bombay born, bullying, boastful, uncouth and unscrupulous Sindhi rouge who earlier made it big in the US by a fluke, peddled a non-existing technology and successfully raised hundred of million dollars from VCs. 

With the initial team of experts and technologists leaving or fired by the psychopathic duo, later the venture relied on a small army of scared, servile and sycophantic  Indian minions afraid of losing their jobs and visas. There were also a  couple of lying Chinese, and the company was backed by powerful white and Jewish old men ready to sacrifice their grandchildren to Moloch for their seat on the board in exchange for stock and by the highest echelons of the Democrat party right from the Clintons to Biden and the Obamas. 

So when the shit finally hit the ceiling, VCs learned that they invested in an elaborate scam and lost their money, almost a million people jeopardized their lives with inaccurate tests, the female Steve Jobs wannabe remained unrepentant and is trying to play the role of a victim and the only beneficiaries of this Unicorn to Dinosaur story as usual are the American lawyers.

All too familiar elements for me, fake accents,to  bogus antecedents and reports, political corruption, legal intimidation, old coots gaga for a smart confident young woman, greed, caprice,  tyranny and as an Indian the most familiar of them all : Bullying Indian business owners treating employees and  hired consultants like servants.

Considering people's propensity for listening to and believing in fables, especially those promising them heap loads of money, I have thus started reading "Bullshit & Philosophy" by Gary S. Hardcastle.

I said it FIRST !!

It was way back in February while talking with a respected friend, an ex-senior journalist on the phone, I expressed my views on the emerging so-called pandemic. My exact words were "It doesn't add up, the body count doesn't add up, the facts don't add up, the 24x7 fearmongering by the media doesn't add up, it's all to choreographed not to be preplanned, and all the countries are falling in line with the narrative as if ordered to do so. I think the global economy is being reset using the excuse of a cooked up scamdemic. First they will crash the stock-markets, next the economies. Can't say if it's good or bad, because either way the current consumerist standards of living are unsustainable."

Later, when I shared the same views with a friend who is a banker, he asked me what I was snorting, but a month later he told me that all his investments in the shares market had been wiped away.  

So how did I guess?

 I told him that I snorted facts! Then the Globalist think tank, the  World Economic Forum  let the Cat out of the Bag, and now phrase "The Great Reset" is on many a person's lips. But what nobody is asking is what came first, which is the cause and which is the effect? The great reset as a consequence of a Pandemic or a Scamdemic created to bring about a great reset for a totalitarian Techno-fascist global network of regimes? 

Pity the silent majority still prefers to remain as complacent virtue signalling sheep, muzzled and mum...

Looking around for an image of a mask wearing sheep for this piece, I stumbled on this decal for sale on Amazon one of the tech giants who profited immensely for the lockdown. Guess for Bezos, business is business, and he didn't jump upon the censorship bandwagon like google, the mass media  and the social media behemoths.

On Solitude and Sanity

While I can't claim to be a brilliant eccentric, but being a loner, living alone, I know first-hand how it helps preserves sanity in taxing times. Hence, in the early days of the ScamDemic,  I used to roam around the neighbourhood with a "what me worry" attitude, sans a mask of course, oblivious to being the target of the collective evil eyes. Meanwhile, my neighbours downstairs were lowering down a bag on a rope from their balcony for groceries ordered on Amazon. And my landlord and friend decided to utilize the time to create a walking regime by prancing to and fro on the terrace which alternately made me think of a poor caged feline in the zoo or just gave me vertigo watching him going round and round. That with a park next-door...

So, when concerned friends asked me how I was dealing with isolation and the quarantine, I always replied "Marvellously!!" The thing is I had already self- isolated myself for almost a decade...from needless social interaction and human stupidity that is... Contrary to what Hollywood and the popular culture has been indoctrinating, the real Zombie apocalypses doesn't involve  living corpses thronging the streets, but living people who choose to remain brain-dead, watch TV and  hide in the confines of their homes.

On the collapse of life and civilization by Dmitry Orlov in his book 5 stages of Collapse

Vintage Cars, Elfin Eyes...

 I cancelled my streaming services because I realised binge-watching was even more wasteful and addictive than social media. However, except for saving me a bit of money on subscription charges and making binge material a bit less accessible, it has not really eliminated the pastime. I ended up wasting two nights watching a so-called supernatural drama set in semi-sepia tones, with 30s era cars and people wearing period costumes in a contemporary western liberal (read as US Democrat propaganda) indoctrination series masquerading as a TV serial. All because of a brief flash of flesh in an altogether different film. 

Honestly, I started watching it only because Natalie Dormer gave a peep of her stockinged thigh in the "Counsellor," which I consider as one of the most sexually charged scenes in cinema, paradoxically in a film with the most morbid ending I have ever seen. 

I had neither watched the Game of Thrones, except for a compilation of all the nude scenes in the series, nor the Tudors, where she had acted earlier, so I really had no inkling what to expect from her. One would also be hard-pressed to call her beautiful in a conventional sense, especially without all the makeup highlighting her elfin eyes. 

Yet undeniably Sexy, she is…in Yoda speak!

The serial in question if you have not guessed already is the "City of Angels-Penny Dreadful." I am still quite clueless as to the connection with the original Victorian-era horror mishmash Penny Dreadful, which I also binge-watched, no, thanks to being enamoured with Eva Green. Where despite the impressive sets, great acting, the ample nudity, it largely gets my thumbs down solely because it forced me to endure several gay sex scenes as the writer, director and producer John Logan seems obsessed about pushing forth his sexual orientation. The really dreadful part of the series I concluded, was that everyone from Satan to Dracula and Dorian Gray got to sleep with Vanessa Ives, Eva Green's character, well all except her poor soulmate, the werewolf protagonist - he only got buggered by Gray instead and had to do with a consolation prize of a young witch towards the end.

Though set in the late 30s Los Angeles, the City of Angles is a typical modern Showtime production; meaning it's a crime to be white. The Jews are the valiant heroes(a la David vs Goliath, with the wisdom of Solomon), even their gangsters. The Latinos are the poor but joyful  hard-working folks, the victims of racial injustice. The protagonist is a tormented Latino Good-Cop, while his two brothers are both cop-killers (justifiably so, of course) #Latinolivesmatter after all. Quite surprisingly, there are no Blacks or Asians in any role. Again with several (unwelcome for me) homosexual and bisexual scenes imposed upon us, courtesy John Logan and his gay agenda. 

The white characters are portrayed as either sadists, racists, fascists or Nazis, the sole exception being a tragic blond gospel singer, the hero's love interest (diversity politics in love, in India they would call it Love Jihad) who is controlled by her hawkish and ambitious, Nazi sympathizer, Christian revivalist mother, but who ultimately commits suicide, probably to make space for a Latino Chica in season two, except that they got panned and rightly so.

The role of Santa Muerte, Mexico's Grateful Dead inspired superstar deity and protector of gangsters and drug dealers, seemed completely out of place in the 1930s context as the cult rose into prominence only in the late 90s. It's as if the storyline got mixed-up with a contemporary Narcos serial. Or maybe the scriptwriters were just promised a discount on their weekly cocaine stash by the Mexican dealer, who demanded the inclusion of his patron saint.

The central figure in the City of Angels is the anti-hero Magda, a multidimensional goddess/demoness of chaos with Caucasian looks, a blend of a Succubus and the Norse trickster Loki. She who thrives on causing mayhem, discord and death played by Ms Flashing Thigh a.k.a. Natalie Dormer in multiple roles, each in a human avatar of the queen of chaos. Can't say she did an excellent job, won't say that she sucked, but yes, she knows how to flash them eye-lashes and stare at you almost supernaturally with those faux elfin eyes.  

She did act like a real bitch at times, well play the role that is, but couldn't be the venomous evil incarnate she was supposed to portray. No personification of madness, either, like by Eva Green or our very ow Kankana Ranaut, both on the screen or real life. And except for the sexless, frumpy secretary in all her other characters, her acting was overshadowed with her doing what she does best...being Sexy!! 

If Santa Muerte at least has a historical, cultural and contemporary religious significance, Magda is a figment of Logan's imagination, probably inspired by the legions of women who create trouble anywhere they go and for anyone they come across in real life. Believe me they exist, I happen to know a few, and they don't need Ju-Ju to do their Voodoo!!

With a 2020s politically-correct liberal narrative, Santa Muerte transported back in time and a real lacklustre storyline, it is a guarantee of wasted time...the only saving grace was the Vintage Cars and those Elfin Eyes...

 The end was even more pathetic and straight out of a Biden-Harris electoral campaign with the hero proclaiming, they are building a wall to divide us!!

Yeah, no female nudity as well, unless you consider some Latino guy's arse, but that's John Logan for you!!

The Chinese Mask Torture

With age, a man sheds two things; the hair on his head and so-called friends! The ongoing ScamDemic has had me blocking a few Covidiots who were daily sending me a barrage of scaremongering messages. Likewise, I had to tell a couple of "Maskista" Karens to Fuck-off, also reminding them that I am not their hen-pecked husband to listen to that chiding tone. Which reminds me how fed up with their sermons and pretensions, I used to get rid of my female college mates exactly the same way, and they always angrily retorted back" No wonder you don't have a Girlfriend" as if my single hood and inability to take their Bullshit was interconnected. But, they probably had a valid point!

Without going deeply into the topic of masks, government flip-flops on the subject and over 50 medical (peer-reviewed) papers, which I collected that say that they mostly don't -  the main factor causing this current divisive rift is really about not their effectiveness but the subject of "Virtue Signalling!!"

Its Religious fanatics vs Atheists all over again. For religious whackos it's because their holy book/prophet/guru says so, here it's because governments and their bureaucracy who are always on a lookout for ways to increases taxes and curtail citizen's rights and promote autocracy, say so : “Honey, we have to trust them. This is our government. They’re on our side!!”

 All for public safety of course; protection from communism, terrorism, a venereal or some cooked up disease. This time they have hit jackpot by effectively combined fearmongering against an invisible enemy and people's inherent narcissistic need to display that they are better than the rest. 

Hence, the mantra "I am a better person than you, because I obediently wear a mask for your safety!!" 

Let's face it, Virtue Signalling is endemic everywhere, only in different guises. In India, it traditionally takes on a religious or cultural colour with a clock of drab orthodoxy. I am better than you because I am vegetarian,  more religious, maintain fasts and go on pilgrimages. Many a young Indian woman proudly states that she comes from an "orthodox conservative family" to denote that she is a virgin and sexually unavailable. So don't get any ideas Bozo unless you fulfil my long list of entitled expectations, those of my parents and the society too. Just like her same-age western counterpart would declare that she has a boyfriend  before even saying her name also meaning  "I am not available for you as well, Bozo!!"

Following the election of the Supreme Leader Modi and the masturbatory fervour with which people have been forwarding the ruling party's IT cell's (Fascist India/Indians/Army/Hinduism is great) messages to each other, Virtue Signalling in India now has got  a new nationalistic Hindu avatar. I am virtuous because I claim on Facebook that I worry about our poor soldiers dying on the borders or freezing their arses in the snow!! 

As organised religion is all but dead in the west, at least among the  white-skinned population, Virtue Signalling there has adopted  multiple new forms. Before the Covid masks, it was psalms to scowling Saint Greta of the Holy Church of Climate Change, the poor hungry polar bears, Asian Tsunami victims, suppressed and depressed women of India, Chinese torture victims and so on and so forth...

I remembered Chinese torture victims because that's what a very prim and proper Danish woman I met in Leh claimed she was doing: "Counselling Tibetan Monks who were victims of Chinese Torture." She spoke about it with such earnest sincerity that anyone listening was forced to nod solemnly in appreciation. Though almost 30 at that time, I was still very gullible in the ways of the world and my BS filters were not yet attuned to such western forms of VS. As I was  a journalist at that time, one who had  not yet discarded his "Free Tibet" grab, a month later I emailed her offering to connect her to some relevant people in the Tibetan Govt in exile at Dharamshala. She expressed her gratitude, but she was already in Bali at that time !! Never knew that Chinese torturers didn't even spare the island!!

 I could have guessed that she was just a poser when she kept extolling West African culture and music, all because her ex-boyfriend was from Mali. Now, interracial porn may not be my forte, but again who on earth gushes about a former partner's homeland's cultural wealth irrespective of whether he or she was black, purple or blue!!

Now, I don't need to pick up an African hooker, the kind who hang around the Pastry Palace on the Outer Ring road in Delhi on weekends For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge to appreciate  Youssou N' Dour!!

BTW, the face masks which the various governments, virtuous Karens and countless COVIDIOTS dictate, threaten  or scream at us to muzzle up with, can also be termed as Chinese torture, or even better China's revenge. After all, didn't this charade start when western powers led by the US used the excuse of a seasonal respiratory illness epidemic in China as a pretext to start hybrid economic warfare against the country?

Forcing a temporary economic embargo causing billions of dollars of losses for the Chinese by quarantining their ships, followed by dumping of share in Chinese companies. An assault bolstered by a 24x7 global  onslaught through media channels with theories of lab created chimeras and  recipes for bat soup thrown in for effect. But the Chinese quickly understood the game and gained the upper hand with an even better orchestrated media and PR campaign, while their domestic investors picked up the dumped shares for a song. 

Soon they were forgotten and every political opportunist around the globe starting using the ScamDemic and the lockdown tyranny to further their own domestic gains. The US elections, Brexit, a constitutional referendum, an excuse for demonising Muslims or to justify 6 years of misrule in India and in the process whether by accident or intent, making true the Rockefeller Foundation's prediction about possible future scenarios. One where countries impose an autocratic tyranny and curtail citizen's rights using the excuse of a pandemic: The Lockstep Protocol. 

So till it (Lockstep) is in place, be good and obedient citizens,  keep breathing in those cancer-causing and lungs blocking microscopic synthetic fibres and filaments from those Chinese made facemasks or material. 

But remember, you are undergoing the Chinese Torture in order to protect others!!

Who says I have anything against masks...

You Imposter!! Shame on You...

About 24 years back, after motorcycling across India for 6 months as a voluntary mechanic with an international group (I will skip over the part covering loud rampant sex or riding dead stoned);  I was unable to sit in an office cubicle again. 

So I took up on my ambition of becoming a journalist except that sans an MA degree in English or a Mass Communication diploma, I wasn't going to land a  gig in any local publication even if I had the writing skills of Harold Robbins. 

So I started freelancing to build up a portfolio, which was writing 2000 words for  250 rupees and trying to cram it with at least 3 photographs as I was paid 100 per image. In a few months, my articles became a regular front-page feature on the supplements of the largest local English daily of the region. 

One of my ardent fans was a  professor of Linguistics or was it Folklore, from Gauhati University who always complimented my pieces whenever he met me. One day he asked me from where I got my Mass Comm degree. 

"Nah, I don't have one" I replied smugly, expecting awe and praise. 

"Not even a Diploma" he exclaimed!! "Then how come they print you?" 

From that moment, I became a blasphemy to his world-view and whenever we bumped into each other he looked the other way and never spoke to me again.

Complementing the learned professor in his ignorance was a distant uncle whose  daughter was as fair-skinned, pretty and  glamorous as he was ugly and condescending. 

"So what are you up to?" He once asked me in a manner which belied that he already knew that it was nothing good. So I told him that I was freelancing and  listed the names of  newspapers and magazines where I was regularly printed.

"Oh, so you still haven't got a job" he snorted. My daughter passed out of Delhi School of Economics (a blatant lie) and she earns about a lakh a month (no clue if it was true and wouldn't care less).

I still face similar situations, especially in technical meetings and hear, "how come you are so immersed in the subject, you are not even an engineer." 

I really want to tell them about young engineers who I shooed out of my room for being ignorant about the basic tenants of engineering or mechanics, or those Yi-Yi-Yi-Ts and Yi-Yi-Yi-YMs graduates I came across peddling fast-food for MNC corporations or even better, as vice-President Logistics of a Pizza franchise.

Only now, a bit more restrained and mature, I just reply…"yeah strange isn't it !" 

Cherchez Le Femme

The Russians love to use the French phrase "Cherchez La Femme," popularized by Hugo, which implies that most trouble, directly or indirectly, is caused by women. Their women use it with equal fervor, because beneath the facade of female solidarity, they actually all hate each other.

In my case, these words should be embossed on my walls, mirrors, and coffee mugs.

Most of the women I’ve met as an adult over the past 28 years collectively inspire me to write a Punk Rock version of the Rod Stewart classic—"Some Guys Have All the Luck."

Only my punk anthem would start with:
"Some dudes get blowjobs, others the whack jobs—no prizes for guessing where I belong..."

Misogyny? Sour grapes? Trapped by unwanted pregnancy and bamboozled by child support payments? Did the ex-wife take it all? False rape accusations?

Nooo.....Sir! It’s far more insidious!

I could, of course, rant for hours about a recurring theme with women in my life: "I rejected you earlier to sleep with/marry someone else, but now, please feel sorry for me." Some turned up the next morning, others after 10, the latest, after 30 years.

Not my skeletons, nor my closet—I was just opening the front door. So why me?!

A more benign, though no less infuriating, episode took place when I first relocated to Delhi. Some friends of mine—a couple—introduced me to one of their friends, a runty little woman with a large, pumpkin-like head and small beady eyes. Despite of having the sex appeal of a female Mr.Bean, she seemed intelligent, friendly, and was quite witty. A few drinks here and there, a walk in a mall, and we all ended up at her place.

At some point, she asked me aside to help her replace a burned-out bathroom lightbulb. The new one burned out instantly. She then gave me a damsel-in-distress routine (which I didn't yet know was her speciality) about having to leave for work early, getting back late, dealing with uncouth electricians, and living alone.

Tipsy and gallant, I offered to help her out if she couldn’t find anyone to check the wiring.

The next day, I gave her a quick call to ask if she managed to fix it—no more than 30 seconds. To my relief, she told me not to worry about it.

Before I knew it, my friend's wife was accusing me of harassing (sexually, of course) a poor married woman under the guise of helping with the lightbulb, no, thanks to copious inputs from the latter. This was the cause of a big fight between her and her husband earlier, before she decided to hold her own trial for my misdoings. While I was somewhat dazed by the accusation, I was more pissed off by the friend's wife than Madam Pumkinhead, who was and remained a complete stranger as far as I was concerned. There you go, I told myself, once again trying to help people out! After all, no good deed goes unpunished!

Later, my friend claimed he got revenge on my behalf by posting a photo of her ( Madam Pumpkinhead)on Facebook, sitting on someone’s lap at a party,  for her husband—who lived in another town—to see.

As for his wife… well, let’s just say we stopped being friends. And for various unconnected reasons ceased to be his wife.

 

 

P.S.: With my karma demon(whose existence I vehemently deny) working overtime, a few years went by before Madam Pumpkinhead, her husband, and a bunch of party people were all arrested in a high profile case by the narcotics police in their hometown with a huge stash of drugs. Their names and photographs were plastered all over the local newspapers and TV, effectively ending her banking career. Though I heard about it much later, I still unashamedly savoured the news with unabashed schadenfreude!

Loan Defaulters, Debt Collectors and those caught In-Between...

 

I recently read a story about lenders adopting intimidating techniques on loan defaulters, no thanks to the precarious economic condition in India for the last few years,  now conveniently explained away by the government as the fallout of the COVID-19 ScamDemic. 

Well, despite not being a loan-taker, my car instalments being paid 10 years back, I still found myself on the receiving end of such harassment several times. 

The first started when I added a friend's wife on Facebook, who had apparently defaulted on a car loan more than a decade back and fled town. The recovery agent followed her FB account as it had no privacy settings, next found my phone number from a job site where they were registered as an employment agency and unleashed 24-hour harassment via intimidating calls demanding her number and address. He even cited my home address, threatening to come over physically.

It took me a day to discover that they got my contact details from the  India job site www.Naukri.com. I believe the firm's name was Lakshmi Debt Recovery Agency, unfortunately, I deleted a bunch of emails which included the one where I mentioned their full name and address in my complaint to the job portal, which incidentally didn't even elicit an automated response! It was only when I threatened them back with much more abusive language naming their agency and address did the calls stop. 

Next, it was some tailor who gave a bank my landline number as his, or maybe the phone company just allocate me a disused number. It took the cooling power of an industrial refrigerator to keep my blood pressure down as I patiently explained to the utterly obnoxious woman on the phone that my sewing skills extend to darning my underwear or sewing a button. That I have absolutely no clue as to who their elusive tailor was. Yes, I even invited her for a cup to tea to my place to see for herself, mentioning that I lived alone... The creep factor always works with women, and she backed off.

 Most recently, I got a call about an ex-colleague, an out-and-out conman who in his latest series of unpaid loans, defaulted on a  personal bank loan taken out on his wife's name. I bluntly told them what I thought of him but asked them back how I was concerned? 

"Well, you were a director in that company," they replied lamely. 

" I was just an employee", I clarified "but even if I was the owner, in what way am I liable ??" 

They cut the line. 

India is Filthy - Live with it!!

India has some of the filthiest cities in the world,  no thanks to a dysfunctional socialistic and corruption ridden municipal service, lack of civic amenities and an almost universal lack of civic sense among her citizens. Indian cities occupy  22 positions among the top 30 dirties cities in terms of air pollution in the world with Delhi being the most polluted capital. Yet, what surpasses both our filthy air and toxic waterways in the amount of venom my fellow Indians are capable of spreading online the moment they feel the country's image or prestige is undermined.

 Well, to be honest no one really gives a flying-F about the country, otherwise she wouldn't have been in the state she is in, but for most of my fellow Indians whether the domicile variety of the economic migrants (sorry ex-pat is strictly a white-privilege term) the equation for nationalism and self-respect is per the following formula:

My ancestors were great = My Country is great = So I should be respected!

Post Modi and the rabid but short-lived nationalism his regime brought about (rabies is in-fact short-lived) it changed to : 

My ancestors were great + My Leader is Strong and Assertive(Great)= My Country is great =So I should be respected!!

Hence, the online rage and venom because Trump spoke the ugly truth about India's filth. Though it beats me how the topic even came up in US presidential debates, especially when considering that US cities and the poverty of a large section of the  people is that country rivals that of 3rd world countries. 

But yes, it's true the air quality in Indian cities is filthy, in fact the worst in the whole world and that's a fact. I live here and I know it first hand. So  feigning rage and spreading venom on social media, hurling abuses on Trump or "H.E. Supreme Leader Modi" is not going to clear up the atmospheric toxicity here in anyway.

2nd Chances never work..into the Rubbish Bin

Okay, I know it looks and sounds FaceBookish, but it's been my guiding principle all my adult life, the same applies for professional relationships as well. 

Nobody is perfect, and we all have to deal with difficult and demanding people or clients. Nonetheless, it takes a more than a certain amount of unreasonableness, malice or entitlement to make it toxic.

I have seen time and time again that a 2nd chance never works out, in fact it fizzles out even faster than the first... 

So to the rubbish bin of relations it is...

And some people are sent there right after the first meeting...to hell with the potential business opportunity lost!!

Propaganda replaced News a long time back..

I grew up during the last vestiges of the Cold War in a place the least affected by it in any way. 

There it was Reader's Digest readers who "knew" that the US was the land of the free, and those who purchased Soviet books on everything from Russian folk tales to Marxism and Physics textbooks, sold at a price lower than the cost of transporting them. 

At times the dividing lines merged. 

I always detested the feel-good Reader's Digest, viewing it as covert American propaganda, which as an adult I learned that it in-fact was, same with Nat Geo and Popular Mechanics. But the key word here is "covert." 

With no television, it was a battle of government radio stations on short wave. BBC was still held to be truthful, till they exposed themselves much later during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, lying even more than the US outlets. VOA and Radio Liberty for propaganda against the Soviet Union, and Radio Moscow for laughs. 

However, none of the cold-war rhetoric can compare with the deeply penetrating psychologically structured divisive venom and misinformation spread by today's corporate media the world over. Be it India, Russia or the "Free" west - They have divided people the way no Cold War spook could have dared to dream!!

#coldwar #propaganda #media #corporate #divisive #venom

Relatives and a Business Suit

 "Ravi, do you have any relatives in Delhi? "

No Sir!!

"Not even friends, with whom you can stay for a few days?"

No Sir!!! (More forcefully).

Big Sigh !!"...well try to find an economical hotel !!"

 It was 1996 and being the only person in the organization to know how to use computers and PowerPoint, I was selected to accompany the big Boss to the Auto Expo 96. My fellow young colleagues were all green in envy, especially as there was a rumour that I would be also getting a new business suit. 

That was till the time the Boss's wife called me into their office and asked me to try on a decidedly worn coat which  beaming she old me that was the one her husband wore on their wedding. It did fit, albeit a bit loosely, and I was told to wear a sweater underneath as Delhi would be quite cold anyway. 

So wear it I did, trudging a borrowed laptop, lodging in a common bathroom room in YMCA Delhi (which much to the relief of my Boss as it included complimentary breakfast). Thus, I attended my first ever international exhibition and I could consider myself lucky as a couple of our senior managers came to see it on their own expense. 

And yes, except me everyone including the Boss stayed as uninvited guests with their relatives. 

#expo #exhibitions #work #profession #businesssuit #relatives

Pavlik & Karens - Not a Sex Story!!

The story of "Pavlik Morozov" was compulsorily taught in soviet schools and his portrait hung in every classroom. He was a communist martyr, a boy who informed on his father to the authorities for some criminal activity (hoarding grains as per another version) and so was killed by his family. The moral was two-fold: A hero always places the state above his family and that it's perfectly all right to snitch on family members if they don't follow government dictates.

 The western world always expressed horror on such leftist indoctrination, but are no strangers to such behaviour either. Right from the days of the Catholic inquisition in Europe to McCarthy's anti-communist witchunt in the 50s, to standing in long ques for signing-up to spy on terrorists (neighbours) after 9/11 in the US. 

Now, in the era of Corona Karens, people are self-righteously spying and snitching on others for lockdown or mask-rule violations "all for the good of the State". So stop blaming communists and pseudo-leftists, as McCarthy and Bush were republicans, while BoJo the Clown is a Tory. 

Remember there are Pavliks & Karens aplenty in every society, all it takes is a government that promotes a "snitch on your neighbour" policy.

Google Censorship - Great Barrington Declaration

Covid Censorship - Google is not showing the Great Barrington Declaration page in its searches. Though its facing flake in the news because a handful of its signatories are fake, the mass media conveniently ignores the long list of medical professionals and their expertise who signed the declaration.

The declaration was authored by Sunetra Gupta of the University of Oxford, Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University. Cosignatories, across disciplines ranging from epidemiology, biostatistics, and public health, through psychiatry and self-harm, to finance and human geography, include Sucharit Bhakdi, David Livermore, Angus Dalgleish, Mike Hulme, Michael Levitt, Jonas Ludvigsson, Yaz Gülnur Muradoğlu, David L. Katz, and Karol Sikora.

https://gbdeclaration.org

B-School Scam ...er...Spam

 I really miss the days when spam email comprised of various ways to enhance my manhood, slimming pills, fabulous business opportunities from Nigeria or even correspondence from Ayesha,  Gaddafi's (one time) gorgeous  daughter who once solicited my help in transferring her father's millions. 

As today, it's either legit Insurance companies offering to protect me or my 3-year unused car, Medical test labs trying to test my prostrates or check me for diabetes or Covid, but most of all it's the B-Schools both Indian and from overseas  offering me their fantastic and probably utterly diplomas to enhance my career or to avert a midlife crisis, for a hefty  fee of course, a student loan option included...

Vibrators stick to Thailand!

It is impossible to ignore the hottest topic of the Indian Automotive world which is the not-so-sudden exit of Harley Davidson from the Indian market. 

I wouldn't poke a hornet's nest discussing the bikes; if people spend their money on a 2-wheeled jackhammer or vibrator is purely their choice, but the company has had it share of gross failings in the country. 

From ignoring customer's grievances which led to a slew of lawsuits, to charging exorbitant price of spares and servicing to lacklustre overpriced entry models, it had been following a potholed path where brand image and fanboys weren't enough to make their Indian foray either stable or profitable. 

And yet, one undeniable fact staring us in the face is that neighbouring Thailand continues being their assembly and export hub for the entire ASEAN region. Though not privy to their internal doings and with any real contact left in the automotive sector, one thing that I can say for sure am confident it will be vouched by everyone who dealt with the Indian top management of premium or major MNC brands is that the all-pervading "Brand Arrogance + Personal Arrogance" is not a productive way of conducting affairs and is doomed to fail at some point, or at best just remain a commodity level player.

 #harleydavidson #India #MNC #thailand #asean

India's Jinxed Energy (Generating) Field

I was asked my opinion by a niche player in the renewable Energy sector about the viability of setting up a pilot unit with a Power Purchase Mode of operation in India. 

My reply was swift :"Don't touch the power generation sector In India with a barge pole unless you want to lose your investment, irrespective of what a hustler may have pitched or a government officer promised. But you may come in as equipment vendors, that to after ensuring that costs and profits are covered in the 80 % of the quoted price." 

Instead of wasting time on a long narrative describing the woes plaguing the sector from defaulting, corrupt DISCOMs( Power Distribution Companies) to how multi-million dollar investments are turning NPAs from the Mini and Micro Hydel Projects of the early 2000s to the Gas Turbine Thermal Stations from the Reliance Gas Bubble days, then the Wind Power generators who have lost their wind and now the solar industry on the threshold of folding like a house of cards: I just sent a few links of article from the recent years from the Indian pertaining to the current scenario in the power sector to help them make up their mind. Never heard from them again...talk about shooting your own foot...

No T-Shirt, No-Visiting Card

Been there, done that and got a T-Shirt!! 

Nepal's iconic backpacker's souvenir is the "NO-T Shirt" which started off as an optimistic but ineffectual attempt at keeping tourist touts and hustlers at bay during the "Dum maro Dum" Hippie Era. There is even a rip-off Varanasi version with the same words only with Hashish replaced with Ganja and an additional line "No Boat." As to why I remembered this piece of nostalgia from my long-past wandering days of my misspent youth, is the number of times I am forced to say NO!! Only not to touts and panhandlers, but loud-mouthed freeloaders hustling free service posing as potential clients or future partners.

In fact, I am seriously intending to print a similar message on the back of my Visiting Cards: NO-Free Consultancy, NO-Free Write-ups, NO-Free Concept Notes, NO-Free Market Overviews, NO-Free Service, NO-Free Visits, NO-Pun Intended!!

Not that I have any illusions it will shame them into offering to pay for my work, but it may at least inhibit them from making such demands outright. Hopefully, it will be a little more effective than the Nepali T-Shirt in getting the message across.

Got the pic via Whatapp so don't know whom to Credit!!

The Startup Incubation Sector- The Dice is loaded.

For over a year, I have wasted a tremendous amount of time and effort trying to get development funds from various startup programs, incubators, NGOs, Overseas agencies with almost zero results. I got at least 15 rejections for a development grant from India and overseas in one year.  Yes, my work is niche technology, but with no local or imported analogues, quite indispensable in defence sectors and tremendous social impact potential. So why the mass rejections?? At some point, I re-read all my applications to find out what's so wrong and after thorough introspection and revision of my presentations, write-ups, strategy and my product offering, dawned the realisation that most of these programs are a charade with the dice loaded against most applicants. 

They are like Facebook, which exists and profits only due to its users who are the free content providers. For almost all Startup funds and Incubators, their raison d'etre is to collect as many applicants as possible, conduct boot camps and training sessions(elevator pitch in local language) to justify their salaries which are usually paid either by a government agency or a private fund(much like the corporatized child-welfare NGOs).  And secondly to nitpick and choose those startups whose valuation can be bloated up as quickly as possible(mostly app-based service providing ecosystems) to be palmed off to larger investors pocketing their commission. 

Most Angel Investor's despite their name prefer Startups whose valuation can be ballooned at minimal cost to be palmed off to VCs under the "Bigger Fool" scheme.

At the other end of the spectrum are a couple of government funds, tied up in red tape and academia which clearly state that it can't be used for paying even basic sustenance to the innovators or inventors as a salary or stipend. Many private investors follow suit, offering only to support the development work but not salaries, or offer such a minuscule amount that only a fresh graduate living with parents or supported by a spouse would agree to such an arrangement. Their justification being they are not investing so that someone may live off their hard-earned money, completely ignoring the fact that in order to develop a product or business one must eat too.

 

A Battery of Lies

Recently, a company CEO while trying to push his niche and pricey Marine batteries, boasted that they were selected as OEM suppliers by the winners of a large Indian inland vessel tender, more specifically, the Kochin Metro's, water metro project. 

Being both well-connected in this field and also keeping myself abreast with all the latest developments, I was quite surprised not hearing about this development. Thus, I called up the bid winning party to confirm whether it is true.

 "Not at all, the principal rejected their technology, and so we are providing a competitor's product." was their reply.

So, apart from spouting blatant lies, he also took the person in front of them for an uninformed fool: A seasoned Inland Water transportation specialist, at that. 

No excuses for giving such a company a miss even if their product is good and competitively priced. 

I will, and shall also make sure that everyone I work with does it as well.

Ingoramus Geographicus - An NCO Nonetheless

 A favourite grouse of my fellow North-east Indians(many with an acute case of angry nigger syndrome) is that the rest of the countrymen know nothing about their area, confuse them with Nepalis or Chinese, think that tea grows in every backyard and so on and forth. That is, till they are reminded that they too know nothing about places like Kerala or Chhattisgarh and the people who live there. Because till about a decade or two back, the few times anyone ventured out was either to study, enrol their children in an educational institution or for health check-ups or cancer treatment in Vellore. 

Besides, ignorance about other states and the geography of the country is endemic everywhere. My favourite example being an NCO from Signals Corps of the Indian Army who travelled with me on a train to Goa for some advanced training at the Army Signal Training Center in Bambolim. 

An M.Sc. degree holder by his own admission, in his excitement of getting to see Goa and the sea, the first time in his life, he pestered me with numerous questions. One that particularly struck me was "After Goa it's the international border right?" 

I thought about it and said, "Well yes, if you consider the sea as a maritime border!!" His face fell and remained so till the end of the trip. I think I dashed his hopes of seeing a real border!

Or maybe he  thought the Goa was still a Portuguese enclave?? Or maybe even international Border between India and Portugal!!

But what astounded me the most about this ignorant Bumpkin is that he was from Signal Corps, the same people entrusted with communication in the Army !!