The Price of Capitalism

Capitalism, ah the widely debated topic the way of life the west has successfully adapted for the last 100 years is getting even more widely debated now especially in the times of economic slowdown. Capitalism in layman terms creates a free market for every one to compete and to prosper with minimal restrictions by the government. Whoever has capability prospers in such a system and amasses enormous wealth, consumers benefit from competition so that they get the best products at minimal pricing. If your product is exclusive you can demand a premium, if its not you have to be priced with the market. This holds true for the job market as well. Today's youth are motivated by money which is natural as more and more money is flowing in the hands of the youngsters and peer pressure and greater pleasures in life motivate youngsters towards working really really hard to make a big buck.

The risk of capitalism is not with the system but with the fact that when the times are good the market tends to go overboard and when the times are slow the market becomes over protective and business starts slowing down very soon and people start losing their jobs or taking salary cuts, people stop paying their mortgages and life changes in no time.

Now the good or bad thing is that the economic cycles never stay one way for long so whatever you lose during the down turn can be recovered and more during the reverse cycle.

Incidently this phenomenon is new to India and Indians and we have got properly "Capitalized" as an economy and we have seen some three downturns in the last 12 years which have left people flabbergasted. What is still different from the west is that Indians are probably still not as leveraged and most of us are still very conservative in their habbits but this is changing very fast.

People are losing jobs today for no fault of theirs, their salaries are being cut left right and center and are facing the darkness as the downturn is all over and its difficult to find another job especially with the same or equivalent salaries that one is working at. Today we face a scenario like this and its even more tough because your expenditures have gone up too and to take care of your basic necessities gets challenging.

The argument in favour of a pure capitalistic economy is that in the long run it all evens out in the favour of the people and this can be seen with the success of the western economies or even economies like Japan which have been in a recession for the last 30 years still have a better qualioty of life for their people than a lot of protectionist economies.

The world is opening up but then we have to wake up to the realities of life which come along with our new way of life. There are a few things that one can do to be ready with any eventualities that can come in

• Save for atleast basic expenditures upto an year and keep it liquid.
• Dont put in all your investments in risk assets as in the times of slowdown even the valuation of equity and real estate assets would be lower.
• Dont really go in for job options with high fixed salaries but look in for options with high probablity of making a higher variable as variable salaries are easy to save as compared to the component which comes in your salary every month.
• Dont go in for excessively expensive houses however convinced you might be for the property.
• Staying in a single jobs for atleast 3 years plus is very important as layoffs are usually for the more recent joinees.
• REMEMBER: High fixed salaries are not good, if you have a good deal you gotta be worried about sustainability .

As they say tough times dont last tough people do, i am sure India and Indians would come out of any global economic crisis stronger and bigger and we shall keep growing. we are more global than ever and we have to grow along with the whole world and we shall do.

Jai Hind

The most memorable holiday ever : more ways than one

Well the best holiday i have had in a long time was our most memorable trip that we had last weekend in Ramgarh Bunglows. Ramgarh Bunglows by Neemrana are definitely one of the finest hotels i have ever seen and its only because of the service levels that they expose you to.

We decided to go on a road trip as in the hills there is nothing quite like driving down on my Innova carrying loads of stuff. Especially in monsoons where everything is so beautiful and picturesque. We started our awesome journey very early on a friday morning and reached the place by the afternoon via Nainital. Ramgarh was better than expected and we lazed around totally and took a lot of pictures were spell bound.

The best thing about the place was the silence which was around, this silence was so pure that you could sometimes hear even river flowing at a distance and our private terrace gave us some great views to the hills. I also made up my mind to buy a place there and make my own small weekend cottage and it shall happen soon.

The second day we went to Mukhteshwar for some great views and our Lunch and while we were reversing our car to go back we realized that my new tyre had burst coz of a huge metal structure coming out of the ground, it burst immediately and with the help of a few drivers around i changed my tyre and put on the spare tyre in the car which seemed to have less air as well. The other boys were convinced that even with less air we would be able to drive upto the nearest car repair shop which was 8 km away, as luck would have it this tyre was punctured as well and i was scared as hell as to what i could do.

This is when i realized how nice the people around were, every single person around was ready for help and was ready to give me a lift with my tyre until the tyre repair shop. My bigger worry was the three women I had to take care of but they were all as chilled out as usual. I came back fit and fine with the tyre and the car was up and running, the main tyre of the car was now gone and i had no spare tyre but it seemed enough to take us back to Delhi easily. We had a great lunch in a pahari dhaba and bought some awesome chocolates. The evening was great as the staff there served us some nice tea and pakoras to rejuvenate us from all the stress of the day. The last day of the week we ventured down to the famous river with another staff member taking us down to the river and we had a nice sumptous breakfast before deciding to take a quick drive through Bhimtal enroute to Delhi. Bhimtal was beautiful as expected and we did some nice boating in the sun and started back to Delhi and then what happened with us was unprecedented.

After Rampur NH-24 was blocked by these stupid Kanwarias who have become more than just a menace and we were diverted via villages back to the highway, the route that was meant to take 8 hours took 13. Travelling through these small lanes i was scared and i hoped that my car does not break down for some reason and also remembered the fact that i was one tyre short. I kept praying that nothing more goes wrong and it did'nt.

Some times when things are going wrong its easy to blame everything on luck and that one has had a really really bad day but then we just gotta feel that it could have been worse. When I came back home on Sunday night all I remembered is the grief of the trip but thinking through the sunday night i felt that i had already forgotten about both these incidents and all I remembered was the awesome awesome trip that we have had.

Three things that i shall always remember about this trip are

• People in smaller places are really nice and helpful something that we city dwellers are not used to. They would go out of the way to help you with whatever they can and they do it all with a smile.
• You gotta believe in god no matter what.

I had the time of my life and now after 3 days of coming back I dont even remember the faux pas that happened more than once. Strongly recommend Ramgarh to anyone who is keen on visiting.

The man they call "THE WALL"

He is the one saving you from the most emabarrasing situations especially while travelling abroad, for 15 years with the meteoric rise of Indian cricket has seen one man at the backbone of it all and thats been Rahul Dravid. From the famous Lords test when he came into forte with a gritty 90 odd he was overshadowed by the magic of Dada who rose like a flamboyant left hander India always wanted. Fortunately or unfortunately RG Dravid has played second fiddle to the more extravagant batsman that India has had in the past. The great thing about Dravid is his ability to score against quality opposittion in winning causes. Initially Dravid was under the shadow of dada as dada was this explosive batsman that India always needed and we could really not notice this Bangalore boy making giant strides, later he was overshadowed by VVS Laxman for a bit especially around the 2001 Australian series at home and 2003 series abroad. But one man who has always managed to overshadow this genius is the little master SRT himself.

The arguement could be of only academic interest as to who is a greater test batsman in the last 15 golden years of test cricket but one thing is for sure, if you look at only quality opposittion like Australians, South Africans, Pakistanis, English and Kiwis and especially in an away seies and the record of "The wall" in such matches then one would really understand the pure genius of this man. From the famous 148 that he hit in 96 series in South Africa he has always been a giant killer. I remember how he neutralized the sheer pace of Shoaib Akhtar in the away series in Pakistan 2004, which is vividly remembered for Sehwag's famous 300.
Most importantly in case one has a look at top partnerships in both tests and one day's you shall see RG Dravid as the junior partner as he usually does not score at the pace at which certain other boys score. The biggest moment for test cricket in India when India beat Australia at Adeliade in 2004 was fully engineered by Rahul Dravid not by a massive 100 but by a gritty performance taking team through victory. Dravid's got certain unique feats which often got unnoticed.

• He has faced the maximum no of deliveries in test cricket, the next best is Allan Border


• He played 93 consecutive test matches that speaks volumes for his fitness


• He has the record for scoring most 190 plus scores amongst Indian Batsmen.


• Besdies being one of the best test batsman he is also the 3rd highest scorer for India in ODI's where he has been often considered a failiure.


• The only batsman to be involved in two 300+ stands in ODI's once with Dada in 1999 WC against Srilanka and once with Sachin in Hyderabad against Kiwis.

Besides this its the very spirit with which he plays the game, never showed any arrogance in his life, was happy to appreciate everyone who ever wanted to overshadow him in any arena. If its not for Sachin, Dravid would have been India's best batsman ever which some believe he still is. When you needed a keeper, he is around, when you needed a skipper to put all blame on he was around, when you wanted to blame someone for Bangalore Royal Challenger's failiures in IPL he was around, but significantly he was around when INDIA LEARNT TO WIN
HAIL THE WALL- HAIL RAHUL DRAVID