Apologies...

No blogs for a while. First, the major happenings in this period - I have cleared my CA Final exams, the results were declared a couple of days back. And, in the last week of December, right after Christmas, I changed another job - third place in less than two years since I graduated in April 2005.

Today, while on my way to office - a forty-five minute travel, the time split equally in bus, and on foot, I faced an aspect of Mumbai life, that I have now been facing, don't know for how long. No, it is not the hordes and hordes of people, pushing and toppling over each other. Nor is it the smoky fumes coloring the air. But something of a nuisance, that the resilient "spirit of Mumbai" has come to live with - the huge amount of dust, that continues to choke my lungs and nose, hours after I have walked into my office.

The problem is not the dust, but the dust that keeps on flying all over. And while the dust "settles down", invariably every morning the employees of Municipality of Mumbai - BMC, wielding their brooms take the task of removing the dust, rather unsettling the settled dust, and depositing it at the corner of the road, so that the walking crowd can unsettle it even more. The result is just that the dust keeps on flying, and the cycle continues.

Now, if you ask me, why can't they do something else? Like? Like may be, washing the streets with water every morning so that the dust can be washed away, rather than just being played around with. And, they do that in a number of cities in India. Yes, that can be done, but beside the dust, the newly made roads will also be washed away, all left will be the numerous pot-holes and slush everywhere. And, it is not a hypothesis but a proven fact, proved every year with the first showers.

That just adds another to the list on innumerable woes of living in Mumbai.

Anyways, adieu for now. Catch ya soon.

Will be posting soon....

More than a month and no post. I was out for a couple of weeks and am back now at my office (meaning more free time, and more blogs) Will post soon.

Cheers, Viks

Entrepreneurship...

Years ago, one of my teachers used to repeat this phrase, “If you’re interested in learning, study, but if money is where your interest lies, then don’t study”. Like a good child, I didn’t believe any of this as I was a firm believer in what was drilled into us even before we saw an alphabet – “Studies are your only path to success”.

Changing world

Well, and that was how the rest of the world was. You could hear it from everyone in the mid-80s. I am not saying that the scene is very different now-a-days but, at least there is a small change in the general attitude of the people, partly because of the recognition that the other avenues especially sports have gotten over the last decade. So, when fifteen years back, everyone wanted to be Birlas, Tatas and Ambanis of the day, we now have Tendulkar, Dhoni, Sania and even Sreesanth or Munaf aspirants.

Examples

However, looking back at it today, and thinking more about it, I realize that he was perhaps not mistaken, and what was said probably as a tall claim is truer than everything else. As an example, I would like to point to Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Hershey etc. who were mostly high-school dropouts, who started early in their careers, scaling new heights of success, in the process, becoming the best that there ever was their fields, and were also blessed in monetary terms, thus lending a strong support to the claim of the said teacher.

But, as it is, there are a larger number of failures in Bill Gates, Branson, and Hershey wannabes. So, is it something very inherent in these person that made them the very best, and that they would have been the same, even if they would have completed their education. Probably, but equally probably, they wouldn’t have been the same.

However, there is an equivalent number in a different breed of entrepreneurs that significantly weaken the claim mentioned in the first paragraph – Akio Morita, George Soros, Murdoch, JP Morgan, Narayanmurthy, and a lot many of them, across times and geographies. They have done equally well in similar industries.

So, what my teacher said was perhaps not correct. It was something personal, and that education has nothing to do with the fact as to what kind of entrepreneur you turn out to be. But, let us look at the above names once again.

Re-looking at the examples

Bill Gates started Microsoft in 1975, a teenager, and never completed his college. But, more importantly, he had gotten into software and operating systems at least 3 years before Micro-Soft (that was what it was known as), and that he was from a very well-to-do family.

Richard Branson failed in a couple of business ventures by the time he was 15, and by 17 he had started a magazine. Hershey too “made his bones” when he was young.

Akio Morita started Sony Corp., with his partner Ibuku at the age of 25, in a war ravaged Japan, creating the largest electronics company in the world.

Soros entered US, where he made his money, with a paltry USD 5000. In 1992, he is famed to have made a billion dollars in one night, and is still known as the “man who broke the Bank of England”.

Back home, Narayanmurthy started the USD 2 bn. Infosys with a total investment of USD 250.

The harsh truth

All these examples look wayward and stress only on the personal prowess, the strength of their personal determination, and their grit with which they were able to overcome the conditions around themselves, and make a mark for them. They invented and innovated. Right?

Wrong, not taking away anything from them or their achievements, I read the above examples once again and besides their grit and determination, I place their success and all this determination and grit, squarely on their situation when they started out. Look at the common factors across all these people and all the other entrepreneurs. The situation they started from was when they were either too young or too distressed. The position that they were in was something they wouldn’t have lost anything from. Bill Gates would have completed his graduation and taken a cushy job, and would have Branson. Soros or Morgan would have died as successful investment bankers or investment professionals. Morita and Narayanmurthy would have become the head-engineers or head-software engineers. But that’s not what they were destined to because they had nothing to lose, and they took that risk.

Stuck in the middle?

If you’re stuck in the middle, you’re stuck there. No one has got out of a comfortable job to create an enterprise, so large, so successful, and so big. No successful investment banker has gone out and created a Microsoft, or a Sony, or an Infosys, names that will live even after they will be dead.

So, Coming back to the first paragraph again, I now understand the meaning of the words which contain more than what they say. As we study more, we become more risk averse, because we have invested so and so number of years in our education, and once we get into a job, we are done, all our dreams remain limited to that single job, the salary at the end of the month, and the bonus at the end of the year, a fixed number of holidays. These are the biggest things we end up thinking, losing the only thing – risk appetite, most important for being an entrepreneur.

Other Interesting points

Also, there is another thing that I would like to draw the attention of people on. It was not as if Sony was the first company to manufacture miniature transistors, or Bill Gates was the first one to build an OS, or a Graphic user interface. Companies like Apple, etc. were doing it long before Gates arrived on the scene. Narayanmurthy’s Infosys wasn’t the first software company of its kind in India. Nor was Hershey’s first chocolate company, as Virgin wasn’t the first record company. They did the same thing that the others were doing essentially, but they did it differently eventually overtaking whoever had the famed “first mover’s advantage”

Also, there were better engineers than Akio Morita, Bill Gates, and Narayanmurthy. So, it was more than just their knowledge of their respective fields that made them.

How do you become an entrepreneur in our country? Believe me a Google-search won’t yield any fruitful results, if that is your mantra for success. Yes, it will, but if you broaden your search and have a look at a website from Pakistan. That’s the only government website that gives you some generous words on how you should go about doing things.

Perhaps, entrepreneurship has died in our country, and what we heard 15 years back is true finally – “Studies are your only path to success”. Add some sports to it, but not entrepreneurship please.

Conclusion

To conclude, I would repeat Tyler Durden from the cult movie “Fight Club”, “It’s not until you lose everything that you are free to do anything” and, an age old saying, “Great people don’t do different things. They do things differently”. After all, entrepreneurship doesn’t denote “having the best knowledge”, but being the risk-taker who can organize the best resources for himself.

Office Politics - Undesirable necessity

Office politics – undesirable necessity.

When I start my day hearing someone cribbing as to how his female boss and the superboss (boss’ boss) were discussing the color of the saris and shapes of the earrings, and he had to sit and bear this un-necessary chatter, and to which someone responds as …”a necessity if you want to grow within the organization”, I can’t help but make the comment, which forms a heading to this random musing.

Since, we are at the heading, let me offer an explanation to its meaning, before reader plunge into making conjectures and judgments about its desirability and necessity. Politics is a sum-total of human behavior when they interact with each other, how they react and counter-react to each other, and so a congregation of even a couple of human beings will bring into a political situation. So, when there are a number of human beings dealing with each other, a political situation, or rather a series of political situations is inevitable. However at the same time, politics has become to represent “dirty politics”, and it is to that effect that it is undesirable. Having laid to rest any doubts about the topic, I can now come on to the body of this musing, and pen down my thoughts.

The boss orders a pizza, and your colleague collects it and delivers it to your boss, despite the fact that he was not required to do the same (a couple of peons were dozing off). Sounds familiar? Yes.

You’re in the middle of a heated discussion with your boss, and your view is on the opposite pole of what your boss is saying. Suddenly, a colleague jumps in, supporting your boss, condensing what he is saying, and the fat fool of your boss welcomes this support, sending your argument to tatters. Sounds familiar?

Ok, you are hereby certified as a victim of dirty office politics, inflicted on you by your colleague. Is it correct? What can you do about it? What are the options available to you?

As I mentioned at the very beginning politics by itself is inevitable, it is the dirty politics that should be abhorred, and is not correct. I have seen good people leaving companies, having been unable to bear this burden of constant pain, and a regular stream of insults being thrown at them, while their “bootlickers” colleagues continue to rise above the corporate ladder. Figure this happening at all levels, and the situation shall not be very different from what we see around us – a flock of talented people leaving the companies, switching from one place to another, getting increasingly frustrated initially from their companies, then the whole corporate concept, and increasingly from their own lives, slowly becoming what they abhorred once. While at the same time, incompetent people continue to rise, due to their skills of being politically correct, nodding their heads to whatever comes their way – increasingly frustrating the talented task-force.

Is this correct? Ask a I-swear-by-(dirty)-office-politics guy and he will tell you there’s nothing wrong about this – “I am paid by my boss”, “He is like this only”, “He does the same”, yadda, yadda, yadda. Yes, It has helped him rise, but just because it helps him and because everyone else around him does the same, doesn’t make him correct, or his politics. So, he is wrong. Great, but you’re suffering in the office, your work life is affecting your personal and family life – In short, it satisfies you that you’re correct but you’re not going anywhere, your life is stagnant in doldrums. So, what can you do?

Watch a game of wrestling, learn and apply that high impact DDT or a sick tombstone, or since that your colleague is only fatter than he is dirty, apply that body breaking German suplex. Ok, I was kidding. This is not a solution. So, what can you do? Leave your company? You did that 6 months and 23 days back, due to the same reason, and nobody knows if the situation may turn out to be the same in the new place also.

What are the options available? A look at the various websites and the counselor’s words will tell you that you should let your work speak for you, keep the colleague out of your work and your life, and ignore him to death. A little bit of politics is necessary and you need to up yourself but not at the expense of lowering anybody else, most importantly yourself – See, you haven’t sold yourself to anyone. These are really sound advices, I tell you, all tried-and-tested-and-applied effectively, across time and places, or so it seems. However, these are good and a sound measure to keep your career in check, but, only if your boss is apolitical or, your colleague is not out and out dirty.

But, god forbid, if that’s the case, you need to be a little more steely – No, you still don’t have to apply those suplexes, DDTs, and tombstones still, but a little more resoluteness, and a more resolute talk with your colleague/boss might help, or even if that doesn’t work out, a heart to heart talk with the superboss (remember the first paragraph), should help. If not, it is the right time to update and fortify that face of yours known as your CV and send it flying across to the various employers, and recruitment consultants, and visit the holy places as per your beliefs, to start praying that the new place doesn’t turn out to be like this one, and to try to move out of the stifling environment. All the best to all such unlucky souls, may a new job land in your laps, relieving you of the mire of problems in your work life.

Mumbai - the rudest city in the world?

Suketu Mehta (SM), author “Maximum city”, recently refuted Reader’s Digest claim of Mumbai being the rudest city in the world, in the June 26th WSJ. I had an opportunity to read the critical piece only yesterday in India Today, and given the content of the rebuttal, I thought I too will jot down a few words about the ranking and more so about the SM article.

Firstly, about the rankings, yes, the RD survey is based on rating “… people on opening doors, saying Thanking you, and picking up dropped papers…” as rightly pointed out by SM, but each one of these three things show more about the people’s character and their thinking than the so called “alternative criteria” proposed by SM.

What does a simple opening of the door for the others mean? Probably not much to SM or his fellow Mumbaikars, who take pride on the fact that there are professional door-openers waiting everywhere to open the doors for others. However, let me ask you what does it mean to you, if someone opens the door for you? It is not as if you can’t open the door yourself, it is more of a simple courtesy, the absence of which can very well be treated as a sign of haughtiness. However, SM in his supposed defending of his fellow Mumbaikars, definitely makes a couple of points – Opening the door doesn’t mean much, and so we have a few fellow countrymen of ours put up to do it, as it is the gesture doesn’t mean anything to us, or the person holding the door open. Good going Mr. SM, I think RD’s claim was less insulting.

The second criterion is however defended agreeably, and when we nod our head as a gesture of thanks, the same can be taken as a sign of verbal “thank you”. As it is we do not have enough time for ourselves, and we save a precious 2.38 seconds by nodding our head as against saying a proper “thank you”.

But, it is the third one that is the most interesting. SM could probably never have defended the argument that Mumbai is too busy to help the clumsy people who keep on dropping there papers. A scan of the recent news will show that a couple of deaths have taken place at the railway stations of the city SM is proud of, because people don’t have the time to help a poor little girl, having an asthma attack, or they didn’t bother pushing someone down the running train, in a hurry to get down.

But, what I thought was most remarkable was when the NY settled SM, quotes a 9-year old edition of the same RD magazine to justify the whole-heartedness of Mumbai by saying, “"If you are late for work in the morning in Bombay, and you reach the station as the train is leaving the platform, you can run up to the packed compartments and find many hands stretching out to grab you on board, unfolding outward from the train like petals. As you run alongside the train, you will be picked up and some tiny space will be made for your feet on the edge of the open doorway. The rest is up to you. You will probably have to hang on to the door frame with your fingertips, being careful not to lean out too far lest you get decapitated by a pole placed too close to the tracks. But consider what has happened. Your fellow passengers, already packed tighter than cattle are legally allowed to be, their shirts already drenched in sweat in the badly ventilated compartment. They know that your boss might yell at you or cut your pay if you miss the train." Hmmm. Nice argument Mr. SM, but isn’t that a little old? Oh, I know, you haven’t visited Mumbai in years, even though you say you love it. Obviously, you will love it; after all, a book on this city has made you a best selling author, isn’t it? But, keeping the praise for Mr. SM apart, everyone in Goregaon knows that they can’t get into a train coming from Borivli, because none of the existing passengers will allow them in, and rudely ask them to wait for a train starting from there. It is a different thing that the same trains, considered the “lifeline of the city”, kill close to 4000 people every year, but then that’s not a big deal in a city of 2 crores. Correct Mr. SM?

I can’t possibly comment on whether the city is the rudest or not, but I can definitely say, that in a city where people have lost their dignity in a crowd, and where they have to fight for a small space to live, to stand in a queue to get an iota of anything and travel a chaotic demeaning journey daily, they have definitely done away on the small courtesies to one and all, be it thanking them, or helping them in picking up their papers. Hail Mumbai, the financial capital of the country, where in a spate of big money, small change and the small tokens of courtesy and humanity have taken a backseat.

Will write something more non-critical, non-satirical very soon. Comments please. Ciao!

Sweet memories of a not so sweet trip

Sitting in the office, piled with loads of work, I was searching for something to soothe me, and in the corners of my mind, I found an old trip, that calmed and relaxed me. It was so engrossing that I decided to write it and hence have ended up sitting in office till now. Will take your leave for now, please comment. Thanks! Adios!

It was November, absolutely NOT the right time to visit the cold Norway, which gets covered in heaps of snow, by the time the first week ends. However, given the tight schedule that we were put in due to the exams spread across weeks, it was the only time that we could go peacefully.

Just for the context, I was on a student exchange programme to Stockholm for four months and was desirous of seeing the whole Europe in whatever little time that we could jostle between the studies and the exams.

However, the 2-day journey had an ominous start to it, giving an indication of the things to come, forcing us to think of the wiseness of our decision, but the second thoughts were soon drowned in a spate of excitement to visit the most beautiful country in the world. So, even if we had to go to Oslo at eight in the night, and then take a connecting train at 1 in the morning, when the temperature was a warm 10 degrees on the other side of zero, we were only more excited about reaching the small sleepy village of Bergen.

However our disappointment only continued as we were stuck in the middle of a place where all were asleep, including the sun which showed no signs of coming out at seven in the morning. However, with nothing else to do, we went on trekking a small mountain that we could see. And while on the top of it, we saw the most beautiful sunrise of our life, the sun overwhelming the darkness, and rising high above the small town, and the large lakes. However, the darkness was cast aside directly on to our minds, as we got so engaged in the beauty and clicking photographs that we forgot our impending train at 8.30.

Exactly at 8.02, when we realized that we were late, we rushed, and the climbing down seemed tougher and longer than the climbing up, and soon, we were running down the hillock. 8.15, we were down, and we were still 20 minutes away from the train-station, so, the deficit of 15 minutes ensured that we ran and ran hard. Now, that is something, I call a morning walk.

However, huffing and panting, we finally boarded the train, proper Mumbai ishtyle, running after it as it arrived, and jumping at the gates just before they were about to close. We high-fived and all, until I started looking for my cell phone, that was amazingly absent from my pocket, normally where I keep it. So, the trip so far had costed me of my cell-phone, and my breath, which I was then out of.

However, the beautiful valleys, the clear water, the small houses, the wild greenery, and a serene peace on the way, balmed my mind. We enjoyed the natural scenery for the next two hours clicking away, until we reached Voss, and for the first time, I could understand why the Egyptians worshipped the Sun-god and the whites the sunshine. It was divine then, as we took a bus to Gudvangen.

On our way to Gudvangen, we came across the first snow, and it was more beautiful than it could ever get. We were merrily clicking away, and we continued to do so, even at Gudvangen, which turned out to be a small village of 36 entities in all - 5 houses and one superstore, and some 30 tourists along with us. But, the sole purpose of all was to take that single boat service, through the beautiful fjord, and enjoy the beauty that abounded in between those two mountains. But by the time, we reached the boat, the gates were about to be closed and we were promptly informed that the boat had been already full and that there was no extra space for any of us.

It was disappointing, but after a failed hour trying to hitch-hike on a sparsely populated road, where all we could count was three vehicles in one hour, we decided to hire a car, and we hired a Mercedes Benz E-class, and it was pure fun for the next twenty minutes as we traversed through endless lengths of darkness (Norway has one of the largest tunnel network in the world).

The end of the fun saw us in Flam, another typical small Norway town, which was a little larger than Gudvangen but not very large at some eight houses and a super-store. The plan was to take a train to Myrdal, in what is considered to be a toy train and one of the most beautiful rides in the world, as the train climbs up the beautiful hills, and comes back down into more beautiful valleys. However, it was two hours to go before the train was to start, and so we warmed in the winter sun, looked at the starfishes in the transparent waters, and what else? We went trekking! And ended up seeing a cattle ranch, in the middle of nothing.

However, the train trip was uneventful thankfully, and ended up meeting all the tall claims that it makes about itself, but the fact was that we were to wait at Myrdal for a couple of hours to catch the connecting train to Oslo. Well, we had been used to these connecting waits by then, however, it becomes painful when there is heavy snowfall, and your Indian body can't survive a sudden fall in the temperature to an obscenely low level, and when there is no waiting room to warm yourself in, things do get really bad.

And, so we were shivering on that deserted platform. An attempt to visit the place, also failed due to the absence of anything but snow, and a couple of deserted houses nearby. However, it too turned out to be an adventure of sorts when we decided to shed our fears and vendured out to wade through the knee deep snow, and it was then I had the opportunity to make the first snowman of my life. It was fun!

However, the train finally came, and we bid goodbye to the snowman, and went towards Oslo, such was our tiredness that we fell asleep the moment we lugged ourselves onto our seats, and only got up after the train had stopped at the Oslo yard, a good forty minutes before we woke up. So, another plan failed, this time to go to a hostel to spend the night, as none of the hostels stay open after one in the night. The only safe bet, or rather the only available option to us was to spend the night at the train station, since it was unbearably cold outside.

However, as if the bad luck was chasing us, and that we hadn't spent a night at a European station before, we were soon informed that the train station closed at two and remained so till five in the morning. There was no other option now, than to go out and shiver in the unbearable cold that the Northern Europe plunges in even before November begins.

But, the scene was totally different when we came out. It seemed that the whole town was in the streets, partying. The air smelled of alcohol, the people were reveling, celebrating, a cocktail of music intertwined the night, as almost every built-up place had become a disc, a club. Even the streets were not spared, as couples danced, and music played on, recorded and live. There were the policemen and policewomen on, take a guess, horses, controlling the small fights that erupted now and then, after an overdose of the alcohol or the drugs that were consumed openly and abundantly on the sideways. It was an ultimate party; bigger and better than any I have seen or heard of, may be next only to the Rio carnival.

The party must have continued a little too late, as the streets were still half-full when we went back to the train station to catch some sleep, but it was confirmed when we saw that the streets were completely empty and the shops all closed, on our planned detailed visit to the town of Oslo the next day, at eleven thirty in the morning. It seemed that everyone was asleep. The streets though showed the signs of the party that we were a part of. Everything was there except the people, and not even a soul was seen in the two hours that we went to walk around the station. The detailed Oslo trip was so cancelled, and we were back to Stockholm the same evening.

This might not have been a trip where everything goes how you had planned it, but rather one, where nothing went as per our plans, and it was initial disappointment at every point. However, when I look back at it, this was one of the best trips I had, and where a series of unexpected surprises (mark the combination of the words) was more fun to us than what every other normal traveler gets to see.

Are you cheap enough...??

cheap P Pronunciation Key (chp)
adj. cheap•er, cheap•est
1. Relatively low in cost; inexpensive or comparatively inexpensive.
2. Charging low prices: a cheap restaurant.
3. Obtainable at a low rate of interest. Used especially of money.
4. Devalued, as in buying power: cheap dollars.
5. Achieved with little effort: a cheap victory; cheap laughs.
6. Of or considered of small value: in wartime, when life was cheap.
7. Of poor quality; inferior: a cheap toy.
8. Worthy of no respect; vulgar or contemptible: a cheap gangster.
9. Stingy; miserly.

Today, when we keep on saying that we are more concerned with the value of the human being and his mannerisms, the relevant definition of the word, “cheap” should be very clear, bordering somewhere between the last and the penultimate one according to dictionary.com However, if you learn by examples and you really need to be in a few real life situations to understand the meaning of the same, read along, and I promise a solution to all the doubts arising now in your mind.

Or, If you are wondering about the meaning and the relevance of the question which is the topic above, and that you have been wondering all along whether that particular friend whom you always thought of being a cheapo, is he really the one? Now is the time to clear all your doubts, to step into the shoes of that person, to read along, and to answer the following questions.

Imagine that you and your friend are sharing a flat!

Do you go around changing soap cases when your friend is not at home just coz that’s better in terms of color or has a few holes at its bottom?

Do you bicker with your housemaid everyday and none of them stays with you for more than a month even if she was working for years in the same place before you moved in? No, you don’t molest them or make sexual advances but ensure that the amount of soap used by her is just right, or that she is washing the clothes with exactly the right number of brush-strokes, or just that you are a little sissy, and like any woman can’t allow her to work on her own.

Are all the restaurants in your area afraid of the demanding customer in you and weary of your face and the habits of dictating the cook the composition of the spices, the quantity of oil, and finally leaving the mess in a haphazard manner before waiting to receive the exact change of two rupees and seventy five paisa?

Do you bicker with your milkman everyday for a little extra milk over and above what you had asked for, while not bothering at the same time if the actual quantity was correctly measured or not?

Do you spy your friend's room when he is not around or pry through his belongings, checking out his computer for any document that might be of any use to you against him, or through his phone book to look for the phone numbers of his girl-friends and then trouble them with cranky flirtatious calls and those million times forwarded and deleted romantic 160 lettered sms-es? the fact that you're doing so forgetting your impending marriage in two months, or that your fiancée is on hold on the other phone, or even that you're doing so without his permission are secondary matters and of no importance.

Do you emphasize too much on the hygiene and cleanliness of the house and the conditions that you’re living in and expect your room, your kitchen and your bathroom to be spic and span, but still allow the used utensils to stink in the kitchen, the garbage to rot in the dust-bin and outside it freshening the entire home, as the wash-basin lies in a dirty mess, because you don’t like/don’t want to clean them? A totally different thing is that you make faces about the state of things out of the bulky gas-mask that you keep on wearing on your visits to the kitchen and to the wash-room, one that you wouldn’t take out drinking your tea (the mask’s too large to allow you sip it in a normal manner), or even when you’re taking your bath.

When you share your iron-board with your friend, while ironing your clothes with his iron, in the common drawing-room that you share, do you lock away your iron-board in the cupboard, as and when you’re done with it?

Walking on the street, when you look at the females, and their accompanying boyfriends, do the first thoughts that come to your mind relate to the clothes which they are wearing and very soon you go out looking for something similar yet something different, similar coz that was stylish and new, but different because he had already worn the same? The size and structure of your body, leave alone your age is a redundant and irrelevant fact to the decision at hand.

Do you pester your room-mate to settle the details of that small trip that you made to the sea-side, at least once everyday, for two weeks after the same was undertaken, when the expenses-statement would read a total expenditure of Rs. 50, and you incurred Rs. 27, thereby having a right to pain the other for the princely balance due to you of two rupees?

Now, here’s the classic and the most important question that will decide for once and for all what you are. Assume that you and your friend are sharing the gas cylinder. Now, one fine morning, you wake up and tell your friend that the gas is over, despite the fact that it is very much in existence, but you know he will not bother to check, but just for an added safety of yours, you decide to disconnect the supply, but when he accidentally checks it you tell him that it is working because you inverted the cylinder?

Result time!! First, for the first eight questions, what did you answer? Does your score-sheet say four or more yeses or maybes? Sorry! (The cheapo wannabes can read this as congratulations). You are really one cheap person and you either need to change yourself or you’re already on the right track. Choose the option according to your inclination, aspirations, dreams, desires and wishes.

I know that the last question is puzzling, but if you managed to get an yes to it as well as the first eight questions, you’re either my ex-flat-mate, or you have a thinking process that maps very perfectly on to his, and that you’re running for the crown of being the one cheapo, the one and the only one! But, I’d request you to also kindly explain me the logic of the action taken and enlighten, while allowing my puzzled mind a bit of much-needed rest.

Oh, by the way, the cylinder incident having happened on 29th April, 2006, it was still working when I left the flat on 28th May, 2006. Phew! Are you cheap enough?