The Return of the Natives!!!!

They say that one always retains an emotional connect with the place where one is born and where one spends one's formative years. That had always been true for me, there has and will always be a soft corner in my heart for Africa in general and Uganda in particular, for that's where I came from!

Recently, my sister, Neelima, got a wonderful opportunity to visit Uganda. And Papa, Mom, Neeti and I were getting a live stream of the action there through her photos on mails and Skype.

Those moments were so emotionally charged and intense for all of us and particularly me. Thanks to Neelima for allowing me to share some of her photographs here. These show the places and sights that I had experienced in the first 30 years of my life.

Here comes the first of the series!!!

One of the first glimpses of my motherland, the land where I was born, Uganda!

Every place is unique, but the greens and blues of Africa have hues, nowhere else to be found. And Uganda stands out. Little wonder, Sir Winston Churchill fell so madly in love with this country that he called it the Pearl of Africa!

Lake Victoria! Will always have fond memories of its shimmering blue waters, green grass and palms fluttering on its shores!

Touchdown! The Return of the Natives!!! Wouldn't I have kissed the soil?

I am dying to get back there, with Papa and Mom to relive those moments 30 years back and to show Neeti where I grew up!!!!

Times change! Uganda Airlines went bust and now you have Air Uganda, but Entebbe etched into the embankment is an enduring image!

I will always remember Uganda Airlines Fokkers and Boeing 707s and its lovely African livery, with the majestic crested crane adorning the fuselages!!!

A magical view of the grand old Lake Victoria! I am dying to see you!

And I am told, the roads in Uganda have Airtel all over. Such is the convenience that you can buy Airtel SIMs from roadside vendors - no verifications, no activations, no paranoia, like we have in India! Such is the innocence in my land - they know no terror! Hope it stays that way, forever!!!

Kampala, the city that gave me birth! The city of seven hills! Makes me fall in love all over again!

There's always a little bit of India where ever you go. More so, in Uganda, where Indians have lived since the 1800s, except for a brief interregnum in the 1970s.

Fusion has been a natural consequence of the long Indian existence in the country. Neelima told me that chappatis and samosas have been integrated into daily Ugandan cuisine.

The Parable of the Pencil

I came across this meaningful piece on the Net and thought of sharing it on Rajeev's World. Here goes:

The Pencil Maker took the pencil aside, just before putting him into the box.
"There are 5 things you need to know," he told the pencil, "Before I send you out into the world. Always remember them and never forget, and you will become the best pencil you can be."
"One: You will be able to do many great things, but only if you allow yourself to be held in Someone's hand."
"Two: You will experience a painful sharpening from time to time, but you'll need it
to become a better pencil."
"Three: You will be able to correct any mistakes you might make."
"Four: The most important part of you will always be what's inside."
"And Five: On every surface you are used on, you must leave your mark. No matter what the condition, you must continue to write."
The pencil understood and promised to remember, and went into the box with purpose in its heart.
Now replacing the place of the pencil with you. Always remember them and never forget, and you will become the best person you can be.
One: You will be able to do many great things, but only if you allow yourself to be held in God's hand. And allow other human beings to access you for the many gifts you possess.
Two: You will experience a painful sharpening from time to time, by going through various problems in life, but you'll need it to become a stronger person.
Three: You will be able to correct any mistakes you might make.
Four: The most important part of you will always be what's on the inside.
And Five: On every surface you walk through, you must leave your mark. No matter what the situation, you must continue to do your duties.
Allow this parable on the pencil to encourage you to know that you are a special person and only you can fulfill the purpose to which you were born to accomplish.
Never allow yourself to get discouraged and think that your life is insignificant and cannot make a change.

Making Sense of the Sensex?

Making sense out of the Indian bellwether stock market index, the Sensex, is much like making sense out of sex.

Things just happen, believe me. they just do!

Things, indeed, did happen in the last few trading sessions, with the Sensexbeginning its free-fall last week. That was just when the supposed experts on the markets were predicting the index touching 24,000 to 30,000 levels.

Isn't it amazing to see the frequency with which these predictions go wrong?

Just three years back, before the liquidity crunch induced the global slowdown, market pundits were predicting levels of 30,000 to 40,000.

But these predictions have never seen light of the day, at least till today.

It is true that we go overboard both with our pessimism as well as with our optimism. I remember those days in the early 2000s, when I religiously started micro-SIPping on the markets through mutual funds, 8,000 was a great big deal, with the levels nowhere being in sight. Then by 2002, markets tanked to the hellish 2,800 levels only to kiss 8,000 by 2005-2006. In all that my SIPping added to quite a lot in terms of an impressive return, though the absolute quantum was minuscule!

That was when people were starting to talk of India.

Today pessimism is in, I am told, because of runaway inflation, increasing crude oil prices and consequent growth concerns.

But then, India, with its 1 billion odd people will grow over the next 20-30 years, will consume, will produce for the world and will extend its services Timbuktu to Machhu Pichhu. If one does have that confidence in India, it will never be a wrong time to place a long term bet on the markets, even when it doesn't seem to make any sense at all (like sex!), even when things just seem to happen.....

Can South Sudan control its Destiny?

Today, I came across an interesting feature on The Washington Post's site on the two-dozen odd countries formed since the 1990s. These include the CIS states formed after the break up of the Soviet Union, states of the erstwhile Yugoslavia, Eritrea, East Timor, Namibia, etc.

It was odd not to see the new Pacific republics of Palau, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia finding a mention in the Washington Post feature, since these remnants of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands gained independence from the United States in the last 20-25 years.

The feature assumed relevance as South Sudan was going to vote in a referendum to secede from Sudan. The South Sudanese had a grouse of lack of development, marginalisation and religious persecution at the hands of the Islamic, Arab dominated north Sudanese, wh

o held a vice-like political grip on the country.

The opportunities for a country like South Sudan are immense. Foreign aid will flow in, with conditionalities on democracy. Rich in natural resources, oil, gas and other minerals, the fledgling region would get an opportunity to control their destiny, that would be if the Chinese let them.

But that's exactly what one would have hoped when Rhodesia gave way to Zimbabwe in 1981. Till the mid-1980s, all was well, with Zimbabwe being the bread basket of southern Africa. But then Robert Mugabe wreaked havoc on the economy by forcibly possessing farms held by white farmers under the pretext of land reform. (I am now told Zambia seized this opportunity, got in the displaced white farmers, gave them land and now Zambia is moving towards becoming an exporter of food.)

Keeping tribal conflicts under check will be a daunting task for the leadership in the new nation. But those fault lines show up on the slightest pretext, as had happened in the supposedly stable Kenya, following the elections in 2007.

The biggest positive of the secession would be the containment of Islamic fundamentalism which had been devouring the north east of Africa. For now, South Sudan would be rid of that scourge.

The next few years will be interesting - will South Sudan define its destiny or would it decay the Zimbabwe way?

I will be watching that!

What a welcome for 2011!!!!!

A new year dawned upon us a few days back.

As always, we made resolutions for the year to come, we had high hopes, hopes for brighter and better future.

But the realities with which 2011 has dawned upon us does make me feel a bit gloomy. That's not how a great new year should be.

The most intriguing news I heard around this time was the closure of the Aarushi murder case by the Central Bureau of Investigation, despite calling her father a prime suspect. If he still is a prime suspect how could the case be closed? Were the sleuths really facing a wall or was the closure a premeditated move? Only the Central Bureau of Intrigue (an apt description by Nana Chudasama) or God can tell. Perhaps we will never get to know the truth behind the murder most foul.

Radia-gate hogged the limelight for the last few weeks. And now the airwaves maintain a complete Radia-silence on the issue! As one would have guaged from the leaks, there seems to have been a clear attempt to paint Mr. Ratan Tata in a poor light.

Now the tapping of Radia's phone was done at the behest of the Income Tax Department. The tapes were supposed to be in their custody. They could not have been leaked out without the nod of some bigwigs in the bureaucracy or political system. At whose behest? Perhaps, some competitor?

Or is this a deliberate attempt of the government to muzzle India Inc., to coerce them, to silence them into treading the road that the political system shows them, some what like the way the regime in Russia under Putin, threatened oligarchs like Mikhail Khodorkovsky?

We may never ever know the truth, as the media is a part of the gameplan. But what I know for sure is that Mr. Tata is cleaner than a whole lot of businessmen we see around.

And now, for the last few days, onions are in fashion on text messages, Twitter and mail forwards. We ourselves bought 2 kilos of bulbs the other day for Rs. 120. But news reports spoke of onions being priced at Rs. 90 a kilo. Other vegetables are also atrociously priced. That reminds me of what Marie Antoinette said about the French public before she was beheaded "Let them have cake!" So, is Mr. Pawar trying to say "Let them have chicken", for chicken is cheaper than a lot of vegetables today?

It is indeed crazy. One of the world's fastest growing economies, an emergent superpower has inflation that kisses 20%? And no one has a clue, let alone the ability or the will to control it. The result is that we go the Zimbabwe way, when it comes to inflation.

I reserve the last few words for the sage-like, scholarly mukhauta (mask) of Indian politics, Dr. Manmohan Singh. Dr. Singh knew all along of the wrong doings in the way telecom licences were doled out. He does know the "who's" and "whys" of the inflation fiasco. But he still chooses to keep quiet. Why? God only knows what all his silence is covering up.

About 10 years back, Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was accused of being a mukhauta for the rightists, despite being one of India's most-loved leaders, but Dr. Singh's penchant for inaction makes him the true mukhauta of our times.

This is how we have entered 2011. It is not the best way to begin the new year. But it may not end up being the worst of the years after all. Let's wait and watch!