BRAToSPHERE

Author: Bharat Jhurani

  • Happy New year 2014

    At the outset, I wish you all a very happy new year. I know am a little late in posting this, but well it is better than not doing so at all.

    I know I have again faltered in my promise of posting regularly. Three months of absence from the blogosphere (or is it BratoSphere?) is complete inexplicable. I agree. The rapidness with which things have been happenings and the ups and downs of everyday life has led to the delay.

    The last three months have been a crazy, emotional period which I would sure remember for a long time to come. I was home for a good one and a half month on a holiday (probably my longest visit home after I have started working). Overall, 2013 has been one crazy year which for sure has changed my perspective on life forever.

    Every New Year brings with it a new hope for a new fresh beginning, and this year promises to bring in a lot of positive change. There are a couple of initiatives planned for this year, which I hope see the light of the day as planned.

    In addition to the social and professional promises, personal life also promises to be fulfilling. So, 2014 sure has a lot to look forward to.

    I am totally geared up to lap up all the opportunities. Are you?

    With this, signing off, wishing you all once again a very Happy new year 2014. See you soon.

  • BANKERUPT – Book Review

    March 2008. Placement time for seniors in Campus. Someone in my operations team was reading a blue coloured book with some “banker” written on it. I initially dismissed it off as some book on finance and did not find much interest.

    During one of the frequent late nights, sitting alone in the operations tent I happened to give the first chapter of the book a cursory glance and it got me hooked. I still remember completing the entire book in one go that very night.

    The book was” If God was a Banker” by Ravi Subramanian. Since then, I have been following the authors subsequent books and I have not been disappointed.

    The author’s latest BANKERUPT is an addition to the list. I had immediately pre-ordered the book when I had heard about its release (through  a mailer list).

    Like Ravi’s earlier books, this premise of this story too is Banking filled with multitude of layers from diverse fields – Gun control Act in US, Academic world in Boston, Emu farming in Coimbatore, Slum Manufacturer in Dharavi, etc.. and how they all tie in seamlessly.

    The book begins with the US split on the Gun Control act and the elections being fought on its premise. From there, the book continues in three parallel tracks

    Boston – an Indian MIT asst. professor and the academic world involved with the Gun lobbying,

    Mumbai – the MIT professor’s banker husband and his involvement with a shoe manufacturer which very much sounds like Reebok

    Coimbatore – the MIT professor’s father who runs a business of bird farming.

    The three parallel tracks set the premise for the second half where the scene shifts to Boston. The author manages to keep the reader guessing till the very end and then reveals out a totally unobvious climax. No wonder he is known as the “John Grisham of Banking.. ” by a famous international newspaper.

    Giving any further information plot details might let the spoiler out and thus I would refrain from doing so.

    Overall, a light read for a lazy Saturday afternoon.

  • Back after a four month hiatus

    Hi all. Have been wishing to scribble something here for long, but saying the last couple of months were hectic would be an understatement.

    Right since May, or was it End April, have been running around across all places. No wonder last that I got to write here was about my travails at the airport.

    Whatever said, four month gap is just not acceptable. I Agree.

    Again, usual of my old promises (I should just stop making them!), I again promise to be regular and more prompt. Of course, such a long hiatus is unprecedented and will remain without one. I Promise. Er!

    A lot of things have been happening in the last couple of months or so. The dollar went through astronomical heights and returned to a new normal, A Pakistani girl is close to winning the nobel peace prize and a past winner of the same prize got close to bombing a chemical nation, leaks resurfaced the intriguing cold war and Snowden is not a den filled with snow any longer.

    No matter what changes and what does not, some things do not change and for good.

    Leaving at that, I again promise to return super quick! I Promise. (Pinching my neck with my thumb and index finger! )

  • Stuck at at the Airport

    Sitting at the airport lounge, and typing fastidiously over endless cups of coffee has now become a norm. With all the travel, airports sure have become a second home, and airport lounges, an extra room to my own 1 bhk in Mumbai.

    No kidding, but I actually used to love the feeling of being at an airport. I have always liked it. Guess it stemmed from my love for traveling. The airport gave me the peace of mind and the relaxation hours that was otherwise tough to find. Airports (and of course airplanes) were the perfect venues to catch up with reading. Airports were always fun.

    The above still holds true and I still completely enjoy the experience of flying, unless of course it is on a Saturday night!

    The agony amplifies with the fact that there is a party on in the metropolis and I am getting late, really late to get there before it is all out and dry! I was anyways getting late to the party, and now with the delay I hopefully would not be disturbing puking slumber!

    To add to the fire is the fact that I was not available in the metropolis last weekend too due to work commitments. This weekend too, one day is spent working and the Saturday night is spent typing away at the airport.

    The final straw to the fury – the flight gets delayed by a full one and a half hours and counting. So the initially scheduled time of departure of 9:55PM now stands at 11:30 PM, and the crew thinks she is being sweet by saying, “this is the time of departure is as of now”.

    So now I have an additional 95 minutes to kill to the previous 115 minutes( i had come to the airport at 8PM itself for a 9:55PM flight!) and 210 minutes are long even by Hindi movie length standards. At this time I was had made up my mind of leasing a private jet about which I read on this website, but as the ticket was in my hand and I had given my bags as check-in, I could not do much.

    Technical snag they say, Jet Airways, why don’t you just discard the plane, or maybe have a standby plane for such exigencies. Maybe you can charge a 100 buck more on each of your tickets to pay for the standby aircrafts. 100 more bucks to the already expensive flight ticket would not pinch greatly.

    Oh! Jet Airways is busy sleeping around with Etihad and such “small” difficulties to a “domestic” passenger would not really matter to Mr. Goyal anymore.

    So what exactly can one do in such situations, other than staring at fellow passengers that is. I can maybe :

    • Browse through the bookstore and make mental and maybe digital note of all the books you want to read. (You can of course later check up the prices online and then consider buying them!)
    • While you are at the bookstore, you can actually read up all the interesting articles from The Economist. This is if standing and reading is your thing.

    Well, you cannot do the above two if you are the Ahmedabad Airport, as the book store owner rates his sleep at a higher priority than catering to stranded passengers like you. The bookstore is shut!

    • You can sit at the free access lounge and keep ordering food.

    This option again cannot be exercised at the Ahmedabad airport, as some smart architect thought having the lounge before the check in area made more sense than having it after the security check in.

    • Convince those noisy over fed rich Gujju kids for a flash mob. Not really recommended again at the Ahmedabad airport.
    •  Keep munching all that you can eat at the airport. Well, would not take long if you are the Ahmedabad airport departures. How much could one possible take to taste from Subway, HavMor icecreams and 2 tea shops?
    • Do something that you have wanting to be doing for long, but have not been getting the time for – BLOG!!!

    You know which option i chose!

  • A Bank for the Buck – Book Review

    About three months back, in January, I was scheduled to interview with the CEO of a large Private bank as part of a competition, and I thought it only to be prudent to learn about the banking Industry.

    In my google for the same I stumbled across Tamal Bandopadhyay’s book – Bank for the Buck. It captures the two decades that HDFC Bank has been in existence with a meticulous eye for the detail.

    Without batting an eyelid further I picked up the book and hopes to complete it in one week. The interview was scheduled in a week from then. Well, other things caught up, I could not go any further that 50 pages in that one week and well, the interview also did not go the way I wanted it to.

    I did end up completing the book in a couple of night’s read from then, and, like any other biography, this one too was compelling as it is a piece of real history unfolding in front of you.

    The book is as much a story of HDFC bank as it is about the first set of new banks that entered the market in the 90’s. it is also very much about Aditya Puri, the long standing head of the bank who was handpicked for the job by Deepak Parekh, the chief promoter of the bank.

    The best part about the book is the ease in which one chapter flows into another. The opening of the book, “On a Thursday morning in February 1994, the telephone rang at Citibank… “ sets the pace for the remaining part for the book. It sets the context that this would not be a book laden with facts but is more like a story book charting the growth of HDFC bank from its inception.

    The first part of the book states how the top team, also called the dirty dozen was brought together and how the initial setup was done for the bank. The later part charts the growth trajectory the bank takes and the consistent returns it has managed to provide in different volatile conditions.

    One thing where the book could have brought in some light is the external world and its impact in helping the bank grow from brick to brick. Also, it does not really dwell too much into what really helped HDFC bank become successful that other banks could not replicate.

    Overall, I would recommend this book to everyone having even a faint interest in banking, entrepreneurship or even a taste for a good story.