Does Apple have right product in iPad for average Indian consumer?

Most of the people in India feel that Apple has got its pricing strategy wrong in India or Apple doesn’t want to focus on India as a market for its high end products like iPad and iPhone.  I feel that Apple is very smart to keep its pricing high for Indian consumers.  In my opinion, iPad is not the right product for middle class Indian consumer and Apple is aware of it.

Unlike west, most of the Indian middle class households generally have one computing device – either laptop or desktop and whole family uses it.  Personalization, as per the needs of different members in household, is one of the standard features of desktop operating systems.  Moreover, you have the option of logging out of your personal accounts (email, facebook, etc.) from the web browser.  However, Apple devices like iPad and iPhone are more of personal devices rather than family usage devices.  If one member of the family setups his/ her email, facebook, youtube, linkedin accounts on iPad/ iPhone, the information can be easily viewed by all other members of family without any restrictions.  I believe that Apple is very much aware of this cultural different between the India and west.  This is the reason of keeping prices of iPad/ iPhone high to target only upper middle class and upper class, who can afford iPad as their personal device and keep it personal too J

To sum it up, I believe that Apple is aware that they don’t have product in iPad for average Indian family and keeping the pricing high is a way to target the audience who can afford to treat iPad/ iPhone as personal device.

Rockstar - Sadda Haq

Today I watched Rockstar and this is the first movie after Inception that has left a hangover on me.  It is out and out rebel movie.  If you have been a rebel in your life, you can relate to the main character.  I am sure lots of people will find the protagonist unreasonable.

The movie is a must watch for 4 reasons.

1.  Music:  A R Rahman has given one of his best music.  The way music carries the story forward is amazing.  I have been listening to songs since last few days but these songs sounded very different and amazing when you listen with story.

2.  Ranbir Kapoor:  Lovely acting by Ranbir especially rebel looks and all the angst.  It was Ranbir all over in the movie.

3.  Narration:  I have seen very few Indian movies with such a intelligent narration, which goes back and forth in the timeline.

4.  Conflict between Love and Aspiration:  Ranbir gives his best performance in movie when he is away from his love and his career is screwed up with all the cases when he is with his love, Heer.  However Heer is medically fit when Ranbir is with her but otherwise she has critical diseases.  Ranbir wanted both in the movie and this movie has shown the conflict in a very good way.

Shammi Kapoor's role is emotional.  College life dialogues are good and wacky.  Any review of this movie is incomplete without a comment on Ranbir styling and clothing.  I am sure it is going to be big hit.  This movie has left a huge hangover.

On a lighter note, I hope my wife lets me keep long hair after Ranbir's looks in the movie.

A Journey by Rail, Road, Water and Air to Gods Own Country

Train Journey (Day 1)

After hectic schedule of Diwali preparations, visiting friends and pooja (prayers), we, along with a friend and his family, started the trip to Kerala.  It was going to be first train journey for my two and half year old (young!!!) son.  He was very excited and we were very nervous J

We reached Yeshwantpur railway station and I was amazed by the facilities available at station.  Some of the facilities like ramp for overhead bridge impressed me a lot.  After boarding the train and settling down, we had dinner and our journey started.  At this time I realized that travelling with kid by train is actually very difficult.  Somehow my wife managed to sleep in a middle seat with my son.  I also managed to fit myself in the top seat.  In the morning, my son kept jumping from one seat to another (eventually fell without hurting himself much.  Thank God!!!) and had fun with train journey.  He conveyed his excitement by repeatedly saying “Papa chook chook train!!!”  We wanted to play scrabble in train but skipped the idea.  Eventually we reached Kottayam at 10AM and it was a pleasant weather with temperature in high twenties and humidity in fifties.

Kumarakom (Day 2)

Cab was waiting for us at the train station and our resort was almost 20KM away.  After one hour journey through narrow roads, never ending canals and unlimited scenery, we reached our resort, Backwater Ripples.  I was mesmerized by the beautiful nature.  I could see the swimming pool with a backdrop of Kerala backwaters and houseboats in it.  It looked like heaven to me.  After a light breakfast and tea break, we checked into our rooms, which were facing garden and kids play area.  All the 3 kids (my son and my friend’s daughters) directly went to the play area to satiate their urge to play.  And all this while I was still feeling the rhythm of train journey J

All of us got ready for swimming and wonderful view of backwaters greeted us again.  We spent more than an hour in the pool.  Except my friend’s daughters, nobody knew swimming so we just spent leisure time in pool.  I kept walking from one end to another and realized that it was a good exercise.  Beer was the only thing that I missed at that time.  

After the relaxing session in swimming pool, we hit restaurant to appease our appetite.  Food was equally good and satisfying.  This was followed by a long photography session.

Eventually none of us could say no to afternoon nap after such a beautiful, relaxing and memorable experience.  I woke up after an hour to hit the gym for some exercise, while my friend experienced a romantic sunset.  He clicked very good photographs of sunset.

After having few drinks at our rooms we headed out for dinner and small walk.  A short session of cards was also held but that was primarily spent in teaching Anju (my wife) how to play it.

Houseboat in Gods Own Country (Day 3)

Next day after breakfast and packing, we left for much awaited houseboat leg of journey to Allepey.  One hour road journey followed by a small walk took us to our houseboat.  As soon as we entered the boat, I knew that it is going to be once in a lifetime experience.  It was a boat with 2 bedrooms rooms with attached baths, an open dining and sit-out area in the front and kitchen at the back. 

We were welcomed with fresh lime water and our ride through the backwater started.  After settling into comfortable clothes for humid weather, we had a session of photography.  I wanted to capture each and every frame of the scenic view. 

After almost one hour of sailing, anchor was dropped to serve lunch.  They served one of the best fried fish I have ever had.  After the delicious fish and chicken, boat started cruising again.  There were so many houseboats in the backwaters and it was a beautiful sight.  All this while I had almost forgotten about rains in Kerala and suddenly Rain God decided to remind me of His powers and it started pouring heavily.  We had to drop anchor again because of heavy winds but that was only for 10-15 minutes.  Among the chit chat and gossiping, we didn’t realize that it was 5PM, time for boat to drop anchor for the night. 

We were served with tea and pakodas in the evening.  This was followed by feeding kids and putting them to sleep.  We negotiated with houseboat guy to switch on AC earlier than scheduled time and it took us less than expected time to convince him.  After all it was a matter of shelling out few extra bucks. 

We started playing scrabble with drinks but the whole focus was shifted when our friends started singing their favorite songs.  We also joined them  and it turned out to be amazing time.  Our boat was rocking regularly by the waves created by speeding motor boats and other boats.  I must say that feeling of alcohol mixed with rocking boat is an experience in itself.  I was never sure if it was alcohol effect or boat effect J

The singing session was followed by delicious dinner and then we went off to sleep.  Sleeping on not your usual bed coupled with rocking boat didn’t let me sleep for long and eventually I got up at 5.  Boat team was preparing morning tea and breakfast.  I took few more photographs of the view and eventually we started cruising at 7:45. 
After about one hour of cruising in the backwaters among so many houseboats, we reached our destination.  In my opinion except mosquitos, it was one of the best trips I have ever had.  Even though my wife has different opinion, I am going to plan another trip to houseboat in future.

Poovar (Day 4)

Houseboat stay was followed by 4 hour road journey to Poovar.  It is around 40KM from Trivandrum, which is capital of Kerala.  During the whole journey, I was amazed by so much greenery in the state.  We stayed at a resort called Isola Di Cocca, which means Island of Coconut and it was the same in literal sense.  After lunch and little rest, we decided to go and relax near the swimming pool.  We didn’t go for swimming as it was raining heavily.  It was a beautiful sight with river, sea and backwater merging into each other. 

As rain slowed down a bit, we decided to go for the beach across backwater.  Only option was to go through boat and luckily rain stopped by the time we reached there.  Kids enjoyed a lot at beach with sand toys and waves.  I wanted to go further in water but my inability to swim among high waves was a big concern.  We spent 45 minutes at beach and looking at the kids excitement, we decided to visit Kovalam beach next morning.  After clicking lots of photos we came back to our resort and got rid of all the sand J. 

We wrapped the day by couple of drinks followed by dinner.  I could still feel the boat rocking.  Looks like hangover of the boat is stronger than that of any liquor J

Poovar (Day 5)

We had plans to go for swimming next day morning but had to change our plan due to nagging rains.  My friend’s kids still wanted to go for swimming however we decided to relax in our room.  At around 12 noon, we decided to go to Kovalam despite rains.  As they say ‘luck favors the brave’, rain stopped as soon as we reached Kovalam beach.  It was a good weather and beach was shallow as compared to the one we visited previous day.  As luck would have been, Harsh’s love for his papa was at its peak that day and he didn’t let me go to water.
  

Somehow I kept going to water and came back when Harsh started crying.  After not so clean (L) experience with ‘Pay & Use’ baths, we kept roaming around Kovalam area for lunch but our luck had ran out of favor.  Since it was post 3PM, most of the restaurants were closed and we chose not to go to few opened ones as they were serving only vegetarian food J.  Eventually, we reached our resort and had sandwiches at coffee shop.

My friend took his kids for fishing and we relaxed in our room for some more time.  Guess what!!! they were not able to catch any fish J.  This was followed by chit chat, gossiping, round of dance by kids, packing and dinner. 

Home Sweet Home (Day 6)

Next morning we had early breakfast and left for airport.  Check-in process was smooth and flight was also equally smooth.  After bidding good bye to friends (DDLJ style), it took us one hour to reach home from airport as there was very less traffic on road due to Karnataka Rajyotsva. 

This trip definitely left a hangover, which will take its own sweet time to wear off.  I liked the quietness of place, greenery and houseboat stay.  I had such vacation after a long time and last 5 days were well spent.

New Business Models to Curb Black Money

Now that Swiss Central Bank has declared the total liabilities of Swiss banks towards Indians in the tunes of $2.5bn, will anti-black money brigade believe the data?  I don’t consider myself part of anti-black money gang, but is Switzerland only safe destination for money laundering.  I will not question the authenticity of this data but is this data point sufficient?  I learnt from my macro-economics professor that black money is a parallel economy by itself.  If this is the case what can be done at policy level (not just by Finance Ministry but by other ministries too) to fix loopholes to curb the growth of this parallel economy. 

I feel that cash transactions are major culprit of growing black money in the system.  In real estate transactions, more than 50% of amount exchanged is cash transaction, which is not recorded anywhere.  For grocery shopping at local kirana stores, most of the transactions are cash transactions and grocery store owner declares hides most of the income leading to increase in black money in market.

Can the new banking infrastructure be created or existing one be upgraded to include 100% of Indian population and ensure all the transactions are banks transactions rather than cash?  Can the new business models like mobile money, micro payment and virtual money help reduce the cash transactions? 

Inception

I promised to write regularly but somehow in the middle of so many things, I was not able to blog.  Last weekend I watched Inception (I don’t know why I didn’t watch it till now) and I was blown by plot of the movie.  It is one of the best movies (of course after Matrix Trilogy) I have seen in recent past.  The concept of extraction was difficult to comprehend for me and Cobb executed inception.  Beauty of the movie was the detail of each and every step that Cobb and his team planned during inception of idea to Mark.  Three levels of dreams (Cobb eventually ended up going to fourth level) were mind-blowing.  What intrigued me more was how Nolan was able to conceptualize such brilliant plot.  A big salute to Christopher Nolan’s plot and direction!!! 

This movie left me in a hangover for more than one day and left few doubts in my mind.

·         In the end, was Cobb still in a dream or in reality?
·         Was the whole movie Cobb’s dream?  Cobb was in limbo for a long time and he might have created projections to keep himself busy.

My opinion is the Cobb was still dreaming and he didn’t come back to reality but there are different opinions about this on other forums.  I think I will have to watch this movie again.  Moreover I need to have the collector edition of this movie.

First day of tie at office

Today the Tie season started at Infosys.  It was good to see people wearing different kinds of tie - thin, broad, short, long, with top button open, etc.  I loved wearing tie today and it was a good feeling.  So for the next 9 months, I will have to wear tie on first 2 days of the week.

Movie Saturday!!!

If Friday was heavy dose of beer, Saturday couldn't have been better with heavy dose of movies.  I asked the movie library  manager to send me Inception but just because it was in circulation, I asked him to send some good thrillers.  He sent me Chloe and D-13 Ultimatum.  I verified if they are good thrillers and he said these are very good movies (after watching these movies, I will never go with his recommendations!!!).
On Saturday afternoon I started watching Chloe and it was one of the worst movies, I have ever seen.  I have huge respect for Liam Neeson but I hate him when he chooses these kind of movies.
D-13 Ultimatum is out and out action flick.  Bullets, Fights, Chases and spider man kind of stunts were the main attractions of this movie.  Fast paced movie with lots of bad guys and few good guys too.  Given a choice I would not like to watch it!!!
After these two back to back movies, I went to watch "Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap" with my family in the night and that completed heavy dose of movies on Saturday.
Any predictions for Sunday.  I bet on heavy dose of shopping!!!

Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap

My wife has been insisting me since last 2 weeks to watch a movie.  This week Amitabh Bachchan's action flick (I would call it total entertainment flick) got released and I thought it is a good choice because I can even watch it with my 2 year old naughty son.
This movie was out and out Amitabh's movie.  He had larger than life character and nobody in the movie had role for more than 10 minutes while AB was there on screen all the time.  His wore bright floral shirts in most of the scenes.  His actions scenes reminded of angry young man of 70s and 80s.  His intensity in action scenes was as good as ever.  Movie had good dose of comedy too.  Some of the scenes in the movie like climax were very hilarious.  His comedy timing is impeccable.  I feel that movie could have been edited little better and some characters like Raveena Tandon, her daughter and landlady could have been eliminated.
All in all this movie is good for one time watch.  I am sure you will not be disappointed.

Jimi's Beer cafe

Three of us (3 idiots!!!) from IIMA met at Jimi's Beer Cafe on Friday.  It is a cool place to have beer.  In case, you want to have anything else, this is not a place for you.  The ambiance of the place is appealing with bean bags and low height tables.  Strongly recommend for a beer party.
I feel that they had very limited options to eat.  Only good thing we found was chicken tikka and that was also slightly uncooked.  But 3 towers of beer made up for everything.  Now I realize, why was I feeling so light!!!  On an average each one of us had 3.5 liters of beer (Almost five 650ml bottles).  These stats are making me dizzy again!!!  If my personal trainer reads this, he will quit working on me :)
Even though I lost my PAN card over there, it was a good experience.  I reached back home at 11 and directly went to bed.  Got up with a bad hangover but timely breakfast helped me get over it quickly.
Amazing start of the weekend!!!  

Finally I got it!!!

After 15 months, today I realized what was I missing.  I never anticipated this level of excitement from myself after seeing THIS.  15 months ago, I thought THIS is one of those things that I can live without but time taught me the importance of THIS in day to day life.
Now that I have got THIS, my family and I can do so many things.  This excite may not be there next month but I will relish till the excitement lasts (may be for next 2 hours!!!).  
Oh I forgot to tell you, THIS is salary.  Today I got my first salary after 15 months. Hurray!!!
Happy Spending!!!

I am Back!!!

After sabbatical of one year and studying at India's premier management institute, IIM Ahmedabad, I am back to Bangalore.  Last one year has been an amazing experience with no work pressure (IIMA profs made up for that though!!!), new people, knowledgeable professors and new environment.  It was tough to get into student mode after 12 years of professional life but the whole ecosystem, provided by IIMA, made it easy for me.
Anju and Harsh also enjoyed there and made good friends.  I was surprised to see that there were at least 10-12 kids of Harsh's age (+/- one month).  Was it just a coincidence or most of the people planned it that way??
The infrastructure was very well in place.  Everything, including grocery, non-veg, medicines, transportation and liquor (oops I was in a dry state) was delivered at the door step.  This is one thing which I am missing after coming back to Bangalore.  Is it a business opportunity!!!
Now that I am back, I will try to be regular in blogs.  These are exciting times, both for market and yours truly.  I believe that I have gained good perspective during my stay at IIMA and these perspectives will come handy for my next job.