Impatience - virtue or bane?

As I get along life dealing with the lethargy of societies and the administration in college, I keep thinking about what my brother used to say when I was really young - 'you're very impatient'. Along the way, I often termed this impatience as passion, but I now suppose that it was that, impatience, that expressed itself in impassioned forms.

Impatience is a great recipe for success. What that ensures is that things in life are moving faster, that you do not procrastinate over things. To an extent, it also helps you distinguish between what you really like to do (which you'll do more impatiently) and something that you don't (which you'll keep on hold to do the former). Applying the concept of future and present value that we learnt in our Grewalian microeconomics class today, it will (I suppose) ensure that in the present you do more pleasurable stuff, and hence ensures that you're generally a happier person [I'll try, once again, to work out a mathematical model for this, but that shall wait because writing this blog is now more pleasurable to me].

However, is that necessarily true? Is impatience really going to lead to more happiness? What is the cost to impatience? Dejection; and this dejection primarily emanates from delays in your external environment, and hence is exogenous to the proposed model that I set up above.

This post actually proved to be shorter than I had expected it to be, primarily because I seem to have arrived at a conclusion faster than I thought. The conclusion being this, that impatience leads to a better state of living as long as we are able to control the externalities. Hence, in things such as cleaning your room, exercising, playing video games, reading novels etc., where there are not too many externalities involved, impatience is a great virtue. However, in the cases where you are dealing with rather insurmountable externalities such as the bureaucracy, college societies (in some cases) and the college administration, then impatience can be a recipe for depression.

Living with Bronchitis

It has been three days, and hence an unusually long time for my current bout of bronchitis to last. Yes, the CWG did have a legacy - a legacy of extremely high SPM count. For me, it is a sense of deja vu. It is now decade since I was diagonised with bronchitis, and in between I went to Visakhapatnam for two years (where the air quality was far superior), and came back to a CNG-enabled Delhi that I grew to love. But now, with the SPM count on an upward trend again, life has truly come a full circle in a decade.

Living with bronchitis has surely been one of the highlights of my last decade. The most severe bout was, of course, back in 2003 when I came back to Delhi from Visakhapatnam and when, in the midst of a SARS scare, I had a severe bronchitis-and-fever round that lasted over a week and infected everybody around me. There were also the two incidents when because of the two jerks to the spine, I couldn't breathe. The first was scary, I felt I was going to die, and the second seemed rather routine. Yet, like every thing that tests you, living with bronchitis teaches me a lot too.

For one, it teaches me the power of hope. Hope not in terms of things improving, but in terms of things and bad phases passing. Often in life, we're depressed and we don't think things can improve. In this situation, i am always reminded that I have to life with bronchitis and other respiratory ailments for the rest of my life, but that they'll come infrequently and hence, that bad times come infrequently too. Bronchitis attacks are the aberrations, good health the regime. Similarly, sad times are (and should be) aberrations, and good times the regime.

Bronchitis has also taught me not to give up. Several times during a bronchitis attack, I lose the energy to persevere to breathe, but I know I can't. Every time that my body asks me to rest while trying to continue with breathing, I have to get my act together and try once more to carry on the divine rhythmic act of breathing. No questions asked, you just continue. Similarly, in life several times there is a temptation to quit, but there has to be the strength and stamina to carry on.

Would I like to be cured of bronchitis? For sure. Do I regret getting bronchitis? I don't know. Every dark cloud truely has a silver lining. Bronchitis has taught me discipline (waking up at 5-6 in the morning doing Baba Ramdev's asanas is not fun) that has helped me achieve so much more in life. It has taught me the importance of health, which though I won't claim to have completely attended to, I have not ignored. Most importantly, bronchitis has made me accept loneliness as a state of being - because at the end of the day, it is I who has to drive myself to take the next breath in. That day, that moment, I am alone.

The Economics of Durga Puja

Over the past few days, roaming the streets of Kolkata and watching in sheer awe the effort, creativity and, well, money invested in organising Durga Puja in Kolkata, my thoughts repeatedly went on to the same question - exactly how big is the Durga Puja in Kolkata? There would be no less than a thousand medium-to-large puja pandals in the city, and more smaller ones. With budgets for these pandals ranging from a lakh to a few crores, your mind would begin to spin looking at the sponsors for these events and other means of fund-raising. Also account for the fact that in preparation for the Puja, the Government of West Bengal and the Kolkata Municipality makes several arrangements (such as marking-off of walking space for devotees). Truly, Durga Puja in Kolkata is a large affair.

Any student of economics would probably understand the reason for my seemingly irrational exuberance - yes, the multiplier effect, and also something I learnt recently from Vedant one day - the splintering effect. Hence, you combine the two and then you realise why its a big deal. Every cog in the Durga Puja wheel has become a separate industry - idol making, flowers, the dhak (Bengal's percussion instrument) and may I dare say even the priests' services. Hence, the multiplier effect, I estimate, would be significantly greater in the Durga Puja 'industry' than it is in other parts of the economy.

Also, let us finally get down to the scale of the rather 'ancillary' activities. Go to any pooja pandal or a restaurant at night after 9 PM during the pujas and you'll understand what I mean. Every other pandal has a serpentine queue outside it, and waiting time of a up to a couple of hours. Ditto for restaurants in Kolkata. Hence, every part of the travel and tourism industry - transportation, restaurants etc - see a huge, massive jump in footfalls this time of the year. Taxi drivers demand, and receive, a premium over the regular fare. Basically, the entire population of Kolkata is out of their homes this time of the year - and businesses make a killing.

To conclude, something that I was asked when I was buying an ice-cream at 7 AM in the morning at a Puja Pandal - raatier-er ki sholak-er?. A close approximation is 'night (tourist) or day (tourist)?' Hence, imagine that people leave their homes at 11-12 in the night, and reach back well into the day. This isn't a rarity, it is a phenomenon.

The only problem here is that I do not put in numbers to this argument. Hopefully, some day I can sit down and put numbers. Probably it will happen soon - hopefully, in the next issue of the F&I newsletter, WTF. A little bit of free advertisement at this stage: to subscribe to the F&I newsletter's e-version, write a mail to us at wtf.fni@gmail.com with your details.

Signing off!

Who causes poverty - the poor or the rich?

This was just a passing thought as I passed by a huge hording of Mamata Bannerjee. Yes, she's all set to displace the left, but is she capable of developing West Bengal, specifically Kolkata, and pulling it out of decadence? Well, most people say 'no'. In that case, who is responsible for this mess called Kolkata? Of course, those who vote these people to power.

Arundhati Roy and other 'social activists' would say how it's sad that billionaires hold such high assets, whereas 80% of India's population earns less than $2 per day. Who is responsible for their state and the ineffectiveness of poverty alleviation programs? The Government. And who elects the Government? This 'majority' of 80%.

This is one of the arguments behind making cities like Mumbai a union territory. That would help because then those who govern this city will be directly elected by the people of the city, and not those sitting in the villages of Vidarbha. Will that result in a massive loss of revenue to the Maharashtra government? Well, there can be a memorandum of understanding under which this demerger will take place, which can ensure that flow of funds to Vidarbha isn't stopped. Anyway, most of funding in India comes from the central government, rather than the cash-strapped state governments.

Hence, the basic point being that you can't blame the so-called 'rich' for the poverty of the poor. It's a vicious cycle. They remain poor, hence they vote for the wrong guys, these wrong guys hamper effective policy-making, and hence they remain poor. It's not fair to lay all the blame for poverty on the likes of Mukesh Ambani. Okay, that guy earns a lot, but he isn't hampering your administration. Probably the blame for the mess in the slum next to our houses lies with people in the slum. Partly, but definitely.

A Tale of Two Metros

This has been on my mind since morning when I travelled on the Kolkata metro after seven years. The last memory was blurred with images of the Kolkata suburban 'local' trains, and today I realised why. For Delhi metro rail travellers, the Kolkata metro rail is like a local train - there are no electronic displays, no advertisements anywhere on the train (and I don't think even on the station there are any) and no airconditioning. What there are, instead, are fans and the dull, steely look that reminded me of those movies in which I saw prisoners transported from place to place. But to be fair to the Kolkata metro, it was built under a completely different set of constraints than in Delhi, and hence in this post I attempt to compare the two.

1. Indigenously built (Kolkata) V/s. Most Imported (Delhi)

The Kolkata metro was almost entirely an indigenous effort - right from the coaches, equipment to the funding. The Delhi metro, in contrast, was constructed using imported coaches and equipment and foreign aid from Japan. In this regard, the Kolkata metro was tougher. But ask any economics student, and they'd let you know it's not much of an excuse. The Kolkata metro, by being constructed almost entirely in India, might have created some jobs in the short run, but because it was essentially inefficient, it is in the long term draining the taxpayer's money by making losses repeatedly. If professionalism comes by importing stuff from abroad, so be it. Yes, the Delhi metro cost a bomb w.r.t the Kolkata metro, but it served its purpose efficiently and hey, makes an operating profit!

2. Alternative transport systems

A major reason for the 'failure' of the Kolkata metro was the easy availability of alternative transport, such as buses, taxis and suburban trains, which are much cheaper in Kolkata. In Delhi, in contrast, the only 'economical' alternative are the buses, which are irregular and quite inefficient in themselves. Hence, Delhi had there pockets of high-density traffic that the metro could utilise. No such 'corridors' existed in Kolkata, and hence the Kolkata metro was killed by the very competition that it sought to complement.

3. Subsidy

All said, the Delhi metro was heavily subsidized by the Central and Delhi Government. However, as a welfare measure, the Delhi metro does have to get subsidies from the Government. Plus, if you come to think of it, with an operating ratio of 1:1.95, the Kolkata metro makes expenditure of 1.95 unit for every 1 unit of revenue. Isn't that a form of subsidy in keeping this metro system running?

4. Safety

Most Kolkattans felt proud of their metro when the Delhi metro was beset by a series of accidents. True, the utmost safety standards have to be met, and there can be no condoning of any lapses on this part. The Kolkata metro has a much better safety track record, so let us be sure of that. However, the accidents took place while construction was on, and not during operations. the Delhi metro, too, has impeccable operational safety.

Finally, some news snippets:

(1) Around 100,000 passengers are reported to be using the Kolkata Metro daily without tickets, as the ticket-checking infrastructure is in a shambles

(2) the underground Kolkata Metro was constructed at a cost of just over Rs 100 crore per km as against the first phase of the Delhi Metro — with a 13.01-km underground corridor and a 52.10-km elevated track — that was completed at the average cost of Rs 162.63 crore per km.

(3) While the Delhi Metro system pays a subsidised Rs 3 per unit for its power, the Kolkata Metro has to do with a non-concessional industrial rate which hovers around the Rs 4 per unit mark.

Defending Economics as a Science

This entry was a long time in the coming. After countless arguments with many physics, maths and chemistry guys on why economics is a science, I should really put it down together.

The main grouse people have against economics is that there are too many assumptions. "If everything but prices are kept constant, and prices are dependent on quantity, then how does quantity demanded change" is what Aashik asked. Yes, a brilliant question that had me perplexed for some time. To be honest, I myself had this grouse against economics, but it all got sorted out once I heard Ritwika speak at the VC Memorial debate. Economics is an abstraction away from reality that will help explain reality.

For example, just today morning while I was thinking about the motion of a pendulum. In a real world, there is the wind speed, the the friction and so many things. However, what we learn in classes is a simplified version where there are no externalities at play. Why do we do that? So that we can have a basic framework over which we can then go on to add the other externalities.

Exactly what economics does. We take a phenomenon, we strip it down to the basics, analyse the basics, and then try to put back everything. For example, did you know that over 95% of the food grain production in India can be explained by a Cobb-Douglas function using barely five or six variables, which does not include the monsoons? That is amazing accuracy for something as unpredictable as agricultural output. The result? That agricultural output depends significantly on availability of credit and net sown area. Both are stagnating in India, hence alarm bells need to go off and hence we really need to work on this. Hence, for our future to be secure, we need simplifications and models such as these.

The second argument leveled against economics as a subject is 'how can you rationalise human behaviour?'. Well, the idea is the same as above. You take something complicated (such as the human mind), you strip it down, then understand it, and then build in the different layers. Intuitively beautiful ideas such as the multiplier effect are such beautiful examples of this 'rationalisation' process at work. True, the size of the multiplier in the real world is much smaller than what it is in theory, but there are economic arguments for that too.

Yes, to the detractors one must give one argument - economics is not a science in the same mold as physics and chemistry (I do not include mathematics, because mathematics is the language of science, rather than a science itself). Honestly, that is not what economics aspires to be, either. To think of it, I'm sure it's easier to discover secrets than to, proverbially, rationalise the human mind. Economics sits on a very exalted position of being a bridge between the arts and the sciences. We put together psychology and differential equations, history and optimisation in a beautiful manner.

Whatever happens to the 'real' India

It has been some time since I've wanted to write a piece on the Indian media. For an institution that probably takes itself a little too seriously at times, the Indian media is actually very unrepresentative of 'real' India. No, I'm not talking about India TV and their 'bangley mein bhoot' kind of stories. I'm talking about serious journalism here, of CNBC TV18, Times Now, Aaj Tak and the like.

Okay. Let's first really get rid of my frustrations at Arnab Goswami. The media is supposed to be unbiased and informed. However, Mr. Goswami has a clear tendency to take things to rhetorical pitch and then to force his viewpoint on the guests on his show. He has a tendency to cut those who don't agree to him, and give more screen time to those who do. In short, Mr. Goswami's coverage is centered around himself, in which case what he propagates is essentially his viewpoint and not what 'news' is supposed to be.

But let's get back to the larger malaise of which Mr. Goswami is but a symptom. The english media suffers from an urban-myopia. All talks of 'youth of India' going to multiplexes, moving over Ayodhya (which I don't dispute) and the like is pathetically city-centric. It is kind of sad imagining that over 60% of India still lives in villages, and that supposedly 80% of India earns below Rs. 20 a day. No, this is not run-of-the-mill leftist arguments. I don't say distribute foodgrains for free. Not by far! All I say is that news should cover these 'silent' people too. That the kind of audience that is portrayed on our news channels should be expanded to cover these people.

Yes, there are administrative cost constraints. But then, next time you say that it is 'new India', it is nothing but a shallow claim. Because this 'new India' is not representative of India at all. It is representative of a small urban population (again, the problem is that even this 'urban' would not cover cities such as Gorakhpur, Asansol etc). So, the plea in the end is to make journalism more inclusive. To give the rustic India and small-city India a voice and a platform on the national media. Let, literally, truth prevail!