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গুগুশার গল্প

গুগুষার গপ্পো

আমরা বাঙ্গালিরা  (এবং  ভারতের লোকেরা) দুর্নীতি , চুরি, আর ভণ্ডামি  অনেক দেখেছি। এই তো গত বছরের জুলাই মাসে, পশ্ছিম  বাংলার শিক্ষা মন্ত্রির বান্ধবীর বাড়িতে পঞ্চাশ কোটি  টাকা  ক্যাশ উদ্ধার করা হোল

আর এই মাসে সন্দেশখালির মস্তানকে ধরা হয়েছে যে প্রায় পুরো সহরটাই তার বাপের জমিদারি করে  ফেলেছিল।  আরও  কতো কোটি টাকা চুরির গল্প রোজই বেরোয় টিভিতে তার ঠিক নেই। পুকুরচুরি ছাড়াও

রোজই  আপনার চোখের সামনেই বিভিন্ন সরকারি  প্রোজেক্ট থকে চুরি হয়ে যায় , স্কুল, হসপিটাল, রাস্তা সারান , পার্ক  ও উদ্যান রক্ষা সব কিছুর থেকেই একটা ভাগ দাদাদের কাছে চলে যায়। এছাড়াও চাকরি পেতে ঘুষ,  ধার পেতে ঘুষ, বাড়ি  তৈরি করতে ঘুষ,  কতো আর বলব।

এত রকম দুর্নীতি ভারতে আছে যে আমরা বিদেশের দুর্নীতির ঘটনাকে খুব একটা  পাত্তা দিই  না। কিন্তু

গুগুষার গপ্পো আপনাদের ভাল লাগবে, নতুন অনেক মজার কথা শুনবেন ঃ

গুগুষা (ভাল নাম গুলনারা) পড়াশোনায়  বড়  ভাল ছিলেন । উনি প্রথমে কলেজ থেকে একটা স্নাতক ডিগ্রি পান  “আন্তর্জাতিক অর্থনীতি”  বিষয়ে । তারপরে উনি আমেরিকা চলে যান । সেখানে প্রথমে New York -এর Fashion Institute of Technology থেকে  ডিসাইন-এ একটা ডিগ্রি করেন। তারপরে হার্ভার্ড ইউনিভার্সিটি থেকে Regional Science -এ একটা  Master’s degree করেন (হাহাহা!)

এরপরে বিদুষী দিদিমণি নিজের দেশে তাশখন্দ ইউনিভার্সিটিতে  ফিরে আসেন। সেখানে political science -এ একটা পি এইচ ডি  করে ফেলেন। ব্যাবসার সুবিধে হবে   বলে আবার একটা স্নাতক ডিগ্রি নিয়ে নেন Telecommunications -এ।

হাঁপিয়ে  গেছেন নাকি?  বিদুষীর পেশা কি ছিল?  তা উনি হচ্ছেন উজবেকিস্তানের প্রেসিডেন্টের মেয়ে – কারিমভের মেয়ে গুলনারা কারিমভা । এতসব ডিগ্রি পেয়ে উনি তাশখন্দ ইউনিভার্সিটিতে  পলিটিকাল সায়েন্সের অধ্যাপক ছিলেন। তাছাড়াও কেন্দ্রীয় সরকারের একাধিক এজেন্সির আধিকারিক হিসাবে প্রশাসন দপ্তরেও ওনার বিরাট প্রতাপ ছিল।

উজবেকিস্তান ছোট দেশ  ইন্ডিয়ার তুলনায় – ওদের  জনসংখ্যা সাড়ে তিন  কোটি , আর আমাদের ১৩৫ কোটি !!

লোকজন অনেকেই বেশ গরিব, ফ্যাশনেবল দামী জামাকাপড়ের ক্রেতার সংখ্যা  কম। কিন্তু এই ছোট  মার্কেট পুরো  কন্ট্রোল করেন গুগুশা দেবি। সমস্ত ফ্যাশনেবল দামী জামাকাপড়ের  ডিসাইন উনি নিজেই করেন, বাইরে থেকে এগুলো   আমদানি করা  বারণ। আর যেসব দোকানে ওই  কাপড় বিক্রি হয়,  তার মালিকও হচ্ছে  গুগুষার  কম্পানি।! ডাবল মনোপলি যাকে বলে।

উজবেকিস্তান ছোট দেশ  , তাই একটাই মোবাইল ফোন কম্পানি ছিল, সেটার শেয়ারের সিংহভাগ  আবার গুগুশা দেবীর  হাতে!

প্রাইভেট মিডিয়া ,  টিভি , নিউজ পেপার ,তাও গুগুশার নিয়ন্ত্রনে!

উজবেকিস্তানের পুরনো হসপিটালগুলো ফ্রি, কিন্তু ভাল চিকিতসা হয় না, অনেক নতুন   প্রাইভেট  হসপিটাল খোলা হয়েছে স্বাধীনতার পরে। ওমা গুগুশার  কম্পানির সেখানেও গরিষ্ঠ মালিকানা আছে।

(যদি কারো সন্দেহ হয়,  আমি গ্যারান্টি দিচ্ছি এই সব ডিগ্রি গুলো দুনম্বরি আর ব্যাবসা গুলো  মালিকদের কাছ থেকে  বাজেয়াপ্ত করা বা  লুট  করা !!)

দিদির প্রতিভার শেষ  নেই। অত অধ্যাপনা, গবেষণা, আর প্রসাশনিক কাজের মধ্যেও উনি সময় করে নাচ গান এইসব করেন। ওনার নিজেরি একটা রক ব্যান্ড আছে, সেখানে ওনার  লেখা গান গেয়ে উনিই  পারফরম করেন। এইসব শো ইউরোপের  নামকরা সহরে দামী  হল ভাড়া করে দেখান হয়, অনেকেই শুনতে আসে (হাহাহা)। আসবেই তো ! গুগুশার সোনালি চুল, মিষ্টি হাসি, আর বাংলায় যাকে  বলে  ফাটাফাটি এনডাওমেনট , এইসবের  টান  কি এড়ানো যায় ? যদি ইচ্ছে হয়, ইউ টিউবে দেখবেন দিদিকে, নিজের গানের তালে নিজেই নাচছেন, কি সুন্দর!!

দিদির বাবা কারিমভ  কাকুর  কথা একটু শুনুন এবারে। নব্বইয়ের দশকে সোভিয়েত ইউনিয়ন ভেঙ্গে পড়ল , মধ্য এশিয়া আর পূর্ব ইউরোপে অনেক নতুন দেশের জন্ম হোল । ইসলাম কারিমভ উজবেকিস্তানের অত্যাচারী  ডিকটেটর  হিসাবে তার একনায়ক তন্ত্র চালিয়ে গেলেন পঁচিশ বছর ধরে। সোভিয়েত স্টাইলের  নিয়মে সব অর্থনৈতিক কাজের ওপরই  নিয়ন্ত্রন ছিল , পারমিট লাগত, ট্যাক্সও দিতে হত। বিদেশ থেকে জুতো আমদানি করলেও ট্যাক্স, আবার এদেশ থেকে কাপড়  রপ্তানি করলেও ট্যাক্স। একটা  নেটওয়ার্কের পকেটে এই ট্যাক্সের ভাগ চলে যেত। এই নেটওয়ার্কে  প্রথমে ছিলেন কারিমভ কাকুর সাঙ্গপাঙ্গরা , পরে আমাদের গুগুশা দিদিই এর নেত্রী  হয়েছিলেন।

দেশের লোকের  প্রতি কারিমভ কাকুর খুব একটা সহানুভুতি ছিল না – ওদের থেকে   কাজ আর টাকা আদায় করলেই উনি খুশি। ওনার ক্ষমতার অপব্যাবহারের একটা বড় উদাহরন দিচ্ছি ঃ উজবেকিস্তানে প্রচুর তুলোর চাষ হয়। যখন তুলোর ফসল কাটার সময় হয়, তখন  একই সঙ্গে অনেক  শ্রমিকের    দরকার হয়ে পড়ে। তাই কাকু ফতোয়া জারি করলেন যে  ওই সময় দুমাস স্কুল কলেজ সব বন্ধ থাকবে।

সমস্ত ছাত্রছাত্রীরা,     শিক্ষকরা   অধ্যাপকরা, প্রশাসকরা , স্কুল কলেজের অন্য কর্মচারীরা, সবাই (মোট দশ লক্ষের বেশি)  দল বেঁধে গ্রামে চলে যাবে, সারাদিন ধরে তুলোর ফসল তুলবে!  সেই তুলো একটা সরকারি সংস্থা বিদেশে রপ্তানি করে, লাভের সিংহভাগ চলে যায় কারিমভের  জটের  মধ্যে। কি ভাল ব্যাবসা বলুন ত?

কারিমভ কাকু গুগুশাকে নিজের রাজনৈতিক উত্তরসূরি হিসেবে বেছে নিয়েছিলেন। সব কিছুই প্লান মত চলছিল। গুগুশা এক আফগান-উজবেক ব্যাবসাদার পরিবারের ছেলেকে বিয়ে করেন, তার নাম মনসুর মাক্সুদি – তিনি আবার আমেরিকার নাগরিক। ওদের পাঁচটা  প্রাসাদ ছিল – লন্ডন, নিউ ইয়রক, লস আঞ্জেলেস, পারিস আর তাশকেন্ত সহরে , বিভিন্ন জায়গায় ঘুরে ঘুরে বেড়াতেন স্বামী স্ত্রী এবং ওদের দুই ছেলেমেয়ে। আগের লেখা থকেই বুঝেছেন যে ব্যাবসা ভালই চলছিল।  কেউ কেউ বলে যে গুগুশার নিজের সম্পত্তির মুল্যায়ন প্রায় ৮০০০ কোটি ডলারের মতো হয়েছিল শেষকালে !!

কিন্তু কয়েক বছরের মধ্যে সবই বদলে গেল !! ২০০৫ সাল নাগাদ গুগুশা ছেলেমেয়েকে নিয়ে তাসখন্দে  চলে আসে, অর স্বামী তখন ছিল আমেরিকায়। দুজনেই বিবাহ বিচ্ছেদের জন্য আবেদন করে, তারপরে প্রচুর  গণ্ডগোল সুরু হয়। সন্তান্ দের     কাসটোডি  নিয়ে, সম্পত্তি ভাগাভাগি নিয়ে, আমেরিকার কোর্ট এবং উজবেক কোর্টে প্রচুর মামলা শুরু হয়ে যায় , আস্তে আস্তে পরিবারের অন্যরাও এতে জড়িয়ে  পড়ে। ইন্তারপোলের গ্রেফতারের পরোয়ানা বেরিয়ে যায় গুগুশার নামে, উনি আমেরিকায় এলেই নিজের   ছেলেমেয়েদের কিডন্যাপিঙ্গ এর অপরাধে গ্রেফতার হবেন। আবার অনেক গ্রেফতারের পরোয়ানা বেরিয়ে যায় তাসখন্দে,  মন্সুর জামাই  ও  তার  পরিবারের  লোকেদের নিয়ে , পুলিস তাদের হেনস্থা করতে শুরু করে।

গুগুশার নিজের জীবনধারাও  এই সময় উচ্ছৃঙ্খল হয়ে পড়েছিল । ওনার প্রেমিকদের  সম্বন্ধ্যে গুজব  প্রায়ই   ছড়াত,  শোনা    যাচ্ছিল যে গুগুশা কারিমভ কাকুর যে  উপদেষ্টাকে বিয়ে করতে চলেছেন বয়েস তার অনেক কম।

কারিমভ কাকু  ডিকটেটর  মানুষ , মেজাজ তুঙ্গে থাকে সবসময়। ২০১৩ সাল নাগাদ তিনি আর এসব সহ্য করতে পারলেন না। ঠিক কি হয়েছিলো বলা শক্ত, কিন্তু কাকু মেয়েকে কিছু  চড়চাপড় দিয়ে গ্রেপ্তার করার আদেশ দিলেন, তারপর থেকেই  গুগুশা তার প্রাসাদোপম বাড়িতে কয়েদি হয়ে রইলেন  – house arrest!!

২০১৬ সালে  কারিমভ হারট অ্যাটাক হয়ে মারা গেলেন। উজবেকদের আশা বাড়ল, এবারে নতুন্   সরকার এসে একটু স্বাধীনতা দেবে নাগরিকদের। ওমা , মুখে মুখে রিফরম আর স্বাধীনতার কথা বললেও শেষ পর্যন্ত কিছুই হোল না। নতুন রাষ্ট্রপতি , শাভকাত মিরজি হলেন কারিমভ কাকুর ডান হাত, উনি   কারিমভের আমলে  প্রধান মন্ত্রী  ছিলেন , এখন হয়েছেন রাষ্ট্রপতি।

নতুন প্রশাসন গুগুশাকে আরো ঝামেলায় ফেলল। নতুন করে, ঘুষখোর , দুর্নীতি এবং  racketeering  এর অভিযোগ আনল। বিদেশি তিনটি সরকার, ইংল্যান্ড, ফ্রান্স এবং আমেরিকা গুগুশার বিরুধ্যে নতুন সব অভিযোগ আনল। এই সব মামলার নিস্পত্তি হয়ে গেল শীঘ্রই  উজবেকিস্তানের কাঙ্গারু কোর্টে , গুগুশার ১৫ বছর কারা দণ্ড  হোল নতুন করে!!  ফলে নিজের প্রাসাদোপম বাড়িতে  থাকার বদলে ওনাকে উজবেক জেলে নিয়ে যাওয়া হোল।

সেখানেই এখন আছেন উনি। ওনার মেয়ে বড়  হয়ে গেছে, সে মাঝে মাঝে মার লেখা পিটিশণ ইন্টারনেট -এ পোস্ট করে। সেখানে গুগুশা তার মানবিক অধিকার ধংস করা হয়েছে,  ওনাকে মানসিক অত্যাচার করা হয়েছে, এই সব নিয়ে অভিযোগ করেন।

খুব একটা কেউ এসব  নিয়ে পাত্তা দেয় না! কেনই বা দেবে?

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Gogoosha’s Country

Gogoosha’s  Country

For the record, I personally do not know any  blond woman named  Gogoosha. And if I did, I will never tell you.

Gogoosha  (real  name Gulnara) had it all .  A Bachelor’s degree in international Economics, a degree in Design from New York Fashion Institute of Technology,  a Master’s degree in Regional Science from Harvard University (!),  a  Ph.D.  in political science from a university in Tashkent , and  on the side, a B.A. in Telecommunications.  She was the country’s leading fashion designer and displayed her creations in Europe frequently.  She owned  the biggest  company that sold fashionable clothes in her small and poor country. By the way, she also owned a monopoly of the only cellphone company  in her country and had a controlling interest in the country’s  healthcare and media sectors.  She was of course a Professor in Political Science and  a senior bureaucrat in the country’s government.  If this is not enough, she was an accomplished rock and roll artiste  and held concerts in Europe occasionally when she was not too busy. And did I mention that she had a hot body, and a great smile,  wavy blond hair and ample  natural endowments? She lived in many different mansions that she owned all over the world.

Are you saying WTF? Hold on!

The country’s name is Uzbekistan, and she is the daughter of its erstwhile first president Karimov. The degrees of course were obtained surreptitiously, the business ventures were acquired by appropriation  and extortion,  and you can draw your own conclusions about her other talents! She could be found swaying to her own music on Youtube – check it out!! Karimov was grooming  her and her husband for an eventual succession. BTW her net worth at its peak was about a billion dollars although I am skeptical about the valuation.

I never went to Uzbekistan although I taught in a private American style university in neighboring Kazakhstan, in a city named Almaty. My Kazakh students were rich kids, children of  the network that governs and plunders the Kazakh people. However, scholarships were offered to meritorious students  from average families from neighboring countries. So I came in close contact with quite a few Uzbek students. I mentored two of them  through undergrad and grad programs, helped them profusely with  studies, advised them  on personal matters and provided substantial financial assistance. There were many others, all men, that I hung out with different degrees of friendships and assistance  over the years.

 I would like to say that the Uzbeks  were nice, warm and honest people. They are , if you mingle with them superficially.  Underneath, for at least some of them,  there is a trait of religious and moral hypocrisy,  dishonesty and generally  opportunistic behavior.  Maybe I had  bad samples! Nevertheless, all my students, hypocrites or not,  were very bright and well-read. I learned a lot from them about Uzbek institutions, customs and their personal frustrations with the Uzbek society.

The Uzbek government and the network that controls the country, though, are  not nice and warm. They are certifiably vicious and nasty

Karimov’s rule,  after he consolidated his power in the late nineties,  was a major Kleptocracy. Every single economic activity was restricted , a license was needed to import bananas  or  computers. The network (Gogoosha and associates) owned the only major wholesale distribution  center for consumer goods.  Everytime in Uzbekistan,  if you ate  a meal or rode a taxi,  some money went to the network.  For a while, Karimov had the balls to order that schools will be declared closed when the cotton harvest is ready , so that ten million or so high school students and teachers will pick cotton that  will be exported abroad  –  the proceeds  will go the network, of course! 

The Uzbeks are proud of Timur (Temir Lane). Timur’s  mausoleum stands proudly in Samarkand ,as one of the most famous sites in Central  Asia.  I always wanted to visit!

This  greatest tourist attraction, Samarkand, was also a moneymaker for the kleptocracy . A foreigner can only come to Uzbekistan  if he  was invited by an  approved travel agency who will make all the travel arrangements.  Technically, you could go  the  Uzbek embassy in Almaty and apply for a tourist visa.  That’s what I tried.  But you will never get your visa. I was told to come back three times before I got the message.  So every tourist  that visits Samarkand paid  money to an  approved travel agency which was owned by (surprise!) the network.  Now you know why I did not visit Uzbekistan.

Every major business sector  was also controlled by the network.  Human rights was a joke. Religious freedoms were  non-existent.   After the Boston Marathon bombing  where the killer brothers were revealed to be from Uzbekistan, the government practically destroyed  all kind of religious activity,  afraid that the society would turn into a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists. Of course, political freedom remains only  a dream for the Uzbeks. Their  salaries were low even by Central Asian standards. Not only plundering, the government itself was also slowly choking its citizenry.  During the last fifteen years,  millions of men  have migrated to Russia, Turkey and other countries to eke out a living.

Karimov, the despot ,  thankfully passed away in 2016. The group that replaced his ilk  paid lip service to reform and  freedom, but ultimately turned out to be the same kind of anal retentives  as the previous regime. So the plight of the Uzbek people continues to this day.

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So,  what happened to Gogooosha?  She divorced her husband   in 2005, her father was not very pleased with it . Ultimately she fell out with her father who put her under house arrest. The successor government accused her of corruption, extortion and many other things. The governments of USA, UK and France and Switzerland followed suit, since a lot of the ill- gotten gains were subsequently used for business or personal projects in these countries.  To cut a long story short, she remains in jail  till today, serving a ten year prison sentence, all her millions frozen in foreign banks. From time to time she sends messages to the  world media about  her plight.

My heart breaks at her misery! Maybe a young security guard at her house will take pity on her and her considerable endowments  and sneak her out  of confinement!  One can always hope!!

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The Great Indian Loot: Living next to the Looters

The Great Indian Loot: Living next to the Looters

A few centuries ago, the British started looting India. Of course, they took the diamonds and jewels. But the main loot involved Indian resources. The resources were presumably expropriated by trading through  adverse terms of trade. The process has been documented by economists and historians -– it went on for a long time.

Currently, Indian resources are being looted by Indians on a large scale. They expropriate resources earmarked for welfare programs, for capital improvements. They steal funds earmarked for charities.

Funds earmarked for educational programs in schools are being appropriated by teachers. Politicians and their associates are selling jobs for money.

Some of these thieves are fat cats, far away from normal people like us, smoking fat cigars in their mansions or luxury high-rise apartments. But many are all around me. Yes   some of my  relatives, my friends, my neighbors, and many of my acquaintances are also involved in this Great Indian Loot. It stinks, doesn’t it?

Years ago, in a Kolkata neighborhood, my neighbors will be teachers, bank employees, small business people, government workers and so forth – the kind of people  who get regular paychecks, go to work regularly,  complain about inflation regularly and disagree with spouses occasionally. They will not be looting anything even if they were not totally above board.  After retirement these people will hang out in the local teashops, talk about past bravados, lousy bosses, beautiful women that they did not date but wanted to, and designate all politicians  as incompetent nincompoops. If I met these people in my neighborhood after coming back from America after retirement, I will be happily spending my golden years here .

But that’s not to be. My old neighborhood, where I returned, looks similar, but my neighbors have morphed. On my right side, there is a fantastic three-storied house with beautifully landscaped potted plants on the terrace and balcony, three cars and a retinue of servants. A promoter built the house about thirty years ago. In case you do not know about the species called promoters, they started roaming Kolkata about thirty five years ago. Their job was to buy old properties in a rapidly changing city and build high rises, selling them for a profit. The business model was legit – but its execution was neither conventional nor legal. Because of complex property laws, many old houses will have several owners/tenants , some of them paying very low rents under rent control. The promoters will somehow force all the owners/tenants to sell. In the process, sometimes some owners’ children will disappear, and return later with broken limbs or missing virginity, some owners will be robbed or beaten repeatedly, some might even disappear completely. After the land and the old buildings are acquired, lot of bribes were paid and lot of regulations broken in the process of building the new high rise apartment buildings. Apart from these main activities , promoters also dabble in many nefarious ventures and retain a bunch of goons and many local politicians and public servants, including the police, on their payroll.

Our promoter next door, after promoting to his heart’s content, settled down about ten years ago in his nice house, semi-retired. Unfortunately, the gods were not nice to him and he passed away soon afterwards . Now his wife and two grown children live in that house. I do not know what professions, if any, they are engaged in but I do know they keep to themselves. Thye behave like true aristocrats.  I hear them calling the servants by their generic names, like “security”, “driver” “darwan” , “gardener” etc. ,  -never their real names. I also hear their very loud bells that they use to summon the maid ( maids!)  

Two doors down, on the other side, an accountant owned a house. He was about my father’s age, worked for the central government – was posted in Ranchi most of his life. He was  our timid uncle, very soft spoken, he only visited  his house on vacations. He was always scared of his wife who was always mad at him because he lived in far away Ranchi while she had the responsibility for raising their four children. He prayed for a transfer to Kolkata which never materialized. By the time he retired, the kids have grown, the two older boys had become accountants also, and the girl was ready for marriage.

I went to school with the younger accountant boy, we played and chatted for years meeting almost every day. I reconnected with him after I returned from America. I found him reserved and somewhat distant. I thought he was intimidated by me. However, about a month ago agents from the Income Tax department raided his house. They were around for about four days , taking many boxes of documents from his house. He was not arrested, but I am sure he is under subpoena to appear before a judge in the near future.

Entire professions have changed substantively. Accounting was a boring profession, albeit well-compensated. But India changed from the early nineties. From abject poverty and sick domestic industries and  draconic banking regulations and  stifling government control over all sectors of the economy, India exploded with huge increase in trade and services. The number of both large and small businesses exploded, so did the number of agencies and schools and colleges that receive government funds. Accountants now are very busy and many get paid both over and under the table.

Law enforcement has been generically corrupt since its inception in British India 200 years ago. The legal system in India, for reasons to numerous to discuss here , has been totally dysfunctional for many years. Fortunately, I do not get a chance to hobnob with police officers or lawyers. But school teachers? I had hope there.

When I was enrolled  in my local school, the primary school teachers lived below the poverty level, while secondary school teachers lived a little bit above the poverty level. The schools were threadbare, our school had no electricity except in the offices and the teachers’ room downstairs. There were about 15 urinals for the needs of about 3000 students and one tube well for drinking water. No library, only elemental labs, no sports equipment, no landscaping.  Again, things changed from the nineties when India started getting prosperous. The teachers’ salaries increased to the point that they are comfortably paid now. During recent years the government built hundreds of new schools – even in remote villages, money started rolling in for capital improvements and infrastructure. At some point of time the looting started, by the teachers themselves, because the funds distributed by the government had limited oversight.

Unaware of all this, I naively went to my old school with an open checkbook, willing to donate big money for a good cause about nine years ago. The headmaster and the others were kind of horrified, and flatly refused to accept any donation from me, lest the accounting entailed with my donation will expose their own pilferage with the school funds. I tried for three years before the reality of the ongoing loot hit me !

As the teachers jobs, in fact all jobs in schools turned out to have decent pay and benefits and much less workload than private sector jobs, administrators and  politicians including Bengal’s erstwhile education minister started selling these jobs in exchange for fat bribes. Seven million dollars worth of Indian currency  were found in the minister’s mistress’s apartment. The extent of this ongoing scandal and several others like smuggling of cows and stealing of coal has convinced me that every single politician in Bengal is involved in this loot. The Enforcement Directorate is finding millions of dollars worth of  additional irregularities in the books almost every day!

Banks in the 70’s and the 80’s were the epitome of inefficiency, the clerical staff and the tellers were intent to do no work if possible. Harried bank officers stayed in their offices until 8 pm at night to finish up the banks’  routine work.  Then things changed – loans, mortgages and foreign transactions increased possibly one hundred times as the economy improved. The bank employees started working and were well-compensated, but the big business in India started looting the banks’ loanable funds – many of the bank employees were handsomely rewarded for this. The climax was reached during demonetization in 2016 when about 97% of the old notes came back to the banking system. No matter what people tell you, every single one of the banks’ branch managers and senior employees profited handsomely from this operation.

People in public service and in administrative jobs are surrounded by law enforcement, politicians, and wealthy business people – before you know it they are pushed into schemes where they participate in the loot.

Why am I complaining about this? I have a decent standard of living after retirement in Kolkata.  There is wonderful shopping, food and entertainment  available at my fingertips. Traffic is a problem but a car with air conditioning makes things easier. But I still can not talk to some of my cousins, their children or many of my old friends. They are hesitant to discuss their work life with me, some are actually afraid that their display of wealth disproportionate to their income will upset me.

Don’t get me wrong. I have met some very nice school teachers, some professors, a sweet librarian who specialized  in Chinese, a musician and some small business people – I happily hang out with them. I even found some charities that will not steal my money. My regret is that I hoped to have a more vigorous and more extensive social life after I retired in India.

There are shameless people I keep on meeting in Kolkata. A few years ago I met a great singer of classical music in a cultural gathering. Her husband was a councilor for a municipality in a suburb of Kolkata, We started talking and when he heard that I am visiting his neighborhood for a wedding invitation, he invited me to his house. Four of us went to his penthouse apartment and our jaws dropped. The furniture, the curtains, the window decorations, the wall decorations, the artwork, the lighting, everything was custom made – obviously done by an interior decorator. The apartment had a dreamy quality to it, right out of Bollywood – like a multi-millionaire’s house.

“This is a fabulous place. How do you keep everything clean and shiny?” I asked

“We don’t live here” The councillor said

“Huh?” It was my turn  to be surprised, again.

“We come here twice every week to drink some tea. That’s when the maid comes to clean up” he said

“We live in our older house with our grown son and his family “ He clarified.

Of course, with his councilor’s salary of 30 K rupees (about 375 dollars) per month or so, this apartment can not be shown to the public. The interior decorations and the artwork and the furnishing themselves must have cost about 100 thousand dollars!! He was just showing it off to the old NRI fool!

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Madoff

Madoff  and some thoughts on Investing

The biggest Ponzi  schemer died in prison a couple of days ago.  In case you do not know about him or maybe forgot, here is a short recap.

Madoff was a successful professional in the financial markets and ran his own trading business with his sons. On the side , he ran a brokerage business where he supposedly managed  other people’s money. This is where he ran a Ponzi  scheme which paid early investors with the funds supplied by new investors. Around 2008, when some large investors redeemed their portfolios, Madoff ran out of money and confessed to fraud. When  the dust settled, it looked like the total amount the investors had was about 65 billion dollars, but this included the accumulated fictitious profits, so the actual amount invested and swindled was about 19 billion.

 Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison where he died a few days ago. Madoff’s trustee, Picard and his law firm have recovered a lot of the original investment for the investors. The litigation mess that Madoff’s collapse started will likely go on for the next ten years.

Madoff  was way smarter than me and possibly you , otherwise he could not have fooled  so many people for so long. Very wealthy , highly educated people fell for his pitch as did sophisticated people working as money managers.

There are many reasons for this.  The most prominent one is greed – since Madoff was well-known in the financial markets, lot of people assumed he has some secret strategy that he can use to generate steady returns every year.  We teach in finance and economics courses that such strategies do not exist. If someone has a strategy like that, billions of dollars will be available to him for investment, which will lead to a breakdown of the financial system or a  nullification of the said strategy.

In the history of the modern financial markets, some people have been able to generate extraordinary returns for a few years ,  but afterwards they all  have closed their funds to new investors. Why? Because they  themselves are not sure whether their strategies will continue to be successful .

The greed that I mentioned above was aggravated by second round fraudsters – these people were hedge fund managers who just dumped all their investors’ money to Madoff.  Investors lost their money because of Madoff , and many of them sued these fraudsters for negligence,  but they mostly weaseled out of these litigations claiming ignorance or  simply a bad investment decision.  Some of these secondary fraudsters (Ezra Merkin, Walter Noel and others) settled with investors and/ or Picard (the Madoff trustee) , but they still have retained many millions of dollars worth of assets. These people were real lowlife weasels,  none of them were found criminally culpable. Apart from the fiscal judgments levied against them , they came out unscathed from this massive fraud – Madoff would not have been as successful if he did not receive massive amounts  of hedge fund money from them.

Naivete or sometimes plain stupidity played another part in all this.  In spite of the  internet being around for many years and a lot of material being available to teach basic financial literacy , I have met people that are shockingly ignorant about the basics of financial markets.  Let’s see what their thought processes are.

When you are sick, you go see a doctor who is a skilled medical professional. Give him his fees and  He will give you medicine – your health will improve.

When your appliances need to be repaired, you call a skilled repairman, who will, for a fee, fix  them.

By the same logic, when  your wealth needs to be invested, you will call a professional money manager. For a fee, he will properly invest your money and get you a higher than average return.

The above statement is FALSE . What is true is the following:

When  your wealth needs to be invested, you will call a professional money manager. For a fee, he will properly invest your money and get you an average return.

If you find a money manager who is offering you a higher than average return for a fee – do not believe him and do not invest your money with him,  It is that simple.

Wait a minute – a doctor earns his fee for his valuable expertise about your body, a repairman gets  his fee for his valuable expertise about your appliances, but a financial expert gets his fee for getting you only the average return?

You can get an average return on a bag of money by buying  an index fund with it (if you don’t know how, you can learn from the internet in about five minutes!)

Sadly, this is true, which means you do not need a financial advisor to invest  in the stock market if you only want the average return (which has been pretty good over the last 80 years – beats buying a term deposit!!). And no honest financial advisor will promise you an above average return! What they might do is to look for short term opportunities for you depending on your risk-tolerance. In other words, they will gamble for you for a fee!! As long as you agree to this, it is perfectly alright to gamble (take risks ) in the financial markets – indeed some people I know have become very wealthy by gambling successfully in the financial markets. Further, some financial advisors will look very hard to get you a tiny little advantage by buying a combination of products. Hypothetically, suppose  a bond issued in your city by a educational institution  gives a tax break for the residents of the city. If you buy this bond with other products so that you qualify for the tax break, maybe you will get a quarter point extra return above the average on your portfolio for the next three years.  If such opportunities exist, along with tax havens in inheritance trusts  or foreign countries if you have a lot of money, it is the job for honest financial advisors to find those and charge you a hefty fee if you want to structure your portfolio according to their suggestions.

 If you want to take risks,  the financial markets are a great place for it. You can always gamble on some obscure stock like “Google” was about twenty years ago and become very rich. You may also never get that winner stock and squander all your money in futile pursuit. The choice is yours, so are the rewards and  failures.

Just do not give your money to an old Jewish uncle or any uncle who promises you an above average return by using a secret strategy, Send the money to me, I will double it in a couple of years (just kidding!!).

Did I ever gamble in the stock market? Did I lose big or win big? The details of what I did will remain a secret, but overall I came out a winner , mainly  because I got lucky.  Because of that I do not invest in the stock market any more. My luck will run out this time.

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Traffic in India , Part 2

NOT in India!!

After writing Part 1, my economist  friend, Dr. P brought to my attention Dixit’s  book on “order and lawlessness”. 

Dixit talks about “order without law” and gives an example of Indian traffic as a situation where order is apparently accomplished without anyone seriously paying attention to the laws.  Dixit was not seriously analyzing India’s traffic situation, and his example is a good one for econ textbooks.

But come on ? ORDER? Freaking order? On Indian streets? No sir! What we have is a miserable  feasible solution to the traffic quagmire every day,  created by absolutely moronic  lawlessness practiced by everyone on the road  and everyone suffering from serious mental anguish and often physical harm from this wretched state of affairs. This feasible solution  comes at a huge social cost!

What social cost, you may ask! I say, open your eyes: Non-drivers and/or people who have never been abroad find it difficult to comprehend the veracity of this social cost, but they bear it regardless.

There are four kinds of streets in Kolkata – (apart from restricted highways meant only for cars)

 Arterial streets like Central Avenue, Rashbehari Avenue etc,.

Main roads , with bus and truck traffic along with other vehicles.

Side streets with shops , bustling with traffic (cars, taxis and vans and two and three wheelers) , but no buses or trucks.

Residential streets without shops that are not perceived as shortcuts to any of the side streets  (I will call them “little streets”)

Arterial streets actually have more orderly traffic and sidewalks,

But on main roads and side streets, are you worried to walk as a pedestrian? Of course you are!

Social cost #1!

Can you walk to visit others or to shop  or walk to work to a place two to five kilometers away?  Even though you may be in good health for walking, you are annoyed or scared  by the traffic and the noise and you refuse this easy way to get some exercise.  In many countries of the world , not only in venerable Western Europe, but in Eastern Europe,  lowly Central Asia, crowded south East Asia, Japan, Korea  and populous  China (yes in modern  Beijing  with its wide boulevards and humongous sidewalks),and in many other places,  you can walk to go shopping or visit friends or go to work,  and get some  free exercise! Never in Kolkata or Delhi!  People drive their cars or motor bikes to go to parks to walk !

Social cost #2!

Noise from Horns

This noise is found to be very annoying to most people. If you go to a village in India or go abroad, your ears are stunned by the silence caused by lack of incessant honking.  While some drivers in India are pathological honkers,  most use their horns frequently  to survive on the anarchic city streets.  Honking is primarily defensive and necessary for survival – you come to any intersection, you honk; you pass another car, you honk so he does not sideswipe you; you are taking a right turn , you honk so that oncoming traffic is aware of you. And of course, if you yourself are breaking traffic laws, you honk really loud – if you are passing a vehicle on the left you honk loudly, if you are passing a pedestrian or a  bicycle by a margin of 12 inches, you honk loudly so that he does not suddenly move to the right and die from your vehicle hitting him; if you are zooming out of a busy intersection on the wrong side of the road, you honk super loud to save yourself from about fifteen accidents that were going to happen in the next ten seconds!

So honking is necessary in a world of idiotic and lawless driving and everyone is delighted by the incessant noise (just kidding!)

Social cost #3!

Semi-Skilled people can not utilize their skills.

Really, a well-trained monkey can drive a modern automobile with an  automatic transmission! That’s the whole point with modern technology. Microwave makes cooking  (at least some part of the cooking process) easier, again a monkey can operate a microwave.  Ipads make browsing  easier, again a monkey can work with it! Modern technology enables average people to handle complicated machinery, we all benefit from it.  In the rest of the world  average people can safely drive themselves from point A to B, without  fear of  getting mauled or traumatized. Not in India! I am an average driver of cars who has driven about 800,000 (that’s eight lakh kilometers) during my time in the USA,  and I have driven in Manhattan in New York , on 12 lane super highways in California , and on winding mountain roads in the Rocky Mountains, but I shake and tremble at the thought of driving on busy Indian streets.  Plus I will need to pay a skilled driver to drive my car. All because of idiotic and lawless driving!

Social cost #4,5,6,7,8 … described below

Delay in commuting, caused by unnecessary traffic jams caused by idiotic and lawless driving.

 Fear of accidents, caused by idiotic and lawless driving

Lack of freedom for small children, they can not be trusted to walk on the streets alone, caused by idiotic and lawless driving

 Accident victims and heart attack patients succumbing to their ailments because of delays in going to the hospital, caused by idiotic and lawless driving

Terror from walking on the side streets because of roaring motorbikes approaching or driving around, caused by idiotic and lawless driving.

And the list goes on.

Finally, the drivers themselves bear an enormous amount social costs. Just ask, if you will, a driver of a front-heavy three wheel vehicle, like the one  carrying gas cylinders,  machinery , or food . Those are actually very difficult to operate and the drivers are terrified at all times. The bicycle riders like myself are scared to death every day . It took me about three months to reclaim my forgotten skills to maneuver a bicycle on Kolkata streets. After riding for about two years , I decided to give up riding on Arterial streets or main streets (with bus and truck traffic) altogether. I now only ride through side streets and little streets.  The reason is a simple calculation of probabilities:

On an arterial street or a main street, probability of death or mutilation or broken bones  from an accident is significant and  positive every day, while on a side street or a little street, that probability is very small.

On  an arterial street or a main street, probability of laceration, bruises and mangled bicycles  from an accident is significant and  quite high  every day, on a side street or a little street, that probability is merely significant and positive.

I ride for exercise, so there is no time constraint, and I feel reasonably safe on my well-calculated routes,  which include mostly left turns and mostly little streets. But there are thousands of bicycle riders everyday on Kolkata streets that live with these odds, because of idiotic and lawless driving.

And I have talked to taxi drivers and truck drivers in India, they are constantly terrified of others, yes even those that break traffic rules constantly are terrified of others breaking traffic rules.  They actually feel a lot relaxed on the restricted access highways , but there are only a few miles of those in Kolkata.

So what we see in big cities of India is persistence of  idiotic and lawless driving which induces the social Nash equilibrium that is the anarchic appearance of order.  A little bit of cooperation among  drivers or serious enforcement of laws by  a third party will reduce all these costs that I mentioned above- isn’t that something to think about?

 I simply point out the cameras that have been installed at major intersections in Kolkata. Accidents from vehicles running red lights have almost disappeared at major intersections like magic, but  they still exist at the minor ones without cameras .

Please note that I refrained from discussing health care cost for accident victims , but  that is of course part of this social cost.

 How did all these evolve? That’s a complex question, I will attempt to answer it in part 3.  

Still dangerous in Kolkata!

P.S.

From Hindustan Times

“A total of 151,113 people were killed in 480,652 road accidents across India in 2019, an average of 414 a day or 17 an hour, according to a report by the transport research wing of the ministry of road transport and highways.

India continued to have the most road fatalities in the world, followed by China, a distant second at 63,093 deaths in 2,12,846 road accidents in 2019, the report revealed. The United States of America (USA) reported the most road accidents at 2,211,439, and witnessed 37,461 deaths in 2019.According to the report, speeding was the leading cause of deaths, while, in terms of vehicles, two-wheelers were involved in most road fatalities.”

“Two-wheelers were involved in 37% of the road deaths in the country, followed by pedestrians at 17% and light vehicles (comprising cars, jeeps and taxis) at 16%. A total of 56,136 people riding two-wheelers lost their lives, while 25,858 pedestrians died in 2019″, stated the report.”

See I was correct about drivers of two wheelers with alleged magnum male endowments and minuscule  skills in other areas 

Emoji
Emoji
Emoji
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Traffic in India – Part I

Traffic in India  – part one

Traffic in India is insane, insanely hilarious, insanely annoying and insanely frustrating.

If you have not driven anything in your life, you will not fathom the  deep insanity of Indian traffic. A non-driver sees traffic  as a flow of  assorted vehicles , either smooth and orderly, or abrupt and noisy, or engrossed in snare and chaos. To him or her, the snare and chaos will appear to be the steady-state of Indian traffic.  However,  only a driver will understand the true terror and lawlessness that engulfs Indian traffic twenty-four hours a day  (yes even late at night!).

Even more amazing are the social norms about traffic held by drivers and non-drivers alike in India:

Drivers need to be smart and talented in the art of driving.

Any empty road surface is accessible to any vehicle on the road.

Complicity with all the traffic laws will endanger your life anyways, because others will be angry and destructive towards you.

Playing chicken is good, specially when you are plying a motorized vehicle!

Hit and run after any  accident is not necessarily  a criminal activity (well, it is, in every country of the world, including India – for even minor accidents –  punishable by jail time, severe penalties, and suspension of license – yes even in India!)

Equally amazing are the beliefs about traffic shared by drivers and non-drivers alike:

Traffic is more orderly in North America and Western Europe, anywhere else in the world it is similar to Traffic in India, only a tad more or less crazy!

(Fact: I have been to  countries like  Kazakhstan in Central  Asia, Thailand,  Cambodia  and Malaysia and Singapore in South East Asia,  Dubai and Oman  in the Middle East, and Japan and China and Hong  Kong in the  Far east, and believe me, traffic is not nearly as crazy as in India  – not even close! Assuming traffic is the same in the entire Indian subcontinent, it is crazy on an  elevated level in India and our neighbors)

Speed limits are only relevant for highways monitored by cameras only. If you own a motorcycle and firmly believe that you have a stupendous magnum penis, then you have the right to  drive at any speed in small side streets, terrorizing pedestrians and other traffic  as long as you use your horn frequently.  Such beastly behavior will impress your male friends and bring forth quasi-orgasmic approval from all the females who happen to witness this spectacle.

Right of way? WTF is that? A legal term enabling senior citizens and young women to move around as they please without getting mugged or raped?  A new brand of deodorant? A new dating app, perhaps?

Yield? What? Yield to what ? To whom? You mean to a VIP convoy? To a politician of the ruling party? To a Bollywood celebrity perhaps. Or, are you talking about yielding  to your spouse’s romantic advances? Oh  hell yeah,  it is a good idea to yield to an Ambulance because it will prevent ill people from dying on the way to the hospital.  Indians are slowly learning to yield occasionally to all kinds of emergency vehicles. Are there other traffic rules about “yield” ? You have to be freaking  kidding me!

And a case study!!

Let’s now do a case study of a quintessential Indian driver. His name is Ashok Dutta, my close friend. I am thankful for his habit of not reading  much of anything on the internet (or anywhere else – he is a talented tabla player) –so please don’t tell him about this blog!! The first time I got alarmed about him was actually in Toronto, Canada. He and I were walking around, not even driving,  in downtown Toronto, just wandering about.  In any downtown in North America, there are lots of crisscrossing streets and hence a traffic light every 50 meters or so. We were walking normally, until I saw Ashok getting excited.

“Let’s get this one, come on!” He said suddenly

“Get what?” I was clueless.

Turns out he was wanting me to walk faster so we can get step into the pedestrian crosswalk before the light changes. Every time we were stopping at an intersection, we would wait a maximum of 90 seconds or less before we crossed the street.  So the entire route involved waiting for the light at crosswalks for a total about 900 seconds which is fifteen minutes – at the most. After he dragged me through the sidewalk a couple of times forcing me to power walk so we can “get this one”, I explained to him that we have nowhere to go , we have all the time on our hands, and there are no hot chicks waiting for us in the guesthouse where we were staying!

The second time was even more alarming! I was driving my rental car around on the expressway in Toronto, Ashok was in the passenger seat.  There were large trucks on the rood as well. Several times when I was behind a truck, the following conversation would ensue:

A: Please get the truck.

Me: Overtake?

A: Yes, please.

Me: The speed limit is 65 miles an hour. Both the truck and myself  are driving at 70 miles an hour.  I have to speed up to about  80 miles an hour to overtake the truck quickly. Why do I need to do that?

A: so you can see the road better if you are not behind a huge truck!

Me: hmmm. The truck is not bothering me.

Then , back in 2017, when I started spending  six whole months in India , I rode  pillion on Ashok’s motorbike ! Oh the horror! The travesty!

He drives on the left  side of the road only when there is no traffic. If the road is busy, he is driving somewhere on the right of the middle of the road because he is always   overtaking (or planning to overtake) the car or truck or bus in front of him.  So 80% of the time he is on the wrong side, on a collision course with the oncoming traffic and risking a sideswipe with whatever vehicle he is overtaking. Oh yes, sometimes overtaking a vehicle on the right is not possible,  so he immediately  overtakes on the left, risking collision with pedestrians, bicycles, motorized carts, three-wheelers  etc. who do not expect him to come from behind (because they are on their side of the street, minding their own business)

When  Ashok needs to actually take a right turn, the monster reveals himself – he just takes a right turn! – no signal,  no waiting for the oncoming traffic, and he enters the road on the right side while driving on the right side (the illegal side), sometimes at a breakneck speed, honking his horn incessantly. I have seen him taking a right turn in front of  three   cars driving abreast, coming from the other side,  along with two  motor bikes. He cleared the last  motor bike by about one foot!

When he is not overtaking, he is riding abreast with two or three other two-wheelers in a tight space, with inches between them and at a great risk of side-swiping and crashing.

Of course, two wheeler vehicles became popular in India because of their maneuverability on crowded streets and ability to weave through traffic. To illustrate this, Ashok took me to visit my lawyer’s house through a  busy market street not wide enough for cars. He told me that going through the main road will take about one hour. Through the market, he rode merrily, inches from the veggie  and fruit sellers sitting on the street, my feet dangling from his bike passing about six inches away from some fishmonger’s  knives,  sometimes six inches from another bike’s red hot  exhaust. Horns were being blown by all the bikes present,  terrorizing the housewives shopping , dogs were running in fright. On the one hand,  I was wanting to shrink myself to a human of about one foot in size to escape serious injury, on the other hand I was mesmerized at his unbelievable driving skills, weaving,  braking, honking and  creating a mayhem on that narrow street full of people, but managing not to hit a single soul or a single piece of fruit.

“There” said Ashok when we arrived at our destination “we saved twenty minutes. You are OK, aren’t you?” I was so far from being OK that all I could manage was to nod my head and he took it as a sign of approval.

There is a basic lack of apprehension on the part of Indian drivers like Ashok,  you get a blank stare , a sense of total disbelief when you ask some questions.  Ashok takes a very small alley near his house to go home from our place, the alley is four feet wide, just enough for a full sized bike to fit in – it saves him about 25 seconds, He told me a few times “Take this great shortcut on your bicycle when you visit us, it will save you time’” After going through it the first time, I politely refused , telling him “I am not taking that alley. Do you know little children play there? Sometimes old people walk there as well”. 

His response was a  an incredulous “So?” meaning  “why are you telling me this ? There is no chance in hell I am going to hit someone in the alley. I am Ashok, the veteran bike rider.”  I did not tell him that there is a beautiful young lady that lives  close to my house – one of her eyes is gone. When she was a little girl, she shot out into the empty street and a bike came out of nowhere and  hit her, the corner handle  pierced  her eye.   Of course the rider was not our great Ashok, so it is not relevant, is it?

Yes, I told him once, when he  was with his wife, myself and another friend. His wife, who hesitates to ride pillion on his bike, asked me what sort of a driver he was.

“A good driver, but he violates 100% of the traffic laws 100% of the time” I replied, causing ripples of laughter all around. Next time though I was with Ashok alone, and I told him the same thing. I could see he was deeply hurt and seriously offended. With a wry grin he told me “ I never had an accident in forty years”

“That’s great”, I said “I am glad to hear that”.

(No Accident? You freaking kidding me? He has accidents everyday!! His arms and legs have lacerations and bruises all the time, his bike parts are being broken and replaced all the time – How the hell do you explain that? Of course he has not been hospitalized with major  trauma yet – what a freaking miracle!!)

What is remarkable with Indian drivers is their amazing skills at balancing, weaving, anticipating, calculating and  assorted other things that are needed for driving both cars and motorbikes.  Oh, the drivers also seem to have three or four pairs of eyes also, because they can always see who is about to crash into them  from behind or from the sides, or if there is enough room on the road surface for their vehicle to squeeze through,  or if their rear tire is about six inches away from someone else’s tire or foot, so its OK to proceed normally!! If, on a scale of one to 100, drivers in USA are about 50 on average, drivers like Ashok are about 96 at their skill level!

Not all drivers are crazy like Ashok, there are 75% drivers that are equally or less crazy, and 35% more crazy than him. Well, that adds up to 110%. Because, at a given point the extra 10%  “more crazy” drivers are writhing in pain in the hospitals, or comatose from head trauma, or going to the cremation ground with their grieving family members – at least they are off the streets, finally!

 In the above rambling, I have actually under-reported Ashok’s driving  habits. In the second part, I will describe my venture into riding a bicycle in Indian streets and my investigation into the causes for this unusual phenomenon of traffic in India.

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Why am I freaking out about corruption in India?

Corruption exists everywhere in the world, so why does it freak me out in India?

Because it is pervasive, it is in your face, and people kind of shrug off preposterous acts performed by others,

I am ready to donate about 2000 dollars to any educational institution in India on the spot, but have found no takers for the last four years!! I will write in detail about my experience with my own school later. Overall, I found that there are four types of schools

a. schools owned and run by the government. They do not accept charity

b. Government -sponsored schools – a vast majority of schools fall in this category including my old high school. They receive government funding but are also autonomous.. Technically, they can receive charity. But most of the time, the teachers are already misappropriating government funds, so the external charity will reveal the internal corruption. Let’s say the government has given funds for ten computers, and only five have been purchased. Now if I donate money for ten additional computers, the cat will be out of the bag and some people will be in big trouble!!

c. “Charitable” private non-profit Schools : sounds like an oxymoron. These accept “donations” from parents before their children are admitted . Part of the donations are used to provide scholarships to poor students,, and the major part is appropriated by the owner and his network . Serious accounting problems persist here in order to exhibit the non-profit status. Some of these schools actually provide high quality education and their owners seem so happy to be able to provide such valuable service to the society (sarcasm!)

d. Finally a small number of private schools exist primarily in remote villages, and some of those are not controlled by political parties. I am looking for one for the last few years.

I am willing to donate 1000 dollars to charity every month, but it is not possible in India. Of course, you can dump your money to temples or large foundations, but I do not want to do that. Over time I found that most NGO’s steal either some or all of your money! On the other hand, India does not have the abject poverty that was all around till the 1980’s. We do not see beggars howling on the streets, or people scrounging for food on the side of the streets or hordes of beggars at the bus stations or tram depots – a common sight when I was around in the 70’s. So, I am slowly finding out needy people and giving them money , but it takes time and patience. Like everywhere else in the world, there are scammers galore.

A cousin and his family, and another cousin’s son have built their livelihoods on corruption, so I don’t interact with them any more – that’s two out of four cousins’ families that live in Kolkata. I do not have any other surviving relatives in kolkata any longer, except maybe second cousins and their families. My mother and sister have passed away.

Several people that I met and that turned out to be friendly, cultured and well intentioned individuals revealed to have their livelihoods entirely based on corrupt practices , so I do not hang out with them any longer.

It is strange that these individuals, including my cousins’ families are baffled by my aloofness and possibly take it as a sign of my arrogance and /or early dementia!!

My good friend’s elderly father, a wonderful lonely old man, wants to hang out with me, but I am not going to, because several years ago my good friend raped a woman in his own home when I was present there. ( I have no conclusive evidence of this , so I just scream silently about this now and then)

So it is not like – “politicians in Washington are corrupt, or that Wall street managers engage in corrupt insider trading – and they are 1500 miles away from my little cocoon in Lawrence, Kansas” , it is corruption in your face in India!!

Oh, I am not miserable, I have a lot of good friends in Kolkata to hang out with. But it has become my mission to point out how corruption is pervasive and expensive for the Indian society in a way that I never anticipated.

And no, I am not going back to USA any time soon! Food is good here, and my retirement funds go a long way, and I love the people I do hang out with.

Edit: I did not want to appear presumptuous in the above post. It is just that I do not have any inheritance motive, and very limited current expenditures and needs. So I just want to give away about 33% of my monthly income to charity – that comes to about $1000 a month. I don’t need it – in USA it will be easy to find people and organizations who will make good use of it. So far, in India, I am finding it hard to give it to non-corrupt people. I have succeeded in finding some people who will use the money, but much more remains to be done. I have no motive of showing off , or being obnoxious.

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My Missions

I am approaching 70 in a couple of months, do not need to or want to work at university teaching any more, have enough money so that I do not need to gamble with stocks and options. Do not need /want to do traditional academic research .

My goal is to analyze corruption in India, it is so pandemic and so pervasive. I will attack this topic with theory data, anecdotes and analysis. I will not change the world, but will provide knowledge to some people who will read my stuff.

Another lighthearted mission is to look at Driving in India – crazy and freaking insane!!

Wish me luck !!

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My Stupid Dreams !!!

None of this is going to happen in my lifetime, but I hope there are enough humans with similar interests

No WARS, no Military Forces , no army, no navy, no airforce in the whole damn world!

The world will have one international anti-terrorist force. Every country will have its own border protection law enforcement. And of course, Police and local law enforcement.

But no more wars!

No more rapes!

Legalize and Control Prostitution in all countries

Construct meeting places for young people everywhere.

Provide safety in public places – maybe some of the ex-military personnel – see above!

No Stealing of Public money

Easier said than done.

Corporate Reform

So that executives in large corporations bear more risk for their business failures

Easier said than done

Serious investment in infrastructure all over the world

Change in laws so that corporate capital is invested in long term social investment projects.

Easier said than done

I will die with my dreams!!

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Senator Perdue -Stop It Already!

In our generation, a very large number of bright students left the Indian subcontinent and went to America. You see, the opportunities in India were very limited. We went with scholarships or job offers and with very little money. I went with $33 dollars and a scholarship from a top school in USA. Yes I am very grateful for this opportunity! Last year I retired with a nice nest egg of , well, more than $33.

During this wonderful journey my name was one of the problems. I know, in a noisy bar, I never tried to pick up women announcing my weird first name and long last name – I knew it will not work! But I have many sad stories about people outside noisy bars freaking out over my name, including generations of my students brutally butchering my name. After ten years of service to the University where I taught, they sent me a plaque of recognition as a token, routinely sent to all employees. My name was spelled as “Gautamman Bhaptazhachattzzaj” or something like that. Worse yet, when I called HR to complain, the lady asked me “how do you spell your name?” At that point I got a little insulted and told her to read the staff directory on her table , which had my name during the last ten years!!

One of my colleagues whose last name was “Wu” (two letters) had professional correspondence published in his name in a top Scholarly Journal from a National Institution as “Wun” – now where the hell did the letter “n” come from?

But Senator, this comment is about our children, who are in their thirties and forties now.

I remember a potential Supreme Court Judge, the head of a major government regulatory agency, and a number of top executives in Wall street and Fortune Five hundred companies that I played with when they were little boys and girls or heard about them from their proud parents when they were little.

Many of them have weird first names and last names. But they are not going anywhere, Senator!

We raised them , America raised them, now let these boys and girls contribute to your great country. They were bullied in grade school, but they are powerful and rich people in your country already!

This is from all the Raghuratanams, Bhattacharyas, Kumaramangalswamys and Shammnugans among you. Please get used to our children.

It is about time!

#myname