Democratic World Magazine February Issue by Democratic World

FEBRUARY 2012 `25 An MBD Publication RNI No.: 23870/72

D E M O C R A T I C

W O R L D

LOOKING BACK

DILIP KAPUR ON BUSINESS AND BEAUTY PAGE 34

NOT JUST A

DR DEVI SHETTY Cardiac Surgeon, Entrepreneur

SAVIOUR SURGEON DEVI SHETTY IS THE REAL DEAL

A SUPERSTAR DOCTOR, GOOD SAMARITAN AND ASTUTE BUSINESSMAN PAGE 14 PLUS:

REFORMING RETAIL? EXPERTS DEBATE INDIA’S NEW FDI POLICY PAGE 30

GOOD KARMA WAREHOUSE LIFE IN TECHNICOLOUR PLATFORM

EDIT ORIAL SONICA MALHOTRA KANDHARI | editorial@democraticworld.in

Matters of the Heart in Valentine’s Month IT TAKES no calendar to tell you it’s February. There

EDITOR'S CHOICE

LOOKING BACK His father was a talented businessman. His mother was an artist. It seems that his generous parents passed on their talent and aesthetics to Dilip Kapur — who combined both to create the posh and supersuccessful Hidesign

are enough giddy young adults at every café and gifts shop, making it clear that it’s the month of Saint Valentine. However, I wish I could say that matters of the heart plague only the young. They don’t; at least not according to the medical journal I flipped through lately. One such article contained such alarming data that I had to delve deeper into the topic. Figures seem to state that heart disease is the single-largest cause of death in India. Reportedly, heart attacks are responsible for one-third of all deaths caused by heart diseases. Finally, the death knell: according to a joint paper published by the World Health Organisation and the Indian Council of Medical Research, by 2020 India will become the world's heart attack, diabetes and hypertension capital. If our lives were made into a film, then we know who would play the villain. At DW, we believe we know who would play the valiant hero — Dr Devi Shetty. The iconic cardiac surgeon and visionary-cum-entrepreneur behind heart centres and health cities all over India, has been fighting for our health for years now. Not only has he improved medical facilities for those who can afford it, Dr Shetty — and thus he’s twice the hero — has made heart surgery affordable for India’s poor and rural people: a solid 60 per cent of our population. While talking to him, we were struck by his positivity; he’s upbeat about life and people and has an unshakable faith in both. Yet, he’s not just a dreamer

but a doer. He takes the economy of scale and makes it work to his advantage — in the face of all cynical questions and raised eyebrows. If there is a man who has democratised the medical sector, it is Dr Shetty. In fact, if the world’s looking for a new Saint Valentine, our vote is with him. Read about his incredible journey and how he sees India’s large population not as a hindrance, but as an advantage. Since we are harping on the heart after all, DW decided to take a closer look at a topic that is causing much heartburn among India’s policymakers: its FDI policy. With the “will-they, won’t-they” game on, Democratic World decided to see if the entry of multibrand chains would create new jobs or close doors for India’s small-time farmers and shop-owners. Join the discussion as we bring you opinions from both sides of the fence. A quick note of thanks for your overwhelming response to the FDI poll we pasted on our Facebook page. And thank you again for writing to us with your inputs; we hope you keep reading and responding to DW. Have a great month and be good to your heart.

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

TOC

DILIP KAPUR I HAVE LEARNT THAT BEING UNIQUE AND INNOVATIVE IS THE GREATEST STRENGTH

MAN OF THE MONTH

| FEBRUARY

2 0 12

COVER DESIGN BY PETERSON | PHOTO BY RADHAKRISHNA

TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

READ MORE ON PAGE 34

14 DR VIVEK BHANDARI

COVER STORY

14 | Mending a Million Hearts Philanthropist, entrepreneur

and visionary, Dr Devi Shetty wears several hats. Meet the pioneer who dreams of taking medicine to the masses

Please Recycle This Magazine And Remove Inserts Before Recycling

COPYRIGHT Democratic World is published & printed by M Gulab Singh & Sons (a unit of MBD Group) at Gulab Bhawan 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110002, India and printed at Perfect Printers Gulab Bhawan 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110002, India. Democratic World is for private circulation only. Material in this publication may not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of M Gulab Singh & Sons.

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

26 | THE CHALLENGES TO INSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY Have citizens lost faith in government bodies?

JOHN ELLIOTT

36 | DELHI 100 A big birthday as the capital city celebrates a re-emergence

30 ISSUE

30 | UNCAPPING THE FDI DEBATE

What does the entry of foreign players mean for Indian retail? GOOD KARMA

38 | STRATEGIC PHILANTHROPY

Dasra supports NGOs through smart management and funding REGULARS

SOCIAL AGENDA

22 | Enterprise 2.0 — Business Goes Social Can it help companies

communicate better? Not unless there’s a significant change in office culture

LIFE IN TECHNICOLOUR

WAREHOUSE

GARNISH

HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE

28 | HORSE RACING VINAY KUMAR’S horses

42 | GADGETS & GIZMOS HELLCAT X132

are his babies — he’s one proud papa, especially when they win races for him!

or a Soul Ludacris? Which gadget holds more ‘oomph’ for you?

44 | JOIE DE VIVRE, CHEF STYLE RITU DALMIA on how

48 | TO PARADISE: VIA THE SPICE ROUTE AMEE MISRA takes us to

good food titillates the tongue and touches the soul

Zanzibar, an island nation of sun, sand and spices

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEEDBACK

www.democraticworld.com

EDITORIAL Managing Editor: Monica Malhotra Kandhari Group Editor: Sonica Malhotra Kandhari Editor: Dr Chander Trikha Executive Editor: Aniha Brar Features Editor: Rohini Banerjee Sub Editor: Manjiri Indurkar

EDITORIAL CO-ORDINATION Mamta Bhatt

COPY DESK

WHEN I SAW THE MAGAZINE MY FIRST REACTION WAS “WHAT’S NEW?” IN THE END, IT WAS A HAPPY ENCOUNTER. THE COVER STORY ON MR SOLI SORABJEE WAS A GREAT READ. AND I WAS GRIPPED BY THE “ISSUE” SECTION. ALL THE BEST TO THE TEAM!

Managing Editor: Sangita Thakur Varma Sub Editors: Radhika Haswani, Mitia Nath

DESIGN Sr Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Art Director: Anil VK Associate Art Director: PC Anoop Visualisers: Prasanth TR, Anil T & Shokeen Saifi Sr Designers: Sristi Maurya, NV Baiju & Chander Dange Designers: Suneesh K, Shigil N, Charu Dwivedi Raj Verma, Prince Antony, Binu MP & Peterson

Warm Regards,

Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul

Harneet Saluja, Team Leader, Mahindra Satyam

Photographer: Jiten Gandhi

SALES & MARKETING Mamta Bhatt, Arjun Sawhney

PRODUCTION & LOGISTICS Alok Kashyap, General Manager (Production)

PRINTER & PUBLISHER

POINT OF VIEW

IT'S WAS A PLEASURE TO READ DW. Reading about a

Alok Kashyap

diverse range of personalities was a refreshing change. From the cover story on Mr Soli Sorabjee to the peek into the life of writer Kunal Basu — Democratic World’s content was different from others. In this country ruled by mediocre English literature, Kunal Basu has been a less celebrated author, which is unfortunate. The story on Laila Tyabji struck a chord. I had the privilege to meet the lady once and was greatly impressed by her. Santosh Desai and Ashok Malik's columns were thoughtprovoking. Hope to find you on the stands soon!

DEBOJIT DUTTA SUB-EDITOR (WEB), THE SUNDAY GUARDIAN

WRITE TO US: Democratic World values your feedback. We want to know what you think about the magazine and would love your opinion on issues that you would like us to raise. DW continues to be work in progress and your inputs will make it a truly democratic effort. For additional images, opinion polls and much more visit our facebook page at www.facebook.com/DWzine Send your comments, compliments, complaints or questions about the magazine to editorial@democraticworld.in

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

Democratic World is a monthly magazine published and printed by M Gulab Singh & Sons (a unit of MBD Group). It is published at Gulab Bhawan, 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002, India and printed at Perfect Printers, Gulab Bhawan, 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002, India. The magazine is edited by Dr Chander Trikha, Gulab Bhawan, 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002, India. Material in this publication may not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of M Gulab Singh & Sons. Editorial opinions expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of M Gulab Singh & Sons and M Gulab Singh & Sons does not take responsibility for the advertising content, content obtained from third parties and views expressed by any independent author/contributor. (M Gulab Singh & Sons, Gulab Bhawan, 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002). Email: editorial@democraticworld.in Opinions expressed herein are of the authors and do not necessarily reflect any opinion of M Gulab Singh & Sons, Gulab Bhawan, 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002, India Tel: 91-11-30912345, 30912301 Email: subscribe@democraticworld.in

MANMOHAN SINGH

“Despite impressive growth the problem of malnutrition is a matter of national shame”

THEY SAID IT

UPtoDATE

The Lokpal Logjam Rajya Sabha rejects Lok Sabha-approved, constitutionally vulnerable Lokpal Bill POLITICS\\ The Lok Sabha passed the landmark Lok-

pal Bill on December 28, 2011, but failed to make the Lokpal committee a constitutional body. The Bill came with the amendment that appointing Lokayuktas would not be mandatory for every state. This amendment was made in view of the opposition from the government allies and others. The defence forces and coast guard personnel were kept out of the purview of the anti-graft ombudsman and the exemption time of former members of Parliament was increased from five to seven years. But a number of amendments moved by the Opposition,

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

asking for the inclusion of corporates, media and NGOs receiving donations, were defeated and the amendment to bring the CBI under the purview of the bill was also rejected by the government. Later, on December 29, the Bill was tabled in the Rajya Sabha, where the UPA did not have a majority, and failed to get the Bill passed. The Opposition called the Bill “constitutionally vulnerable”. A ruckus was created in Parliament, which the Opposition called a “pre-planned script”. As the government failed to get the simple majority, the Bill is now likely to be presented at the joint parliamentary session.

109 The number of votes required to pass the Lokpal Bill in Rajya Sabha

up-to-date

FROM AROUND THE WORLD //

Saina Nehwal can’t conquer the wall of China SPORTS\\ Fourth seed Indian ace Saina Nehwal lost

North Korean dictator dies at 69 People mourn the death of Kim Jongil, as son takes charge of country INTERNATIONAL \\ North Korean leader Kim Jong-il

died after suffering a major heart attack while on a train out on a “field trip”. According to official reports, every possible measure was taken to save his life, but help did not reach him on time. He suffered a cardiac arrest. Autopsy reports confirmed the cause of the death. The leader had suffered his first heart attack in 2008, he appeared weak and frail in the limited number of pictures released in the recent past. The young Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (commonly called North Korea), which is a communist country, has so far maintained a tradition of hereditary succession in its government. Kim Jong-il had inherited the country’s leadership from his father, Kim II-Sung in the year 1994. Earlier, in 2010 he had declared his son, Kim Jong-un, his successor. South Korea, which shares its borders with North Korea, declared a high security alert after the death of the leader, citing the fact that North Korea is a failed yet dangerous state with nuclear weapons. The country has enshrined Kim Jong-il’s body in the Pyongyang Palace, which also houses the body of his father, who was the founder of the nation.

to top seed Wang Yihan of China 15-21, 16-21 in the women’s singles semifinal of the Maybank Malaysia Open Badminton Championship in January. Nehwal lost the match, which lasted for 41 minutes, in straight sets. Nehwal got off to a great start with an 8-4 lead in the first game, but eventually Yihan took charge of the game, scored six more points and didn’t let Nehwal bounce back. In the second game as well, Nehwal was leading 5-2, but the Chinese shuttler once again gained control and never lost the lead thereafter. This was the fifth occasion when Nehwal was facing Yihan and she has lost SUPER on all all occasions to the top SHUTTLER seed. It was a disappointing start to the new year for the Indian star, as she once again failed to overcome the insurmountable wall of China. With yet another loss, the long drought of Super Series titles continues for Nehwal who hasn’t won a single championship since the Swiss Open in March 2011.

RETIREMENT

The hero of Indian football retires Baichung Bhutia, India’s most celebrated footballer, bid adieu to the game this January. In his final match against Bayern Munich, the crowd gave him a standing ovation on his exit. Poster boy of the game for years, Bhutia was often eulogised as “God’s gift to Indian football”. FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

up-to-date

\\ FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Ballot Box (Left) States prepare for the upcoming polls and the Election Commission declares the poll dates (below)

ECI announces poll dates in five states: With elections around the corner, fair polls get top priority ELECTIONS \\ The Election Commission of

India (ECI) announced the dates for the upcoming Assembly elections in five states — Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Manipur. A code of conduct has also been implemented in these states. Elections in Uttar Pradesh will take place in seven phases, given the size of the state and the number of constituencies. The first phase of UP elections starts on February 4, while the last phase will be conducted on February 28, and votes will be counted on March 4. The decision to hold the elections in seven phases has been welcomed by all parties. Another move that has set many tongues wagging was the ECI's decision to cover elephant statues all across UP. This decision has been criticised by the BSP, but has received appreciation from all the opposition parties. Punjab and Uttarakhand’s elections will

be held on January 30 and Manipur and Goa will enter the electoral phase on January 28 and March 3, respectively. As the states prepare for the upcoming elections, a lot of pressure has been laid on them by the ECI to conduct “free and fair” elections. This is more so in the wake of specific intelligence reports, according to which money is entering the state of Uttar Pradesh through the hawala channels from West Asia. (Hawala is the illegal transfer of money into or out of the country.) According to ECI officials, money from Saudi Arabia and Dubai is being routed through illegal channels into constituencies such as Aligarh, Gorakhpur, Saharanpur, Meerut and Muzaffarnagar. However, the money coming in is not for any one party, but for most of them. Soon after the intelligence report came in, the state police department, the income tax

A total sum of `35 crore has been caught in Uttar Pradesh by the authorities so far

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

department, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and all border security forces were informed — a total sum of `35 crore has been caught in the state so far. In the country’s biggest state with a total of 403 constituencies, 700 battalions of security forces have been deployed in UP to curb the influence of illicit money. Despite all the vigilance, political analysts believe that this note-for-vote politics will affect the outcome of the upcoming polls. Usually the money laundering begins two weeks ahead of the polls but this time it has begun a good 25 days ahead of the set date. Every party has now started working on its election campaign in earnest. According to the statistics of the declared assets of the Chief Ministers of various states of the country, Mayawati is richest. Her total declared assets are worth `87.27 crore, which, according to her, have been donated by her followers. Interestingly, this figure alone is greater than the sum of the declared assets of the top 10 richest Chief Ministers in the country.

up-to-date

\\ FROM AROUND THE WORLD

ENVIRONMENT

Cyclone Hits Puducherry, leaves 19 dead DISASTER\\ Cyclone

Thane, which hit the coast of Tamil Nadu, resulted in the death of 19 people. Twelve deaths were reported in Cuddalore and seven in Puducherry. The cyclone vented its fury by uprooting trees and electric posts

as it passed through the towns and villages. The territorial administration in Cuddalore was all geared up for the possible calamity. Electric power was cut 12 hours ahead of the expected cyclone, and villagers from coastal hamlets were evacuated and

moved to cyclone shelters well before time. The Tamil Nadu State Government has announced a support package of over `210 crore as a relief fund for the farmers. Over 1.76 lakh hectares of agricultural crops have been severely damaged.

Aung San Suu Kyi to run for elections End of the Junta Rule?

SALT PEPPER JUSTICE KATJU BECOMES THE TALK OF THE TOWN YET AGAIN AS HE BATS FOR SUNNY LEONE...

“Whatever they may say, most of the journos awake midnight thinking about Justice Katju . I am loving it all.” Pawan Durani | Twitterati

“More power to Justice Katju. More joy to Sunny Leone.” Pritish Nandy | Writer, Media Personality

“Always trending man. This Justice Katju has become the Justin Bieber of India.” Ramesh Srivats | Occasional Writer

Electectoral Update: The decades-old iron rule of the Junta government is bound to come to an end this year as Myanmar enters the electoral phase in April 2012

INTERNATIONAL \\ Burmese Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be running for

Parliament in the country’s highly anticipated April by-elections. According to her party sources, the Nobel laureate will be contesting elections from her home district outside of Yanong. The civilian government has approved of her party — National League for Democracy’s (NLD) participation in the elections scheduled to take place on April 1, 2012. This marks the return of the her party into mainstream politics after two decades. For the first time in years, a pro-democracy leader will pursue political office. Her party had won a landslide victory in 1990, but the Junta government prevented her from assuming power. Living under house arrest from that time on, she only gained her freedom in 2010 as the Junta government agreed to parliamentary elections that year. The civilian government has also signed a cease-fire agreement with ethnic Karen rebels fighting the largest civil war in the country. It is hoped that the conciliatory gesture will improve Myanmar’s relations with the outside world.

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

“Every trending topic in India is related to cricket. Justice Katju is not going to like it.” Faking News | Satire Website

“What’s common to Alistair Pereira and Sunny Leone? Ans: Justice Katju. He was on an earlier SC bench which heard Pereira's plea.” Anant Rangaswami | Twitterati

Food Lounge & Bar

foreign despatches \\ NOTES FROM THE DIA SPOR A

PRAKASH BHALERAO Silicon Valley, USA

Entrepreneurship is an attitude: if you can spin an idea, you can make it” PRAKASH BHALERAO: I was born into a financially comfortable and traditional extended family in Indore. My maternal uncle was quite the patriarch. My parents used to pay heed to what he had to say — that nearly cost me my higher education. He didn’t think it was a good idea to send me to IIT Bombay, even though I had got through. His argument was that students picked up “habits” (read: smoking) if they stayed in hostels. I fought and lost, and settled for a college degree. Like my peers, I was interested in computers. So, I enrolled in an engineering course. Though I have been living in the US for the past 30-odd years and respect the country’s idea of the ‘American Dream’ (nothing is impossible), my graduation days in India taught me valuable lessons as well. One of them was to make do with little: what is called the jugaad principle nowadays. At college we resorted to jugaad a lot — for instance, early digital computers used punch cards, often prepared using keypunch machines, as the primary data point. Students would prepare punch cards as a part of the curriculum. But our college, having only one computer, had to send off the cards to IIT Bombay which had the expertise (and computers) to decipher them. We had little exposure, but great professors who made sure that we had a strong grasp of theory. I am really grateful to one such teacher — Professor Iyer. He had just come back from a stint in the US and here he taught a large class of 120 students. He would divide the class into 60 groups and give each group a problem. After the problems were solved, solutions were swapped around. He would let us decide whether a solution worked or not. This exercise stayed with me through my entrepreneurial days — it helped me think out of the box, be open to several ideas at the same time and not get too engrossed in the ‘immediate’ or ‘me’.

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

PRAKASH BHALERAO was

born in Indore, India, and travelled to the US to complete his Masters’ in Engineering. His goal was to return shortly thereafter. But man proposes and the God of electrical engineering disposes. Bhalerao’s first stint was at Digital Equipment Corporation, as a CPU designer. Little did he know that he would work his way to the top or that the entrepreneurial bug would bite him. Today, Bhalerao is a successful high-technology entrepreneur, angel investor and venture capitalist. He has co-founded and is the chairman of highly soughtafter start-ups, including Amber Networks, Ishoni Networks, Alopa Networks, Ambit Inc., and ECTone. All of these are headquartered in Silicon Valley, though several have R&D facilities in India. Together, Bhalerao’s companies employ over 11,0,000 professionals worldwide.

It was Professor Iyer who egged me on to do more with my life. I applied and got through the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts, for a Masters’ degree in Electrical Engineering. In the US, my reality changed so much: as a student I had access to several of the latest computers and the best libraries. After completing my Masters’, I applied and was employed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in Palo Alto, California, in the year 1975. It was already a successful company. DEC focussed on new-line, low-cost computers (minicomputers) especially to be used in labs and research institutions. Kenneth Olsen and Harlan Anderson, both electronics engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded the company in 1957 to build low-cost computers that could receive and analyse data from a wide array of scientific instruments. I joined them as a small fish: a CPU designer. But this was an instance when the success stories that people imagine actually happened to me. When I quit, I was the general manager of its semiconducter business. I had started with a small team of 50 and when I left, I had 2,000 people working for me. The company employed more than 120,000 people worldwide at its peak in 1990 and earned more than $14 bn in revenue, till Compaq Computer Corporation bought it in 1998. My lessons in entrepreneurship began in DEC. When entrepreneurs say that they “immediately know” when an idea works, they are deluding themselves. One can never be sure if an idea will work. As an entrepreneur, I take a workable idea and toil on it. If it doesn’t work, then I tweak it. I

foreign despatches NOTES FROM THE DIA SPOR A //

“I am an entrepreneur; I get excited when I am introduced to a new idea and love to see it through to its end — or tweak it till it’s perfect”

believe that there is a difference between a founder and an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is one who fights till an idea takes shape. It doesn’t matter to him (or her) if the idea is his. But he is responsible for spinning and positioning the value of the idea. On the other hand, I see a founder as the main visionary. A successful entrepreneur is a better administrator than visionary. Take Steve Jobs, for instance. His best move was to put in place a team of great managers and ideators, and then oversee the whole operation. The best possible compliment to any entrepreneur would be that he’s tenacious. The founding directors of DEC were great administrators and tenacious as well. The company encouraged workers to constantly think innovatively: pitch an idea and make it work. I helped DEC build four businesses. As I grew, my comfort level in the company, and in the position, also grew. Finally, I was rather too comfortable. All I was doing was picking up the phone and calling people (by then I had a quite a network) and asking them for favours. People say that Indians hit a glass ceiling at Silicon Valley. I would not agree. The only reason that I called it quits was because the work was getting predictable. One of my friends suggested that I “detox” myself for a while, and I took his advice. But I am an Indian after all, and couldn't stay away from work for too long. I soon joined C-Cube Systems, a smaller set-up. A life lesson from my time there was to look at the company’s vision. I became a venture capitalist and an angel investor because of selfish reasons. I am an entrepreneur; I get excited when I am introduced to a new idea and love to see it to its end. Or tweak it till it becomes perfect. And I believe that Indians have what it takes to be successful entrepreneurs — intelligence and tenacity. When I compare them to Americans, I see a difference. I have understood we are sometimes resistant to diversification. The young newlywealthy entrepreneurs need to learn what to do with their money a bit better. Because stock markets crash. Paper or money can disappear overnight. I have watched too many Silicon Valley ventures razed to the ground pre and post the 2001 market crash. Though we have a tendency to scoff at people who buy vineyards, luxury cars, yachts or islands when they make a lot of money, I believe these are

assets. Even if the price of the Ferrari drops tomorrow, there’s a certain price tag that it will carry. Selling it off would get some money, instead of putting all of it in the share market. I have always tried to dissuade people who come to me for financial advice from putting all their eggs in one basket. It is a mistake — make sure that if you are a business owner and especially a smart first-generation one, you diversify, whether in your business or in assets. I learnt this the hard way when, overnight, I lost $9 mn in stocks and shares. My wife Sujata, a doctor, panicked. She literally forced me to consult what was known as a ‘financial technician’. I remember that the meeting lasted two hours. By the time he was done with me, I was sweating and my list of savings was nearly non-existent. He made us keep aside a portion of our earnings in municipal bonds and treasury bills. Though the returns on these are really very low, conversely they are the safest options available to a VC or angel investor. I have always stuck by his expenditure diet since then. As an Indian investor in the US, I thought that it was imperative that I hold out a helping hand to my fellow countrymen. Have I been partial to Indian entrepreneurs? No. But I have been partial to interesting ideas that managed to excite me. I will admit that. Our problem is that usually most IT people still don’t hail from business families. They don’t have the background, expertise or mentors who could help them out. That’s where people like me have to step in. As an angel investor, there are four questions that I try to work out in my mind when I am looking at an entity. Let’s say the entity is an automobile manufacturer looking for investors. Is its market confused? Does it have a massive opportunity? Is the product differentiating? Does the entity have a strong team? Mostly in this order. If there is no demand, there’s no need for a product. If you can’t create sufficient differentiation between your product and someone else’s, then there would be a confused market. Finally, dysfunctional teams don’t make any wonderful, original idea work. People often ask me when I will retire — I can’t. My wife has long retired and she’s enjoying herself. My children are doing well for themselves. Honestly, there’s no sane reason that I should be working. But I am addicted to work and entrepreneurship. Recently, I was introduced to an entertainment distribution company focussed on interactive information and saw tremendous potential in it. Thus, my interest in avaniTV Solutions Pvt Ltd began. The company wants to provide passengers branded, live television and movies on demand, along with internet music and video service in the comfort of their cars. The idea was developed by a Verisimo Networks team in a Bengaluru lab. There’s potential in the concept and for now it’s set my blood rushing. This is the high that defines my work as an entrepreneur. So here I go again.

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

cover story

\\ MENDING A MILLION HE ARTS

He wears many hats: entrepreneur, visionary, surgeon, philanthropist. He is on a mission to make the world a healthier place. Meet the pioneer who dreams of taking medicine to the masses

Mending a

Million Hea r BY MAHESH RAVI & ANIHA BRAR PHOTOGRAPHS BY S. RADHAKRISHNA

‘A letter to 4,000 children with a scar on the chest’ “When God sent you to this world it was the best thing that had happened to your parents. Unfortunately, their happiness was shortlived. That very day you started turning blue in colour; the doctors had found a hole in your heart.Your parents could not afford the cost of your heart operation. Yes, when you were 10 days old you had a price tag on your life.Time was running out and your daddy was getting desperate until he came to know about me. The first thing he told me when we met was: “I heard you love children”. Yes, I love children and have four of my own. My profession is giving hope to people suffering from heart diseases — I am essentially a technician who can cut and stitch people’s hearts; they call me a heart surgeon.”

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

This is the beginning of a long letter from Dr Devi Shetty to 4,000 children, all former patients at one of the hospitals he had set up. Intrigued by the idea of a doctor who not only provided free treatment to poor children, but also wrote to them years later, we set off to seek out the man behind the words. We wound up on the outskirts of Bengaluru, and left behind the noisy traffic on Hosur road to enter an oasis of calm.

cover story

MENDING A MILLION HE ARTS //

People were milling about, carrying lines of anxiety on their faces, but hope in their eyes. The place we entered had the sounds of vedic chants wafting on the air and we were greeted by a beautiful engraved statue of Vishwarupa — the form that Krishna revealed to Arjuna during his lecture on the Gita. Despite this templelike atmosphere, it was clear that we had entered a hospital, as the doctors and nurses scurrying about showed us. We were at Narayana Hrudalaya to meet the heart surgeon whose story has inspired doctors all over the country. As we walked through different corridors in the hospital, the chants were sometimes replaced by the sounds of an FM radio

like God because he was the one who could save our parents’ lives.” He once overheard his mother talking to a relative. She was blessing another woman for giving birth to a wonderful son, a doctor who had saved someone’s life without taking money. The young Devi resolved that he too would grow up to be a son that people would praise and bless his mother for. The seeds were sown early, but the moment of epiphany came in 1967, when a South African surgeon called Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful

human heart transplant. Listening wideeyed to this news in a classroom in India, 14-year-old Shetty was inspired. “I made an immediate connect and decided to become a heart surgeon even before I decided to become a doctor,” laughs the man who now has many ‘firsts’ to his own credit. Shetty went on to pursue medicine and

a rts channel and at other times by the voice of Kishore Kumar. “The doctors all like to play different music when they operate. I prefer calm, spiritual music, but I let everyone create the atmosphere that suits them when they work”, says the lean and dynamic man who meets us at the door. And with that, the conversation is on.

THE INSPIRED IDEALIST Devi Prasad Shetty was the eighth of nine children, born to parents who were already getting on in years. With a mother needing surgery and a father who sometimes went into diabetic comas, Shetty remembers that, “As kids we thought the doctor was

First Among Equals Dr Shetty was the first Indian to do neo-natal open-heart surgery, to use an artificial heart, first to use a microchip camera to close a hole in the heart and the first to make it affordable for the common man

cover story

\\ MENDING A MILLION HE ARTS

even though, by his own admission, he was not a brilliant student, he never let go of his central desire to operate on the heart. “I couldn’t dream of getting training as a heart surgeon in India in those days — there were hardly any centres and even the teachers were learning to do heart surgery at that time. Grafting had just started and even in England, not many people were doing bypasses. So I had to go abroad,” says the man whose steps finally led him to Guy’s Hospital in London. In England, surgeons would not see patients before or after operations, since other teams were assigned those tasks. Shetty focussed entirely on honing his skills by doing

hundreds of procedures, enjoying each one — even going so far as to operate on weekends. This prompted his colleagues to dub him the ‘crazy operating machine’. Practice makes perfect and Dr Shetty was soon getting the recognition that was his due as an excellent surgeon. But medical procedures were not all that the young doctor was learning. As an intern in England, he was exposed to the dramatic changes taking place in the National Health Service at the time. Cost efficiency was receiving a lot of attention as public services began to go through greater scrutiny. Even though he was not directly involved, Shetty saw that controlling costs

was a vital aspect of delivering healthcare and years later, would use this knowledge when facing similar problems in India. Dr Devi Shetty was already set on his path in life — he had a job, he had skills that could bring him fame and fortune, and he had a goal. But there was a tradition in his family that those who went abroad to study finally returned to India, and his wife was keen to head home too. At the very time when he was on the horns of a dilemma, fate took a hand in the form of an offer to start the BM Birla Heart Research Centre. Dr Shetty was on his way to Kolkata, and that marked the start of different sort of journey.

INSIGHT | Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

“What he is doing is novel and inspiring. He is touching the lives of the poor”

MET Dr Shetty more than a decade ago, though I had heard of him earlier. Being in healthcare myself I felt that the only way to make a difference was through CSR. And the first person I turned to was Dr Devi Shetty. I was impressed by his affordable model for cardio-surgery and asked him to work on a similar model for cancer care. I was very involved in cancer research and knew that cancer therapy was very expensive. We came to the conclusion that the most expensive part were the diagnostics — like scans and MRIs. We felt that we could lower costs KIRAN MAZUMDAR-SHAW through economies of Chairman and MD, scale and by running a Biocon Limited 24x7 operation. Early intervention is also very important in bringing down costs and getting better outcomes. So together we built the Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Centre. One of my mandates was to make

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

it a research-oriented centre, since clinical research is one of the biggest missed opportunities in India. We need to look at new treatment regimens and create research centres where we deal with experimental drugs when treating cancer. This will also help subsidise costs. We also realised that healthcare in general required micro-insurance. In this area, Dr Shetty had experimented with the Yeshaswini healthcare programme, but this only restricts itself to government hospitals; we needed a similar scheme with private hospitals. So we set up a parallel health insurance scheme and called it the Arogya Raksha Yojana. His idea of affordable healthcare is very achievable, but it needs political will. The cost of micro-insurance is very low; a person can easily pay `15 a month and at `25 a month you can certainly deliver good healthcare. In the Arogya Rakshan itself we have done high-end surgeries. But when you talk about millions of people then you have to ensure that it's sustainable and done properly. We don't have enough hospitals and

doctors to cover a billion people, so to do that we need telemedicine; that's where early diagnosis counts and where healthcare kicks in. Suddenly everyone's talking: the most under-nourished country, the poorest, the most illiterate — yet, all these metrics have been unchanged for years. We proclaim that we want to remove poverty and build schools, but is it happening? The qualitative difference being felt is zero. That's why all of us who are trying to make a difference count. Dr Shetty is a very innovative thinker. I had once taken a young man to him, who had come out with a medical device and wanted him to use it in his hospital. He immediately said that it would not work, but gave him the bright idea that it would work as a health support device in the home. Then I added my two cents bit saying, “Don't sell devices, sell healthcare", so we worked out a good plan together. He is someone who thinks out-of-the-box and not someone who just talks — he does things. So not only is he a dear friend, he is also a very inspiring friend.

cover story

MENDING A MILLION HE ARTS //

FROM HEATHROW TO HOWRAH Thirty-six-year-old Shetty came back to Indian shores in 1989 as Director of the BM Birla Hospital, and the medical facilities available in Kolkata at the time were a world away from those he was accustomed to. It took him a while to adjust to what he could and to reform what he could not accept. He remembers, “There were no disposable gowns, gloves or drapes. Sterilisation did exist, but people were re-using things and materials were not available. Nurses didn’t know how to care for patients after surgery because hardly any cardiac surgery was done. So I got a few nurses from Guy’s Hospital to train them; they stayed for nearly two years till we completed the first hundred cases.” Almost immediately upon his arrival in Kolkata he set up a paediatric surgical care unit and set a new landmark — he became the first Indian to perform open-heart surgery on a nine-day-old baby. This was at a time when people in india were just getting used to the idea of heart problems in newborns and his achievement was lauded far and wide. Far away in Karnataka, his sister called out to his mother and she came running to see her son on television for the first time, surrounded by the infant’s family members. Devi Shetty had achieved his childhood ambition to make his mother proud. Coming back to India also marked a departure in his functioning as a physician. Unlike in England, he was not just an ‘operating machine’. He had to meet patients and their families before and after the procedures; he had to face their financial concerns and see the tension on their faces. The surgeon isolated from the suffering was replaced by a doctor who saw the pain of people who were unable to afford good healthcare. He himself puts it best when he says, “It was quite traumatic when I had to start off. If there was a problem during the surgery, what came to my mind were the faces of the wife and children. You try to think of yourself as a kid and think that if something had happened to your father, you would have been virtually on the street. So these things brought in a lot of pressure. But after a

while I started enjoying it because this is one of the few professions where you get the chance to become a hero in real life.” The more people he treated, the more Dr Shetty started to ponder the larger questions of healthcare in the country and its impact on ordinary people. Perhaps it was serendipity that resulted in a meeting that set the seal on his convictions — in 1990, he became Mother Teresa’s doctor, a role he was to play for the rest of her life.It started when he was asked to do a house call to see a patient, something surgeons don’t usually do. But he was told, “If you visit the patient, it may transform your life.” Meeting Mother Teresa literally did, as new and exciting things began to happen in Dr Shetty’s life. One day, she saw him examining a blue baby and said, “Now I know why you are here. To relieve the agony of children with heart disease, God sent you to this world to fix it”. To Devi Shetty’s mind, this was the best definition ever given of a paediatric cardiac surgeon; her simplicity and practical approach to life’s problems and their solutions inspired him. Little wonder then, that his office still carries her image.

A LEGENDARY

LIFELINE

RETURNED TO

India to set up the B.M. Birla Hospital, Kolkata

1989 PERFORMED

1990 FIRST MET

Mother Teresa and became her cardiac surgeon

1990

India's first neonatal heart surgery on a nine-dayold baby, the youngest ever to have been operated upon in India at the time

MAN ON A MISSION “The health problem of India is not a health problem, it is an economic problem. There is a solution, but it is not affordable. And if it’s not affordable, it’s not a solution.” These pithy sentences sum up Dr Shetty’s assessment of healthcare not just in India, but the world over. He finds it unacceptable that 100 years after the first heart surgery, less than 10 per cent of the world’s population can afford the operations. And this knowledge spurred him on to a spate of activity that has not abated even after two decades. After getting the Birla Hospital up and running in Kolkata, he moved to Bengaluru in 1997 and started the Manipal Heart Foundation. In 2001, Shetty founded the 1,000-bed Narayana Hrudayalaya, which offers many services apart from cardiac surgery. Next door to Narayana, Dr Shetty built a 1,400-bed cancer hospital and a 300-bed eye hospital, which share the same laboratories and blood bank as the heart institute. In December last year, the low-

STARTED Narayan

Hrudayalaya and introduced Yeshaswini, a micro-health insurance scheme with the government of Karnataka

2001

WON the Ernst

2003

and Young Entrepreneur of the Year for his initiatives in the field of healthcare

2004 WON the Padma Shri for his contributions to the

field of medicine. The man with great surgical skills also reduced costs by introducing an assembly-line approach to cardiac surgery RECIVED the

Economist Innovation Award for best Business Process Innovation

FEBRUARY 2012

2011

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

cover story

\\ MENDING A MILLION HE ARTS

cost healthcare chain inaugurated Asia's largest paediatric hospital in Mumbai. He also founded the Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences in Kolkata. Shetty is fond of saying that “You have just one life and it should touch the lives of as many people as possible”, an idea that he tried to execute in many different ways. He realised that only one per cent of his patients needed surgical intervention. So with the help of the Indian Space Research Organisation he started telemedicine facilities for remote locations via satellite. At last count, he and his doctors had treated more than 55,000 heart patients. Using satellite technology, they also treat patients in 56 African cities. By slow degrees, the ripples spread further. In 2003, Shetty worked with the Government of Karnataka on Yeshasvini, the cheapest comprehensive health insurance scheme in the world. It started at `5 per month (with the government putting in a share of the premium) and today runs without government help at `15 a month. A boon to the farmers, it had 80,000 subscribers in the first year itself. Today 2.5 million people are covered under the scheme and Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have also adopted it. But all these initiatives are just the tip of the iceberg. With his eyes fixed firmly ahead, there is much more afoot. The plans for Narayana Hrudalaya also include a trauma hospital and an ophthalmology hospital. These are the beginnings of the Narayana Health City, which will include a centre for neurosciences, a children's hospital and a cancer research centre. Health cities are also being planned in Manipal, Gujarat and Rajasthan. With affordability as his mantra, he is planning a low-cost hospital in Mysore, using natural air and light and no air conditioning, but with a fully functional operation theatre. With that, he hopes to push costs of heart surgeries down to within `55,000. Dr Shetty’s near-impossible success rate attracts patients from Africa, South-east Asia, the Middle East and increasingly, from Europe and the US as well. His latest venture is a $2 bn health city in the Cayman Islands, his first international

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

INSIGHT | K.S. Vasuki

“I have never come across a doctor like him”

HAVE been with Narayana Hrudalaya for over 13 years, taking care of marketing and PR. From the point of view of marketing, it's like marketing a Mercedes Benz — the brand sells on its own. When I approach companies, half the battle is won when I take Dr Shetty’s name. That makes it much easier for us to put forward our requirements and get what we need. So that's why I'm happy. Surgeons are also happy here, mainly because they get to do a lot of procedures. In the West a doctor would have done K.S. VASUKI 1,500-2,000 surgeries by the end of his career. Our GM Public Relations, surgeons who are still in the no. 2 cadre would already Narayana Hrudayalaya have done around 3,000. He gives a free hand to the surgeon, without making expenses the priority. Recently, we did a kidney transplant on an HIV+ patient; they are not usually touched by surgeons, because it is very high risk. This was only the fourth such surgery in India, of which we have done two. We have also done an expensive artificial heart surgery. The cost of the implant itself was about `50 lakh, and overall expenses were around `65 lakh. Our doctors did it — we spent `1.20 crore on two patients and got very little from them. But now we can boldly say that we are the only ones in Asia who can do it. Since we would be regular customers, we also managed to get the supplier to reduce the cost of the implants and now they are available for around `25 lakh. We have completed 50,000 surgeries in 10 years — no other hospital in the world can boast of these numbers. Our usage of consumables as a single hospital is 14-15 per cent of those being sold all over India, so can demand better rates. And we can then pass on those better rates to the consumer. An unwritten law in the hospital is that no patient should walk out because of lack of money. Within a month of the birth of a child, we do the surgery free of cost if the parents can’t afford it. Generally even big hospitals don't do too many paediatric surgeries as they don't make much money. But it is a social obligation that Dr Devi Shetty believes in. That is the reason that we are first in the world in the number of surgeries we perform on children in a day. He has a large heart and even if he gets gifts, he passes them on to someone else. He once got a gold chain and gave it to an employee who had just had a child. All these things put him in a different category — he is not one among us.

project, that he believes will be a gamechanger for the developed world. Once again, the logic behind the move is simple and visionary at the same time. “If you want to transform the way that healthcare is delivered in this world, you have to make Americans change the way they do it. Because once they set new standards, that becomes a standard all over the world. You can’t bring about any changes inside the American boundary. So the nearest country which can be used as a beta-site is Cayman

Islands. And we have received close to 1,000 applications from US doctors who want to work there!”

YES WE CAN Over the years, Dr Shetty has built a huge network of supporters, admirers and friends. At various times, the members of the board have included K Dinesh (co-founder, Infosys) and Kiran MazumdarShaw (Biocon). Krishna Kumar of the Tata Trust helped to start the hospital in

ROLE MODEL Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, Dr Shetty emulates his sense of social responsibility for the poor

Kolkata, a venture for which K V Kamath of ICICI gave him the first loan. Recently, Chief Minister Narendra Modi has also given his company a plot of land to build a health city in Ahmedabad. But this was not the case when he first started to put his ideas on the table. Sometimes the greatest sceptics were the doctors themselves. When he started the Manipal Heart foundation, doctors scoffed at his statement that they could do 10 surgeries a day — at the time they were doing that many in a month. Today, they do 12-15 surgeries a day. Now when he sets targets of 50 surgeries a day, the usual response is, “How?” When he first proposed the idea of health insurance at `5 a month, no company wanted to touch it; today there are people willing to partner with him in the venture. Over time, the scope of his ambitions has begun to seem less like the notions of a dreamer and more the stuff of social revolution. India requires 2.5 million heart surgeries a year and only 90,000 are done on the people who can afford to pay, leaving the majority in the lurch. Shetty laments the fact that a country which produces the largest number of medical personnel in the world should have the healthcare indicators that we do. Visibly animated, he says, “We should be ashamed of these things. It has nothing to do with lack of

The Mathematics of Medicine THE NEGATIVES 1 PER CENT of the GDP is what India

spends on healthcare 80 PER CENT of national expenditure on healthcare is borne out of pocket by citizens 2.5 MILLION Indians need heart surgeries a year and only 90,000 can afford them 1 OUT OF 140 babies in India is born with a heart disease

THE PLUS SIDE 56 CITIES in Africa have access to

telemedicine via satellite 85,000 FARMERS had free medical treatment, 22,000 FARMERS had free surgeries, 1,400 FARMERS had heart surgeries in the first 20 months of the Yeshasvini health scheme 95 PER CENT is the success rate for surgeries performed by Narayana Hrudalaya, comparable to the best in the world

resources or poverty. Our healthcare is in a mess because of poor policies. They have to understand that there is a solution out there and they should utilise that. Because ultimately what matters is that the poor patients get help.” Dr Shetty concedes that increasing healthcare spending may be difficult, but offers a way out. For him, it all boils down to a change in policy. He believes that if entrepreneurs are encouraged to step into the healthcare sector, it will offset any perceived loss of revenue to the government. For instance, new hospitals with tax exemptions would encourage entrepreneurs to build more. Analysing the situation, he realised that a lot of problems stemmed from the “refusal to think big” that seems to be the bane of policymakers in the country. He saw that with the second highest population in the world, coming up with a 100-bed hospital would only be a drop in the ocean. So, when others spoke of hospital capacities in the hundreds, Shetty spoke in the thousands. When they spoke of a health centre, he spoke of a health city. He has slowly shown not just those who work with him, but the world at large, that increasing the capacity of hospitals and amount of work done in a day reduces the amount that people have to pay. As he says,

“There is a solution out there and it should be utilised. Ultimately, what

matters is that poor patients get help”

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

cover story

\\ MENDING A MILLION HE ARTS

“I remember talking to a cardiac surgeon who thought that in a few years we'd be able to charge `2.5 lakh for an operation. We have reversed that ambition.” (When he started his work in Kolkata, heart surgeries cost `1,40,000. Today, the same operations cost `75,000).

THE BUSINESSMAN-DOCTOR “The transformation to offer high-tech healthcare to everyone on the planet can not come from heaven. We have no choice but to bring about change. You can call it business practice or social commitment. One thing we do believe is that charity is not scalable. If you do something free, you will do it up to a point and then stop. Money has to come from a good business model which makes things affordable. And that is scalable.”

These are astute words from the man who won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2003 and The Economist Innovation Award for best Business Process in 2011. His ideas on the business of healthcare form a subject of study for MBA students at the Harvard Business School. With 14 hospitals in 11 cities and many more in the pipeline, he has certainly tackled the issue of scale. But as often happens, that raises the twin spectres of quality and accountability. Since he cannot personally be everywhere at all times, keeping track of the daily workings of all centres takes some doing. At such times, technology is his best friend. All administrators get a daily SMS stating the profit and loss (PnL) accounts of all hospitals. They also get reports on the

“The transformation to offer

high-tech healthcare to everyone cannot come from heaven. We have no choice but to bring about change”

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

mortality, morbidity and other problems. They have a system where people can call a number and report any shortcomings they observe — from unclean bathrooms to negligence by the staff, all complaints get registered in a central log. Not only does this make people accountable, it gives Shetty an idea of the areas that need improvement. At the end of the week, each department gets a note listing the complaints concerning them. Then, fresh targets are set. No detail is too small to escape this able administrator, who checks the PnL statements of all hospitals in his car on the way home from work. As he says, “We run the hospital with a wafer-thin margin. By looking at the PnL account on a daily basis, you can take remedial measures. Looking at the PnL account at the end of the month is a post-mortem report.” One example of the standards he sets was his handling of the matter of bed sores, a common ailment with postoperative patients. The global average for bed sores ranges between seven per cent and 40 per cent. Three years back, Narayana Hrudalaya launched a programme to eliminate bed sores. The nurses took personal responsibility to ensure this goal was achieved. Now, there are zero incidents of bed sores. Perhaps no other hospital in the world can lay claim to such an incredible achievement. In a testament to good management skills, this was accomplished without spending more or hiring new staff. Unsurprisingly, the attrition rate in his centres is almost nonexistent. Only one senior doctor has left the organisation in all these years, and that too, for personal reasons. Healthcare as an industry is sensitive to numbers. The more surgeries his doctors and nurses get under their belts, the more efficient they become. By setting up teams specialising in particular procedures and streamlining the process, he has ended up posting respectable profits — all the while offering cheaper, and sometimes free, healthcare to the poor. His family-owned business group reports a 7.7 per cent profit after taxes, slightly above the 6.9 per cent average for a US hospital, according to American Hospital Association data.

cover story

MENDING A MILLION HE ARTS //

Finger on the Pulse ON SPIRITUALITY: I am very spiritual. If a surgeon says that the outcome of the surgery is solely due to him, then he is kidding himself. Because if that is the case, is he willing to take complete responsibility for things that suddenly go wrong? Then he will say it’s destiny. It can’t be both ways. THE BEST ADVICE HE GOT: It was given to me by my father. He asked me to work very very hard, and said that everything else would be easy after that. I have lived by his words and I know them to be true. TWO THINGS PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT HIM: I am a very emotional person and find it hard to control tears. The second thing is that I am a fitness freak. I excercise for more than an hour every day and also hold a Senior Brown Belt in martial arts. WHAT HE DOES TO RELAX: I operate. That is the best way to relax, according to me. I enjoy every minute of it and feel refreshed after every surgery. I also listen to a lot of music, as do all the doctors here. This

Narayana's 42 cardiac surgeons performed 3,174 bypass surgeries in 2008, more than double the 1,367 the Cleveland Clinic, a US leader, did in the same year. Obviously, this surgeon has his management and leadership skills all stitched up.

MATTERS OF THE HEART Many of Shetty’s working decisions stem from his personal convictions. Perhaps no other section of society touches Dr Shetty as much as women and children, especially those who are impoverished. The man who can’t see mothers cry over sick children admits, “Surgeons are not supposed to show their weaknesses, but I sometimes find it hard to control myself.” Little wonder, then, that his sense of social responsibility extends beyond the medical. Going around Narayana Hrudalaya, we are struck by the preponderance of women guards and drivers

place wouldn't function without it. I also think natural light and fresh air are essential for creativity and thought. WHAT HE WOULD CHOOSE TO BE IN THE NEXT LIFE: The next life, the one after that and all other lives to come, I would want to be exactly what I have been in this one. WHAT MOVES HIM THE MOST: Nothing moves me more than a woman’s tears. I just hate to see women cry. WHAT DISAPPOINTS HIM THE MOST: There are no mistakes, there are only experiences. But it is disappointing to know that you can bring about change with remarkable ease and yet are not able to because of the indifference of the people in power. A MESSAGE FOR ASPIRING DOCTORS: This profession is a phenomenal opportunity. You enjoy your work, for which people call you God and then they pay you. It's the best profession to make this world a better place to live in.

of the golf carts that go around the campus (it’s an eco-friendly measure). Shetty believes that empowering women has a direct and positive impact on their children and by slow process, society at large. His sensitivity to children has led him to spearhead a scholarship programme in West Bengal for children from poor families. Every year, 200-300 kids with the aspiration to become doctors are awarded scholarships of `500 a month. Around 13 years old at the time, these bright youngsters are expected to eventually join medical colleges on merit; but they are helped with student loans and supported in other ways. As Shetty says, “It’s pointless supporting them when they are about to join the medical college. The aspiration to become a doctor happens earlier. They go to their father, who may be a farmer, and say they want to become doctors. And since he cannot afford it, he says ‘That’s

not for us.’ So the aspiration is lost.” Of all the surgeries performed at the Hrudalaya, 50 per cent are done on children, and half of those free of cost. Dr Shetty has personally performed over 15,000 heart operations. He supervises organisations scattered all over the world. He starts early and through the course of the day, puts in over an hour of exercise (surgeons need to be fit), meets countless patients, talks to the media, squeezes in at least one surgery a day and also travels extensively. This would be more than enough work for 10 people to handle, leave alone a single practising doctor. So what has kept the fire burning for Devi Shetty for the past 22 years? “The confidence that India will become the first country in the world to dissociate healthcare from affluence. Ten years down the line we will have a scenario where people will still live in slums with no amenities, but when they are unwell, will have access to high-tech healthcare with dignity. Western countries have proved that a rich country cannot succeed in offering healthcare to the citizens. We’re a poor country, but within our means it is possible to offer healthcare to everyone.” As we leave Dr Shetty after spending over an hour with him, we can’t help but go back to the closing lines he wrote to the ‘4,000 children’ his centres have helped: “I clearly remember your mother’s face when she was handing you over to us. She kissed you and looked at my face with the expression of a person handing over her most precious possession. It was a different sort of love triangle between your father, mother and myself, with you at the centre. It took me six hours of intense concentration to operate upon your heart and many sleepless nights before you started smiling again. One day you will become an adult and probably a very important member of our society. All I ask is, can you spare a few moments of your precious time everyday for someone who needs it? To save your life, a few hundred people worked sincerely without expecting any remuneration other than the joy of making your family and friends happy? And when you do your work just for the joy of brining happiness to others, you’ll realise it is not your hands which do the job, it is the hands of God.”

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

social agenda \\ ENTERPRISE 2.0

Enterprise 2.0 Business Goes Social Can this new concept help communicate and collaborate at the office? Or will it become a victim of workplace culture? BY MALA BHARGAVA

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

social agenda ENTERPRISE 2.0 //

ears ago, a concept was born. In the past three years or so, it began to slowly grow. In 2011, it gained traction. And in 2012, it’s said to be poised to take off. In fact, it is thought there will be a battle for this space by large providers. The concept is fondly called Enterprise 2.0 — and less fondly called Failure 2.0. We’re all familiar with failure, but what in heaven’s name is Enterprise 2.0? If you want to go the complex route, it’s Web 2.0 technologies applied to the workplace. If you want to keep it simple, it’s an organisation that is collaborative. The term was first used by Harvard Business School professor Andrew McAfee in 2006 and is also called Social Enterprise, Social Business and a bunch of other things — but it ultimately boils down what you can think of as collaboration on steroids. Of course, all workplaces collaborate — or think they do. What an organisation does if it embraces E2.0 is to make a special point of communicating to work together on common goals so that there is an open non-hierarchical system of employees engaging with employees to get information, knowledge, expertise and creative ideas. In a way, it’s like internal social media, though experts warn against thinking of E2.0 as the Facebook for the workplace because then you end up with a focus

on the platform rather than the goal at hand. A Wikipedia fits into the definition. So does a blog. So does group messaging. But we all know how it is with some of these: they start off with much enthusiasm from employees but within a space of three months become neglected, causing senior management to frog-march someone or the other to make sure updates are done frequently. Service providers say that truly collaborative enterprise needs special tools — and they come in and install them. IBM, which has long been in this domain, has complex tools that combine content management with internal social communication for organisations. More recently, it has launched tablet apps for Enterprise 2.0. Microsoft has a suite of tools centering around its SharePoint collaboration platform, Office 360, and the software we use everyday, such as Outlook. Cisco, which has been in the collaboration space for a long time, also offers technologies to enable the adoption of communication Enterprise 2.0 style. Many smaller companies are active with such tools too. Qontext, for instance, has

a Facebook-like solution that integrates externally with customer-facing solutions. The E2.0 promise is that using these tools to communicate will make an organisation more efficient, innovative and rich in talent. Imagine, for example, how much of a waste it would be if one division of an auto company devised a new solution to a problem with some vehicles. When presented, it is found that another division in another city already solved the problem. People just omitted to communicate. Think of how often someone wanted information and spent days getting it together only to find it was available a step away. Situations like these would be avoided because of proper E2.0 adoption. Collaboration could be generated or be “emergent” when a specific need arises for small groups working on a project, or be used organisation-wide for best practices, processes and HR initiatives. The logic is seductive. So why would it not work? In a word: culture. Clearly, the technology isn’t what makes an Enterprise 2.0. Unless a culture that is wholeheartedly con-

TIPS & TOOLS Define what Enterprise 2.0 means to your company: The definition given by any analyst holds no significance, as your company is different from his. So take ownership of the term and define it based on your structural dynamics, market pressures and human capital needs — so that your employees understand and relate to it effectively. Anchor any effort around people, groups and networks: Instead of focusing on process and information management, the efforts should be made toward tapping into informal interactions and building social connections, because at the end of the day it’s a communication tool used by your employees, and they matter! Balance ‘edge’ and ‘core’ needs when it comes to technology: There are certain systems that change at a slower pace (core)

while others not only are fast-paced; they also allow users to create their own environment (edge). The challenge lies in connecting these systems with their rates of change and transition applications across the dynamic rates. The most popular E2.0 platform is SharePoint. It is said and often believed that 85 per cent of the companies using E2.0 use SharePoint. It allows you to manage content, documents, intranet, extranet, websites etc in a completely user friendly environment. Yet another platform which is increasingly gaining popularity is Yammer. It’s an enterprise social software, originally launched as an enterprise microblogging service but now has evolved as a full-fledged enterprise social network connecting employees across varied groups within the organisation.

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

social agenda \\ ENTERPRISE 2.0

BLOG WATCH

ducive to communication is in place, it really could be Failure 2.0. We all know, for example, organisations where the top management isn’t fond of communication. They believe in a strong and silent style and don’t necessarily give internal communication much importance. There are some companies which run in an authoritarian manner and communication between controlled silos may be actively discouraged. And more commonly, there could exist a culture in which employees don’t want to share information or even ask for it. Currying favour with senior management or positioning oneself as the one and only indispensable expert on something has been part of the way employees manage others’ perceptions of themselves for years. There are many other culture and process issues to tackle before a company can go ahead and implement Enterprise 2.0 tools so that they actually work instead of just costing the company rather a lot in financial and time wasted experimentation. The size of the company also counts. Large long-time companies could have a problem changing their ways to keep pace with internal social media, especially if they have branches in far-flung places. And they’re the ones that need collaboration most. Startups could have a problem with E2.0 because their basic processes may not yet be in place — and they may not want to communicate in a totally open environment because their business is not yet wholly certain. And yet they need collaboration because the early days are the time they need great ideas. This year we’ll hear a lot more on the subject of E2.0 as companies try to get their heads around the culture vs technology clash. But one thing is for sure: the workplace needs to move out of the top-down approach that it often employs to its people. Marcel LeBrun, CEO of social business company Radian6 (now with Salesforce) has a dire warning for us: if we don’t adopt social media and Enterprise 2.0 methods and concepts, we could soon have a “CEO Spring” along the lines of the 2011 Arab revolutions. Mala Bhargava is Editorial Director at 9.9 Media and is a tech writer. She is also the author of That’s IT, a regular column on personal computers in Business World

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

Baap Ka Suroor 1. ”Yeh shadi nahi ho sakti!” 2. “Thakur Saheb main apani pagadi aapke kadamo mein rakhta hun, meri beti Lakshmi hai, use mat thukraiye.” 3. “Mujhe apni beti ki shaadi ke liye karza chahiye lala!!” Satyen Kappu is not quite a legend; people remember Jagdish Raj for playing the inspector innumerable times, so much so that he has a Limca Record to his name. Satyen Kappu (originally named Satyendra Kapoor) missed such an honour. But, I bet his playing a worried father of an unmarried daughter symbolises much more than these recognitions. He is a part of a group of individuals whose contribution to Hindi cinema, between seventies and nineties, is somewhat neglected in the glitz and glamour of today’s megastars. In an India torn by the gender divide, Satyen Kappu represented and represents the several fathers struggling to get their daughters married, and brings to light the issue of dowry and female infanticide. In a time, when our nation still struggles to maintain a healthy sex ratio, Kappu acts as an inspiration to millions by giving the message of a beti being Ghar ki Lakshmi. Movies like Matrubhumi have shown what extremes the phenomenon of foeticide can go to. Dowry deaths, too, are not only still present in our country but also well spread. All these practices should have an end, and cinema can act as a prod to people’s conscience. Coming back to Mr Kappu — be it the drunkard father worried about his daughter’s marriage in Kaala Patthar or the father of four daughters in the teleseries Mehendi Tere Naam Ki; he has taken the role of a worried father to new heights. Even in films like the Rajesh Khanna starrer Aap Ki Kasam where he plays Mumtaaz’s second husband, his defining scene comes when he accepts

Abhishek Deshpande

Mumtaaz’s daughter and finally gets her married. A movie like Beti No. 1, which epitomises the importance of the girl child (the concept was good, the execution pathetic) can be never conceptualised without Mr Kappu. Maybe he suited the roles to perfection because in real life he had four daughters. No one played it better than Kappu through the ‘70s and ‘80s. To me his two most poignant moments were in Sholay, one of India’s biggest hits, and the other, Khotey Sikkay — both Kurosawa inspired rural bandit sagas. Though everyone remembers Ramu Kaka from Sholay, less is said about Kappu as the just advocate in Khotey Sikkay, up against Jagga (Ajit as the powerful bandit). Kappu’s advocate is so just that he is gifted a gold watch which hums a tune by the Sarkar (it’s upto the viewer to decide if it is the government or the judiciary) for his sacchai and imaandaari — causes for which he eventually gives up his life. Kappu’s death sequence in Khotey Sikkay is one of my favourites in Hindi cinema. When Jagga plunges a dagger into Kappu, the lines of tension on his face, the widening of his eyes, drops of beady sweat on his face and the watch eventually falling from his hand while playing the melodious tune, and the Ajit laughter, makes for an unparalleled cinema moment. Apart from these, Kappu represents the Indian middle-class by donning almost all possible professions — police personnel (hawaldar, DIG to Commissioner), doctor, army man and teacher. He cuts across religions as Panditji in one film and Aslam Bhai in another. Mr Kappu is a true Aam Aadmi and will be remembered as a great actor and champion of social causes. (To read more of this blog go to: http://beingdesh.com/, https://twitter. com/#!/desh)

PLATFORM

VIVEK BHANDARI | Historian and Sociologist

Challenges to Institutional Legitimacy Have citizens lost faith in government bodies?

AS INDIA enters 2012, the country is

at an important crossroads. At one level, the expansion in the quantum and breadth of economic activity remains impressive, and reflects the ways in which sections of the country’s population are transforming their lives for the better. Despite this, 2011 heard a cacophony of voices raising questions about the tenuous character of India’s growth story, repeatedly flagging concerns about systemic inertia, policy paralysis and leadership weaknesses. What accounts for all this? We should start by recognising that the scale of changes in India over the past few decades has placed an extraordinary amount of pressure on governmental institutions that were created in the period of the licence raj, and some, even earlier. Many of these institutions are characterised by attributes that they inherited from the colonial period, when the state’s priorities were different from those that came to be articulated in the Indian Constitution in 1950. Many of these postcolonial inertias and inefficiencies, instead of going away,

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

became ossified in the early years of independence, through to the 1980s. A product of such a past, branches of our government are clearly feeling the pressures of keeping up with a globalising India with all of its attendant energies — an information economy, accelerated migrations, the widening gap between rich and poor, and so on. Simultaneously, the distinctions between the state, private sector and civil society are becoming fuzzier than in the past, posing serious questions about the character of India’s democratic culture. Without underplaying the importance of economic growth, it is clear that for the majority of citizens to experience the benefits of a growing economy in their liberal democratic polity, institutions of the state — the legislature, executive, and judiciary — have to tread a fine line. They have to perform in ways that are aligned with their economic context, while simultaneously remaining true to the principles enshrined in the Constitution. To achieve this balance, institutions have to perform efficiently and consistently, but also retain their

ABOUT THE WRITER Dr Vivek Bhandari is a noted historian and former director of the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), a post he took up after spending 15 years in the US. Today he is a keen observer of a dramatically transitioning India

legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry whose interests they serve. It is a truism of political theory that political legitimacy is considered a basic condition for governing, without which a government will suffer legislative deadlocks and collapse. It is in this context that we must look at the events of 2011. There is a widespread consensus that 2011 should be seen as year in which dissatisfaction with the status quo manifested itself in unexpected ways around the world. The Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street gatherings merely serve to punctuate what has been a much more widespread phenomenon globally, over the past decade. Closer to home, the climactic (or, anti-climactic, depending on your point of view) denouement of one phase of Anna Hazare’s movement in December serves to vindicate the views of many who feel that India’s governmental apparatus, especially the legislature and executive branches of the state, are failing to meet the expectations of an India witnessing the heightening of social and economic divisions.

platform

VIVEK BHANDARI // HAVE AN OPINION ABOUT THIS COLUMN? WISH TO SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS AND IDEAS ON THIS MONTH’S ISSUE?

— Write to us at editorial@democraticworld.in

When the winter session of Parliament recently ended unsatisfactorily, a collective groan of disenchantment spread through the country. This sense of disappointment grew out of a growing realisation that India’s institutional arrangements are not only finding it difficult to function effectively; but more troublingly, that they are disconnected from the majority of Indians, in a quixotic land of their own whose internal turf battles have little meaning for most of the country’s people. How has this played out? Let us list some of the issues that were centrestage at the national level this past year: corruption, food security, land acquisition, foreign direct investment — the list is long. A glance at the ways these issues were debated reveals that by and large, the political class expressed themselves along party lines, and the country’s policy establishment predictably built on these debates by going deeper into the operational challenges posed by the proposed reforms. As in the past, the flurry of excitement surrounding the arrival of each of these issues was succeeded by a period of passivity, and worse, of condescension about people’s expectations. Where 2011 was different, however, was in the way that citizens reacted when they were confronted with governmental indifference. The events of 2011 reveal how far Indians feel skeptical about the ability of the many existing institutions of the state to deliver on what they have

In a nutshell, find ways of making institutions accountable to citizens in ways that have a tangible impact on their lives. This is the bare minimum people expect of their government. Such outcomes earn institutions their legitimacy” been mandated to do. Anna Hazare’s movement, in this sense, touched a chord of popular disenchantment against the apathy of governmental institutions; the ‘corruption’ issue was largely a subplot. This reading of the events of the recent past raises questions for the current discussions on the challenges of ‘institution-building’. It is relentlessly argued that India today needs better institutions, ideally those that are professionally-run. One agrees with this claim (with the caveat that the meaning of ‘professionally-run’ is debatable) — but matters do not end there. I say this because one’s interpretation of this exhortation — that we need institutions — depends largely on one’s definition of an ‘institution,’ why it exists, towards what end, and most importantly, for whom. Fundamentally, the successful implementation of rules and systems is tied to their legitimacy in the minds of those who are expected to follow them. What are the determinants of such legitimacy? Start with the tasks and outcomes that a citizenry expects its institutions and systems to deliver,

and then work backward from there. Is the mail reaching on time? Do schools successfully educate kids? Does the garbage get cleaned up? Rather than counting post offices, ensure that the mail is getting delivered. Instead of tallying the numbers of enrolled students, find out if they’re learning anything. Do not tout the amount the government spends on the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, make sure that roads are free of potholes. In a nutshell, find ways of making institutions accountable to citizens in ways that have a tangible impact on their lives. This is the bare minimum people expect of their government. Such outcomes earn institutions their legitimacy. The legitimacy of our existing institutions has taken a battering this past year. Let us hope that in 2012, the good sense that sustains any good democratic polity reverses this pattern. Such reversals have occurred in the past, and there is no reason that this cannot happen again. The views expressed in this column are of the author alone.

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

LIFE IN TECHNICOLOUR

THE COST The price of a thoroughbred can vary from `2 lakh to `1 crore Maintenance charges of about `15,000 a month for stables provided by the race course, trainer, food and medicines

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

KEY RACES WON The Akkasaheb Maharaj Trophy at Pune in 2008. Won the first and second positions The Ruttomsey Memorial multimillion race at the Indian Derby Day at Mumbai in 2010

VINAY KUMAR | HORSE RACING At an age when children are fascinated by rocking horses, Vinay Kumar saw a real one at close quarters. He was so smitten that Kumar took up horse riding at school. It isn’t surprising that the third-generation race-horse owner has taken the family fascination for racing further. Today, the cofounder of Delhi-based petroleum conservation consultancy, Neo Petcon, is the proud owner of 30 horses. Though work often takes priority over passion, Kumar has no qualms in admitting that he ’s quite the proud papa to his steeds that have won at least 100 races in five years.

“I have not invested in horses as a business. They are a hobby” PHOTOGRAPH BY SUBHOJIT PAUL | REPORTED BY POOJA KOTHARI

issue | a closer look at FDI in Retail

Uncapping the FDI Debate When the Indian Cabinet cleared the deck for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the multi-brand retail sector after years of discussion, there was joy in many quarters. The government called it ‘another revolutionary leap’ after the IT revolution and liberalisation. But the euphoria was not shared by those who saw it as a step that could crush the ‘little guy’ BY SANJAY KUMAR

WEB POLL FDI in retail has become a national debate. Many responded to the poll on DW's facebook page. This is what they said:

47% 16% 29% Good: It may boost economic growth

Bad: It may lead to largescale job loss

Not sure: It should be allowed unless proved harmful

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

Once the announcement to allow FDI in multi-brand retail was announced, the Opposition Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), an advocate of FDI in retail when in power between 1999 to 2004, opposed the move and created a ruckus inside and outside the Parliament. Some of the alliance partners of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government also went with the Opposition’s argument. Under intense pressure, the government had to put on hold the decision to allow 51 per cent FDI holding in the multi-brand retail trade and raise the FDI ceiling from 51 to 100 per cent in the single-brand retail trade. However, the cap on the cabinet decision has uncapped a new debate about the merits and demerits of FDI in the retail sector. The proponents of FDI claim that it will have a positive impact on farmers, give a fillip to post-harvest infrastructure like modern warehousing and cold storage, and give growers a competitive rate for their products. It would also free farmers from the clutches of middlemen who deprive them of their share of profits. For the believers, FDI in retail is all about rural upliftment and reform in a market-driven manner. It is also claimed that the massive investment in trade and supply chains will reduce and stabilise prices of food grain, thereby taking care of seasonal

FEBRUARY 2012

inflation. The argument goes that FDI provides better choices to consumers in terms of pricing and the experience of shopping. Another persuasive argument put forward is that the entry of big international retailers will create at least one billion jobs. Supporters of the move don’t buy the argument that traditional small retail shop owners, the neighbourhood mom-and-pop stores, will be impacted. But opponents discount these virtues as corporatesponsored propaganda to sell an idea under pressure from multinational companies and the western world. They claim that the presence of the Walmarts et al will eat up traditional grocery shopowners. They fear that farmers with small landholdings will be reduced to penury as big retail houses target only big farmers. On the possibility of food inflation coming down, critics argue that the inflationary phenomenon has to do with shortages on the supply side and distribution bottlenecks, which fall in the government’s domain. Anti-FDI groups counter the ‘increased employment’ factor with the query that when more than 500,000 traders will be displaced in a single metro like Delhi by the advent of big retail houses, how would the creation of a few thousand jobs compensate? Some doubts are valid, like the issue of farmers with small landholdings; around 85 per cent of the

issue

A CLOSER LOOK AT FDI IN RE TAIL //

DR RAJIV KUMAR

Secretary General, FICCI

Dr Rajiv Kumar has held many posts of importance in commercial and economic policy think-tanks. He believes that the retail sector in India will keep pace with the growth in India's economy is FDI in multi-brand retail is allowed to go through. He is optimistic about this idea "whose time has come".

farmers have small agricultural lands. But it is also unfounded to think that farmersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; conditions will deteriorate. The farmers in Medak district of Andhra Pradesh have been selling their products to Metro, the German wholesale brand, since 2003. They are happy to be rid of middlemen and glad to have ready customers. Therefore, both opponents and proponents need to debate the issue with an open mind. DW spoke to Dr Rajiv Kumar, Secretary General of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and former Director of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations. We also discussed the issue with Devinder Sharma, a food and trade policy analyst.

DR RAJIV KUMAR// Foreign Direct Invest-

ment in retail means investment by foreign companies and multinationals, in the retail sector in India, either as single undertakings or in joint ventures with domestic partners. Actually they will have to team up with the Indian partners to build mega stores because only 49 per cent is allowed to foreign partners. FDI will assist in modernising the retail sector in India and help the sector keep pace with growth in the economy. This is the general benefit. The most specific benefit is that big retailers help to reduce the cost of all the products that they bring in, and therefore consumers have to pay a lower price. So there is a direct benefit to the

consumers who also get a better shopping experience because of the increased choices in the stores. For the farmers, the benefit is that the big retailers do away with the intermediaries between them and the final consumer. This raises the price of products. With their removal, the farmers can get a better price and consumers pay a lower rate. Moreover, farmers will also benefit from newer varieties of products and technologies that the retailers will bring. This is what happened in the case of Pepsico. It gave newer technologies to farmers. Or in the case of farmers growing potatoes for McDonalds, who also have been given new technologies that have improved yields and, therefore, increased their income. And finally, the big retailers will also make investments in logistics, like transporting the goods from the farm gate to the final consumer without much waste. The airconditioned chain, trucks, warehouses â&#x20AC;&#x201D; all of that will reduce wastage of agricultural products, which at the moment is about 30 per cent. Because of this reduction, extra products which in turn will get added in the market, will help food security. With the intermediaries eliminated, prices will be brought down and this will ease the food inflation. The opposition to the move is political. There is no logic behind the strident voices raised against it â&#x20AC;&#x201D; it is simply opposition for the sake of opposition. The main resistance is also coming from the small retailers and intermediaries who think that the entry of the big retailers will cut into their profits and reduce their share in the market. This is only to be expected. But as we have tried to explain many times, while the share of the small retailers will go down, since the trade itself will expand rapidly, the overall size will not reduce. Perhaps the real opposition comes because a large part of the retail trade at the moment is in the cash economy, and will be transferred to the organised, bankable economy which will mean a big change for all concerned. The growth in the economy has to permit the entry of large retail stores. You already

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

issue

\\ A CLOSER LOOK AT FDI IN RE TAIL

DEVINDER SHARMA

Food and Trade Policy Analyst

have Indian retailers like the Big Bazaar, Reliance Fresh, etc., operating in India. German brand Metro is already a player in the wholesale segment. The only difference will be that with Foreign Direct Investment this process will be accelerated and the growth process boosted. Without the FDI the Indian businessmen, who don’t have any experience in this process, will take time to mature. They will get there in any case; it’s only a matter of time. The attempt by small retailers, the mom-and-pop stores, to prevent the entry of large retailers or organisations is bound to fail. The Left parties demand that the government build its own stores without bringing in multinationals. The Left has used this argument to rule West Bengal for 35 years, and I don’t think I need to expand this point and explain any further. The government is not in the business of running retail stores. The government should be in the business of providing law and order, providing security, providing education, and organising healthcare and basic infrastructure. So, to argue that the government should be running retail stores, hotels and restaurants, is stupid. I am simply being honest about this. I am very optimistic and believe that this is an idea whose time has come. It cannot be stopped. Having said that, I don’t know when all this will become a reality — it is tough for me to predict. I do believe that people could be informed better about these reforms. There is no discussion on the need for reforms and about the benefits in any language other than English. That used to be sufficient some 20 years ago because the elite (who read English) were able to undertake the reforms. Now the reforms affect the lives of general people and because of information explosion, the masses are now better organised. We need to have this discussion in all the regional languages and in Hindi, otherwise awareness will not increase.

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

DEVINDER SHARMA//

There is a misconception that this move will uplift the condition of the farmers. This is a failed model elsewhere and can’t be successful in India. If the idea is to just get involved because it involves big corporate houses, then I think such an idea is not in the larger interest of the country. If socialism or communism could not do any good to the world, then why replicate a failed model in such a big and complex country like India? The government is under tremendous pressure politically. The first head of the state to visit India after the 2009 elections was the British Prime Minister, followed by the heads of states of Germany, France, America, Canada and so on. And all of them have been pressurising India to open up the retail sector. The other thing which is little known in India is that the G20 has also, under an agreement at the last meeting in Toronto, made it mandatory for all member countries to open up to FDI in retail and remove all obstacles. At the same time, they are also to report the development to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is coordinating this process. India is one of those members of the G20 which has not been able to comply, so is under tremendous pressure. Unfortunately, the Indian government is preparing a fake analysis to justify the entry of FDI into India. That is why there was protest on this by the Opposition, some parties of the ruling alliance and the general public.

Devinder Sharma is a food and trade policy analyst, a columnist and an advocate of the development of indigenous models of agricultural growth. He is critical of the role of MNCs and concerned about the negative consequences of allowing them into India Secondly, the argument that it will help in the development of agriculture is certainly not based on facts — it is based on biased studies done by the government to justify the move. Let’s try to analyse where it has been helpful, if at all. If you look at the original paper which has been produced by the department of Industrial Promotion and Policy and the subsequent studies done by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) and so on, these

issue

A CLOSER LOOK AT FDI IN RE TAIL //

are basically faulty studies. Let me question a couple of assertions. The first is that it will create employment. Walmart is the world’s biggest retail company now and its total turnover is around $420 bn; it employs 20 lakh people. In India, ironically, the total turnover of the retail industry is also about $420 bn. There are 120 mn shops and it employs 40 million people. Now the question is, how will they create more jobs by destroying such a big market and rendering so many people useless? When you look at British firms like Sainsbury’s and others, they were supposed to create 24,000 jobs between themselves in the last two years, which is what they promised to the government. Instead, they have actually offloaded 820 people. So if they have not created jobs in the UK, how can you think that they can come and create employment for us? So the employment creation has to be seen in the light of how many jobs are being displaced. In the final analysis there would be more victims and less survivors. The other argument is that this will help farmers get a better price. This is again a flawed thesis based on wrong analysis. When you talk about farmers’ welfare people think, “why oppose it?” But look at America — the birthplace of Walmart and grooming ground for Tesco and other big retailers. In America, the farmers definitely benefited because on the one hand you have Walmart and on the other hand you have the commodity exchanges. Commodity trading is a popular practice there. Despite all this, USA is pro-

viding farm subsidies, which include direct income support to farmers. A recent study shows that if the Green Box subsidies or farm subsidies are withdrawn in America, there would be a fall of 42 to 45 per cent in agricultural production. So is the income of farmers going up because of Walmart or because of factors like commodity trading and subsidies? In the past five years the American government has pumped in more than $300 bn in subsidies. In Europe, too, despite the presence of all these multinational retailers, governments provide huge agricultural subsidies. And even then one farmer quits agriculture every minute there. If you look at the Latin American countries, where over 65 per cent of the retail industry is in the hands of FDI, a large

RETAIL RATIONALE What interests investors The retail sector has annual sales of

$500 bn

Organised retail in India has just market share and

10% 20% annual growth of

A middle-class of around

300 mn

is the force behind the growth of organised retail

51% 100% What was proposed

FDI in multi-brand retail (for brands like Walmart and Tesco to come in)

FDI in single-brand retail (for brands like Ikea and Starbucks to come in)

number of farmers are being forced to leave agriculture. So what kind of model are we bringing to India? The third argument is that it will help in removing middlemen, and therefore, provide more income to farmers. But look at things in perspective. If Walmart, for instance, is really squeezing out the middleman, it is also becoming one. It is not a consumer, it is a retail giant and the definition of middle-man is somebody who is between the producer and the consumer. The only difference is that it is a very big middleman and it keeps small middlemen out of the process. The impression we have in India is that the traditional middleman is somebody who gobbles up lots of profit. This is true. But with multinationals come a battery of other people which include the standardiser, the quality controller, the processor, the retailer, the packaging man and so on. That is why a number of studies show that in America the farm income has come down over the years, since the number of middlemen actually multiplies when the supermarket comes into a country. So where is the advatage? Allowing FDI in retail is going to be suicidal for Indian agriculture. Nowadays anything that comes with bags of money is an idea whose time has come. Business bodies are not concerned with national interest — their only motive is profit. They are concerned about their own collaborations and joint agreements. According to a disclosure, Walmart alone invested `52 crore between 2007-2009 in India on lobbying. That money has gone somewhere. The revelation is only about the money spent by Walmart; what about the expenses by the other 10 big retail giants? This is a passing phase where all political parties’ popular agenda is driven by corporate interests. But it will be tragic if we allow this because we are actually destroying our own capabilities and letting things go into the hands of foreign companies which will repack the profits to their own countries. It is basically a system of recolonisation of the country. I think we need to improve infrastructure and provide farm incomes. To borrow these failed models and then think that we are trying to help Indian farmers is not going to help them.

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

looking back \\ DILIP K APUR

Dilip Kapur Founder, Hidesign

HIGH ON HIDE DESIGN It’s love of leather, not business, that shapes Hidesign’s success story, says Dilip Kapur 34

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

looking back DILIP K APUR //

DOSSIER

COMPANY NAME: Hidesign FOUNDER: Dilip Kapur 1978: Hidesign begins with a twoperson workshop, marketing through small alternative shops in Australia and the United States 1985: John Lewis, UK, is the first department store to the carry the full line of Hidesign leather goods

1992: Accessory Magazine UK chooses Hidesign’s “Boxy Bag” as Accessory of the Year 2010: Launch of multistore flagship store in Puducherry

was born in New Delhi to a postPartition refugee family. But my parents soon moved to Agra where my father set up a shoe factory and stores. Obviously the love for leather is genetic! We moved to Puducherry when I was six. The reason was the Auroville Ashram. My parents sold every asset — factory and stores — and donated the money to the ashram. I loved the ashram school. Its free schooling system allowed me to do what I liked and I think it gave me my defining characteristics: curiosity and search for individual growth and identity. The system was the philosophy of the Mother and a Frenchman called Pavitra, who have influenced me profoundly. The school also defined my sense of beauty: our notebooks had a motto etched on the cover, “There is great beauty in simplicity”. The clean lines of Hidesign come from there. The love for beauty must also be from my mother who loved to paint and was known as the finest embroiderer in the ashram. And I absolutely loved the sea. Swimming in the ocean and playing on the beach would be among my greatest pleasures in life! My first full-time job was when I was finishing my PhD in international affairs. Running out of scholarship money to complete my dissertation, I took on the first job that paid enough to take me through the nine months it took to finish. It was a job in a leather goods company where I learnt to hand-dye, cut and glue leather together and make a bag out of it. The intellectual in me loved working with my hands. But what was getting shaped was my lifetime affair with leather. When I returned to India, I kept making bags as a hobby, never realising that this would end up being the focus of my working life in a few years as it grew into what is now Hidesign. It started off with one artisan. We made one bag a day. The first bags I designed and made were gifted to my family. Through a friend of mine, a

“When I returned to India, I kept making bags as a hobby, never realising that this would end up being the focus of my working life in a few years as it grew into what is now Hidesign” —Dilip Kapur German man saw my creations and ordered 1,400 bags. I had just started this and had one cobbler working for me. After six months, I managed to supply just 200 bags. Around that time a friend who was staying at Auroville returned to Australia to work in a car factory. When he broke his back, he got $12,000 from his company. He came back, bought my bags, and sold them in Australia. He was quite successful and that was how we reached Australia. One of his cousins living in England saw my bags and was impressed. She started buying them for the UK market. Then, somebody who visited Auroville from California saw my bags and started selling them there. Interestingly, I didn’t see what I was doing as ‘business’ the first 10 years. I couldn’t even read my PnL accounts! We just enjoyed what we were doing and that’s pretty much how we operate even today. We never feel we are even close to having ‘achieved’ a goal. Being an entrepreneur is only one aspect of what I would want. I still teach in Auroville, I would still like to continue to learn (thoroughly enjoying learning how to draw right now), be involved in the community at Auroville and Puducherry (heritage especially). On the way there were several peaks and troughs. My lows have been more psychological. Twice I came close to giving up Hidesign. First time was in 1985, when it was going from becoming a hobby into a business. I didn’t want to become a businessman and even thought of giving up the hobby.

Then again in 2000, just before I started selling in India. India was starting retail. I found it exciting to be in touch with the final person who was using my product. Since I have not studied business, my approach is more instinctive. I work on short-term goals and have learnt, over and over again, that being unique and innovative is the greatest strength. Think through problems and don’t just take the easy route. From the time when I designed our first handbag — Toscana — till date I play close attention to every aspect of the creative and operational process. Even with a strong design team it is tough to come up with a collection that is new and relevant every season. Hidesign’s future lies in becoming a self-confident brand with its own unique identity. One that learns to relate to people of different cultures and heritage across the world. My son Vikas Kapur has joined us, but I see the future of Hidesign as being in the hands of anyone who is committed to it and talented enough to drive it. There are a few that I have my eyes on within the organisation.

I Wish I Could Be Who else would I like to be? I am quite comfortable in my skin. If I change the question to who I admire, I would say anyone who has successfully bettered lives through their innovative thinking. Could be a Nelson Mandela, Ho Chi Minh, Steve Jobs — the list of supermen is actually quite long. That’s comforting to note. (As told to Rohini Banerjee)

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

PLATFORM JOHN ELLIOTT | Journalist

Delhi 100

A big birthday as the capital city celebrates a re-emergence INDIA HASN’T really known quite how

to mark the first centenary of the founding of its modern capital city, Delhi, by the British in 1911. It is not quite politically correct to celebrate things done by former colonial masters, even though many of the country’s elite continue to polish their English accents, and relish their links with long-dethroned maharajas and lesser royal families. Times change of course. India is no longer a struggling underdeveloped nation but an internationally recognised economic power, albeit with many problems of under-development. Britain on the other hand, no longer rules the waves and has become an island of declining economic and political importance, located geographically and emotionally offshore from the European continent. Rather like India’s old maharajas, it still carries some clout internationally, even though its current Prime Minister, David Cameron, likes rather obsequiously to underplay its importance when on foreign visits. Strong ties remain between the two countries, strengthened by the

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

common language of English that has become Britain’s most enduring worldwide colonial legacy. The young flock to the US for university education and most parents aspire for their children to become Harvard graduates and US investment bankers, rather than British equivalents. But the UK is more accessible, and it has become fashionable for the rich to have a flat in London, especially in Mayfair where businessmen such as Anil Agarwal of Vedanta and Subrata Roy of Sahara have set up kudosseeking camps — Agarwal by buying a palatial former Rothschild’s house and Roy by buying the Grosvenor House Hotel. But India still could not be expected to celebrate a British century so, after much debate and procrastination, it was eventually decided early last year to mark not the anniversary of King George’s mela, but the historical ‘re-emergence’ 100 years ago of Delhi as the capital. Re-emergence of course was a neat word, making the celebrations a sly dig at the British who had earlier moved the capital

Author

John Elliott is a Delhi-based British journalist who has been working in South Asia for approximately 20 years now. In the meantime, Elliott has written for the Financial Times, Fortune, Economist and the New Statesman. You can read his blog and follow him from here: http:// ridingtheelephant. wordpress.com

from Delhi to Calcutta in the late 18th century. Last month, I drove to Coronation Park in the north-eastern outskirts of the capital, where statues of King George and other dignitaries were dumped on brick plinths in the 1960s by a government that was unsure what to do with these embarrassing relics of a not-sodistant past. Totalitarian regimes such as the Soviet Union and China (plus the US more recently in Iraq) demolish such statues, but the world’s largest democracy has been more self-consciously caring, and instead of carting King George’s statue off from the India Gate canopy on Raj Path to a stone breakers yard, planted him along with his peers in the distant park. The forsaken location was an apt choice for the statues — not only was it largely hidden from view, but it was also the site of three imperial British durbars. The third of these huge celebrations of colonial pomp and power was the one in 1911, when King George visited the coun-

platform

JOHN ELLIOT T //

The Delhi of today is a proud city of immigrants. Though often condemned by its residents, it is a place that people always come to with hopes and dreams, and that will continue”

try with his wife, Queen Mary, to mark his coronation a few months earlier. Addressing some 100,000 spectators of varying grandeur on December 12, he announced the new capital, which was eventually built in the 1920s and 1930s. While Delhi was growing into a conurbation of approaching 20 mn people, grass grew around the crumbling imperial monuments, encircled (as I discovered when I last went there a decade or so ago) by a wall and rusty gate with a padlock that a bored attendant would sometimes open to curious (usually British) visitors. Several statues vanished, leaving topless plinths that added to the desolate symbolism. Some went to welcoming destinations in the UK, Ireland and Australia — Rufus Daniel Isaacs, the first Marquis of Reading and a Viceroy in the 1920s, for example now stands in the English town of Reading where he was taken by his family. At the park last month, I found 200 or so labourers shifting earth and chipping stone walkways to mark the

‘re-emergence’ anniversary with new ornamental gardens. King George’s statue, and a ceremonial column with a plaque that he unveiled in 1911 to mark his coronation a few months earlier, will be the notable features at the revived park along with four other remaining British statues. Conservators have sometimes tried to clean up the site in the past, and eventually Delhi authorities agreed that the park should be renovated and expanded, and that is what is now happening, with the main part due for completion in August. “It doesn’t matter if it was the Moguls or the British. We are interested in conserving history and we can’t not do it just because it’s King George the Fifth”, says A.G. Krishna Menon, who heads the Delhi branch of INTACH, the conservation organisation that is running the work with Delhi authorities. The Delhi of today is a proud city of immigrants, notably people who fled from Pakistan after Independence in 1947, and who have turned it into a major business centre as well as

a seat of government. Now it is a home of millions who throng here for work, especially from the poorer states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, as well as multi-national companies and others that have helped build the chaotic under-resourced satellite city of Gurgaon and the neater satellite of Noida. It is a city of energy, vibrancy, resourcefulness and skills — all more evident in old Delhi than the wide and elegant but rather antisocial Lutyens bungalow zone of the 20th century city. And it has a rapidly growing and efficient metro railway. But there is also worsening pollution, corruption, illegally dangerous buildings, poverty and the brash selfishness of the newly rich. But though often condemned by its residents, with the best-off usually saying they would prefer to live somewhere else, it is a place that people always come to with hopes and dreams, and that will continue, as will the links with the British. The views expressed in this column are of the author alone.

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

good karma \\ DA SR A

STRATEGIC PHILANTHROPY Dasra is changing the wayIndia looks at the business of giving

BY IRA SWASTI & MANJIRI INDURKAR

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

good karma DA SR A //

CEO‚ DASRA NAME: Deval Sanghavi, Co-founder and CEO, Dasra LOCATION: Mumbai GOAL: A strategic philanthropy

organisation working to create an impact on the social sector in the country STARTED: 1999. The organisation has been running successfully for the past 13 years WEBSITE:

http://dasra.org

hose of us who did not pay attention in our Sanskrit classes would hardly understand the meaning of a word which struck a chord with Deval Sanghavi and Neera Nundi, Co-founders of Dasra. ‘Enlightened giving’ (or Dasra) is both the meaning and the motive of the organisation run by the investment bankers-turned-social entrepreneurs. After graduating from Austin, Texas, Sanghavi was working for Morgan Stanley (MS), where he met his future wife and partner, an NRI from Canada — Neera Nundi. While at MS, they would often sit and discuss ways in which they could put their banking experience to better use and help their home country. So we know it’s the banker in him doing the thinking when Sanghavi outlines the three principles his organisation follows: “understanding the various sectors in which they might want to direct their focus; figuring out the ground realities; and then helping the organisations with their three to five years management plan.” Dasra, which is a strategic philanthropy foundation, started in 1999 under the name Impact Partners, with the

aim of helping social entrepreneurs start and eventually scale-up their endeavours. But later on, as they got ‘older and wiser’, they realised that greater impact would come if they also helped established NGOs scaleup, by providing them with managerial support and funding. “There are more than three million NGOs in India and only a handful of them are able to sustain themselves,” says Sanghavi. But this matter-offact tone changes to a happy one the moment he tells us that “Dasra has already directed over `54 crore from high net-worth individuals (HNIs) to fund and scale-up more than 200 NGOs and 50 social businesses in India.” But why would an NRI, raised outside India, start an organisation like Dasra? Sanghavi tells us that his parents belonged to Mumbai and therefore he would visit India quite often. He would notice the difference between his neighbours in the States and his neighbours in India. This stark contrast between the two countries and the lessons he learnt from his parents in his formative years had a huge impact on him. After finishing college and before joining MS, Sanghavi took a break and worked for an organisation helping street children in India. There he not only understood the plight of such children but also got inspired by their “resilience, motivation and aspiration.” This close contact with the harsh realities of life resulted in a shift in perspective and he returned to the States and joined MS. But the itch to work more for the not-for-profit sector made him start Dasra. From nine members to a 30-member team, the growth in scale has happened over the past three months. But even before they scaled-up, Dasra’s portfolio boasted of organisations and companies as diverse as Saher (a Mumbai-based NGO involved in youth empowerment and community cohesion) and Lotus hospitals (a social business

that works on a low-margin, high volume model to provide affordable health services). But Dasra’s journey had its road bumps — it was a completely unique model for India and its philanthropists. A strategy-based model which asked people to invest in organisations and not individuals was completely unheard of and getting HNIs to invest in the sector was a big challenge initially. Sanghavi says that they would ask the HNIs to “spend 10-15 per cent of the their funding to this model and the rest 85 per cent remaining on whatever they were currently doing and see in a couple of years which created a greater impact.” A “learn as you grow” kind of model, Dasra is more focussed on impact than profit. They invest effort in an organisation after doing a complete background research and looking at its work strategy. Then they ask the HNIs to fund them to generate a field report, which is then presented to the philanthropists who finally fund the selected organisations. A percentage of this funding also goes into training personnel and setting the organisations’ managerial strategy for the next couple of years. The duo started Dasra with just USD 25,000 in their pockets and it’s been working for several years on a ‘shoestring budget’. Even today, though they have helped more than 200 NGOs scale-up, they are not making big profit. Yet their aspirations are bigger than ever. “Five years from now, we hope to have worked with 1,000 philanthropists and 1,500 social entrepreneurs,” says Sanghavi. Wanting to make philanthropy fashionable in the country, they are ready to set a new benchmark in the sector. And their fondest wish? Sanghavi says, “In a few years hopefully philanthropists and entrepreneurs would have started building teams, plans and executive models, without having Dasra do that for them.”

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

READING ROOM

“The worst time to feel alone is when you’re in a crowd” — Anthony Horowitz

Author

The House of Silk

The magic of Sherlock Holmes recreated! The game is afoot once again as Holmes is back with his most gruesome case ever BY MANJIRI INDURKAR

THE NEW Sherlock Holmes novel —

The House of Silk — is not a tribute to the great man’s work, it’s not a continuation of his stories and it’s not an imitation. It is a brand new Sherlock Holmes novel, set in Victoria’s England, with familiar characters spouting similar lines and sporting familiar characteristics. Visit 221 B Baker Street yet again. Inside the house there’s the usual bunch — “Baker Street Irregulars” (remember Wiggins?), with Mrs Hudson and her scones, the rat-faced inspector Lestrade and the almighty Mycroft Holmes (brother to Sherlock) — all present in this new novel which received the nod from the Conan Doyle Estate, giving it a familiarity and tone which manages to strike a chord with the reader accustomed to Doyle’s creations, yet again. The setting of the novel is certainly age-old, and yet, the reader will also feel the difference of pace in Anthony Horowitz’s The House of Silk. Sherlock Holmes first made his appearance in the year 1887 in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, a paperback magazine printed in England annually between 1860 and 1898, founded

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

by Samuel Orchart Beeton. The series was created by Scottish author and physician, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Soon after the first story came out, the fictional ‘consulting detective’ — famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take on almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills — became such a rage that fans from across the globe would write to the detective ‘living’ at 221 B Baker Street. Several of these letters were from children, seeking Holmes’ help. With such a loyal and dedicated fan base, it’s not erroneous to suppose that Holmes’ deerstalker cap is more talked of than Cleopatra’s nose in modern literature. So how does a new author manage to bear the burden of such a legacy? The answer is simple — by writing a fantastic detective novel, which is neither different from the old ones nor very similar. Horowitz manages to do that with great finesse. It is a Holmes adventure at its best. A wellwritten story with carefully etched characters and a plot knitted beautifully. The best bit is that Horowitz makes Sherlock his own, creating a story with a bit more action than

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Anthony Horowitz is an English novelist and screenwriter. He has written many children‘s novels, including The Power of Five, Alex Rider and The Diamond Brothers series and has written over 50 books. He has also written extensively for television, adapting many of Agatha Christie‘s Hercule Poirot novels for a teleseries Publisher: Orion Publishing Group ISBN: 9781409136361 Price: `499

Conan Doyle gave us. The story unfolds with two unrelated threads, the action builds and Horowitz captures your imagination. As is often the case, the chronicler is Dr Watson, narrating the story of one of “the most dangerous cases” taken up by them. A case which, as Watson puts it was “too shocking to be revealed until now”. It’s 1890 and Watson’s wife is out of town; so he is boarding yet again at 221 B Baker St with Holmes. At that time, a Mayfair arts dealer pays them a visit. He alleges that he is being followed by the only surviving member of an infamous Irish gang in America. Holmes recruits the newest member of the Irregulars — Ross — to guard the place where the gang member lives. After he leaves the scene, Ross is found brutally murdered, and thus begins the most challenging case in the history of Sherlock Holmes. Why did Ross die? Why were the dealer’s paintings burnt? Will Sherlock survive a case where every little step taken will take him closer to doom and destruction? The danger involved in the case is such that we see the great Mycroft —

“I was a traveller at birth, for whom even a visit to the candy store was a trip through a foreign world where no one quite matched my parents’ inheritance, or my own”

reading room CRITICS & AUTHORS //

— Pico Iyer

never known to pull himself out of his armchair at the Diogenes Club — pay a visit to Baker St with a warning: “stay away from the case or suffer a fate from which even you cannot be saved”. Soon enough, Mycroft’s predictions come true in more ways than one. For the older readership,

the adventure saga will bring back the memories of a childhood spent solving mysteries with the great detective. For those reading Holmes for the first time — it’s not a bad start. If one likes mysteries at all, this is not one to miss. If you love Sherlock Holmes, this is a must read. Horowitz

is already being considered the true heir of the Conan Doyle heritage. And this fast-paced, gripping and spine-chilling novel is proof that he is fit to follow in the famous doctor’s footsteps. So, wander in the dark and dingy lanes of fog-covered England, as the game is afoot, once again.

The Man Within My Head Pico Iyer‘s tribute to the great

English writer, Graham Greene, coupled with his own story, is a great read BY MANJIRI INDURKAR

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Pico Iyer is a British-born essayist and novelist. He is the author of numerous books on travel, including Video Nights in Kathmandu. His shorter pieces regularly appear in Time, Harper’s, NYRB and several other publications Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group ISBN: 9780307267610

THE FIRST dilemma that arises in one’s mind while reading

Pico Iyer’s The Man Within My Head is how to classify this book. It would be unfair to call it a travelogue even though Iyer talks extensively about his escapades in countries starting from Bhutan to Bolivia; and from a war-struck Sri Lanka to Cuba and Vietnam. You cannot just call it a biography or memoir because it’s more than that. It could be called literary criticism but, wait! There certainly is more to this book than mere criticism. Then where exactly does it fit and what is it all about? It is the story of Pico Iyer told through the man within his head — Graham Greene. It’s a tribute of sorts to the great English author and playwright, who, as Iyer puts it, is his “adopted father”. Iyer ponders over the strange similarities between him and Greene. Greene and the author both went to English public schools, both saw their houses burn down in a fire, both got defined as restless souls, both refused to settle down at a place and call it home and, most importantly, both were fascinated with the complications of faith. Despite the striking similarities, and the obvious admiration that Iyer has for Greene, he writes that he never “wanted his work

to resemble Greene’s writings”. Yet a clear influence is visible through Iyer’s body of work. Iyer’s relationship with his adopted father is examined against his fraught relationship with his biological father, India’s first Rhodes scholar, philosopher and polymath, Raghavan Iyer. “Fathers who create us are much harder to forgive than the ones we create, in part because they’re much harder to escape” writes Iyer. Escape — a word whose fascination he shares with Greene — from himself and the people around him, the restlessness he feels within, everything is like a string that attaches him to Greene. Those not familiar with Greene may find it hard to understand some of the references in the book. Though Iyer is mostly a non-fiction writer, while penning down his thoughts and drawing the connections with the man within his head he uses the fiction writer’s ink in this book. The images that emerge are thought-provoking. Though the book may largely appear to be a tribute to Greene, it actually is Iyer’s own story — narrated in a stylised tone. It is a thoughtful, eloquent and honest book by one of our most resourceful explorers.

FEBRUARY 2012

Price: `1,440

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

WARE

HOUSE

HOT!

HELLCAT X132 Motorbike

`23,40,000

Our pick of the boldest, best and craziest gadgets. Glance through the Warehouse page and check them out. Happy hunting!

Hellcat X132 is a mean machine; this beast is comparable to the legendary Harley Davidson in terms of performance, toughness and riding. The chassis on this bike is made from aircraft grade aluminium and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s obvious that a v-twin engine powers this bike. The bike would be available by March next year and is open for pre-booking right now at a price tag of `23,40,000. We threw in this bike because if you thought it looks good enough, wait till your hear it!

Hellcat X132

BEHRINGER INUKE

The Behringer iNuke is 4-ft tall and 8-ft wide iPod dock which delivers 10,000 watts. It is compatible with an iPad as well. Yours for only `15,60,000

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

FUJIFILM X10 LAUNCHED

Fujifilm X10 has been launched in India. It's a 14 MP super zoom compact digital camera and you can get it for `44,999

warehouse

GADGE TS & GIZMOS //

HARMAN KARDON

SoundSticks II

$200

Crafted out of clear plastic the SoundSticks II speakers offer you an uninterrupted view of what’s going on inside them when you play your favourite thump. Stunningly brilliant to look at, the 10.2 by 9.2 by 9.2 inches sub-woofer emits a mild blue light when playing. Both the satellite speakers have 25 mm full range drivers. The only drawback? No headphone jack!

SOUL

LUDACRIS

`20,220 If you happen to be a Ludacris fan, the SOUL headphones would be a perfect addition to your Rap collection. These cool headphones sport a chrome finish and come with two detachable 3.5 mm audio cables. The extra headphone cable features a remote control and a microphone that allows you to answer calls. Beauty and comfort don’t come cheap and all you have to do to own a pair is shell out `20,220

HP MAKES WEBOS IMMORTAL

After several stumbles, HP finally makes the right call and releases webOS to the opensource community. Read more at http://bit.ly/tC2BDe

SILVERLIGHT 5 RELEASED

Microsoft has released what might just be the last version of their free Silverlight plug-in. Get details on http://bit.ly/v6oUtM

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

PHOTOS BY PHOTOS.COM

GARNISH Precious pasta: Two words describe good pasta. Al dente: meaning tender from the outside but firm on the inside

Joie de vivre, chef style

Tossed in olive oil and served with a smile, that’s the recipe for Ritu Dalmia’s robust cooking BY ROHINI BANERJEE

ften the mention of an aura is pooh-poohed. But if there is indeed something of an energy around a person, then Ritu Dalmia has an impressive amount of it. Hers is a positive one which makes her look ahead, rather than meditate on the past. Perhaps that’s why standard questions about life and her journey so far are met with protests. “I believe mine has just begun. I have so much more to learn, see, taste and do,” Dalmia asserts. There are dos and don’ts when you are around one of the best-known celebrity chefs of our time. A major don’t is to refuse food: “Are you sure that you won’t even taste it, the dessert is freshly made,” she offers thrice during the course of our conversation. However, if one is persistent there are insights into the roads she has travelled down. “Ten years ago when people asked me about my journey, I used to feel like such a young genius. A cool kid, an untrained, self-taught chef. As I get older, I realise I have had many years behind me to get better. Has there been a journey? Yes, indeed. And it has

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

been a fabulous one. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn’t become a chef. It’s so much fun and I even get paid for it.” Truly, it has been quite a ride for the untrained chef who owns three restaurants and has two books and telly shows in her kitty, and the Italians love her Italian khana, also the name of her first book published by Random House. So much so, that they presented her with the Order of the Star, a great national honour. Dalmia runs a small but packed café at the Italian Cultural Centre in New Delhi. The story of this Marwari girl from Kolkata, visiting Italy on a business trip (her family was in the marble tile trade), has been written several times over. It is

garnish

THE DIVA OF FRESH FOOD //

DIVA OF THE MONTH

well-known that young Dalmia was moved enough by the country’s farm-fresh food and the joie de vivre of its citizens, to return home and replicate the cuisine she had grown to love. Today, she has a long list of admirers, thanks to her style and flair. Several of them, such as journalist and food critic Vir Sanghvi, have penned robust testimonials which almost beat the Italian Pecorino (a particularly robust cheese, I am told). But that version leaves out the real spice in the story. Dalmia’s culinary journey began much before — at the age of nine. In good humour she credits her early start to the fact that she often had to fend for herself in the kitchen. “My mother’s a terrible cook. She knows that and is completely nonchalant about it. In her opinion she can’t be perfect always.” Jokes apart, Dalmia knew the saté from the sauté simply because she devoured recipe books as a child. “I had read every cookbook in the house. They were my comic books, and I would scan the recipes and pictures. I remember being more fascinated by Pak Pranali, a popular Marwari book on Continental cuisine, than Phantom.” Then there were the numerous “pacey” paperbacks by the Queen of the Indian Kitchen, the matronly Tarla Dalal (no Marwari kitchen is complete without them, Dalmia tells us.) When her parents would come home from tours (they are avid travellers, a gene that they’ve passed on to their daughter it seems), the young Dalmia would present a seven-course meal with the table set right, cutlery and crockery in place. As Dalmia says, “My pretensions were in place, even as a child. My mother says that half of what I cooked wasn’t edible. Or they would be too tired at that

Ritu Dalmia is a chef-cum-restaurateur and owner of Diva, one of Delhi’s finest Italian restaurants. It has won Hindustan Times’ HT City Award four years in a row, and The Times of India’s Times Food Award for two years. Dalmia also runs the extremely popular café at the Italian Cultural Centre and was awarded the prestigious Order of the Star by the Italian government — talk about culinary diplomacy!

Cheesy facts: The content of fat in ripened cheeses generally range between 20 and 30 per cent. Consumers generally prefer cheeses with high fat because it imparts a better flavour

point to care about eating. But they knew I had toiled, so I was always praised.” Her parents still get the seven course meal once a month — at Diva. Dalmia, too, takes a break with kadi-chawal once a month in her mother’s kitchen. We had to ask Dalmia what the first dish that she ever served was. “I was nine. I made rice with baked beans and vegetables.” Quickly she adds that at nine one

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

garnish

// THE DIVA OF FRESH FOOD

could be pardoned for thinking that baked beans were “the thing”. Despite these culinary forays, being a chef was not on the agenda at that point. “At 21, I made money working with my father. In the folly of my youth, I thought I would retire and start a restaurant. I clearly remember arguing with a friend who said that one needed to be a chef to start a restaurant. I believed one needed to have flair and taste.” (She still believes that and employs people who are more eager to learn than being trained.) “At 22, I started Mezzaluna, which flopped brilliantly.” That was in 1993, after Dalmia had come back from her Italian business-cum-pleasure trip and seen a famous countess, who ran a cookery school for American tourists, at work. Dalmia struggled with Mezzaluna and was forced to sell it after running at loss for two years. Perhaps India wasn’t ready for Mezzaluna and its mistress then. So, she crossed the seas to set up a successful fine-dining Indian restaurant, Vama, in London, with a friend. Though Vama did phenomenally well, home is were the solid Indian hearth is. Dalmia sold off her Vama stake to come back to Delhi in 2000. She struck gold the second time around with Diva, set up with an investment of `48 lakh (“I was cautious this time”). By then Indian palates and perceptions had changed considerably. Indians were not only eating out, they were treating food as the new entertainment. They cared if dishes were being plated right — quite a flip for a nation that didn’t really care as long as it tasted good. Books on cooking, though omnipresent in desi kitchens, were no longer just about the recipes; they were about the larger experience, ingredients and the joy of cooking. India was ready for Dalmia, and Diva, which began at the posh Greater Kailash in New Delhi. In India, there are only a handful of stand-alone restaurants that survive the long haul. Diva has. And, it has even thrived and grown to include a smaller café for the quick in-between

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

Dreamy Desserts: Those with a sweet tooth should head for the desserts section in her book, Italian Khana. Italian specials like canoli and panna cotta make it worth the time

DELICIOUS TITBITS

Book launch: The Italian Consul General launches The Travelling Diva

Her take: Cooking is about giving and nurturing; there’s no magic needed when those ingredients are in place Olive oil: Not Popeye’s Olive, but the real oil reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases

meal. If you like your food to be pretentious then this is not the place for you. Dalmia’s signature style is fresh and wholesome ingredients plated piping hot, to be eaten with friends, family and a bottle of good wine. Obviously, this is a recipe for success, as one food blogger devoted quite some space to rhapsodies on Dalmia’s “shrimp, scallop skewer with a fennel and apple slaw”. Having travelled a winding path, resting ever so often to eat a hearty meal, one wonders what’s next? The usual stuff — start a new branch of Diva at Hauz Khas and an NDTV GoodTimes show on The Travelling Diva (her second book published by Hachette India). But the real fun starts when Dalmia gets to pack her bags and head off to New Zealand for 14 days. On her map are various eateries and wineries, but the French Café in Auckland tops her must-visit list. The café will host Dalmia the very evening she lands in the country. One can only hope that in between all that sipping and eating, she gets hit by a new recipe or her next Diva moment.

HITCH

HIKER

PHOTOS BY AMEE MISRA

Island Idyll: Zanzibar has two main islands, but there are around 51 other surrounding islets — more than enough room for sunworshippers to swim, dive and laze around in

To Paradise: via the Spice Route

Dive into sparkling waters, idle on sun-baked beaches or walk through history in Zanzibar BY AMEE MISRA

anzibar is a name most of us recognise — though may be hard pressed to pinpoint on a map — as it conjures up the sights and sounds of an African island on the old Spice Route. So when I got an opportunity to work and live there, I got my yellow fever shots and booked the first flight out. Zanzibar is off the coast of Tanzania in East Africa and is a fully autonomous country for all practical purposes. (But if you’re travelling there, you need to get a visa for Tanzania.) For those of us brought up on National Geographic, the very word Africa conjures up images of wild animals and grasslands. Not so with Zanzibar — it’s more a sandy-beaches-and-sparkling-sea sort of destination. For those who still want their safaris, it's a great destination to club with a wildlife holiday with Serengeti and Ngorongoro reserves barely an hour-long plane ride away. The two main islands of Zanzibar are Unguja and Pemba, but there are about 51 other surrounding small islets.

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

Zanzibar has a very long and diverse cultural history — Assyrians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Chinese, Persians, Omani Arabs, the Dutch and British have all settled here some point. And let’s not forget the Indians, who have lent their own flavour to the island. It’s a sparsely populated, largely Muslim state, but churches, Hindu temples and mosques all cluster together in that small space. People usually see Zanzibar by dividing it into ‘town’ and the ‘outskirts’. Stone Town, on the western coast of Unguja, is what they call ‘town’ and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Much to my delight, it’s also where I found myself living, surrounded by

hitchhiker’s guide Z ANZIBAR //

HIKER OF THE MONTH

really old and stunningly beautiful buildings with minarets and labyrinths. Its narrow lanes took me right back to Chandni Chowk in Delhi, but minus the crowds and chaotic mental wiring. The name Stone Town comes from the use of coral stone as the main construction material; this gives the town a reddishwarm colour — and gives the visitor great pictures! Traditional buildings have a baraza, a long stone bench along the outside walls; these are used as elevated sidewalks or benches to sit down on. The most well-known feature of Zanzibari houses are the finely decorated wooden doors, sometimes with big brass studs in Indian tradition. You also see high-ceilinged houses painted pristine white, with dark wooden beams, making the whole effect very dramatic. Perhaps more than anywhere else in Zanzibar, the country’s past is reflected in almost every corner of Stone Town. A lot of the buildings date back to the 19th century, many of them not restored. In my first few days in, I took a walking tour and peered into houses where people like David Livingstone — the doctor, missionary and anti-slavery crusader — lived. Stone Town was a big hub of the slave trade and we could see the places which were holding houses for the slaves before they were sold or sent on further. Despite their grim history, people still live in them — not something that I would go for! What I did go for was a Tinga Tinga painting: Tanzanian art characterised by bright colours depicting mainly animals and birds. No woman shopper worth her salt would leave without visiting Kanga Street and

Amee is a part time economist with a full time assignment on an idyllic East African island—there she devotes her time to (ahem!) advising the government on its economic policies.Out of office, she can be found shopping enough to push the country’s GDP up, learning Swahili and going on exciting weekend get-aways. Adventurous (and economical), Amee skimps on everything but her business class tickets

Road to Paje: This village on the south east coast has the most beautiful beaches, with fine sand. Just walking around, you can pick shells and come across sea urchins and starfish, like the one below

buying a Kanga, a brightly patterned piece of cloth with a slightly obscure line of general advice woven in as part of the fabric. (You could, for example, find your kanga carrying the words ‘Wache Waseme’ or ‘Let Them Talk’). The kanga doubles as a sarong, baby carrier, or pretty much any other use you can put it

FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

hitchhiker’s guide \\ Z ANZIBAR

to. (Here’s a tip, especially relevant when shopping in the alleys of Stone Town: tell people you’re a resident and not a tourist. Almost all prices are negotiable and you often do better as a ‘resident’. Also try and pay in Tanzanian shillings and not dollars.) By the end of the walk, I was pretty full of historical fact and my backpack was full of my shopping. But my stomach wanted sustenance of a different kind and I headed off to Lazuli, which rapidly became my favourite restaurant in Stone Town. Satiated on a meal of smoothies, bunny chows (a South African specialty) and an amazing lemon spaghetti with prawns, I was ready to head out again. If you’re staying a night in Stone Town, it is definitely worth visiting Tatu for an after-dinner drink. This pub is the lone (but great) place to party, and also has one of the best collections of whiskeys in the world — an observation confirmed by many samplers! Other Zanzibari street food kept reminding me of home and the Indian traveller who misses ghar ka khana would find little to complain about here. At various times I found myself munching on a sambusa (samosa), a chapatti (more like a parantha made of flour) and a kachori (which is more like an Indian pakoda). The kuku (chicken) curry and biryani also tasted like the Indian versions, except that you would be more likely to find beef in the biryani here. If you come in the month of Ramadan, you may find half the eating places shut in the daytime. However, some hotels operate during the days of fasting as well. Being on the old Spice Route, spice farms dot the islands of Zanzibar. One weekend saw me heading off on a Spice Tour, where I spent happy hours sniffing vanilla beans, picking pepper and rubbing cinnamon sticks. The tour ended with a local meal in the farm owner's house — delicious! The cloves, called karafu, from Pemba are pretty famous and it’s worth pocketing a few on your visit to the spice farms. Despite its many other attractions, ultimately Zanzibar is all about the sea. It’s beautiful coral reefs — Morogo Reef, Boribo Reef & Turtles Den, the reefs accessible from Nungwi and Matemwe — are especially good for diving. Paje, a village on the southeast coast, has the most beautiful beaches, with sand as fine as flour! But my personal favourite was Robinsons Place on Bweju, located on the east coast. This

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

Sunset Sonata: Stone Town provides all that you could wish for — a lot of history and

great views

WANDERING AROUND

Do Not Disturb: A hermit crab tries to scuttle away and climb back into the shell it has borrowed

Spice Tours: My favourite spices were the plump vanilla beans, fragrant cinammon and cloves from Pemba

One Giant Leap: Local boys jump into the sea every evening at the Forodhani Gardens in Stone Town

small eco-lodge is one of the few places for the budget traveller (Zanzibar is definitely a niche destination on most counts) has no electricity and serves home-cooked meals. (Try and book The Robinson House, a romantic tree house with a gorgeous view of the ocean.) There are many diving centres in Zanzibar, for those who want to plumb the depths. The closest I’ve come to diving is off a board into a pool, but I still had the poor-man’s option — snorkelling! So I set off for the submarine experience of a lifetime, as the reefs came to life and colourful schools of fish sailed around. The more intrepid divers can also come face-to-face with manta rays and magnificent whale sharks, if conditions are right. My perambulations around Zanzibar were rounded off by the Safari Blue, a guided tour that has been operating for more than 20 years. I headed out for a sensational day trip full of snorkelling, dolphin-spotting and a fantastic seafood buffet as I sailed around in a boat for the whole day. (I must confess to becoming a bit of a fan of the trip, especially since I’ve been thrice and seen dolphins all three times.) They also took us out to the middle of the ocean and stopped the boat at a little sandbank, where we ended the day lolling in the water, a barbecue there going in the background and glasses of drinks in our hands. So if living life pole pole (Kiswahili for ‘at a leisurely pace’) and beautiful tropical surroundings is your idea of a vacation, then Zanzibar should definitely figure in your travel plans.

PARENTING NOVEMBER 2011

STICKY

A qui ck guide -start to wha fresh, t’s fu worth n & y peek.. of a .

NOTES WATCH

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE

LISTEN

Based on the 2005 novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the story of Oskar Schell, played brilliantly by the newcomer Thomas Horn, who is in search of a lock that matches a mysterious key left behind by his father(Tom Hanks) who died in the 9/11 tragedy. Despite the various running themes the movie really is about coping with loss and life at large. Being released on 10 February, it's a beautiful story, well told!

EVERYTHING IS EVERYWHERE Without meaning to overuse the cliche, Everything is Everywhere really is a true embodiment of 'East meets West'. This collaboration of the world's three best Sarod players, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and his sons Amaan and Ayaan Ali Khan, with the popular vocalist, Carrie Newcomer, is a spiritual journey.

INDIA SURF FESTIVAL, 2012 Bask in the glory of the February sun and discover the strange cosmic connect between surfing and spirituality at the India Surf Festival, which will take place between February 7-9 in Puri Konark Marine Drive, Puri, Orissa. If surfing is not your thing, worry not! Just stretch out on the beautiful beach and enjoy three days of sun, sand and exciting surfing.

ATTEND

THE NAGAUR SUFI MUSIC FESTIVAL, 2012 The five-day long Nagaur Sufi Music Festival begins on February 15 with a dinner hosted by the Maharaja of Jodhpur, followed by three lyrical evenings filled with Sufi music, dance and poetry. You don't want to miss it!

DEMOCRATIC WORLD

FEBRUARY 2012

KALA GHODA ART FESTIVAL, 2012 No one celebrates Art like the Kala Ghoda Art Festival, Mumbai. Music, plays, dance, movies, children's activities, book readings and heritage walks — all in the span of nine days, from February 5th to 13th. A one-stop spot for destressing, enjoying yourself and meeting interesting people Kala Ghoda is the place to be!