Modern Day Activism

How important is it to be an activist? Isn’t minding my own vocation and avocation good enough? Is being an activist a full time responsibility or I can “don” the role as per the state of traffic in the city? Every time I hear the term “RTI activist” or “social activist” my mind repeats a jig of sorts with thoughts. For e.g., if X is referred to by media as an RTI activist, does this mean that he files RTI queries by a bundle? Is filing petitions his profession – if so what is so ennobling about it that it is stated in awed tones? I have filed an RTI petition previously; does this make me an RTI activist?

And before you conclude that I need to exorcised of “activist ghost”, let me tell you why I am fixated with activism. I was always under the assumption that doing good is a private affair, that you don’t need microphones and rooftops to educate a child. But it was not to be –

“You don’t support the girl child?”

“What about the Save Earth Day?”

“Atleast do you have your pink ribbon?”

“The Being Human tshirt……”

“No? How can you be so self centred? Support atleast some good cause.”

But I try to help tutor kids for their exams, I say.

No avail – looks like it is not high profile enough. So here I am; I have now signed petitions – ranging from saving the blue whales to protecting green turtles; fight against corruption to right to education, to the extent that I have even forwarded mails that say forwarding the mail to 10 people will give a kid a pencil in Algiers or some such place. From Facebook to roadside pieces of paper, I am signing petitions that would go to PM, CM, GM and motley such collections of “M”s

So tell me, am I now an activist?

I guess Gandhiji would be so ashamed of the state of activism today that he would have smacked our heads, ahimsa or not. Next time you want to make a difference, stop staring at “Satyameva Jayathe”, clicking on buttons in Facebook, SMSing polls on CNN-IBN etc. Roll up your sleeves and work. Or sit back and relax. Your being an “e-activist” isn’t going to help anyone. And btw, wipe that smug smile off your face – mere discussions on “Satyameva Jayathe” episode over a cup of coffee doesn’t make the country any better than it was, is or will be, and "Live Strong" wristbands could be adding a lot more waste to our dump yards than we realise

A new begining

So it’s another new job; another new promise for exceptional growth, satisfaction and sense of involvement with the organization. I often wonder if the MBA courses aren’t stifling creativity of the HR guys; it’s the same drivel that is bandied by every organization – standardization of even the carrots to attract “talent”.

A job switch is a uniquely frustrating experience, so much so that I guess HR guys make it frustrating on purpose. Why else would you, as a lateral hire, be asked to take the so called “induction and introduction to OUR culture” every time, even when the only difference between what you saw previously and what you are seeing now  is the colour combination (sorry, its supposed to be called as “brand image”) in the slides. I would really like to attend some of the HR professional workshops, if only to check that the slides aren't being handed out to all the HR honchos there. And the icing on the cake is the self-satisfied smile beaming out from the HR guys for every change in the smart art on the slide – you would think that they had a role in the PSLV launch at Sriharikota

 Know what is the biggest barrier to switching jobs – it’s the pain involved, not in the job search or the interview, but in the “orientation”, mandatory trainings etc. And when finally all of the HR stuff is out of the way and you roll up your sleeves for the promised work…… you face the same desert with occasional mirage of work. Making you wonder, did I really change my job?

Direct me to this post when I talk about job switch the next time; I might turn out to be a lifer, sticking on to the current place, one job being no better or worse than the next.

* Disclaimer: This post is not reflective of my current job responsibilities or my feeling about the current job responsibilities.

There, the disclaimer is also done.

Weekend travels - Udupi and Sringeri

Finding myself twiddling thumbs every weekend I stay back in the room, I decided on the spur of the moment that I would go over to Udupi/Sringeri over the weekend. Not just going but going alone… And without even the haziest idea of what to expect there and not even a remote semblance of a plan. Lack of planning to such an extent that I didn't event take a camera. So you know now that you are reading the Travels of him who was out of his mind – you have been warned.. 

For starters, this isn’t a travelogue. I am not here to discuss the merits and demerits of modes of transports, roads, hotels and motley of such banal things. Rather, the narration would be my impressions, at levels ranging physical, intellectual and maybe a bit spiritual; the narrative may seem a part travelogue though, more because it is the style of narration than it being the objective.

Udupi is a very picturesque place bounded by the sea, hills and quite a few meadows. Before going further, a word of compliment for the roads in Karnataka; they are uniformly good in most parts (albeit a bit narrow) and where they are not up to the mark, your frustration is assuaged by the wonderful scenery. 

The highlights of any trip to Udupi would be Krishna, Krishna and Krishna.A small brief on the fable of Udupi (the so call Sthala Purana, you may say) - It is said that Devaki wanted to see Krishna as he was during his boyhood times, frolicking around with his friends and cattle. Krishna acquiesced to his mother’s request and was giving her his darshan as a little boy when Rukmini, in secret, smuggled herself into the room and also had a darshan of Krishna's breathtaking childhood beauty. Enamoured by it, she requested that she be given an idol of his childhood form to worship. Krishna then requested Viswakarma to execute the project and presents his beloved wife Rukmini with the idol.

After the fall of Dwaraka, the idol was lost and over time got covered with so much grime that when the grime covered idol was rediscovered by some sailors, it was mistaken as a piece of rock and used as ballast. Time passed by and the ownership of the ship and the rock was passed over generations. One not so fine day, the ship was caught in a storm and the sailors request Sri Madhavacharya, who happened to be passing by, to help. The Acharya helped subdue the storm and the grateful sailors requested him to name anything from their ship as a token of their gratitude. The Acharya was strangely attracted to this ballast and requested for it. Once the ballast was bereft of the grime, the Lord emerged and thus the idol of Bala Krishna was installed in Udupi.

When I first read this legend, a cynic that I am, I laughed it off. But the beauty of the idol has me a convert. Something sculpted so perfectly has to have a divine origin. The best time to appreciate the idol would be the early morning (by early, I mean atleast before 5:30AM) when the crowds are few and there is no impediment in form of jewels, flowers etc to “beautify” the idol.

An aside here, I believe that sites such as Wiki Travel are only for ABCD or foreigners – the way Wiki Travel raved about an eatery called “Mitra Samaj”, I went out of way to have some of the recommended dishes. I wouldn’t say I was disappointed, only that I was disaffected – the gollibaje (a dish talked with breathless excitement in the site) was as soft and tasty as it is anywhere in South India. Maybe I am a boor not to notice subtle variations in taste, but then this is not the first time I am faced with such a conclusion; let me do with this conclusion what I do best, pigeonhole it for future examination.

Meals being served in temple are a common phenomenon in India – you have langars, bhojanashalas and satrams by the dozen. What makes the lunch served at Udupi temple unique is, believe it or not, it is served on the floor. For those of you who didn’t get it still, the food is literally served on the floor, no plate or leaf between the floor and the food. It is a definite experience worth having; the first morsel off the floor and many of my assumptions on culture, sophistication and hygiene were washed away. And the sweet payasam that they served after the food …. words fail those who have eaten it and for those of you who haven’t, don’t try to satisfy yourselves with mere words.

Around 7 kms from the Udupi town is the Malpe beach. The specialty of the place, according to me, is that every km you cover towards Malpe, the smell of fish increases exponentially until you are so overpowered by the smell, you fail to notice it anymore. Just an hour or two there and I now know the subtle differences between the smell of a fresh fish being fried and a dried fish being fried. Just off the shore from Malpe is the St.Mary’s Island. Rest assured, it is no Mediterranean isle and yet it can hold its place even in any such competition for scenic beauty.

Another place that can hold its place and compete with the best spots in the world is a 5-7 km stretch while on the way to Murdeshwar from Udupi. Just imagine a lone stretch of well asphalted road. To the left of the road, hardly few metres away, is the unbounded Arabian Sea, its unceasing waves lapping at the coast. And on the right, again hardly a few metres, is a river trickling along merrily, a few coconut trees swaying to the silent music. And an orange hued sun majestically settling into one of the many hills in the background. Few sights can take your breath away if this doesn’t.

Murdeshwar was my first visit to a temple on a seashore and need I say I was impressed? Not just with the temple but the environs, the people (A met a HUGE group of Muslims on their way into the temple when I was coming out!!!), the pleasing landscaping and even the beach hotel. The usual beach commerce of boating/water scooter is available here also and I hear people shower accolades on both the beauty and fun of Arabian Sea here.

The journey to Sringeri from Udupi needs a book by itself – the sharp turns, the last minute swerves, the impossible speeds despite the Ghat roads – let me just say that I was praying that when (note that the word used here is ‘when’ and not ‘if’) we fall off any precipice, it should be in a place with cell phone signals. I even mentally reviewed the limited knowledge of first aid that I have (That reminds me, one of the aftereffects of this trip is that I have resolved to attend a full-fledged first aid course, hopefully soon).

Sringeri is the place where legend has it that Sri Adi Shankaracharya found a snake protecting a pregnant frog from rain and this inspired him to set up the Sringeri Matt. And about the impressions, it is actually more of the same; you are happy and peaceful, it calms your mind like nothing else, it is very scenic. But this is a repetition of all that I have said till now, so let me just say this – that although experience at Sringeri is similar to the one at Udupi, it is not to be missed. Just like although ras gulla and gulab jamun are both milk sweets, experiencing one cannot substitute experiencing the other.

There it was, two days well spent, and believe it or not, spent with hardly ever uttering a word for hours on end.

I trudged up the hill to see what was there

There was Nothing

I enjoyed the Nothing

Happy, I came back sadly

Forex rates and end of the year

The end of the year post. I know this is supposed to be either a fun post or a summary of lessons post or a post oozing out wisdom. I hope this doesn’t drive you away, but unfortunately for you, it is neither.

Okay, thank you for still daring to brave the deluge of words that would be unleashed on you. This has been an year that showed me how important an understanding of economics was to the society – and of course, the spotlight, in my view, was my total inability to grasp anything being said about the functioning of the economy. As the year closes, I find that I have put quite some effort to understand what an economist would consider simple concepts – inflation, interest rates, forex rate etc. While I find that I have already imposed on your patience when it comes to inflation and my views on it, I have not said even a word on forex rates. I know its that time of the year when lengthy articles are abhorred and didactic writers like me are avoided like plague; however, I feel the residue of this year must not be taken on to the new one – so here is a brief on how I guess exchange rates work. Be warned, I may be completely wrong, but then I am no stranger to the “foot-in-mouth” syndrome. So let me go through the (highly ficticious) economic history as I imagine it would have happened and hopefully my understanding on exchange rates is clear. This is how I believe it all started.

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A small story

The good old days were all about barter – I have a box of apples and you have 3 chicken; we both make and exchange and are both happy. It was a clean and clear system; your bargaining power determined what you got. But there was a big problem –perishability of your goods. And that is where currency came in. You were able to convert your perishable apple to some form of imperishable equivalent.

But what was this currency and how did it get its value? As I imagine, it would have been that the local big man (say the king or the don) gives you 3 “coins” that he designed for your 3 chicken. Whatever you want can be then exchanged for the 3 coins either with him or with anyone else in that region. Ofcourse, this big man was the biggest consumer and his word is worth its weight, each item got its value as per supply-demand and so you have no problems with this arrangement. Over time, the “big man” would have taken up the role of issuing coins for general trade and not just trade with him (albeit taking a small commission for issuing coins – the so called seigniorage). And as there were many such big men in other regions, each issuing their own “currencies”, you had to trade in currencies for taking your goods to other regions.

Since the same goods (say, apples) would have to have the same effective value across regions (arbitrage theory), therefore we can say that

Price of the goods in Region₁ × Value of Currency₁ = Price of the goods in Region₂ × Value of Currency₂

Otherwise put,

Price of the goods in Region₁ × Exchange Rate between Currency₁ and Currency₂= Price of the goods in Region₂

Going by incremental increase and not in absolute terms,

Change of price of the goods in Region₁ × Exchange Rate between Currency₁ and Currency₂ = Change of price of the goods in Region₂

In case of financial products (bonds etc), the change of price is depicted through interest rates. So we have

Interest Rates in Region₁ × Exchange Rate between Currency₁ and Currency₂ = Interest Rates in Region₂

Determinants of Interest Rates

Based on the story above, let us see if we can determine what affects the interest rates.

•  The first factor affecting exchange rates would be how much of goods a particular currency can purchase. This is the so called purchasing power parity. The more goods the currency can purchase, the better is the currency exchange rate in context of other currencies.
• Inflation has a bearing on the interest rate and a high inflatory scenario compounds the exchange rate problems of a currency
•  High debt burden by the issuer of the currency leads to high interest rates as the lenders view the issuer as risky. So the extent of borrowing impacts the exchange rates.
• Supply demand factors also affect the exchange rate. In case the currency issued by one issuer is deemed of a higher quality, then inspite of the above factors, the exchange rate would be favourable to the issuer of higher quality currency.

How does India fare

In light of the above, let us see how the India rupee fares.

•  The PPP of Indian economy is one of the highest. However, one of our biggest problems is the huge oil and gold bill we run up as a nation. With the prices of both these goods touching the stratosphere, it is no wonder then that the exchange rate is under pressure.
• Inflation, although high, isn’t the worst in the world
•  Debt burden, although high is nowhere near that being serviced by majority of western powers.

Conclusions

So where does this discussion leave us. Nowhere, I would say. After a lot of effort, I seem to be able to grasp some (hopefully correct) concepts of determinants of exchange rate. As I said, understanding economics is so important that it’s better to remain ignorant of the concepts rather than have a half baked knowledge of them. Therefore, I look forward to clarification of any concept misconstrued, misunderstood or mistaken.

Have a happy year ahead and god bless .

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PS: I intended to write sections on what we can do about the exchange rate and whether the topic impacts us to such an extent that it merits so many reams of paper. I didn't put on paper my thoughts because I wanted to retain some appearance of being knowledgeable. But as some one said, once your foot is in your mouth, it doesn't matter if you are merely sucking your toes or biting your heel off. So here is what I intended to say but didn't.

Is the exchange rate really that important to us, the "aam admi"
Exchange rate impacts our daily life in two ways -

• One, as you guessed rightly, the oil prices are always quoted in dollars and so a bad exchange rate offsets falling price of crude oil (as happened recently when in spite of rent crude falling to 95$ per barrel, we had a price increase due to pressures of an adverse exchange rate movement) and compounds the effect at the time of rising crude price.
• Most of the commodity prices (eg. steel, cement etc) are quoted in dollars even when the trade is between two local traders in India. A rising dollar thus impacts internal trade prices also despite the source and target for the goods is within the country.

What can "we" do about it

As individuals and even the GoI can't do much. Maybe if, as a nation, we take a collective decision to reduce our fuel and gold consumption, then some impact might be felt. But I guess we might as well be talking about colonising and mining the moon; that might be easier than reining in our love for gold.

Of course, the Govt can decide that a part of all our payments towards international commitments would be made in Rupees and that internal trade should always be quoted in Rs.; but with the govt having so much on its plate due to its mismanagement, I guess this idea's turn would come in the 250th five year plan, if ever.

So all we can do is grunt and bear.... Not a very reassuring thought to close the year and begin a new year, but no concave mirror ever did benefit a fat lady.

Inflation and Economics

Let me begin by stating that I am no economist. All I had by the way of my link to economics is one paper during my MBA (which I barely managed to clear) and a fascination for Economic Times. Not much, I agree, but one has to make good with what one has.

Economists as a breed always evoked a sense of awe in me. Here were people who could look at the rainfall pattern and then, using some mumbo-jumbo, tell what the exchange rate could be one year down the line.  I walked (and even now, walk) on eggshells around them; economists and astrologers seemed to have more say on our lives than ought to be given to any single stream of academic thought.

No surprise then that I was enthralled when Dr. Manmohan Singh was elected/nominated to be our Prime Minister; the economy was in safe hands I felt. But something went wrong and all of the polity and economy started wobbling. Prices shot through the roof and I immediately sought the salve that I knew Dr. Manmohan would apply on the sore wallets of the nation. I was reassured to see the PM and the FM state on TV that the remedy had been administered and the effect would be felt in another month or so.

The much quoted day came and went by and we were cited another date. And another. And another.  Much the same like swimming towards the horizon, our tryst with the date of redemption kept moving, much to the horror of our collective purse-strings. And after two years, the FM has the gall to do another round of crystal-gazing, another date for the easing of inflation (http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2635542.ece).

As I said, I am not an economist, but given that I have an abundance of time and the leash on my spending is tightening by the hour, I tried putting my feeble mind to the problem of price rise. My understanding could be inaccurate and my analysis, incorrect, but please bear with a pained soul and if possible, point out gaps in understanding.

As I see it, this round of inflation has been primarily fueled by food inflation and rising cost of fuels. As can be seen from Table 1 (source: Speech by Deepak Mohanty, Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India, delivered at the Bankers Club, Chennai on September 28, 2010), the average inflation (at wholesale prices and not the retail prices) for the primary articles over 05-06to 09-10 is 9.2% with the 10-11 inflation at 19.3%. The manufacturing inflation, on the other hand, is 4.1 and 5.6 respectively.

Table 1 : Annual WPI Inflation: New vis-à-vis Old Series
(per cent)
Items	Base Year	Weight	Average 2005-06 to      2009-10	2010-11*
WPI- All Commodities	2004-05	100.0	5.5	10.0
	1993-94	100.0	5.4	10.6
1. Primary Articles	2004-05	20.1	9.2	19.3
	1993-94	22.0	7.9	16.8
2. Fuel & Power	2004-05	14.9	5.9	13.5
	1993-94	14.2	4.2	13.6
3. Manufactured Products	2004-05	65.0	4.1	5.6
	1993-94	63.7	4.8	6.8
Memo items
a. Food Articles & Food Products	2004-05	24.3	8.1	14.2
	1993-94	26.9	7.7	10.2
b. Non-Food Manufactured Products	2004-05	55.0	3.7	5.5
	1993-94	52.2	4.2	7.2
* relates to the period April-August.

Source: http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_SpeechesView.aspx?id=527

The conclusions in the speech are interesting. Mr. Deepak Mohanty, in the conclusions, states, and I quote “…The high level of food prices is indeed a matter of concern as the prices of protein-based items, which have a higher share in the consumption basket, are showing larger increases. Moreover, there is continuing shortage of food items such as pulses and edible oils. If the supply response doesn’t improve, there is a risk that food price inflation could acquire a structural character.”

An article in Businessinsider even goes to the extent of estimating that inflation has cost Indian consumers $129 billion over the last 3 years (http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-06-28/markets/29982775_1_wholesale-price-index-food-inflation-price-trends#ixzz1e2UiX7uD).With the poorest 10% of Indian population spending close to 60% of their household budget on food, things have come to a head.

Source: This has been sourced from http://www.worldbank.org/foodcrisis/foodpricewatch/april_2011.html which in turn sourced it from DECDG. The data are from household surveys in the respective countries for various years.

The next contributing factor to inflation, as I see, is the high prices of fuels, be they petrol, diesel, LPG, or coal. Of course, energy resources are something that we unfortunately lack in our country. But that doesn’t mean that we are completely in the hands of others, there are ways to atleast insulate ourselves from shocks. Projects like Iran – Pakistan – India pipeline, which would have ensured supply of gas at consistent rate have been shelved bowing to foreign powers, nuclear power being promised as an alternative. And with the recent accident in Japan and the diluted notification of nuclear liability rules (http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2633545.ece), civil society has a legitimate reason to distrust nuclear power. Yet the government dallies …

And what makes the fuel pinch sting even more is the exchange rate policy RBI seems to follow. RBI has allowed market to determine the exchange rate for quite some time now. I do not fault the thought behind the policy, though I am not too sure of the theory behind the thought. But, as Sugata Ghosh lucidly explains in an article in ET (http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-11-14/news/30397740_1_dollar-index-rupee-dump-dollars), when RBI comes out with statements that states clearly that it doesn’t plan to intervene in the markets, it is akin to giving a license to the speculators to play havoc. And that is what seems to have happened. Many economists since seem to agree with RBI on in stance (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/rbi-concedes-it-may-be-difficult-to-shore-up-falling-rupee/articleshow/10774495.cms?curpg=1), but I am no economist, and I don’t (not that it matters anyway)

Let us see what are the other measures that the government/RBI has taken. RBI has deemed it fit to raise the rates as many as 13 times since March 2010. Now this is something that astounds me. As RBI itself agrees, the WPI inflation is primarily due to food inflation, the manufacturing inflation been almost same as it was in 93-94 (Refer Table 1). As I see it, people have to eat irrespective of the interest rates on lending and borrowing. I am not going to stop buying onion, tomato, pulses or oils, starve myself and deposit the money thus saved in an FD to take advantage of the high interests being offered. Yet RBI seems to think so. And I worry that this policy of rate hikes would increase the borrowing costs so much that it would impact the already slow industrial growth.

The current round of inflation is clearly out of RBI court, it’s the government that ought to respond with policy decisions and corrections; RBI is just making the best that it can of a bad situation. So let us see what the government has done. Large swathes of fertile land are still being acquired for F1 race tracks, car plants, mining mafias. There is no clarity on the land acquisition policy with ministers taking different stance depending on the day of the week, weather conditions and the number of snails crossing the road.  “Green Revolution – II”, a term that Hon. PM has been using for quite sometime now, still remains that, a catchy slogan. If farmers’ suicide is taken as a proxy, then an average of one farmer commits suicide every 32 minutes in India (www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/csd16/PF/.../farmers_relief.pdf). And the FM has the gall to scry and give us another date for easing of inflation. Would have been funny if it was not so painful…

As I said in the very beginning, I am no economist. I did not, by the way of inserting references, tables and graphs, intend to give this an appearance of an academic paper; this is just a plaintive cry of a curious mind. Maybe it’s time to study economics; as Joan Robinson rightly puts it, “The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.”

Have I made it large?

“Have I made it large?” ask a multitude of media-proclaimed biggies in a commercial for a leading beverage. And thanks to the blitzkrieg of advertising unleashed and the fact that I am at an age where such a questions uncomfortably confront you, this seems to be my last thought every night. Have I made it large? Am I a success? Or at least, am I on my way to success?

The lack of sleep affecting me, it is time to answer this question; to look at the truth in its face, unappealing though it may be. So, am I a success story? Or am I one of the “also-rans”? To answer this question, its time I got a definite view on success.

My understanding of success has been changing over time – evolving over time, I would like to say, but who am I to give an opinion on my own opinion. In the early days, success meant capturing the single spot – be it the rankers’ spot or prize in the multitude of competitions organized. Success was very clear those days – it was a race where a multitude of young minds (and bodies) strove to achieve a single prized spot; the winner succeeded, the rest were still on the road to success.

I outgrew my fascination for this numero uno when I realized that it was a result of an artificial scarcity created in order to inculcate competition as an intrinsic parameter to measure success; nothing stops them from creating more than one spot, I reasoned. Convinced about the soundness of my reasoning, I went about looking for another way to parameterize success.

I was a new entry into the corporate world and the swagger of the hefty pockets astounded me. That was when I convinced that money could be used as a good proxy for success. Afterall, wasn’t money the key driver of every decision in this world – be it war or peace, change or continuity? “Dhana moolam idam jagath” and there was no doubt about that. And thus convinced, I wholeheartedly became a part of the rat race.

Yet, there was a sense of foreboding, a disquiet in a corner of my conscience that troubled me. And subdued voice became a mighty roar when the multiple cans of worms – in the forms of Satyam, 2G, CWG, Radia tapes or the multitude others – opened up. I was bewildered at how people who were at the very pinnacle bit dust and became pariahs overnight. My definition was obviously flawed.

The proof of the pudding lies in eating, or so they say. An ingenious notion struck me, “Why don’t I collate the names of all whom I consider successful and order them based on their success. I can look upon the factors influencing this order and then parameterize success – let me take a statistical/modeling approach to life”. Quickly grabbing a paper I made a list; and to make sure it was an unbiased sample, I put in personalities from all fields and walks of life. Only to realize that I had moved from a puddle to a quagmire. Who is more successful – Gandhi, Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Steve Jobs or Mother Teresa? Each has influenced a large section of population, put up new ideas, altered the course of history and in short, impacted all our lives in many ways unmanifested as yet.

So here I am, my mind turning my life into a series of conundrums that it creates for its pleasure and subsequently solves, to its great pleasure. Yet, I wonder, do we as a society, have an unhealthy obsession to success? Maybe, success is over-rated. Maybe, it was a myth created when ideas of civilization took shape, to ensure that people get so engrossed in the pursuit of this "will-o-wisp” that they donot have time to challenge the ideas. Maybe, its time to take another look and redefine the objective of life. Or maybe, I am losing my bonkers. Maybe …..

Then and Now

Then, I needed answers to my questions; now, I need justifications for my assumptions.

Then, questions were to satisfy my curiosity; now, the questions are to satisfy my vanity.

Then, doing the work was what mattered; now, being seen doing the work is what matters. 

Then, a bad day could still end with good sleep; now, a bad day means no sleep. 

Then, a vacation meant two months of lazing; now, vacation means 4 days of frenetic blur.

Then, I was human; now, I am a zombie.

Did I change – Yes, but did I grow – I am not sure. Five years is not a great amount of time, but why is it I feel old already?