Uniform Civil Code

Lately, I've been giving a lot of thought to the Uniform Civil Code of India. And don't get me wrong here - I am not referring to the other Uniform Civil Code of India, which has already been flogged to death in Barkha Dutt's panel-discussions over the past few decades. No sir, here I allude to the Uniform Civil Code of India, which is an Indian Code, of Uniforms, imposed on the Civilians of the country (hence the name, duh).

I forget the exact text, but the general consensual interpretation of the code seems to be that no civilian, who has any notion of self-worth of any kind, will be permitted to carry himself gracefully in human society, and will be encumbered to that end, by various government-controlled institutions that he/she is associated with, with one or more (preferably more) accessories scientifically designed to make him/her resemble a cross between an okapi and a budgeriger. For all the lingually-challenged folk (like my all my blood-relatives), Exhibit A on your right.

It seems that Delhi Public School has taken the notion of "standing out in the crowd" to extremes. With a uniform like this, our children are not just going to stand out in a crowd, they're going to stand out in the universe; in fact, given a choice, I bet most of them would beg to stand outside it!

But what is the disagreement of a few hundred thousand children against the esteemed opinion of the handful of specialists hired specifically for the job of dress-code standardization? How would a kid's underdeveloped brain even begin to comprehend the immense service he renders to all his fellow-beings he comes in contact with, howsoever remotely, and the profound impact he has on their otherwise drab lives? For example, here is a case of a suicidal farmer struggling to make ends meet for his family, who, when he saw this schoolgoer in his lurid costume, had a turnaround of intent, as he surely must have thought, "There is greater grief in the world than mine". Or the one about the banker, who would drive himself to the point of a nervous breakdown everyday, keeping tabs on the wildly oscillating fortunes of his investments. But the sight of his neighbour's 5-year old daughter step gingerly into her hired rickshaw, all smothered in hideous shades of pink and beige, would, to use video-gaming parlance, 'frag' his self-pity, "At least I'm not her". In fact, recent statistics show a steady rise of "Why Me?" Tshirts amongst the age-group of 2-25.

Oh, and just in case you started to disconnect from this stream of thought thinking it is not applicable to you, hang on! for things are going to change for you, too. The UPPCL (Power Corporation of UP, for the uninitiated) recently announced an equally, if not more, appalling code of humiliation for all its employees. Photographs, unfortunately, are not available, as the union has threatened to dismember anyone who brings a camera or some such device within a 15-mile radius of the Shakti Bhawan in Lucknow. Suffice to say that, were you to chance by Hazratganj some day, and encounter an army of people, cutting across ages, gender and financial strata, all trussed-up in what can only be described as Ramu blue shirts (apologies to the ladies; I know you'd prefer a more culinary adjective along the lines of apple green/ peach/ eggshell, but this is the closest I could come to the kitchen; Ramu was my permanent fixture in the said part of the house for 20 years), you'd be better advised keeping your snide comments about 'an NCC cadet-force who forgot their caps' to yourself, as this would be the same union everyone was warned about. Of course, what this has done is cure the entire workforce in UPPCL of their Monday blues!!

Now, only if someone could come up with a phrase about the peacock colours that my son refuses to be seen with.

First rundown with corporate accounting

After about half-a-week of having us shadow-box with what was to come, the faculty of IIML finally deemed the third batch of IPMX ready for a spar with the real thing. And what an induction it turned out to be! The professor drew first blood by pulling-out an entire balance-sheet, no less, to introduce the subject of Finance & Accounting, when the 40-odd strong class was predominated by IT professionals, that poor breed of engineers whose only exposure to finance is the paycheck they unquestioningly accept every month, never daring to doubt the wisdom of their bespectacled staff in Compensation. Why, most of us would have a hard time predicting how much they'd get as salary next month, given that the company had declared to pay out variable-incentives at 120%, owing to spectacular performance last quarter, when the operating-margin zoomed more than 7% over expectations.

While most of the class was still wrapping its collective head around terms like EVA, something which would only have meant a stirring Hollywood performance by Madonna a few years back, some of the smarter ones had long since given up on decoding the acronym and sought shelter in the comfort of a 10-variable equation that would be used to calculate the EVA, and were testing their mathematical might against it. Unfortunately, without any significant understanding of the parameters of the equation, they were having a tough time substituting the familiar Greek letters with numbers.

Amongst all the mayhem, the relative minority, the only two brave souls with any real financial background, decided to show off by respectively announcing that the company in question had had Rs. 200 crore blocked in late customer-payments and that it had decided to ploughback Rs. 80 crore as investment for next year. The result of my equation at that time read 3.1417 % (heaven knows percent of what), and short of conniving with the gods or selling my soul to the devil for the answer, I couldn't think of any way by which to arrive at such sacred round-numbers (BTW, I've now earned an appt. with one Mr. Satan, Hellfire St, Down Under, at "any preferable time in the next 50 years").

The professor, meanwhile, was "pleasantly surprised" at the skill of the 'batch', and proceeded to go deeper into theory than he originally intended, conveniently forgetting the case-study most of the class had stayed-up all of last night to prepare for. Eventually, bleary-eyed from the exertions of last night (no pun intended) and drained of energy after having sat through 3 hours of haunch-ache and NPVs and NOPATs (how apt, considering there were no pats for anyone), we emerged from class, none the wiser about balance-sheets and cash-flow statements, but certainly very inclined to make a choice between bringing a pillow to next class or enrolling in the Iyer & Tripathi Mysteries of Accounting Explained over Lunch classes.