Blessings by COVID-19: A Brighter Side of The Pandemic

Ain't it strange? Ain't it unusual to title the blog post like this? I mean in perspective of year 2020? In the perspective of the pandemic? No, it is not!

The entire world, the entire humanity is struggling against this pandemic, and here I am saying that the first of its kind disease is a blessing? Have I lost my senses, you might ask. And my answer is, "No, I am all in my sense. And I have titled this blog post knowingly." Now let me be little verbose to tell you why I say this. 

In the beginning of this year, India as a country had started getting the feel of what the Corona Virus is and what havoc it could cause. Yet we were ignorant about it thinking it won't hit our doorsteps as there are many things in Indian Culture that generally keep our immunity levels high. Yes that is true and that is the reason why the mortality rate due to COVID is so less in India, I feel. However, there were things related to personal discipline which caused the spread of the disease so much, I feel. But I am not here to talk about that, talk about the the dark side of the pandemic. Many others are taking care of that. I am going to talk about the bright side. 

Since I am from the building construction industry, let me start with an example related to that. To construct a full fledged multi specialty kind of hospital, it takes about two years and these two years do not include the time required to prepare its architectural and engineering designs. However, this year we saw COVID centers being constructed and being operational in matter of a few weeks. The engineers and architects were forced to think differently as it was required to have many additional COVID specific treatment centers looking at the spread of the disease like a jungle fire! Many different construction methods were adopted which were never thought of till mid 2019. Can't these methods be used in the future for construction of buildings to save time and many other resources? Is that not a blessing in disguise?

 

India and the entire world was under lockdown, we all experienced it. And it had it's wrath on the small and medium businesses, the way it had, we saw. But I know many instances that loss of job due to lockdown made people think differently and become entrepreneurs, become self employed. Some of my friends who are in IT and engineering field started selling vegetables. Some other honed their culinary skills and started preparing and selling small ready to eat food items. And some others started some different businesses. Now, after unlock, though their jobs are restored, people are earning less salary than usual. However their monthly household expenses are either at the level they were in early 2020 or have increased due to general price hikes! And these entrepreneurial skills are coming handy to them to increase their income. This is blessing in disguise that ordinary people started thinking differently to bridge the gap between their income reduced due to salary cut and increased expenses. 

 

I know one shop owner near my house who is a franchise of a popular bakery brand in Pune and till early this year he was selling only their products and eggs to some extent. At the onset of the lockdown he realised that people cannot go to shops and super stores far away from their homes to buy daily essentials. As such he started selling milk and milk products of different popular brands, other sundry things like wafers, noodles, chocolates along with vegetables. He purchased two large capacity deep freezers to store these items. Here he understood and recognised the need of the time and many daily needs of the people in our locality were available with him from April this year and if anything is not available, he makes sure that it is there the next day! He was accepting only cash payments till lockdown but he understood the importance of being 'touch free' and started accepting payments over UPI by letting his customers scan a QR code displayed in the shop to make payments. Isn't this different way of thinking by this shop owner a blessing in disguise for his customers? Now, people in our locality are so accustomed with this shop that, even in the unlock days, they are depending on his for such products.

Many corporate companies in India were kind of against work from home culture thinking it would reduce productivity and employees also were against it as they thought theirs bosses would expect them to be available on call 24x7 as they will be working from the comfort of their homes. Yes, to some extents it is true. However, work from home became a reality in India due to the fact that one cannot commute for work and yet the business has to run! Not to mention, due to the norms of safe physical distance number of work stations in a company's office also must have been reduced to half, work area or habitable area of the office being the same! Now for those who used to drive their own vehicle to their workplace, they saved a lot of money they otherwise would have spent on fuel. Those who commuted to work using public transport, they saved themselves from getting crushed in the rush of trains and buses. Now, work from home is going to be a prevalent thing and businesses have started adopting themselves for it. 

 

Here I would like to quote example of my cousin who owns a famous furniture shop in town side of Pune. Little over a month ago, I had been to his shop to buy a table and chair for my office. He shared an interesting piece of information. He said that many people came to his shop to buy some office type furniture in their homes as their employer companies had sanctioned a considerable amount per employee to buy such furniture and set up broadband internet at their homes. Thus, those employees did not have to shell out a small fortune from their bank accounts to buy the furniture and the employers could get proper work from their employees. This again is a blessing in disguise that the culture of work from home is growing in India which will save lot of fuel and efforts of employees and employers and yet their businesses will function effortlessly and even more effectively. Isn't it?

I also know a situation where a businessman unfortunately passed away due to COVID and his better half, a house wife till that point of time and mother of a budding engineer, took up the challenge to run the very same business. She is so geared up that she went out to look for some one from the same profession who would teach her basic skills and give her knowledge required to understand and run that particular business. Her husband was the only bread winner for their family and he being not around would have caused a havoc on the family. But she did not loose it. She gathered all the courage required and is now on her path to run the very same business, under guidance of the gentleman who is helping her learn the nuances of the business. That particular type of business requires support from many ancillary enterprises. I also know some other professionals who own and run such similar ancillaries, who are helping this lady in the ways and means they can! Here I must mention that she was not at all involved in the daily chores of that business neither her educational background is what is required for being in that profession. However, it is sheer will power that is driving her to run that business. She goes to their office everyday and in the evenings she is learning that skill and acquiring the required knowledge from that gentleman via online classes. I will not call this as blessing in disguise but it most certainly is a brighter side which I must mention. My good wishes with her and with the gentleman who is guiding her the way he can.

 

By grace of The God and because of the trust my clients have on me and my way of fulfilling their requirements, I got some repeat business from the same clients. I also have to think differently! So I started a Facebook Page of Apte Consultants. There in I wrote a post that I require CAD experts to prepare drawings and I got many responses from there. Two among those were my old colleagues and now they are working for me. One of them is some 200 km away from me and the other is more than 400 km away! Now this distance itself is a blessing in disguise that we are lot away from each other than the recommended norms of the safe distance, yet the internet has brought us closer and is helping us work like we used to work a few years ago.

These are some examples I could think of which to make my point that this pandemic can be also be a blessing in disguise. The only thing required is thinking different, thinking in the way you never otherwise would have. 

 

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going! Cliched, isn't it? It most certainly is, bit at the same time it is the need of the time!

 
I hereby end this blog post with a hope that people will put on their thinking shoes and come up with some brilliant ideas to survive these testing times, and emerge victorious!

 

 

06/12/2020

Pune

Day Three hundred and Forty First

Page Three hundred and Forty First

 

 

 

 

 

Bulls and Bears: the rise and the fall of the Big Bull

You heard some one say, "जेब मे मनी हो ना, तो कुंडली मे शनी होने से कुछ फरक नही पडता, ये मेरी अस्ट्रॉलॉजी है|"  or " रिस्क है तो इष्क है|" or "सब के पॉकेट रॉकेट बन गये है|" or "सब मुझे अमिताभ बच्चन कहते है पर मै वो हू नही!" or may be, "मेहता ना राज मा, मार्केट मजा मा|", didn't you? I bet you did! Yes, these are some of the famous one liners said by the lead character from the popular web series Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story streaming on Sony Liv from 09/10/2020.

Pratik Gandhi, a famous young actor from the Gujrati theatre and movies has perfectly portrayed the character of the Big Bull of Dalal Street, Harshad Mehta. The words, 'he has lived the character' will be an understatement of his performance in this web series. While making Harshad Mehta come alive in screens of your TV, Pratik must have gone through lot of preparation and as he has rightly mentioned in online interviews, he has really un-learned everything keeping his acting as natural and being as neutral as possible. Being an Engineer by education and profession, the jargon of finance and stock market must have been a bit difficult for Pratik and thus, probably it would have been easy for him just to make his dialogues by heart and say them while shooting. But this might not have been as real as it is seen in the web series. The mannerisms, the way of behavior, the way of talking (not the way of dialogue delivery) all has been so perfect that it seems to be kind of muscle memory, like he is born with that attitude. A perfect example of 'getting under the skin of the character.' At least I cannot imagine any other actor in his place.

For me, Pratik Gandhi has overwhelmed the entire web series of ten episodes. But this does not mean that the performance of Shreya Dhanwanthary as Sucheta Dalal is something less than that of Pratik. Padmashri Sucheta Dalal was the journalist of The Times of India, who busted the scam, who actually coined the word scam for some big, well, really big financial irregularities in any transactions. This web series is based on the book "The Scam, Who Won, Who Lost, Who Got Away" written by Sucheta along with her husband Debashish Basu. Talking about the portrayal of Sucheta Dalal by Shreya, again an Engineering graduate, she too has nailed it! Her facial expressions are more effective than her dialogue delivery, I feel. This can be well seen in the very first episode when one Mr. Sharad Bellari, an employee of SBI turns up at the office of The Times of India to tell about the alleged financial irregularity, a घोटाला worth ₹500 Crore or more, happening in SBI. Sharib Hashmi has effectively played this small role the informer. The graph of Shreya's acting has been going up in this web series right from this very first scene! Another example of Shreya's perfect body language is the incidence of Pherwani's death. Shreya has perfectly shown the mental trauma Sucheta must have gone through due to that and probably blaming her article and hence herself for the death of Pherwani. 

Talking about actors, Rajat Kapoor had exhibited the sleuth of K Madhavan, his stature, the urge to solve the case and punish the guilty, in a way that suits the attitude of then CBI Joint Director K. Madhavan, the officer who had investigated many other cases of national importance before probing the securities scam that made the stock market dive. I was fan of Rajat's acting ever since I saw him in Dil Chahta Hai as Mahesh Uncle. I liked it when Madhavan goes to the residence of Pherwani for interrogation and asks him to come to CBI office with him. The tactics of pressuring the suspect by asking him to climb up stairs for 5 floors to reach the interrogation room was nicely depicted by Rajat. But at the same time he lets Khamni to answer his questions in the comfort of Khemani's Cabin. This scam was the first financial scam probed by CBI, as mentioned in the series. As such the investigating team lead by Madhavan must have had tough time understanding the financial jargon making their life little difficult and this has been very well shown in many scenes related to the investigation and Rajat has perfectly shown his frustration due to this difficulty. He had been cool and yet seemed dangerous in the scenes with SBI staff and with Harshad. Especially when he breaks the handset of cordless phone while disallowing Harshad from making any phone calls!

Next in my list is actor Hemant Kher who played Harshad's younger brother Ashwin. Harshad Mehta had three brothers: Ashwin, Hitesh and Sudhir. However the makers of the series have retained only one brother in the series and that is Ashwin, since probably he had played pivotal role in Harshad's company Grow More. Along with that, he had warned Harshad of possible threats in many transactions which could lead them in trouble. In many scenes Hemant has proved that no one else could have done that role better than him. In the sequence when Ashwin tells Harshad that their bank accounts are sealed, Hemant's performance was very real! To me, portrayal of Ashwin Mehta as depicted by actor Hemant Kher is like Harshad's inner voice warning Harshad to stop being bullish.

And the list of the actors goes on! There are many more actors who have made this series look real. If I keep talking about all of them, this blog post will be little too long!! Actually there is no supporting cast, all characters are important. Since this series is based on real life incidences, and many of the persons are still alive and active in their respective professions, it was wise to retain the original names. However, the names of some characters are different than the real personalities, for some reasons, which are not revealed.

The direction of the series has taken it to far higher levels and actually had created bench marks. Director Hansal Mehta has again proved that he is a perfect grip on the making movies and TV shows related to real life characters, be it Omerta, be it Bose: Dead/Alive and my favourite The Accidental Prime Minister. He has perfectly extracted the characters out of all the actors! Also, his vision in creating the era of 1980s and 1990s and showcase Mumbai of those times from his lens in noteworthy. First and foremost, it was the main task of showing the the skyline of Mumbai to look like that in 80s and 90s. Hence the choice of outdoor locations in Mumbai was most important and there is no chance to point out mistakes like some high rise buildings or may be mobile towers being visible in any frame, including those captured by drone cameras. The collection of cars owned by Harshad including the famous Lexus is accurate to the times of the story. Early 90s was the time when landline phones with a cordless handset was a reality, which is nicely captured by Hansal. I wonder from where the directorial team could obtain so many CRT TVs in the era of flat panel LED TVs and those bulky computer monitors, and typewriters? The highlight of the direction, I feel, is the actor playing famous cartoonist Late R. K. Lakshman walking next to the sign of The Common Man in the office of The Times of India as Sharad Bellari enters the office of TOI.

The ring of the stock market where actual trading happens is shown in many episodes and it is shown to have witnessed Harshad's progress, and it is perfectly captured by change in the attire of Harshad from normal shirt and trousers to a suite, which also shows the eventual gain of confidence by Harshad, again, flawlessly depicted by Pratik. The display board stating the prices of all the listed shares is shown to be a blackboard while in 80s and then changed to digital signage in the 90s. Each episode ends with a Hindi movie song which was popular in those times and of course with its lyrics suitable to the main events in that episode. I liked this part very much. I don't have much of knowledge as to how the share market functions. But it is said to have sentiments, emotions. And those sentiments, those emotions in the trading ring are well captured including the sign language used by the traders and then during the crash of market on 18th March 1982, as shown in the series.

There may many other individuals like me who do not know how share market works. However this web series has simplified the technicalities for such viewers who do not understand the nuances of how the Sensex goes up and down, what decides the prices of shares of a company, what is insider trading and many more things. And that is one major success of the series, I feel. 

The epitome of the series is the last scene of the 9th episode which showcases the famous press conference in January 1993. Suggestive usage of the original footage from that press conference has made that sequence really unforgettable!

While I write about this web series, I can be as verbose as I wish, so big is this mini series! During last 6 7 months I have watched many web serials and this one is a class apart! No guns, no action and minimum use of slang, I feel, these three things will take this series to achieve even higher success. 

Also, I do not generally mention the names of the real persons (living or dead) in my blogs. But this series is so compelling that I had to write those names to make this viewer review of this series, look real. I feel this series is just story telling of what had happened in the BSE in those years and it does not glorify whatever Harshad Mehta had done. It would not encourage anyone else follow the same foot steps. Not to mention, the functioning of the BSE must have changed a lot in last 28 years and there must be some stricter rules and regulations now, I am not too sure. As I said I do not know much about how the stock market functions. This blog post is just about what I felt after watching the show and does not intend to defame any persons, living or dead, and/or any institutions, the names of which have appeared in this blog post. Neither this blog post intends to defame any Government institutions and authorities.

I herewith stop this Lekhanacha Udyog लेखनाचा उद्योग with a wish that we the common viewers of TV shows and movies would get to watch such real contents based on the real life stories more often and evolve as more mature audience.

-Chetan Arvind Apte

31/10/2020

Pune

Day Three Hundred and Fifth

Page Three Hundred and Fifth