Friendship the old way

I did a very strange thing today. I posted a message to a friend of mine, on his wall. He will never read it. He had died on the Diwali day.

And after I had joined a group of his friends, in the virtual world, to pen a condolence message, in the only place I could, on his facebook page, knowing fully well that it will probably, never be read by any of his family members, I felt very uneasy. It made me shiver

We had stayed in the same city, worked in the same company, spoke the same language, ate the same food, yet hardly found time to meet or speak to each other. Today he is more.

There was a time, not very long ago, when a telephone at home was a luxury for many. Yet we used to queue up at the nearest STD booth to make a call or book a trunk call to speak to our near and dear ones, at prohibit cost.

Today when it is so easy to make a call, when almost every member of a family has one or more phones, we hardly talk to family and friends. We don’t write letters but sent out short messages which do not reflect any of our emotions. On rare occasions when friends come together, everybody spent more time on their phones than talking to each other. Two college students, sitting next to each other in a bus seat, do not talk to each other but communicate through sms. So, has technology brought us closer or driven us further apart?!

In this fast urban lifestyle and in this mad scramble for success and money we have lost many of the small joys of our lives. The meeting of friends, the long hours of adda, the laughter, the joy of eating together, being part of each other’s joys and sorrows…..are only dreams today.

But, however much the world may change, however we may progress, nothing can substitute for the joy of seeing our loved ones. The warmth of that hug, the tinkle of their laughter. The comfort of knowledge that there is always someone to wipes your tears and lend a caring shoulder to rest on.

So, everytime you think of sending a sms to a friend or write a facebook post, spare a thought. Pickup the phone and speak to him /her, or better still drop in and give him / her a hug; because you never know, it could be the last time you would be doing that.

What’s in store for global banking

Banking around the world may now be passing through a major cyclical correction, but McKinsey research suggests that the industry’s revenues and profits will double by 2016.

With the midsummer credit crunch taking its toll, 2007 turned into a bleak year for the world’s big financial institutions, and 2008 may not be much better. As executives respond to the immediate pressures, however, they should maintain a clear perspective on the long-term outlook, which in our view is considerably brighter. Despite the current correction, we believe that during the next ten years the growth rate of the global banking industry will exceed that of GDP. Driven by powerful basic trends, such as demographics and the math of wealth accumulation, the industry will likely more than double its revenues and profits over the period.

Just as strikingly, McKinsey research also indicates that the industry’s patterns of growth will be diverse and uneven. Our comprehensive analysis of data since 2000 suggests that banking is one of the global economy’s few large industries that isn’t rapidly converging around a single structure or following the same market dynamics everywhere. Indeed, banking’s revenue performance has varied sharply and unexpectedly within regions, countries, subsectors, and product groups—and will continue to do so.

More than in other major industries, it appears, long-term success in banking hangs on being in the right place at the right time. Over the last ten years, for example, 88 percent of the growth in the revenues of Europe’s 20 largest banks was attributable to market momentum—in other words, competing in or entering territories and market segments that enriched everybody. Moreover, timing is critical. Buying into retail-banking markets across Asia in 2000 would have destroyed value over the next four years, as falling stock market multiples more than offset revenue growth. Buying into them in 2004, however, would have been richly rewarding.

In the text and exhibits that follow, we explore the global banking industry’s rich mosaic and highlight some of the core characteristics identified by our research. Our conclusions offer bank strategists and other senior executives a more detailed understanding of the size and composition of different banking markets, as well as insights into future profit trends.

Big and getting bigger

The industry with the largest profits . . .

In 2000, the global banking industry’s future looked decidedly downbeat: the Internet was widely expected to compress margins, thus disintermediating or even commoditizing many parts of the business. Banks mostly missed out on the stock market upturn that followed the dot-com debacle, though their empty M&A pipelines were partly to blame.

In retrospect, the gloom proved unwarranted. Global after-tax profits for banks soared to a historic high: from $372 billion in 2000 to $788 billion in 2006, or $672 billion in constant dollars. Along the way, banking became the industry with the highest absolute level of profits (Exhibit 1). In fact, those of US banks alone—$328 billion in 2006—were larger than the combined profits of the retailing, pharmaceutical, and automotive industries around the world. What’s more, in that year the banking industry’s profits per employee were estimated to be 26 times higher than the average of all other industries, and its $2.8 trillion in revenues equaled 6 percent of the global GDP.

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. . . is set to double its revenues and profits by 2016

The recent stellar performance of the banking industry has, however, proved unsustainable in the short term—not surprising, given its cyclical nature. Corrections inevitably follow peaks, as we have seen from the events of Black Monday (1987) and the dot-com debacle (2001). That appears to be happening now, and the most recent estimates put the profit impact in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

While short-term movements are highly uncertain, the underlying long-term trends, we believe, are encouraging. The industry’s upward path should resume in due course thanks to demographic trends, wealth accumulation patterns, financial innovation, the rapid development of energy markets, and globalization.

Exhibit 2 shows that whatever happens in the next one or two years, global banking profits, as a proportion of total corporate profits, will probably remain at or above their historical high on a ten-year view. Furthermore, our base-case scenario indicates that global banking revenues will grow, on average, by a healthy 7.5 percent a year from 2006 to 2016, compared with an average of 8.0 percent a year from 2000 to 2006 (and 12.6 percent from 2002 to 2006). Although our ten-year projections show annual growth rates for revenues slowing somewhat, they still exceed current forecasts for GDP growth by more than one-half of a percentage point a year over the period. Consequently, we expect the industry to generate $5.7 trillion in revenues and $1.8 trillion in after-tax profits by 2016—more than twice the levels at the end of 2006.

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Looking ahead, we project that emerging markets will contribute roughly half of the absolute growth in new banking revenues from 2006 to 2016, while North America and Western Europe will account for 25 and 20 percent, respectively. Russia, we believe, will continue to be one of the fastest-growing large markets in the next few years, and China will maintain its recent accelerated growth rates. In the next tier, certain other Asian countries, especially India, will overtake the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

In the world as a whole, we expect the growth rates of retail assets and credits to converge as a result of the savings of the emerging middle classes of Asia, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe. Wholesale banking will probably undergo some restructuring in the next ten years, with investment banking, as well as sales and trading and securities services, providing a larger relative share of the revenues.

Diverse and likely to remain so

The growth of products and countries

Our analysis of the historical data highlights the striking diversity of banking around the world—something we expect to continue for the foreseeable future. Consider the growth patterns of specific countries. We find that revenues in developed ones not only accounted for the bulk of all banking revenues in absolute terms from 2000 to 2006 but also, excluding Japan, grew significantly faster than revenues in the world as a whole, in part thanks to the appreciating euro (Exhibit 3). The “BRIC” countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) were responsible for only 14 percent of the absolute global revenue growth in the six years to 2006, notwithstanding the drumbeat of expectations about growth in emerging markets during that period.

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A look at growth rates presents a mixed picture, since Ireland, Russia, and Thailand posted some of the strongest results among individual countries. Interestingly, we found that from 2000 to 2006, banking revenues in Greece grew more rapidly than those in China; India was outpaced by Australia, and Latin America by the United States. At the same time, several markets—including Argentina (at –60 percent), Taiwan, and Turkey—suffered an absolute overall decline in revenues.

Growth also varied markedly by product category. In retail banking, for example, mortgages and asset management delivered double-digit growth from 2000 to 2006 in the world as a whole, while retail brokerage and deposits increased more slowly than inflation did.

Business mix

The mix of banking business in countries and regions varied significantly, we found, even among those at similar levels of economic development (Exhibit 4). On the one hand, retail banking represented a steady 60 to 70 percent of all revenues in most markets around the world from 2000 to 2006, but wholesale banking accounted for at least half of the industry’s revenues in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Russia, and South Africa. On the other hand, Canada, Egypt, Japan, Pakistan, and South Korea rank among the world’s most retail-driven markets.

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Further, the mix of businesses within retail banking also varied widely. In the United States, almost two-thirds of retail revenues in 2006 came from mortgages and consumer finance—the two elements of personal financial liabilities—though this will probably change after the crisis of mid-2007. In Western Europe, such products generally accounted for a little over one-third of all revenues. The differences among emerging markets are also noteworthy: Brazil and Ukraine seem to rely on retail lending more than the United States does, while many Asian countries tend to follow the pattern of Western Europe. To take one product, in 2006 the share of credit cards in total retail revenues ranged from 23 percent in Turkey to just over half a percent in Germany; the global average was 7 percent.

Wholesale banking is similarly diverse. In 2006, only 30 percent of US wholesale-banking revenues came from lending to and deposits from large corporations and small and midsize enterprises, 47 percent from corporate banking as a whole. In the United States, investment banking, asset management, and related revenues towered over everything else. In most other countries, however, corporate banking accounted for at least half of all revenue pools in wholesale banking—91 percent in Japan, 88 percent in Turkey, and 74 percent in Latin America, for example. Notably, these ratios have stayed remarkably constant over the past six years.

Growth drivers

Banking may be a leveraged bet on the economy, but the extent of the leverage and the part of the economy on which it is focused vary significantly (Exhibit 5). In addition to economic cycles, banking is a play on sociodemographic patterns and on trends in financial accumulation, both often influenced in turn by culture and government regulation. As became painfully apparent during the summer of 2007, for example, a big jump in household borrowing was largely responsible for the growth of US retail-banking revenues from 2000 to 2006—indeed, it explains 70 percent of the increase.

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In Germany, however, household borrowing contributed only 4.7 percent of the total growth of retail revenues from 2000 to 2006; the rest came mainly from new savings and from returns on existing savings. Germany’s banking revenues increased by 4.9 percent in US dollar terms. As in most other continental European countries, a strong currency was a key driver.

The impact of demographic and socioeconomic forces was far greater elsewhere. Take India, where population trends and rising salaries played almost as big a part in the growth of retail-banking revenues as savings and lending did. Together, all four drivers more than offset a $4.4 billion decline in deposit margins from 2000 to 2006.

Capital market multiples

Exhibit 6 calls to mind the fact that the annual growth of a bank’s investment value is its after-tax profit increase adjusted for changes in market multiples. Regional multiples, which often change relative to one another in response to investor sentiment, may add to or detract from an individual institution’s underlying performance.

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Such considerations will be significant when banks return in earnest to M&A, as we believe they will. Our research suggests that the growth in banking revenues and profits expected during the next ten years should create $12 trillion in new market capitalization—a huge opportunity for players around the world.

Over the next five years, we expect a new wave of consolidation to speed the emergence of “superbanks,” with more than $500 billion in market capitalization. Today, however, global banking is the least concentrated large industry; the top 20 banks account for less than 40 percent of its global market cap, compared with an average of 67 percent in other key industries. Even the current top European and US banks aren’t guaranteed to achieve superbank status with their existing portfolios.

In our view, the winners will outshine their competitors by developing better insights into the diversity among markets and the nature of the trade-offs between risks and returns. A superior understanding of the fundamentals that drive value should help these banks exploit short-term cyclicality to their long-term advantage.

source : Mckinsey Quaterly

Pune's Public transport woes

The Problems faced by citizens in Pune -
1. High Pollution
2. Poor Public Transport.
3. Poor connectivity
4. Buses poorly maintained.
5. Autos refuses to take passengers late at night and for short distance. Buses do not stop at all stops.
6. Excess congestion due to large number of Vehicle on road
7. Traffic rules not implemented strongly.


suggested Solutions :


1.There should be immediate effort to shift all buses and autos to CNG
2. Introduce CNG taxis like Mumbai
3. Allow private players to ply CNG buses - follow the Kolkata model. This will ensure more routes being served, more buses, better customer service and more bus hubs, so less congestion
4. Immediate effort to start Delhi like extensive metro connectivity. This will encourage people to use their bixes and cars less.
5. Start BRTS AC buses.


If citizens are provided better quality of public transport, better and quiker connectivity 24x7. It will to bring down the pollution and congestion and happier citizen. Pune is now far behind. Urgent action is required.

BPL line of Rs 32

The government recently in an affidavit to the Supreme Court of India cited ` 32 per head per day as BPL (below poverty line) indicator. Ie.  If a person spends `33 in a day, he would not be entitled to the BPL benefits.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the chairman of the planning commission, in a press conference, tried to assuage the concern of the nation on this absurd figure. He along with Jairam Ramesh, union minister for rural development, clarified that the figure of `32 will not affect any policy decision. They also said that, while arriving at the figure, it was assumed that the health and education cost will be borne by the state and `32 was for expenses other than the cost of education and health.

This brings me to an actual case study, reported by The Times of India (TOI). It was a case of cycle rickshaw driver, who is from Bihar, and runs his rickshaw in Delhi. This gentleman, lets call him Neeraj Sangal, manages two meals a day and sleeps in the pavement. His meal consists of 8 rotis and a plate of sabzi. His family of wife and three children, stays in his village in Bihar. At the cost of `2/ roti and `15 for a plate of sabzi, one meal costs him `31, so two meal would be `62.

So if we consider the basic needs of Roti, Kapra and Makaan, and not including health and education, Mr Neeraj Sangal’s per day requirement, for only food, is almost double the government’s BPL limit. So Mr Neeraj Sangal is not “sufficiently” poor, to get a BPL ration card.

God save the country………..!!

my niece's schedule

My niece is up in arms. Her morning schedule has been upset. The weather Gods have failed her again.


Unlike me, she has a very organised and tight schedule. On top of that she was not able to find her favourite Blackberry and Android phones. She has more use of them than us, regular users.


She is an early riser. Not that she goes to bed early, she too busy for that. Her morning starts with stroll in the para (neighborhood) with grandpa, it is followed by breakfast with her mom and then another scrutiny of the neighbourhood. Then she has to see off her parents to the door as they leave for office.


Once these mundane morning chores are done, she spends some time with mobiles and such assorted gizmos. No, she has no time for the idiot box and see no reason why anybody else should have either. By now she is joined by her elder sister and brother, who have returned from school, and then together they move on to meet her dida (grandma) next door. Who has to ensure that some quality time is set aside for her ladyship. Any stupid questions like how is she, where is she going, what is she doing etc. is treated with a diplomatic smile and giggle. Then it is already time for lunch and her afternoon siesta.


The evenings are no less busy. It is spend in PR exercise. Evening walk with grandpa and meeting neighbors, visiting houses of assorted didas, dadas and didis. Followed by a late dinner, when she finally gets some time.


You can't possibily expect a busier schedule for a eight months old.

So I went to Pakistan

So I went to Pakistan last month and came back with a glow inside – am  sure you can still see it outside and all around me too. Never in my life have I felt so cherished and cared for. Each time one  said "yes" to `Aap India se aaye hain?" it simply meant the rolling of  the red carpet – everywhere I went and from everyone I met.

It began right from the time I set foot into the PIA aircraft on the  flight to Karachi and surrendered myself to the caring ministrations of  this beautiful stewardess who looked like Saira Bano in her hey day, to  the ego boosting query from the chief purser on my return flight a week  later, "well young lady, a last cup of black tea before we land? The "young lady" (it's at least 30 yrs since I could have technically  got away being called "young lady") was more welcome than the cuppa but  what touched me even more was the fact that he had noted that I had asked only for black tea throughout the flight. PIA scores for sure.

 Landing and walking into Karachi Airport evokes the same hopeful and at the same time hopeless query that a visitor from Bombay to any airport  in the world has been asking for years, "Oh why cannot the airport in Bombay be like this?" Both Karachi and Lahore airports are esthetically and functionally admirable and traveler friendly. Willing, helpful hands saw to it that  not even once did I have to lug the luggage (is that why we call luggage luggage? Because we lug it along?) on to the X ray machines. Whatever trepidation one might have had at the prospect of an unfriendly or severe Immigration officer, fast melted away. The officer on duty at the desk took one look at the Indian Passport and beamed at me. While  asking me to fill the Police / Security Registration form he must have  seen the nervousness flit across my face. In the next second he had leaned over the counter, taken the form and my Passport from my (slightly) trembling hands (I am a frequent but very nervous traveler especially when it comes to Immigration counters) and actually filled in the whole form. Not even wincing once at the twenty two alphabets my full name has. With his patiently given advice on what I had to do to register with the Police in the city and his "aap hamari mehman hain" ringing in my ears I walked out into the sunny warmth of Karachi . It felt like home, like Bombay .

The sky and the sun and the wind were the same that I had left behind just a couple of hours ago. It was the same Arabian Sea's moist embrace I felt on my bare arms and face. Delhi or Chennai needs  more adjusting to was my first conscious thought. With grateful relief I saw my name on the hotel placard and after that by now familiar to the frequent business travelers sensation – the instant acknowledgement of two pairs of eyes searching ,questioning and  recognizing each other , had been done with , I saw that Novartis Pakistan had also very kindly sent an associate to receive me with armed security guards. I was told later that it was company policy that all visitors be accorded this attention and believe me, at no point in time during my week long visit, be it in Karachi, Lahore or Islamabad was I without this security and the most chivalrous escort of a member of the Novartis Pakistan team. And of course the armed guard rushing to open the car door for me every single time quite spoilt me forever I must say.

Unnerved at first with all this attention I eventually surrendered  myself to the cool interiors of the limo and soon we were cruising along wide, smooth roads of Karachi towards the hotel. The driver of the car kept up a steady stream of conversation, all the time holding my eyes in the rear view mirror with his warm welcoming gaze. When he found out I was from India and indeed Bombay, his first comment was, "Aap India mein to bahut aage nikal gaye hain". I must confess I had reservations about  that comment especially when I began to think of the roads in Bombay we needed to take to get ahead of anywhere and anyone at all!!!  

He told me about his parents' family roots being in Allahabad and his  hope that one day he could visit India too. Everyone I met, simply every  single person I met in Pakistan had this desire to come to India once at  least. It was like being wrapped in the softest of all pashminas, this open, warm and unconditional love and affection that radiated from everyone. Later that day, at the hotel, the elderly person from the  laundry who came to collect my sarees for ironing spoke to me for all of fifteen minutes about his Walid's home in Agra and his Walida's in Lucknow and said that he would love to see the Taj Mahal once. He admired my sarees and said he was so happy to be able to offer his services to his Bahen from sarhad paar. By the way in Lahore, the young ladies of the hotel staff could not stop admiring my sarees and swore to > let the management look at changing the uniform code of the hotel staff in favour of the saree!! Salaam Alleikum" is the greeting with which one is welcomed each time. From the doorman to the young executive at the reception desk to  the staff in the coffee shop. Every one says "Salaam lleikum" to each > other. And responds to each other with "Waleikum as salaam." "God bless you "and "May you too be blessed by him". This is the greeting mouthed  into the cell phone by everyone too, not "Hallo! Where are you?" This  greeting and the "Inshah Allah" that peppers all conversations are still ringing softly in my ears This sincerely stated implicit faith and hope in the power of the > Almighty to care and look after his people is the humblest of all > attitudes I have seen ever. It was with the greatest of pleasure that I began to return the greeting. The appreciative nod from the hotel doorman later in the week was my reward.  

As all of you know I was in Pakistan on a work related visit to Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad , primarily to visit, along with the Novartis Pakistan team, the Cancer Hospitals and physicians working with GIPAP, to meet the Max Foundation representatives in Pakistan and of course the patients , the GIPAP beneficiaries. I met patients from all the regions covered by the major centres in these three cities. It was heartwarming to know they had, each one of them, made the effort to come all the way and be at their
respective doctors' clinics on the day of my visits. So many of them had travelled for hours from their villages and towns in the neighboring districts It was an honour to be able to share with them our experiences in India and they were amazed at the interaction that had begun within the group here. All of them were excited at the thought of beginning something like our group meetings there too. There was such a sense of belonging and acceptance from everyone and soon we were sharing stories and experiences like we were old friends. Even the shyest of the patients was opening up and wanted to know so much about India, our hospitals, and life in general and life coloured by CML.They were also very thrilled to see photographs taken during our patient group meetings in various cities in India. And had no qualms in posing for photographs. I had an opportunity to see our Max Stations Drs Wasim and Shahzad in action and working with the GIPAP recipients also and it seemed as thought as I was right there in our Maxindia office.

Among the hospitals I visited in Pakistan were the Aga Khan Hospital in Karachi, and Imran Khan's Shaukhat Khannum Memorial Cancer Hospital in Lahore, set up in his mother's memory. Both these are elegant modern structures spread over rolling green landscaped surroundings and exuding a very soothing atmosphere. The physicians and the other paramedical staff I met with were eager to share their work routines and happy to hear about our activities in India.

Pakistani men are indeed the most chivalrous men I have ever met. This was proved over and over again but on my first evening in Karachi I had ample evidence that quite made up my mind for me. Dr Wasim, our Max Station in Karachi came to see me at the hotel (we were meeting for the first time) with a lovely bouquet of flowers and a little gift. His absolutely spontaneous and charming demeanour as he stood outside my room with the eager question- "Do you guess who I can be?" simply endeared him to me at once. Wasim had also so very thoughtfully got me a SIM Card for my cell phone so I could be connected in Pakistan. This was taking care and concern to great limits actually. Once we had exchanged pleasantries he was all set to escort me to the Police Station so I  could register my entry into the country- the FIRST thing both our Governments need to do is to abolish this requirement that like some criminal or Tadi Paar, Indians and Pakistanis need to go and do Haazri at the Police Chowky.

Any way to go back to the need to visit the Central Police HQ in Karachi, of course by the time we reached there, they had closed the counter for the day, being as it was well past 6 pm.But there was this very  courteous security guard who gave us all the information needed for us to come back the next day. One of the requirements was four copies of my passport sized photos with which I had to report at 9am the next day. Meetings with Novartis were to begin at 10 am so you can imagine the press for time. And, I did not have even one copy of my mug shot let alone four. (Rule no 1 for traveling – always carry copies of mug shot) No sweat said Wasim Bhai; all we need to do is get to a photo studio and get a quick Polaroid job done. So off we went to the Sadar Bazaar area near by and as luck would have it Karachi was actually facing a shortage of Polaroid film so that was that. Row upon row of little photo shops put up their hands in a gesture of helplessness. It was definitely not the will of Allah or so it seemed. Any photo studio, even if it was open at that hour, it was close to half past 8 by then, would take 24 hrs to get the job done!! Wasim was not one to give up so easily and we went hunting for a studio that would do an "emergency urgent" job for us and we found one – the magic " India se Aaye Hain" words were invoked and 200 rupees exchanged hands and Wasim agreed to do duty at the studio so the owner did not have to pull down his shutters and close shop while he disappeared into the inner depths of the market to get my pictures developed by a "good emergency friend". So I was taken inside, given a mirror to arrange my features into a pleasant countenance and privacy to accomplish that really difficult task-have you ever seen a passport size photo make you look good? However hard you try to re arrange your features? Anyway, the chap was so eager to please and clicked away and in 20 minutes flat, returned with actually pretty decent pictures and as a special gesture, the negative too. Wasim was Rs 200 poorer and me 4 copies of my picture richer and speechless at the speed, efficiency and good humour and good will all this had been achieved with.

 Earlier in the evening I had realised that though I had brought my cell phone with me, I had oh so foolishly forgotten to bring the charger but nothing seemed to be a problem for Wasim and soon we were zipping across the Karachi streets to this brightly lit, bustling bazaar which he told me stocked anything I might need under the sky to do with electronics and soon enough he was back with my SAMSUNG charger. All that was left was for me to do was to change some money so I could pay Wasim back and that was taken care of by him too. We found one money changer still open at that late hour and I was equipped with Pakistani rupees. The one thing Wasim did not do was accept the money I tried to repay him! Well, you can't have every thing your way I suppose.

Next morning it was off to work and it was a pleasure indeed to meet with all the Novarits Oncology team. It was obvious as to how proud they were of the programme. Throughout the day long meetings that first
day what came across with complete certainty was that the conditions and situations were the same in both our countries and it was the same  dedication and energies that Novartis India was putting into GIPAP that I was looking at there too. It was an honour to have lunch with Farid Khan Country Head Novartis Pakistan, a charming, soft spoken gentleman who confessed to be a great Mumbai aficionado. And who reminded me of India`s Ranjit Shahani. Their Oncology Business Unit head Dr Zaffar is one of the nicest people I have met. The fact that he organized for his lovely wife to take me shopping has  nothing to do with it. (More about that later.)

What immediately warmed him to me was the fact that he has the most impeccable taste in music and had my favourite music playing in his car stereo en route to the Novartis office from the hotel, it was enough to  break the ice and soon we were trading opinions on our favorites. Hindi film music by the way is all that you hear in Pakistan- in everyone's cars, in hotels and restaurants and open air food courts, little chai ka addas and music stores. The roof top restaurant in the old Lahore bazaar where we had dinner it was Lata Mangeshkar' s ghazals we were treated to, in the hotel coffee bar in Islamabad the crooner was singing old Kishore Kumar numbers, the folk musician at the ethnic  restaurant by the beach in Karachi played old evocative S D Burman and Madan Mohan tunes on his flute. He was delighted to add a couple of Roshan (Roshan Sr by the way) numbers to his repertoire for the night on my request. Again the "aap India se hain?" syndrome working its magic! At a music store in Islamabad , while I was searching for some
Nusrat Ali favorites of mine I had to literally wade through countless Indian music CDs to hunt for them. The store was stocked to the gills with Indian movie DVDs and CDs. And it's not all old music all the time -Dhoom and Veer Zara are reigning supreme there just now. Just for the > record, I was not allowed to pay for the CDs I bought eventually. Including the very popular number `Lamhe" from the film Zeher which is all the rage now in both countries, sung by this Pakistani singer Atif.

Talking of stores, for the mehman from India, everywhere there were special prices. Dr Zaffar's wife was indeed the perfect shopper's guide taking me to little places where I could choose from distinctive
hand woven material and traditionally crafted ear rings all brought down to the special visitor friendly prices. My only regret was that I was carrying my small cabin size bag and could not therefore shop to my  heart's content. The tight schedule which saw us fly to the three major cities and at times go straight to the hospitals and patient meetings from the airport itself meant that I travelled very light and efficient. I had sworn to myself I would travel sensibly and not end up with embarrassingly large and cumbersome luggage. So shopping was minimal. Lesson no 2 learnt is, when traveling to Pakistan carry a bag as
large as their hearts and to hell with worrying about what the guys will think of all your excess baggage!!

So this was all food for the soul and what about food for the stomach? Pakistan believe me, is a food lover's paradise. Let me tell you I ate the most fragrant rice and the rotis that melt in your mouth and
the best makki ki roti and saag ever. I ate at the home of Wasim, whose lovely wife Zohra (Wasim says he
sings "Ae mere Zohara Zabeen' to her often) served the most delicious cutlets  for high tea the day I visited them keeping my vegetarian sensitivities > in mind and was so disappointed when I told her I was an impure > vegetarian and had been enjoying lovely kebabs and other such delicacies > since the time I had been there. At Shelley's home ( my cousin who is married into the Pirzada family) both she and her lovely husband Haseeb fed me like there was no tomorrow and one night we all went to eat at this place called The Okra which had some awesome Italian food and atmosphere to go with it .

In Lahore we ate, with the Novartis team and Dr Zeba Aziz, at a place called Coco's – on the roof top one magical night, looking out on the imposing domes and minarets of the Badshahi Mosque on one side and
the Lahore fort on the other. The kadhai chicken and sheek kebabs fought for attention with the aromatic black dhal. The golden brown paranthas were to die for. Dr Zeba tells me Coco's is run by the son of one of the dancing girls who lived and worked in the four storied haveli that now housed it – she is also an artist and there were some very lovely paintings on display –poignant paintings portraying the lives of
the women who lived and worked there - not much of the décor had been changed it seems from all those years ago. It was easy to get lost in the atmosphere and think back to what it must have been like
during the times when the beat of the ghungroos and tablas and the music of the sarangi would have been ringing in those rooms where we now sat listening to mujras from old Hindi films.

One night in Karachi we ate at the Village which is this sprawling  ethnic restaurant by the side of the sea and I have never seen a buffet spread as all encompassing as this one was…you name the kind of food and it was there and the best sugar cane juice – I actually did not miss  beer at all, what with the chilled lassis and icy cool sugar cane juice that was available to soothe parched throats and refresh tired spirits Another meal that was unforgettable was the one we had at an Afghani hotel in Islamabad, sitting on the sidewalk under a cool black sky. It was at the end of a long day when I thought things couldn't get better than the delicious lunch of makki ki roti and Saag we had had at the Pay First food court – or the leisurely 5 o'clock chai in an adda in a sunken garden- a day when my gallant escorts had taken me boating on the Rawal Dam and up the mountains for some stunning views of the city. Dr Shahzad and Dr Shahzad, one the Max Station in Lahore and the other of Novartis Islamabad who made the day very special with a last stop over at the beautiful Rose and Jasmine Garden. It got even better is all I can say that night when upon our return to the hotel (I was staying at the marriot) while entering the hotel who do I bump into; literally bump into, to my shock and absolute delight- but President Mushharaf. There he was just a handshaking distance away with his Begum, very calmly walking out the door, if you please. At the same moment, it registered that four black Mercedes Benz cars had indeed drawn up beside the kerb and a gun toting guard too had materialized. Good thing Shahzad put out his arm and restrained me for I was about to lean forward with my hand out stretched. In an undertone he also muttered – wait, the guard will shoot you first and then ask questions if at all. Well, I said to myself, someone back home is sure to ask me," So, you went to Pakistan eh? Did you meet Mushharaf and give him my regards?" I had an answer to that redictable question – an unpredictable answer at that. "Yes indeed, I did and I don't know about anybody's regards but I sure said Namaste and got a smart salute and charming smile in return" Inshah Allah next time I will convey your regards.


This travelogue was written by Ms Viji Venkatesh before 26/11