Petrol vs Diesel: Which Car to buy?

If you are amongst the many urban dwellers making a beeline to book a diesel car ‘before it’s too late’ to save on Fuel cost, please STOP!

Did you ask the quintessential question ‘Kitna Deti Hai?’ before making up your minds on which car to buy? I am 100% sure you did.
Did you do the math on the per km running cost to decide which fuel should power your car? I am 60% sure you did.
Did you then assess your annual usage (in kms) to understand the recovery period for the extra capital expense in buying a Diesel car? Hmm..now I’m just 40% sure you did..
And now, did you also factor in the cost of Interest on the extra Capital expense for buying a diesel car? I’m pretty certain most of you didn’t!


Anyone with moderate MS Excel skills and about 10 minutes to apply it would figure that Petrol cars are in fact a better option. In fact, for those of us who plan on funding our diesel car through banks, chances are you are never going to recover the cost of extra capital expense.


Current day cost difference between a Petrol and Diesel variant of the same model is about Rs.1.5 Lacs. A car giving a mileage of about 15kmpl will have to be driven almost thirteen thousand kms each year for the cost to be recovered in 6 years.

But if you consider the extra interest you pay on the Rs.1.5 Lacs, the recovery period shoots up to 19 years! Yes you read it right!

Well, what can I say.. the government isn’t so stupid after all.. your choices are limited between giving your money to the oil companies or to the bank :)


PS - Leave your e-mail ID in the comment section if you want me to mail the excel sheet to you.

At Last The Maharaja Grew Balls!

I am not a fan of Air India or it's management, but I loved the fact that they did not shy away from taking some firm steps in showing the striking Pilots the doors.

The book 'Freakonomics' authored by economists Levitt and Dubner carries a whole chapter on the economics of a 'Job'.
Loosely reproduced, they say that how much a job pays depends on:


- How scarce or abundant the resource pool is of talented people wanting to do the job.
- The nature of the job itself, in terms of difficulty and criticality
- Stigma and distress associated with the job. For example a prostitute's job might not be the most difficult to carry out but the stigma attached to it, might make it more lucrative than similar easier jobs that are perceived to be 'cleaner' by the society.

Going by this, I think Pilots are the most overpaid bunch of people.
It's an awful lot of money to pay someone just to get the damn equipment off the ground and back down without breaking it.
As if that weren't enough, they need a partner to help them do it.
And might I add this whole process of taking off and landing takes about 10 minutes for each flight.. Everything between is usually done by a bloody machine called the 'Auto Pilot' while our 'Human pilots' are busy sipping martinis!


I say get these fuckers to tally the book of accounts in their idle time..

It's obvious these Pilots are just using our lack of knowledge on the subject and hyping up the whole flying thing. It's a Commercial Airliner for God's sake! It's not as if you are trying to dodge a Surface to Air Missile or an F-16 on your tail! Infact, you've got a bunch of hardworking guys who are clearing the road for you down at ATC!
And whoever said, pay them well coz the lives of the passengers depended on how the pilots performed!!
Well...the life of the Pilot too depends on how he performs, so he bloody well make sure he flies the damn plane right!
All the management has to do is take away the pilot's parachute.

And if getting killed in an accident was such a big worry, we should be paying the cab driver a helluva lot more, coz statistically we are more likely to meet with an accident on the road than in the air! And the cabby doesn't even have someone clearing the road for him!

Besides, there are so many aspiring pilots passing out of Flying schools.. Waiting in the wings... about time they get inducted into this trade at reasonable salaries!

Someone needs to THINK!!

The Rise and Rise of the Indian Dynasty!

I’ve wanted to write about this topic for a while, but I could never come around to making the time for it. It’s the recent celebration of the UP poll results that gave me the impetus to put pen on paper and express my views.
 I thought we had shunned the centuries old system where a son has to take on the same trade as the father, and then pass it on to his son in due course. It is true for most parts except for a few protected fiefdoms, all of which, instead of being booed down are being celebrated by all sections of the society.
 The first fiefdom is Politics. While I haven’t spent a lot of time in researching the number of politicians who were born in a political family, I can prove my point by asking the readers to quickly give me 5 names of MPs younger than 50 who are not from a Political family… I can’t think of too many.. Get the point?
 So I wonder how we call our self a democracy, when our options are limited to choosing our leaders from members of about 50 families in India, like the Gandhis, Yadavs, Reddys, Thakrays etc.
 The other field, even more popular and even more unwilling to let an outsider in, is the Film Industry. Does being born a Bachchan, make you a good actor? Or are Kapoor kids fairest of em’ all? Why then don’t we see more success stories like SRK and Akshay Kumar? (By Success Stories I don’t mean their movies, I meant their own careers)

And can someone please explain how on earth Sonakshi Sinha gets to be in Movies?
 I am glad that Cricket did not go the same route as Politics and Movies, and I would think it is because of Media intervention and the brutal transparence of sport.
 The least popular of fiefdoms, but still the most appalling example to me are Indian Businesses. I am amazed at the number of big corporations who are still being led by members of the founding family. I seriously expected the Tatas to break away, but they didn’t…


After centuries of being ruled over, I think the Indian gene is so used to dynasties that we don’t mind them at all. In fact, we have started liking them. Take the case of Rahul Gandhi.. the uneducated lot (a majority in India) went head over heals crazy when he took to rallying for the Congress! Same scenes in Mumbai when Aditya Thakray was ‘Launched’ in a mega event attended by thousands of people (who had nothing better to do)


I can remember many friends wanting to watch a movie just because ‘Amitabh ke bête ka launch hai yaar’.. makes me sad!


Now compare that to the west! Rarely heard of political dynasties in Europe and I don’t compare this with the United States, because they are not the benchmark for good governance.


If you want to compare with the United States, try and list out Hollywood stars whose parents too were in the motion picture business..not that easy huh? And what better example than the Americans when it comes to delinking ownership and management of businesses. I can’t think of any listed company which is being led by the son or daughter of the person who started the enterprise.

I personally don’t like Dynasties because they are in contradiction to our constitutional belief that all men are born equal. I am announcing my war on Dynasties by committing to


• Not to watch an Indian movie starring a Star Son / Daughter


• Not to vote for a candidate who has a political lineage!


• Not to buy stocks of a company run by kin of the founding family


Are you with me?