Global index provider Dow Jones Indexes and Dharma Investments, a private investment firm, today announced the launch of the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes measuring the performance of companies selected according to the value systems and principles of dharmic religions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism.

The series includes the Dow Jones Dharma Global Index and four country Indexes for US, UK, Japan and India. The indices are designed to track financial products such as exchange-traded funds and other investable products that enable investors to participate in the performance of companies compliant with dharmic traditions. [BusinessStandard]

So what constitutes as “dharmic”? Well, it’s easier to start with what’s not dharmic:

Excluded from the index are companies from sectors that are deemed unacceptable due to the nature of their business activities and operations. Excluded are also companies that have exposure to unacceptable business practices. Some examples of unacceptable sectors are aerospace and defense, brewers, casinos and gaming, pharmaceuticals, tobacco. Some examples for unacceptable business practices are alcohol, adult entertainment, animal testing and genetic modification of agricultural products. [AlBawaba]

It seems that touting your company as “socially responsible” is a big draw for investors all around the world. I suppose that’s a good thing.

Worldwide, socially responsible investing (SRI), as it is known, has taken off in a big way with assets increasing from $639 billion in 1995 to $2.29 trillion in 2005. In the US, SRI assets represent over 10% of the total assets under management. [BusinessStandard]

So being listed on the Dharmic Index would mean that your company can adopt a holier-than-thou attitude towards the competition. The Economic Times has a quote from the CEO of Dharma Investments, with an interesting typo.

“The Down Jones Dharma Indexes bring together a combination of environmental, social, governance and traditional sin sector filters.

As such, the index is unique and will not just have appeal to the religious, but to a far broader audience as well,” Dharma Investments CEO Nitesh Gor told the media. [EconomicTimes]

What exactly is a “traditional sin” anyway? And what’s a non-traditional one, for that matter?

Here’s the view from my home. If you can see it through the haze, the leftmost end of the skyline in the distance is Malabar Point – where the Governor’s bungalow is.

The article discusses, amongst other things, Dhirubhai, the Reliance empire, oil refining and more. They spend an inordinate amount of space discussing Mukesh’s new $1 billion apartment building that’s coming up on Altamount Road. They even talk about the Bollywood film Guru which is loosely based on Dhirubhai’s life. The money quote comes from a Chevron VP, where he talks about the current state of affairs in Indian business:

Says Tom Simons, a vice president of Chevron, “There were the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts, huge companies that were family owned. That’s where India is now. It is a bit of a Wild West thing here, but they’ll get through it. I wish they’d build some roads, though.” [link]

That’s certainly a classic quote. Chevron is a minor investor (with options to increase their stake) in Mukesh’s plan to build what will eventually be the world’s biggest oil refinery in Gujarat.

And apropos of the last time I blogged about the Western media and Bombay, there’s a quote from Nita Ambani (Mukesh’s wife). Before I get there though, I’ll regurgitate that old quote from the NYT article just because it’s such a classic.

The ladies who lunch don’t speak of their philanthropic work to end the city’s abject poverty. “There are simply too many suffering,” one socialite explained. “So we focus on things we can actually have an impact on, like art and gardening.” [link]

I’m still not over that one. They don’t bother to do anything about the poverty because there’s too much of it. Jeez. And in case you’re wondering, the “ladies who lunch” are the soy-latte-drinking, soccer-mom equivalents of Bombay – the upper-middle class housewives. And here’s Nita Ambani cementing her position in there:

Ambani’s wife, Nita, who looks after Reliance’s corporate-responsibility program, explains that she and her husband make a special effort to keep their children grounded, citing the family’s trip to Washington. “Our daughter flew with us in the private plane, while our sons stayed behind in New York,” she says. After the other family members had left, the boys got lonely and wanted to join them. “We both decided not to send the plane back to get them. They took the train! We’re striving very hard to make them live a normal life.” [link]

No private plane, huh? Damn, that’s harsh! How did they manage? Do you think they reached safely? It’s going to keep me up nights, you know…

That’s right – it’s a King Kong Ganesha! Peter Jackson Jaikishan ain’t got nothing on this, baby! Here are some more pics by Ravi of the grand spectacle.

And here’s a totally unrelated one (also by Ravi) of a GaneshKrishna or a KrishGanesha. Or something. Don’t complain though, you’re getting two gods for the price of one.

The First Article
The first is in the Travel Magazine (called T) by Alex Kuczynski. It talks about Bombay’s upper-crust, the top 1% which has over 99% of the city’s wealth*. The kind that goes clubbing, is dressed in high fashion and eats sushi at the exclusive Wasabi by Morimoto at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower (called “the nexus for social life in Mumbai” by Kuczynski). For those who watch the Food Network – yes, it’s the same Iron Chef Morimoto.
*These statistics reflect the aforementioned Bombayite characterisitic of exaggerating and are not verified scientifically.

He starts off talking about a fashion show by perennial socialite and now-fashion designer*, Shobha De’s new line of saris, at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower:
*Wtf? She’s a fashion designer now? Does she have no bounds on spending her spouse’s money? And on pure principle, I refuse to accent her name.

Some of the saris showed the crest of the buttocks, while others soared in potentially scandalous slits up the thigh. But there were no signs of protest from the crowd. This isn’t Delhi, where public outcry ensued after Richard Gere recently planted a public kiss on the actress Shilpa Shetty at a fund-raiser. This is Mumbai, the commercial and entertainment center of India and the country’s fastest-growing city, home to more and more millionaires and Maybachs and restaurants and nightclubs and strip bars and movie studios and immigrants and luxury-goods stores every day. And its citizens ? or some of the privileged ones, at least ? are eating it up, embracing the explosion of luxury culture. [link]

The money quote is from Shobha herself which, I have to (grudgingly) admit, is a good observation. Despite (or perhaps, because of) the fact that it’s made by someone who has put hobnobbing with Bombay’s elite under ‘S’ (for socialite) in the Bombay Yellow Pages.

After her fashion show, D? explained to me Mumbai’s social architecture. ?If you are in Delhi, it’s which minister you know,? she said. ?If you are in Chennai, it’s all about which caste you are. In Calcutta, it’s what your grandfather did. But in Mumbai, it’s not about that kind of rigid social structure any longer. It’s about what you have done.? She paused and added a thought: ?And it is a city that is very cruel to losers. It can be heartless to losers.? [link]

In case you’re wondering why I’m coming down on Shobha and her ilk, I’ll let Kuczynski answer that:

This is a city of almost unimaginable contradiction. It is home to more millionaires than any other city in India yet is also home to the largest slum in Asia. The ladies who lunch don’t speak of their philanthropic work to end the city’s abject poverty. ?There are simply too many suffering,? one socialite explained. ?So we focus on things we can actually have an impact on, like art and gardening.? [link]

With socialites like that, who needs social workers?

And, of course, no article about Bombay in any Western mainstream medium is complete without portraying the stark income inequality* that is becoming more and more a malady of the entire country (as I have mentioned earlier on this blog). In fact, the author spends a fair amount of time pontificating about the divide. Here’s a sampling:
*Can you really blame the Westerners though, when our socialites are so socially aware? Sorry, I’m still not over the last quote.

Directly behind the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, a five-star property built in grand Victorian style in 1903, children bathe in a trash-filled rivulet that runs along the side of the street. (Nearly half the city’s population lacks running water or electricity.)

[...]

As the crowd started flailing to Blondie and KRS-One on the dance floor, Rajesh Mehrotra, who is in the import-export business, jabbed his finger at men around the room and recited net worths: $100 million. $300 million. $1 billion. ?We all own our own businesses,? Mehrotra said.

?So we party until 4. Then we go to work at 11.? [link]

Crawford Market – Outside and Inside

Kuczynski also gives an absolutely brilliant description of the auto-rickshaw, comparing it with Bombay and the balsa-wood infrastructure on which it is becoming an emerging world city. Of course, if you’re talking about a weak infrastructure, the rich-poor divide is a part of it.

The auto-rickshaw is a sublimely apt symbol for contemporary India, one that combines both the desire for progress and the dubious methods by which that progress is sought. Only here, in the most densely populated city in the world, would it have struck someone as a good idea to take an already unstable means of transport ? a seat with no seat belts, a platform with no doors, a steering wheel and windshield, all supported on three small wheels ? and add to it a powerful engine, enabling it to hurtle along a highway at up to 35 miles per hour… The city’s population has swollen at such a pace that it has overwhelmed its economic and physical infrastructures. India is emerging as a world player, while much of its society remains intensely spiritual and extremely poor. [link]

Wait a sec! “[E]xtremely poor” I agree with, but “intensely spiritual”? What the hell is that supposed to mean? See now, that’s the very reason I started this site – to dispel that stereotype.

The Second Article
Speaking of income inequality, the second article (in the Travel Section) is by Matt Gross. As the Frugal Traveler, he spends a weekend in Bombay on a budget of only $500 or 21,500 rupees. This article is more an entertaining description of the city, without any serious social commentary. It’s written more for the armchair tourist or potential Bombay visitor than anyone else. Still, this journo certainly has a conscience.

Let’s be honest: in a city like Mumbai, that’s a phenomenal amount, enough to sustain a backpacker for a month or one of the city’s seven million slum-dwellers for a year. The idea of blowing it all in 48 hours made my stomach queasy (no, it wasn’t the tap water), so I’d arranged to offset my indulgence with altruism: Sunday morning, I’d teach an English class for the Bombay Leprosy Project, a nonprofit group that helps victims of the disease. [link]

Due to circumstances beyond his control he doesn’t end up teaching there, but he does a bunch of touristy things over the course of the weekend, like going to a night-club (Priv?), eating at Trishna and even gets some shirts custom-tailored for himself (at Bombay Electric), amongst other things.

What struck me as strange was the fact that when he wanted a Gujarati thali he ended up going to some place called Golden Star instead of going to Rajdhani. Everyone knows that Rajdhani is the best thali in town. Disclosure: I’m biased towards Rajdhani, so don’t take this personally, Golden Star fans.

Also, neither of them go to the Mohammed Ali Road-Bhendi Bazaar-Chor Bazaar section of town (although they do both go to the infamous Falkland Road). For one thing, they miss out on the food. And another, they miss out on an entire sub-section of the population.

These Amreekan journos need to brush up on their research and/or contacts, I’m tellin’ ya.

Check out the two articles and their respective slideshows.

Update: Matt Gross emailed me and justified his visiting Golden Star over Rajdhani.

I would’ve loved to go to Rajdhani over Golden Star, but (1) I wanted to see where a taxi driver would take me based on my request, and (2) I’d heard Rajdhani (which is right around the corner, yeah?) can be too packed to bear. Plus, I figured everyone was already writing about Rajdhani, so who needs me to do so as well?

Makes perfect sense, Matt. Also, like I said, I’m biased and loyal to Rajdhani but I have (admittedly) heard good things about Golden Star.

Picture via Flickr user chinese_fashion

A “creative” Ganesha statue…

But there’s hope yet: The folks at Fropper.com are promoting a site – EcoGanpati.com – started by some people who are trying to salvage what?s left of the Arabian Sea. Here’s what they say:

The idols are made out of Plaster of Paris(PoP), which casts typically disintegrated water, thus making it necessary to be non-suitable for bathing, showering, or other activities involving contact with water.

These idols are then painted with ?some? dyes which contain poisonous elements like lead,mercury,carbon and cadmium. [link]

Well, it’s no joke. Take a look at the post-visarjan remains on the beach from a pic that I grabbed from their site. It’s pretty devastating.

Picture source: EcoGanpati.com

The post-immersion devastation

All this awareness is well and good, but what do they plan to do about it?

So, what we intend to do is:

• Spread knowledge
• Seek public interest
• Learn more ways and ideas of celebrating the occasion with more purity
• Share the results of this activity with the Government, the Mayors of Mumbai and Pune and the other concerned authorities. [link]

But that’s not all.

*** I intend to take print-out of the Petition page and, personally, deliver it to the concerned ministers and the Mayors.

***Also, the matters will not end with just submitting the petition, I will keep on updating about the action being taken by the authorities in this matter and will follow up diligently. [link]

You can support them by signing their petition. Go ahead and do it now – it only takes a second.

For those in the dark, Ganesh chaturthi or the Ganesha Festival is a period of ten days during which Ganesha is worshipped and elaborate idols are placed in homes and on street-corners. The festival culminates in the statues being immersed in bodies of water (in Bombay’s case, the Arabian Sea). Here’s an animated short by a National Institute of Design student which explains everything, and is pretty entertaining, too:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

A buff Bollywood actor (whose half-naked pic I have gratuitously posted for the viewing pleasure of our thus inclined readers) decides that he wants to visit a Ganesha puja in Bombay. What happens next? A Muslim “clergy” (sic) from Bareilly issues a fatwa against him.

Mufti Fakidr Qadri Mohammad Farukh Gafrutula issued the fatwa on behalf the Ifta-Manzar-e-Islam on the issue of idol-worshipping by any Muslim.

According to the fatwa, if Salman wants to become a Muslim again, he will have to read the ‘Kalma’ again. [link]

Well, if it isn’t one Salman, it’s another. Parents, whatever you do, do not name your kids Salman. It just spells f-a-t-w-a.

But there’s more: The cleric’s fifteen seconds of fame ran out before he could finish telling everyone his full name and the name of his organization. So he expanded the fatwa, not just to Salman, but to every Muslim who’s ever been in a temple or a church ever.

The clergy, however, maintained that the fatwa was not specifically for Salman, but it was for every Muslim who has worshipped idol. [link]

Does that include worshipping food? Because the other day, we had some excellent Szechuan with a Muslim friend, and he used words like “divine” and “heavenly” to describe it. I’m just curious. No, really.

This is what the first paragraph reads:

The State of Maharashtra is the third largest and the most progressive and industrially advanced state in India….Mumbai, country’s leading financial, trading and service centre warrants aviation facilities of highest order. To meet the ever increasing demand of aviation, it is proposed to develop a modern state-of-the-art second international airport for Mumbai at Navi Mumbai.

Well, I say, it’s about damned time. This is great news. Maybe this will mean a smoother walk-through and less harassment from Customs and Immigration (without having to call Officer So-and-So, who’s a friend of my neighbour’s dog-walker’s brother’s wife). It’s also a positive sign that our economic infrastructure is being strengthened. And maybe, just maybe, this time we’ll stop welcoming visitors into the country with the fragrant smell of urine.

Yes, I’m certainly all for it and look forward to flying in to the New Bombay International Airport (I refuse to say “Navi Mumbai”). Who knows? Perhaps by the time it’s finished, the esteemed Balasaheb will have long past reached the ultimate tiger fiefdom above and for once, an airport won’t be called “Chattrapati Shivaji”.

Today’s WSJ has an article about the Indian retail baron Kishore Biyani who founded Pantaloon Retail (currently the largest retailer in India, in terms of revenues) and owns the supermarket chains Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar. For the supermarkets, he initially tried to emulate the Western model of quiet, spacious aisles of products, and found that people would walk down those aisles, and walk out of the store empty-handed.

Americans and Europeans might like to shop in pristine and quiet stores where products are carefully arranged. But when Mr. Biyani tried that in Western-style supermarkets he opened in India six years ago, too many customers walked down the wide aisles, past neatly stocked shelves and out the door without buying. [link]

He then switched over to a more “traditional” style of the bazaar, where people had to walk down cramped aisles, squeezing past other people and products. And some of the produce was even defective (with spots, etc.) to let people think it came straight from the farm. He found the second model was much more effective for selling his wares.

They were more comfortable in the tiny, cramped stores — often filled with haggling customers — that typify Indian shopping. Most Indians buy their fresh produce from vendors who keep vegetables under burlap sacks. [link]

Well, hats off to Mr. Biyani. He was shunned initially, but he persisted in his vision of creating a pan-Indian retail store which wasn’t your average, neighborhood cheap Western knock-off. And boy, did he succeed. Pantaloon is now the top Indian retailer.

Su Kokila, aa sasta ma malse ke? (Translation: What ho Kokila!
Perchance, we shall acquire this cheaply?)

That said though, this is funny. We Indians actually prefer to be pushed and shoved around rather than preferring the peaceful solitude of the American shopping experience.

For the uninitiated, a word on the American shopping experience at its worst best: In the mid-west, for instance, the grocery stores are huge, measuring approximately one square mile. That’s around four full Manhattan avenue blocks. On the shelves, you will find practically every brand of potato chip, beer and bratwurst in existence. But (of course) there’s no garam masala or Hayward’s 5000.

There are days when you can wander in the store for hours searching, with only a handful of other people to keep you company in all that vastness. At the end of it, you find yourself muttering (perhaps a little too loudly) about how it’s impossible to find what you need.

But I digress. I suppose I can appreciate how I would like to shop in cramped spaces with haggling aunties on either side, jostling for the multitasking shopkeeper’s attention. Well, maybe it’s just my nostalgia, but there is a certain amiability and camaraderie in that environment. Then again, things back home always seem better from ten thousand miles away.

And you know what? I just realized – those people at the B.E.S.T. (the Bombay government-run transportation agency) are deliberately trying to create a more “Indian” transportation experience by packing us all into those buses. Right?

From Love and Longing in Bombay.

Happy birthday, Vikram Chandra.