More Odds and Ends

We’ve continued to enjoy an active social and cultural life in Jodhpur. We spent last Saturday at NLU House but used Sunday to go to the circus with Miriam Elfreda. Miriam is an older woman who lives at the Astha Home for Seniors. She enjoyed an afternoon “out” and visiting the Home got me an invitation to return and speak to all the residents the following Sunday on the topic of services for the elderly in America. Thankfully, LaDonna actually knows this field so I hope to be reasonably accurate.

Thirty years ago, while we were students at the University of Wisconsin, we heard James Galway. On Wednesday night, we got to listen to India’s greatest flautist, Pandit-ji Hari Prasad Chaurasia. [See Anuradha, I addressed him as Pandit-ji!] The first 20 minutes or so was the sound-check in front of an overflow crowd while the next two-plus hours were nothing but flute accompanied by an American-looking follow on the tabla (a pair of hand drums) and backed by tanpura (a long-necked lute sounding the drone) and a devotee who filled in the occasional gaps in Hari Prasad’s playing. After concluding two long classical Indian pieces the audience shouted out requests for pieces from what are apparently a number of Bollywood films for which Hari Prasad has written and performed the soundtrack. We got to hear some of those before the unexpected appearance of a Bollywood actor who had come to Jodhpur to hear Hari Prasad brought the program to an end. (Sorry, my Bollywood repetoire is a bit thin; I don’t know his name.)

After returning from the program we enjoyed dinner with Seshan Radha and Anuradha Nayak, two members of the NLU faculty, before being joined by Ananta Barua. Ananta is visiting NLU for its conference in corporate governance. He is general counsel to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), India’s equivalent to the American SEC. (FYI, SEBI does hire summer interns. Contact me for details.) We enjoyed learning how India approaches securities regulation. Ananta was also very persuasive in explaining that the opportunity for economic growth in India is far greater than in the saturated Western economies. Indian producers are still meeting real needs, not pandering to ones created by relentless marketing. Of course, investment in India faces significant currency exchange risks so I don’t think I’ll be moving my money into India’s NSE soon.

Oops; note to self: don’t underestimate our government’s ability to set the stage for long-term inflation (and simultaneously reduce the value of the dollar) by monetarizing vast amounts of debt (http://www.livemint.com/2009/03/19214326/A-turning-point-for-the-dollar.html?h=A2). Why didn't I go to the ATM two days ago?