Lock Down : Day 16

09-04-20

 It seems Mumbai will have a continuation of sorts (liquid oxygen sorts) with few things open and others closed. If we are lucky, specifics will emerge in due course, else we will be updated 4 hours before the decision becomes applicable.  Muddling continues to be our default behavior, I may be wrong someone definitely has the whole plan, If we connect dots of assertions, articles and ministers statement looks like rural India will open first followed last by dense urban centers like Mumbai & Delhi.

 Meanwhile in parallel, speculations continue about our becoming super power or a pauper (we just cannot decide you see) with Covid. Death knell has also been sounded by few about poor losing everything & at same time industry losing its shirt & pants. Hectic lobbying to influence the outcome is on amongst parties which as usual will produce a sub optimal outcome. To add to the noise an Indian author wrote in Financial Times of London about Covid being portal to new world with no drowning of patriarchy and caste etc. Best of luck to her, like most AAM(mango people) Indians I cannot afford to read FT article (its behind paywall folks) and can only guess what’s in article basis the headline and blurb. Maybe she wrote about us for her global audience or maybe she does not want us to read. Well we will find out in due course if this is a portal event or larger threat to mankind. Keeping fingers crossed.

Meanwhile my analyst friends tell me that most of FMCG Co’s and large format retail selling groceries are going to have a superb top line for lock down period. They have managed to sell stuff 2 to 3 X times the normal consumption. It seems middle class is arming itself for long shut down of supply lines. I went shopping yesterday and can confirm that my friends are indeed right. I have not seen so much stuff piled up in shops ever in past, hardly any place to walk inside the shops. In shortage though are items which make us look civilized (kindly note only makes us look & not actually make us civilized) Shampoo, shaving foam etc. Stocked to brim are snacks (Namkeen biscuits, chips & candies) which are selling like hot cakes now. One may have a very obese middle class by the time lockdown is over.  All of this stocking craze could have been avoided if we had proper communications & also a trust in the system to deliver in crunch situation. Something we all need to ponder and over next few years execute it grounds up.

I am reading two books now

1.      Things hidden since the foundation of the world” by Rene Girard

2.      The German Genius by Peter Watson

Thanks for your feedback, keep it coming.