The persuasive young Bania – Part I

He is known by many names – a persuasive young bania, the polyster prince, man of the century, guru of equity cult and many more names to reckon. Born on December 28, 1932, in the family of banias, he was the third child of a poor school-teacher in a rural village called Chorwad in the State of Gujarat, India. Yes, I am talking about a great Indian business magnate, Dhirubhai Ambani. I came across this book The Polyester Prince : The Rise of Dhirubhai Ambani, by Hamish McDonald. Below is an excerpt from a chapter ‘The Persuasive young bania’, which explores the roots, imbibed values and making of Dhirubhai Ambani :

Dhirubhai Ambani was a Gujarati and among the Gujaratis, the people of Kathiawar are renowned for their exuberance of speech, inventiveness and commercial drive. ‘This is the place of have-nots’, notes Sheela Bhatt, a former editior of the magazine India Today’s Gujarati-language edition. Kathiawar is a barren land, but out of stone they are capable enough to somehow draw water.

Kathiawari traders have more vibrant terminology than other traders. They were the first to go out of India for better prospects. Adventure is second nature to them. They have less hypocrisy. Dhirubhai Ambani was part of that culture.

In one sense, Ambani was born to be a trader, as his family belonged to a Bania caste, a section of the Vaisya category(Varna) in the traditional Hindu social order whose roles are those of merchants and bankers. This instantly provided a whole network of relationships, a community and social expectations that made commerce – taking a profit from buying and selling in markets, the accumulation of capital – an entirely natural and honourable lifetime’s occupation.

Vaisyas marshaled huge amounts of capital, which funded the campaigns of maharajas and nawabs and at times the British trade and military expansion when the budget from London ran short of operational needs. Centuries before the modern banking system, Vaisya shroffs or bankers were the conduits of a highly monetised Indian economy, remitting vast sums around India at short notice through a sophisticated trust system based on hundi (promissiory notes).

The commercial instincts of Gujarat’s Vaisya were encouraged by a convenient interpretation of Hinduism preached by the holy man Vallabhacharya in his wanderings around the region early in the 16th century. Vallabhacharya saw a personal god who created and sustained life, for whom living life to the full was a form of devotion. His school became known as Vaishnavism, as the focus of devotion was the god Vishnu’s playful avatar (incarnation) Krishna.

In his classic text on the Vaishnavas of Gujarat, the scholar N.A. Thooti pointed out that, Vaishnavism was a philosophy that justified their way of life and gave a divine purpose to their roles as providers and family members. It also fitted the rising social status of the Banias in Gujarat, overriding the formal varna hierarchy.

Ambani’s particular caste is called Modh Bania, from their original home in the town of Modasa north of Ahmedabad before a migration many centuries ago to Saurashtra. The Modh are one of three Bania castes in this part of Gujarat, who might eat meals together but who would each marry within their own caste. They are strict vegetarians. Their practice of Hinduism follows the Vaishnavite path. But the main object of their pilgrimages, on marriage or the start of a new business venture, is a black-faced idol with a diamond in his chin called Shrinathji, located in a temple at Nathdwara, a small town in the barren lands of Rajasthan.

Given the circumstances and poor upbringing, his religious values significantly contributed to the making of a man called Dhirubhai Ambani.

In my next post I will continue on another aspect of his life, which moulded him to become a successful business personality.

Microsoft’s Vista : Is migration really worth ?

Nearly 16 months after Microsoft launched Vista, the company is still trying to convince some consumers of the operating system's merit. "Vista is a disappointment," says Shawndra Hill, operations and information management professor at Wharton and a Vista customer. "It's too complicated. We had Windows XP and were using it fine. Then Microsoft decided to provide us with something new. But there wasn't anything really new" about it.

Legal studies and business ethics professor Kevin Werbach says Microsoft faced multiple challenges with Vista. "Successfully building a software system as complex and interdependent as Windows Vista is a nearly insurmountable challenge, even for Microsoft. It's hard enough to make the operating system run reliably with all the legacy connections and potential software and hardware combinations, let alone provide sufficient innovation to justify an upgrade," Werbach says.

Although Microsoft executives disagree with the Vista naysayers, perception problems linger. Infoworld has an online petition urging Microsoft to keep XP in circulation. Dell is allowing professional customers to exercise their "downgrade rights" after June 30 when Microsoft will stop licensing XP to PC manufacturers. Downgrade rights, which come with Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate, allow anyone with those software versions to downgrade to Windows XP Professional. Dell will install XP at its factories if customers choose. Other PC vendors have similar offers. Microsoft's usual practice is to phase out an operating system as PC manufacturers and their customers move to the new one.

"Microsoft made a mistake with this one," says Wharton management professor Lawrence Hrebiniak. What's unclear is whether Vista suffers from a perception problem that can be cured with better marketing or whether it faces more entrenched problems. In its fiscal third quarter ending March 31, Microsoft had client revenues (what the software giant calls its operating system sales) of $4 billion, down 24% from a year ago.

Some of those analysts are beginning to worry. "The overall reputation problem that Vista has developed with both business and consumer users could be beginning to exert a material impact," said Tsvetan Kintisheff, founder of Sofia, Bulgaria-based Kintisheff Research, in a research note.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt declared at the company's annual shareholder meeting on May 8 that "the shift from PC-centric to Internet-centric computing is the defining shift of our generation." And Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has acknowledged that this shift was one of the primary reasons for Microsoft's bid for Yahoo.

Meanwhile, another technology called "virtualization," which allows multiple operating systems to run simultaneously on one PC or server, is diminishing the importance of products like Vista and raises questions about its future. The OS was originally intended as an abstraction layer between software applications and the computer's hardware. But with the new abstraction layer between the hardware and the OS provided by virtualization and products like Adobe's AIR that sit between the OS and desktop software applications, the role the operating system once played is becoming increasingly diminished.

Despite these new developments, Microsoft finds itself at a crossroads, according to Werbach. "The platform for most uses of PCs today is the Internet, not Windows. Windows plays an important role in the ecosystem, but it's not the center of the world in the way it used to be. Microsoft has made several attempts to integrate Windows and the web, but the center of gravity for innovation and monetization keeps moving to the network. Microsoft needs to decide whether it cares more about the next 5 to 10 years, or the 20 years after that."

Another radical shift for Microsoft would be to make Windows a more open platform where the company would give away the software to collect revenue from transactions and advertising. "The only long-term solution is for Microsoft to make a radical shift and turn Windows into a truly open platform," says Werbach. "Eventually, the big money is going to come from services and transactions, not software licenses. Microsoft understands this and is moving in the right direction, but it will eventually have to go much further. As long as it has the DNA of a software company, it will be weighed down in the new era."

Pune's Growing Real Estate Market: Pune's Growing Real Estate Market

Pune's Growing Real Estate Market: Pune's Growing Real Estate Market

How Richest Familes Manage Their Wealth ?

For many of the world's richest families, SFOs -- Single Family Offices -- play an essential role in their investment strategy. SFOs manage the family financial portfolio and often provide other services, such as handling children's college applications, hiring domestic staff or managing the family fleet of jets. About 1,000 SFOs are in operation around the world catering to families with a least $100 million in assets. More than half the SFOs are managing family wealth of more than $1 billion.

Up until now, little has been known about these powerful entities. New research, however, shows that they play an important role in managing major investment portfolios, guiding significant philanthropic endeavors and maintaining a core set of values across generations of extremely wealthy families.

Stacy M. Dutton, former president and chief investment officer of the Manhattan-based Park Agency, the successor company to the SFO Joseph P. Kennedy Enterprises, says family offices are trending toward more emphasis on managing money than managing the family compound.

Amit, academic director of the Wharton Global Family Alliance (GFA) says a family needs at least $100 million in assets to make it worthwhile to establish an SFO, which typically costs about $3 million a year to operate. Individuals and other groups of families often form similar entities known as multi-family offices (MFOs) which, according to Amit, number in the thousands.

From interviews, the GFA research found that other common reasons for having a SFO include freedom of career choice for family members; cost effective money management; stable, controlled and scalable asset management; development of trustworthy and loyal employees, and cheaper document administration.

Amit says the new research is just a first step in gaining a better understanding of how family wealth is managed. GFA plans to continue its studies and hopes to examine the financial performance of families with SFOs against the investment performance of private banks or other investment professionals. "The vast majority of businesses around the world are indeed family businesses, and there are a number of distinguishing aspects that make family firms unique, raising issues that we as academics must look at, such as succession and governance," says Amit.

Indeed, the link between the family and the family business deserves more interest. Some lessons to manage personal wealth can always be derived from them.

Disney back to promoting new optical disc format : BD

Thomas K. Arnold of USA Today, shares with us the campaign that Disney is launching to promote Blu-Ray disc format through the launch of it’s classic ‘Sleeping Beauty’ :

Disney wants to awaken sales of the Blu-ray Disc format, and the studio knows it'll take more than a kiss to get the job done. In October, Disney will release its first animated classic on the high-definition video format, Sleeping Beauty, with high-tech viewing options not possible with DVD.

Using a new technology known as BD Live — which connects to the Internet — viewers will pop in the disc and get a customized version of the famed castle that serves as a backdrop for the menu. The sky will reflect weather conditions in the viewer's hometown.

Once viewers begin watching, they'll be able to chat with friends right on the movie screen, using a laptop, BlackBerry or other PDA, through Disney's protected network. They'll be able to insert customized video messages anywhere in the movie and send them to friends or family members via a "movie mail" feature.

They'll be able to play trivia games with fellow viewers across the country. And when they're done, they can get a constant supply of new trailers, plus trade in "reward" points, collected by using many of these features, for ringtones and wallpaper.

Sleeping Beauty "will revolutionize the way people will interact with and view movies in the home," says Bob Chapek, president of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. "We pulled out all the stops in launching this technology."

The Blu-ray format could use a wake-up call. Despite competing format HD-DVD giving up the field in early February, sales of BD players fell 40% from January to February, and recouped only 2% of that loss in March, according to a report from market tracking firm The NPD Group. (Figures do not include sales of Sony's PS3 game system, which also plays BD videodiscs and is on the upswing.)

At this point, Blu-ray accounts for about 5% of overall disc sales, according to Nielsen VideoScan. To really start the ball rolling, studios believe it'll take not just a clearer picture but also a completely different and interactive experience.

Sony released two BD Live features in April, The Sixth Day and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, with downloadable extra content. And 20th Century Fox's Alien vs. Predator lets viewers superimpose themselves into a game and play against others over the Internet.

"Blu-ray Disc alone is a significantly different viewing experience, with seamless menus and other technological advances that make DVD seem almost clunky," says Sony Pictures' Lexine Wong. "But with BD Live, it's a whole other world. BD Live allows packaged media to live forever."

High - Definition optical disc format war

Finally, in the optical disc format war, Blu-ray disc was able to establish it’s triumph over HD-DVD. On February 19, 2008, Toshiba — the main company supporting HD DVD — announced it would no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders, leading almost all other HD DVD supporters to follow suit, effectively naming Blu-ray the victor of the format war.

HD DVD had a head start in the high definition video market and Blu-ray Disc sales were slow at first. The first Blu-ray Disc player was perceived as expensive and buggy, and there were few titles available. This changed when PlayStation 3 was launched, since every PS3 unit also functioned as a Blu-ray Disc player. By January 2007, Blu-ray discs had outsold HD DVDs, and during the first three quarters of 2007, BD outsold HD DVDs by about two to one. Finally, by February 2008, Toshiba announced it was pulling its support for the HD DVD format, leaving Blu Ray as the victor in the video wars.

Blu-ray Disc uses a "blue" (technically violet) laser operating at a wavelength of 405 nm to read and write data. Conventional DVDs and CDs use red and near infrared lasers at 650 nm and 780 nm respectively. The blue-violet laser's shorter wavelength makes it possible to store more information on a 12 cm CD/DVD sized disc. The minimum "spot size" on which a laser can be focused is limited by diffraction, and depends on the wavelength of the light and the numerical aperture of the lens used to focus it. By decreasing the wavelength, increasing the numerical aperture from 0.60 to 0.85 and making the cover layer thinner to avoid unwanted optical effects, the laser beam can be focused to a smaller spot. This allows more information to be stored in the same area. For Blu-ray Disc, the spot size is 580 nm.[38] In addition to the optical improvements, Blu-ray Discs feature improvements in data encoding that further increase the capacity.

Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD), is the name of a next-generation optical disc format jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), a group of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer and media manufacturers (including Apple, Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK and Thomson). The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data.

The format offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs and can hold up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc. This extra capacity combined with the use of advanced video and audio codecs will offer consumers an unprecedented HD experience.

Me-hi-co

After a long journey of 30 hours, I finally reached destination Mexico at 21:00 hours on 13th April 2008. It was a tiring journey with 6 hours halt at Frankfurt. Thankfully, while returning we have 23 hours halt at Frankfurt wherein we will be checking into the Airport Hotel, giving us good time to relax.

Mexico is a good city, but not for vegans. There are hardly any vegetarian options available at the hotels here. For breakfast, we are surviving on cereals, fruits and bread. Arroz and beans are regulars during lunch, and dinner is catered by the stock of food that we have from India. No idea, what will happen once this home stock exhaust.

Be sure to learn some basic Spanish, before you land in Mexico. It’s a hard life if you do not know Spanish. Despite of Mexico’s close vicinity to U.S., it was surprising to see people not knowing English. All the signboards to utility websites are in Spanish. It’s dangerous to tour alone without a Mexican counterpart.

We visited a place called Xochimilco(pronounced ‘Socheemilco’). It was a nice place with a good marketplace. Daniel Lopezgonz, accompanied us with his wife Martha and two daughters Pamela and Tamara. Daniel’s in-laws later joined us during a ride on the boat. There were vendors selling everything, from fruits to half-roasted corns, flowers to some speciality cloth during our one-hour ride on the boat. All we replied to everybody was with Gracias. There were also small boats that had people playing Mariatchi music. Later we had some Quesadillas at a restaurant. To indianise we added lot of chilli, lemon and salt, which made them taste better. If it not had been Daniel we wouldn’t have reached this place with so ease due to the language barrier.

There are some picturesque volcanoes in and around Mexico city which we are planning to visit sometime later.

Wish us good luck on our conquest to find or cook Indian food in Mexico!!

Rising Rupee : Curse or a boon ?

Rising rupee has created shivers among the exporter's community. Jitendra V. Singh of Wharton school of management has a differnt view over the subject :

In the early to mid-1970s, the exchange rate was 7:50 rupees to the dollar, and the long-term decline continued for the next 25 to 30 years until the rupee reached 49 to the dollar in May 2002. For the first time in atleast three decades, the rupee has begun to appreciate. That does not surprise me. In the next 15 to 20 years, it is possible that the rupee may again reach 15 to the dollar, as it was during the 1980s.

We have been hearing many complaints from companies that are hurt by the rising rupee. Companies with business models whose revenues are generated in dollars -- and whose costs are denominated in rupees -- are worse off. In contrast, the rising rupee also helps companies that buy dollar-denominated resources, such as oil from global markets, or those that want to acquire foreign assets.

Many Indian companies have recently bought overseas firms. For example, the Tata Group's Taj Hotels, Resorts and Palaces bought the Boston Ritz-Carlton for $170 million, and there have been reports of other companies such as Tata Motors or Mahindra and Mahindra seeking to take over Ford's premium Jaguar and Land Rover brands. Companies that make such acquisitions will get a better price because of the stronger rupee. On a $1.5 billion transaction, a 10% drop in price due to a better exchange rate can mean savings of $150 million -- which is hardly a small amount.

The exchange rate depends in complex ways upon a host of factors: flows of foreign funds, interest rates, budget deficits, foreign reserves and trade balances. When the economy was liberalized in the early 1990s, no one would have imagined that India would one day have foreign exchange reserves of almost $230 billion, as it did earlier this month. With a multiple set of objectives, which include containing inflation and favoring foreign portfolio and direct investment, the Reserve Bank of India can try to stabilize the currency if there are more buyers than sellers of the rupee, but it may not be able to intervene beyond a point.

To the extent that Indian companies compete primarily on cost arbitrage, the rising rupee will work against them. One key question to ask is how to develop other sources of competitive advantage, such as building high-level capabilities which cannot easily be replicated by competitors, or how to change the mix of activities carried out in India versus other countries. Notably, Indian IT firms are trying to address rising wage costs by moving production within India to lower cost regions -- Eastern India (Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar) and to Tier II and Tier III towns. However, this will only offset a rising rupee to a limited extent, since the costs will still be in rupees.

If Indian firms were to follow this approach, there would be less reason to use the RBI to intervene to force the rupee down against the dollar. RBI cannot keep the rupee weak indefinitely; the rupee cannot stay down if the Indian economy is strong and the fundamentals keep pushing it up. Instead, Indian companies should learn to use the strength of the rupee to their advantage by adapting their business models and geographical mix in innovative ways.

India vs.India, India Poised Anthem

"There are two Indias in this country. One India is straining at the leash, eager to spring forth and live up to all the adjectives that the world has been showering recently upon us. The other India is the leash. One India says, give me a chance and I'll prove myself. The other India says, prove yourself and maybe then you'll have a chance. One India lives in the optimism of our hearts. The other India lurks in the skepticism of your minds One India wants. The other India hopes. One India leads. The other India follows. But conversions are on the rise. With each passing day more and more people from the other India have been coming over to this side. And quietly, while the world is not looking, a pulsating, dynamic new India is emerging. An India whose faith in success is far greater than its fear in failure. An India that no longer boycotts foreign-made goods but buys out the companies that make them instead. History, they say, is a bad motorist. It rarely ever signals its intentions when it is taking a turn. This is that rarely-ever moment. History is turning a page. For more than half a century, our nation has sprung, stumbled, run, fallen, rolled over, got up, dusted herself and cantered, sometimes lurched on. But today, as we begin out 60th year as a free nation, the ride has brought us to the edge of time's great precipice. And one India- a tiny little voice at the back of the head- is looking down at the bottom of the ravine and hesitating. The other India is looking up at the sky and saying, it's time to fly."

Dismal performance glooms Indian cricket

Here again. Lot's been written about Indian cricket team's dismal performance at the ongoing World Cup cricket tournament 2007. Quoting a fan at Caribbean island, "India should replace all the players in the team and give opportunity to new, fresh and energetic talent. We don't want players to give up easily but stand to their task".

Fans also went ahead attacking player’s rich and famous lifestyles. They yelled players, to stop endorsing brands and concentrate efforts on the task they ought to do.

India as a cricketing nation felt stranded at the hands of eleven, shattering their dream of winning the World cup to pieces. Now they are left at the mercy of unprecedented victory of Bermuda over Bangladesh.

While Dravid expressed the feeling of anonymity to players in the dressing room, Greg Chappell was reluctant to pin down or label anybody for the loss. He said, "Any comment at this point could be misconstrued and could result in unwanted situations".

BCCI headed by Sharad Pawar said, "We are going to meet after getting a report from the team manager and would give a serious thought to future course of action. Our future approach will be to concentrate for the 2011 World Cup."

Third world nations 'main threat to UK economy'

BBC on Monday, 6th Feb. 2007 reported China and India as a main threat to UK economy. Report was based on surveys carried out by accountancy giant Deloitte and marketing research firm YouGov.

China is seen as the biggest threat to the UK as its manufacturing sector continues to boom, while India now houses a number of call centres for UK firms. In a study of public attitudes to global economic competition, 79% of 2,704 people identified fast-growing China as the largest threat to the UK. India was seen as the main challenge to the UK by 45% of those surveyed.

The Deloitte/You Gov survey found that 64% of respondents expressed a negative reaction to such off-shoring, and a quarter also held the opinion that existing off-shoring programmes should be reversed. Just 6% said they supported their continuation.

Deloitte's head of consulting, David Owen added that there "needed to be a great understanding among the public that the transfer of certain jobs to other locations is a trend that is likely to continue and brings with it opportunities as well as threats".

To help boost UK competitiveness, 75% of the survey's respondents said there should be greater investment in education and training.

A further 60% said there should be more support for small business start-ups.

"One possible way for government to raise skills is for tax credits to be awarded to businesses for training spend, similar to the incentives used to raise UK levels of innovation," added Mr Owen.

It can be noted that as businesses in UK looks back to Government to support boosting of innovation programmes and retaining jobs, Government in developing nations like India or China have never backed businesses to go out fishing for jobs. It is all out of their hard work, skills and dedication that they are achieving and cruising to such great heights.

It is people who can bring a difference. Otherwise, flow of resources from higher areas to lower areas is the rule of nature to bring balance and strike harmony.

Winkfield - UK

Last weekend I moved to Winkfield on a new work assignment. It's a place bit away from West London. It took me a hour and a half by Ford Mondeo to reach there. Initially, I had trouble locating the company-provided accommodation as cab driver too was not acquainted with the area. Also, the car did not bore a navigation system, making the task more difficult.

Fortunately, I was carrying phone numbers of couple of my office colleagues who were staying in the apartment adjacent to mine. They helped the driver reach through, and even stood outside on the main road to help us easily locate them.

Here the office looks more to be in the woods as it daily requires us to travel by cab. Nevertheless, everyday we have a different classy vehicle waiting for us viz., BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Toyota, etc. The office is surrounded by garden and lush green trees. View outside the window creates marvellous jungle effect. Occasional winter mist adds to the beauty.

Other attractions in the vicinity include Legoland for kids and Royal Windsor castle - official residence of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. These are the places I have come to know till now. Heathrow airport also falls at a distance of just about 15 mins. drive.

Going forward, spending more time here would reveal more mysteries, giving me opportunity to update this blog. Click here to join buzzy_biz to receive updates and access panoramic UK photos.

Happy New Year 2007!!

On this New Year’s Eve I experienced some spectacular play of fireworks in the city of London. The event was held at ferris wheel “London Eye”. It was a cold winter night preceded by some mild showers, making it colder.

We reached there at around 9 pm from Charring cross tube station. Reaching there earlier was important as tube stations around the place were scheduled to shutdown by 10 pm. We stood there waiting for 3 hours on the other side of river Thames, exactly opposite to the Giant Wheel. Finally, the countdown began at a minute before 12:00 midnight.

At the end of the countdown, radically the sky was filled with all patterns of fireworks from all over, followed immediately by other. They had firecrackers fitted around each of the cabins of ferris wheel, giving a fabulous circular effect. This special show went around for 20 long minutes ending with applause from more than 150000 odd people.

Like these electrifying fireworks, this New Year is special too. Here are the few statistics :

• It starts with MONDAY and ends also on MONDAY
• Almost no PUBLIC HOLIDAYS on SUNDAYS
• This year has got highest number of SUNDAYS and SATURDAYS
  

So enjoy the least working year in your life.

2007 – A YEAR WITH A DIFFERENCE. LET’S MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Wishing you all a very Happy and Wonderful New Year !!

Quotes

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

-- Lord Bertrand Russell (Welsh philosopher)

"If a person desires to be a humorist it is necessary that the people around him shall be at least as wise as he is, otherwise his humor will not be comprehended."

-- James Stephens (Irish writer)


"Take your work seriously, but never yourself."

-- Dame Margot Fonteyn (English dancer)

Dhaka Palace - Greece

On my recent visit to Greece, last day we came across a strange Indian restaurant called Dhaka Palace. As the name suggests it turned out to be a Bangladeshi restaurant. This was confirmed when we found a very unusual item "beef curry" in the menu.

A small description in the Holiday Inn's catalogue detailed it as, ''Indian curry restaurant with delicious Indian cuisines. Clean, draped tables, perfectly suitable for weddings, parties and ceremonies." This lured us to this place.

Grabbed a cab, hoping and searching we reached there. The restaurant was exactly as described. Walls were oil painted with Indian decors; the old wooden table that we occupied was draped with a table sized tissue paper.

After half an hour of placing the order, none of us were served the items we had ordered. Stuart’s order of cheese nan with chicken tikka was served with a nan without cheese. Ian, who had ordered vegetable biryani was served with vegetable rice and Robin could not make out what he was eating. As I was last to be served, was expecting an exclusively prepared vegetable korma.

On receiving my dish, it looked very fishy and some dredging revealed it to be CHICKEN KORMA. I was completely bewildered at the quality of service, and thanked God for saving me by a whisker. Being a vegan I always prefer to have a vegetarian food. I accosted the waiter to immediately cancel my order and in the end had to do with some simple vegetable biryani only.

Later, next day in the Greek office we found, that there was a better Indian curry restaurant at a walkable distance from our hotel, and the locality we visited wasn't considered to be good and should have been abandoned.

That’s called learning by experience.