Emergic

The time I like best with you is our vacation time. Last year, we went to Binsar and Bali in summer, and then Munnar in December. Vacations are when we get long stretches of time together, and it is increasingly interesting to have conversations with you. You are always full of questions – like it has always been.

Your mom remains the fulcrum of your life. Her one look, her one word, her silence – everything can change you in an instant. You are both so similar in many ways. There is a street smartness in both of you, and my favourite moments are when you both lock horns. You can anticipate her reactions, and so can she. This is “real-world chess” for me! So far, she always manages to stay ahead. But I think its going to get to draws soon!

I am the necessary “third person” – the one you both can gang up on for some entertainment every so often. You don’t like me travelling, but I cannot avoid that. We do our bit of learning together – reading the library book you get from school every Monday, some mental maths (“algebra”, as I tell you), and the occasional Q&A. My only peeve with you is that you are as disorganized with things around the house – not surprisingly, just like your mom!

Happy Birthday, Abhishek, and have yet another fun-filled year. Life is all about enjoying every moment, and I wish I could learn that from you.

Over the past year, you have undoubtedly become a lot more boisterous and aggressive than you were a year ago. You are even willing to stretch an argument with your mom. It is great fun to watch that. Like just the other day, when your mother and I had to go to Pune, you didn’t want to come. You made no bones about announcing to her and me, “I will have one day of peace.” That ‘peace’ for you meant unlimited TV and computer, of course! But it was quite a statement, and unthinkable a year ago. It was said in half jest of course. But it goes to show your growing independence.

An incident I remember is when you were hit by a friend who threw a hard ball at you while you were playing at home. It hit you. You realized it was an accident. When asked what happened, you said nothing much, perhaps knowing your friend may get a talking to if you said what happened. Friends do mean a lot to you.

The past year, you had four of your milk teeth extracted and a wire put to ensure proper teeth growth. You also ended up with five stitches and a scar on your forehead when the swing hit you in school.

You are becoming better at Chess. We have taken you to two local competitions over the past few months. In the first one, you got 2.5/4 points, and in the second, 3 out of 4. You should have won the first game which ended in a stalemate! I play with you at home occasionally, trying to ensure you are not hasty and don’t make silly mistakes.

Your mom meets you when you come home. It is time for a quick snack, and your buses and cars. For half hour or so, you are lost in your own world of vehicles that you take through your imaginary world. After that, it is play time with your cousin Maya who live next door. On some days, there are classes – like drawing, music and chess. You also spend time in the building playground with the other kids. Dinner time with TV (mostly Doraemon and Chota Bheem) is around 7 pm. I normally come home around 7:15 pm, so we get some time to read or play before you need to go to sleep.

Weekends are different, of course. Bicycling is something you really like in the mornings, which you do with your cousin Siddharth. Some weekends we go to Santa Cruz to Bhavana’s parents, and there you have more play time with your cousin, Hriday.

Some weekends you have to do charts for your school projects. That is hard work! You need to do writing, and then understand the concept so you can explain in class. These projects are a good way for you to learn new things. Some of the topics over the past year were on festivals, the universe, photosynthesis and homes.

The centrepiece of your current life is ClubPenguin.  You spend a few hours a week (with your cousins) on this virtual world. Something about this has captured your imagination, and you just love playing. This is quite a change from a year ago, when beyblades and CricketAttax cards were the centre of your life!

Your world revolves around your school for the most part. You get up around 6 am, though now increasingly, I have to wake you up around 6:25 am, since you insist on sleeping a little late at night (around 8:30 pm). We do our little reading or some play, and then it is time for your bath and breakfast so you can go the temple en route to being picked up by your school bus at 7:35 am. School starts at 8 am.

You are in first standard, and will get to the second grade in your IGCSE school in July after the vacation. Your class has 20 kids and 2 teachers. It is a fun place for you, and given that there is almost no homework, you have plenty of free time in your life. You come back from school around 3:30 pm.

You have made some great friends in school. For many in your class, you are “BablooBhai.” I have no idea how that nickname came to you, but it does conjure up an interesting personality!

The school also has events every few months – sports day, annual day, project day, and so on. So, there is always something to look forward to. Twice a year, your mummy and I get to visit, see your work and meet with your teachers.

Dear Abhishek,

On April 19, you will turn 7. I will not be there for your birthday since I will be away in the US on a business trip. You were quite disappointed that I will be missing your birthday. I said I will wish you via Skype, and we can celebrate it in your own small way once I am back. Anyways, you are not the birthday party kind!

These letters to you have acquired a life of their own. I have been writing one every year since you were born. I write these more for me than for you. (You are now starting to read, so maybe you will read this.) It helps me, for the half hour that I take to write this, think about you at a level other than a day. Memories fade, and even now, it is hard to remember how things were a year ago.

When you grow older, perhaps some of these letters will kindle memories of a wonderful, carefree childhood. Or, when I grow older, I will read these letters and relive your childhood. At this point, the latter seems more likely!

I wrote this letter to Abhishek last year. Here is how it began:

This Tuesday on April 19, you will be six. I have used every one of your birthdays to write a letter to you capturing key transitions in your life and my own impressions watching you grow.

Now that you are older and can understand much more, I told you about my letter and asked what I should write about your likes. Here is your list from a couple weeks ago: beyblades, 3D puzzles/models, Angry Birds on the iPad, taking photos on my Nokia E71, mobiles, skylines, Juju biya (the thin yellow blanket that you sleep with), Govinda pizza, doing aarti at home every night and Mummy’s thapthap (light patting so you can fall asleep).

It didn’t take much time for you to rattle that off. If I had asked you the same question at the start of the year, there would probably have been no more than an item or two common. And I guess I can say the same for how things will be a year from now – or even a few months from now. That’s how fast your world changes.

This week’s links:

• The computing trend that will change everything: from Technology Review. “Computing isn’t just getting cheaper. It’s becoming more energy efficient. That means a world populated by ubiquitous sensors and streams of nanodata.”
• Tim O’Reilly Interview: from Forbes. “The guy with the most data wins.”
• If-then and antiquities of the future: by John Battelle, thinking about the framework for his next book. “If I could just figure out a way to report on that future, to apply the tools of journalism to the story of the future we’re creating, I’d come up with a book worth reading.”
• The crowd-funding opportunity: from Mint. “In these markets, any individual can propose an idea that requires funding, and interested others can contribute funds to support the idea.”
• The two views on Narendra Modi: from Washington Post. “His prominence represents a yearning among certain sections of the middle classes for a strong, decisive leader, a desire to emulate China’s economic successes and impatience, too, with liberal ideas of human rights and social justice.”

So, will it happen? That is the big question.

I am optimistic that in the next year, operators in India will realise that they have to take their destiny in their own hands. Today, all controls seem to be in the hands of the government. Random changes in policies, the 2G spectrum auction overhang, the 3G roaming issue, Reliance’s 4G launch coming up, more spectrum auctions – there seems to be no shortage of issues which are seemingly beyond the grasp of the operator.

This is where they have got it wrong. Instead of crying wolf on what the government does or doesn’t do, they need to focus on the consumer and innovation. They need to change their mindset to enabling the ecosystem for next-gen data services by creating an i-mode in India.

I believe one of the operators will do this – not because it believes in it, but because it is not left with any choice. And that will force others to follow suit, and open the floodgates for developers and content providers. For long, India’s mobile data market has fallen short of expectations. Apple has shown what is possible by relegating the operator to exactly what it fears – a dumb pipe. The combination of fear and helplessness is a potent combination for change!

The opportunity for the data services revenue is large. India’s top 200 million subscribers have the ability to pay on average Rs 250 ($5) for various services. This can create new revenue of $1 billion a month, or $12 billion a year. These kinds of revenues can transform operator’s balance sheets and create India’s really useful and big digital companies.

Consider the way the landscape for data is changing. Social, Video, Gaming and Languages can drive big adoption in mobile data across the country. But to make this happen, the right incentives need to be created across the value chain. Internet companies have limited opportunities to make money from advertising because of the small spends (less than $300 million) and with the bulk of the money being sucked away by the international majors like Google, Yahoo and Facebook.

Getting consumers to pay small amounts of money for various services and virtual goods can be the real game-changing opportunity. Mobile operators are the only ones who can enable this new world, and in doing so, change their financial fortunes.

To create an i-mode an India, Indian mobile operators need to do three things.

First, they need to create an open publishing platform for value-added services. Any content or service provider should be able to offer a service in minutes. Just like anyone can create a website in minutes on today’s Web, so also should a person be able to create a mobile data service quickly. This will mean following open standards and eliminating internal controls on what type of service needs to be offered.

Second, the publishing platform needs to be integrated with the billing capability of the operator. It should be possible to charge small amounts of money to consumers for the newly created data services. It is almost impossible to bypass the operator to collect small amounts of money from consumers. Operators have the ability, cash balance and payment relationships to make this possible.

Finally, operators need to change the revenue share mindset, and start paying 70-80% of the share they get post-taxes from the government. Typically, operators get 85% today, with 15% paid out to the government for spectrum and other charges. Of that 85%, they should only retain 20-30%. (Today, they retain anywhere from 50-80%.) This will create the necessary incentive for developers to start creating and promoting their own services.

Taken together, these three initiatives can completely open up the mobile data services ecosystem in India.