THE UNION BUDGET 2025 & KERALA STARTUPS

Towards startup promotion and growth, in her budget speech for the year, on  01/02/2025, the Union Finance Minister had announced the setting up of a new ‘Fund of Funds’ with fresh contribution of Rs 10,000 crore. This is in addition to already existing contribution of Rs 10,000 crore. Being a ‘fund of fund’ this will go into as contribution to alternate investment funds (AIF) across the country, towards specific startup funding purposes. This is a good move as the union Government’s contribution, executed through SIDBI, will combine with equivalent or more contributions from other funding bodies and thus the overall funds available for startups in India could be much larger. 

Considering the fact that Startup funding in India had come down drastically in the last 2 years, this could boost up the funding possibilities for startups.  This is good news for many startups who are in startup to standup & standup to scaleup phase of their existence. 

With specific reference to Kerala, we see is reduced commitment of SIDBI towards the state. The SIDBI’s setup in Kerala had been scaled down to a great extent which reflects much lesser commitment of SIDBI to the state. On the other hand, hard pressed for capital, GoK and its institutions such as KSUM, KSIDC etc are not in a position to avail such union government schemes due the sheer incapability of offering matching funds. Therefore how much of the union budget announcement will help Kerala startups, is a mute question. Just see the fact below: 

In the earlier announced Fund of Fund scheme worth INR 10,000 Crores, 144 VC Funds that got sanction from SIDBI.These VCs committed INR 86000 Crores of which Fund of Funds contribution is only 11147 cr. Active private sector VCF is the reason for such huge participation. How ever, there was not even a single VC in the above list  from Kerala. In  Kerala, nobody, neither government  nor private sector, is interested for such initiatives.

In the freshly announced Funds of Funds worth INR 10,000 Crores, I am not sure how many governmental & private funds from Kerala would participate. When the government had done well in Startup ecosystem building in Kerala for the last 10 plus years, if they do not avail such union budget benefits, it would not only be a big opportunity loss but also a gross disservice to the startups that it helped create. 

With such (lack of) nurturing, what would the plight of Kerala Startups?

രണ്ടാമൂഴമില്ലാതെ, ഒരു കാലം കഴിഞ്ഞു

 എം.ടി യുടെ ഏകദേശം എല്ലാ  ബുക്കുകളും ഞാൻ ചെറുപ്പത്തിലെ വായിച്ചിരുന്നു. അദ്ദേഹം കഥ പറയുന്നതിൽ വിരുതുള്ള ആളാണെന്നതിൽ (master storyteller) ഒരു സംശയുവുമില്ലായിരുന്നു എങ്കിലും എനിക്കദ്ദേഹത്തെ അത്രക്കും ഇഷ്ടമില്ലായിരുന്നു. അതിനു കാരണം അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ പുസ്തകങ്ങൾ വായിച്ചു കഴിഞ്ഞാൽ വല്ലാത്ത ഒരു മരവിപ്പനുഭവപ്പെടുമായിരുന്നു എന്നതു തന്നെ. അത്രയ്ക്കും വിഷാദവും ഏകാന്തതയും ദുഃഖവും ആ പുസ്തകങ്ങൾ എന്നിൽ ഉളവാക്കിയിരുന്നു. എന്റെ ടീനേജ് പ്രായത്തിൽ അത്രയ്ക്കും അനുസ്വനം വേണ്ടിയിരുന്നില്ല എന്നതായിരിക്കും, ഒരു പക്ഷേ, ശരി.

നിർമാല്യം സിനിമ ഇറങ്ങിയപ്പോൾ കാണാൻ സാധിച്ചില്ല. അന്നെനിക്ക് 14 വയസായിരുന്നു. ഏതാണ്ടു 10 വർഷങ്ങൾക്ക് ശേഷം ജോലിയൊക്കെ ആയതിനു ശേഷം TV-യിലാണത് കണ്ടെതെന്നു തോന്നുന്നു. അനുഭവ ദുഃഖങ്ങളുടെ മോഹാലസ്യത്തിൽ (trance) ദൈവത്തിന്റെ കഴുത്തു വെട്ടിയിടുന്ന വെളിച്ചപ്പാടിനെ അവതരിപ്പിക്കാൻ ഇന്നല്ല, അന്നും ആർക്കും ധൈര്യം വരില്ല, എം.ടിക്കല്ലാതെ. കാരണം, അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ ഒരു ചെയ്തിയിലും ഒരു മലയാളിയും ഒരിക്കലും കുറ്റം കണ്ടിരുന്നില്ല എന്നതു തന്നെ.

1987-ൽ ആണെന്നു തോന്നുന്നു, കമ്പനിയുടെ സെയിൽസ് റിവ്യൂ ചെന്നൈ റീജിനൽ ഓഫീസിൽ കഴിഞ്ഞു സഹപ്രവർത്തകനോടൊപ്പം എറണാകുളത്തേക്ക് മടങ്ങുമ്പോൾ ട്രിവാൻഡ്രം മെയിലിൽ മൂന്നു പേർക്കുളള എ.സി കുപ്പെയിൽ മൂന്നാമൻ എം.ടി ആയിരുന്നു. ആദ്യം ഒരു പരിഭ്രമമാണു തോന്നിയെങ്കിലും പരിചയപ്പെടുകയും പിന്നീട് കുറെ നേരം സംസാരിച്ചിരിക്കാനും സാധിച്ചു.  സമയമെടുത്ത് അളന്നുകുറിച്ച വാക്കുകളിൽ ഉത്തരം തന്നും പലപ്പോഴും ഉത്തരം തരാതെ മിണ്ടാതിരുന്നും അദ്ദേഹം സംസാരത്തിൽ ഭാഗഭാക്കായി. തടസ്സമില്ലാതെ സാധാരണ നിലയിൽ അദ്ദേഹത്തോട് സസാരിക്കാൻ കഴിഞ്ഞു എന്നതു ഒരു വലിയ കാര്യമായി ഇന്ന് ഇപ്പോൾ തോന്നുന്നു. ഏതോ സിനിമയുടെ കാര്യത്തിന് വന്നിട്ട് ചെന്നൈയിൽ നിന്നും ആലുവയിലേക്ക് സഞ്ചരിക്കുകയായിരുന്നു അദ്ദേഹം.

കൂടെയുണ്ടായിരുന്ന ഏന്റെ സഹപ്രവർത്തകനായ അനിൽ പാലത്തിങ്കലും നല്ല ഒരു വയനക്കാരനായിരുന്നു. വി.കെ.എൻ, സക്കറിയ തുടങ്ങിയവരെപ്പറ്റിയാണ് അനിൽ അദ്ദേഹത്തോട് സംസാരിച്ചത്.

അദ്ദേഹം പണ്ടെങ്ങോ എഴുതിയ ഒരു യാത്രാവിവരണത്തിൽ ഹാൻഡ്ലഗേജിൽ ദിനേശ്ബീഡിയുടെ കെട്ടുകൾ കണ്ടു അമേരിക്കൻ എയർപോർട്ടിൽ കസ്റ്റംസ് ഓഫീഷ്യൽസ് അദ്ദേഹത്തെ ചോദ്യം ചെയ്തയിനെപ്പറ്റി ഞാൻ വായിച്ചിരുന്നു. അതെങ്ങനെ കൈകാര്യം ചെയ്തു എന്ന് ചോദിച്ചപ്പോൾ ബീഡി വലിച്ചു കാണിച്ചുകൊടുത്തു എന്ന് മറുപടി തന്നു.

കൂടുതൽ ബട്ടണുകൾ അദ്ദേഹമിടാത്ത ഷർട്ടിനുള്ളിൽ ശരീരത്തിൽ നെടുനീളത്തിനു diagonal ആയി ഒരു തടിപ്പുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. ഞാനതിനെപറ്റി ചോദിച്ചപ്പോൾ കുറച്ച് വർഷങ്ങൾക്ക് മുൻപു വയറു കീറി ഒരു മേജർ ശസ്ത്രക്രിയ ചെയ്യേണ്ടി വന്നുവെന്നും അതിന്റെ തയ്യൽപാടാണെന്നും പറഞ്ഞു.

വി.എസ്. ഖണ്ഡേക്കർ എഴുതിയ ‘യയാതി’ കൃതിയുടെ ഇംഗ്ലീഷ്  പരിഭാഷ മുമ്പേ വായിച്ചിരുന്ന ഞാൻ പിൽക്കാലത്ത് എം. ടി യുടെ ‘രണ്ടാമൂഴം’ നോവലും വായിച്ചിരുന്നു. അന്നു മുതൽ എന്റെ മനസ്സിൽ തോന്നിയിരുന്നത് എം.ടി, യയാതി എന്ന കൃതിയിൽ നിന്നും ഒരു ‘inspiration’ രണ്ടാമൂഴം എഴുതാൻ എടുത്തിട്ടുണ്ടാകും എന്നാണ്. ഈ ചോദ്യം ഒരു മുഖവുരയോടു കൂടി ഞാൻ അദ്ദേഹത്തോട് കുറച്ച് പേടിയോടെ തന്നെ ചോദിച്ചു. കുറെ നേരം ഒന്നും മിണ്ടാതെ അദ്ദേഹം പറഞ്ഞു, “യയാതി വായിച്ചപ്പോൾ ഇന്ത്യൻ പുരാണങ്ങളിലെ പല കഥാപാത്രങ്ങൾക്കും പലതും പറയാനുണ്ടാകും എന്ന് തോന്നിയിരുന്നു.”

Yes എന്നോ No എന്നോ അദ്ദേഹം പറഞ്ഞില്ല. പക്ഷേ മറുപടി അർദ്ധഗർഭമായിരുന്നു.

അതിനാലാവാം എല്ലാവരും പൊണ്ണത്തടിയൻ പൊട്ടൻ എന്ന് കരുതിയിരുന്ന ഭീമസേനനെ ഒരു ചിന്തിക്കുന്ന വികാരജീവിയായി അദ്ദേഹം രണ്ടാമൂഴത്തിലൂടെ മാറ്റിയെടുത്തത്. അത് തന്നെയല്ലേ മലബാറുകാർ ചതിയൻ എന്ന് വെറുപ്പോടെ വിളിച്ചിരുന്ന ചന്തുവിന്റെ പരിവേഷം പാടേ അദ്ദേഹം മാറ്റി എഴുതിയത്?

അസാമാന്യമായ സർഗശക്തിയുള്ള ഒരു കഥാകാരനു മാത്രമേ ഇങ്ങനെയൊരു ഒരു വീക്ഷണം സാധ്യാമാകൂ, തീർച്ച.

ഒരു കഥ ഉള്ളിൽ കിടന്നു മഥിക്കുമ്പോൾ ആരോടും ഒന്നും മിണ്ടാതെ, അതിനെ പേനതുമ്പിലുടെ പുസ്തക രൂപത്തിലാക്കി വായനക്കാരുടെ മനസ്സിളക്കിപ്പിക്കുന്ന ഇതിവൃത്തമാക്കി മാറ്റാനുള്ള എം.ടിയുടെ കഴിവിനെ നമിക്കുന്നു. ആ നോവലുകളിലൂടെ, തിരക്കഥകളിലൂടെ, എഴുത്തുകളിലുടെ, സിനിമ സംവിധാനത്തിലൂടെ മലയാള ഭാഷ ഉള്ളടത്തോളം കാലം, അതിൽ എം.ടി. വാസുദേവൻ നായരുടെ കാൽപ്പാടുകൾ ഉണ്ടാകും.

OH MAN!

At the beginning, he was in foetal position, in the cool comfort of the womb of his mother. He was regularly getting the food and water thru the umbilical cord.

Staying within, he started hearing sounds from outside and he would quietly listen to the noises. He then understood that there is a world outside from where he is currently now. And the noises tempted him to get out and reach that world.

In his desire to see the world, he started kicking the wall of the womb. Little did he realise that to his mother, that was the moment of physical pain and positive pleasure.

Days passed and he succeeded in getting out. He was born to the world.

As he opened his eyes, he saw lots of faces looking at him and he cried loud out of fear. Soon he would hear a lovely lullaby, would immerse himself in that and would sleep off peacefully.

He started growing and started learning many things. He learnt from many; first being the mother, also from other connected human beings and of course, from the nature that was around.

Mother helped him a lot. He started crawling, thereafter, trying to walk and fall, then again, walk straight without help ……..

He learnt many things from people and other creatures around. He learnt about the unity of ants and the ability of each ant to carry bodies having hundred times its weight. He understood the saving habit of storing grains by the ants.

He saw the mother hen protecting its chicks, fighting multitude of crows trying to attack them.

The nature taught him the wind, the rain, the heat, the cold and the weather changes.

For someone who started out on pure milk of the mother, he progressed into solid food and then into junk foods that were adultered. His body, mind and thoughts also started getting adultered. As he grew, his hubris also grew along.

As the body grew, he also developed feelings such as love & lust along side.

From boyhood, through student-ship, he advanced into a youth, learning many things in the process. Looking at the world, he understood that money is the single most important thing in life. And, slowly he forgot all the values taught by his mother and the nature. He married and celebrated parenthood.

As he became rich, he realised that his parents are distasteful in comparison with his new friends and relatives he had acquired. He developed a high ‘status’ for himself.

Though in his childhood he loved the hills and backwater, now he destroyed them to make houses, shopping malls & resorts. He illegally annexed land from the poor and shooed away those who approached him with hunger.

Time passed. Standing in front of his imported Belgium mirror, he saw his crumbled face and fast graying hairs and he didn’t feel good. One day, he fainted and collapsed. People brought him to the hospital.

For weeks together his languid body, strapped with equipments, was laid on the ICU bed. Hazily but, he could hear his children around fighting for the wealth created by him. He sadly realised that every one of them wanted him to die.

Then the angel approached him with the coldness to fill his body. He cried out to them to spare him. His begging for extending his life fell on dead ears, for the angel was strictly doing its assigned duty.

As the angel carried him, he tried to shake himself off from its grip. He thought that like he did in the womb, he could jump out to life again. But with no energy, he really felt fatigued and humbled.

His children buried his body and went away. Slowly, it decomposed and the worms started feeding  on it. The seeds that were thrown over his grave germinated into plants and absorbed the manure that his body had become.  

That has been the nature’s course, to give his body away to the plants and the trees that he destroyed while being alive! 

Oh man, the way  the cycle of Karma works

WHEN EDUCATION BOOMERANGS

Education is universally accepted as the means to progress, improved living conditions and better culture. It begets knowledge, skills, better behaviour and social upliftment. 

Any proper investment done in education has always yielded good returns. Can anyone think of the planet without educational infrastructure and services? 

Progress in technology brought about a virtual world where people could meet and communicate without moving. Online delivered content almost as if being offline. Covid 19 and the closure of the world consolidated the online presence, particularly in education. In fact being online helped to ensure that no one lost out their educational years during the pandemic. 

Byju’s (the company is officially known as Think and Learn Private Limited) was in existence even before Covid 19. Byju Ravindran, the promoter, has been an excellent tuition master when it came to entrance coaching for professional courses. He has cashed this reputation to scale up his venture with assistance from technology and that was the formation of Byju’s, the online educational platform. 

Due to his reputation as an excellent entrance coach, Byju was always in news. The success of Khan’s Academy, a pioneer in online classes, motivated venture funds to invest heavily in Byju’s. With such funding, Byju, in his round T shirt & Jeans ( a la Zackerburg), became a poster boy in Indian Start-up scene. 

With the large mass of K12 student in India, the funders thought that Byju’s would succeed. The company recruited from IITs and IIMs and formed a huge workforce, both in content production and marketing. Venture funds received were burned in  marketing blitzkriegs including sponsoring Indian cricket teams for years. Leading actors became Byju’s brand ambassadors. Covid was a blessing in disguise for the company where online education boomed and the pundits predicted the online makeover of education from offline. In all, Byju’s got funded to the tune of USD 8 Billion! The company went into a dizzying market cap of USD 25 Billion. 

Alas, Byju’s aggressive and unethical marketing strategies bombed. It ended up with huge litigations from customers across India. It could never reach its revenue targets. Scandels emerged. To compensate that, the company went into acquiring spree and ended up in buying about 20 companies in online & offline education space. Even that did not help the company improve its revenue expectations. Most of its investments went into black hole. Challenges with its auditing firm came out. Funders started blaming Byju and went after him personally. Good talent jumped out of the company and others got sacked. The protagonist wasn’t seen being in India lately. 

The news appeared on 14/01/24, shows Byju’s market cap being brought down to USD 1 billion by BlackRock. It is really not the end of the news. We could be hearing about Byju’s more, but not positively. It looks as if even a miracle may not be able to save Byju’s. At best, it could end up as a case study in B. Schools.

CONNECTING THE DOTS & TRYING TO MAKE SENSE FROM IT

Let us start with science, about the creation and existence of our universe. 

The Big Bang theory explains how the universe got created from a single point by high density and temperature. The whole thing is believed to have exploded from the single point and thereafter it started expanding ever since. The expansion continues, still. 

NASA describes black hole as a space with such intense gravity that it even it pulls in the light into it. In the black hole, everything is squeezed into such a tiny space, into a single dot. 

The quantum Physics hypothesizes that ALL elementary particles of matter are closed loops of waveform, with intense energy residing in it. By this hypothesis, matter & energy are identified to be two forms of one itself. This is now getting promulgated as ‘unified theory’. The latest experiments on this at CERN & other labs had generated excitement to all science lovers, world over. 

Let us now dwell a while on the Indian spiritual explanation of the situation before the creation: 

Nasadiya Sukta explains the origin of universe (verse 19:129 of Rig Ved). It says;

“There was neither non-existence nor existence then. Neither the realm of space nor the sky beyond. There was neither death nor immortality, neither night nor day, none breathed, for it was windless, and there was absolutely nothing beyond. In to the void, the force of heat came into being”

It then asks, “what stirred, where, in whose protection?”

It doesn’t ascribe the stirring to the Gods, as it says elsewhere that even Gods came after the creation. 

The puranic Hindu cosmology view asserts that the universe is created, destroyed, and re-created in an eternally repetitive series of cycles.

The repeated (cyclic) creation, destruction & re-creation of universes is not asserted by science, yet. How do we explain the big bang theory and the black hole in the context of Hindu cosmology view? Or is it all an illusion (maya) of the mind and the sense organs? 

Isn’t creation, destruction & re-creation similar to birth, death and re-birth?  

Does it help connecting the dots? Aren’t we also part of the cycle? 

Does it confuse us? Or, does it endorses Heinrich Heins, when he says, “sleep is good, death is better of course, the best thing would have been never born at all?

YEAR END MUSING

The year 2023 is about to close. In many ways, it had been a critical year of the century for the Planet so far. 

By late 2019, Wuhan reported an extraordinary respiratory illness akin to SARS and China went about on a war footing to address it but without telling the world.  Spread it did, and took every nation unaware, as we watched how the governments combated it. It came to be legally known as Covid 19 (short form of Corona Virus Disease 2019) & the pandemic did have ‘thandav’ across the planet.  

As per World Health Organisation (WHO), as of date, globally, there have been 77,28,38,745 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 69,88,679 deaths. As I write this,  a total of 13,59,57,21,080 vaccine doses have been administered on the people. This had been one hell of an anti-pandemic endeavour for the world. The way vaccines got formulated underwent sea change, to the extent that the scientists who developed the Covid vaccine unconventionally, are declared as the Nobel Prize winners for the year 2023. 

As I write this, in this part of the world, another variant of Covid, JN.1, is now playing tricks. How far & how destructive this be, will be known only by the beginning quarter of the new year. 

Yes, the year 2020 & 2021 fully belonged to the Pandemic. The year 2022 went this way, that way and only by 2023 that the world relaxed. The new normals of life slowly started receding back but with abundant caution, and now, hybrid life is a gift of Covid 19 to mankind.

Personally, the year 2023 was a year of transition for me. It is when I decided to end my deep association with the  professional and social bodies that I was actively part of. Thus, my TiE Kerala, KMA & Rotary activities fully came to a standstill. What is now left is ISTD where again, my intense involvement had well reduced. Being in the thick of it all for more than a quarter century, I was afraid that I would display ‘withdrawal’ tendencies but the impact wasn’t as heavy and today one is very comfortable with the current state of affairs. My routine acts like teaching at CUSAT, keynote deliveries, mentoring, blogging etc. continued without any hitch in 2023. 

I may want to concentrate on two main things for me for the future; travel and writing. In the year 2023, my reading got doubled and so did my travelling; Hong Kong, Andamans Island, Kolkotta, Jaipur travels figured in the year. The disappointment was not visiting Chola/Pandya edifices in Tamil Nadu, though it was very well in the plans for 2023. One hopes, it should fructify in the year 2024.  

I am also hopeful to finish 2 books during the coming year, first one in English is 99 percent ready and the other already well formed in the mind. Procrastination being what it is, still keeping the fingers crossed 😌

I would like to hear from you about the year that was for you and your plans for the year in the anvil. 

Here is wishing you the very best of the season! You take care.

VRISCHIKOLSAVAM @ POORNATHRAYEESA TEMPLE, TRIPUNITHURA, COCHIN

By late November, each year, festival in temples of Kerala begins, mostly with the Guruvayur temple Ekadashi fest. And for close to 4 months thereafter, thousands of Hindu temples across in the state of Kerala will celebrate the festivities independently.

Tripunuthura Poornathrayeesa temple fest falls in December month of each year. This year, it began on the 9th of December and it will go on till 16th December, for 8 long days. Poornathrayeesa temple festival is one of major temple festivals in Kerala, something which goes on from the morning to the wee hours of the night every day.

On each day, by morning, evening and night; plethora of art, dance and musicals are performed here, Ottan Thullal, Kathakali, Dance, Musical concerts and of course, the Melams. Different types of Melams are performed for long hours within the temple precincts, Panchari melam, Thayamabaka, Nadaswaram and the like.

Poornathrayeesa temple’s main deity is Maha Vishnu, in the form of ‘Santana Gopala Murthy’ and it is one of the patron Gods of the erstwhile Kochi kings. Monarchy is long gone but the reverence and enthusiasm with which people of Tripunuthura conducts the festivities of this temple, even to this day, is something very noteworthy. Tens of thousands of people throng to the temple each day and they stay on the premises for long duration, enjoying firstly the melam, and then, the other art forms performed around.

On the first day itself, my wife and I made our visit to the temple to enjoy the morning ‘Panchari melam’. It was played by the renowned Artist, Padmasri Peruvanam Kuttan Marar and his team. It started at 7.30 hours and went on till noon, such a nonstop performance! All this happens in front of 10 plus caparisoned elephants. It was an enchanting visual. It was reverberating and overwhelming.

We are living in the Internet era with technology playing a huge role on the life of people. It has shrunk the time on planet and its beings. However, the how people had preserved their culture and carry it on, could be well experienced from festivals such as this