BBC HARDtalk with Duff McKagan

It ain't cloudy anymore

It was just a cloud, high in the sky. Looking down at you. Imposing, inviting, waiting. Meandering in the vastness of oblivion. It floats there calmly. Not a sound but if there was one, it would be from the harp-laden angel within. You can reach it, bask in its fluffy heavenly glory but you will never have it.

As it gently wafts by, it disappears over the horizon right in front of your transfixed eyes.

And all it leaves behind is the searing heat that drains you dry.

I miss that cloud!

Closed Distance...

Words. Rounded up and beaten. Cut, chopped and made mincemeat of. Restricted by distance and denied of the epiphany that lies across the stretch of land and albeit only a tiny expanse of water that the world can storm, it moves there thousands of miles away from where it should be, where it could be. It meanders through a minefield of thoughts, stepping in gently after a good sleep, during a good sleep, when awake, and vitiates the existence that continues without the presence of the flesh and bones it needs.

There is no hope, not yet, just a glowing green dot from a radiant image.

Real Estate Is Not An Industry

It is an unregulated entity giving the utmost freedom to capitalize on human needs and to make humongous profits. It is dominated by a few well-suited corporate-style hungry wolf packs and on the other end of the spectrum, defines itself through paan chewing, uncultured, Hindutva-spewing, nincompoops who have understood the business of making money by scourging on a piece of land.

And did I mention, they are more or less unregulated?

This Is You!

Humans! How I despise them. With their big brains and their opposable thumbs. Simians on two feet, that’s what they are. Complicated their own lives with their mores. Docked on the moors is more like it. Neither on land nor the sea. Stuck in the peaty smell of everything they survey. Imploding constantly with their own ideas. The feeble survive. The meek shall inherit the earth. Like cockroaches after a nuclear fallout. Scavenging…

Bomb them back to humanity I say.

See It, Believe It

As the eyes search down in the vast expanses of vanity, the light shines, emanating the divinity within. It’s not hard to see but the ignorance of the world is not so blissful. It is a waft of approaching stimuli to all senses. Eyes hypnotically follow every movement, the gentleness of it, and the subtlety of it. Spotted from far away, like the searching glare within the dry grass blades somewhere in the Serengeti. Its presence is completely unaware of prying eyes, or at least that is what it leads to believe. Patient and resilient, it carries across the daily trudge of miles of the day, until it turns around for its abode. It carries with itself the frugal fragrant imposition of its existence which slaps thine face for acknowledgment.

Everyday is like being in the open desert under the scorching sun. The sun doesn’t take much away but is indeed incommodious. The Brobdingnag sweep of the desolate wasteland leads to anything but Rome. So like a fawn meandering and spiraling through the landscape, it time and again falls right next to you.

A voice unfolds reserving its space, slowly and steadily, until it alters brainwaves to accommodate the sweet siren voicing at pre-determined intervals day-after-day. Till it alters the metabolism, like a slow drug, till you can’t live without it, till the body twitches with withdrawal symptoms. And then it rings…

Budget 2009 Is An Investment For Long Term Growth

The Real Estate sector does not necessarily deserve incentives all the time. The three stimulus packages before were more than enough.

“The investment in infrastructure for the growth of economy is critical” said Mr Pranab Mukerjee in his budget speech. India will aim for a growth rate of at least 9 per cent per annum over an extended period of time and try and increase the investment in infrastructure to more than 9 per cent of GDP by 2014.

The Finance Minister took a leaf from President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech, when the President of Change pragmatically stated “Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time.” Mr Mukherjee drew parallels by stating, “Members would appreciate that a single Budget Speech cannot solve all our problems.”

Investment in infrastructure is not a short term recourse for growth, it is a macro-view for stability through connectivity. Heavy emphasis was laid on infrastructure, both in rural and urban areas.

It was suggested that the Infrastructure Finance Company Limited (IIFCL) will cater to infrastructure by refinancing 60 per cent of commercial bank loans for Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in critical sectors over the coming months.

The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) schemes allocation has been upped by 87 per cent. With close to Rs. 4000 crores allocated for housing and providing amenities to the urban poor. This portrays the affordable housing schemes by private developers as a joke.

The Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) intends to make the country slum free in a five year period is something to be sceptical about; a similar promise which could not be delivered by the Government since the last election.

The Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY), for rural housing, is proposed to be increased by 63 per cent. The proposal is to allocate, from the shortfall in the priority sector lending of commercial banks, a sum of Rs.2,000 crore for Rural Housing Fund in the National Housing Bank (NHB). This is expected to boost the resource base of NHB for their refinance operations in rural housing sector.

Mumbai, now in its fifth year of Venetian-like floods, can look forward to the Brihan Mumbai Storm Water Drainage Project (BRIMSTOWA) with an influx of funds of up to Rs. 500 crore to “expedite the completion of the project.”

Furthermore, steps were provided to reach the unbanked and under-banked areas of the country to ensure a brisk circulation of the financial system to regulate the economy from all quarters.

The only cake for Real Estate, albeit half-baked, was provided to the construction sector, with a proposed full exemption on goods manufactured at site including pre-fabricated concrete slabs or blocks, when used for further construction at site.

Politically, it is advisable that the allocation and incentives are favoured towards the rural sector, a major vote bank for the Congress, or even the malignant state of infrastructure, including metros such as Mumbai. Rural development will mean equitable distribution of wealth, investment, higher standard of living and job creation in areas which have been neglected. This may also deter the rural-to-urban population migration easing pressures in urban areas.

The world is still rotating on the financial crisis and investments to struggling sectors like real estate, for instance, will absorb any incentives with little to show. Influx of capital in any sector will give a less-than-expected disproportionate ratio to the output. And ideally, market forces should govern their status. It is then advisable that the basic idiosyncrasies of the country are strengthened during these times.

Dissent for the budget is mainly on the Income Tax slabs voiced by the middle class section of the population but then again there is no key financial crunch in India although the economy has slowed down. Liquidity options are cautious than anything else. Furthermore, the three stimulus packages announced by the Government pre-elections, from December 2008, are enough enticements for housing loans and consequently the real estate sector. Failure to capitalise means that they were treated as bench warmers.

Section 80IB (10) which provides tax benefits to developers who provide for housing aimed at weaker sections was under-utilised and hence was not renewed. And rightly so.

Housing for the poor has been taken up by the Government themselves through institutions like the IAY and the JNNURM, leaving private developers out of the opportunity to make hay through volumes. Remember affordable housing schemes, anyone?

Historically speaking, the Great Depression on 1929 had similar solutions. It purported that concentration of an economy in only a few areas, be it geographically or sector wise, is detrimental and thus chose to inculcate a wider range of the economic spectrum across the country. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is believed to have restored the economy with concentrated efforts towards labour and upgrading the infrastructure at a national level.

On the Indian front, regulations can be relaxed as and when required. Provisions can provided and exceptions can be made. But today is not that need of the hour. The budget is good. Wait and see.

Meltdown!

The sudden loss of cranial shutdown was attributed to the constant barrage of information gored vilely in the deepest chambers of neurons. Sparks dissipated into a mere semi-liquid mass of gooey output. It did spark though, like a mini-nuclear implosion collapsing under its own microns. And like a man-made disaster the big red button was pressed, lights flashed, sirens blared, evacuation followed down to the hatches of what only can be termed by your imagination. A lifeless pitiful body remained staring at the window, hands by its side, legs curled up, face hanging and mouth open to the bugs of the outside world.

"Bet'chr Ass Man, Guns N' Roses! Rules....Then That Cobain Pussy Had To Come Around & Ruin It All."

Guns N’ Roses! Guns…N’…Roses! They evoked a chant from the ravenous, inebriated puffed, riot inducing, high decibel volubly wired craniums that formed the electoral support for the stage.

Axl Rose is an acronym for Oral Sex and Slash is a Nigerian-Jewish-Brit hybrid, but enough of their trivialities. They were anti-establishment, anti-anti even. They screeched their existence, and then added heavy drumming and the electric streamed through their fingers and said “You’re in a jungle, baby. Wake Up! Time to die!”

The world hasn’t changed much. They were the notified punks of the 80’s, the era’s brand ambassadors. They spoke about that time, how grunge it was, how intoxicating it was, how loud it was, how nostalgic it would be, and a stark reminder of how empty it is now.

Axl’s hoarse shrieking laid low setting up as a precursor to the enticing runaway solos by Slash; mix it with a balladic piano of Dizzy Reed, the bass of Duff McKagan, might it be added; heavily underrated, the rhythms of Izzy Stradlin, the percussions of the discarded Steven Adler and his replacement Matt Sorum.

Guns N’ Roses, like most of the bands of the 80’s, were known for their on-stage antics, from the St. Louis riots in 1991 to the sane pleas of pacifying the crowds “we don’t want people passing out and having to go to the hospital” (Mr. Brownstone from Live Era ’87-‘93).

The rift that was between Axl Rose and the original band, currently Velvet Revolver sans the lead singer Scott Weiland, is still on a high and will collude against a reunion. Communism has fallen and so has the band, the voracious appetite for era is now just a grand illusion.

Contemplate

The sage atop a snowy peak freezes in the endorsement of enlightenment. He froze his blood blue and he froze his nose pink, his toes were black and ready to disembark on a journey detached from his transcendent thoughts. He froze time as well because time was cryogenically relative to civilization and the only wise words he heard was the bleating of a mountain goat.

The wind picked up speed which formed a low pressure in the atmosphere in which he was enclosed. His parched eyes were ready to pop out from his sockets, ready to fall in line with his toes. The incline would make them travel farther than his toes might drop off. Rolling down further down to the chasm, his eye-balls would serve a tempting ready-to-eat fast food snack for a hungry pack of wolves. The mountain goat was the main course.

His skin had leather like gleam and his mammary papilla was hard as a diamond cutters tools. He was not in one with nature though; he realized this as he could not hibernate. His stomach growled with hunger. It had already digested the butterflies he had nourished a few hours ago. His concentration strewn, he robotically reached in his bag, and as his elbows creaked, the punishing grinding of gears in his joints, his fingers sent vague signals to his numb yet semi-enlightened receptors in his brains.

“Are those my testicles?” he pondered. His body was numb, at certain places. He mustered enough courage to withdraw his hand, with the fruit on the tips of his fingers, as he finally he realized that his testicles could not have possibly walked to his satchel.

He opened his icicle infested eyes and as he lost his eye-lashes in the process he noticed he was holding a peach, frozen hard as a rock like those lay beside him. The dogs that now stopped growling started howling. And he knew his stomach was close to his balls and he could not afford to “release the hounds”.

He took one bite of the frozen delight and swallowed his teeth. He could feel the warmth of the blood inside his mouth. It is difficult to find an analogy to describe what he felt, but “parting is such sweet sorrow”.

With the dogs neutered, he sat there. He sat wondering. Why? Then it hit him. Like a clap of thunder that would make a cat jump. A single bolt of lightening strayed across the brazen sky and toasted him. He was done. He fell, buttered side down. His heart beat a faint beat like a slow ballad barren of love. He looked up to the heavens and raised his voice, with his fist wallowing, he shrieked “Aaaaargh! That hurt!” Looked left and right as if crossing the street, paused for applause and sat down cross legged.

With one eye in the sky and the other one waiting to fall off, he felt the warmth in his body. His body was a prison he felt. A prison for all his desires and he needed liberation or enlightenment, whichever came first. But he eventually decided he needed to urinate the little ice cubes that were forming in his bladder first. He passed the elephant through the needles eye and then there was a moment. A surreal moment of peace and tranquility surged through his body. He had done it, he thought. He was there. Atop a peak, one with nature, one with himself and life itself thereabouts round the corner.

It was a long and onerous journey uphill. He stomped and he grazed without a faintest idea that he may resemble a goat. His beard and long hair were his ever increasing constant companions. A flow, a pattern emerged. The pointed end of his beard resembled a compass which directed his senile pleas to march towards the opposite direction. He had left it all behind, people and their social ineptitude. He had met a donkey on the way to the stony pass which led to the foothills of the mountain. He had gazed into the stubborn eyes of the lazy beast. The sage said, in the most childlike eager tone, although laden with a bit of subtlety, “Hello”. The donkey mustered up its head, away from the desolate ground below, where it had its vision fixated in a magnifying point of deep thought. “Hrrrmph! Hee Haw!” it answered. As if to say, “Hee Haw”. They looked at each other like they were a separated military unit lost during the peak of a civil war, looking at each other in an untrustworthy manner, trying to figure who was the one who was brainwashed. Then the donkey, without any indication, turned his head away, like a scorned lover trying to hide its embarrassment.

Incomplete...