Bangkok Trip happened in between

Although I have an interesting update which directly relates to my last frustrating post on job dilemma, I want to write a few lines on the Bangkok trip, keeping a space for a new post later on the job update.

Well, the beginning was very sudden. On 18th May'17, Rafi (Kakar, Pakistan) sent a voice message on whatsapp asking whether I would be free and open for a Bangkok trip between 29th May- 2 June. It seemed Commonwealth Secretariat and nine UN agencies together would organize a policy workshop (evidence based policy making for the youth in Asia Pacific region) and my credential matches for an ideal participant. Well, before the expiry of my current passport by 30th July 2017, I thought this could pave the way for a third stamp on my passport.

With Indian participants

I submitted required profile information, Rafi pushed from his side and I got the final invitation letter on 23rd May'17. The tickets took 2 more days. Meanwhile, I got confirmation from Thai embassy that minimum 30 days of passport validity is enough to obtain Visa on arrival in Thailand. So, all set and I boarded the Jet Airways flight on 28th May second half.

The first observation- there was a long queue for visa on arrival and I was ready with 1000 Thai Bhat. However, the authority has created one more queue for applicants who are willing to pay extra 200 bucks without receipt. I find that open case of corruption. Priority counter is fine' but why without receipt? However, I opted for the corrupt medium.

The taxi system at airport was also unique. You need to take a receipt from a vending machine where taxi number will be written. The taxis run on meters (sometimes ask for without meter as well).  The drivers were not well equipped with English speaking and that was a problem.

The workshop was designed to consume most parts of the day, but I made a point to devote the evenings in Bangkok exploration. On the first day (29th May), I and the young legislator from Philippines (Jason) went to khao san road. It was kind of party street with lot of food counters and massage parlours.  I went for a massage (of body and neck, not oil) too in a parlour; unfortunately, one strong man came to do my massage. I didn't enjoy at all; in fact, my back got hurt as he was too strong. I was groaning with pain many a times, and Jason was smiling.

Meeting the Assam MP suddenly while shopping

Every day I walked from UN centre to hotel after the workshop got over. The temperature was like that of sweaty Guwahati, and I had to take bath after that 1.2 KM walk.The Larn Luang area was very decent. They have a Tesco type grocery store named 7-11. The meter taxis were much reasonable, compared to the Tuk-Tuks, which looked like our auto-rickshaws.

Second day- I and Rafi went out to explore the Red Light area at Nana. The infamous places are Gali number 4 and Soi Cowboy. These are basically bars where pole dancing happened by bikini/nude girls. You need to buy drink (or juice) to enter. Then if you want the girl to sit beside you or want to do ding-dong , extra charges will apply. Rafi told this place is very reasonable compared to other red light areas and people are also honest; the girls/bar owners don't force anything. We did enjoy pole dances. Not for a single second, I felt 'sexy' or something. Looking at the girls, I remembered the stories written by Homen Borgohain and felt pity for them. Even my father's glimpses came to my mind. I forced Rafi to leave that place quickly. We searched for an Indian restaurant and had good meal. Rafi also explained me his experiences of working with UN. The inflated sense of achievement, tertiary goals by UN instead of targeting the primary problems are the discussions that dominated our conversation.

Everyday, I start the day with heavy breakfast at the hotel. There was no provision of food (even no tea, biscuit) at the workshop venue. We had to buy our own lunches. For this, Commonwealth gave us some money in pounds. Since I carried sufficient Bhats, I made the pounds exchanged in Delhi airport while returning. The topic of discussions at the workshop were as usual type. There were lot of youth participants and I didn't find much to learn new, except getting to know different experiences of people from 11-12 countries. Some of the things I like, for example, finding the indicators for a youth policy drafting, how different countries perceive the role of IGOs etc. Although most of the discussions were in the form of PPTs, there were some of the break-outs as well, and I enjoyed those.

On third day evening, I went out with Lokashis Saha (he is the civil society representative from India, based in New Delhi). Out sole purpose was to do shopping at a place called Indra market. First we went to a mall named Platinum; but surprisingly the shops closed by 8-00 PM and we got hardly 10 minutes to explore. We had no other option but to take the streets for shopping. Lokashis was calculating every item in terms of Indian rupees, and that indeed helped me restrain myself. I tried to buy stuffs for the family members, as well some for the friends and colleagues in New Delhi. Our journey ended in a place where Lokashis's friend owned an Indian restaurant named 'India Gate'. He managed a free lavish dinner for us. We returned to hotel at around 11-00 PM.

At Asiatique

The organizer told the workshop formalities will get over by noon on the last day. On the final day, we basically had to rate the posters prepared by various countries. The Indian poster was not good at all; Sri Lanka was the best and they also got  the most popular poster prize. I liked the way the organizers distribute the certificates. Each of us were given one certificate of another person; you need to find out the person and hand over the certificate. This was really a nice way to end the workshop. I requested around ten people to join me for a Bangkok exploration; but everybody was busy chatting or doing other stuffs. I decide to 'ekla chalo re'. I took a map from the hotel (Royal Princess) and that helped a lot.

I took the ipad to take photos and first went to the Royal place as the gates close by 3-30 PM. Entry fees was 500 Bhat; but after witnessing 50% of the inside places are prohibited for entry, I think the entry fee  was too much. The sun was too bright, still I manged to take multiple photos. From the palace, I walked to Wat Phoo, the temple of reclining Buddha. The entry fee was 100 bhat. It was a gigantic statue of Lord Buddha in reclining position.

From Wat Phoo, I took the ferry to cross the river and reach Wat Aroon.There suddenly, I met Keely from Singapore who gave my certificate today at the end of the workshop. After Wat Aroon, I had two things to do - visit Asiatique and on-board Sky train, the metro of Bangkok. But both were situated far off. However, a study of the map suggested there might be river connectivity. I inquired and yes- there was ferry service to go to Asiatique from Wat Aroon at around 40 bhat. Wow! Advantage of roaming alone!

I and Kelley reached Asiatique, which is like Eat street of Hyderabad or our lunch place near the Wales parliament (during my visit to Wales). We had some food there, since both of us skipped lunch. It was a good place to sit. I learned about the work Kelley is doing in Singapore. From there, we took another boat (free service) to the nearby dock which is attached a sky train station ( Sakhan Taksin). Finally I boarded a sky train too; well, I found Delhi metro is much better.

Memories before throwing away

After getting down at Siam, I went to Central Mall, which is considered one of the biggest mall of the world. It even has Ferrari and BMW showrooms inside the mall. I had almost no time to explore. After covering less than 5% of the mall, I walked to the Platinum mall + Indra market (yesterday's destinations) to complete remaining shopping. First time, I felt myself to be so much shopaholic in Bangkok. I found the place to be cheap as well.

I returned to hotel by 9-30 PM as I had to catch an early morning flight. I could not manage to have dinner, but God planned that for me. Lokashis brought lot of food from a local market and requested me to join for dinner. I had a good chat with him. We also cleared the room rent etc. While I incurred zero extra money, he incurred around 500 bhat extra. I thought I am a very much rule abiding citizen.

Return journey from Suvarnabhumi airport by the same Jet Airways flight. Though it was quick, I think I managed to see a lot. I must thank Rafi for this trip as well.

Job dilemma, how much to 'consult' etc

[Couldn't publish the blog at airport as battery got dried, later no internet, finally publishing today]

I have been thinking on writing about this. Sitting at the airport waiting for my flight to Guwahati has given me enough time and space.

Do you remember my logic while deciding on returning to India leaving McKinsey?  Consultants can’t be the real impact maker; they can only consult, give advice, analyze data, but they can’t take decisions. I want to be a decision taker/change maker, not a helper.

Any get together with BSG folks question what am I doing

By the time, my condition forced me desperately pray for NISG result, all my logic about ‘consultancy’ was destroyed. I seriously needed a job and the ‘government’ quotient was more than sufficient to make me bite the bullet. 

But after spending more than a year, I should reflect back now. And the McKinsey logic so much relevant today. There are multiple dimensions here, let me try to put down:

1.       The so called career progression of Indian bureaucracy does not have provision for outside & contractual consultants. Department of Personnel has no clue how many consultants are there with different ministries, what they are doing, what’s their career look like (I did a RTI). Even within one ministry, recruitment happens in divisions/groups. So, the cohesive feeling never comes. Consultants only think for their particular group or project, not for the entire ministry/department. Even inside one department, nobody knows the career progression bit.

2.       One of the reasons for the above conclusion is the asymmetry in the objectives of the consultants and the management. The management, who are civil servants have zero incentive to think about the career plan for the contractual employees. They are measured against deliverables, where number of documents prepared by consultants may be one parameter.

So, one way of looking at this kind of role is to make money (short term consultancy pays lot of money, but recruitment happens mostly with contacts) or a placeholder for a few months. You just can’t plan a long term career. And, the high time is slowly coming for me to take an alternate path.

So, what’s next from NISG?

One possible role I was looking at the government affairs/public policy manager type of role in industry association or private sector. In fact, I was thinking very highly about those positions and making efforts. But the Global Conference on Cyber Space (GCCS) brainstorming meeting on 12 April changed lot of my perspectives. The meeting was attended by industry association (NASSCOM, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, ICA etc)  and people working in government relations type role (Ankhi Das of Facebook, someone from Microsoft etc), as well a few from NGO (Aspen Centre, ORF etc)

What these people are doing is not much different from what consultants do. Or, maybe brokers /lobbyists do. The verbal spat between the founding president of ICA and Facebook’s public policy director at the start of the meeting was a shocker. I didn’t find any of their suggestions praiseworthy. Even from ministry’s point of view, we did not call them expecting big knowledge. It was just to show inclusiveness and to get some money as sponsorship. If I really look from impact point of view, it was an eye-wash, with some spending of public money for tea/snacks. But wait, we will showcase that meeting as something ‘awesome’ and move file accordingly. The attendees were also given impression they are the experts and they are dictating government. It was a perfect case of win-win scenario.

Do I really want to get into those jobs? What’s the future for them? With no business knowledge, they are certainly not going to be CEO of a company. With no political background, they are not going to be people representatives. With no civil service, certainly, they are not going to an IAS too. So, after 3-4 years , they will switch the company and do the same things for another couple of years, and so on.

So, here comes probably the big issue of my career.

I am nowhere. I am not a software engineer (like Akash, Alvaro), not a public policy guy (like Rajat Shetty), not an MBA (all the private sector biggies), not an academia (no PhD), not been able to get a job in International org (Like Mehreen, Qingling etc). Which way should I go from here? Old people asked to stick to a domain (medical, engineering, lawyer etc), and I can see a point in that argument now. You have to tell people the area where you are an expert one day and also rise in that expertise area.

With the above thinking, I think should I apply for PhD now? Would I be a different person then? Or, MBA (Stanford-Reliance one again?), Alibaba’s AGLA programme, A job in WB etc would have been great. But job getting takes exceptionally long time for me.

Talking about jobs, I have applied for around thirteen jobs until now- NITI Aayog, Gates Foundation, Alibaba, MasterCard, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Catalyst, UN, IPE Global and so on. Except rejection from a few, I have not even contacted a single time. From my job searching experience post- Microsoft and post-Oxford, I am not much surprised though.  But the question remains- why?

Why I need to drag so long? What’s wrong in my profile? Is it the fact that the jobs I am applying does not care much about profile, rather contacts? This is a valid argument though. But how can I improve? NISG can’t rescue me all the time.

I had to go through my old pictures and blog from Harddisk yesterday to regain my confidence. I was feeling very low. Anyway, let's see. I hope this home trip will bring something.

Are you sure? Have you forgotten how many home trips you planned this way from Microsoft? Ha ha !

I am still at airport. It is 6-24 AM now. Flight is at 7-45 AM. But good bye anyway.

Jodhpur Experience- Politics may not be my thing after all

I had to visit Jodhpur (Rajasthan) from 2-6 February 2017 for setting up a Digital India stall at the Pashchimi Rajasthan Udyog Hasthilp Utsav 2017. To be honest, there was no necessity of setting up a stall or a visit by NeGD resource; but the request came from the office of MoS, and hence the visit. I had to extend my stay by one more day (initially return date was 5th Feb) since DigiDhan Mela happened to take place in Jodhpur on 6th Feb.

First time (in last many years) I felt politics is not my thing at all. Maybe I am simply wasting my energy and time for a goal, I am not made for. I am seriously thinking about this after Jodhpur trip. Actually what happened- the PA of MoS and some local 'chamchas' came to meet me and complained about not putting photographs of the minister in our stall. Soon, their tone started going in a different direction, I just managed. The reaction of the local IT official was even more pathetic. This continued to the last day as well, where I was given some stupid responsibility even though there was separate MeitY official for DigiDhan Mela. I had to switched off my phone and literally ran away from Jodhpur with the most non-secured feeling. I hate running out of my responsibilities; but you can't make stupid politicians understand logic.

With the DigiSevak volunteers at Jodhpur

The illegal affairs between the executive and legislative have been disturbing me since I joined NeGD. It is a big nexus. Tax-payer's money is being spent to give high salaries to politically appointed personnel, to arrange dinners for the local netas. Maybe once you reach a very high level in politics, there will be different perspectives of looking at these 'illegal' things. But people at the lower part of political chain, people in bureaucracy, people like us are the worst sufferers.

However, the urgency of leader's photos in a stall is a reality. This is how politics works in India. I did put a standee with minister's photos in front of the stall and the response of the public was positive. The PAs and chamchas are like poisonous serpents and keep spreading their venom. The hierarchy in political system (they call loyalty) is another big issue.  The Tamilnadu politics is just one example of loyalty+power gamble. How will I be able to witness those things? I would be under tremendous stress, compromising with something that I don't believe. God, my life would become a hell. 

With the above thinking, I always think of politicians like Jayant Sinha, Manohar Parikar or Arvind Kejriwal. How are they managing? If they could, why can't I? The answers I got- family background, belong to small state with limited people, recipient/beneficiary of the impact of an event or extraordinarily brilliant people. And, what about me? Bloody! I am a lower middle class Indian with a zero political family background, belong to one of the most complex and backward states and districts of India, worst lucky guy to be impacted by any event and honestly, an average brainy human being.  Hence, I am a contractual consultant with government.

This government consultant role is turning out to be the worst of all. There is no respect (oh, you are on contract !), no career progression, absolutely nothing.  What am I doing here? I thought I will develop political links, my foot ! Seriously, should I move to private industry again?

I should stop immediately aligning my thoughts keeping a career in politics in some years down the lane. This is not going to happen. I should focus on building my profile, some wealth maybe. Or, in other words, I have made couple of wrong decisions. 

Don't know man! Nothing is right or wrong. Let's look at the future !

Lessons from the IIC lecture of Devdutt Pattanaik

[Got he opportunity to listen to mythologist, writer & illustrator Sri Devdutt Pattanaik on 21 March at IIC and here are some interesting concepts he spoke. I have added three from my side]

1. West v/s East: The notion of equality & justice are originated from western philosophy. Hence their way of defining equality and justice will be different from our ways. In our philosophy, we believe in the concept of Karma. So, when we see rich and poor, we think that is the result of Karma. But Western people think that as injustice. 

Snap from IIC

2. Line v/s Cycle: Indian philosophy is cyclic in nature, whereas western philosophy is linear. We believe if we do good work in this life, by Karma, we will get good life in next birth. We keep repeating this in cycle. Europeans didn’t think in rebirth/cycle. Like the BAITORONI river in Hindu mythology, Greek people also have a river (name I forgot). But they can cross the river only once (liner again), but Hindu mythology says we cross BAITORONI multiple times (cycle).

3. Culture disassociates us: There are two things – culture (or mythology or diversity) and humanness. Culture disassociates people, which humanness unites. Whenever we see someone, there will be diversity in terms of dress/food/thought, but when we think about the basic human nature such as breath, love, birth, die- we all are the same. So, never try for absolute truth- it will lead to chaos. Her truth and my truth will always differ.

4. Greek vs Indus: Greek gods/mythology/literature is always about individual, such as a masculine man wants to control the world- it is focused on an individual. But Hindu mythology such as Ramayana or Mahabharata is family centric. All members of the family takes part (Ekta Kapoor got inspiration from this – we love family sop-operas). Also, their Gods are always afraid that human might take over them, in the the way they (the Gods) defeated the Titans and took control. Hence, they will keep punishing/diverting the human. The gods can make anyone pregent by their will’; In Mahabharata too, the concept is there. But here Kunti requested God to make her pregnant, not the other way around.

5. Asuras are ambitious: If you really look at how Indian mythology has portrayed Asuras and Devatas, Asuras are dynamic, wants to uproot the Devtas from heaven and hence more ambitious. On the other hand, Devatas are perfect example of help takers (from Vishnu/Shiva). Also, asuras are painted black to such an extent that, we painted Krishna as blue, not as black to confused with asuras.

[Now, three from my side]

6. No absolutism: The commissioning of three women fighter pilots for the first time in Indian Air Force drew many accolades from across the spectrum. The names of these women would be written in Indian Air Force history forever. The only question that has been hovering in my brain- was it their talent, or luck or connection? I have almost come to this conclusion that things are never the way it appears from a distant far. What would be the most ideal scenario in this example- there were fierce multiple competitions among all the women trainees; the three selected ones not only be vetted by the jury but also by the competing fellow trainees. But is that possible? Is there any screening methodology in the world that is beyond criticism and can judge two equally competent human being? The answer is no. Hence to facilitate the selection other factors start playing a role such as relative, anecdotal evidence, officer’s recommendation, media’s likability and so on. This happens in every aspect of job recruitment, university admission, personal relationship selection, life of a celebrity. We are always made to live on a false world. Hence, there is always a slightly different version of truth. So, never believe anything on face value. There is strategic misrepresentation:)

7. Danger of being in border line with a political party: Is there any danger of being in a border line with a political party, just as I am in a border line with bureaucracy? The biggest example is Prashant Kishor and the way BJP treated him after the national election. He was a shadow figure and there was no formal way to prove his contribution for the campaign, and this borderline situation is dangerous. Compared to the party cadre and the party’s internal campaign team (however inefficient that be), the fate of outside consultants are very very limited. Hence, Prashant was thrown out. But what about Raghuram Rajan, Arvind Subramanium etc? I guess the problem is with age. At an age of 37 (as Prashant is), there is a perception problem how useful that person would be. Hence, Prashant was not inducted into any good position even though he was truthful to BJP. This betrayal of a political party is dangerous. So, the best strategy may be to have a publicly accepted executive position (if not joining the party) in your mid-year and sail through. The other strategy is to build your profile via PhD and outside-India assignment and then negotiate to come back in a good position, which is deemed as acceptable even by political parties. This Prashant Kishor story is an eye-opener for me. But the future must be observed to draw firm conclusion.

8. Corruption thought: The children of corrupt parents- their life, thoughts and what can society expect from them- I think they constitute an interesting cohort in the humankind. There are two possible extremities- how’d a corrupt parents deal with an honest child and vice versa and how a corrupt parents deal with equally corrupt mindset children. Here by 'parents', I have considered both, as any parent who is corrupt will eventually mean both as I don’t think a spouse won’t know about other’s corrupt activity; and if not she/he is carrying a slavery and not a marriage. And, by corrupt I mean the corrupt by majority of public perception; in India, this is not at all possible to get a corrupt convicted easily. I wish I could be wrong and in that case there would have no need of this thought, as criminal’s children constitute a separate cohort already. 

Bit abstract thought, let me stop here for today.

 

Thoughts on utilizing myself

For the last couple of days, particularly after analyzing the last year and writing the financial analysis blogpost, I have realized I have not done much, I am not doing much and I am unlikely to do anything in 'much' category in coming days. The rejection of the Amazon application is another pivotal point of my current thought process. The suicide attempt by Ravi after his post-marital affairs gave me a shock and bad feeling about my colleague, amidst whom I spend most part of my day. In summary, I believe there are mainly two threads here:

Thinking in Bhutan

1) I am not doing something that I want to do in the long run. If Politics is something that I want to try, I must start contributing towards it. But, I am not investing at all on this.
2) My current job does not require more than 60% of my time and energy. But, I am totally wasting the rest 40%.

Now, what can I do to overcome the above. I believe this can happen in two ways- on the job and off the job.
1) On the job: This is a relaxing, cool job and I have not have any strong reason to leave this instantly. But my knowledge and salary - both are not going to increase if I stick to this. Both my managers are in frustrated position because of directionless instructions from top. Hence, learning opportunity has gone down. The performance review usually delays by 7-8 months and increment comes in the range of 3%-4%. Also, government does not have any plan to give extra stature to the contractual consultants. Hence, sticking longer to this job does not make any sense.
Now, thinking about changing - where should I go? This brings back the main question- where do I want to see myself in couple of years down the lane? Is it really politics? Are you sure? Even if I keep some xyz in the future goal, the decision for immediate destination is very tricky. UN, WB are difficult to get into; PWC, KPMG etc- I am not interested; Should I try McKinsey once or connect back with OPML? Should I try for a job outside India? The Facebook Policy manager position with Nitin Saluja? NITI Aayog and Public Policy positions are not coming up; Connection with political bosses is not happening either. PhD thought again- oh no! I am at a loss. I think I want to increase my salary too. In that case, going for any fellowship will not be a good idea. Should I again try Stanford MBA once more and target corporate boss type position before venturing out to politics? Help me God !

2) Off the job: 40% of my time and energy are waiting to be utilized. I put some time in investment decisions in this month. The CPSE -ETF, e-NPS, myCAMS app are some examples of my new-found knowledge. The Assam Tribune collaboration work is something I volunteered on behalf of Xomidhan and this is going smoothly now. But there has to be something for long term impact, for example, writing a book. I have been thinking a lot on this and only three days back, I wrote the first line on the Bubble Theory. Although I am getting many ideas, I am not exactly sure whether I could build up this idea to turn into a book.
What else can I do? Agriculture? Starting a business? Investing in building life long relationship? Yeah, I have to get married too. Preparing myself for a marriage is something I am doing, I believe. Fixing sister's marriage is something where I can invest some time and energy. Clearing the Ghy land maybe another one.

Urge to do something extra has been there all along

But the bigger question is - am I missing something? What if I would have chosen a life in developed countries- US, UK, Europe by being in the top 1% earner of the country? (Ref- the book launch of American Indians at India International Centre Annex). What if I would have stayed in Amsterdam with McKinsey? I didn't think twice about leaving Microsoft, but I do think about the McKinsey thing. To be frank, coming back to India after Oxford didn't turn out to be a right decision. It is a different matter that I showed that as a good one to the world (and to myself).

Am I doing what an Oxford graduate should do? What I am doing today, I could have done without going to Oxford. This particular fact really disturbs me sometimes. What is the value addition? Or, the relevant question maybe how can I add value to the Oxford thing in case of 'on the job' thing as mentioned above?

Lot of questions my friend! Many I can't answer, and don't know where to look for solutions.

Financial trend analysis (starting with the year 2016)

It was long due.

Financial management is a significant aspect of anyone's life. Hence, an autobiography blog must track the financial facet of life. I have been thinking of starting a new label 'Finance' in this autobiography, and finally it is happening today.

Now coming to the first post under this label - it should capture my financial state as on today or maybe a trend of my finances over the years. But this is indeed a time consuming task, and that very reason has prevented me from opening this label until today. So, let me go ahead with agile/need based model on the starting of this new year.

2016 was interesting and I tried to capture most of my expenditures on monthly basis (unlike previous years where I only captured big expenses with any employer). So, at the end of the year, I had good amount of raw data for analysis. First I tried free mobile app or Ms-excel solution available in the market for doing the analysis. But none was suiting my purpose as I had some unique spending (I think) pattern. Then I decided to design my own Ms-excel sheet.

Choosing the categories:
The most difficult part was choosing the buckets/categories that would be useful and coerce me to improve my financial management. To start with, I have finalized the below categories for expenditure:
1) Housing includes rent, home's permanent infrastructure such as bed, table, fridge, cylinder(since twice a year for me), Kathmistri charges etc
2) Utilities includes electricity bill , Maa's mobile bills, my mobile bills even though I get reimbursed etc
3) Food includes sabji, grocery, milk, household stuffs such as soap,harpick, ordered food to be taken at home (maybe Pizza) and also food taken at office (assumed Rs 30 for 20 working days =600 per month)
4) Gift includes material/cash gift to family members or others which I could avoid, donation to non-profits, help provided to someone needy
5) Family includes money spent on home construction, buying essential commodities for family members such as medical insurances, medicines, travel tickets, infrastructure at Agia which I couldn't & shouldn't avoid as a responsible son/brother
6) Investment includes LIC premium, MF, Equity, PPF, APY, NPS, health insurance, other investment like rubber, but not including pf that got cut from salary
7) Recreation includes eating outside, watching movie, roaming inside NCR excluding transportation
8) Medical includes money spent on my (not family) diseases or medicines excluding health policy premium
9) Travel includes both commutation and lodging/fooding charges outside NCR of myself or me taking family members, including my Agia stay expenses
10) Personal includes money spent for my career development, cloth, books, initiatives(not nonprofits) etc
11) Transportation includes local conveyance charges such as metro card or Ola/Uber/Bus inside NCR
12) Loan includes cash or kind (eg- buy ticket) given to others with promise of repayment. For repayment within a month, there is no need to mention
13) Untracked includes money left after monthly cash-in-hand calculation at the end of each month.


Categories for earning:
1) Salary: Money deposited in my bank account (not in payslip, which means I don't track PF and TDS)
2) Equity: Money got transferred from Sharekhan to bank after booking any profit, not counting the dividends though
3) Bank interest: Money both ICICI and SBI give to me at the end of each financial quarters
4) Reimbursement: Money given from NeGD for Mobile bills and travel expenditures. Although both the items I write in expenses, I got back the money (more/less in case of travel expenses)
5) Maturity: Money credited to bank accounts on maturity of MF, FD or any policy etc
6) Loan repayment: Money returned by individuals against the loan taken from me
7) Others: Money got from other sources such as honorarium etc


So, here goes my expenditure and Earning tables, followed by a graphical representation of expenditure:

Housing (rent, cylinder, infra items, except food)

Utilities (no gas, Maa's Rs 1000 pm included)

Food (sabji, household,Office Rs 600 pm included)

Gift (to family or others, Donation, Help)

Family (travel of family, medicines)

Investment (PPF, LIC, Rubber,share APY 630 pm included, no PF)

Recreation (restaurant, movie, inside Delhi only)

Medical (only mine, not health insurance)

Travel (Home stay expenses, airfare)

Personal (clothing, stuff, initiatives etc)

Transportation

Untracked expenses (water, minus office food)

Loan

Total

Jan

₹ 60,119

₹ 1,859

₹ 2,325

₹ 10,279

₹ 10,000

₹ 2,040

₹ 9,199

₹ 8,142

₹ 960

Feb

₹ 14,000

₹ 1,827

₹ 1,720

₹ 1,050

₹ 10,595

₹ 48,550

₹ 2,645

₹ 7,260

₹ 200

₹ 3,307

₹ 91,154

March

₹ 14,000

₹ 2,350

₹ 2,202

₹ 3,675

₹ 6,012

₹ 630

₹ 670

₹ 335

₹ 5,635

₹ 2,970

₹ 905

₹ 1,332

₹ 40,716

April

₹ 14,770

₹ 2,070

₹ 1,181

₹ 11,269

₹ 1,09,344

₹ 630

₹ 2,275

₹ 24,671

₹ 1,141

₹ 190

₹ 567

₹ 1,68,108

May

₹ 17,500

₹ 2,001

₹ 2,050

₹ 255

₹ 6,430

₹ 630

₹ 380

₹ 3,170

₹ 795

₹ 715

₹ 2,140

₹ 36,066

June

₹ 14,000

₹ 2,087

₹ 1,562

₹ 2,025

₹ 1,20,000

₹ 630

₹ 430

₹ 19,885

₹ 350

₹ 5,547

₹ 1,66,516

July

₹ 14,560

₹ 1,900

₹ 1,642

₹ 5,740

₹ 1,02,500

₹ 630

₹ 1,558

₹ 19,442

₹ 510

₹ 2,069

₹ 1,50,551

August

₹ 14,000

₹ 2,475

₹ 1,757

₹ 500

₹ 13,000

₹ 630

₹ 1,240

₹ 947

₹ 41,443

₹ 75,992

Sept

₹ 14,000

₹ 1,912

₹ 940

₹ 3,000

₹ 12,250

₹ 630

₹ 2,130

₹ 5,287

₹ 200

-₹ 12

₹ 40,337

Oct

₹ 14,000

₹ 2,176

₹ 3,890

₹ 1,332

₹ 15,000

₹ 630

₹ 1,940

₹ 16,587

₹ 742

₹ 1,100

₹ 452

₹ 57,849

Nov

₹ 14,000

₹ 1,822

₹ 781

₹ 3,022

₹ 15,160

₹ 12,630

₹ 250

₹ 6,196

₹ 1,089

₹ 163

₹ 55,113

Dec

₹ 17,300

₹ 2,279

₹ 3,695

₹ 8,427

₹ 48,645

₹ 338

₹ 3,995

₹ 750

-₹ 512

₹ 10,000

₹ 94,917

Total

₹ 2,22,249

₹ 24,758

₹ 23,745

₹ 50,574

₹ 4,10,291

₹ 1,24,865

₹ 15,896

₹ 335

₹ 1,21,327

₹ 13,790

₹ 6,969

₹ 16,000

₹ 51,443

₹ 10,82,242

% of total earn

16.31%

1.82%

1.74%

3.71%

30.11%

9.16%

1.17%

0.02%

8.90%

1.01%

0.51%

1.17%

3.78%

79.43%

	Salary	Equity (dividends are not calculated)	Bank Interest(only qtrly)	Reimbursement from office (mobile, trip etc)	Maturity of investment	Others	Loan Repayment	Total
Jan	₹ 1,06,228	₹ 2,000				₹ 237		₹ 1,08,465
Feb	₹ 98,116			₹ 15,000	₹ 34,600	₹ 4,000		₹ 1,51,716
March	₹ 93,641		₹ 3,201	₹ 34,020	₹ 1,740	₹ 3,067		₹ 1,35,669
April	₹ 89,574	₹ 3,000		₹ 16,627		₹ 1,368		₹ 1,10,569
May	₹ 89,414			₹ 34,020		₹ 2,490		₹ 1,25,924
June	₹ 90,880		₹ 6,960			₹ 1,800		₹ 99,640
July	₹ 91,031			₹ 3,389		₹ 1,400		₹ 95,820
August	₹ 85,944					₹ 7,850	₹ 5,000	₹ 98,794
Sept	₹ 86,495		₹ 4,530		₹ 13,427			₹ 1,04,452
Oct	₹ 90,729			₹ 3,513				₹ 94,242
Nov	₹ 90,590			₹ 28,315	₹ 8,111	₹ 1,500	₹ 6,670	₹ 1,35,186
Dec	₹ 93,049		₹ 4,645	₹ 1,500			₹ 2,800	₹ 1,01,994
	₹ 11,05,691	₹ 5,000	₹ 19,336	₹ 1,36,384	₹ 57,878	₹ 23,712	₹ 14,470	₹ 13,62,471

Expenditure analysis for the year 2016

Observation on the above:
1) Some common categories such as Debt repayment is not even a category for me.
2) The highest 30.11% of my total earnings I spent on family affairs which is not even a standard category in any expense tracking app/Ms-excel
3) I spent negligible amount on medical and very little on personal development/clothing etc. If I had not bought the Mobile phone, it would have been less than 1%.
4) Transportation is an area where I am saving lot of money comparing with standard trend.
5) Pundits give 20%-25% on Housing. Well below 20% is a very good sign.
6) I travel quite a lot. Also, I do gift/donation to a great extent.
7) 9.16% and ~21% (in addition, PF from salary) - I think I am doing quite good on saving/investment.
8) No earning apart from salary; very poor share market performance.



Below is my plan for 2017:

On categories:
1. Cylinder will come into utilities
2. PF will come into Investment with monthly tracking
3. Maybe I will merge Medical with Personal
4. I will do away with untracked, and any cash calculation will fall into category Food, to be renamed as Food/Household
5. I will not approximate Maa's bills
6. Will introduce a new category named Tax to Government.
7. Profit from sharekhan, MF etc will come into a new category- From Market. I will try to include dividends as well. Because, I really want to push my sharekhan usage
8. Bank interest  and maturity would be merged into one category with Others. Apart from this, Earning will contain income from salary, reimbursement, loan repayment and From Market.


On expenses:
1) There has to be a way to curb spending on Family category. However, with the house construction still on-going, Moina's marriage on cards, Dada's still evolving economy, I don't see much hope though. Nevertheless,  Maa's 7th pay and Moina's job life will bring some relief for sure.
2) I should increase my expenses on food/household and personal development. Pundits say invest on yourself and we Indians never do that.
3) Since categories are marked now, I am sure I would be more energetic to input all the expenses and as per exact category. At least, writing this blog is giving me lot of enthusiasm.


 On earning: 
1) Total earning would come from Payslip, not the money deposited in bank. The bigger objective is not to do the analysis from audit perspective, where bank transactions are prime indicators. I should in such a way that gives though process to my mind for behavioral changes
2) I should try to get some income from share market etc. From Market is a nudge.

Let this be a good beginning. Happy 2017 !