Real Estate 2.0 - Creating uncontested market space with higher growth & profitability

The story so far

Housing along with food and clothing is a basic need of human beings colloquially called as roti, kapda aur makaan in India. Historically, the evolution of human civilization can be traced to its quest for better quality of life by securing these 3 basic needs.

Food: The evolution from being mostly forest dwellers to village dwellers primarily served the purpose of securing food. Rather than being hunter-gatherer for its day to day food needs, man was now able to produce and store food for longer periods. Yet, it is important to note that even after the evolution of villages, a significant section of the human society continued to be forest dwellers and a healthy symbiosis emerged among them. The forest dwellers supplied a variety of raw materials from the forests to the villages and received value-added produce from the village dwellers in return.

Clothing: As man continued to evolve, mechanization and mass production of clothing came next. This also coincided with the evolution from primarily village dwellers to city dwellers. Now, much smaller number of people was engaged to meet the demand of clothing.

Housing: As man evolved further and more hands were freed from meeting food and clothing needs, man turned its attention to secure its housing needs. Together with advent in transportation and communication, now durable houses could be built at distant locations. As a result new cities and towns arose and kept expanding in size to an extent that by 2006, the number of city dwellers globally crossed the 50% mark and is expected to cross the 75% mark by 2050 in the business-as-usual scenario.

However, as the above figure indicates, urbanization puts a heavy burden on our food and health which essentially require rejuvenation of both forests and villages. The central challenge and opportunity therefore is to create a healthy balance among forests, villages and cities. In this scenario, smart cities will learn to provide a much better quality of life and become hotbeds for creativity and innovation even as they will occupy much less space and will include plenty of food production and forestry within city space.

Real Estate 1.0

The evolution of housing in India gave rise to a new genre of enterprises called the real estate developers that we shall call as Real Estate 1.0. The big change was that instead of buying land and building a house on it in a city where only the basic amenities of water, electricity, sewerage and phone were available, Real Estate 1.0 came up with a business model in which you could buy an apartment in high rise buildings in the middle and upper middle segment and villas in the upper segment. As the middle class exploded in the post-1991 period, so did the demand for Real Estate 1.0.

The amenities and features provided by the Real Estate 1.0 players also evolved to include hi-quality and foolproof elevators, common areas, gardens, clubhouses, gyms, swimming pool etc. but the underlying business model remained the same. That the developer will book the housing “stock” for the buyer and will have no further role to play once the possession of the apartment is handed over. The buildings were designed for certain rates of “flow” of traffic, water, electricity, garbage and sewerage, food and other services but the planning and design for quality and sustainability was neither a responsibility for the "developer" nor was this explored as an opportunity for recurring revenue flow.

Why we need to evolve to the next stage?

As Real Estate 1.0 mushroomed at an accelerated rate over the past decade and a half, many of these “developed” areas are already facing severe crises of flow management. Roads are clogged with growing traffic and parked vehicles. Water tables are depleting at an alarming rate. Air quality is worsening. Sewerage is raising a stink and spilling over on the roads and in gardens. Landfills are filling up and raising a stink. Long hours of power cuts grow the dependency on dirty diesel for power back up. As food supply gets toxic due to good farming land and irrigation water being eaten away, people are growing sick and ageing faster.   

At the same time, the old business model of Real Estate 1.0 has created an oversupply of housing stock. The “developers” are being compelled to cut costs, compromise with quality and make false promises to keep their heads above water. It’s time therefore to evolve to the next stage of Real Estate 2.0.

What is Real Estate 2.0?

Real Estate 2.0 is planned and designed for not just the housing stock but also for the quality and sustainability of various flows - traffic, water, electricity, garbage and sewerage, food and other services. This involves integrated and seamless planning, design and development at the building, neighborhood and city level and further beyond which is becoming increasingly pertinent in a globalised world with its social, economic as well as physical interdependency to address glaring issues like climate change.

The changes from Real Estate 1.0 to Real Estate 2.0 need to occur at the conceptual level before it is translated to the physical space. This will not only transform the Indian real estate industry in India, it also has wide repercussions for a globalised world where Indian real estate companies have an opportunity to be world leaders. Will they bite the bullet?

An Ode to The Seasons

For every season
There was a rhyme and reason
But with climate weirding
There is just utter confusion.

There was a time not far away
When the seasons drifted by
Gently would spring swing in
As the winter moved away shy.

Summer would next set in
As the sun shone blistering and bright
And then the rains would come pouring
To cool you soothingly day and night.

The trees and flowers
And the birds and the bee
Followed the seasons' cycle
With gaiety and gee.

The cold spells are now colder
The hot spells are hotter
And when you expect it the least
It rains out of the blue and wetter.

The perpetrators of pollution
Fuel the cycle of greed and fear
With the forests turning into deserts
The end is dangerously near.

Can we wake up in time?
Give up our monstrous way of living
To restore the season's cycle
And relive the pleasure of giving.

Nature gives us in abundance
So long as we live in harmony and balance
Why earn its wrath and fury
And while away a lifetime's chance.

- by Chandra Vikash

The Hindu Paradox

Is Hindu a nationality or a religion? Can it be both?

This is one issue that seems to unite people from across the board - communal or secular, atheist or believer, Indians and foreigners. Most people seem to believe that Hindu with the suffix -ism is a religion. The worst part is that the justification given to support this assertion is that b'coz most people believe so. So, did most people believe once that the Earth is flat and that the Sun revolves around the Earth. Does that make that true.

Nothing could be farther from the truth in the depiction of Hindu as religion.. Here are the 5 BIG untruths that seems to have nearly universal acceptance among modern Hindus that need to be brought to light for our own good.

1. Hindu-ism is a religion : This is like saying American-ism and China-ism are religion. Hindu is a nationality of people living in the land of River Sindhu - which becomes Hindu in Prakrit like Hafta for Saptah. Greeks corrupted the word Sindhu to Indus and hence the name India. Swami Vivekananda​ despite his prolific intelligence made this silly and severely flawed mistake to accept and propagate Hindu-ism as a religion. The result is that Hindus are getting increasingly cornered in Hindustan by other religionists, who refuse to accept the Hindu "religion" as theirs. Partition of Hindustan on the basis of "religion" set a precedence for several such partition to follow till the Hindu nation itself is wiped out. To add fuel to the fire, Narendra "khoon mein vyapar" Modi will accelerate the process of disintegration of the Hindu Nation, not only by his misguided belief in Hindu "religion" but by his mercenary land grabbing and poison peddling that is alienating a large section of Hindus against him. Just as the money-minded baniyas brought Jainism to ruins, after the Brahmins and Kshatriyas deserted it, same fate belies the Hindu "religion".

2. Dharma is religion: "Organized religion demands adherence of the followers to the Book and the Prophet. Anything outside the boundaries of a faith is considered irreligious, if not downright sinful. It is believed that salvation lies only through the body of the Prophet or His words. History of mankind is often a gory testament of destruction wrought by the zealots in pursuit of faith. It is a testament of dividing people and converting them, of persecution, intolerance and subjugation, or of burning at the stakes: of the contest between the ecclesiastical and the temporal, the doctrine of two swords and of intrigues. Religion has been one of the most potent divisive forces in all history.

Dharma is different because it unites. There can never be divisions in dharma. Every interpretation is valid and welcome. No authority is too great to be questioned, too sacred to be touched. Unlimited interpretative freedom through free will is the quintessence of Dharma, for Dharma is as limitless as truth itself. No one can ever be its sole mouthpiece.

The Western cultural traditions, on the other hand, are built around religions. The emergence of the nation-state in the 16th and 17th centuries was the product of religious conflicts of the secular State with the Church. Much of what we call modern political vocabulary emerged and acquired meaning during those turbulent periods. Much of this vocabulary was directed at defining spheres - of the individual, of the State, of the Church as well as their inter-se relationship. The concepts of identity, ethnicity and autonomy are the products of this separation between the Church and the State. The emergence of science as a discipline made the issue of identity vis-a-vis religion more acute." Source: http://veda.wikidot.com/dharma-and-religion

3. Sanskrit is another language: The language in its original expression is Sanskrit. Every other language stems from the language as Sanskrit. William Jones paraphrases this while searching for roots of Sanskrit in some other ancient language:

"The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists."

4. Bharat is a nation bounded by geography: Bharat as Vishwa Guru is about a world that gives more than it takes and is thus sustainable. The origin is in the Hindu Peninsula b'coz this has the greatest potential to give and is hence called Devabhumi or what Japanese call as Tenjiku or Heavenly abode. In other areas hostile to human habitation, survival and then greed tends to drive societies to take more than what they give and thus become Danav. Manav are those who give and take in equal measure. Having thrown Earth's natural balance out of gear due to incessant greed embellished by the modern religion of consumerism that has accelerated the process of extraction and poisoning of land, water, air, space and fire or Panch Mahabhoot, Bharat will once again emerge as Vishwa Guru or as a Knowledge Leader to restore the natural balance.

The bedrock of this new global Bharatiya culture will be the self-reliant village that Gandhi called as Gram Swaraj. The ideal of Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam or World as a family works at 2 levels. At one level, there is so much abundance in every village that all the daily needs can be met with local resources even as it spares people enough time to travel around the world. But the travel on foot or with animal traction allows them to connect with places along their journey with elaborate arrangements by every passing village to host the travellers. Yet, rather than moving goods, they would just collect samples of useful or aesthetic artifacts from around the world and make them with local resources. Global was truly local. In other words, they lived and practised the motto of Think Global, Act Local since eternity. This is the essence of the worldwide Bharatiya culture and civilization.

5. Vedas is another body of knowledge: Knowledge is Vedas. I cite this from an essay by Swami Vidyanand "Videh".

"सृष्टि प्रवाह से अनादि है, और कल्प से सादि. प्रत्येक कल्प के आदि में प्राप्त होने वाला होने से वेद आगरा कहा गया है. प्रत्येक कल्प के अग्र (आदि) में उसका आविष्कारण होता है.

कल्प के आदि में जिन ऋषिओं पर वेदज्ञान का अवतरण हुआ वे मानवों की प्रथम नस्ल के थे. मानवों की प्रथम नस्ल अमैथुनी होती है. अतः वह सर्वतः और सर्वथा श्रेष्ठ और निर्विकार होती है. ऐसा इसलिए क्योंकि निर्विकार ब्रह्म से अवतरित, निर्विकार ज्ञान का आधान निर्विकार मानवों में ही किया जा सकता है. निर्मल अमृत का आधान निर्मल पात्र में ही किया जाता है. ब्रह्म ज्ञान वेद का रहस्य ब्राह्मी स्थिति में ही जाना जाता है.

अग्नि ऋषि ने ऋग्वेद का, वायु ऋषि ने यजुर्वेद का, आदित्य ऋषि ने साम वेद का और अंगिरा ऋषि ने अथर्ववेद का ज्ञान गुहधान करके अन्तःस्फुरण द्वारा उच्चारा. ब्राह्म प्रेरणा से उनके अन्तःकरण में जो जो वेदज्ञान निहित हुआ वह वह उन्होंने स्वयं गाया, प्रथमजात मानवों को गवा-गवाकर कंठाग्न कराया. तभी से वेदों को कंठाग्न करके उनके गान की परिपाटी चली आ रही है.

संसार के जितने भी ग्रन्थ हैं उन सबमें जितना जितना सत्य और यथार्थ है वह सब वेदों से प्रवाहित होकर वहाँ गया है. विश्व की सकल भाषाओँ में वेद का वांङ्मय रूपांतरित होकर आपूर भरा हुआ है. अतः सभी भाषा-भाषियों को वेद बड़ी सरलता से पढाया और समझाया जा सकता है."