California ...

I am going to be in Newport Beach, California for the next three days. It is a homecoming of sorts for me, as I spent about four months living here at the Marriott Suites during 2004. Its been more than a year since I was here though. It was great, landing at good ol' John Wayne airport, driving up MacArthur Blvd ... Its going to be a hard three days though - I am part of a team that is organizing a strategy workshop for a local company.

If Indian states were to be matched against US States, I would classify California as the Goa of the US, or vice versa ... That would be an interesting exercise would it not, to match each Indian state against a US state that is "relatively the same" - Meaning that both states are looked at in the same manner, by the populations of the two respective countries.

For example, Bihar and Arkansas might be matched up, as both of the states are unanimously regarded by Indians and Americans respectively as being hell-holes. That is not to say that Arkansas resembles Bihar closely, but the objective was to do a "relative" analysis.

Geez, that was long winded !