Author Archives: omkarsolapurkar

What is the Purpose of Life?

We all have been in the state of mind where we thought to ourselves “What is the purpose of my life”. Once you channelize your thoughts, our minds tend to work towards it, and hence now in the age of the internet, we immediately start browsing and watching related videos, and before we know, cookies on the web ensure that this content keeps popping up in every single page that we visit. I have been in that situation and probably had come to the acceptance that this very question is a very overrated one, and one should just lead a life like any living being on earth and hence no one has any purpose in life. But this would contradict the very main reason why homo sapiens (human beings) evolved intellectually while our other monkey cousins did not. The power of thinking is because of this, our species has evolved into the kind of beings we are today. It is because of this thinking, that I am today able to write, and any one of our 7 billion folks can read this. So, I started having a slightly different take on the very same thought, if it has occurred to me, it has also occurred in the past and will continue to occur in future generations.

Every philosopher in every culture across time and space has thought on this and explained what would be the purpose of life? The closest explanation which I came across is from Ikigai (Japanese), Iki meaning life, and Gai meaning reason. Ikigai meant reason to live, and it explains what needs to be done to live a life. But, more so in recent years, this concept is very selfish driven, things to do to keep one satisfied and contented rather than to find out the real purpose of life.

Since my birth was into a Hindu family, I have lifelong followed Hinduism and have been following its rituals, prayers, and its way of life. It is for sure one of the incredibly old religions. As a kid I always wondered and questioned the why’s in every single ritual followed, a physical explanation was given which sure was enough for an 8-year-old, but never taught in a spiritual manner, why? Let us worry about the reason at a later stage.  Every ritual, procedure, and mantras have a spiritual meaning attached to it. The time has come to such that, people have forgotten to focus on the spirituality aspect of it.

Visiting temples was a weekly or sometimes multiple times a week affair, I often observed a tree exists in pretty much every temple, we also, saw that those trees are worshiped. Underneath a tree is where the majority of the gurus sit and meditate. Lord Buddha achieved his nirvana under a bodhi tree. I have visited such temples numerous times and have even done the rituals of circling around the tree and praying for a good life but since no one explained what the real spiritual meaning is, I had to figure it out myself as I matured in life. It kind of started making sense finally.

The real reason for having a tree near the temple is to sit under it or circle it and practice spirituality and wonder how we can ourselves be like the tree itself.

 Here is my take on 5 parts of the tree which will answer the purpose of life.

1. Trunk

The trunk is the backbone of the tree, all the branches, roots, fruits, and flowers emerge out of it. One needs to be like the trunk of the tree, our goal and reason of life should be to support all the life forms and not expect anything in return. Be as selfless support as a trunk of a tree or think about what the trunk of your life is. Either be support for yourself or for others as many people as possible.

2. Roots

These are the important foundation of the tree which holds to the ground and provide nutrients and water from the soil, the roots go as deep to keep the tree alive. Be like roots of the tree which go unnoticed but still so essential for survival, roots also have regenerative capabilities. Even if the upper part of the tree is cut, roots ensure the tree grows back, be like roots, support yourself and even if you are cut off or beaten down, rise again and never lose hope. Extend to other people in life, try to reach and be root to others in life.

3. Leaves

Leaves are an important part of the tree that provide food for the tree through photosynthesis and most importantly provide oxygen for other animals to survive. Be like a leaf that provides oxygen for others. Oxygen here is a metaphor, one must understand and self-contemplate to know what value you can give to others, could be any qualitative value like love, knowledge, wisdom, advice, etc.

4. Fruits & Flowers

These are most certainly the byproduct of the tree, but several living organisms are dependent on survival from these. Be like these fruits & Flowers for other living beings who are directly or indirectly dependent on you. Identify what are fruits you can give to people. These are quantitative in value could be money, clothes, food, shelter, etc.

5. Thorns

These form the defensive mechanisms for some of the plants if not for trees. They really defend and protect the tree or scare away the organisms/animals which try to attack. There are a lot of bad influences or negative thoughts or sometimes even negative people, be like thorns and resist and shun away all the negative influences.

Overall, if you see a tree only provides us with all the items it has to offer. It never asks or even expects anything in return. We all need to focus our energies and only provide for others in life. The more you try to follow these in life, the closer you will reach towards finding the purpose in life. The more you must give to others, the lesser one will be bothered about the purpose of life. Give away and do not expect anything, in turn, if you have met this, you have met the purpose of your life.

Crossfit Qualitative Benefits

It all started with just one video of CrossFit games, the 2018 finale, after watching Mat Fraser crushing the games, I became a huge fan of the man first and then the CrossFit games. These extremely fit athletes make those workouts look like a child’s play when you are watching it for the first time. An average fit person, like myself, would think “Ah I think that’s doable”, only to realize later “I am so wrong”. My binge-watching began and I watched the 2015 to 2019 CrossFit games in less than one week. This was Mat Fraser’s primetime in the games. I was in awe and hence continued to follow the games in 2020. Mat had easily crushed 2020 games as well. All this while never had I thought that I will be joining a box (a place where people do CrossFit, kind of a gym just that it is called a box). Covid-19 did delay my plans but once businesses re-opened and we all learned how to handle the situation better, at the beginning of 2021 I joined the box. A quick google search found me in a box close to where I live, “I know right, the universe wanted this for me”. My first thought, “let me join today and the very next day I’ll start with the power snatch”. If a cross-fit trainer overheard my desires, then his response would have been “Ha Ha you are funny “.

CrossFit is a completely different genre of workouts and I will explain it another day. For now, let us know that it is a combination of gymnastics, strength training, and aerobics. You know that guy in the gym who deadlifts and shows off his strength, well CrossFit is something doing 10 rounds of deadlifts, then running for 500 meters, then doing 10 pull-ups – does not stop here, keep doing as many of these rounds as you can, they call it WOD (work out of the day) and AMRAP (as many reps as possible) – yeah you heard it right.

Mat Fraser 2019 CrossFit games- Picture Credits https://wallpapercave.com/w/wp4507256
Mat Fraser – 2019 CrossFit games – Picture credits

These workouts help increase your fitness, strength, stamina, and endurance, they are also a byproduct of any workout, it may be quickly achieved with CrossFit. Nevertheless, I will talk about this as well another time. What I want to focus on is how I was surprised to see other qualitative benefits which come along with it which I have personally experienced. It has been around 2 months since I have been going to the box (3-4 days per week) and here is my take on the top 6 qualitative benefits of CrossFit.

Discipline

CrossFit sessions are group-driven and not a one on one. So, if you have signed up for a particular day’s class you cannot miss it since there are other members who could not get that day’s spot. It is not ethical to miss the class once committed. Also, the membership fee of a CrossFit Box (gym) is a lot more than a typical gym. So, a class lost is money lost. These factors make you more disciplined in terms of attending a session. Once, you get used to it then it becomes part of your life and then you start missing it if you did not happen to attend one because of whatever reason you have in mind.

Increased will power

Work out of the day (WOD) is a timed activity. There are 3 movements or exercises, and it looks something like: a gymnastic movement, a strength movement, and an anaerobic movement. You must finish the said number of rounds or do as many as possible in letting us say 20 mins. When you are continuously doing these strenuous movements, one starts to focus on attaining completion (I still lag a bit behind, but it is only a matter of time!). This mindset has a positive effect in life, where I found an increased willingness to do day-to-day tasks to a better level than I used to do before. For example- If I had no/ little I will do the night’s dishes the next day, now I would clean it right away.

High Energy

A mix of all variants of exercises in CrossFit increases one’s endurance and strength. This has a direct implication on your day. One will see high energy to pursue any activity. The mind is sharp all day and helps in one’s productivity.

Teaches humility

CrossFit might not be a team sport but for sure it is almost always a group session. The person next to you might be stronger than you or weaker than you, it does not really matter, because every single minute your focus is on finishing your work out and reaching the target set by your trainer. Most importantly, the transition to the next level always humbles you down. If you can lift 20 lbs. today and become an expert on it in two weeks, try lifting 40 lbs. next time,60 lbs. the week after, and so on, this alone will crush your so-called ego.  There is no bigger achievement unless you participate in the CrossFit games and keep winning it like Mat Fraser, but on the contrary, to reach such a position one requires to have developed a great sense of humility.   

Camaraderie

When you start, you barely know anyone at the box but slowly when you start seeing the same faces again & again you establish a connection. CrossFit gyms have this amazing culture of starting with small chitchat before the workout begins. This is a short and sweet ice-breaking session and because we keep doing this every day, we get to know each other very well. This additionally reduces the fear of talking in public and helps everyone develop a sort of mutual respect and understanding. One gets constant support from other comrades when we are struggling with the AMRAP, or applause when we do a muscle-up.

Competitive spirit

Even if you are not competing in a CrossFit session, somewhere in the corner of your mind, just by following others and looking at other competitive souls, the spirit seeps in. The competition in essence is with yourself, to become stronger each day. And the box helps with inspiration. After a workout, you go home with a sense of achievement.

All these qualities become a part of your life. Subconsciously, we adapt and everyone around us will start observing these changes soon. There will surely be a lot of physical changes as well, but a lot of positive mental changes will happen too. My teacher always said, “A healthy mind in a healthy body”, aptly fits CrossFit. I work out at CrossFit Nassau, click here to know more and their tagline aptly says it all- “Technique before consistency and consistency before intensity”

Capitalism Vs Health

Inference: A growing economy or a capitalistic economy has a direct correlation to the health issues of the citizens

One of my favorite pastimes is to watch street food preparation videos on YouTube. I enjoy watching when they cook food in the unhealthiest way possible to enhance the impression on the taste buds. An average Joe is only bothered about the taste of the food: the flavors of Indian spices, tons of butter, sweet and carbs, oh yeah, we all love carbs, isn’t it? It sure is very enticing and our brain keeps asking for more. Have you ever wondered why is it that when you gorge on that bag of chips, you simply cannot stop at one, reminds me of a tagline by Frito Lays sometimes back in the ’90s, ” No one can eat just one”? Hell, that is true; you can try, and you will fail. You know why? Is it the great formula of their seasoning or the best quality potatoes they use? The answer is neither. It is the salt that makes us want to eat just one more. Perfecting the amount of salt, to an already fried potato is the mantra here. The very same principles are used by fast-food chains with great marketing. Now add the awesome taste with an economical price tag and that is enough to entice people. The result of this enticement is increased BMI (Body Mass Index).

Butter rich street food

The million-dollar question is: did we notice the junk food culture emerged in the past 2-3 decades? When I speak to my parents about their upbringing there were hardly any restaurants. During my upbringing, relishing food in a restaurant was a luxury which was done probably once a quarter with a birthday or an anniversary celebration within the family. The majority of the food was home-cooked with fresh vegetables from the farm which was brought a week before. These days with the emergence of a variety of take-out, dine-in restaurants, and fast-food joints, eating food that is not home-cooked has increased two-three folds. We saw here how GDP has increased over the past 3 decades. This helps us see why most of the emerging economies were adopting capitalism.

What is Capitalism?

An economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. In stable economies, government or political system will govern and regulate some of the trade.

Growing economy results in the increased sale of products, with it comes competition and that means more players in the market. There are several advantages to this system, the biggest being employment: many people will get a job (and a paycheck!) and it will increase their ability to enjoy their materialistic desires. But the system is such that it forces people to spend what they earn. The basic needs are food, home, shelter, and good health.  Once these are achieved, capitalism just goes ahead and provides a higher quality of the same commodities. People are enticed into spending and eating as much as they can, and an imminent impact is an increase in medical issues/ diseases/illnesses. With increased medical conditions, there are more hospitals, more doctors, nurses, machines, medicines … you get it. There will also be businesses that will tell people to avoid eating unhealthy food, there are businesses who will help you get back to lean from fat. I mean, you got the drill. Everything is linked and you create a problem which was not there before and to mitigate that problem start a business and the very same people employed in this business also have other kinds of issues, for which there are other businesses to help them out. This is a vicious cycle.

I am not an advocate of capitalism or socialism or fascism, but just exploring how increased GDP in the past 3 decades has had so many challenges, the most imminent being health conditions and so we will focus on that aspect.

United States GDP, Population & Obesity trend

They say numbers do not lie. Well, that is true. If you look at the data from the US alone, in the past 6 decades GDP has increased by 20 times or a whopping 1,856%, the population has increased by 122 million or 58% and the obesity rate in 1970 was at an average of 15% while in 2020 it stands at 46%. Please keep in mind there is an increase in population too, which means the number of people obese in 2020 is extremely high. There is a perfect correlation between increased GDP and obesity.

What could be the reason for this trend?

One for sure is this when the country gets rich citizens to start enjoying the pleasures it provides, the major one being splurging on food and alcohol. It is quite astonishing to see that most of the famous fast-food giants McDonald’s (First franchise 1955), Burger King (1959), Frito lay (1961), PepsiCo (expanded during the ’70s) had just begun their expansion around the same time.  It would be wrong to just nitpick some of these giant fast foods but, with capitalism comes competition and there were a lot more stores that opened to this idea. The point being it started happening in that era. To make it even worse, a local street food vendor has learned from these giants that people like tasty and sugary foods and not healthy ones. They simply try to match them by creating all sorts of unhealthy yet tasty dishes which are also cooked in the unhealthiest and unhygienic way.

Nothing wrong in the beginning!

There is nothing wrong when they started these places, but with time, more and more started to work on similar business models and most of them were routing only for the money part of the business and were least bothered about the health hazards it was creating amongst people, especially youngsters. When the damage was already done, with it emerged a newer market segment for Wellness and Fitness. The US suddenly saw a surge of thousands of gyms being opened to promote healthy living. Around the ’80s and ’90s was the time when physical education had started to pick up and today it stands at a massive $400 billion industry. Increased health issues are also reported in the past 3-4 decades, newer and newer diseases, disorders are being discovered each day, with them comes to the pharma industry creating newer drugs. The new generation of ‘smart people’ are going back to previous generations’ simplistic lifestyle and suddenly we see organic and veganism being picked. Well, this rat race is going to continue and increase with time.

The major cause of all this is people do not have time to cook a meal for themselves since they are working their ass off towards increasing economy, they trust in the companies who give them the food at affordable price. But are companies thinking about their consumers, that is debatable, since their targets are to cut costs and increase sales.

Solution ?

The only thing that would keep us sane is to educate ourselves in health and stay healthy by eating fresh vegetables and exercising at least 4 times a week, but most importantly not fall prey to whims of a marketing campaign in food industry.

Being Mother

Being mother is hard.
Not because of pregnancy or labor, but for every second we are in strain.
The baby screams at night, we feel someone could have held her for a while, but holding her, we are restless listening her cry.
When she clings, we feel we need some space, but even few minutes away from her makes us hold her in tight embrace.
We wish she could handle all her deeds, but if she does, we are no more in need.
Handling all responsibilities makes us feel wish she could grow up fast, but when she grows, we miss her past
The feeling of wasting time being a fulltime mom goes away the moment the feeling of being a mother takes control.
We wish we could hang out with friends, party & shop but without her, our minds are constantly worried about whereabouts of her
Sometimes we feel we should be little less attached but could someone who has grown as an organ inside our body be so easily detached.
Sometimes they get on our nerves and we reprimand only to realize that our guilt cannot be controlled.
We restrict them from using screen time overall, but isn’t it what even we are doing as being adults?
We wish to lead a carefree life like before, but we would even then be longing for a kid to adore.

Written by Sahana – Find her on Instagram

Anthology

NOT READY TO LEAVE

I remember her voice,
It was amalgamated
I heard hope, helplessness
I felt pain and desire.
She was, is, not ready to leave

All this while

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-5.png

Words hang in between
Unsaid by you and me.
Silence precedes,
Eyes search across the Nile
Gaze transfixed all this while
A moment stretched in time
Few words sewn in rhyme
Lips curve, evaporates a smile,
Hearts start on a journey of many miles.

Ignorance, maybe

‘What makes someone work hard every day?’, I often ask.
Motivation is temporary,
Discipline can have an exception,
Passions can wither,
Love is an unknown!
What, what keeps people going day in and out?!
Survival?
The desire to excel?
The aspiration to make history?
To utilize time efficiently?
What, what, what?
Ignorance, maybe?

Evolution

I want to write a book.
There is no story, though.
Just words
Pressed by lead in a diary
Spanning years
Spanning continents.
The pencil still looks new
The grip a little soft
And the holder evolved

Illusion

I get bored of nothing.
Stayed home, watched T.V., ordered food!
Mind evaded work first,
Then created an illusion

Maslow’s hierarchy

I strung some words together
And it made me happy.
I have my stomach full.

Poems written by Smriti , follow her on Instagram

World economy & happiness

Inference- The cost of increased economy is happiness

As a kid growing up in small towns across India, the only dream I had was to become rich. However, with time I had realized that being wealthy is a relative term: some have billions while others have millions (and I am in neither group). Every person that I have spoken to always misses their childhood and talks about crazy stuff that they did. Everyone had a very simple upbringing compared to riches they have today. Standard of living for majority of the people has increased over a substantial period of time. People have access to the best of healthcare, technology and infrastructure. My parents keep reminding me and my sisters of how lucky we are to have such great facilities at our disposal and I am fully certain grandpa would have told the same thing to him. The wealth overall is increasing at an alarming pace which is good and ,may be, bad. The question is whether that has played any part in the happiness of an individual.

GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product , this is calculated for every country every year and reflects the economy of a country quantitively. The easiest definition of GDP would be the total value created through production of goods and services in a country during a period. GDP below is the sum total of all the countries who have reported to UN since 1970, the margin of the error is quite minimal and also I am using these total numbers just to provide a stark difference in growth of it compared with population.

World GDP and World Population between 1970-2018

Data from https://www.un.org/ as per this quantification we see there is such a big growth jump in GDP compared to population. Every year, there is a very high significant increase of GDP while population growth is having a mean value of only 15%. If we see the difference between these 48 years, the numbers are just mind boggling.

GDP- in USD Trillion and Population in Billion

Let us see the numbers for a gap of 48 years between 1970 to 2018, this is simplistically so unreal, but it is very true, GDP has grown by (yeah you heard it right) 2407% while population risen by only 111%.

When usually product or service is out in market, generally we all think company is doing well, country is doing well, every one goes home with a good paycheck , but in reality that is not happening. If that was the case then as and when GDP as we see growing all the people should have definitely gotten richer, but that is not the case. I, for sure, have seen quiet a significant improvement in lifestyle/ standard of living if we compare an average Joe in 1970 vs. 2018; but Joe from 1970 has not become richer by 2407%.

There are caveats to this analysis: it has not been analyzed by country, some countries are becoming richer while others are contributing to the world population but not significantly to GDP. Nevertheless, if we see our world as one family, we will notice money growing per capita is at a higher rate than population.

Here’s a qualitative take at this:

  • Poor people have risen out of poverty – This adds some % increase to GDP- basically because of high volume
  • Middle class have become rich – adds significantly bigger chunk, because of education and white collared jobs more products being consumed and created. These people are majorly responsible who help in creating a new product or a service to aid the GDP increase.
  • Rich have become super rich – thriving businesses who hire people who are educated/white collared. A significant number of this category of people who create a new product or a service to reach out to increase GDP. They enjoy a bigger chunk of the GDP as seen below.
  • Super rich have become uber rich – Conglomerate of businesses. These are probably the top 5% in the world, they eat up the majority of the GDP growth. Their Enterprises are worth a price higher than some of the countries GDP. For instance if we say Bill gates net worth is 118 billion, he is probably much richer than some of the poorer countries whose GDP is 40-100 Billion USD.
  • Special cases- Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are the kinds who jumped from middle class to Uber rich. This is just a special case of being in the rags to riches story. These folks have a high net worth alongside the power to tumble down everything and that can have a huge cascading effect.

The question we should be asking ourselves is, has this capitalist economy made us more competitive? More ambitious? Why do we keep pointing to stress at work? I do not remember my grandparents being stressed because of work, parents to an extent and can only imagine the next generation complaining that their parents never had time to even talk to them. That is a very concerning state but if we continue to grow numbers (GDP) at such alarming rates then most of us will be overworking, we will be stress-full because of that, and more ambitious! The question we ought to ask is does it make us happy? If yes, then probably it’s an addiction, because when this all ends, we will not take anything from this world.

Top 5 qualities required for WFH!

Inference- Not every single one of us can work from home!

Some say working from home increases their productivity while some some slack at it and there are others who would want a mix and match of both. What truly depends is exactly why is one working from home, the drive and motivation to work is what would make a person work from home very highly effectively. My wife has been working from home pretty much from past 3 years and boy i have seen her work, sometimes tired at looking her endlessly on a 14″ screen and slamming her keyboard. Me, on other hand finish a nice morning shift of probably 10-6 sometimes 7 in an office and yeah once in a while may be fire up the laptop and punch in those some important emails, hey but thats just for 15 mins unlike my wife who keeps repeatedly doing that for 15 hours.

Every day living room scene in our home, me reacting to random videos on 55″ screen while my wife reacting on a 14″ screen

We discussed previously is working from home the future ? So what is that drives people to work from not only home but from where ever the hell they want to? Below are my top 5 personality traits take on it.

Ownership– A sense of owning to a particular project or a task is always a very important factor when it comes to work, but more so very crucial if it is not working from office.

Responsibility – If one is responsible for a bunch of projects and group of people, it automatically drives one to work without complaining.

Entrepreneurial – An individual who is so strong willed to do something like creating a product or a service to achieve something that they have aimed for, then no matter what place, they are always on the move thinking and working all the time. This particular trait is also measured these days in most of job interviews, apparently it does not only stand for entrepreneurs but is more an attitude or mindset.

Passion– I know i know! It is probably an overrated word, but it still drives one to work on their own, passion brings happiness and one tends to just work towards excellence day in and day out.

Leadership– Leading is an important trait which most people either learn by following others or some have it in them naturally, any of which makes one work naturally, the best example of which is 2020 covid times, during which the leader would say stay at home and work rather than coming to a workplace.

These are by and large most important qualities whether be it working from office or working from home, such people do not really bother if it is home or cafe or office. But, most importantly necessary if at all working from a non office environment.

Is Working From Home the future?

Inference – The year 2220 will have everyone working from home, may be even working from Mars.

Before the Industrial revolution, let us say before 19th century ,the basic profession and most career choice one could have was being a farmer, carpenter, mason , barber , fisherman, saint, soldier and trader. These were really a broader choice and one had to really fit into these somehow or the other to survive. Most of them involved working near to home but you had to be still out to pursue work.

With advent of Industrial revolution, more jobs were being created by the end of 18th century , the concept of higher production in less time had just begun. A lot of people started getting jobs, a job would be to work what one is asked during a particular day and get paid by the hour. Majority of us today are part of this contract where we go to a work place, work what has been asked of us and end of the day get paid for it, just the terms have changed these days, they pay now bi-weekly, monthly, annually (bonuses).

20th century brings to us fantastic tools called computers and then comes WWW ( World Wide Web), this at first creates more jobs, but people still go to a workplace, because these devices are heavy. Slowly within a decade we see the size of this device shrinking linearly and by 2020, we have devices which can be pushed in our pockets. Innovation in the past 2 decades has grown way faster than generations combined. When innovation grows faster than people, people do not know to adapt to it at the same rate. Smarter folks are creating tools to revolutionize the world, but the world is not able to change its mindset. A study has shown that it takes at least one generation for a collective change of mindset to happen. We slowly see that happening.

Object of the Day - Smithsonian Associates

The year 2020 simply slapped this archaic world and taught many things to mankind. A sudden event changes people, world changes faster. People are forced for a mindset change. The change we are seeing is coming sooner than usual, most importantly, when today’s workers become industrial leaders after a decade, they will never forget what 2020 taught them. A lot of people have already begun working from home, this is true for most of white collared jobs in the world who are paid to think and not for a laborious task. The blue collared jobs will continue to work in creating very valuable assets and manufacturing the needs of this world, but with robots and mechanizations happening, it is beyond our thinking two centuries from now for the year 2220. May be even them can start working from home, that as of now is only a fiction and a good story for a Sci-Fi movie, but food for thought , there was no internet and computers- 30 years ago, no electric cars- 20 years ago and no popular work from home just 5 years ago.

iPhone in India

Inference- Apple selling in India at 43% higher than USA

Last week my friend in India happened to tell me that he is about to buy an iPhone 11 for 131,000 INR, immediately the currency exchange math started in my mind and the difference is quite shocking. It has been a while since Indians were waiting for such an opportunity where they could buy their own iPhone and not depend on their friends and family returning from US to get them their favorite phone. This year Apple started their online purchase and delivery within India, typically either full payment, monthly installments or on credit.

I conducted myself a simple experiment by visiting Apple website and simply changing the country at the bottom and checked the price for their latest iPhone 11 pro max , 6.5 Inch display with 256 GB memory. It is surprising that the same product is higher in every other country than USA. All the prices were in local currency, after converting back to USD it was surprising to see the difference in prices.

Price in USA $        1,249.00  
CountryUSD Price  Difference  %
India $        1,789.00 $          540.0043%
Phillipines $        1,713.15 $          464.1537%
France $        1,678.02 $          429.0234%
UK $        1,669.99 $          420.9934%
New Zealand $        1,614.87 $          365.8729%
Australia $        1,532.41 $          283.4123%
Dubai $        1,434.56 $          185.5615%
Hong Kong $        1,393.41 $          144.4112%
Mexico $        1,381.84 $          132.8411%
iPhone 11 pro max, 6.5 IN screen, 256 GB memory

I was quite shocked to see India at 43% higher. It will be very exciting to see the sales for this phone in coming few days. The love for this product is so much that people are willing to go on credit to buy this device especially when it is sold at 131,000 INR before taxes which is equivalent of $1,789 , a whopping $540 more than what is being sold in USA. Million dollar question is would Indians put a blind eye to this difference and will continue to buy or continue to opt in for a cheaper android phones. This difference of $540 is nothing but a one way ticket between USA and India. The price is way too high especially for Indian market, especially when Foxconn who is Apple’s major supplier of the device has already begun its iPhone assembling in Chennai, India this year. The reason for this spike in price is yet to be figured out but experts believe it is because of increase in basic customs duty and withdrawal of earlier exemption BCD/Social welfare surcharges as announced by the government of India in union budget (2020-21)

Just hoping the prices to drop down in the near to late future. With increased production within the country and higher local consumers ,it possibly will be lower than the current price.