getting FLUENT

The Velocity of Money

2011-08-05T02:32:00.000-07:00

GDP is a function of velocity of money. The simple concept which was so easy for me to understand theoretically did not strike me more until a few days back when I was crossing the road while coming to office. I saw a woman presumably from a village (a lower GDP area) who was also trying to cross the road. Pedestrians who are part of the city life (Higher GDP area), could easily find a way through the fast moving vehicles: they ran, they sneaked through, they maneuvered .The high speed/velocity of their lives has made them accustomed to the high speed/velocity of their external environment. However it was a difficult situation for the village woman, who possibly leads a laid back slow life.
So what is the conclusion. I would sound far fetched as I always do:
The faster your life gets, you run faster, and you circulate your money faster, which in turns implies a higher velocity of money. That should reflect a higher GDP. This is my way of interpreting why the country side would have lower GDP while the city would have higher. This of course would be a vicious cycle, where you would need a fast sports car to travel even faster, however you can only get that when you have a higher gross product.
A few more abstract analogies:
a) India never had, in fact never believed of fast expressways. However since the beginning of the new millennium, once the economy started having high growth, the highways started coming. Although they are not of the standards of the Auto Bahns, you can expect them to be, as GDP grows.
b) Indians still don't live on fast foods and still wold prefer the ghar ka khana over the canned foods. Implication: We are still not anywhere near US. (Pun Intended)
c) If you remember my blog post on teleportation. Can someone tell me what would happen to GDP under this concept if teleportation is indeed achieved.

For all those who are studying macroeconomics I, forget this crap blog and get back to whatever your Gregor Mankiw says on GDP and velocity of money.

Valuation of Paul the Oracle Octopus

2010-07-08T00:39:00.000-07:00

Oracle Paul has amazed me no end. So much so that the recent slowdown of my writing ideas got a sudden boost. No I am not amazed by its prediction power. Rather by the amount of interest it has generated among the football lovers, as well as the people who need a daily dose of the crystal ball in their life. I am amazed because while in lesser developed parts of India you do find people worshiping cows with two heads/five legs or asking the talking parrot to predict their future I did not expect the same from that "advanced" part of the world. And then this business idea came to my mind. I might become a millionaire if I am somehow able to buy Paul and bring him to India and start a prediction business. The amount interest popularity that he has generated means my advertising expenses would be minimal. I only would need to announce to the Indian people his arrival.
So how much would I be willing to pay to acquire Paul? Let me start this valuation exercise. Assuming Paul's current value is based on the revenue (Discounted Cash Flow) that is generating/potentially can generate in Germany, I will start with a bid price that reflects this value. And his value to me would be the NPV that I can generate out of him in India taking into account the price that I will pay.
Paul's Value in India:(Ok My target market segment would be mid level SEC)
In month one of operation in India, I can safely assume that demand would far supersede supply. What I mean is I don't need to estimate demand in month one. Rather I need to see how many shifts Paul can work remaining healthy in a day. I am assuming 6 days of weekly work (26 days monthly) 10 hours a day which means 260 hours per month. Depending on Paul's mood I assume that he predicts once in 5 minutes (I don't have any historical data in this regard otherwise I would have been more sure, but 5 mins look reasonable). So he makes 3120 predictions a month. If I charge 50 rupees per prediction (Again my target class is mid level who would be willing to pay this much amount). I am earning 156000 per month. On the cost side I need to feed him. Assuming he eats 2 kg of chicken a day. It comes to 200 rupees a day. 6000 rupees a month. I would need a sales executive who would be paid 10000 per month. (Including his PF, etc). I would also like to rent a multiplex space. My budget would be 20 K per month including beautification and maintenance. So monthly I am making a net profit of 120000. Hey I am not stopping here. Paul is a celebrity, even to watch his prediction games, people need to pay. I charge them a ticket of 5 rs for half an hour. In a mall I expect 300 guests on weekdays and around 1000 in the weekends. Around 10000 guests in the month. Which means 50000 in revenue. I need one more guy for sales. Pay him 5000. . Another 5K goes in Prints. Net profit 40000. So my Cash Flow in the first month would be 160000. Not bad. I hope this to continue for the first three months. Then the fad would die down. Assuming Paul has 50% chance of predicting correctly. I can hope 50% of my customers to come back again for service. Oh common Paul's success rate is 100% in the world cup, I hope he can do 75% for me. So for the next three months My revenue would be around 117000. By then I would fire my second sales executive and make viewership free of cost (which in turn would be a good marketing channel). So net cash flow is 101000. Next three months would 75% of these and so on. I would like to continue with my business for a year and a half and then sell it off, either to a dinner plate or to a museum/zoo. I won't charge for the sell of unit. (There should be a limit to making people fool).
Now about my WACC, I am really confused now. Frankly I don't see any risk in the project apart from that the government takes up my case and bits the hell out of me. However the only way to find Beta for the project is through similar ventures. Has there been any similar venture? I doubt. Still I want to go ahead and take WACC = 15%.
Now what do I offer the current owner? I need a professional in Germany who can value him for me. But then he would charge me a whopping amount of money. I stick to trial and error.10000 Euro. Reasonable? After the calculation I find that NPV of Paul in the Indian market is 605857 and IRR 17%. Not impressive but then this is a very simple business case where Paul is made to sit at a particular location. If he is allowed t make an Indian tour. He would be worth in billions. Someone willing to try that valuation exercise out???

Vegetarianism

2010-05-02T20:09:00.000-07:00

Let me start this blog by stating:
- No Offense Meant - No Religious Sentiment Meant to be Hurt -
I am not inducing a fight between vegetarians and non-vegetarians. Just wondering why people crave for vegetarianism. So what are the benefits of being vegetarian. Health green food, high fiber, low calorie, green lifestyle, healthy lifestyle.......
Don't you get all these benefits of being a non-vegetarian. One might say, meat is one of the causes of high cholesterol & consequent heart disease. All points for vegetarianism and against non-vegetarians accepted. But let me give one example. In the animal kingdom, the king of the jungle is a non-vegetarian or should I say a pure non-vegetarian. Where does he get all his fibers, high value food?? Does he have high cholesterol, any heart disease? He never takes any green leafy vegetable. Last time I heard that a tiger can carry a dead cow by his mouth for miles without resting, without letting the animal touch the ground. Pure strength, Pure Muscle. And this strength is not obtained by being vegetarian. Can anyone challenge my argument for non-vegetarians giving a counter example to the above mentioned point? Then somebody might say Human beings are not animals, they don't stay in the jungle. Humm!!! Though provoking.
Historically human races that have lived on high protein diet mostly on meat are stronger, better built, one of the reasons of Indians being of shorter stature is because of the lesser amount of protein in the diet. Ok enough of going around let me put my point. "Poustik Swatik Ahar" is not going to build on your muscle, your power.
This just came to mind. Does vegetarianism help in building a stronger mind, more intelligent people. Newton, Einstein, were not vegetarians. The Royal Bengal Tiger is one of the most intelligent animal and he is a non-vegetarian. I think I am crossing the line now. I should stop this blog before the animal right activists pull out their "dandas" against me. I am not against animals. I am for non-vegetarianism.

Cost Reduction Strategies I

2010-04-28T02:28:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I have missed the bus. Few months back when every damn company was going through cost reduction/cutting my post would have been more apt. Actually this post would be apt anytime because my cost reduction strategy is not about firing people, reducing travel cost, etc. The strategies are more macro level, reducing the bigger redundancy in technology. May be a little futuristic.
Let us take travel: Air Travel. What is the point of carrying something which is not adding to payload. Yes I am talking about the power plant. The power plant in an aircraft weighs around 30% of the entire structure of the aircraft. And thus when the airplane is flying, you are burning more fuel to carry something which does not really want to travel or to go to that destination. You might thinking....Hey What the heck!!! Are you mad?? How is the aircraft going to fly without those power plants. Exactly that is my point in this blog of cost reduction strategies.
Can some innovation be made so that the power plant remains at the airport. The airport keeps getting energy from the power plant while in flight and reaches the destination without carrying the power plant. This is the modern concept of wireless power transfer. Think about the massive infrastructure set up cost, the wires, the transmission lines, the distribution centers that need to be set up in order transmit electricity from the generating stations to the end users. You need to step up the voltage through transformers, and know not what else, suffer massive maintenance costs. Why do you need all this?? Cannot energy be transferred without wires & cables. Can we not have a source & a receiver something like two mobile phones, where one mobile phone is the generator and the other is the aircraft or the end user would be using the power. Thus electricity would be transmitting on its own through the air and reach the receiver.
In fact such technology is upcoming & more on the development stage. MIT professors have developed a technology by which you can charge your mobile phones without connecting to the power source. You keep them on the table and they get automatically charged from the power sources in your home. Wireless Power Transfer. But certainly the amount of power required in charging a mobile phone is much less than what is required to run an aircraft. Moreover the distance by which this charging is to be done is way smaller in the mobile phone case, because the distance between the power source and the mobile is within your home. But in the case of an aircraft would be thousands of kilometers. Hence it would take some time before this technology is applied to air travel.
However there is prospect that an electricity driven car would directly drive in to a power station. Just park their for a minute and get charged without connecting to any wire. There is substantial cost/energy to be saved if this technology really develops.

One More period of Slumber

2010-04-09T02:41:00.000-07:00

I am passing a period where there are so many things in my head. And yes some of them are causing aches. I want many things to change but frankly have not seen a single window through which I can shout yes I can see the end to the tunnel. There are a multitude of things and I know things will turn good soon, but when is that soon. Once more I want things to fall in place. And this time I want them to fall in the proper place not in the way it happened after my final placement in IIM Calcutta. And this itchy condition is not allowing me to think through, hence the hiatus in blogging.

Food For Thought: Incremental Understanding

2010-03-18T02:57:00.000-07:00

I accept Saurabh that the ultimate effect of this valuing up of the rupee in totalitarian would be inflation and nothing else ,
I get back to my previous view that the effect on GDP would be short term & in the long run everything production level comes back to the previous value.

However I stand by my statement that there would be a kind of utilitarian effect in the form that some wealth would be redistributed from the rich to the poor. The explanation is provided by taking a look at the classical Long Run Aggregate Supply Curve (LRAS). Whatever is shown in the figure is nothing new. I am only going to take a little help from the graph in explaining the phenomenon.
Initially there is an equilibrium and natural level of production is being met. When the rupee is valued up, as I said before people in the short term would not mind spending a little more. (Explanations provided in the previous blogs). This would increase the income of certain people who in turn would demand more and thus Aggregate Demand (AD0 to ADf) Curve would go up. Wages being sticky Short Run Supply Curve comes into the picture: resulting Y (production level) increase to Y*. Hence increase in GDP. But soon wages increase due to increase in price to the intermediate level Pi and supply curve goes up to SRASf finally everything settles down and a higher price level is reached Pf while production comes back to the level Y. Thus ultimate effect is there is no increase in GDP. However inflation happens.
Though I still hold:
1) There would be a redistribution of wealth.
2) Short term recession, consumer sentiment can be overcome by this phenomenon.
Then again why should a government take this ultimate step when recessionary cycles have become so short term in nature.

Food For Thought: Question From Economics II

2010-03-10T00:39:00.000-08:00

Remember the last food for thought that I provided. The one where I had tried to seek if there would be an indirect positive effect on the national economy: GDP if the local currency is valued up => Food for thought I.
It was argued and even I was of the belief that the effects whatever would be very short term in nature. If there is a positive effect on the GDP, it would be short term & over the years everything would normalize and move toward natural or long term output value i.e. in the long run there won't be any effect on the production/consumption of the country.
Now take this: Recently I thought that the effect can actually be long term. In fact such an effort can actually help in more equitable form of redistributing money in the economy. The thought came to my mind when I went to a place to get some of documents photocopied. That person charged me 0.50 cents for each page of photocopy. Pretty reasonable isn't it. Wait convert that to rupees!! 7 RS per page of xerox. This is exactly what would happen if the rupee is valued up. Small petty jobs which are valued low cannot be priced lower than a certain limit. And hence the cost of these jobs would increase. Well this cost is actually increasing the wealth of the people who perform such jobs. Their spending power increases & wealth is actually redistributed from the wealthier to these people.
Again budding/prospecting economists What is your take on this???

Just a few updates: And an informal invite.

2010-03-04T01:43:00.000-08:00

Life has been a mixed bag for quite some time now. Looking back I have not made a single post in February. Naturally for those of you who are not in touch with me would wonder the reason for the slumber. Well the beginning of February was spent in planning one more trip to India. The middle of the month was spent in India & the last few days of the month recollecting the fond memories of the trip & also fighting a variety of virus that affected the entire value chain of my living system. I had cold, I had fever & I had an upset stomach (See I am talking like a consultant as well: Value Chain!!!). The reason I started the blog stating my life has been a mixed bag is because of the fact that right now I have no clue where my career at this moment is heading. Sometimes I feel that the entire MBA has been a waste just going by the fact that I hardly use the skills that I developed in my two years at IIM Calcutta. I feel sad sometimes hopeless that I am losing it: my skills in finance, statistics & economics. Would I be ever able to utilize those skills which I had always thought were among the best.
This hopeless situation is somehow made beautiful by the variable that came into my happiness function sometime back. The fond memories of the last India trip is centered around the time I spent with her. Previously I had written a blog on Childhood love. It is true that childhood loves are special but I am so happy that I had to spend such a long time to ultimately find her & find the best who could ever come to my life. I use the world of blog to publicly announce her arrival. Many of you who are in touch with me, already know, for the rest this is the official announcement. Previously I had thought I would take some more time before settling. But now I see that as pointless. Even our parents thought so. And so dear friends this is an informal invitation to the ceremony that is going to take place in August 6th tentatively. Please be there & wish us the best for the journey ahead.

PS: The date stands corrected and it is going to be 2nd August

On Bose & Basu-s

2010-01-24T19:26:00.000-08:00

For those of you who get confused let me tell you that the Bose & the Basu-s in this world are the same. It is something like Banerjee/Bandhopadhyay, Roy/Ray, Pal/Paul & so on. This hotchpotch in the surname surprisingly is found only among the Bengalis. I have a possible explanation: This Quandary is created by the British, and in fact a direct fall out of the "Phirangs"- setting up their offices in Calcutta. The higher ranked officers (the British) twisted the names of the middle level Babus (the Bengali workers) to suit their tongues. This fact is corroborated by the fact that the quandary is found only among the upper caste Bengalis: The social class that found a sit below the "Phirangis".
No this blog of mine is not on etymology, nor it is on the history of British Rule in Bengal. Rather I am writing this blog as a reply to those peers of mine who want me to prove the intellectual, & emotional supremacy of the Bose & Basu-s. You see I am a Bose/Basu myself & no doubt would only look at the brighter side of things. I have been asked to provide names of the Bose & the Basus who have made it big in the world/India arena. I started and the bag is immediately full:
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose (You Know him)
Rashbehari Bose (You Know him)
Jagadish Chandra Bose (You Know him)
Satyendranath Bose (You Know him)
Amar Bose (of the Bose Sound Systems Fame)
Mihir Bose (BBC head)
Khudiram Bose (Martyr)
It is something like you name it and I have it. Well my critics do not stop here. Next they would tell me I am a Basu & not Bose. Humm!!! I get "gagahoo". I need to prove that even Basus are great. (I mean Bose & Basus are same but those who have adopted the Basu in their certificates are no less mortals). But hey my search engine got severely loaded in finding the right Basu to my choice. I could remember only two immediate names. Jyoti Basu & Bipasha Basu. And I HATE both of them from the core of my heart. I was pressurized to the point that I change my name from Basu to Bose. Well however today morning I did some googling, a little research and I could sense even Basu-s have made it big. I leave it to you to do the googling:
Kaushik Basu (Cornell educated economist)
Debabrata Basu (Of the famed Basu-s Theorem)
Siddhartha Basu (Kaun Banega Crorepati)
Kunal Basu (Writer)
I have a bigger list. But I stop over here. So there you go critics, "you have it on your face", while on one side you have "Boson Particles" on the other hand you have "Basu's Theorem". Take that!!!!.
PS: Well I am not debating I am just proving a point. No Vindication. So I am ending with one negative point. Bose/Basu-s belong to the kin called Kulins in Hindu Caste System. It was said that a father who gets his daughter married to a Kulin guy would go to heaven after death. A fodder that helped the Bose/Basu's to marry in tens. Alas I am born in a different world ;).

To Jyoti Basu (Contd...)

2010-01-20T08:05:00.000-08:00

Thanks that there are many Bengalis who think like me...and want to remember Jyoti Basu in the same light as me. I could not help posting a comment on my last blog. Sarcastic but nice read :).

He was a great leader no doubt, with all the aspects necessary to be termed as a great leader - things like a shrewd brain, criminal attitude and a very very thick skin. He lead WB through the most turbulent times, and with great success. He was the visionary who understood that education (and knowledge as a result of that) was the reason behind all social problems like people demanding their rights. Most importantly, education brought about the huge potential problem of rural people saying no to blindly following the "Raja r party". Having realized that, this visionary took legendary steps to ensure that a whole generation or two were made to go through a rotten educational curriculum that ensured their eternal struggle in life. They were not employable at national level, so the only option left for them was jobs (or whatever) created by the CPIM. We at B Schools, we must understand how great this strategy was, he created the pull factor by ensuring lack of emplyable
skills and supplied the push factor by actively recruiting for the famed party network - the famed Cadre Raj. It's a lesson, a great lesson in strategy/marketing/operational excellence. And yes, he created the financial backbone too - by making each and every industry pay for their well-being. Anyone who wanted to do business in WB, had to finance the great cadre network. Look here gentlemen, we are probably looking at the best possible system that was put in place to ensure long standing undisputed rule by a single party. When we reflect back at what Bengal is today, we must pay homage to this great visionary. It is a sad day today, specially as we come to terms with the fact that he could not get the best treatment possible. Look at what he had got, treated at AMRI hospital. That, after being treated throughout his life in the UK and other advanced countries (please ignore that these were the very countries he used to despise in his public speeches). It is extremely sad that he could not be taken to the best hospitals in the UK in his final years and we will probably never be able to forgive ourselves.

Too many emotions overflow my mind today, words are not enough to express them.

Just a final word -
Would have liked him to survive for a year or two more. He deserved to see the culmination of the downfall of CPIM - the demon he created as mean of looting the state. That would have been his ultimate prize. Sadly, he (just like his great follower - Mr. Chakrabarty) did not get the opportunity. I am sad today, sad from the core of my heart - for Mr. Basu and for the citizens of WB who also would have liked him to stay on till 2011.

Any such comment is further welcome.

To Jyoti Basu

2010-01-19T23:05:00.000-08:00

The state goes berserk (or does it???). The media definitely does. I am astonished to see how an icon is created. Perhaps the next generation is going to celebrate a state holiday on Jyoti Basu's birthday. Should I give a name to that day?? Something catchy...similar to Children's Day for Jawaharlal Nehru? (I have never been able to fathom what special connection our first prime minister had with children).
Sorry Readers this blog is meant to hurt those who are followers/disciples of great sons of India/West Bengal with whom I could never associate any greatness.

In my lifetime I have seen only two CMs in West Bengal. The period in which Jyoti Basu was the chief minister I had not even crossed the hurdle of school. However I could sense the difference in the development in my state and the far neighbors. I used the term far because Bengalis as a community has got the tendency to compare Bengal with only two states Bihar & Orissa, benchmarking at its best I should say!!!! And today whenever my friends make a mockery of the state of West Bengal & the capital Kolkata, frankly I am left with no other option but to laugh at it or at best use the old weapon of our deep rooted culture.
So the media which is making every move to immortalize this "Great Son of the Soil"..Let me counter you:

1) Leader of the state :: So we need to idolize a person who led the state to a path of irreparable doom. So much to his leadership.
2) Leader of the mass the bourgeoisie :: The leader of the social people, social movement would live in a house with all the modern facilities. Would travel under the umbrella of highest category of security, would frequently travel international to get his medical check up. (Secret of his 95 year long life).

Now let me provide some data that lets me visualize the state before I was born and the plight of the state after Jyoti Basu left his throne.

1)Poverty level got worsened in terms of national ranking (overall poverty did decrease but that is a general growth trend)
2)Infrastructure Index: Form being among the top to one of the lowest ranked state.
3)Share of industrial output declined from 10% to 5%

This is also the period when such a strong cadre system of politics was developed in the state where in, the interiors of rural west bengal would see his party winning sits without opposition. The fate of those who dared is anybody's guess.
Sorry friends I cannot worship the person as an immortal whom I have hated since I started thinking logically. The person who has eroded the people called Bengalis. And when I see the same person being compared to such greats as Rabindranath Tagore & Satyajit Ray I feel ashamed. Wake up my fellow state mates, wake up media!!! Just think did you give the same amount of reverence to Mother Teresa, the nun who was born on the same year as Jyoti Basu who could not live long enough to treat the masses. And for the records "our great son of soil", "the leader of the mass" did not even attend the funeral of the Saint.
What are you talking?? What are you mourning??

Now on my happiness function

2010-01-14T23:05:00.000-08:00

I could not stay away from mathematics in my last post. So this one I promise would have almost zero quant. Well ehh... this one might even be a page of some melodrama, of some cheesy "K"-series star plus mega serial. But this would be the easiest way to help you grasp on the happiness function. I will keep on using the terminologies from my last post while at the same time put inside braces the explanation of the term in connection to life. Let me begin:
Recently the variable 'k' (relate k from my last post) in my life took one step jump. This entrance of this variable was sudden and hence the Size() (the importance) of other variables in my life did not have time to readjust. Hence the only thing that could have happened is the total space of life increased. The variable entered with certain Size() (importance in my life). It had huge potential to grow bigger with time. But the beginning few days were ones of apprehension. However slowly over the last month I am getting to know that particular variable better. The Size() of it in my life is increasing no end. With all its nuisance, with all its use of un-choicest of words as adjective for me I am beginning to feel that this variable is mostly in my mind while other variables are in the nebula region.
Hence as the Size() gets bigger, the Concentration Factor for this variable increases. So when this variable is in my mind, my happiness gets totally dependent on this variable. And hence, at a time when there are thousands of other things affecting my life, the state of those thousand things have not changed in the past one month. I am mostly happy because that variable is mostly happy. Well I must say it is not happiness all-round for spring cannot be everlasting. But it is a swing between autumn and spring. When it is autumn for the variable it is autumn for me, and spring causes spring.
I hope this post is good enough to make you understand the happiness function. I will delve on Size() later.

Delving deeper into the happiness function: The Concentration Factor

2010-01-14T22:10:00.000-08:00

Remember my Happiness function?? I am restating the equation over here:

state of mind = CF*function(Variable 'n') + (1 - CF)*function (Nebula 'n-1')

For a detailed explanation of the theory that I developed please click here

Today I thought of making an attempt to understand this concentration factor 'CF'. And try to explain my current out of the world state in my next blog based on this explanation.
Let me first write down the salient features of CF:
1) CF is not constant, it varies with time, for some it is controllable
2) CF as a variable is not exogenous, in fact it is endogenous and depends on the variable 'n'

Point 2 requires some explanation. There are certain things which while dominating your mind (i.e. being the nth variable and not being in the nebula) somehow demands getter attention. Hence the concentration factor for these variables would be close to one. May be decoupling concentration factor from each variable is a method which the "sanyasi" practices. The question that immediately comes is how is this CF dependent to the variable. From here on I will try to be less mathematical and more practical.
Lets say there are total 'k' variables that matters in your life. This 'k' includes the persons that matter in your life, the incidents that shape your life, your career, and an innumerable number of other things. More importantly this number 'k' is changing as new things start affecting in your life. I define a new variable 'Size(n)' as the amount by which the nth variable is "important in"/"affecting" your life.Can I say:

Life = SUMMATION(Size(n)) n = 1 to k

Hence I say:

Concentration factor CF = (Size(n)/Life)

Here I will amend the Happiness equation a little as follows:

state of mind = Magnification Factor*CF*function(Variable 'n') + (1 - CF)*function (Nebula 'n-1')

Where Magnification Factor is a new variable which is a constant for a specific person. This factor is introduced to stress the greater importance to the variable which is in the mind and not in the nebula. Perhaps with meditation one can increase this Magnification Factor.

Clearly the bigger the Size(n) for a variable 'n' more is the concentration factor. This equation is well in line with my previous argument that for a sanyasi who has acquired salvation his CF = 1. This is because he has only one variable affecting him and hence k=1. (Please check with the equation).

Alas the story of dissecting happiness just keeps on increasing. The moment I deciphered the code of one variable CF, another variable "Size(n)" comes into the picture. To make matter difficult this size function is a function of time as well. The importance of a particular thing in your life keeps on readjusting with time. Just think about the importance of that cricket bat in your childhood, and you will understand how Size(cricket bat) has kept on changing in your life.

On New Year Hopes & Waiting

2010-01-03T18:05:00.001-08:00

On New Year Hopes:
Another new year has come. Back it was in 1988 when I for the first time observe/experience new year celebration in the TV. So many new year celebrations, so many wishes the cycle frankly does get repetitive. For me the year 2010 has got some unusual significance. I have the feeling that this is the year which is going to set my path for a long time to come.
On Waiting:
Do I believe in God. Perhaps I do. Not in the form that I am to worship Him in a temple everyday, but in the form that I try to be a good human being & thank Him after he grants me all my wishes. And strangely I have always been made to wait for my wishes but sure enough they have invariably been granted. The wish that I had, has been finally granted and the long wait is made sweeter by fulfilling the wish exactly the way I had crafted it. Frankly I did not expect more.
And so dear year 2010, after getting all the pieces together please let them fall in place. Just the way I have imagined.

Intellectually Superior??

2009-12-29T23:47:00.000-08:00

I was wondering!!! Within my short career I have interacted with a number of peers, friends of various countries. But time and again I am intrigued by the thought how much superior we Indians are with respect to our intellectual capabilities. We are much more competitive than any other people in the world.(Perhaps Americans are the only ones who can come close & I have never interacted with Japanese people). Nor even the Chinese. In spite of this, how could the British control India for such a long time. Why India is still developing and not developed? These are some of the questions I have tried discussing with my friends and the answer is not very hard to find. Perhaps we Indians lack in mental strength, the same competitive spirit is what kills us. I will delve more on this topic in the coming days.

And I am back :((

2009-12-27T19:56:00.000-08:00

I told you: The good times would just daze off !!! I wonder if the velocity of time is actually constant. Anyway the trip has given me enough material to blog on for the next couple of weeks. Right from the point I set my foot on the Calcutta airport to the time I set my foot off I had been trying to understand what is wrong with my country, specifically my state. But amidst all the wrongs, what is it, which is pulling me back to India. What is it, which is telling me constantly: "Foreign Land" this is not where I belong. I will write in details.
In the meantime let me tell you life for me is changing "FAST". (I am so intrigued by the velocity of time). The details of the latter would be revealed in due course of time as well. I hope in the coming months my life settle in exactly the way I want it to be. I know that is too much to ask. But I have this habit of going against the norm, and follow my heart. Remember when I ditched IIM-A for IIM-C, my mental set up is somewhat similar at the moment. And I also have this habit of driving life my way. I will do that. I have certain dreams to follow.
The tone of the blog is absolutely what it would be after coming back from home. And why not because home is where the heart is.

Home Calling

2009-12-15T21:56:00.000-08:00

And I am going home..!! After four months I am catching the next flight to Kolkata from Kuala Lumpur. I know the next ten days are going to fly away.
For the last few days I am contemplating why the hell I am going around places looking for job. Why can't I settle down in Kolkata itself. The place where I have the maximum number of well wishers. I know some of you are laughing. Even I would have done so a few years, or a few months back. But this thing about settling in Kolkata is into my head now.
I feel jealous of people whose home town is Mumbai, Bangalore or Hyderabad who have so much of option to choose from. If only the stupid government of West Bengal, or the opposition would have a different piece of mentality. I somehow feel that the effect of inactivity, doing nothing at work has corroded the minds of Bengalis in such a way that nothing can happen in that state any more. People simply do not have the vision, motivation of getting the state forward. And the conclusion is: my dream of settling down in Kolkata with a good job is perhaps never going to come true. I am sure there would be a few thousand who would echo the same feeling with me.

And I am 50 blogs old

2009-12-08T18:45:00.000-08:00

50 blogs in three years!!! Well yes my stream of blogs is three years old...Which puts an average of 16.66 blogs per year, just more than one blog per month. Dismal!! Considering I love writing so much. I should write more often.
Looking back I wanted to rate the blogs that I enjoyed writing the most. Tough job, but following would my top five:

1) Feel Good Factor: The internal Variables
2)Food for thought: A question from Economics
3)Distance & Teleporting
4) Gambler in Casino & Stock Market
5) Archive: The Beginning

I felt thrilled when I was making the choice as I thought there are a couple of others blogs which I have left out. I liked my last blog Three Wishes, & A day with parasites. One more thing, as I am writing more, my thought chain is improving. Perhaps some day I would collect all my blogs together (leaving aside the cheesy ones) and get going publishing in the hard copy format. If only I could get some more feedback from my readers. It is hard to know without the comments. I hope my 100th blog comes up before 2011.
Frankly I want to be a writer some day. And tell you what, I want to write in the same way I write my blogs:
1) Erroneous Grammar
2) Using words not present in english dictionary
3) Deconstructing sentences to fit my style.
4) Putting in lots of mathematics. (I am going to increase them in the blogs)
5) I would try a little bit of personification of inanimate things. Know what..you can write on controversial topics using this style.
Frankly I can do all this if my brain remains fresh, and this stupid world and my experiences keep feeding me with ideas that tweaks that grey thing

Three Wishes

2009-12-07T19:09:00.000-08:00

Imagine this: "God or someone with supreme power suddenly appears in front of you happy to grant you three wishes. However the three wishes have to be realistic, nothing abstract. What I mean is, you can ask for lots and lots of money but you cannot ask for Happiness. But wait there is one more constraint!!! Mr God is in real hurry and you just have a few seconds to make the wishes. So what would be your three wishes???"
Have you already thought of the wishes??? I have often given this "case study" to my friends and now I present the same to you all my dear readers. I know the case study is old, something you have heard of, in those innumerable folk tales, and the mythological stories. But what intrigues me to think is the fact that individuals has so much to demand, so much greed, so much wants in their life what exactly would the lucky fellow ask. I have put the constraint of asking for realistic things, and less time to think, just to make things more intriguing. Perhaps Maslow's hierarchy of needs would be perfectly reflected in the wishes the person makes. Let me not get into the prediction game of what the demands would be across socio-economic classes. Rather let me write in my wants. Of course the constraint of time does not apply to me, for I have spent so much time thinking on this matter and anticipating someday somebody powerful would be granting me such wishes.
Remember Goopi Bagha, the eternal Upendrakishore characters, immortalized by Satyajit Ray (Well the "long" description is for the non bengali readers who would like to know more on them)?? Somehow I see myself making almost similar wishes as they made (to the king of ghosts: for further referral). Let me list:
1) Perennial supply of good food and clothes
2) Ability to move from place to place in a flash (Teleporting)
3) Great musical skill: To mesmerize people with their singing and instrumental abilities.
Let me tell you these characters in the story/movie are poor. So the writer: Upendrakishore certainly did follow Maslow's principal in a different sense. Look at the order the first want is basic need, then comes desire and last comes creativity. It is perfect. He never read about Maslow. This shows that Indians don't need American bookish principles to understand humans, the principles are already embedded in the thinking of the Indian people. Well for me I would make the last two wishes. And the third wish would be to wipe out all kinds of viruses from the society. I got a little figurative over here. Well I would ask him to remove all bad elements from the society. And if I am allowed to be a little abstract I would ask him to remove all those chemical imbalances, hormones from the human body that make people selfish, hypocrite, & greedy. (Perhaps that would help God from not making any more of these three wishes, for people would not have any thing to ask).
So my dear friends delve deep on your three wishes, who knows if someday the situation happens to you, you must have your wishes ready, for the time constraint would be there and you only have three wishes to pave your way to bliss. :)

Piano in my Roland: I need to improve

2009-11-22T20:23:00.001-08:00

This is one of my favourite songs "Eki Labonye Purno Prane". The sound gets distorted in the microphone. Sadly could not introduce a suitable rhythm. Listening to my own performance I can understand I have to improve a lot.

Immortality is it a possibility???

2009-11-02T19:51:00.000-08:00

Why do men die? Why do people age? Aging not in the quantitative sense but physical. Forget the philosophical answer for a moment and let the practical/scientific way prevail. Think about it for a while before you move forward reading this blog.
If you have watched the movie "Man from Earth" the answer would have come immediately. The interiors of our bodily system is an epitome of purity. Mind my words!!! Our cells, the mitochondria which ultimately releases the energy needed for our body to sustain, receives the purest form of all the inputs. The lungs, the kidney, the liver, the stomach are the major organs that creates a security net against the foreign impure objects. Whenever the security of this purity is breached there is a problem. However our body has its own way of treating this security breach, and this is what keeps us alive. Over time the amount of impure elements in our body increases. Mostly because the security gates (read kidney, lungs, stomach) stops functioning to their optimum capacity. Thus slowly breaking the web of pristine purity of our body and consequently it starts to age. And once a threshold limit is crossed the man finally dies.
So let me put the bigger picture over here. Our body as a system needs some inputs to sustain ourselves. To help us grow to a certain level. These inputs come mostly in three packages of the good and the evil: the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink. Our bodily systems filter the evil out. Slowly this filtration process weakens, resulting in collection of garbage inside the body, things rotten, worsen and finally dies.
So why immortality is still an impossible concept? The scope of Medical Science till now has mostly been in treating diseases or clearing the garbage out of the body. Vaccination is a small step towards filtration, but still far from it. What is needed is an efficient system that does not allow any foreign body into the body. Can such an external shell of filtration around a human body be created that performs this filtration? I don't find any reason to answer in the negative. However I am not sure whether this right direction towards immortality has actually been identified. Like it is always said "Prevention is better than cure".
Getting back to philosophy: Human beings' every step towards attaining immortality with new drugs have been met with further challenges in the form of new diseases. I am pretty sure when the medical world would turn its attention and make some advance in this filtration mechanism, there would be other challenges faced in gaining immortality. Moreover, just think of filtration on the face value. Smaller the size of the particle difficult is the process. Add to this the fact there has to be a selective filtration, and the filtrates are bacterias, viruses, or molecules of compounds which measures in microns.
Hupps!!!! I am not saying immortality is impossible, but whoever created this universe he made sure that human beings can't get as powerful as him so easily.

Culinary Expertise

2009-10-29T19:33:00.000-07:00

I started cooking during my first job at Pune. The space of learning has been fast. Frankly I am amazed by my space of learning new things and excelling, even something as remote as cooking. The learning has come in various stages, which I will try to describe over here: The first day => Expertise in pulses => Daal-Chawal-Bhurji => Egg Curry => Chicken => Prawn
The start was not at all good, in fact horrific. It was a saturday night in Pune, and finally I decided to cook myself. A huge menu: Boiled Rice, Daal & Omlette. Rice & Omlette was easy, but I had a horrid time in boiling the daal. I had no idea in the proportion of water that was to be mixed. Finally after four hours I got the daal half boiled. Did not have the patience for four hours more. So I consumed whatever was done. Thank God, the next day was a Sunday as I was confined to the four walls of my room and another smaller room for the reasons I think you can guess.
As I have always said Morning does not show the day: Slowly I developed by own way of cooking daal, that became a huge hit among my friends. Then came the IIMC days when I thought I had lost my skills due to lack of practice. I was proved so when in London I made a sad start in cooking. But again slowly I improved and during that time I added the Bhurji to the list of my expert menu.
Now here in Kuala Lumpur, the menu list has become long. First I experimented with Chicken!! And the very first time it was a huge hit. Egg curry was never a problem. I tried Gobi masala as well. And finally yesterday I ended up cooking prawns. It was a huge success. Right mix of masalas, proper sequence can get any food you are cooking taste good.
Somehow I feel whatever I cook tastes the same. This is because the sequence of masalas is always the same. I think I should experiment a little next time. So next time anyone of you my friends planning to visit me, let me know in advance so that I can prepare the choicest of meals for you. Non vegetarians are preferred though!!

A day with parasites

2009-10-17T22:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in the afternoon of diwali we decided to go for our second trekking expedition into the Templar park water fall. After the fun we had in our first at the Kuntching forest and water fall (very near to the second) we had expected another great day of expedition. There were practically three differences in this trip.
1) There were not many people around: We did not care, the risk takers we are.
2) This place was less rocky/hilly, more damp, swampy and at places there was practically no pathway: We felt more excited, making our way underneath fallen trees, through the slippery stream and bushes
3) I had forgotten to wear sports shoes and was on my Woodlands: I don't know why the company named its shoes woodlands. While how much good these shoes are, they are not meant for trekking. In fact the soles of the shoes are so slippery that it gets difficult walking on a wet floor. Leave aside the swampy or the slippery rocks on the stream.
As always my enthusiasm with these activities took me to the front of the group. However a failed tarzan like stance when I tried to do some rope climbing on a hanging bamboo tree got me surprised, as those were dead trees and it could not take my weight and the result I fell heavily down and those trees fell heavily on me. That hurt and that hurt my new Reebok Tee more :(. Then after innumerable number of falls on the ground due to my heavy slippery shoes got my enthusiasm somewhat down. At this point we reached some short of a dead end on the stream as there was no "road" beyond that and we had to get into the stream completely to cross the point and make our way ahead through the bushes and swamp. I was a little down at that point and thought of going back to the point where there were at least a few people around. But you know enthusiasm is contagious as one of my friend was already into water. It soon got to me and I found myself crossing the stream.
After that we were climbing steep, the region was swampy. I could sense irritation in my body, but we still proceeded some 800 meters or so. Soon we reached a point which was completely a dead end. From there on the bushes give way to huge trees, and swamp. There was no place to move on. We could sense it might rain soon. Hence we decided to go back. It was at this moment I saw the first parasite, a leech, climbing up my jeans. Frankly I did not know it was a leech. I grabbed it and threw it into the water. In the return journey we decided to follow the stream, in fact wade through it. Forgetting the stream might take a course inhuman enough. We got into the water, but I could sense the irritation in my legs had increased. I removed my shoes and found innumerable number of leeches struck into my legs, filled with blood. I got freaked. I got mad. I started pulling them out. It was real difficult. And the moment I would pull one out it would get struck in my fingers. It was like "Ewwwwww". But hey... I could see there were more leeches around, more than I could imagine. My fellow adventurous souls got freaked out as well. There were leeches on them. There were hundreds of leeches rushing on to us in a twirling motion, fast. And the species was clever as well. They did not attack us directly. They were getting into our shoes, knowing we cannot go barefoot. It was futile trying to get rid of the ones struck into our body standing at the point as before we could remove one there would be 10 more getting in. We decided to "run" and leave that place as fast as we could. But by this time, we had lost the trail we had followed while we came. The emotions beyond this point is hard to replicate through blog. Every moment we tried to stop, to find our way, I could see those creepy creatures on the swamp. But yes we finally could find our way out for otherwise I wold not have been writing this blog. The experience was horrifying and I can't imagine getting so freaked out by such small creatures. How much I despise these parasites and other parasites living in this world?
I would like to end the blog with three comments (on request) which after those freaky hours while removing the ones struck into the body I made:
1) Can there be an intelligent leech who would secretly be resting inside my shoe, go home and drink blood out of our body every day. We actually found one such leech inside my shoe after the whole episode. Can there be one more??
2) Next time I visit that place I would carry a bagful of salt, and going to carpet bomb these parasites out of this world.
3) One leech is still un-accounted for and I fear it is somewhere inside my home.

I am so so freaked out!!!!

Distance & Teleporting

2009-10-08T22:51:00.000-07:00

Have you ever felt that many of the problems that we face everyday, is a product of the physical distance of where we want to go and where we are. The fact that few days back I was so nostalgic and the consequent emotional atyachar was just because of my physical distance from India. Just think of the innumerable number of problems that could be solved if physical distance could be brought closer to the virtual world. Just a small example: When I first arrived KL there wasn't any direct flight between kolkata and kuala lumpur. And that very fact bugged me a lot. If I am to go home, two days are lost just on traveling (in fact waiting in one of the stupid transits). And then suddenly Air Asia announces its new direct flight between KL & KOL, and wow (forget for the time being that it is a low cost carrier which is even better) my distance from home suddenly reduced so much. Information Technology: The mobiles, the Internet actually brings the physical distance closer to the virtual distance.(In Newtonian physics virtual distance is 0). In my school days when letters were my only way of communication with home, I used to wait weeks for a letter from home or some near one. Home seemed so far away even being only 300 kms away from home.
The world takes time before going virtual. In the days of letters or even prior to that when information was sent through a guy on a horseback. Information used to be physical. It took 2000 or so years until information completely became virtual ie physical distance between the receiver and sender became unimportant. We can actually say physical distance for information became virtual ie 0.
Similarly when the subject of carry is not information but the person himself, it occured to me can the same thing be achieved. There would be certain steps. First of all air travel speed would increase. Just a simple breakthrough that if each of the flights become supersonic at affordable cost. Distance reduces by half. Then if flights become hypersonic I can actually go home after office, again, given the fact it is affordable. Perhaps days are not far when such travels would be possible. Six generations down the line I am pretty sure a person like me would have breakfast at Kolkata go to office at London, and come back home for dinner in a hypersonic BMW. Even then things are nowhere near virtual.
So what might be a possible solution, human beings would need to be sent like information. Visualize this: year 4009. You want to travel to London. You take your mobile, type in a number. The mobile converts you into a digital signal encoded and send you to London, where you are decoded back to your self. Sounds simple. This is what I call teleporting. Satyajit Ray showed this in his movie. Life would be so simple, at least the emotional problems of a human would be so much solved. But will this be actually possible?
The day human beings achieve this, man would no longer be mortal. The simple fact that a human being can be converted digitally means, any disease can be treated just by the flip of a few binary digits. For a better explanation: Every human being would have a digital coding. Now when a disease occurs it means on the digital side some of the codes have encountered errors. So it is just a matter of time to digitize the man, identify those codes and flip them. I understand this cannot be the case, for every man has to die. However the closer we can get to this the better our life would be.

When Narcissism is good

2009-10-05T20:12:00.001-07:00

I ran long after a long time. Last saturday we had the internal run for "Frost the trail", the CSR initiative of our company, a run through the nature for 8.1 km. It was a kind of a dry run for the final event that is going to happen next week, where runners from different parts of Kuala Lumpur would be joining us. However the important question is how can somehow be happy running such a long distance through extreme terrains, ending up with cramped legs, not being able to walk properly for two consecutive days??
This is the question I am trying to answer connecting with the happiness function that I built. The body aches, pains but still I am so happy. (Can I also connect it to the response function to pain that I built, all my critics what do you think??). While I try to find the answer let me give you a complete description of the proceedings. The 8.1 km trail was at the forest reserve of Kuala Lumpur. We had to run past lakes, run uphill: really up at times the angle of climb could be as high as 40 degrees, run through forest. It was fun. To add to that it was raining and the whole package was just awesome. I did not have much time appreciating the nature as I was running fast. I clocked 49 mins and was the first to finish the race. And after the race we had fun cycling, playing football and taking snaps. It was fun all the way. Now what is the factor that made me feel so good. The Narcissist in me makes me think the importance that I got being the first placed runner has made me happy. Then there were the external variables. It is true it is pure narcissism. I feel happy being the best in everything I do. Frankly I love changing the world around me, making it the best. I hate being second, I hate being on the bench being the substitute. And that is why, I thrive so much to perfect myself in whatever I do, and when I get results of those perfections, I am happy.
Right now, I am having difficulty in walking. Thinking about that, I have to run another 8.1 km this coming sunday my legs start aching more. But I love it. During my school days this competitive spirit was always in me. I was nowhere near a good sportsmen compared to the other guys over there. I could never run 100 m in 12 secs, 5 km in 20 mins. But I always gave my heart out, improved over the years and finally I was second in my hostel. (The first was way too good). Then there was the obstacle course. We needed to jump over a 10 ft wall. I could never achieve the feat until the last day I tried it. It was the inter hall competitions and no one from my hostel could do that. Someone made of fun of that fact. I tried for one hour continuously before the event and finally I managed to do it and in the next one hour I perfected it. Though during the main event I failed, I felt happy that I could prove a point. Sometimes I feel whatever little I have achieved in my life or something which fuels me to achieve more has got a lot to do with the Narcissism, the ego, the jealousy in me. So do you think these attributes are good???

The Ruckus on IIT

2009-09-25T01:30:00.000-07:00

At last I could not stop myself from venting out my frustration against the Indian System albeit through my blog. I have always felt that the politicians have some sort of ego against the likes of IIT and IIM. Perhaps this comes from the fact that not a single politician can claim him/herself worthy to be branded in those league. Inferiority always brings in ego. This is the reason time and again the bunch whether it is Murli Manohar Joshi, Arjun Singh, and Sibal (forgot the first name of the last one..and I don't have any enthu to find that out at this moment) have tried to dictate terms over them. And today when I saw this statement of the HRD minister that "IIT's don't make nobel laureates" I could not stop myself laughing hysterically at the ignorance of those people.
I sincerely have always felt that IIT professors are paid less. In fact I have spent hours discussing the same with my grand father in the past. I might sound racist: but I have never been able to fathom why should an IIT prof be paid at a level at par with some random college? It takes a lot of altruism on the part of any professor in the IIT system to dedicate himself to this service. It is a fact that any counterpart of him who might have been his friend during his student days would be earning at least 10 times in the corporate world. Perhaps this is the reason why the quality of professors in the IIT system is degrading everyday. I don't know whether any professor of IIT-s would ever be reading my blog, but with all due respects I personally have seen this degradation. Some of the best profs with whom I was fortunate to interact with during my first four years of IIT retired during that period and the substitute lot was never a match.
Can anyone show Mr Sibal the statistics of the number of IIT alums teaching in the US universities some of them in MIT as well. Mr Sibal would you accept that they do produce nobel laureates. Why do you think they are not coming back to their country?
While I understand that the previous thick heads Mr Joshi & Idiot Singh had their vested interests on the vote bank for whatever decision they took, I fail to find any more logical reason for the current fight, apart from ego of Mr Sibal.

Food for thought: I (A question from Economics on Growth)

2009-09-22T22:37:00.000-07:00

I wanted to blog it up before it goes out of my mind. It just came: What if the RBI decides to change the value of the Rupee ( I don't remember the exact terminology of the event hence I need to be verbose ). What I mean is lets say the amount of money we now call 100 rupees is made equal to 1 rupee. One rupee in that case would mean One paisa and current lakh of rupees post change would be a thousand. Such steps have been taken in the past by the reserve banks across the globe. Specially in cases of hyper inflation (like Zimbabwe) where the reserve bank is forced to print notes worth thousand of trillion. I hope the reader understands why this change of value is required under such scenario.
Now take the case of exchange rate. A pound which is usually equal to 80 rupees would be equal to 80 paise. Apparently it seems that the home currency would value up in that case. Due to my ignorance or my amnesia of forgetting the exact terminology I will cause this phenomenon "valuing" the currency. The opposite step would be "De-Valuing"
So my question is if the RBI values up the Rupee will it cause a GDP growth or the opposite?
Let me give you some facts: normally when the currency becomes stronger to a foreign currency lets say the dollar. It leads to reduction of export. Remember 2007 when the rupee was at 38-39 against the dollar. The Textile & Jewelery industry was taking a beating due to reduced exports. This is simply because of the fact that a foreign customer had to pay more to get the same object. So if the Rupee is "Valued" apparently the home currency gets stronger and exports would reduce. So in that case growth would be reduced. Actually this is not true, it can be shown that "valuing" or "devaluing" the currency does not have any effect on Net Exports of a country. Get any book on international economics and the explanation would be there.
I have a different conclusion to draw, nothing to do with the exchange rate but something to do with the Growth. The thought came when I was to make a choice between two places for dinner. I was informed that the difference in cost between the places would be absolutely 1 Ringgit (Malaysian Currency). I had a hearty laugh in fact all of us had, caring less for the one ringgit and removing the constraint of that one ringgit from the choice. However I soon thought that if I convert that one ringgit to rupee it becomes around fourteen. And then Hey!!! Fourteen Rupees!!. I am sure if the currency was pound the same thought would have come to the mind. So here brings my question. If the RBI values the rupee exactly by fourteen and I am in India. The situation would be absolutely same. I, in fact most of the people like me have a similar perception of one rupee. We would not care much in spending that extra one rupee. What that means is consumption increases, this should lead to a GDP growth. What if during the recession the Fed in US had taken a similar decision?? I know this conclusion is extremely debatable. But short term economics (Demand-Supply) is extremely fickle: something as I explained. So in the short run under such a scenario we might see growth. The economists out there any thought???

Reflections of economics in the last question?

2009-09-18T00:59:00.000-07:00

The concepts of Utility functions- not withstanding how much misused, mishandled - can be put into effective use to answer the bunch of questions that I ended with in my last blog. Assuming many of the readers to be non-economist I would explain the concept as I go ahead defining the functions of utility in the current context and the budget-constraint line. I will try to make things as lucid as I can.
Meanwhile let me tell you, I am back with my enthusiasm of continuing with my futile task and development of the functions for the other variables, simply because I get the feeling that it is my blog and I have the right to express my opinions. Contentions are always welcome. However now I will take time in posting in order to make sure that there is no misinterpretation.
Let us consider two baskets. Call them B1 and B2. These baskets contain different needs of a human. I am trying to commoditize these needs. The two baskets contain needs that dis balances each other. Although I am not saying the needs are independent.
Let us imagine:
B1 contains Career, Luxury, Money, Ego, Glamor
B2 contains Family, Hobby, Recreation
Let us say there are a number of each of these baskets (equivalent in nature) available in the market. The question I am trying to answer is the number of B1 and B2 a rational individual would buy from the market. For this we define two functions: One is the utility function and the other is the budget constraint. As the name suggests the utility function would mean the utility derived out of a certain combination of B1 and B2. While the budget constraint is the line which constraints your buying based on your total income. You might have started wondering where this income is coming from. Let me explain, for those who have not had a course in economics. If you substitute the contents of B1 with oranges and B2 with apples. Then your utility function is the nutrients that you gain out of the baskets. But you can only buy a maximum of these baskets with your income. Coming back to the current context the utility function is your satisfaction level with the individual baskets. The budget constraint is certainly not income but some other variable which I will explain later.

Defining the Utility Function: For a general understanding please click here.
Figure 1 describes the general nature of the utility function. The Y-axis shows the number of B1 and X-axis the number of B2.
Note:
1) Each curve is an iso-satisfaction line. Which means take any combination of B1 and B2 from a particular line and compare it with another point on the same line, the two would give you same level of satisfaction.
2) Points on different lines would give different amount of satisfaction.
3) In general as you move in a north east direction, the satisfaction levels on the lines keep on increasing.
4) As the number of B1 increases the satisfaction gained out of B1 increases at at a decreasing rate. For example: 13 apples and 14 oranges might give you same level of satisfaction as 12 apples and 15 oranges. Where rate of substitution of apple with orange is 1. But on the same line 3 apples and 30 oranges would give you same level of satisfaction as 2 apples and 40 oranges. The numbers are insignificant. I just wanted to explain the nature of the curves. Why they are flattened at increasing B2 and straightened at increasing B1.
5) As I claimed that as one moves north east the satisfaction level in general increases. This would be due to some exogenous variable. For example if the salary of that person increases. Taking the fruits example oranges somehow become more sweet.

(I am not going to break this post in a series. Since it would take some more time before I finish this blog I thought of publishing this much, so that readers can have a grasp of the matter. I will later on edit the post, and post the rest of the matters as it is prepared.)

Feeling Nostalgic

2009-09-17T00:38:00.000-07:00

The bashing the I got of my last post seriously made me consider deleting it. I have not - as yet -. As I would proceed, the functions would get complicated and I am pretty sure the number of points of contention would keep on increasing. Seriously reconsidering - whether I should go ahead with the analysis. Frankly, I am beginning to feel it is not doing anyone any good apart from satisfying my analytical mind. In the meantime I thought of writing down my feelings after spending exactly a month outside the country. Well I spent two months in London before. But this one month is different considering that the stay is going to be longer and I am not sure of going home anytime soon. Coupled with it, it's the Durga Puja time and this year it is going to be the first time I am outside my familiar zone during the festive season.
Someone told me tomorrow is Mahalaya, and that moment I did a few things:
1) Opened You Tube and watched clippings of good old Mahisasur Mardini.
2) Searched for this year's Sharadiya Anandamela, wanted to buy it online but found it too expensive.
3) I felt nostalgic
I remember the old days the mornings of Mahalaya and wanted to relive those moments with time. The gradual shift of time that I can visualize can be broken down into three periods:
1) Pre Sainik School Days (Till Class V): My mom would wake up at 4, I would be lying on the bed awake and watching mom, getting fresh, cleaning the rooms and being busy with one or the other religious/spiritual things. In the meantime the radio would be on. I would get up around 5 and watch TV with everyone else. The whole package would create an unusual feeling of joy in the heart which every Bengali would be able to identify with. For the others it is little difficult providing the explanation.
2) Sainik School Days: The day before Mahalaya would be spent planning to get up early as we did at home, so that we could watch TV: the same program I was referring before. Most of the time I would be late. However those were the days when the joy in my heart knew no bounds. In the hostels I used to prepare these chits called DLFGH, meaning Days left for going home. Every day we would tear off one page of those pack of chits. On the day of Mahalaya this pack of chits would be really thin. The sheer thought that I would be going home within 3-4 days made me so so happy!!!! I miss those days. I really do.
3) IIT days: The feelings by then had changed. Those sweet feeling of longing, the desire to go home were missing. Of course I felt happy feeling Puja has arrived. But it was not the same. Perhaps I was not a child any more.
Time has definitely changed, and so has the feelings. But this is one period of the year when I would definitely love to be with my parents, my grand parents. Then why am I staying back here. Why am I not running away catching the next flight, forget about all these craps of career, luxurious life and just do what my heart wants. Why am I so confused about my wants? Why is everybody else in this world confused about their wants?

Am I a risk taker??

2009-09-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

The futile task has remained suspended for a while due to lack of time. Specifically for the last few days of last week I had been extremely busy with work. Not that I don’t blog when I am busy, I can always pull off half an hour. But the subject that I am handling requires some thought and I have not been able to garner the time, The next part however is being documented and would be published soon.You might ask what the hell I was doing in the weekend!!! Exactly that is what I am going to describe over here in this blog.
After the visit to the casino in Genting Highlands, this weekend we gave a shot to Kuantan, a beach on the South China Sea on the East Coast of Malaysia about 300 Km from Kuala Lumpur. Relax!! I am not going to provide a boring anecdote of how beautiful the beach was, how much fun we had jumping around in the water like fifteen year olds. In fact I am going to write about the thrill of the journey. During my London stay I had those wonderful road trips. Unfortunately then, I did not know how to drive a four wheeler. I could only sit on the back seat watching the scenery and appreciating the driving skills of my friend when he reached speed as high as 210 km/hr.
This time I was up with the past experience of having driven some 300 odd kms. The amount of confidence that I had on my driving skills is anybody’s guess, for almost three fourth of those 300 km was spent in the driving school. Moreover the rickshaw-wallahs, the auto-wallahs, the porters and even the pedestrians in a Calcutta road are so much disciplined when they are on the streets that as a driver you could encounter such incidences that might leave a lasting impact of horror in your mind: at least as a novice driver. The result: I was not at all confident.
Comes last Friday, and we as a group decide to hire a car and just ‘GO’ without thinking about the destination. From here I start correlating with the title of the blog. People think I am a very calm & composed kind of person with a very stable head. A few days back a lady suddenly pointed out: he looks so composed & responsible. I describe this quality as being near “Risk Averse”. I have always been perplexed by my care-freeness inside a games field. The two simply don’t correlate. The first line that I started with in this paragraph does not correlate as well. I love that suddenness in life where you don’t know what is coming. Coming back to the trip, our destination was however decided when we got the steering in our hand. I started the journey at my usual position observing others take control. None of my companions were doing great on the wheel, showing under confidence, which gave me the confidence to try it out. The fact that it was an automatic car helped me. I wonder why the car makers in the world still persist with making models that require you to push a lever to shift the gears. It is both ergonomically & technologically the most inefficient thing that needs to be removed. I start driving and decide to keep myself on the slowest lane and not cross the 70-80 mark. Humm!!! - How can that car overtake me?? – I was getting back to myself. That me on my bike, who does not like driving below ‘80’ - even on a crowded road. I sped up and soon was at 90 – 100 driving on the mid lane, Oh common, cars were still zooming past me, I shifted to the rightmost lane and was at 110!! “Hey I have done 110 with my bike” and this is an automatic sedan I am driving!!! I pressed on the accelerator and soon I was at 150. By this time I had overtaken all those Michael Schumacher-s who had zoomed past me. My friends were freaked out; one of them was constantly rambling and shouting at me to slow down. I did not. I did not slow down at the curves. I was totally amazed at my control of the wheel. Soon I reached my top speed of 170 km/hr!!! I wanted to speed more but both the GPS system in the car and my friends did not allow me to.
The return journey was even better, for it was night. And the part of the journey when I took control of the wheels was some hilly region. If you have traveled on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and remember the curves near the Lonavala Khandala pass, the road was similar and the curves even sharper. I did not mind, I was completely care free. I was at 120-130 and maneuvering the hair-pin curves with utmost ease. I can go on and on but must stop over here to get back to the point. Now sitting back at home when I am thinking of the journey the question that is coming to my mind is did I do the right thing? Perhaps not, but I have a certain me who likes extreme thrills in life. Who wants to do something, which normally other would not dare. I remember an instance in IIT Kanpur flight club where I was the person who feared most of heights, and it was the same me who put his hands up first when asked for a volunteer who would dare to fly up to 5000 ft in a glider. I should some time write about that once in a lifetime experience of mine.
The basic conclusion is “I am a risk taker”. Remove the few constraints in my life (my loved ones) and frankly I don’t care about the entire world. The reason I wanted to delve in this topic is because someone asked me what is the greatest quality required becoming an entrepreneur. And we concluded that one has to be a risk taker. Perhaps I can be one!!!

PS: Please don’t go away; the next part of the futile task is almost there. It has got some intricacies and I require your opinions.

A chain of thought from a random mind

2009-09-02T19:05:00.000-07:00

There are times when I just want to blog, but don't really find a topic good enough to tickle my brain. (Remember the Chord theory??). Today I decided just to go with the flow and type in whatever randomness comes to my mind. At this moment while writing this line I don't have a title for the blog. After finishing this blog I just want to feel that randomness. I would like to know how bad I am, being random. A time when I don't care how people would react to the unorganized part of me: a blog that is definitely going to lack the punch.
Why do I blog??
A way of releasing my inner thoughts. In fact there are times when I explore and understand a lot of things about me, about the world, about human nature while I am blogging. Sometimes when I am confused I start blogging, and often the confusion is answered as blogs help me address myself the basic questions. It also helps me keeping a track of my inner thoughts: how they have changed with time. In these last three years of blogging and many more to come, the blogs would help me understand my transition, the gain in maturity.
I have seen the diaries that my father used to maintain during his age. Blogs are nothing but a different nomenclature to that same practice. I just try to imagine what the next step of transition would be. Diary to Blog to .... ????
Well about an hour passed since I started this blog in fact since I started pondering on diaries, in between I had lunch. A mood shift took place. And now I am feeling sleepy. And a different question comes to my mind:
Why is it so hard to understand the female psychology? Is the male version such incompetent or the neural networks in the female brain is designed to keep the male species bamboozled. Let me see if I can come up with the answer in my next blog. But the problem is that I am so much fickle minded in terms of keeping my word on the topic of blogging, I don't know whether that is going to happen.

Gambler in a Casino & Stock Market

2009-08-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

Genting Highlands..The first real good trip after coming to Kuala Lumpur. (Before you start reading the experience let me warn you this post is going to have some amount of technicalities in it) .
Many of you who are non-i-bankers, non management people believe that share trading is nothing but gambling. Well while this is not true from an expert (I am desperately searching for the right word for one who has gone through a course like portfolio management) trader's point of view - well sometimes it is true even for him - it is definitely true for the infinite number of traders who trades just on their instincts. Hence my first visit to a casino provokes me to compare the psychology of a gambler and a trader.
My enthusiasm in going to the Casino stemmed from my recent expertise in playing poker (of course with virtual money) in facebook. In just 10 or so days I have won 350 thousand dollars!!! and I am pretty well confident I can produce one hundredth of that performance in the real world. My wishes did not materialize,as in the casino that I had been to, you are not allowed to play against the table (the other players like me), you get to counter only the dealer (the casino representative say). This brings the game completely in to luck. Even if I assume that the dealer is absolutely fair my chances of winning is 0.5. In a normal poker game intelligence, patience, and confidence play a major role which was not possible here. Moreover the minimum bets in the poker tables was quite high and I decided not to play :(. One possible reason why a casual visitor is not allowed to play against the table might be the fear of street fights outside the casino. I don't know what happens in other casinos in Hong Kong or Las Vegas.
So finally having a good walk around the floor we as a group decided to play one of the simplest games. The simplest over here signifies the minimum amount that you need to play and nothing to do with complexity. For none of the games on the floor required any brain and in fact all the games had a basic probability of winning of 0.5. The game went as follows:
Three dices would be rolled, based on the various possibilities of outcome bets were placed. On the minimum risk case you bet whether you will get an even or an odd sum of the numbers. Another one was whether the sum would be more than 10 or less. Clearly probability of winning in each case is 0.5. Hence if we bet 5 RM a win gives you 10 and a loss nothing. I devised a trading strategy and let me tell you it is a winning formula. I am revealing the same over here under the assumption that there are not many gamblers who take a stop at my blogs :):
I am explaining taking the example of odd or even. Under natural circumstances, that is for an unbiased dice, E = Even and O = Odd should be alternating quite frequently. So my logic is you bet only when there have been two consecutive "E" or "O". There is high chance that the next would be "O" or "E" (that is the opposite). But bet lowest = 5. If you win you become +5 and happy else -5 but don't be sad for look at the last three outcomes, they all been either "E" or "O". Let's believe they have all been "E". So next I bet "O" and bet higher = 10 for the chances of an "O" is even higher. If you win you get to +5 (-5 + 10) and be happy else you reach -15 (-5-10) but still don't be sad for the next time the chances of "O" is even higher and you bet 20. Continue like this and I can guarantee you will reach a positive mark. The only restraint is you should have a deep pocket, strong balls and if you are unlucky the space of your winning becomes slow.
We followed the same strategy under my leadership and voila!! we won 75 rm in our first two series of games (Let me tell you we followed a similar cycle as explained above) and took us about two hours in winning this much amount.
Finally we decided to give it one more try. We garnered 250 RM and decided to win big this time. Again we decided our stop loss would be 75 that is if we fall below 175 we quit the game. The 75 comes from the figure that we have already won meaning worst case we get back home without winning anything.
The game began and yes soon we were at 275. Then we started losing and my order of bets was increasing as (5 , 10, 20, 40). That meant we were at 200 at that time losing 50. Since our stop loss was at 175 we could not bet 80 next, I had to bet 25. Though we won that round we ended up at 225. Ideally using my strategy we should have reached 280. See my strategy works but the problem was we did not implement it.
Next we again keep on winning a few and reached 250. Someone suggested we should back out. But I was sure of my strategy.
We proceeded and a similar situation came when we were back at 200. Again we had to bet 25 and this time we lost and ended up being at 175. We had to quit the game at this point according to our terms. So at the end of the day we did not win anything neither did we lose anything.
So where are the fallacies:
1) Clear enough we did not follow our strategy completely: Fear Factor which is so true for a trader: People become risk averse when they are losing thus failing to cash in on an market opportunity.
2) Did you notice the points which are marked in bold: Was the chance of getting an "O" really higher :). The events were independent and the probability was still 0.5. The same happens with a trader. Under the efficient market hypotheses the next set of stock movement is completely dependent on the next set of information coming in and nothing to do with old news.
3) 250 we should have stopped but greed was taking its toll. People become risk takers with deeper pockets.
But one thing is for sure, my trading skills are good. Alas HSBC did not recognize it and rejected me for not being "aggressive".

Bankrupt

2009-08-28T02:17:00.000-07:00

Currently I am bankrupt, and bankrupt for a good cause. I did not know that I am an impulsive buyer. I have actually bought my new 'advanced' key board. No offense to my old one,for that was the one that taught me how to be a musician and made my fingers nimble enough. While the old one would always be there, this new one is fantastic. It is a Roland E-09, Black Colour model. My first one Yamaha PSR-275 was a silver coloured one. While the old one looked beautiful as well, I have a penchant for black, remember my bike is a black beauty as well!!! And the amazing thing is this keyboard has some Indian rhythms loaded into it, which calls for some experimentation. Probably this time I am going to record some thing and going to pin it up over here.
Ok!! I did not stop over there, bought a reebok-T and a short, was about to buy a squash racket: postponed it. Add to that my daily food expense is almost about 25 RM, which is about 300 Rs. I am going bankrupt.
About the impulsive buyer thing: Actually I should have realized this before. Just remembering the London days when a visit to ASDA (The general store) would mean four packet full of useless articles. Some of them would actually end up in the dustbin.
Perhaps one sales girl understood this when I was returning from the mall- after getting the keyboard. She came up to me and sprayed a nice perfume on my hand which smelled beautiful!!!

Kuala Lumpur: The Beginning

2009-08-16T07:45:00.000-07:00

I seriously need some sleep now. But still cannot resist posting my first day at Kuala Lumpur. No nothing rocking...but the first day is always a mixed bag.
I have got used to international travel but this journey was different. Could not sleep the entire journey. To add to this traveling east means I gained on time. And I seriously hated Thai Airways: Even the Air hostesses were bad. In fact there were more host.
The flow of events:
1) Confusion at KL airport: I was hurrying ahead of the other passengers to avoid the rush at the VISA check. Ended up at a dead end where some trains were running. Thought I was at the wrong place, everybody boarded the train and left. The train is the mode of travel at KL airport!!!!
2) Journey from the airport was awesome : The car zooming at 150 km/hr remembered London
3) Went out for lunch and did some hunting as well: The games are real bad. I am already missing India, London, Germany
4) Went to gym after a long time, I hope I regain my bulges at the least possible time and bring in more.
5) Had dinner at an Indian restaurant as if I am missing Indian food for a long long time. I sometimes feel this longing, missing are such mind games.

Tomorrow morning I would be back at office. The workplace seemed cool from outside. I hope the work turns out good as well.

Chennai Episodes

2009-08-02T23:50:00.001-07:00

It is my last week here in Chennai. And it occured to me why don't I write down all the places of outing that I visited weekend wise. No description would be provided. This blog is only meant to substitute my memory. :)

1) (one day weekend) : Dublin
2) (Two day weekend) : Bike & Barrels, Sleep
3) (one): Ten Downing Street [**Black Out]
4) (Two): Ten Downing Street, Mahabalipuram, Kayaking
5) (One): Sparkz, Avik's Aunts place
6) (Two): Pondicherry
7) (One): Bike & Barrels, Night out on rooftop [I lose my watch :(]

This helps me releasing some of the bytes from my memory cells. Oho I should also write down the movies that I saw during this time ( In order)

1) Paying guest [Left the hall midway]
2) Nuyork [Yak]
3) Hangover [Awwzzzome]
4) Ice Age 3D [Great]
5) Short Cut [Torture]
6) The proposal [Source of the feel good factor]
7) Love aajkaal [Sailed through inebriated]

What more to remember : Yes the nights at the beach, long walks, Card sessions, Mafia Sessions, Random anger rush, Blur, Cribs, Excel Sheet updates, Shubham's B'Day, Stories cooking up/rising from no where, pulling legs of people during card games....
I admit the last 7 weeks have been awesome fun. You enjoy certain periods of your life when frankly you are least expecting. :).
Chennai Rawkkdddd!!!!

The Feel Good Factor (The Internal Variables)

2009-07-26T22:31:00.000-07:00

It is monday morning, I have loads of work to do, Running body temperature, to add to that I had a great weekend. So what do you think my feel good factor would be?
The internal variables frankly is much more complex and unlike the external variables don't vary much from person to person. A sub-note over here: I hope by now you all have understood that the feel good factor I am talking about is on the relative sense. That is a positive effect of these variables would take you forward in the happiness scale but won't mean you are really happy.
Every moment a human being's mind is being marauded with hundreds of thoughts. Starting from the excess cash that he spent last night, the short handedness that he showed with the autowallah or even the breakfast that he had. So basically the mind at any moment exists in an n-dimensional space. I can't stress enough the importance of this 'n' over here. Let me put it in a functional form.
n = function(individual, time)
Gautam Buddha (or for that matter anyone who attended nirvana) in his earlier life was stressed by a number of questions. At that time this 'n' for him was high, but at his later life after 'realization' this 'n' was small. So a higher 'n' is a bigger constraint to happiness. How you decrease this 'n' is altogether a different question. At every moment 'n-1' of these variables form a nebula around the mind and only one variable is dealt directly. In fact the mind has its own way of dealing with the nebula or the factor in hand. And here comes the concentration factor. Once again let me quantify the mind.

state of mind = CF*function(Variable 'n') + (1 - CF)*function (Nebula 'n-1')

points: CF = Concentration Factor
The n'th variable keeps changing.

The mind of a 'Sanyasi" who has just started his journey towards attending nirvana is absolutely similar to a layman. Slowly he starts increasing his concentration power. (I am not sure how he does it). Ideally he tries to reach a stage where CF = 1, After this it is just about controlling the variable that is affecting his mind. That variable should be a happiness variable to him. More importantly that variable itself is not determined by other variables. For someone it is GOD, at the other extreme there are the drug addicts. I hope you have got the hang of it. Of course these two factors: God, Drugs they themselves can never be unhappy. But if your sole variable is lets say one of your family members, the hypotheses does not stand for they themselves are affected by so many other factors. Perhaps this is the reason a monk would never talk about his family.
I can't finish talking about the concentration factor so soon. Certain times without you knowing your CF would be really high. Lets take the example of all the CAT or IIT JEE takers. For the serious people they put a lot of energy into these two exams. Automatically the CF is high. So when you get a favourable result in these exams, other variables don't matter, you just feel happy about it and you know how bad it is in case of a failure. Similar is my story when I play volleyball. Invariably my CF is high. And thus you know why I am always happy in the court because I never lose :).
A disgusting note but worth it: Can you now tell me why you feel so happy after shit?
For the not so gifted ones. For whom the mind is mostly a nebula and the CF most of the times is less than 0.7, dissecting happiness is real difficult. I don't even dare. But thee are certain instances when a small thing suddenly makes you happy. A "sorry" from someone who behaved badly with you may be. These are instances that dissipates your nebula without your knowledge. Thus one variable that was bugging your inner mind suddenly disappears. Or say you help a child in need. In that case your nebula actually gets thickened, but since it is the positive note you get happy. As a next step if you find that the same child actually be fooled you by taking the money you get twice upset. This is because your nebula is already denser and the sadness part has just crept in.
Hupps enough of it .. If someone manages to creep through all these bull shit, I thank him.
Another disgusting note this time with respect to the nebula cloud: Can you tell me how is your nebula cloud behaving the day you did not have a good morning pass :). Hey now you are thinking: How such small things can affect you and your happiness.

Nothing Should be Flawless

2009-07-20T04:23:00.000-07:00

Before I continue with my dissection of "The Feel Good Factor" I wanted to tell this story to all of you. Sometime back I was competing in a Sit & Draw competition. The subject of the painting was a moonlit night. Beautiful romantic topic to be painted in blue, black & white. So me being an artist my imagination was running full circle. I wanted to paint the full moon shining on a river and a boat floating on it.
I wanted to stress on the boat. The boat losing its way in the waters trying to reach the moon. And the moon !!! I tried to make it as flawless as possible. Shining in its own glory, even making this bad world look extremely beautiful.
Every body who were there around me praised my efforts:

1) The moon looks so beautiful
2) The Boat look so lost
3) The World seemed to be a great place to live in.

And there was this other fellow, painting just beside me. his moon was not flawless. He painted the moon in its true form, and he painted only the moon with all its craters. Even he praised my painting. Everybody was sure of me winning.
Results were out soon.

I DID NOT WIN THE PRIZE. I don't know whether he won either.

The Feel Good Factor: The External Variables

2009-07-17T23:56:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel that I should have been a Happiness Consultant rather than a Growth Consultant. No I am not claiming that I am eternally in the bliss, but I think my funda about being happy is sometimes good. ( A growth consultancy service provider itself is not perennially on the growth track ..Right??) or (A strategy Consultant does not always get his/her strategies right :) )
So what are the variables that makes one happy. Frankly the question is absolutely subjective. While you and me might be happy gaping in a Goa beach , she might not :). Got the twist!!!
So, let me quantify my feel good factor (I need a consultancy fee for others). There are two broad groups of variables: Internal ( You can say random factors ) and External. It would be easy delving into the external factors first in this blog. The internal factors would be coming in the next blog. It is a different subject matter altogether.
I would first write down a few things that no matter what makes me happy (feel good is a more apt state of mind). Based on those I would try to figure out the variables.
1) A room with my keyboard. And a few sad romantic, 'contemplating' songs. (Yes sad!!!)
2) A ground with a 2 meter high net and a round object called a volleyball with 11 others like me.
3) A long walk through metalled/non-metalled road crossing lakes, forests, paddy fields, (the environment has to be cool and serene)
4) A night out of random bakar with Sushil, Sushant, Gregory talking about the futility called Life, Music, etc... (The names are more figurative in nature)
5) Writing a good blog, reading it myself again and again ( I am a "Megalomaniac" to a few and they are correct...It is like the queen looking at herself in the mirror and enjoying her own beauty )
6) A long talk over the phone with some friend and giving him/her a nice speech on life, trying to set everything correct and then feeling good thinking I am such a philanthropist (God knows what they actually think of me..a pain in the a** may be).
7) Some good food by my grand mom (I am homesick :(( )
8) Jadoo Ki jhappi of my mom
9) Solving an intricate 'x' puzzle (x = Mathematics, Statistics, Finance, Physics, Economics)

.... Pause .......

Hupps.. I have taken a good 5 mins after writing the last point searching helplessly if I could find the tenth thing that make me feel good. The list is small. So the next step is to identify the variables.
Without getting into the reasons I am just listing the variables over here.
Feeling Good (me) = Function( external(music, games, walk, blog, bakar, fundas on life, grand mom, mom, brainteasers), internal (???))
So these variables externally create a complex interaction to make me feel good. Anyone thinks there might be some other forces at work as well??

A feel good factor: Part I

2009-07-16T22:42:00.000-07:00

Have I deviated from my last promise?
Could not help. Know what..For the last two weeks I have been trying to write a blog on a potpourri of topics. Freewill, my Kayaking expedition, night outs in Chennai....
But somehow I would not be able to sustain the tempo. And frankly I don't like writing a blog that lack the punch, the x-factor :).
Let me try explaining the situation through a musicians perspective (The not so musical readers pardon me). It is like when you are trying to strike the right chord you know you are playing it correct but something is missing. You think it is the C-major (or minor may be). You are pressing the three notes correctly, but you feel hey!! I am just not there. Then suddenly you find that if you add that extra odd note (the fourth key). Making it C-Major 7th or C-minor 9th ... you say aha!!! My situation has been something like that. Though I wanted to pour my heart out in writing on Freewill or kayaking the fourth note was missing. And yesterday while watching the movie "The Proposal", feeling good, being randomly happy ..I felt Hey!! isn't that the thing I just love writing on. The random things in life that make you happy.
So I dedicate this blog to those who just want to be happy. Today is a day when I have thousands of things to do, but still I want to blog. Just because I am feeling happy. The Part II of this blog would give in the details. Till then just randomly keep on feeling good...HAPPY!! The feel good factor for me today is high..!!!

Freedom & Freewill

2009-06-30T22:46:00.000-07:00

I could not resist posting this link to the blogs a friend of mine maintains:

http://srinivaskc.blogspot.com/2009/04/human-nature-part-1-this-is-first-in.html

A wonderfully structured, deep insightful blog that I thought you all who read my blogs should read. Quite intricating & provokes you to ask a lot of questions.

The immmediate question that I raise: is there something called "Negative Freewill"? If not then the bell shaped curve assumption cannot be true. EIther it is a truncated bell or may be something like a chi curve. I am giving it a thought and my next post is definitely be on "negative free will" which I believe can be defined.

Chennai

2009-06-20T01:12:00.001-07:00

So the period of boredom has finally come to an end (or has it??) as I am spending my training days here at Chennai. Life is not too different from similar days before. The only difference has been the Chennai heat which by the way has been killing at times. The rest of the things have been routine like: Coming to office, Cribbing, Going out, Again Cribbing, Cards, Late Nights and the cycle repeats itself. Doesn't it sound familiar.
Yeah one more difference; after a long long time I am working at office in a weekend.

A kind of different incident

2009-06-08T05:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening I was biking through a busy street. Had I been on my legs I would have said I was 'moseying'. Could not find a better befitting word in the case when we are not on legs but on two-wheeler. And then suddenly I could see (sorry feel) a pulsar-180 zooming past me. He was fast. But that did bother me. True my Apache is only 150 cc but I couldn't be left behind like that. I rolled my wrist over the accelerator. VROOM!!! and I was speeding at 80 (through a busy street). Soon I could sniff the PULSAR.
But hey!! Isn't that guy just a teenager. How can I compete against him. Am I not looking like a fool. In fact at this point the other guy could sense my intentions. He sped up as well. I needed to shift to top gear now. But then this dilemma started in my mind. Am I being a bigger fool trying to compete with a teenager or would I look smarter if I can go past him. I thought the former is more important.
In the meantime the teenager once again zoomed away leaving me far behind.

Archive: The Beginning

2009-06-05T01:28:00.000-07:00

I am kind of tired expressing my own feelings and incidents through my blogs. From now on I have decided to add anecdotes of incidents not encountered by me but my near ones, such incidents which I enjoyed listening to and would try not to forget. The world of blogs would be a good warehouse to archive these files. Of course I would not spare the stories from my own views and I would add a small note of critical appreciation at the end. Let’s kick off:
This is a story which I recently heard from my grandfather: A page from his childhood days, year 1940. My grandfather lives in a small village and in those days the village was smaller – I mean remote’-r’. He used to study in the local pathshala (Lower primary school) with a handful of other extremely studious pupils. I glorified them ‘studious’ because in those days education was a luxury which could not be afforded monetarily or was considered an absolute non-necessity by most. Result only the most ‘studious’ few were seen with books. The school had a single teacher; ironically he was also the administrative officer, principal, and even the peon - The sole person responsible showing the path of light to the villagers. The adversities of the monopoly given to such teachers are well documented in a number of Bengali movies. However the teacher in my story was dedicated to his job. One day he had some personal work and hence announced a holiday in the school. Upon getting an unexpected off in the mentioned day, my grandfather was roaming around under the hot summer sun with his marbles, trying to find a suitable partner for a marble tournament. This is when he saw two persons dressed in non-rural clothes-one of them in suits-coming up to him. They asked him the direction to the school and seeing it closed they asked my grandfather the reason for it. For the readers who are still wondering about the identities of these persons: one of them was the school inspector and the other was another dignified person from the school board. And yes they were not expecting the school closed. My grandfather took the responsibility of calling the pupils from their homes and in the process ended up gathering quite a large crowd of curious onlookers. In fact a large part of the village was soon seen inside the school premises. If you are wondering how such a large crowd could find a place inside the school building, let me tell you that the school building was mostly open air. The inspector kept himself busy asking different questions, thanks to the hard work of the school teacher, the pupils were up to it. This got the inspector visibly happy. It was around this time one could see an old man coming running down the lane. In fact he was not running, he was hobbling because of his corn affected foot. It was the school teacher. He had not got the time to put on his shirt and was bare chest. The moment he reached the classroom he started pleading guilty and was inconsolable. The inspector was however very pleased and he did not complain. It was soon known that the school teacher had applied for the school to be graduated from Lower Primary to Upper Primary and the inspection was solely for that reason. The graduation certificate was granted.
This is however one part of the story. Let me give you a few facts: the school teacher used to live around 10 kms from the school. In those days there was no bus service and he had to walk that distance. He had some personal work on that day (the reason for announcing the holiday). One should wonder how he got the information of the inspection and how he could run the distance with his injured leg. My grandfather says that the teacher -after finishing his work- was resting in his home when he had a dream. He saw goddess Kali was pinching him and informing him of the inspection in his dreams. This got him running, I mean hobbling. Super Natural!!!! Are you not convinced?? Then maybe you should believe it was telepathy a page from para-psychology. Whatever it was it saved the day for an otherwise extremely committed teacher and also the school. The same school now stands in the village which achieved some more levels of graduations since that day. It is now a higher secondary school and of course not open-air. How the funds were collected is another story.

I am in a boring slumber

2009-04-17T08:48:00.000-07:00

I hate my current stage. Yes I do!!! Now I miss those busy hours, the pressure of solving cases, appearing for quizzes preparing for interviews. Surprised?? This is life..Nowadays I am practically jobless, getting bored to hell with nothing to do at home. And to add that I am not being able to blog for the want of a net connection at home. Today I got so desperate that I thought that I would blog sitting inside a cyber cafe. Frankly it is a time when I have so much to write about the political scenario and the gimmick called IPL. SAD!!!!
A typical day in my life consists of getting hold of the TV remote and constantly surfing through the channels. The only saving grace is my synthesizer.
I want to get out of this slumber. And yes one more info I have been posted in Kuala Lumpur and that has hammered spirits down further.

At the end I am HAPPY

2009-02-25T08:08:00.000-08:00

Hupps!!!!
That exclamation is much bigger and pronounced than those 5 letters. A journey that started in 1985 when I walked into my first school holding my mothers hand is about to end. And the journey seems accomplished. The road was not easy, was long, but full of memories and I know I am going to miss it.
Thank God, Thanx to all the well wishers I have been able to sail through the recent course of adversity :: Getting a good job in the final placements. For your information Bain & Co was once again kind enough to give me a shortlist and one more from Frost & Sullivan. Pretty dismal considering that I did not get one from the other 6 companies. (I am talking only about day 0) But at the end while Bain did not find me good enough FnS did. So finally I have cracked Day 0 at the final placements. Frankly something to feel happy about...Accomplished!!!!!!!!!
Moreover the location is London, a city that I loved being at, during my summer internship. Alas!! my partners in crime during that time would not be with me this time. But hopefully the new crowd would be as much fun to be with.
I am now absolutely convinced of two phrases :
1) All's well that ends well
2) In the long run everything falls in place.
While the former is true for everybody the latter has been absolutely true for me. At this moment my life seems extremely fulfilled. Frankly what more to ask?? And hence for the last three days I have been genuinely HAPPY.

Last JBS performance?? Perhaps!!!

2009-02-15T20:17:00.000-08:00

Could not resist putting this up over here. Though the performance was not the best, but my only performance which has been recorded. And then it was all nostalgic.

Should post a few more, once I get hold of them. And please to encourage :P

Been There Done That

2009-01-30T10:46:00.000-08:00

Nowadays I am feeling that sense !! Yeah Deja Vu ... Life once again has become extremely hectic and for a change I have taken studies a little seriously for the time being. The pressure of preparation, some added responsibilities :: everything together makes me remember the innumerable number of times I have been through this. Only change is that now I have got used to it.
Meanwhile my Germany trip is done. Was an wonderful experience walking through the snow, feeling my fingers freezing up and not being able to talk because of the cold. Made quite a few friends over there and the last night party was awesome. But it was for the first time that I had the language problem when I went to a local store to buy some stuff.
I know this blog is a little diversion from my usual philosophical ones and that is because I don't have much time in finding the reflections of philosophy in my life nowadays. Trying to be practical and fight out the externalities, believe me the battle had not been more difficult before. I hope I am soon able to write a blog expressing how I have flown through this adversity like I have always done.
Are you wishing me the BEST!!!!

There's something that money can't buy

2009-01-06T12:26:00.000-08:00

Isn't that absolutely true. Felt like reminding you all the recent ad-campaign of VISA where you get to see a group of friends throwing the hotel bill away to one another and the same group in their balded age snatching the bill. Nostalgic feelings. Perhaps one would say that we are still at the former stage or still some time is left before we reach the latter. But, for us by which I mean people like me who had grown up in hostels from the kindergartens such reflections come in early. Yesterday was such a day.
It was a get together of a few of us who spent the most beautiful part of their lives, grew up together under the same almamater Sainik School Purulia. And it was in honor of a very close friend of us who is in India on vacation. The moment we met those strange old feelings were back, there was so much to re-enact from the diaries of our school days. The same old leg pooling. Tell you what each of ours fathers had some special place amongst us in those days. I was simply surprised to find that we still remember those revered names and the associated masalas :P. And how much we loved our hostel superintendent. An example of his greatness can be found in my last blog. We were together for about 5 and half hours but never felt like departing. In the end when the restaurant bill came the sight was absolutely similar to the VISA ad, of course the latter part. In the school days the same 'we' would go the cafeteria and cheat each other to feed our own stomach in some others account.
I am still having a heavy heart. Thank you Sainik School Purulia for giving me such a wonderful set of friends. Thank you for making us all think alike, thank you for giving me some people for whom I can say yes they care. I feel lucky, I really do. For some of you the story might seem similar. If only I could make you feel the DIFFERENCE - the selflessness - !!!!!!

Wishing & Hoping for a better year ahead

2009-01-02T20:12:00.000-08:00

Let me be optimistic (I know that sounds utterly pessimistic) that the new year would be prosperous and would have much better things to offer than 2008. With the usual New Year wishes the query that one gets at this stage is how the New Year celebrations was. Thought of blogging it down. In fact I am trying to blog down all my New Year celebrations as far as I can remember. My friends who have been part of these "years" let me see whether you remember those days. Incidentally I get so much response about my blogs from different people but none is a little patient enough to pen them down. Anyway I am a little lost in which way to start. I mean going up the memory lane or down. Which way would keep you interested enough to keep reading the whole post. (Marketing Strategy!!!!). Let me start with the oldest ones.

1994: Class VI. Was into the first year of my hostel life. But was not in hostel because of Christmas vacation. In fact my transition into the new year was inside the sleeper class of Puri-Howrah train. Yes I was returning from a trip to Puri with my family. I so very well remember the emotions cooking inside me at that time. The vacation was about to get over and the thought of getting back to the hostels was killing me.

1995 - 1998: These were the next four years of my school-hostel. The Christmas vacation was done away with after class VI and my new years were celebrated in School. Ironically there would not be any emotional doldrums, in fact I would enjoy the days to the fullest. We used to have our school annual sports week culminating with the annual day in this period. This used to be a helluva of an affair and would take me more than just three lines to talk about it.

However in between these four years two of the years were special and anti climatic to each other.

1997: Phew!!! I had just been suspended from the school for slapping someone. According to the guys parents it was an attempt to murder. Thankfully my parents gave me a lot of moral support, and did not have much damage done apart from the suspension for ten days. The period of suspension got over exactly on 01/01/1997 :)

1998: Ahem!!! A few months back I had met a creature from some other planet. So you know New years are meant to sent messages of well being to such creatures. ;). And emails having not been the standard in those times, this poor fellow had to wait for the postman. 31st December night it came. (Quite a coincidence) But it fell into the hands of my friends and a period of "you know what" started. And finally when I got the letter in my hands our hostel superintendent calls me up for making commotion inside the mess and writes a long letter of about 10 points to the headmaster complaining. One of the points was that I was creating a group among the boys to go against him. I was quite a politician you see ;). A new year to remember.

1999-2000: Yes I was muggooo...I had nothing to think about during this time apart from books & IIT JEE. And frankly I don't have vivid memories of what I did.
2001 was spent in frustration having done miserably in IIT JEE mains again my memory chip is blank.
Is anyone thinking about what happened to that creature? The loser I am, books became my paramount importance and the creature was left to get to get lost into oblivion. I know I am not doing any good by saying this :D.

2002-03: The happiest two new years that I spent and not meant for blogs :). Sorry Mates.

2004-06: The days of IIT had started long back. The last three years were different from first two. These wold be the period when I would just be back from Inter IIT sports meet. And relaxing the new years at home.

2007: New year in Pune!!!! Celebrated like a true working man. :) Got the hint??

2008: New Year at IIM Calcutta and the most shitty one I have ever had. We went to aquatica in the night and it was an awful experience.

2009: Perhaps the best New Year celebration till now. I played my keyboard for the most of the night along with the other members of the band. I was inebriated and it felt awesome playing music around the bonfire. Once the show ended we had a nice walk around the campus, and the finally the night ended with the usual cursing of our luck, the economic recession & the job scenario. Harbinger of things to come

Hey I am again getting pessimistic, let’s be optimistic for the New Year. Oh Common!!!!!!

Subprime to Credit Crunch to Recession

2008-12-24T09:41:00.000-08:00

No I am not starting a boring anecdote of the topics that have made a large number of final year students like me insomniac. Lots of dissection has already been done on them: their causes,etc. Some over enthusiast like me can go through the blogs of Paul Kruggman and Gregory Mankiw in order to find out more. However today something came in my mind: A different reason for the cause of all the doldrums in the economies. It occurred while I was having lunch and this stupid show was running on the TV. "MTV Roadies" - I know some of you out there would be swearing to kill me. Human being aspires money, glamor, power. Perhaps the glamor aspect of these shows is what keeps them running.
Q: So what has got to do with economic recession ??
A: Think a little differently. Look at the people out there who has got all those three above mentioned booty. They are the movie stars, certain other people from the glam world, ministers and sportsmen (for India only the cricketers). Now when an academician finds that a certain guy who has not got even one-tenth of the grey matter that he possesses makes some 50 to 100 times more money than him it would require a lot of altruism on his/her part not to feel jealous and frustrated. The result is you would find Phd-s in physics from top US universities moving to GoldmanSachs as investment banker. Read the book "My life as a Quant". Certainly the last resort of the desired three and plenty of them. The desire increases, the desire for more and quick. The story after this, can be related to the subprime story and the consequent problems the world is facing today. Was everything too far fetched?? Well may be.
~ Perhaps the greed factors are omnipresent in the human beings.
~ Perhaps I was trying to connect everything to something else: What can make people aspire something more constructive
~ Perhaps the media can help by glamorizing something else. And not how to be "cool" and/or "hot".
~ Hypothesis: MTV Roadies (I am using it as a representative) the real reason for everything.... Did I strike?

When life doubles up

2008-12-05T22:11:00.000-08:00

This blog is dedicated to one of my dear friends who tied the nuptial thread last weekend, and I was there to witness their relationship culminate in the ultimate bonding. This bonding between the two has got some special meaning to me. Their pre-marriage relationship has been a long one. It started in class eight - Yeah!! you heard it right - and has just taken off :). It is sweet to say the least. As another friend puts it: " Nowadays when people fail to stick to a marriage for twelve years....These two have been in love with each other for that long a time ". I certainly don't know about the little 'sparks' that keep their relationship intact but I have my own views on it.
I treat childhood love special. When two kids fall in love with each other they are not aware of the myriads of other things that accompany the package called love. Infatuation you call it right. Well how many of us do carry those little doses of infatuation and store them in some special corners. And those who can preserve them for such a long time are certainly the lucky ones. And my friend is lucky to do so from a stage when it would have been hard to spell the word commitment. A stage when their love did not come in package. "Wish you two a great life ahead".

Note: All views are personal.

The Highs And Lows of __________ ???

2008-11-25T00:51:00.001-08:00

Dear readers
What does this picture remind you of? Think a little beyond the obvious

Pursuit of Happiness

2008-11-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

A few days back I was having a conversation with one of my friends:
Me: "Can you remember the last time you were really happy?"
Friend (Irritated) : "Yeah!! I do.."
Me: "When was it?"
Friend: Remembers some particular instance ... A party
Me: "But weren't you that particular day brooding about the current placement scenario?"
Friend gets confused and then remembers another occasion: The day he converted a day 0 summers
Me: "Common I remember you abusing the interviewer who did not give you an offer. He ruined your chances of joining your dream company and instead join this one"
He gets further confused. Each time he tried to find an instance when he thought he was happy, he actually found that he was not happy.
I have often tried to ask myself the same question. And I know the moments I am really happy. Today once again when I felt happy I thought of blogging it down, giving it a shot before the London diary.
I do derive happiness out of very small things. I would write about them all sometimes later. But the one that always makes me happy is when I play some sport. Be it volley, football, cricket, give me anything...I have realized that when I am inside the courts I completely forget about the entire world outside. In fact I change as a person. The usual cool me becomes extremely aggressive. The usual extremely careful person completely loses balance. During my days in IIT I was known as extremely injury prone. The reason behind is when I play I don't care. Nowadays when I have started getting a little conscious about my ankle (which is a constant source of injury) I know I am less happy than when I would not. A little philosophical way of saying would be "Sports is my salvation". Perhaps Me inside the court is the real me and the usual me that people know might actually be masked. And as long as I am fit enough to play I know I would be happy in my life albeit in patches.
Actually right now I feel quite happy after penning down my source of happiness. And frankly I always want to know the instances when people feel happy. The few people who read my blogs a sincere request/question "When did/do you feel happy". Please leave a comment. The answer might be a past event or something that I have instanced.

Suddenly Something

2008-11-12T20:07:00.000-08:00

The last comment made on my previous post suddenly made me realize that my blogs are actually not defunct. Looking back I had not made a single post in 2008, which has been such an eventful year. And frankly the series called "Summers Journey" that I had started has not got any more importance in my life, and hence find no urge to continue with it. But stories should have an end. Hence I thought that in this blog I should sum that up without going to the intricacies, the little emotions, which I am so fond of expressing in writing. You know you love cherishing your successes and not something which culminates in failure. The point of time when I last wrote, the world to me was a success. Perhaps you should compare everything with the sensex. Remember the sensex was somewhere around 20K at that point!!!! Then drastic things started happening. For the not so technical people: The Subprime crisis started, leading to credit crunch, economic recession in US which has already spread to India, Banks started going bust.Lehman Brothers!!! (( And I was actually aspiring for it though I tanked their interview giving wrong answers to known questions )) and finally the sensex is at the half of 20K.
My story during this period has been something similar. Chronologically:

1) Got an offer from HSBC London for summer internship
2) Had an wonderful time of two months in London. Nice vacation I should say.
3) Worked hard to get a final offer.
4) Finally was not given an offer for apparently no logical reason.
5) Everyday is turning out to be worse than the day before now with the economies slowing down.
6) Becoming an I-banker (Does the term exists in the dictionaries any more) looks like a distance dream.
7) And now the the summers journey for our junior batch is at the climax.

This is everything in a nutshell. Perhaps someday soon I should write about the London trip. I also feel like writing on the current affairs in the economy. But seriously I think that would make the blogs boring. Of course everything depends on my mood. And right now the mood is all too somber and gloomy. So one can assume that my next set of blogs might be extremely dark (:P). Once again thanks to those few people who read my blogs, commented on them that gave me the motivation to do something which I love to do: expressing myself to the abstract world.

The "Summers' Journey" : Getting Listed

2007-12-23T22:06:00.000-08:00

Right from my childhood I have this bad omen of not being able to find my name in lists displayed on notice board. Lists containing the names of successful candidates. Whatever 'list' on which I got listed were not the paper driven ones, what I mean is: I have had success finding my name in e-lists of successful candidates but not the physical lists. In fact I dread searching for my name in them.
The reason for starting this blog with this piece of crap is because most of the shortlist of companies for the summers process are provided in the physical lists.
McKinsey was the first to come up with its list, BCG followed soon. And I had luck with neither. Though I never had much of hope with them, but the sight of people congratulating each other for being listed did bother me. ( JEALOUS??? Is it inhuman to be jealous ).
Let me put it over here, throughout this period of "short lists" - the run-up to the final day, I had my luck following a peculiar sinusoidal pattern. It started from a trough and whenever it was at the pick I had a plethora of calls and then again trough.
My Luck started favoring soon as the first call that I got was from A.T.Kearney and HSBC on the same day. Macquarie ditched me. It was hard to understand their shortlisting criteria. Bain followed suit giving me a call and suddenly I had three calls inside my kitty. No mean achievement considering that it was just the beginning of the season.
I soon got to wake up from my slumber as I started down the downward slope of my Luck Curve. Looking back I found I have two consulting shortlist which I never believed I would be able to convert and just one i-Bank shortlist. In the meantime I had lost out on JP Morgan, Barclays Capital and A D Little. Oho and Rothschild had not shortlisted me in their first list (Which was a strange piece).
The first derivative of my luck curve once again showed positive signs when the next day I got a shortlist from ABN AMRO, I was really happy with this one for I was among just 12 shortlisted for the same. One thing worth mentioning over this list is, it had a strong "Bong-Connection" associated with it. About 8 of the 12 were either Bengali or were from Calcutta.
The next day was the peak for me as I had three more short lists. Rothschild had modified its', and the other two were biggies!! Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers.
HUMMM!!! I was restricting myself with the dream of getting about 3-4 calls and at this moment I had 7 and still about a quarter of the day-0 shortlist yet to come.
I remember making a comment at this point "I don't need any more short list ,for If I am not able to convert one out of 7 I cannot convert 1 out of 20". Though The statement was true to my heart it became true to my destiny as I did not get a single more shortlist. Temasek, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Deutsche all gave me good kicks on my ass. The "Kicks" which charged me up to prepare even harder.

The "Summers' Journey" : An Autobiography in One Page

2007-11-20T00:52:00.000-08:00

I had always believed that I have enough credentials and accomplishments, for a lot many people to envy. Never I had fallen harder flat on my face. The shortcomings got evident when I could fill my multi page master bio-data by hardly two and a half pages. I was shocked to say the least the amount of work almost everyone else had done in the form of organizing events, publishing papers, watching live Black Panthers - No Offense Meant, Just a Summary of all the other points that lit up a CV - I had done practically nothing in my life, apart from being way too technical, and playing a few games at the institute level. In the meantime I came to know that my manager at Fluent (My previous workplace) had just left the company putting me into further trouble. He was the only person who knew the exact nature of work that I had done in the company and now I knew a certificate of that would be hard to get.
Never the less I got to extract some solidity through some of the work that I had done in my teens as my mentor could find some light in them and used that to lit up my lackluster autobiography.
While writing the final one page CV I did not face the kind of dilemma others felt. I had a few points in my master version and did not have any doubt on which one should get into the exclusive list and which one should not. Again thanx to my mentor the initial drafts were prepared and they looked good to me. However this satisfaction was short lived. I made the mistake of taking multiple opinions regarding my CV. Some people were of the opinion that my CV lacked SPIKE, some would ask me to remove certain items which I felt were my strongest points and instead add some crap. With each passing day I felt more and more depressed as I did not get a single positive opinion regarding the quality of my CV. In the meantime I was constantly trying to bring out that SPIKE which I practically could not.
Finally I decided to get back to those people who would understand me and they were the IIT KGPians. One of them is an I-Banker himself. Got some tips from him and the much elusive solace that my CV is good from one of seniors from KGP and IIM-C. By this time I had reverted back to the CV that my mentor helped me prepare. I was sure that I will get at least one or two short lists from the SLOT 0 companies and if luck favors I could get 3.
One thing was clear at that point and that was I would need to fight it out. So the preparations began !!!!

The "Summers' Journey"

2007-11-17T05:52:00.001-08:00

When does one stop worrying about himself, about everyone else, about everything else. Instead enjoys every bit of the stage called life. Let me put some milestones which everybody believes would end a man's woes.
"Get through IIT and life would be smooth"......"What is SMOOTH????"
"Get a good job, and voila!!!!"......"No way this bloody job is for the thick heads"
"Crack CAT (Go through my previous blogs and you can understand how much it meant to me)...and MONEY --> HONEY"......"Cracked it to find 280 people spanking their own a****, having group meetings, presenting cases, and "AND WHAT"..no one knows the answer to these WHYs, WHATs, etc"

Comes Summer Placements (Or was it always there???)

And here comes my post on the Summer Placements in the IIMs through my eyes. A process which finally is supposed to open the gates to stardom (martyrdom??) for some of the people. The answer to the question "Who wants to be a millionaire". For the last four months the advice that I am constantly getting is "crack a good Summer and you would have nothing to worry about" DejaVu..So the story begins.
Since this is going to be a relatively long story, I thought of breaking it down into a few episodes. The episodes are coming next.

Un-getting Fluent

2007-07-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

Back to good old college mode. Back to good old 'westernized' form of living. Yes I am speaking about the body clock. There has been a complete reversal of whatever changes that took place in my daily schedule in Pune. I have not slept before 3 for the last two and a half weeks. Life has become hectic to say the least and people say it is only going to get worse.
Oh My God!!! And I am writing a blog.
Oh My God!!! And I actually played three games today : Volley, Footer and then Cricket...somehow resisted the temptation of TT. And to make matter worse I have loads of catching up to do in the form of CASES, and everything else that is expected from a B.School student.
The starting lap of my run in IIM C has not been good, I have not done well in the first quiz that took place. I have been sort of depressed for the last few days. And the worst thing is, those are the kind of feelings which I cannot share with anyone.
I only hope that there are better days ahead.

Graded "A C L K " . I have the world at my feet.

2007-04-30T00:30:00.000-07:00

The world is best viewed from the top. When you look up a mountain, nothing but the fear of failure comes into the mind. But at the top, everything seems beautiful and accomplished. Recently to me life has become something of being at the top of Mt Everest. And looking back to the course that I followed in scaling this great height, It looks nothing but amazing. I am not sure how much far fetched it might seem, but the kind of satisfaction that I had after getting final offers from both IIM A & C, can only be understood by a mountaineer. Formal MBA course at the IIMs would start at the last week of June, but I feel management education started the day I started taking the MOCK tests back in August. The pressure associated with taking tests every weekend, the fine balance that one needs to make in the CAT, the rigors of GD PIs, and finally the mental torture of waiting for the results indefinitely, makes one better prepared for a career in management.
And finally when the results are so sweet that you have the luxury in choosing between the bests, the success seems sweeter. It is for the first time in my life I am having a sweet dilemma ,the dilemma of choosing between A and C. To say the truth I am enjoying it. I am enjoying it because It is a win win situation and the difference hardly matters. And this is the reason why in spite of having enough accomplishments in my life this is being at top of the world.
People often ask me Why MBA?? Is it money or is it a natural career choice?? Only I know the actual answer, and after giving many twisted mugged answers to the interview panels I thought about the world of blogs to be the real confession box. The reason is simple: I Want to Shine, I Want to Shine Bright. Weird?? Yes weird but that is the truth. I believe I am an under achiever, be it the WBHS , WBJEE, IITJEE, or even for that matter my performances in B.TECH & M.TECH I have never performed to my true potential. This is pay back time. I want to shine being an MBA which I somehow feel I would not be able to, with a B.TECH/M.TECH.
These are the last days in Pune, trying to enjoy as much as I can and recharging my batteries to run my heart out on the last lap of my career building. All the MICHAEL JOHNSONs out there (Leading Me??) BEWARE and RUN.

Reawakening

2007-03-10T01:18:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time since I made my last post. In between the urge to write something was felt twice, but somehow both of them resulted in drafts. It would be hard to say whether I am going to complete this one. Giving it the best shot. However I have decided to a real long post. So much so that it gets utterly boring.

CAT
It is history now. Tasted success at last. Though I must say I have been luckier this time.

Apni ASHA (Puns are intentional....Warning: Might not be suitable for all ages or tastes)

This is the episode which would be part of my dreams for a long time to come. I should get into the details over here.
19th December was the date when we started the GOA trip. It was organised by our company. This was my second trip to this majestic place, however my first visit was at an age when it would have been precocious on my part to appreciate the real beauty of this part of our country. Great expectations were associated with this trip. Expectations to be lucky enough to find the babe of our dreams, etc, etc. And the expectations got fuelled when we reached the resort. It was inter continental Grand Resort, which had a private beach and thus many "VIEWS" to get ourselves charged. Digital Cameras got handy, though I was always a bit against disturbing these sleeping beauties. -- Let them enjoy the sun , and they will let us enjoy the beauty of creation. --- The result was within no time "curtains" were drawn.

It was during this time I got to see Shannon Elizabeth shooting for her next film. It was a sort of underwater kiss scene, and the hotel pool was supposedly the deep sea. We enjoyed the shooting specially the expressions of Shannon after taking each shot. :-D.

It was finally the last afternoon of our stay. And all our hopes of meeting someone special were just fading away. People were busy going for site seeing, while myself with a few more "frustu" public decided to spend the evening on the beach. The reason was far too simple. There are enough places in this country where you can enjoy the beauty of mother earth. And we did not want to waste this precious time of ours.-- Perhaps mother earth understood our prayers. ---
"ASHA"...That is what we had, and that is what we returned with. It is on this afternoon that I ( I don't want to share) met that girl of our dreams. She was beautiful to say the least. And fortunately she was resting on the "wooden rest bed" just beside me. I initiated a conversation. She was nice to talk to. She was an Australian with some indian connection. And her name "ASHA"...Though there were three other Kabab me Haddi-s during this conversation, they were more of listeners, and were initially more interested in going back to hotel rooms or to the pool. Before imaginations start running away. Let me tell you this girl was on her honeymoon. It was the simple fact of meeting such a beautiful girl ( I do not want to mention over here that she was in a two piece bikini ) and talking to her gave me a satisfaction of a lifetime. One thing I have understood is Beautiful Indian Girls somehow has got an air about themselves, Non Indians don't have that and that is what I liked about this girl more. Our conversations ended when one of our senior employees asked me to join for a game of volleyball. I wanted her to join. Though initially she agreed, but may be the sight of large number of hungry eyes turned her off. This caused our separation.
It was just longing after that. Thought of a hell lot of ways of meeting her again. I should mention over here that Hemant was always by my side during this longing time. Though he had his own interests as well. ;-). The only though that she was on her honeymoon turned me off.
Hey the story does not end over here. It was a temporary period of fame for me when the next day we were on the lounge for checking out, when the Goddess quietly came up and was standing just behind me. Every eyes were on me, and it took me some time in understanding the situation. I turned back and found her smiling. --Oh my God she has recognised me!!!!--. We talked for some time, Sorry she talked for some time ..And the suddenness of the situation got be dumbfound. Once she wished the final goodbye, the only thing that I remembered her telling me was that she was heading for the beach. Since we still had some time, I straightaway headed for the beach, could not find her. Could not find her though. I was later told that she was actually sitting on the lounge at that time.

After returning to Pune, I only had loads of memory. Not a single photo, not a single way to contact her again. She was BEAUTIFUL. Soon the image of her beauty will completely fade away from my mind. But the memories of this meeting never would. The next few days I searched her in Orkut -- in vain. One thing that came to my mind later on was We never spotted the honeymoon couple together, I mean we never saw her husband. Was she telling the truth??? How does it matter anyway...

Time to Bell

2006-11-02T22:37:00.001-08:00

Another November has finally arrived. It has been quite a wait since the last version of November 18th. The wait becomes doubly hard when you are bogged with frustration. It's time to shake off all, that has gripped me for the last one year. It's time to make amends.
Compared to last year, the arrival this year has ben more phonic. I could hear the purrs and the mews for the last one month, which has subsequently increased and I am waiting for the crescendo. Butterflies are flapping their wings inside the captain organ of my digestive system. And I only hope that I am able to keep myself cool till the 'd/c' day.

I have always ben much perplexed by the irony of the two sayings: "Morning shows the day" & "All is well that ends well". Although the former makes me more more euphoric , with performances like Pune City Ranks 1, 4 and 5 to back that, it does not seem all that healthy as the day progresses. And I am more than convinced that the latter is much more realistic , especially for an exam like the CAT. November 19th is certainly going to be the day, and I know it is a do or die situation for me. This time the Cat has to be under my control ;-).

Previously I had thought of writing about a few more things in this blog, but seriously this 'C' factor is all over me, and I can't think of anything else. even I don't want to loose focus. So all the gals of Pune can wait, my bike which by the way is the most happening thing in my life right now can wait.
So here are a few last words for all the people taking CAT ( you take CAT and not give CAT...this is the first piece of advice)

Keep yourself cool
Have faith in yourself
Rectify your mistakes
And know your limitations, which might mean attempting less (if needed) and correcting more

The advice is certainly directed to a particular guy who always forgets these rules/advices

Narcissist???

2006-10-04T23:27:00.000-07:00

Am I one?? This is the question that has been lingering in my mind for the first few days. Is it wrong to be a narcist. How does one find out a person to be narcist, Isn't it a fact that some amount narcissism comes into the picture while judging another person as narcist. This finally led me to conclude that every single person in this world is a narcissist.
I am a narcist. The simple proof of it can be obtained through my blogs. I am obsessed about writing on myself. Putting my views on this world in my perspective. I like writing on myself and my views and love reading the same again and again and deriving pleasure out of it, isn't that an act of narcissism. So the recent episode of narcissism continues :

It has been some time since I wrote my last blog; the reason being loss of password. Meanwhile things have changed quite fast. Three months into "Fluent" and thus a three month old "CORPORATE".
Life has been stressful though. Since my job has been specified. Thanx to the same person who recruited me, I am into a challenging project. And the crux of the matter is that I am the only person responsible in developing it. It does make me happy, and take some pride in the fact that such an important project should have been given to someone more experienced, who knows the nooks and corners of the architecture quite well. For a tyro like me its proving heavy. I have written the main code but the supplementary solver part is what is troubling me, and with high level meetings taking place quite frequently things have started to bother me. I hope I am able to come out of this condition with flying colours as I have always done. Its a strange feeling that I am experiencing for the first time. Being into a situation where you get to sit on a meeting with the best heads on the bussiness and at the same time feel you are still a kid in comparison to them and finding hard keeping pace.

It has been one month I have my apache with me. It has a cool all black look, though I am yet to take it to main city roads. "The Girls out there must be getting restless" ....;-).....

getting-FLUENT

2006-08-31T21:28:00.000-07:00

Finally I am a working MAN !!!!! And Finally I am writing a blog. Its hard to co-relate the two, but I found it worth trying for. A lot of things have started to change -(like it or not)- which I intended to put in my style "getting FLUENT".Hence thought of dedicating the first blog to the same.

The very first difference that I find starts with my own body clock. During those " late night" days followed by "missed class" mornings of KGP, it always seemed to me I have already become a green card holder. Nothing seemed to get my body clock back to the indian format, not even the "no-tension" vacations back home. 11 o'clock seemed evening and late night?? not before 3 in the morning. Enough reasons to believe I had turned an American - already -.

GETTING FLUENT---- getting Indian ..its hard to keep the eyes open after 10 , and have to get up at 7 even if the nicest of babe dreams are still lingering in the background.- No- that does not mean everything has become Indian, the afternoon nap has disappeared from the routine -I am missing those days-.

Finally I am a corporate. Or am I?? Had an extensive 4 days training on managing corporate life. Till now I have not been able to figure out what was that for. No mark of being a corporate or whatever on my personality as yet. The usual KGP lingo still goes well in this corporate environment of Fluent. And finally being lucky enough to find a creature from the other planets near my cubicle, the same "tapori" attitude continues. I am not saying only about myself. Its the same for all the wanting to be devdas around me. hard luck there is only one beautiful creature and the number of suitors are far too many.

So the Single status remains. Though I never had much hope of that getting changed in the near future, hope is what keeps us smiling. Moreover the curse of the female less shells which have been haunting me since class 6, hasn't been exorcised. This place is again a desert and the oasis is the aforementioned girl who by the way is an intern and is soon going to fly way-don't know when though-.

Anyway I am trying to get myself moulded into a possible lover boy in all possible ways. Notwithstanding my ever thinning hair, which by the way is befriending me with an all time record rate. I will talk about all my grievances regarding this sometime later. About all the brighter things that are happening -or to put in better words- I am trying to make happen are as follows:

1) Getting hold of an Apache. I liked the masculine look of the bike, and finally decided for it against the likes of Pulsar or Unicorn.

2) Building Muscles. that's the most important one. And getting results straight away. i have fixed the period 6:30 to 8 for this purpose. No matter what comes up I am not ready to divert my attention towards anything else during the period. the company gym has become my sole property nowadays. hardly anyone else is interested in pumping those irons. The result is the biceps and the triceps are coming up. :D

So I am getting Fluent at last. The actual work (the development work) has not started as yet.

So here goes my first blog. There is a lot more to write about, will come up with those shortly, may be some serious stuff would then come up.

So I am FINALLY GETTING FLUENT