Lost In Translation

The Entrepreneurship Bug

2012-01-26T18:04:00.001+08:00

Quite a few of my friends recently have started their ventures, and I'm sure many more are planning to, over the next few years. I'm not sure about the reasons behind each of them, but broadly it may have to do with boredom with corporate life, and in some cases a deep desire to do something unique and different. With recession talks almost always grabbing the newspaper headlines, we may just be entering the era of innovation, and this may be the right time to start something.

I have been thinking along similar lines for some time, but not in terms on any specific ideas. Till now, the thought has been pretty broad, with things like whether to be based in city A or city B, or whether it should be an online service based venture, or things like this. In my view, unless one is Steve Jobs, specific ideas aren't usually the starting point. One can always look at his surroundings, and locate 5 different business opportunities. The key, in my view, is to be able to decide on the macro variable - people, place, medium, capital, etc. Once you have sorted these basic issues, you can always take the plunge.

Here are some of the interesting ventures by a few of my friends, produced below without their permissions (I hope no one minds some words written about them):

Copper Sky Journeys: This one is my favorite of all the ventures I have come across, and I like both the business idea, as well as the web design part of it. Its a very simplistic design, and still presents almost all the necessary information anyone would need.

Purple Penguin Realty: This is a relatively new venture, and the website went live just a couple of weeks back. They deal in the real estate business, and though I couldn't understand the whole business plan properly from their website, it nonetheless appears an interesting opportunity given that the sector is completely dominated by unprofessional (to say the least) people.

Both of these are in sunshine sectors, with both real estate and tourism offering lots of opportunities for growth in future.

Into Biographies

2012-01-26T17:30:00.002+08:00

I'm currently in my reading phase - the phase where in I will be reading 3-4 similar books at one go. And post it, there is usually a lull, where I won't be touching anything for months, if not quarter-years.

After having read two back to back 'Retail' business biographies (one by Sam Walton, and then another by Kishore Biyani), about which I have ranted earlier, I have now started with 'Open' by Andre Agassi. I have just managed to get through with the first chapter, and I already have pretty high expectations from the book. I have never ever read an autobiography of any sportsman, and hence just wanted to give it a try. If all goes well, may try my hands on the stories of Lance Armstrong or may be even Shoaib Akhtar.

Had a quiet day today with Indian markets being closed for the republic day holiday. Its a strange feeling running on an Indian calendar and being based in HK - it has its upsides as well as downsides. On the positives, you can finish all your banking/bills related work as almost everything in open, but on the downside, your holidays are out of sync with almost everyone (including the wife). So, most of the times they are spent quietly at home, watching some movies, or writing posts like this (and increasing cyberspace waste). Some day I will write a long post about the cyber space wastage our generation is creating - its at the back of my mind for a long time now.

It Happened In India

2012-01-18T21:35:00.001+08:00

I recently read the book 'It Happened In India', the life story of Kishore Biyani, and by some length, of organized retail in India. You and Me may not think too much about the Pantaloons and the Big Bazaar stores, which are now almost present in all the big malls, but anyone who has ever applied for any license/passport/registration anywhere in India would know what a feat it is. By some logic, it may be a bigger achievemet than Walmart as well, assuming the US government offices are no where like India's.

There are parallels with Walmart, with Biyani being heavily inspired by Sam Walton, and thats reflected even in the way in book is written. Both the biographies follow very similar format, starting with a scenario, and then comments and quotes from related people. However, the book is nowhere near the Sam Walton's, and misses out on a lot of details.

My takeaway from the book is quite simple - if you are good at something, and are adaptive to ideas and changes, you can make it big. You don't need great ideas to be successful, but pure dedication and some risk apetite. Recommended for a casual reading, but if you want a good book on retail, Sam Walton's one is miles ahead.

The Pace Of Innovation

2012-01-03T23:27:00.001+08:00

I was reading an article on how companies in China are upping their R&D spending, whereas the US companies are cutting on it. May be with the exception of Apple that is. With China growing, it was just a matter of time that they started spending on R&D. But it raises one interesting question along the lines of social development. Is this the outcome we all should strive for?

The occupy wall street protest in US and world over is a protest against the economic divisions. However, I think the fast pace of innovation is one of the reasons for an increase in inequality in recent decade. The few who are at the fore front and well equipped can take advantges of the new technologies, whereas the less privileged ones are left farther and farther behind. Think of the plight of someone who has never been on internet - she wouldn't even understand half the news stories which comprise of who wrote what on which network. Add to it the offers on bookmyshow, groupon etc, which for some reasons aren't available otherwise. Increasingly, the world is getting more and more unfair for the have-nots.

We should all stop for a moment and think about the direction in which we are moving. Is it fine to spend billions on the research of touchscreen technology or other such 'path breaking' ideas when more than half of mankind lives in poverty. When there are greater problems to be solved - both in the field of medical sciences and also towards things like economic housing. I am left wondering about the kind of world we are becoming - apple sells millions of iPad, and not many people actually have a clue what rhey are buying it for. They all keep buying as if they will be able to connect the dots later.

I'm becoming more and more inclined towards the Chinese model of development - capitalism with some state control. There are obvious issues, but capitalism left to itself may not give the best possible outcome. It lives on the principle of survival of the fittest, and at some point, this becomes a scary thought.

Just Another New Year Post

2012-01-02T14:52:00.001+08:00

The online world is inundated with messages and posts on new year. Most of them are either wishes or resolutions, and like every year most of them would be forgotten within the first fortnight. And inspite of knowing this, people still want to savor the moment and make some promises to themselves.

I think its more to do with 'closure'. A year ends, and a resolution list makes one think about where they stand, and where they should aim to go. Like everything else in life, we may not end up there, but there is no harm in dreaming and trying. So that leads me to my list of resolutions for the new year.

I don't have a list per se, though I do have a vague idea about where I want to be at the end of 2012.

1. I want to have seen at least some part of the world outside Asia - it could be Europe or Americas or Australia/NZ.

2. I want to be fitter and healthier - not just in terms of weight and shape, but as a lifestyle. I want to be a regular either at gym or with some sport.

3. I want to end the year much better in my profession than I'm now. I am into stock trading, and its very natural in my line to keep adding new thoughts and tools to your disposal. Every year's experience makes you a much better trader, something no book can teach you.

4. I want to have a serious hobby - one in which I can spend my weekend and free time, and which would be productive at the same time. It could be reading lots of books, learning a new language, or photography. Or may be a combination of all of those.

Let me revisit this list sometime during mid year, just like most companies do. Hopefully there would some progress and I wouldn't cross out any of these as unattainable.

The Age of Turbulence

2011-12-23T07:09:00.001+08:00

Warning: Geeky post ahead, though this is what makes more than half of my life (which just means its part of my job :P).

A few years after ordering the book, I finally read Alan Greenspan's autobiography titled 'The Age of Turbulence'. Greenspan has, without a doubt been one of the most powerful people to have shaped the financial world, for good or bad, over the past couple of decades. Hailed by few as a genius who turned USA into the great stabilizing force it is today, and blamed by others for the financial crisis, people view him at extremes.

Alan Geenspan: The man who knew everything, or nothing?

During one of my corporate training programs, one instructor mentioned about Greenspan, and spoke very highly of him (that was before the financial crisis). To him, here was the greatest fed chief ever, and to look at history, he didn't do bad either. During his time, US grew in strength, the economy expanded, and inflation was under control. However, soon after he left, the world economy just fell off a cliff - and for which he must share a part of the blame. However, throughout human history, we have had bubbles and bust, and there is only much we can do before it actually happened. Its like a gold rush, when people have to go, they have to go. No amount of persuasion from anyone, least of them the fed chairman, would convince them otherwise.

For all those interested in recent history of world economics, right from the early 70s, till the early past of 21st century, its a great read. He describes his time under different presidents, the economy then, and most importantly, the mood/thinking of the powerful men then. Greenspan describes his time with all the presidents who assumed office, and how each one differed from others in terms of policies and priorities. Towards the end, he briefly touches upon his vision for the future of different economies, though much of it is useless now given post the recession things have changed. He sees very bright future for the Asian emerging countries, notably China, and to a much smaller extent India and Russia (whats so different you may wonder, this is exactly what every media has been preaching. But there is a difference, and he has clearly separated India from China, who in reality too are not comparable, at least at this point of time).

The book may change my views on economics a little bit, and shattered a few of my long held beliefs:

1. USA didn't have prosperity since a long long time. Only over last couple of decades they have had a great run in economy. I had always assumed they had a good life for last several decades.

2. The low interest rates in USA haven't been always that way, and they too had double digit inflation in 70s. Gives me some hope about state of things in India as well.

3. People have completely mis read the financial markets in proclaiming equities beat bonds over the long run. 80s and 90s were great period of growth for US, and very low interest rates. It was only during this period that much of financial theory was developed, and hence its quite flawed. A great many factors came together for that to happen, not the least the once in a lifetime event of globalization (which moved low skilled jobs offshore, hence containing any significant wage rise, leading to low inflation and high corporate profits).

4. Inflation is the biggest enemy of a nation, and if the central bank can rein it, rest all will fall in place. Greenspan has stated this time and again, and history has proved him right. To some extent, even our current RBI chief, holds a similar view, and is doing everything possible to keep inflation in check.

The Science of Moviemaking

2011-12-07T15:00:00.001+08:00

Like all the office going people, I too have plenty of time to kill on the weekends. And very much like most of them, on most weekends I end up watching at least one movie. We don't plan too much before choosing one, usually just download the latest ones for the week.

The whole freedom on internet debate made me think along these lines. Are these public figures really so dumb, or there is something we are missing here. I mean, inspite of all the allegations, most of the current ministers would get re-elected as well. There is a similar parallel in movie making business as well. Almost all the directors, with just a possible exception of Raju Hirani, make movies to cater to just a few segments of the population. Given the diversity of our country, its really difficult to make movies which would be received well by everyone (the reason why I excluded Raju Hirani). Karan Johar and Yashraj movies cater to a particular class, Farhan Akhtar and Aamir Khan to another class. Which brings me to Salman Khan.

Most of his movies are senseless, and have more holes in the plot than roads in India. And yet, nowadays each of his movies are crossing the 100 crore mark. And inspite of what the sane film goer or the critic says, the small town mass just love him (also true for other similar movies like Golmaal, no Entry, etc). So while on surface it may seem to be an undercooked movie completed in a 15-day shoot, in reality it may be a calculated and rational move. May be the public just doesn't care, and don't want a sleek and better product. To them, movie where Salman kicks 20 villains in the climax i the definition of pure entertainment and paisa-vasool.

So next time you see a mindless an leave-your-brains-behind comedy, just don't assume that the producer and director really don't get it. May be they do, and perhaps better than all of us.

The World Around Us...

2011-12-06T16:31:00.001+08:00

I have been pretty lazy with posts here - its usually once a month or so. In reality, its more about the confusion - how much of my real life should I be writing about here. Before social networking came along, not many people were reading stuff online. But now, the number has just exploded and now everything you do is instantaneously visible to half the world. This thing just scares me away - there are people on my FB friend list with whom I might not have spoken to in more than a decade. And some of them I would conveniently ignore if I saw them in a mall or in a restaurant. So, its quite scary as well as disturbing to think all those people may have access to what I think, or about my plans. And to make matters worse, google has been merging all their products under a single account name - taking away the small comfort that I had.

Otherwise, life has been moving along smoothly, in a strictly relative sense. Anyone not living in mars for past few years would know times aren't really rosy for people working in financial markets. Though I can safely assume the conditions aren't very much different in other parts of the society as well. The world as we know it is transforming - and people are questioning the very basics of modern finance, and even the basics of democracy. I think the world would emerge a much better and balanced place out of this crisis - with slightly lesser inequality (between nations, as well as within nations).

Read a few of books recently - three in total: (a) Made in America by Sam Walton, (b) The Monochrome Madonna by Kalpana Swaminathan, and (c) Cross Fire by James Patterson. The first one was the planned reading, and the other two were more like fillers before I wanted to start with another biography. Would recommend Sam Walton's book to anyone looking to read a great biography, or looking to understand 'starting a business', or purely for inspiration. Unlike Steve Jobs, who had a great vision for the future, Sam's goal in the beginning were just the run the most efficient store in the locality. He didn't have a 'great idea' to change the world, but it was more about old world virtues of hard work and perseverance. One of my friends gifted my the Steve Jobs book on my birthday, and should get started on that soon.

Have been watching a lot of TV shows recently, and have finished almost all the aired episodes of BBT, HIMYM and even Gossip Girl. Looking to find another couple of good shows - mostly along the same lines. Planning for a trip also some time around end-January or early February, either a meeting-with-friends-seeing-citylife trip of Singapore and Malaysia, or a beach-holiday thing in Thailand. Depends on the number of holidays we can take, and also on the weather around that time. On a similar note, think blogger should have a photo album integration - just like FB has (I know there is Picassa, but its not the same thing).

Remembering Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T13:42:00.000+08:00

Steve Jobs finally lost his battle to cancer, but not before achieving almost everything he set out to achieve - the computer revolution. I just read his 1985 interview, at the onset of computer era, how he perceived the future for the devices. He was dead sure about it being the future, and talked about how everyone would have it in their homes - though acknowledging he didn't know what use it would have, but he said he knew there would be something big coming - like a giant national network connecting every one together for communication.

Steve Jobs Interview (1985)

I am another one of those Apple fans who own most of its products - iPod, iPhone, and MacBook (I don't have an iPad yet, mostly because I think the best of it is yet to come). For me, there are two big lessons from the life of Jobs:

1. Winners never make excuses or run down competition: Even though Jobs never failed to mock Microsoft and IBM, Apple never tried to play the game by their rules. It was always very clear in its mind how to go about it. Even when it seemed like MS won the game hands down, and Bill Gates would go down as the father of the computer revolution, Jobs stuck to what he believed was right - the bundled pack of software and hardware, and not adopting anything else. Its more like competing against yourself - if you lost, its because you were not perfect, and has nothing to do with the competition. Similar to the ways sachin never resorts to sledging, and Federer never breaks his racquets. Somedays you win, somedays you lose - but the battle is always within.

Apple created new product categories, and re-defined consumer electronics. If it was competing with MS or IBM only, world would have never seen an iPod, or an iPhone. In his own words, to succeed, one should 'Stay hungry, Stay Foolish'.

2. Nothing Succeeds Like Success: Jobs was written off by most people when he was fired from Apple. And now he's hailed as the best CEO we may have seen in the last century. Nothing much changed about the person - he was the same guy with similar beliefs before. Only, he had more success later in his 2nd stint with Apple. In the 90s, everyone believed Apple was an also-ran in the PC market, and Bill Gates was the real visionary behind the revolution. In most interviews, Gates was the role model for most people. And just when it looked like Gates had won the battle, Jobs emerged from nowhere to take the whole industry by storm. And now the world acknowledges his vision for the future. His success is what made Jobs great, and if he had failed, no one would have credited him for being the visionary behind the information revolution. So, if you want the world to take notice, nothing works better than success. And as Zuckerberg has already shown, in the end it doesn't matter if you made a few enemies on the way up - as long as you can keep going up.

Lost In Translation

2011-10-04T10:52:00.001+08:00

The movie released in 2003, and was one of the contenders for the Best Movie awards - sadly it lost out of LOTR - ROTK. I saw it today, and really loved the movie.

<Possible Spoilers>

On the story front, there is nothing much to the plot - an American actor past his prime, and a newly wed girl on a trip with her husband meet in a foreign land. The movie is all about just the three characters - the actor, the girl and Japan. Its been beautifully shot, and anyone who sees the movie would fall in love with Tokyo - the neon lights, the big signboards, and everything else. In the initial part, the movie shows the struggle of westerners in trying to adapt to the Asian place, and tries subtly to mock it as well. However, as the movie progresses, we see the characters getting more and more comfortable in their surroundings, and from there on its more about the people.

Most of the actors are perfectly cast, and the cinematography in the movie is a real treat. There are some really great shots, and I really liked the look and feel of the movie.

Changes All Around

2011-08-28T22:00:00.001+08:00

A lot of water has flown under the bridges all over since I last posted anything. My work has gotten hectic, and with the markets all around the world showing signs of 2008 all over again, we are back to not-so-good times.

I had been to Shenzhen last weekend, and have posted some of the pictures on my FB page. We went to a couple of theme parks over the weekend - Windows of the World and Splendid China. Windows of the World has miniature replicas of most of the famous buildings around the world - Eiffel Tower, Tower of Pisa, White House, Buckingham Palace, Taj Mahal, etc. Its really a must visit for anyone visiting the place. Splendid China is on similar themes, and has miniature replicas of famous places in China.

Almost whole of the year has passed, and we are waiting eagerly for the last four months of the year to pass. This hasn't been the most stable of years, with wife moving to HK, and trying to settling in a new place. However, things are finally settling down, and by the end of this year we would be moving to a new apartment as well. Weekends are fun in Hong Kong with indoor games, and sometimes trip to some beach or other place. Its relatively quieter here compared to all the drama happening in India currently. Being so away from there, so feel sort of cut off from the event, as well as its outcome.

Busy June

2011-06-18T09:15:00.000+08:00

Its been a hectic last few weeks for me - mostly its the new job. New job brings you new challenges, and you have to start things all over again. In my profession, I have to rebuild all my excel sheets, and data store from scratch, and it takes a long long time. Now after a few weeks, things have come close to stabilizing.

Wife has finally moved to Hong Kong permanently, and she is still adjusting to the place. Its not a very inconvenient place to live in (in fact, just the opposite), but the very fact its very different than Mumbai will need some time for adjustment. The biggest issue here would be the language, and the food. Though she would have much lesser food issues than I had (being a vegetarian is not the best of things in Hong Kong). She has all the time in the world to herself now, and I just hope it doesn't get boring here. I haven't seen a bollywood movie in a long time now, and will try to watch something this weekend.

There has been a dearth of weekend-activities recently, and hopefully we would be visiting plenty of places in the months to come. New Zealand and/or China is on the cards, and depending on the leave we can manage, will have a vacation soon. On a different topic, Sale season has just started here, and my credit card bill is about to explode soon.

Why Facebook Is A Short At 50 Billion!

2011-05-25T06:25:00.001+08:00

Remember that period of one month before joining the B-School? When you are just lazying around in your home and some kind senior sends an invite to your batch's yahoo or google or FB group (depending upon number of grey hairs on your scalp). And the flood of emails that flow following a few awkward introductions in the beginning. And people asking all sorts of doubts ranging from need of mosquito net, to quality of mess food. If you don't believe me, just check out your group history, and you would be laughing your ass off now connecting the mails to real persons and friends you know.

Facebook lagrely is quite similar in nature, and we are currently in the period of initial hyperactivity. There is a new platform, and people are keen to explore it, projecting their best and active side. However, as we get used to the socially networked world, this initial euphoria would die down. People would stop informing the whole world when they visit a dentist, and when they go out for jog. And when that happens, the time spent on FB would come down gradually. So valuing a company on the basis of this period of super normal growth may not be the smartest thing to do. Thats where you need to apply everything real you learnt after you actually joined the B-School.

Moving to HK

2011-05-17T10:56:00.000+08:00

I am moving to Hong Kong (Finally and hopefully ;)) on 25th of May. As would happen with everybody who is moving or settling in a new place, I am a mixed bag of emotions right now . I am happy that i will be finally settling down and having a house to call of my own. Sad also because all my friends, family is here, I liked my job, had a good team to work with, but unfortunately i had to quit in-order to move to HK. A lot more anxious because now that i have quit my job i will have a lot of time on my hand so i really hope i make good use of it. I already have a to do list on my mind, hope i execute it, unless the scary monster of laziness decides to creep over (which unfortunately he always does).

For starters i want to hit the gym, i have been eating my way to glory just thinking that i will make it up in HK. Parents i have a way of stuffing their kids with food; so mine right now is "Kha le, wahan kahan milega yeh sab khaane" and where otherwise i don't really heed to my parents advise, this time i have jumped on it. So lets hope some burning of calories happen there.

I want to read a lot, novels i used to read here, i am actually looking forward to reading more work related stuff, so it hopefully helps me in my job search as well. So there is a job to search too..

I really want to go out there and explore HK on my own, i am not really an adventurous kind, so i wont hop on to a random bus and just move around. But i really want to do something like that this time (i hope my husband will come to my rescue if i get lost somewhere; i can already see him nodding his head in a big NOWAYS). I want to just get up, move around, take good photographs (so there is photography to learn as well) and know in and out of HK.

I am not much of cook so i was hoping to catch up on that front as well. Not the normal food for survival but the chef , exotic food kind, so even if it gets spoiled i will have the recipe to blame for it! Plus there are lot of movies and serials to catch up, but i hope that will be the last resort to do away with my boredom.

The thing that i don't want to do is be logged on to facebook all the time playing games and uploading stupid links, i think that is the best way to waste your time and i really want to avoid that.

So i have the list ready and all i have to do is do it. I have been to Hong Kong and i really like that place, i hope it stays that way this time also!!

May & A New Beginning

2011-05-10T14:42:00.000+08:00

Another couple of weeks have passed, and this time lots of things have changed. I finally joined my new company, and have completed my first week in office. Change is always nice, more so if it comes after an year or so of sub-standard work. I had joined my previous employer with great hopes, against the advice of most of my friends and colleagues (for which my reason was pretty simple - I wanted to learn from my own mistakes, and not from others). However, within a few months I had realized it wasn't a great decision. So, more than one and a half years later, I have corrected the mistake and moved on. A lot more wiser than before.

Ruch would be joining me in another couple of weeks time, and my place, which is nice with a great sea view (both from the living room as well as bed room), would fall small for 2 people. So, I would soon have to start looking for a new place. Its another 4 months till my lease expires, and unlike in Mumbai where all you have to do is give a month's notice, here the leases are valid for the full period. So, I can't move out of lease in the middle. The good part though is the brokerage - here you pay half a month's rent as compared with a full month's rent in Mumbai (which is still on the higher side compared with what I have heard about the rates in say London). The brokers though help you with quite a few things - gas connections, water connections, etc.

Another couple from our batch in B-school got married last week. So, that would make at least 6 couples which I can remember right now (and am sure there are a few more).

On a side note, I learnt the use of tripods while taking pictures, and tried with taking a night snap of a bridge visible from my living room. This was the first time I actually got to experiment with different shutter speeds, and was quite impressed with the results and the possibilities. Hopefully would get a few nice snaps on the weekend, and post them here.

The Week In Words # April End

2011-04-28T11:24:00.001+08:00

This is my last week of the four month break, and I guess I need to finish my last set of movies this weekend. The thing about movie series is, you need a lot of time to watch them all in one go - else you don't get the plot. Like the X-Men series, or the Batman series. You could always watch them one by one, spread in time and space, but the best way is to watch them in a single session (by session I mean a weekend, or at best, two weekends).

My life revolves around very few things - cricket, movies, stock markets, and a little bit of politics (the dirty Indian one, to be specific). Like many of my generation, I too believe in cribbing over the state of our state over facebook and twitter, and even put on badges to support the causes. I even supported Anna Hazaare on his fast, and didn't remove the badge till the government budged from its position, and granted the wishes. I also criticize DMK over the corruption charges against virtually all its members. For all the criticisms against it, I still feel I should have been based out of Tamil Nadu. Before every election, I would have got a color TV, or something of similar or higher value. Thats more than what people in Bihar will get from its government over a 100 year period (and assuming the corruption level is same, if not more).

We are having an over dose of cricket right now - its like the Golmaal movies. First one was good, second one ok, third was bad, and there is no need for the fourth. And yet, its the goose giving the golden egg, and now the only viable source for Pawar to keep adding to his swiss bank balance. The only way to keep track of IPL is now the match numbers, as no one remembers who is playing whom, or which player plays for which side. Thanks to the colored jerseys, at least I can give a shot to trying to remember the team name of players. Kochi has got it right, and once you see its player in Orange and Purple, you are unlikely to get the haunted image of the player off your mind for a long time to come. So, I may confuse whether Dravid plays for Deccan or Royals, but I can never forget that Sreesanth is with Kochi - not in this lifetime.

Last week had its share of bad bollywood movies (not exactly last week releases, but I saw them last week). F.A.L.T.U lived up to its name, and 'Thank You' was perhaps the producer saying to the audience for enduring the movie. Its amazing how likes of Sonam Kapoor (and this is a long list, including Imran Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, etc) keeps getting movie, and yet show no improvement in their acting levels. Even Katrina Kaif show more emotions which she lip-syncs her hindi dialogues without having a clue about their meanings. Sonam Kapoor has giggled her way through 5-6 movies now, and I really think she will end up making a career spanning 50+ movies, giggling through all of them, all the while carrying her Prada and Louis Vuitton bags. Next time I see a movie made by Anees Bazmee, or featuring Akshay Kumar or Sonam Kapoor, I will stay away from it. Unless I have plenty of time to kill, and don't have to spend a single cent of it.

Markets globally are in bubble zone, and I have lost all my credibility at home (among the relatives). I had asked them to get out of markets way back in 2007, and had developed a great fan base by the end of 2008. However, I had even suggested them against investing in Gold (when it was 12k), and Silver - citing that all of these were bubbles, and very soon we would see the prices crashing. After two years, Gold and Silver are going great guns (I still think silently in my heart that these are big big bubbles, and about to burst soon), and I have lost all my credibility. I was even negative on the Mumbai Real Estate, and I don't even need to write what happened there. So, as things stand, the world is rosy, and blind monkeys' darts are hitting the jackpots every time. Anyone who investment their money anywhere has made good returns, and this doesn't seems right (well, too good to be right). Anyways, I would have to live with 'Gold and Property never go down in value' for another year of my life.

And next year is 2012 - so it doesn't even matter beyond that.

Where is Argentina anyways?

2011-04-27T14:55:00.000+08:00

There is a recent ad on 7 Up where an avid football follower gets really worked up when his friend passes some comments about Argentina losing the match and the protagonist questions the guy's passion and affiliation for the country when he doesn't even know where it is located on the world map, leave alone having visited it even once. To think of it, its quite interesting to see the passion that we all have for things that don't really affect us in our real life.

Our affinity towards cricket, football teams; actors, clubs, i mean to think of it what difference (and i am committing a big sacrilege by saying this) does it make to me if India wins the World Cup or not,nothing changes in my life. But no i was glued to the television set watching each and every match of India, getting angry for all runs not scored and wickets gone, cheering on all 6s and 4s and wickets taken as if my whole life depended on India winning the World Cup. (Well to let out a secret, another reason i wanted India to win was just to avoid seeing my husband sulk in depression for at-least 10 days had India lost the match). The loyalty by the way is not constant, the moment you divide the same Indian cricket team into KKR, DD, Mumbai Indians, in an IPL match, i cheer the same Malinga for taking wickets when i wished Dhoni to hit him for a six during the world cup match.

Not only cricket, the way we frantically send smses just to make sure that our favorite contestants win xyz dance, singing or farting competition is really strange because the bottom line is "Its not going to make any difference to my life". There is a quote by Oscar Wilde stating" “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation" which is true for most of us, but as another person rightly says “Passion, it lies in all of us, sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted... unbidden... it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... guides us... passion rules us all, and we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we'd know some kind of peace... but we would be hollow... Empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we'd be truly dead.” And it is in all these things Cricket, Football, Country, Region, Gali, Nukkad that we search for our passion because without it our life will be hollow.

P.S: There is a KKR match tomorrow, just keeping my fingers crossed for them to win it!!

Movies in College

2011-04-25T05:24:00.001+08:00

We spend so much time in reviewing and analyzing movies. However, more often than not, our view is also based on our movie watching experience. And unlike the old days, now we have different ways in which we can watch movies - at home on TV, Laptops, or at a Multiplex.

Before the computer era, we used to watch all the movies in either television or theaters. When I had just joined IIT (that was a decade back in 2001), we didn't have computers in each room or campus wide LAN. Every friday, we had a movie screening inside the campus, and all the first years used to go on friday evening show. It was great fun - a batch of 600-700 students watching movies in a 'private' hall. We watched some of the classics in the first year of our college - Dil Chahta Hai, Lagaan, Gadar, etc. We didn't realize it then how much fun it was - by the time we reached second year, we had LAN in our rooms, and no one bothered to go to the hall.

This is one of the things one miss about being in college - you always had plenty of friends around. Even when I stayed back for my summer project after first year, I had a decent group of friends staying back with me. We had so much fun - there was a set routine for everyday, from breakfast to dinner. And even though the summers are killing in those parts of country (Bengal), we had an awesome time. To some extent, I'm happy our college was not in a developed town/city - it enabled us to enjoy whatever facilities we had inside the campus, and we all grew up to be fond of them.

Around the World in 80 days!

2011-04-23T20:25:00.001+08:00

Around the World in 80 days is a classic novel by Jules Verne and according to Wikipedia it was first published in 1873. The reason i read this novel 120 years after it was published (discounting the time when i couldn't have read it...either because i wasn't born or was incapable of reading) was because i had seen the movie adaptation of the novel around 15 years back.

I still vividly remember Pierce Brosnan travelling in a train in India and bravely saving a woman from the customs of Sati, widely practiced in India during that time. It was a part of this childhood memory that made me read this book, the first amongst all the classic novels that "we" have recently ordered.

The novel based in 1872 is a story of an English gentleman Mr. Phileas Fogg and his newly employed servant/valet Passepartout and their journey around the world. Mr. Phileas Fogg in a bid to win a bet against his friends takes up this humongous task of proving that it is possible to circumnavigate the world in 80 days. The novel in essence is a story of his journey in these 80 days. It is a very interesting read especially since it is based in those times when sea was the only mode of long distance travel in a "shorter" period of time. Imagine taking 22 days going from Japan to San Fransisco in a sea voyage, when nowadays we fret over a minutes delay in flights. Well as they say the world and so has man's patience become shorter over the period of time. Without sounding like a critic, the story has excellent characterization, narration and a perfectly subtle comic timing to it as well. At times it may still fail to connect you with the turmoil and the anxiety that a man might feel when he has almost his entire fortune at stake proving a point. This may be because i had already seen the movie or because the character of Mr. Phileas Fogg is defined as such.

I neways had a good time reading the novel and will be soon watching the movie again.

The book that i have is a combination of 2 novels by the author the other being "20,000 leagues under the sea". I am not sure if i will read this one in the same zest as i had read the other novel. Especially since i am not a sea person,i don't like novels based on sea journeys, one of the main reasons i couldn't complete the book "Life of a PI" as well. I have parked this book for some days and am now going to start with "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", the complete collection. Lets see how that one turns out to be for me.

Holiday Ending

2011-04-20T18:42:00.000+08:00

Like all trips, my India Trip is coming to an end. I'm currently at the Mumbai airport, and would be catching my flight back to Hong Kong in a couple of hours. Its been a nice an relaxing few weeks, and I just stayed at home for the most parts.

We (wife, brother and brother's wife) went to watch the IPL match between Pune and Delhi at DY Patil on the last weekend, and it was fun. We missed out watching Mumbai's match though. Saw a few movies as well - Game and Rio in the movie hall. I miss movie halls in Mumbai veru much, as back in HK we don't have quality multiplexes showing Hindi movies. Plus, the crowd as well as food courts are missing as well.

Back in Hong Kong, life would get slightly better and I shall be joining my new job in a week. Also, I have to start preparing for my CFA Level 3 examinations. They are now quite close, and I haven't yet started preparing for them. I had prepared nicely for Level 1, but since then, its been a last few days dash always (both for Level 2 as well as the FRM exams).

I'm really happy to be joining a new company pretty soon, as I didn't have a great experience in earlier job. Professionally, it wasn't the best of decisions for me when I had moved there. However, it gave me ample time to try a few things, and move ahead in my personal life. Now, married and wife moving to HK soon, its the perfect time to start a new job.

2011: First Quarter

2011-03-30T13:04:00.000+08:00

We are almost at the end of first quarter of 2011, and this hasn't been the best of starts to a year to say the least. However, I don't believe in being sad about things which are out of my control, and instead prefer to focus on the future.

I have another month of vacation left before I join my job. I will be spending most of the time in Mumbai, and a week at my home. Also, I want to plan for a short trip to one of the nice destinations - Kerela/Shimla/Rajasthan/Leh. However, not sure about the weather and suitability of these locations at this time. Will need to check on the tour guides - Rajasthan doesn't seem to be a wise choice in April, and so does Goa.

My flight got postponed last week, and now I will be flying tomorrow. I haven't still started packing, and am sure will forget a thing or two. This may be the first time I haven't bought a lot of stuff before a trip back home, and am sure all my siblings would be greatly disappointed. However, I can't think of anything to buy now. On my earlier trips, I used to buy lots of t-shirts as well as electronics from here. But now I have run out of things to buy - and if only they had introduced iPad2 in HK by now.

India play Pakistan today in the World Cup semifinal, and to say it very mildly, this is the biggest match in this season. Media has gone complete nuts about it over the past few days, and all the advertisers would be laughing all their way back to the bank. Finally, their investments would be reaping fruit (in terms of TRP ratings), and am sure the number of people watching would be close to an all-time high (given the increase in population, and penetration of television). Not to mention the importance of the match as well. If we win the toss, and post anything over 260, we will have more than half the match won.

The Quarter Finals, and The Trip

2011-03-26T16:02:00.000+08:00

Cricket is the flavor of the season, and the World Cup is now at its very best. We have the quarter finals going on, and in a few days we will have a new champion. Only, this time it would be a new champion, after Australia dominated it for more than a decade. India, Pakistan and New Zealand have already made it to the last four, and one of Sri Lanka and England would join them soon.

India's quarter final match was simply amazing - it had everything which the contest was awaited for. Ponting finally finding back his form, and for half the innings the whole of India feared the repeat of 2003 finals. However, he was slow this time, and overall they finished a 100 run short of the then target. Sachin was masterful, as he has been all through the WC. Ashwin and Zaheer bowled beautifully, making one wonder why did we persist with Chawla/Nehra/Munaf combination for so long. Ashwin looked like the second best bowler in the side by a huge margin. And now the attention moves to the Semi final clash on wednesday.

My India trip got postponed by another week, and am not too happy about it. I am in between jobs, and I have to apply for renewal of my work visa with the new employer. However, I didn't know I would need to submit my passport for it as well - as we don't need the passport for fresh visa applications. Anyways, out of some error of judgement at my end, and lack of planning from the HR's end, my trip is delayed by a week. I still need to decide on what I would be doing over the next 6 days.

I'm reading a book on Cricket titled 'The Gamechangers', and its based on the fakeiplplayer blog which was the talking point during the IPL 2. Hopefully will be finishing the book in a couple of days, as it an easy read, and will be able to start with another book as well before my trip. I still have 2 cartons full of books which I haven't touched as yet :)

Science Fiction: Isaac Asimov

2011-03-24T10:11:00.000+08:00

I am usually not much into books under normal circumstances - as its difficult to finish them within a few days, and the long delays make me lose the context. However, I do try to read different books, from a different set of authors, just to get an idea about their style of writing. So that, whenever there are any intellectual (real or show-off), I'm not at sea, and can appreciate the same (or call the bluff).

There are a lot of writers about whom I have heard a lot of praises, and one of them is Isaac Asimov. The science fiction writer is a must-read, as per a lot of my friends. And finally, I did get to finish my first Asimov novel. In fact, this was my first science fiction, and even though have passed the age, liked it. It was part of the robotics series by the author, and book was named 'Robots and Empire'.

The story revolved around the tussle between earthmen and spacers (an advanced breed of earthmen settled in far off planets, who had longer life span). It involves space travel, deals with inter-galactic wars, and robots - everything that a science fiction deems to have. I am really amazed at how writers can imagine a consistent world (very much like Harry Potter as well) - whenever you are writing about fantasy world, you start by imagining a whole new world, with different set of rules. And it has to be a consistent world, and you define the boundaries of possibilities. In case of Asimov, he decided on the state of universe, the advancement in science, the time period, and what would be the limitations in that age.

I have ordered another set of his books - the Foundation series. Its the most famous of his set of books, and its a trilogy (originally a trilogy, which was later extended to 7 books). Hopefully will get to read it some time soon.

Favorite Places

2011-03-23T09:49:00.000+08:00

I guess everyone has their dream destinations and favorite places. Dream destinations are usually the places which we have seen in movies, or some friend's facebook album. For me, there are the places I have never been to, but want to visit at least once - Italy, France, New Zealand. There is something associated with these places which is hard to describe, and I sincerely hope that when I actually visit any of them, they don't turn out disappointing.

There are a separate set of places which are our Favorite Places - where we have been earlier, and would love to visit back on the first opportunity. These are the places where we have had some memorable moments, and we find ourselves comfortable in. I haven't seen too many places round the world as yet, in fact not too many in India either. Goa would be one such place, and another for me would be Hong Kong. Even though I have been living in HK for some time now, I still like the place very much - for all the reasons why a Mumbai fan would like the city in spite of all its shortcomings. Hong Kong is lively, is comfortable to set in, and has a place of almost everyone in the world (culturally). There is no one big over-bearing culture in the main area, and it contributes to ease with expats can settle in.

I'm going to India this week, and would be spending at least a couple of weeks there. Not much planning done as yet on things to do, and places to visit, but guess once I'm there things would fall into place. Hopefully would get to meet a lot of people this time - something which I always plan but never end up doing.

Habits

2011-03-18T12:58:00.000+08:00

We are all very strange in terms of how we get used to things, and then move on to other things.

When I was small, we used to play cricket. Almost on every alternate days, if not daily. We used to play in the big grounds, as well as in the small places near our house. We played even at the rooftop (chat, as we used to call it), and had all sorts of weird rules. Then, all of a sudden, after school life ended I never played it. Once in a while we played it during our final year in engineering, and a couple of times in the B-School. But never on a regular basis since my school days.

Another strange habit which comes and goes is the choice of drinks (not liquor, but general drinks). In my engineering days, it was always Ice Tea. We had a lot of small stalls outside the academic complex where we got Ice Tea and Veggie Pattice. So, it was almost always that for me - between and after the classes. During my MBA days, I got used to hot tea (made from tea bags), and even though it tasted real bad the first time, over time I got so used to it that I preferred it over freshly made tea as well. I came to HK for my job, and as there was no tea available, discovered a really nice coffee pack. During my two months in Manila, I got used to Hot Chocolate (as I disliked both the tea and coffee there). The thing is, at different points of time, I developed different hobbies, and then moved out of it as soon as my surroundings changed.

Currently am on a long leave (3 months), and am now getting used to it as well. In my first job, I was used to working long hours, first to come to office, and last to leave. In my last job, I was never in office for long times, and was always moving around. I had never imagined what life would be when you do not go to office, and have full time to your self. Or how it would be to spend you time deciding on which movies or serials to watch next. As days pass, I got used to it as well. May be, this is the longest break I may get for a good part of my working life. All my life, I always woke up early in the mornings - and now its never before 10 AM these days. And am sure when I re-start my job, I would be back to the schedule of getting up at 6 AM.

Kafka On The Shore: Book Review

2011-03-17T13:45:00.000+08:00

Finally laid my hands on a novel after ages, and finished it within a week. 'Kafka On The Shore' is a 2002 novel by the famous Japanese author Haruki Murakami. This was my Murakami novel, having heard a lot about the author from a few friends.

The plot is very confusing and mysterious, with two seemingly unrelated parallel stories running - very much Tarantino style (I guess one of these guys may be inspired by the other). All the odd-numbered chapters tells the story about a boy named Kafka (which is not the real name of the boy) who runs away from his home to escape his 'curse'. He undertakes a journey from Tokyo to Takamatsu in search of his mother and sister, who left home when he was 4. After stopping at a few unlikely places, he finally finds a job and home at an obscure library. He spends his time in the library reading all sorts of books, and develops some fascination for the head librarian, Miss Saeki.

There is another parallel story running on the even-numbered chapters about an unusual fellow named Nakata. He is a weird way of talking to people, and has an ability of being able to talk to cats. He met an accident when he was a kid, and could never become normal again. He lives on the state subsidy, and in his free time tracks lost cats to generate some extra income. It was during one of his searches that he gets into trouble, and expected events unfold.

I would stop here, as anything more might be a spoiler (there are already a few). The novel deals with metaphysical world, and is full of surreal events. The book is open to interpretation, and leaves a lot of unanswered questions. When Murakami asked public to ask him about the questions, he got 8000 questions from people. He later said that one needs to read the book more than once to grasp it fully - and might need to make some assumption (and hence a linked set of assumptions as there are many loose ends). And different people might reach at different conclusions using their assumptions. The book reminded me of the Matrix Trilogy, and its ending - which was to a large extent an open ending. Different people could end up with different conclusions about the whole trilogy, and the director made no effort to clarify the same.

Overall, its one of the best books I have read - not so much in their final treatment of conclusion, but the overall plot and how it develops. The writing style is amazing, and there are times when you can imagine being at the scene.

Shared Blog?

2011-03-15T22:40:00.000+08:00

I have been thinking for some time if I should keep this blog to myself or add my wife as a contributor to it as well. Well, am sure some flying pigeon would give her this news soon - and if she's interested, I would add her here.

This way, I can at least boast of some less-geeky interesting stuff here. And at some point can also have a classic his-side-her-side event description as well - whenever our views and feelings clash, and there is some violence at home.

Power

2011-03-15T22:31:00.001+08:00

(A random, uninteresting post on geo politics)

A couple of days back one survey confirmed what world had come to recognize slowly - that it is not the US President who is the most powerful person in the world, but the Chinese Premier Hu Jintao (newspaper link). This is one of the after effects of the global financial crisis. Some people jokingly mention that soon history would be divided not by B.C. and A.D., but by pre 9/11 and post 9/11. And just to make the point clear, the crisis was just a manifestation of the fact that US economy had lost a lot in 9/11 (in the incident, as well as in wars which followed). The treasury had to raise the rates when deficit got out of control, and all hell broke loose. So, in a stroke, US lost its status as the biggest super power and US President no longer ruled the world.

I had mentioned it long back on my other blog as well - this was a few days before Lehman and Merrill Lynch blew up, and the market went into a tailspin. Slowly and slowly, the world is coming to acknowledge the fact that soon there would be a change in status. Soon China would be almost the same size as US, and then go past it. Lets keep it serious, and not unnecessarily put India in the equation (we are miles behind in all the parameters, and I still can't find the reason as to why we are put in the same bracket as China. They must fume at the mention a similar way we get angry over clubbing of India and Pakistan over any issue). The point is, China is already past Japan in GDP size (and post the quake the differential would grow), and US is next.

My only concern is, power transfer are seldom peaceful. If you are an aging tiger, and a young wolf is getting stronger every day, what do you do? Do you peacefully wait for it to grow stronger than you, and one day defeat/kill you? Or you make some pre-emptive strikes against it and leave it much weaker? We are entering a very dangerous period, and I think we may have some BIG geo-political events in the coming decade.

The Japanese Miracle

2011-03-13T18:16:00.000+08:00

First things first - this post is not about me offering my well wishes and thoughts to the people of Japan. Or how much I wish they would all come out of it soon. I do feel against all these tragedies, but I'm against forwarding/tweeting/blogging about them. And lets be real, my writing 50 words about something happening over a thousand miles away won't help even an ant living there. So, lets stop uselessly caring and pretending, and unless we really want to do something, lets move on with our life. (I was inundated with all the #prayforjapan tagged messages on my twitter time line, and I'm sure more than half of those guys haven't ever helped a living soul on this planet).

Japan has always been a miracle, and am sure it would come out of this crisis pretty soon. I have always wondered about such a small country, which was devastated post the World War, with so little natural resources, small land size and even population, could become world's second largest economy. Japan has never been the most stable region - geographically, and suffers earth quakes every now and then. And yet, its perhaps the most advanced region in the world, with amongst the highest per capita GDP. Everyone with dreams goes to USA or UK, but in my view, the Japanese miracle exceeds both of them. For the past couple of decades, Japanese economy has been stagnant, and its stock market Index (Nikkei) has dropped by almost 75% of its peak levels. The future looks bleak for the country, and it has had two decades of zero to negative growth. However, its still one of the most prosperous country on the planet. And I have a feeling that some of the recent events might actually work in its favor. Like the post-war economy provided plenty of opportunities of growth, similarly, the post earthquake economy may see replacement demand from industries and household. Lets see how this pans out.

I plan to visit the country some time this year. I have heard lot of good things about the place - from almost everyone who has visited it. The people are really wonderful, and one always wants to come back to this place. Also, I have seen some of the snaps, and they are awesome. So hopefully I will be able to plan something around middle of the year, and see the miracle first hand.

About Subways and McDonalds

2011-03-11T14:29:00.001+08:00

A couple of days back I was reading the news about Subway lapping past McDonald in terms of number of stores. So, its official now - a simple sandwich store has more stores globally than the mighty McDonald. It does seem hard to believe, that something as simple as Subway is now the leading fast food chain in the world.

(Its a different matter that I still do not see them succeeding in India - compared to other economies where McD or Subway are cheap food options, in India they are not so cheap. With one getting a meaty 'Grilled Sandwich' or Vada-Pav in every corner of Mumbai (and similar stuff in other cities), am not sure of the appeal of these outlets. Apart from the hygiene and cool quotient, they don't offer any substantial improvements).

It got me thinking about how Twitter and Facebook might shape up in coming years. Or for that matter the other Social Networking sites which might come up. Facebook is very much like the McDonald in this comparison, and Twitter is very much like Subway (the comparison has to be back dated by a few years, when McD was much larger). Facebook has the universal appeal, but has much more of media attention (and hence scrutiny as well). And perhaps the most serious concern is the target segment - its mostly used by school and college going kids to share some random snaps or indulge into harmless and useless banter. But as they grow up, they would use it less and less - its addictive, and they know it. Much like the fast food, they like it - at the same time knowing that its not good for health, and hence would very much like to limit it. And may be in five years time, some of the most heavy users of Facebook would out grow it.

Twitter on the other hand has endorsements from a whole lot of celebrities (and that too for free, now try to beat that!!!). Almost everyone whom people would like to 'follow' are on Twitter, and as long as there are celebrities in the world, a 'twitter like' service may have its appeal. People from all age are using it (very much like Subway), and they don't intend to leave the habit one day. So, most of the users here may be sticky, and continue to use it years later. A few things would necessarily change, but the essence may remain. And it has lesser privacy concerns as well - and one-way communication ensures you are not obliged to respond immediately.

Well, these are just how I feel they will evolve over time. However, as with most internet and tech companies, its very very difficult to predict the changes - until they happen. However, given the current valuations (with FB almost valued at 10 times the valuation of Twitter), I would put my money on Twitter over the long term. Even though I admire FB as a company, and am a big fan of its interface and design.

Tripods

2011-03-07T13:38:00.000+08:00

I'm not a great fan of tripods, and consider them bulky and attention-grabbing. However, I was going through some of my past albums (from trips as well as simple home pictures) and realized I didn't have too many 'couple' pictures to show for. And one of the reasons for it is the fact that I am not too comfortable asking strangers to take the snaps. I can ask them, but I don't end up advising them on angle and zoom - and hence end up with sub-standard pictures (when I say sub-standard, its not to belittle anyone's skill, but I have a certain way and thought when I want a picture to be taken. And it may not match with the person who eventually takes it).

So I have decided to start using my tripod from now on. I do have one tripod, which came with my D90, but haven't used it ever. This weekend, I will try to take it with myself, and try to get some nice snaps using it. And if somehow I feel comfortable with it, may keep it with my luggage for all my future trips as well.

The Coalition Dra(r)ma

2011-03-06T11:18:00.000+08:00

It was bound to happen - you cannot make 170,000 Cr without making a few enemies. DMK is humiliated and hurt, and rightly so. It was their man who masterminded the loot, and when everything was secured, Madamji and MMS got him arrested, and declared there was no money to share. Overnight, 170,000 Cr changed to 0, all thanks to one Mr. Sibal. It must have been a deadly combination of Italian Hawala and Oxford Economics which accounted for such a large sum of money. I can hear a Katrina Kaif's alter ego shout - 'Humne Bofors ka paisa nahi khaya hai, those agents didn't pass the promised commissions to us. But this time, we ensured there was no middlemen, and saari dealings humare PMO se hi ho.' MMS is the Dhritrastra of this age, and all his ministers are looting the helpless country. Every now and then, he keeps asking - 'yeh kya ho raha hai, but goes silent again until there is a large uproar.'

With the state assembly elections approaching, there is palpable tension all around. With the money now gone, DMK is fighting hard to run all its companies - now it somehow needs to secure working capital. Its hoping it can get more than 150 seats in the assembly, and at an average of 100 Cr per seat, can still reach its target of 15000 Cr for this fiscal. Madamji on the other hand is still pissed with the Finance Minister - he forgot to add her share in the budget and by mistake announced the fiscal deficit as 4.6% for the next year. Now she has to choose between a castle in Italy, and a sea-facing house in Mumbai. Earlier she was planning for both, the castle for herself and the sea-facing apartment for Rahul baba. Rahul Baba wants to see the poverty in India (after he missed out seeing it due to his stay abroad for almost 99% of his life), and who better than the sea to advise him, which has seen it all. A clueless imported prince in the waiting, and a blind man about to be retired - state of affairs in the next wanna be superpower.

Movie Fest

2011-03-01T22:42:00.000+08:00

I have re-started my movie marathon sessions, and am now watching a couple of movies per day. As I might have mentioned earlier, back in my college days I had planned to watch the complete IMDB Top 250 movies. But like so many dreams from the college days, this one too remained just a thought. This year, I plan to give it another shot, and hopefully will be watching a lot more from it.

Saw quite a few movies recently, and here are my mini-reviews:

Gangajal - Had heard a lot about the national award winning movie, and the performance by Ajay Devgan. And I wasn't disappointed either. I'm not a great fan of Ajay Devgan (specially in a comedy movie), but this was one of the movie where perhaps no one could have played the role better - just like Company, Once Upon A Time In Mumbai, etc. Certainly worth a watch.

Patiala House - I had expected this to be trash, just like the other AK movies in recent times. And I was happy to be proved wrong. This was a Yash Raj/K Jo formula movie, and after zillions of years AK did a sensible film. However, it fared badly as I guess he fell pray to 'Bhediya Aaya' syndrome - and no one expected a nice movie from him.

7 Khoon Maaf - If its Vishal Bhardwaj, anything is Maaf. Not many people have 'really' liked it (5-star level), and its not a classic in the same league as his earlier works. However, its still a very nicely made movie, and Priyanka is certainly one of the best actress today (not that she has much competition with industry filled with Sonam Kapoors, who can't even act to save her life).

Black Swan - Not a typical movie, in fact may not even qualify as being a movie. It could very well be a personal diary of Nina (the lead character). Natalie Portman is awesome in her role, and portrays the character wonderfully well. Not many people will like the movie, but its powerful, and meaningful cinema. If you are a Cinema lover (and not just 'movie fan'), then you may like it.

Interesting Blogs

2011-02-28T14:15:00.000+08:00

I have been reading quite a few interesting blogs over the past few days, and it leaves me completely amazed. Some people have wonderful writing styles, and/or a sense of humor. I'm always in awe of people who could write pretty well, and think about varied topics to write about. I have never quite been able to get out of 'myself' mode - I do have my views on the world, but can be written in a line. I like cricket, I love movies, I hate XYZ, etc. I can't analyze things in details over a few paragraphs - life is very black and white for me. And thankfully I ended up being a stock trader, where I have to make only 2 decisions - buy or sell (at times 'hold', but thats not much of a decision).

Of perhaps all the blog I know, I find mine the least interesting (from a 3rd person's view). Coz it has nothing for anyone - I hardly write anything with anyone else in my mind. Most of the time, its me talking to myself. And its not even like me writing about my life and experiences - its almost always incomplete. I know about the context, and I end up writing about a sub-part of it. Most of the stuff is written so that I could read back after say 10 years, and realize how different I was earlier. So that I could understand how I felt at an earlier stage of my life, and how events unfolded. So, I write about my experiences when I started learning driving, or bought my first car, or got married. One can capture the moments in pictures, but one can't capture their feelings and thinkings that way.

World Cup: First Impressions

2011-02-25T14:36:00.000+08:00

World Cup has started, and most of the teams have played their first matches. This time the schedule is much better than most of the earlier times, and with more matches in the league stages, the possibility of shock-exit are much lower. With each team playing 6 matches in the first round, best 4 (out of 7) in each group move to the next round. If any team fails to clear the league, than it would be because of bad preparation and not because it had one bad day.

By the first looks, South Africa, Australia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka appear to be the teams to beat. Not England, and not India as well. India has a middle order which is prone to collapse, and fast bowlers prone to be taken to cleaners. However, the other four teams had matches against much lesser opponents than India and England (Bangladesh and Netherlands are certainly the better teams among the associates), and hence one can't draw a really clear comparison. But I still like the looks of those four teams - they have their plans clear, and strategy in place. If you want to beat the Aussies, beat them now - they would raise the bar in the next round.

Photography 101: Cheung Chau

2011-02-24T01:23:00.008+08:00

All those wondering what the last two words mean - its not the chinese translation for Photography. Its simply the name of the island where I went last Sunday to try out a few things.

There are a number of small islands close to Hong Kong, and most of them can be reached within an hour by Ferry. There are numerous hiking trails in these islands, and they range from family trails (half an hour to couple of hours), to more serious ones (3 hours and above). I went on a trek around the Cheung Chau island last week, and ended up climbing a small mountain and coming down over a 5-hour period. Here are some of the pictures from my trip.

On a separate note, wanted to try out taking variety of pictures with different 'Depth Of Field' and see the effect. In very simple terms, Depth of Field is the depth of the scenery which would be captured perfectly. Its slightly different than Focus, but similar in concept.

Picture with Aperture of f/5

Similar picture of Aperture of f/22

In the first picture, the f-number is smaller (implying a large aperture, and small depth of field). Hence, the depth is small, and the background is less clear (comparatively). Another set of photographs with changing aperture is as below. In these pictures, I have changed the Aperture from highest to lowest values - f/5.6, f/10, f/20 and f/32.

As we increase the f-number, the background becomes part of the picture. A lower f-numbers, the background is almost completely hazy. I still do not have a very fast lens (which will enable me to reduce the f-number further, so as to try with very close-up pictures).

Another similar set of pictures is as below:

Pop-Ups

2011-02-20T11:39:00.000+08:00

I believe in simplicity and perfection, and hence quickly get frustrated with some shabbily designed websites. One of my favorite website to read India related news is the TOI (and ET). I like their content - they are a proper masala paper and both of them cover most of the stuff I want to read about - Business and Markets, Sports, Bollywood and Politics. However, the most annoying thing about their site is the pop-ups which blocks the whole page for a good 6-8 seconds before you can read the news. And to make things worse, if you open multiple news item in different tabs (which I end up doing - opening all the news items which I want to read), they end up opening as many pop-ups.

I guess someone at the company needs to make changes quickly. I know its all about making revenues and meeting the quarterly targets. However, they need to think big - they are the biggest newspaper in the country, and could well end up being the most visited web site here. And given our population and growth rate, I think that would be some opportunity. But that would be possible only if they get out of their cash-cow mentality, and go the google/Facebook way. Both of them have consciously avoided glaring pop-ups over their products, and allow only subtle advertisement. And mind you, these two are perhaps the most successful story in online advertisement and revenue generation. I would love to see a TOI (and ET) designed in the same perfect manner as a Facebook site (take a look at careers page in Facebook, its simply awesome. I was looking at it for completely different reasons, but realized I didn't fit in). Users would love to have a similar clutter free experience.

I don't know how difficult it is to make such websites and designs. And if it is not, then why aren't others doing it? God knows, may be the same reasons why Sreesanth can't behave like Sachin.

The Social Network: Movie

2011-02-19T15:57:00.002+08:00

Today I finally saw the movie - The Social Network. And this totally does justice to the phenomenon of Social Network. The best part about the movie is that its timely, and not a decade late - like its case for most of them.

(Spoiler Alert)

Its a chronicle of the making of Facebook, and while not sure how credible and accurate the events are, the movie surely makes for one gripping watch. Its a story about its founder, and his years at Harvard where he accidentally stumbles upon a few ideas leading to Facebook. Dumped by girls for his geeky and arrogant ways, he finds a way to get back at them. He hacks into the university network, and gets the pictures of all the girls. He creates a webpage where users could rank the hottest girls, comparing two girls at a time. This leads to the servers crashing, and makes gives birth to the idea of Social Network.

Poster: The Social Network

From there, the movie takes some more time detailing the journey, and how he may have been inspired by few others along the way. It talks about some of the underlying ideologies of the company - no flashing ads, let users decide what to use it for. These are essentially the same principles which made Google what it is today. It also touches upon the dilemma for an entrepreneur about when to sell the venture - the timing is seldom right, and you are either too early or too late.

My only wish is the movie were a little longer - it didn't touch upon the personal lives of any of the protagonists. So, we do not know anything about the background and family life of the people. It seems to be intentional - and the movie only focuses on the company and its growth. Its a good watch for anyone hooked on the Facebook, or any other network for that matter.

Breakfast Skills

2011-02-19T09:12:00.000+08:00

I have wanted to learn making breakfast for myself. I have lived alone for most part of my last decade - six years in college and four years in work life. We had our canteen in the college days where I could just walk in, and get lovely Dosas and Idlis. Currently, my maid comes in the afternoon, and that too only on the weekdays. So, on the weekends, I am left all to myself to arrange for my food.

I guess I need to learn a few light breakfast items - like making Poha, or Upma. There are readymade combinations available in the markets, but I somehow don't like the taste of them (and am sure they are not much on the healthy side as well). I wanted to give it a try today itself, but I do not have the necessary ingredients now. Need to make a list and order everything today.

World Cup begins today, and I'm quite excited. I don't have to worry about entertainment sources for the next few weeks - as long as India survives in the competition. And given the structure of the tournament this time, its highly unlikely they will be knocked out in the first stage itself (with 4 teams from each group progressing to the next round). We play Bangladesh in the opener today, and I am hoping for a revenge.

Photography

2011-02-17T01:43:00.000+08:00

As I have written a couple of times earlier as well, I am learning a little about photography. And as they say, the best way to learn the tricks of the trade is to get your hands dirty.

I have been reading about some of the technical stuff, and have been making a note of them. However, I guess I need to venture out with my camera more often, and start practicing a few techniques. The first thing I want to test is seeing the effect of 'Depth Of Field'. Am planning a few shots this weekend (mostly Sunday) to sample different pictures shot at different Apertures, and comparing the results.

Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries)

2011-02-14T09:29:00.000+08:00

There have been extreme reactions to the movie Dhobi Ghat. Some have liked it, like all Aamir Khan movies in recent times. However, there are a few who didn't like it. And there is nothing wrong in that. This is perhaps the boldest experiment yet from the production house - even more than Peepli Live. 'Peepli' had a rural charm, and an underlying topic to touch the hearts, Dhobi Ghat has none of them.

The english title of the movie, Mumbai Diaries does more justice to name. Its a story about the city of Mumbai, and all those words thrown at you in the trailer of the movie. Its not a story about the protagonists, they are just used as a backdrop. Their own tale is incidental to the movie, and it could have been others in their place as well. We do not know much about any characters in the end, apart from the city. Anyone who has 'lived' in Mumbai, would relate to a lot of things - the relentless rains, the trains, the pace, the crowd, etc. Its a take on Mumbai from different eyes - the eyes of the four lead characters in the movie.

If you are in love with Mumbai, may be this is a must watch for you. There have been many movies made professing their love for the city, and this may be the best amongst them. For all the Aamir Khan fans, this may be a let down as it isn't an Aamir Khan movie. In fact, he may be the most insignificant of the four characters in the movie.

Inflation: An Evil?

2011-02-10T19:38:00.001+08:00

We have always made inflation appear as an evil to society. All the pro-poor governments in India try to keep it under control and tame it. Te recent market movements got me thinking if Inflation was really that bad a thing in Indian context.

We are a country where at least 60 per cent of the populace still depend on agriculture for their living. And for time immemorial, food prices in India have stayed at ridiculously low levels. You can get virtually everything for less than a dollar. The road side Vada Pav sells for approximately 10 cents, whereas a similar thing in any developed nation would not cost less than 100 cents. One can get a whole day maid for less than 200 dollar a month, and I'm speaking only about Mumbai.

So, whereas the salaries for elite class and white collared workers are approaching the levels seen in developed world, the lower classes barely keep up with Inflation. So, rich are having a party with higher and higher income, and lower or stable expenses. Inflation is one of the way in which this anomaly can be removed. Let the prices of all food items double, an automatically we would have house maids and drivers asking for a raise.

In the short run there would be pain, but in the long run we as a nation may be better off with high inflation.

Apple's India Connection

2011-02-09T14:52:00.001+08:00

As much as I like Apple's products, I really hate it as a company. While this may seem like a dichotomy, it isn't. Its similar to liking a forbidden fruit - its nice, but I can't touch it.

Apple has the most racist of product introduction calendar - and most of the products are introduced in India (and many other poorer countries) after they have almost run their life cycles in US and Europe. And when there are newer versions to be introduced in those markets - it takes all the older versions off the shelf, and introduces the same in India. Much like iPhone 2 which came to India after 3G was introduced in US (at a price higher than 3G). And now, the same story is being repeated with iPad. Months (if not weeks) away from the introduction of iPad 2 in US and Europe, they start shipping the old version to India. And market it as an event next to Big Bang Theory in importance for the nation.

Its high time we do not lap up their products this way. That they should be forced to introduce the products at 'around' the same time with other markets, and not dump useless inventory at us. I just wish our government was active enough to control the foreign corporates, just like China does.

Photography: Hong Kong

2011-02-07T14:15:00.002+08:00

I have been trying to learn photography, and over the coming few weeks, will be posting about some of my learnings. There are two aspects to it - the technical side and the subject/location side. In the beginning stages, its the technical side that dominates the learning curve requirements, whereas post the initial phases, its mostly about the subjects and locations. Currently, am in the initial phases, and am trying the learn the technical aspects of it.

These are the pictures I have taken around a few months back when I had first moved to Hong Kong (in September 2010).

Cricket World Cup 2011

2011-02-07T12:17:00.001+08:00

I have been a cricket fan since my childhood days, like most other boys in India. And even though I follow a little bit of other sports as well (mostly Tennis and Football), Cricket is and would always remain the top priority.

I don't know what it is about the game that has the whole nation hooked to it - may be it was the world cup victory in 1983. A nation tied down by bureaucracy, and the perennial underdogs came out as the World Champions. May be it was that one moment - mind you, it was at the venue of our previous Lords, that transformed the sports landscape of the nation. Hockey was relegated to background, and cricket became a national obsession.

Another interesting thing about the game was it is an individualistic team game - you have teams, but most of the time its individual brilliance that wins you the match. You don't need passes like in Football or Hockey, and if you are good, you will play well. Add to it the plentitude of numbers - there are just too many statistics - runs, wickets, fours, sixes, 50s, 100s, etc. This game is a statistician delight, and can easily employ half of graduates from Indian School of Statistics every year (with so many IPL teams coming).

Coming to the present, the World Cup is about to begin in a few days, and I'm really excited. Its been a long time since we had a all-nations tournament, and given the form of teams, this one promises to be really interesting. Of course I would be supporting India, but am mindful of the challenges as well. SA and England are dangerous as well, though they haven't really played in India recently (which is a different 'ball' game altogether.

Atonement & King Arthur

2011-02-05T23:50:00.001+08:00

This has been a movies week - and saw a couple of interesting ones. I had seen King Arthur earlier as well, but didn't remember much about it so gave it another run as well.

Atonement is a classic, in every sense of the word. Usually the Oscar nominated movies are not really to my liking, but this is different. The story is set in 1930s and 1940s, and first part deals with an English household. I wouldn't detail the storyline here, but the cast is superb in their performance. Both James McAvoy and Keira Knightley are perfectly cast in their roles, and the young actress (who plays the little sister to Keira) is awesome. The basic premise of the story is how an act can change life of many people, and it may be impossible to rectify the mistake at a later point in time.

King Arthur is very different in treatment, and even though it wasn't much of a success, I liked the movie. In fact, I tend to like most of the grand historical movies with battle sequences. They make for such a perfect viewing - with larger than life sets and dresses. This one is set in 5th century England, and deals with the folklore of King Arthur. Though the story is not historically accurate, with many a historians doubting even the existence of the King, its an honest treatment. Over the course of the movie, the Knights (Arthur and his friends) discover that they have been fighting a wrong battle, and their conception about ideologies of their empire is misplaced.

P.S. - The Story is about a group of Knights, and they are very similar to ones in Age of Empire - they kill everyone :)

Three Months

2011-02-05T23:34:00.001+08:00

I am on a long leave, lets call it a sabbatical. It was not exactly pre-planned or my choice, but I got it nonetheless. And almost a month has passed as well. Now I have to decide what I can do over the remaining 8-9 weeks.

Firstly, it gives me some time to catch up on some classy movies - I have long wanted to watch the IMDB Top 100 movies collection, and it might be time to give it a shot. If not all, then at least half way through the list. Over the past few weeks, have really saw a lot of stuff I had kept on my to-do list for long.

Secondly, there are serials which I always post-poned for future viewing. There was OC which I had left mid way, and there are plenty of others as well - 24 and Lost among them.

Thirdly, I am catching up a little on my picture management - learnt a few things about iPhoto today. Its really cool, specially the latest version - would upload a slideshow tomorrow featuring a few of my recent albums.

Finally, I need to learn a few things about photography - and how to take good pictures under different conditions. I will spend some time on it tomorrow, and then try to go through the camera manual. I had bought a really cool camera last year (Nikon D90), and have been using it mostly in point-and-shoot mode.

Television

2011-02-02T18:35:00.001+08:00

I have completely stopped watching Television these days. During my childhood days, we used to watch Cricket and MTV/Channel V. Over time, I stopped watching music channels, and limited myself to Cricket only. However, after moving to HK, even the Cricket is gone from my life (as I have do not have the cricket channels here). So, in a nutshell, television is almost dead for me.

The only use I have for it is as a large screen where I can connect my hard-disk and watch movies/serials. And guess its a decent enough use.

Still waiting for Indian Channels to improve on the content and make some meaningful programs. I would really love to see something like FRIENDS or HIMYM in our Mumbai or Delhi settings. Guess we do have an audience for that.

Books Vs Movies

2011-02-01T21:15:00.001+08:00

Everyone has their own favorite between the two - the more carefree people usually prefer Movies, whereas the thinking and introspective sorts (most people writing blogs) prefer Books (usually). Its similar to a choice between technically sound and superior (like Rahul Dravid), or flamboyant (like Dada, Yuvraj). I had always been a 'book-person', and giving my full time job, I don't find much time to read. However, I loved to buy books, so over the past few years have grown a large collection of 'new and unread' books - hoping to read them some time in future. However, with each passing year, the list keeps on getting longer.

One of the reasons I didn't see Harry Potter and LOTR all these years was because I wanted to read the books first. And that never happened. (Another reason was the fact that these are grand movies, not worth watching on computer screens or laptops. And having missed the screenings in theaters, my only hope was a big screen TV - which I finally got now in form of an awesome LED TV). So I finally stopped fooling myself, and admitted that I may never get to read the books. That I should go ahead and watch the movies at least. They do not have the feeling of reading the books, but you can manage to see a lot of movies.

Over the past few weeks, have seen quite a lot of movies from my pending list, and there is still a long way to go. Can you suggest something nice?

Next Week: The Spiderman Series, and The Star Wars

Movie: Phir Milenge

2011-01-30T20:21:00.001+08:00

I was planning to watch the 'Lord Of The Rings' trilogy today, but the slow speed of torrent downloads forced me to dig into my DVD collection. The other week I got a nice collection of old Salman Khan movies (12 in total, all from 90s) and finally decided to watch one of them. I had once started watching 'Phir Milenge' in my MBA days, but for some reason (which I have forgotten) couldn't finish the same. In fact, I had just seen 5-10 mins of it, but had heard some good feedback on the same.

Finally saw the movies years later, and liked the same. There are quite a few made in recent times (over the past decade) which deals with similar issues. 'Aashayein' was also very similar in feeling, but on slightly different issues. And I have liked most of these movies. This tells the story of an HIV positive person (Shilpa Shetty), and how the realization affects her life. The movie is mostly about her rights and the discrimination she faces at her work place.

On a different note, Ruch was here for the week, and spent most of the time her. Saw the 5th season of HIMYM (and 6th season till 14th episode), and this is one series where we both of have seen each of the episodes together. Planning to start on a new series and need to decide on the same soon. Almost done with the re-run of FRIENDS as well (on 9th season now), so need to find a new nice sit-com soon enough.

Kill Bill: Tarantino Effect

2011-01-21T11:48:00.004+08:00

Always wanted to see what made Tarantino so famous, and finally saw both volumes of Kill Bill. It was simply brilliant - in all aspects starting from casting to background music. I'm still in awe of the movie. It was a simple storyline - a typical Bollywood revenge saga, but filmed with so much style and craft, made it a classic.

Uma Thurman did justice to the role, and much more. Sadly, she didn't get many more plum projects later, she was simply brilliant as the Bride. May be its destiny - you only get to play once a role for which you are known all your lifetime.

Corruption in India

2011-01-21T11:40:00.001+08:00

When people abroad think of India, corruption immediately comes to mind. Thanks to a mismanaged Commonwealth Games, our best kept secret is out before everyone.

Never before was the world aware of this deep rooted malaise in our society - where everyone who is in any way related to government is corrupt (well, at least 99% are). A country which hasn't issued a single passport till date without innumerable bribes at various levels, really can't expect to be a superpower. To remove corruption, one has to start with the guardian of the public - the police system. I was reading an article on how Hong Kong changed its corrupt systems completely and is now the freest economy in the world. There was rampant corruption in HK in 70s and 80s, but they started the change with police department. And within two decades most of the systems got cleaned. I guess we need something similar in India as well.

Another layer which needs to be cleaned are the politicians - at least the nexus between them and the under world. I do not expect them to get clean anytime over the next few decades, but at least they can stop supporting the illegal activities. Presently, we have the rulers supporting the terrorists - and its the public which suffers. Most of the goons have political backing and support. Worse, in some cases those goons are themselves elected representatives.

None of the other countries in the ASEAN region are so corrupt. They have other issues, but they do not plunder nation's wealth. They do not have the level of poverty we have in India. I had great hopes from Manmohan Singh when he was sworn as the PM in his first tenure. But I now firmly believe he also supports the corrupt leaders, if not corrupt himself. Coalition politics is no excuse for looting the nation - which is surprisingly the excuse given by Congress time and again for all its wrong decisions. Sadly, we do not have good alternatives as well - almost all the parties are on similar footings.

Decade That Just Passed By

2011-01-15T14:33:00.002+08:00

I just realized that this new year has brought in a new decade as well. And thinking back, a lot has changed over the past 10 years around the world.

Back in 2000, Google was the cool thing, and ardent followers used to wait for April 1 to be fooled (this was the day when Gmail was launched). I regularly checked the official Google blog for new products coming out of their stable, and they kept the world guessing. First with the email, and then the Gtalk messenger. Google has almost killed Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger - and the buzzing sound of a messenger window that used to come from almost every room on the hostel floor. So, chats became silent, and you could never tell what the guy in the other room was doing.

After a decade, Google has lost its 'cool' tag, and its no longer the 'IT' company. Page and Brin are no longer the new wonder boys from silicon valley, and don't feature on the Times Magazine cover anymore. They are now busy defending their empires, and look much more similar to Microsoft than they have ever looked in their life time.

Now we have two companies which are the apple of everyone's eye - Apple and Facebook. One is an old hand, the Phoenix in the technology world (which is a rarity), and other is a new born baby (which is a norm) in the industry.

Everyone waits for Apple's annual events, and people line up for new i-xxx (which ever product they launch). There is a whole industry dedicated to guessing what its next product would be, and how they can gain from it. Facebook on the other hand is the baby which is loved by all, and everyone wants a piece of it. Half of the world is waiting for the email invite from Facebook, and check if its really the game changer people fear it to be. However, this is 2011, and things may very change in 2021 or even 2015. Five years is a long time in this industry, and there are also new whiz kids waiting for steal the thunder.

P.S. - I own an iPhone, and in spite of all its restrictions, find it as a great phone. Ultra Sleek, and miles ahead in beauty from all other phones in the market, this is a no-brainer. At least for now!

Shock and After Effects

2011-01-13T15:22:00.001+08:00

The year hasn't had a great start for me, but the good thing about hitting a low is that things can mostly go better from there. There are possibilities of life worsening, but with very little probability. So, as things stand, I'm hopeful about what the rest of 2011 has in store for me. I will more about the shock and my feelings when things settle down.

Otherwise life is moving slowly now, and have watched the first 3 installment of the Harry Potter series. The movies are nice and grand, but a little lengthy with too many unnecessary diversions (at least this is what I think at this moment). May be, they all converge towards the end, or may be not. Hopefully shall be done with the other 3 as well by the end of this week.

Another movie which I watched recently was 'Hyderabad Blues' - a movie which released some 15 years ago. It was one of the first 'different' movies, and gave instant recognition to its maker Nagesh Kukunoor. It was a nice movie, but with patchy acting. In fact, apart from the subject and the whole situation, I don't think it was a great movie. But again, it was 15 years ago, and a lot has changed since then. So may be I'm unable to go back in time enough to appreciate it.

Have got a nice collection of all Salman Khan oldies, and will be watching them soon.

Harry Potter: Finally

2011-01-09T16:25:00.001+08:00

Its been pending for a long long time, and I finally started watching my long list of 'must watch' movies. And prominent amongst them are the two series - Harry Potter and LOTR.

Just saw the first movie in the Harry Potter series yesterday, and loved it. Its been amazing that all these years I have somehow postponed watching them. I always wanted to read the books first, and somehow never got down to doing it. Now, may be the realization has dawned on me that may be I would never be reading the books - so at least I better watch the movies at least. And if I watch them soon enough, I would get the see the last of the movies on the big screen. Would be watching the 2nd and 3rd installment tonight.

Winters in HK

2011-01-06T22:07:00.001+08:00

Winters are an awesome time to be in Hong Kong - it looks really beautiful around that time. Its not all that cold, and has a nice chilly breeze blowing for almost whole of the day. There are days when the sun comes out as well - making it all the more awesome. People are dressed in black coats and over-coats, its really quite different than the scene back in India. Foreign locations are very clean, and hence look great. The otherwise very colorful dressings are replaced by black mostly, but it looks awesome nonetheless.

On a different note, was thinking about the sundry things you miss about India when you are abroad. And its an irony that I miss Indian Chinese, and Indian Pizza more than pure Indian cuisines. One can find Indian cuisines at foreign locations, but am yet to locate Indian style foreign cuisine. May be, I would need to be back in India to get my hands on them. That makes me someone who eats Indian here in HK, and Chinese/Italian in India - such is life!

New Life, New Ways

2011-01-02T22:12:00.002+08:00

The title of the post is misleading, and nothing great has changed in my life. Its just that I couldn't think of any better name, and hence named it with the first word that came to my mind. And this being the New Year, 'New' is always the first thing that comes up. Anyways, at least now I know that I'm not the only one who find giving subject lines and titles cumbersome (with FB mail doing away with subject line completely).

I was catching up on some of the recent hindi movies which I had missed due to marriage preparations, and some of them turned out to be interesting. I wouldn't say nice, but they were quite different than the typical stuff our movie industry dishes out.

First of these movie was 'We Are Family', a typical enter-hall-with-tissue-bags movie. However, all its shortcomings apart, the movie wasn't preachy. Never did once the characters blamed each other for infidelity or lack of commitment. Never did they try to patch up things, and neither did they show the past events again and again. It was a mature movie, focussing on 'what is to be done next', rather than harping on what went wrong and how it could be corrected. Finally, we are coming out of black and white images, and our characters are real life people with shades of grey.

Another movie was 'Anjaana Anjaani', and I so wish they had taken someone else for PC's part. For one, she looks older than RK, and never looked like the age she was playing. And secondly, her acting talents are quite limited in these kind of roles - someone younger might have played the part much better. Coming back to the movie (which certainly isn't an original, still), it was a nice change from usual rom-coms. Here was a movie with tremendous potential, and RK did his part well. I don't know what was wrong, but something was missing in the movie - the story, the editing, the pace. The characters weren't well developed, and were not believable. The thing I liked about the movie was again the characters in it didn't try too hard trying to explain/justify themselves. They have a life, and they want to move on with it. It was an attempt to recreate 'Hangover' kind of movie. This time they failed, however we may soon see better versions.

Tomorrow is the first day of new year in office. Though nothing has changed, and it would be just like any other day, but still. Another year has passed, and I have been working for over 3 and a half years now. In June, our batch shall be celebrating 4 years of work life. Its indeed been a long journey, and years later we can safely tell the stories - we were there at the trading floor when the world almost collapsed during the crisis. We were there when Bear Sterns Collapsed, and when Lehman went belly up. More on this later - its an interesting phase we are in.

First Post: 2011

2011-01-01T11:56:00.001+08:00

The New Year is here, and hopefully it brings joy and happiness to everyone. 2010 was a milestone year for me, and a lot of things happened - I got my first car (Honda City), bought my first DSLR (D90), moved to HK, got Married (both me and brother), got an iPhone and MacBook, my brother and sister both moved to Mumbai and started working.

As expected, 2010 was a busy year and all things would settle down slowly. All the big changes are a step towards stability, and I guess 2011 would be a relatively quieter year in terms of events planned. Also, this year I won't have punitive resolutions, but only wishful ones:

Firstly, I would be reducing the time spend on Facebook. Its a place where you can interact with everyone whom you don't want to meet in real life. For real friends, try to meet them or at least call them. So, this year, I would call my friends on their birthdays/marriages to wish them, instead of sending a message on Facebook.

Secondly, I need to hit the gym - the food in HK is bland from Indian standards, and hence I end up eating a lot of snacks. I need to start walking 30 minutes a day, or better still hit the gym 2-3 times a week. Lets see how this one pans out.

Thirdly, I plan to visit at least one completely new country this year - by completely new country I mean one which is not very similar to ones I have already visited - like some Asian countries are similar, and so are some European ones. I guess I might go to New Zealand or Japan this year (or may be both :P).

And finally, I plan to learn a new language this year. I enrolled for French classes in my MBA program, but never took it seriously. In fact, didn't even attend more than a couple of classes. I'm yet to decide on the language, but it would be either French or Mandarin - it might also depend on availability option.

Thats all for this years wishes. And of course I plan to watch innumerable number of movies and TV serials.

Christmas Carols

2010-12-25T11:10:00.001+08:00

This is my second Christmas in Hong Kong (first was in 2007 when I had just joined the job, and was in HK for a brief stint), and the place just feels awesome during the time. May be, its the same with all places with US and EU citizens, or may be its different here. Anyways, its an SAR of China, and to see people celebrating Christmas vacations is really pleasing.

I have started liking the idea of year end holiday season, running all the way from 25th to the New Year. This is really an ideal way to unwind oneself after working hard for the whole year. Its like the weekend that comes at the end of every week - and seems like a perfect way to start 2011. I would be visiting Times Square today, and going by what I have heard, that place would be exploding with people.

Just Married!

2010-12-18T13:23:00.002+08:00

I'm back in Hong Kong for the final few days of this year. And the past month has been eventful, to put it mildly. I JUST GOT MARRIED.

This may be one of the biggest event in someone's life, or may be not. For me, it is THE BIGGEST event of life for sure. Where else would 500 odd guests turn up just for me. Where else you get to change you life completely from that moment on. I am ecstatic, and hopeful about the future. There are so many things to do in life, and needed to get over with the marriage thing to move ahead.

I got myself a new MacBook Pro as well - putting me firmly as an Apple Fan. Now I own their latest iPod, iPhone 4, and a MacBook Pro. Initially wanted to purchase the MacBook Air, but then realized it was slower than Pro, and was a good 'second laptop', rather than first. So here I am, writing my first post with the new machine, and feeling quite good about it.

Weather in Hong Kong has been very chilly for the past days, and the temperature has hovered around 10 for most mornings and evenings. I need to get a good room heater, and also some warm clothes. My existing wardrobe is quite insufficient for this climate, more suited to Mumbai's one.

These are the last two weeks in 2010, and it certainly has been an eventful year. More on it on the next post.

Two Days To Go

2010-11-17T23:35:00.001+08:00

So we are just two days away from my India trip. Its been almost 3 months since I moved to Hong Kong, but it seems like much longer. I am missing the Indian food a lot, rather am missing home cooked food. Here I have been eating outside everyday, and after a while you kind of get bored with it. For a vegetarian, HK doesn't offer you a million choice, so its just A, B or C everyday.

I want to eat Aaloo Chat.
and Muri Ghugni
and Sattu Paratha
and Fried Rice and Manchurian
and Paani Puri
and Plain Dosa
and Pakodi Kadhi
and Matar Paratha

Will add more as and when new things come to mind.

And yeah, need to remember one more thing - have to get married as well :)

One New Thing A Week

2010-11-14T20:14:00.003+08:00

I stumbled upon an interesting blog today - named Done Thing. This blog is about something I promise myself almost every year, and then forget all about it. For the past couple of years, I have been making a 'Things To Do Before I Die' list, but its soon forgotten. Let me make a fresh start once again.

This blog talks about doing a new things every week. And the definition of the new things is just something which we do not do in our daily life. It could be as simple as trying a completely different cuisine, to a mild trek. So, let me try following this every week from now on, and lets see if I could come up with a list of new experiences.

I started with it today itself, and read a book in McDonald's. I have always seen people at coffee houses and the McDonald's reading books, staying there for hours. I have always envied them, and thought of finding enough time to do so myself some times. Well, today I did it - I read a book there today. And there were two more firsts as well - (a) it was the first book I read on my iPhone (on its iBooks application, which is really cool) and, (b) it was my first Charles Dickens novel. Planning to read 'A Tale Of Two Cities' sometime soon.

On the book, its a classic and there is nothing I could write about it which hasn't been written earlier. A part of this book was included in our Class 9 english text book - though at that point of time I had no clue about the book or its author. It a smooth read, one which can be finished in a few hours.

Update: I forgot to mention the name of the book - 'The Christmas Carol'.

Globalization: The Big Change

2010-11-06T23:34:00.001+08:00

Globalization. It means different things to different people, but everyone certainly has a notion about it. For some, it means an open world, and easy access to foreign lands. For others, it means a whole new world altogether.

I do believe that the world has underestimated the effects of it - even now. What started of as a ploy by the richer nations to search for new markets for their goods has back-fired upon them. They wanted free access for everyone in the world, hoping to sell their products and services. What they didn't realize was the fact that one day the companies in these emerging markets would also try to compete with them, and not just in the foreign land, but also back in their home turf.

Globalization made world flatter - and the notion of sustainable competitive advantage is lost for ever. Knowledge and technology are easily available. No new products can remain untouchable for long - there is a whole army of people analyzing everything and the data can be accessed in seconds over internet. So, the new companies doesn't have to go through the same learning curves as the old companies did. The game has changed, and now its just about the speed and agility. And may be to some extent brands, which have an irrational appeal (and hence some form of competitive advantage).

The world would evolve into a more efficient place - and this doesn't mean a better place. A lot of jobs exist today because we have inefficiencies - if they are eliminated, we would have a lot more unemployment. We are moving towards equality - we could easily get the work done by the people who charge the lowest wage. In effect, we are slowly moving towards a world where the per capita income would converge - it might take decades though. We are all connected by social networks, and share similar ideologies. Barring China, which doesn't allow most of these web sites, rest of the world may converge to a similar culture. We all like McDonalds, and are certainly losing our local differences gradually. People are moving all around, and any big city in the world would have people from all nationalities. So, in effect, slowly and slowly, we are becoming global citizens.

I do not know how that world would look like, but am sure we are witnessing a great change. Never before had people interacted so much amongst themselves. Never before people had easy option to selecting the places where they wanted to settle. Never before people were connected to each other to such an extent. This would invariably lead to a uniform efficient world - where everyone has access to the best in the world. We needn't buy shabby clothes as we have access to GUCCI and ARMANI. In this transformation, west has most to lose, and east has most to gain.

October End: Ticket Bookings

2010-10-30T15:54:00.003+08:00

October is almost coming to an end, and this means my vacation in India is only a few weeks away. I'm still not fully done with all the bookings and all. Guess booking a ticket was much more simpler in old days when all you had to do was fill a form and stand in a queue at the railway booking counter. Nowadays, with so many offers and promotions going around in all the websites, you are confused looking for the best deal. There are special fares on selected airlines on some routes if you book the tickets using a specific bank's specific credit card. I wish we were back in the earlier days.

Had a little photography session last week, and clicked some pictures of Hong Kong night life. Really in love with the vibrant life here, and will be clicking a lot more pictures of the place in coming days.

On the movies front, haven't seen too many movies in recent days. Saw the Twilight trilogy previous week, and feel that the ending a little meek. The series had a good build-up, but somehow couldn't finish on a high. Nothing wrong with the movie adaptation though, it had a weak story line towards the end.

P.S. - Listened to the songs of the upcoming movie 'Break Ke Baad', and liked the music a lot. Its catchy, and after a few repeats, it sticks with you.

The Big Bang Theory

2010-10-24T22:34:00.001+08:00

Just when I was starting to get bored with re-watching the episodes of FRIENDS once again, I discovered another sit-com which is in the same league (if not better). Its slightly different from FRIENDS in terms of its target segment, so it would be unfair to compare the two. Nevertheless, its really awesome, and a must watch. Moreover, unlike FRIENDS, this one is contemporary, and the Season 4 is currently underway (this could be a sad news as well, as you can only watch so many episodes at one go).

The show is set in California, and is about a group of geeks (all physicists) and a hot blonde who lives across the hall. All of the geeks though differ in their levels of idiosyncrasy.

Sheldon Cooper is the character who is weirdest of all - he has the highest IQ, is arrogant, lacks the understanding of basic emotions, and has an OCD. Leonard Hofstadtar shares the apartment with Sheldon, and is slightly low on geekiness (compared with Sheldon). He also has a crush on the girl living across the hall (Penny). Kunal and Howard are friends to the two main characters, and frequent their place for dinner. Howard is Jewish, whereas Kunal is from India. Penny (the girl) works in a cheese cake factory, and is an aspiring actress.

The show deals with the daily lives of the 4 geeks and the blonde girl. I am already done with two seasons, and am currently on third (which shall be finished by next week).

Coffee Houses and Blog Rolls

2010-09-26T10:38:00.001+08:00

I have been overly worried by small things lately, and try to make my life perfect. I try to arrange everything, finish every unfinished job, and erase all items on my 'to-do' list. I just realized how futile this exercise is, and no way I'm ever gonna finish all the pending work. So, instead of worrying about them, I should rather start enjoying life too.

Lately, I had started passing time, and waiting for some in future from where to start living. I guess I need to start living immediately - my life isn't so much of a mess. Its decently well organized, and planned. Ok, a few things here and there do happen, but what the heck. I still have almost 90% control over what I do.

The other day I read about the starbucks and their coffee. I like the place, and the ambiance, though am still to find my favorite coffee there. I am a tea person, but don't expect to find "Cutting Chai" in Hong Kong during office breaks. So, will need to find my favorite coffee soon. I sure know what I won't like - Espresso and Caffe Americano. I still am not able to understand how do people drink Espresso - its so concentrated and bitter. To me, it seems more like grabbing a medicine. And it gets over so quickly - I mean, not at all perfect if you wanted a small break from office.

Caffe Americano is similar to espresso, along with hot water. Though still better than the Espresso, this still doesn't qualify as coffee for me - my idea of coffee/tea is one with the Milk. My mom always tells me to drink milk regularly, and this is the only way I can follow her advice :)

Secondly, I need to re-organize my blog rolls. I have too many inactive/uninteresting bloggers on my list. And I do not visit most of these. I need to discover new and interesting people and their blog. People who live a very different life than I do, and live at a different place. I remember my old engineering days when I had a long list of blog friends (that was the time when blogs had just come in). Most of those guys have either stopped blogging, or have shifted their blogs.

Movies This Week

2010-09-16T21:18:00.001+08:00

I'm living in a serviced apartment close to the office, and this leaves me with plenty of time. With very little productive work at hand, I can watch lots of movies and serials.

Am watching FRIENDS all over again, and once I'm through with all the seasons, will start a new series. Still to decide on which one it would be.

Saw three Hindi movies last week, and couple of English ones. The first of the lot was Dabangg - which has created great hype back home. However, I wasn't too impressed with the movie. Now it was either the poor DVD quality, or the movie itself, the movie left a lot to be desired. For Salman, it was the license to get away with anything, but the producers actually tried to fit-in a story. And that ruined it - there were some magic moments, but were very few (and almost all of them were shown in trailers).

Saw Raavan as well, which in spite of all its hype and star cast, failed miserably at the box office. I found the movie different and interesting, and am surprised it fared so badly. It had a very different storyline, and a fresh subject.

The last of the Hindi flicks was Tere Bin Laden. A small budget movie, but extremely well made, with plenty of funny moments. A very bold experiment, as it was bordering on a lot of touchy subjects, but the movie had its heart at the right place.

Annapurna: Nepalese Food in Hong Kong

2010-09-11T18:14:00.001+08:00

At the outset, let me clarify that we didn't go to the place with the intension of having the Nepalese food. KG and Wife saw this place on the way to their home, and going by the name, thought it to be a 'desi' one.

So we entered the place with the intension of having some Indian food, and soon realized it wasn't to be. After thinking for some time (on whether to stay there, or look for some other place), we decided to give it a try. We order a couple of starters, and another couple of items from the main menu. The place has a decent ambiance, though its a little cramped for space. Most of the dishes we had had a very simple taste - similar to home cooked food. Unlike most of the places here, specially the Indian restaurants, the food was very mildly spicy and quite light. Almost everything we ordered was was light on the stomach - even their Rotis were Phulkas, as against the typical Tandoori Rotis.

I don't think we are going back to the place again - its slightly on the expensive side, and the food is very similar to one that the Maids can cook at home. Or the one served in daily lunch tiffins. The only good point about the place is the location. The taste won't strike a chord with the usual expat population as well - who prefer the curries for their spicy nature.

Restaurant: Annapurna

Location: G/F, 59 Staunton St, Soho, 2857 2966

Meals for Two: HKD 400-500

House Hunting

2010-09-11T17:56:00.001+08:00

House Hunting is a tedious exercise - irrespective of which part of the world you are in. There are too many things to worry about the place you want to move into - the location, locality, size, ambiance, connectivity, and a lot more thing. One careless mistake, and you are stuck with a mistake for the next 12 months.

I started with my house-hunting today in Hong Kong, and saw quite a few places. Yet to finalize on the final location though. I'm a little confused between the location I should go for - whether to go for a far off quiet location, or to take one close to the central location. The far off localities here offer new homes and peaceful surroundings, whereas the nearby areas have slightly smaller homes and a little noise. Will think over it for a couple of days, and make a decision.

I have got my company access card, and bank account opened here. So, the next thing in line is getting a phone connection. CSL has a special employee scheme for our bank, and they would be visiting the office over the next week. In all probability, would be done with the phone connection by next week. Also, have put off the plan to purchase the iPad by another year. Let them come out with the 2nd generation machine, and would then go for it. So, for the moment, its just iPhone and McBook Air.

First Updates From Hong Kong

2010-09-07T22:00:00.003+08:00

It was the end of my first weekend in Hong Kong, and things have started moving a little bit. We still aren’t great progress, but its still much better than life at 90 MG.

I’m currently based out of company provided accommodation, and have to start house hunting this weekend. Have a little over three weeks to find myself a permanent pad here. It would be my first self-leased accommodation here, having lived in hotels and serviced apartments all this while. I am a little excited, though am missing my earlier Mumbai home as well. It was really sad to leave that place, having spent the bulk of my time in Mumbai there. Also, it was one of the very few nicely built colonies, with shops and movie hall inside the complex. I would miss the IMAX theatre most of all.

In HK, things are very much in line with the expectations. I’m still settling down, both at my apartment, as well as at the office. Have got my company ID card today, and would be getting the bank account done tomorrow. Need to register for the HKSI examination some time this week, and also need to apply for the HKID card. So, the tasks for this week are clear - (a) Bank Account, (b) HKID Card, and (c) HKSI registration.

There is a photography contest for the internal employees, and the theme for the same is Hong Kong Night Life. Would try to capture a few snaps over this and next weekend, and try my luck at the contest. Lets see how it goes. Also, am planning to watch a whole lot of movies over the coming few weekends – with plenty of time, and nothing much to do. Might try to make it 4-5 movies a week. Will be posting about them on the other blog.

Once Again in Hong Kong

2010-09-04T19:49:00.001+08:00

I have finally landed in Hong Kong, having vacated the house in Mumbai (Bhakti Park, Wadala). This has been a complete circle for me, and I have landed back in the place where I started my work life.

Over the years, I have changed a little. Initially I was quite opposed to the idea of settling abroad, and always preferred India over other places. However, with time, have come to realize that its a nightmare to live in Mumbai. Its one of most inefficient places in the world, and there is very little hope of things improving any time soon.

I have come back here with plenty of hope, and desire to do things. Ever since I made the job switch, my work hasn't required me to stretch myself. However, that was in the past. Having joined my team here, things should start moving fast. I'm planning to start trading a couple of more markets very soon. More on this in a couple of weeks time when things get clearer.

For the moment, its still my first week in Hong Kong, and am still in the process of settling down. I do not yet have a proper phone here (having returned my blackberry in office, and my LG Viewty not working). Should get something done by next week - either get an iPhone for personal use, or apply one from the office. Have met Ashish and KG here, and we might have a game of Poker tonight. However, for some reason, I'm not too excited by the prospects of it today. May be its the jet lag, or the tiredness.

Mumbai Rewind

2010-08-10T02:09:00.001+08:00

Slowly and slowly the realization is dawning on me that I'm leaving Mumbai. That I would be here only for a few more weeks before leaving for Hong Kong. And even though I know that I would be coming back, I don't know for sure when it would be.

Mumbai is very different that any other city I have been to all my life. It has a pace, and it keeps moving. The very thing that makes the life tough here, and to some extent unbearable, are the things that separate it from the other cities. No other city moves so fast, and no where else the local trains run at an interval of 3-4 minutes. No where else the rainy season lasts for 3 months, while pouring continuously.

I would be vacating my house as well, and will need to sell off the furniture. All of it has to be done over the next 3-4 weeks. I remember when I came to this city a few years back - clueless and naive. This city has changed me a lot, and it has witnessed all the positive changes in me over the past few years. From a shy and reserved guy, I have become much more confident. I had my first home here, and also my first car.

New Beginning: Back to Hong Kong

2010-07-30T15:02:00.001+08:00

I'm bidding goodbye to Mumbai (albeit temporarily) once again. Would be moving to Hong Kong for a brief stint, and it starts all over for me again. Have been hopping between the two places for more than 3 years now, and there doesn't seem any end to it. I'm yet to make up my mind over where to stay permanently, and am flowing with the current.

I will need to dismantle my house in Mumbai, and along with it, all the furniture. Had bought each and every thing with great care, and now it would be really painful to sell them off. Next few weeks would pass in trying to unwind everything, and hopefully I would done by the end of August.

I am not sure what life has in store for me at this junction - with the impending marriage in another four months time. I have to make a decision quickly - regarding where I want to settle down. One way or the other, the decision has to be made quickly. Or I may give Hong Kong another chance, get a small stint abroad and then come back in a year's time.

Lets see where I find myself by the end of this year - keeping my fingers crossed, and hoping for the best.

Game of Poker

2010-05-23T02:44:00.001+08:00

Went to Hong Kong on another business trip last week, and hopefully things appear to be finally falling into place. After 7 months of dilly dallying on the job front, hopefully things would be fine in another month or so.

Would be travelling to Hong Kong on a more frequent basis, and would spend the bulk of next 6 months there. There are a lot of loose ends still, but hopefully things should sort themselves out by the end of the year.

Played Poker this time as well, and ended up losing once again. Haha, this is how I started with my trading as well. So, should get better with time. Took a few pictures of people after the game, and should be posting them soon.

Sacrifices

2010-02-07T18:59:00.002+08:00

Sometime I get this feeling that I have made enough sacrifices in life, that I ought to have enjoyed the life a little more than what I actually did. And atleast at some point, it should pay off. May be, this is the point, or may be I am still making sacrifices.

Close to the Year End

2009-12-26T14:53:00.002+08:00

Usually at this time of the year, everyone tend to think of the important events over the past 12 months, and how things have changed. Well, let me also think along similar lines, and see which have been the biggest events for me:

1. Changing Jobs: The biggest surely is the fact that I have shifted my job – and though this has come close to the end of the year, this would shape my next year. If the plan plays out, 2010 would surely be rocking.

2. May Elections: I think the second most important event was the May 2009 up-circuit in the market. It changed a lot of things – just the 9/11 in the US, things would never be same again. And this is not just a random comparison, it did break a lot of things.

3. Trading Losses: I tried to time the market a few times last year, and most of times failed miserably. Hopefully things would change next year, and I would be able to trade the markets better. Losses aren’t my biggest concerns, but I did let go of some of the basic principals of risk management. Hopefully would stick to them next year.

4. Honda City: I would be buying Honda City today, and this certainly would be an important event for me. This would be my first ever car, and I certainly would have a nice time next year driving it. Hopefully would move around a lot of places in Mumbai. Along the same lines, I got my Nikon D90 camera as well – and pretty soon would be posting nice pictures taken using it.

5. HK Trip: I went to HK twice after a long time (relatively, it was just 14-15 months in absolute terms), and really had a nice time on both the trips. Planning to see some European countries in 2010, and hopefully there would be some business trip coming along :P

As for my expectations from the next year, this list is quite simple (only professional, and public-life related):

1. Do good in work, and be a better trader – want to become a better trader, and be able to trade the direction of the markets as well. Have been trading volatility for some time now, and I think I should take some sizeable bets on the direction side as well.

2. Keep Healthy, and lose some weight - Would try to lose 1 Kg weight every month, and hopefully should be 65 Kg by the end of 2010. Have been attending a lot of parties in the recent times, and that has really added to the weight problem. Would avoid fried foods, and cheesy items.

Is Change Good?

2009-10-31T03:51:00.001+08:00

Q: Why do we like change?

A: You get to select the new ‘You’, and leave the old guy behind.

Job 2.0

2009-10-25T13:46:00.001+08:00

I have recently switched my job, and have started going to my new office. This was after working for close to two and a half years at my first job.

Not too many things have changed, and I would essentially be doing the same things. However, this time I would also be working towards getting the business started from scratch, and hence there are additional challenges in the role. In the earlier role, everything was in place before I had joined, and hence the operational bit was quite smooth. Lets see how this pans out – would know a great deal more by the end of 2009.

Change is always good, and one should always take on fresh challenges. I realized I was getting too comfortable in my job, and didn’t really think too much about ways to generate more and more money. I think that was the prime factor which made me think about the switch – I need to be on the edge to think of ways to increase the P&L. If that is not happening, then there is something wrong. There are so many opportunities in the market place, with so many changes taking place. And the market remains inefficient, so there is plenty of money to be made.

It also gives me an opportunity to know a lot more people than I would have otherwise known. There are a lot of college seniors working at the new place, and over the course of next few weeks, I should get to know them better.

The Theory of Relativity

2009-10-07T01:29:00.001+08:00

Everything in the world seems to be relative. When I was a small kid, the dreams were also very small. Ok, not so small, but decently small. As I grew up, everything kept changing in relation with the environment. And as things stand today, the aspirations have also become bigger.

In my school days, I used to dream of going to Europe. Not that I knew too much about the place, but somehow it was always my dream destination. I wanted to travel Europe on road. I still haven’t achieved this, but this no longer remains my dream. The dreams are now very different, and much bolder. I want to travel all around the world, and want to see the important events across the globe.

Happiness is also proving to be a relative commodity. I had initially thought that I would be very happy as I had travelled to a couple of countries in Asia. However, whenever I look at my friends travelling to more exotic locations, suddenly my happiness vanishes. And I’m left with an empty feeling of being left behind. In an absolute sense, I should be happy, and one trip per year seems reasonable. However, on the relative scale, I am very far behind my friends. Most of them have travelled more than two continents, and I still haven’t been able to add to the tally I was born with.

I wish we didn’t have such feelings, and we would be able to enjoy the life in absolute terms. It would be much more enjoyable that way.

The Last Days

2009-09-17T02:36:00.001+08:00

I wrote this poem more than 4 years back – during my last few days at IIT. For some reason, I have come back to read this after every two years since then. And even though most of the things don’t hold true anymore, I always seem to connect with this one:

Silence haunts me today
Emotions follow the path of betrayal,
Hope and sorrow, joy and pain
All juxtaposed on one heart

I can feel the winds, blowing through the two doors
In my room, facing each other, opened
Helped in their movement by the fan above
Colliding across my body in the middle

The end is always gloomy
There is no such thing as a happy partition
Conscious and semi-conscious minds on the roads
Endless treats and confessions and proposals

The moment is here, very close
When it all ends, life restarts
When you badly screw up your life,
You only need to format it, destructively

Old bonds broken, no strings carried forward
Ties snapping, emotions unreflected back
Present lived against the past
Past forgotten for the future

Waves in a string, all starting at a point
Some getting high, some keeping low
All enjoying life for a wavelength
And then, culminating into a node

A node, the destiny for all
The brightest and the dullest
All getting into the black hole
Getting lost, and forgotten, forever

Why there is no word called ‘Bear-sh*t

2009-08-29T14:13:00.001+08:00

To start with, let me put the disclaimers first:

1. Normally I don’t talk about markets in this blog, reserving it for the other one. However, this thought came to me on a lazy Saturday morning while sipping a cup of tea, and hence I thought it qualified for being put here.

2. I have a very strong belief that most of the asset classes in the world always trade at a premium over their fundamental value – defining fundamental value as what people would earn if they indeed keep the asset till perpetuity. I have a term for it as well – the ADR phenomenon. It goes like this – any ADR can anytime be converted into the underlying stock, and hence the value of an ADR will seldom fall below whatever an investor can earn by buying the ADR and then immediately converting that into stock. So, ADRs most of the time trade at a premium to the intrinsic price of the underlying share. The price of the stock here is the ‘Opportunity Value’ of the ADR – which could be derived any time the investor wants to. The same rational goes for the stocks or any other asset class – they always trade at a premium over what people can earn by holding them to perpetuity (their “Opportunity Value’). Only in times of deep recessions and market crashes do they trade below their values. So, more than 80%-90% of the times there is a bubble in the market.

Now building on my belief about the perpetual asset bubble in the world, any rational person would most of the time expect the market to correct (looking deeper into the terminology here – market falls are called ‘correction’, while the rise in markets are given terms like ‘bubbles’, ‘frenzy’, and ‘euphoria’). So, there is an inherent bias in the market where more people always believe that markets should fall. Whether they expect the fall to happen immediately or later is where the opinion differs, but they are all united in their belief that they are over-valued. There seems to be slight sophistication in thinking ‘Bearish’ – anyone who thinks markets would keep on rising is termed a naive retail speculator, whereas anyone who can substantiate a market fall is an ‘Economist’ or a ‘Trader’. So much are the professionals in the field biased against the bulls that they have named the ultimate description of crap as ‘Bull-sh*t’.

So, little wonder that all the ‘E’s and ‘T’s of the world are united in terming the latest rally as overdone, and are predicting another crash to happen ‘any moment’. No one likes a rising market – anyone can make money there. The dumbest of people end up making the most mullah in a bull market – as they don’t have the slightest of fear about a market fall. If one was born in US in the last 1970s, and discovered their senses in mid-1980s, then he/she saw was an ever rising market. How on earth would someone explain him/her that markets could fall as well. They were living in a ‘fool’s paradise’. NNT also warned against the bull markets, and bought deep OTM options – in the full knowledge that markets one day would fall big, and he would make a killing. He did make it, but that came after years of painfully watching the market move up, and seeing all his options expiring worthless (he did get all his money back, but that was from the sale of his books, rather than from the markets). No one ever loses everything in the market – either you make money, or you learn.

In the end, everyone is right about it – but seems that if you do not think about it too much, you are right on more occasions than the rational thinkers. You might lose everything you made in just one bad year, but then, its the same with the other side as well. So next time an expert warns you against a crash, just tell him that you would rather lose money in a couple of crashes, than being worried about it for all your life. And for all the ‘bears’ in the world, there is one simple answer - ‘Ignorance is Bliss’.

IT Returns and Bills

2009-08-01T15:35:00.002+08:00

Now I’m relatively at peace with myself. Somehow I lose it when there are too many pending things, specially things which are out of my control. Now, I have settled quite a few of things which were nagging me.

One of these were the IT-returns. Even though the process is decently simple, the complicated part was getting in touch with the CA, and then getting all those photocopies and bank statements. It was getting nightmare-ish for me to get everything at one place, and so I decided to do away with the CA. I think it makes much more sense to file your returns yourself (much like my belief that people should invest their money themselves, rather than going through consultants and mutual funds – more on that in the other blog).

Other disturbing things were pending utilities bills, and a fine of the Credit Card delayed payment. I absolutely hate to pay fines, for monetary as well as disciplinary reasons. More so in this case as I had actually made the payment on time, and for some reasons the payment failed, and they had reversed the transaction in my account a couple of days later which I didn’t check. So, I had to fork out a fine of Rs 600 on a Rs 800 bill. I find this completely outrageous – and the funny thing is that inspite of this daylight robbery these banks lose billions every quarter :).

Went on to watch Harry Potter yesterday at IMAX, and the 3D part was absolutely amazing. I think the movie was decently good, though am still not sure if it was as good as the hype. This was my first Harry Potter movie, and even though I ideally planned to watch them in order, I realized that way I may have to watch all of them on small screen.

Would be going to watch ‘Love Aaj Kal’ tonight, and even though I don’t have great expectations from it, I just hope its a light one – ala Jab We Met. And I really like the look and feel of the movies, and this is another one with very chic set of wallpapers.

When in Joka, talk like …

2009-07-05T16:13:00.001+08:00

This is a straight rip-off from the IIMC website (http://www.jokatimes.com).

This is a short guide meant for fuchchas entering IIMC. This will help you acclimatize better to your surroundings – and will ensure you have no excuse for your linguistic shortcomings.

The Basic Ones

1. Globe (n, adj)

Used to denote the non-specificity of a certain comment. Globe typically includes statements which are true in all conditions, or statements which are vague and impertinent to the question at hand.

Usage: When the prof. asks, “What are the implications of this particular policy” an answer like “While this policy could herald a new dawn into the country’s future while there exists the possibility of it failing. A careful study needs to be undertaken to assess the pros and cons and then apt and timely decisions need to be taken for this policy to be successful”. This term can also be used as an adjective – “Yaar, Bahut Globe paper tha”

2. Bakar (n)

This is used to denote arbitrary talk mostly among friends that consumes most of the time of the residents of Joka. Bakar typically happens for the whole night particularly among jobless members of various hostels.

Usage: “Yaar, kal raat bakar karke baithe hue the”

3. Geela (adj)

Given the skewed sex ratio at IIM, this adjective is a form of putting a social price on trying to woo a member of the fairer sex. Depending on who is using it, this term would be applied to an individual who is mostly found talking to members of the aforementioned gender.

Usage: “Woh banda to confirmed geela hai” or “Aisi geeli harkatein karna chod de”

4. Aandozz/Machandozzz (interj.)

Aandozz literally means “bring it on”. Used to signal the coming of a new challenge. Machandozz is used by other people who are wishing good luck to the people saying Aaandozzz. Machandozz is also used after someone has performed commendably as encouragement. Again the number of “zzz” will indicate degree.

Usage:

“XL meet aandozzz”
“Guys, go kick their ass. Machandozzzz!”

5. Putlake(v)

Used to indicate disagreement with someone or something. Typically the guilty party is asked to be “putlaked”. Also used as a celebratory gesture to celebrate birthdays and pre-placement offers.

Usage: “Putlake Arjun Singh. He’s spoiled our entire system” or “Putlake admin”

6. Putcrack / Putfight(v)

Used as encouragement before an important event.
Usage: “Best of luck for the case. Putcrack!”

7. Fatleez(adj.)

Used to indicate a dire situation.
Usage: “yaar, merit toh class mein fatleez ho gayi hai. Kuch bhi samajh nahi aa raha”

8. Lessss(adj.)

Used to indicate how lame a particular situation/comment is. The more the number of “ssss” the more stupid it is.
Usage: “Yaar less jokes mat mar”

The Academic Ones

1. DP/CP (abbr.)

Stands for “desperate participation” and “class participation”. While classroom participation means commenting in a way which takes the discussion forward and more importantly gets you a better grade, desperate participation typically comes from a middle-to-backbencher who feels his grade is slipping away and needs to absolutely establish his presence.
Usage: “Yaar itna DP mat maar.”

2. Freerider (n)

Member of a group who shoulder little to no responsibility. Such members are soon ratted out and frowned upon by the more hard-working members of the group. The best freeriders are those who escape from being labelled as one.
Usage: “We don’t want any freeriders in our group”.

The Message Board Ones

1. CAMs (abbr.)

Stands for “Can’t Agree More”. It is used to indicate agreement with a previous statement. The more the number of trailing “sss…” the more is the agreement.

Usage:
A: “I think Sachin should’ve played the T20 world cup”
B: “CAMssssss”

2. htia(abbr.)

Stands for “hajaar thanks in advance”. To be used on the bulletin board while asking for answers to a particular question that is bugging you, or a particular software that you need.
Usage: “Does anyone know how to mail-merge in office? ~htia”

3. nsoi (v)
Stands for “enjoy”.

4. chocs and mishtis assured
Used while asking for a favour, typically as a reward for lost things on the bulletin board. This is typically an area for your creative energies and you can promise other things too.
Usage:
“Guys I’ve lost my calculator. Anyone who can find it please call me!
~chocs and mishits assured”

A silent weekend

2009-07-04T14:01:00.001+08:00

I’ll be watching ‘Kambakht Ishq’ today, and going by the reviews, its promises to be a real bad one :)

Haven’t planned to do too many things today and tomorrow. Hopefully would be watching a couple of movies on the DVD as well. And also got to finish the novel which I have been dragging on now for more than a month. Will write a small review on it – since I can't think of too many things to write on it.

It raining in Mumbai, and would be a quiet weekend. Unless of course there are some last minute plans. Might give cooking a try today in the afternoon, feel like making ‘Pulao’ in this season.

Vacation

2009-06-22T01:50:00.001+08:00

I’m now in an urgent need of a vacation, and hopefully would be taking one end of July (after the expiry). And if everything fall in place, might plan a Goa trip then.

Wish-List

2009-06-07T17:56:00.000+08:00

I think the time has now come for me to re-visit my wish-list. It has been months (if not years) that I thought about things I wanted to do/own. Let me think over my five wish-list for the near future (next 3-4 months).

1. Holiday at some beach: It has been a long time since I last took a holiday, and I think I should think about getting some sooner. July might be the best time to have one as there are hardly any national/state holidays during the month :)

2. LCD Monitor: I might purchase an LCD monitor for my desktop PC, and then would watch tonnes of movie on it :)

3. Gym/Swimming: I have gained quite a few kilograms of weight in the past couple of years, and I am thinking about hitting the gym regularly. Also, swimming pool may not be a bad idea, lets see how it goes. Would know by the end of June if I'm going to do anything about it or now.

4. Driving: I need to learn driving immediately, and get a car. Am tired of the Mumbai locals as well as the cabs, and I think I should be buying a small car pretty soon.

5. Camera: I think I should buy a full function camera, which would get good pictures in all environment. My current camera doesn't get me good quality pictures in dim light and moving conditions. Need to do some research on the same. Also, this may come last in my list of priorities as of now.

Drive-Ins

2009-06-07T17:50:00.000+08:00

India is slightly strange in the sense there are no popular eating-joints where you can drive-in, stay for an hour reading some novels, surf the internet, and move out. Most of the places are overly crowded with people, and one can hardly go there alone and enjoy a cup of coffee or sandwich.

I am still waiting for the day when we would have McDonald's/'Barista'/'Cafe Coffee Day' on all the important roads, and one can stop their cars, grab a drink and enjoy some silent moments there.

New Home

2009-03-30T02:35:00.001+08:00

Its been almost four months since I wrote anything apart from the stock markets :)

I have shifted to a new home, and its much better than my previous one. I realized that I was a large premium for the location in my earlier apartment, and my work hours didn’t really allow me to enjoy the location-benefits. So, I decided to move to a slightly less-premium location.

Its been a good three and a half month in my new house. I’m almost settled with the white goods, and now just need to fill-in a couple of furniture items. However, am not in any great hurry to do the same, and hopefully as time passes it would all be done.

I’m finding life better here, living alone in a high rise building makes for good evening musings. It gives you a nice feeling just to stare out of the windows late in the night.

December 2008

2008-11-30T23:58:00.001+08:00

Nothing seems to be happening right in the whole world. We were still struggling with the worst of crisis in the economy, and then the job cuts started. All the major banks across the world announced plans to lay-off a high proportion of their workforce. And now, to top it all, we had the Mumbai Terrorist attacks. I'm not sure if things could get any worse from here.

Hopefully the end of the year would bring an end to all this. May be, it was just a bad year for the whole world, and 2009 would bring fresh hope. Barrack Obama would take over as the new President of US, and we would have a new Prime Minister in India as well.

Going back in time, I remember how things were different when we started this year. That was the peak of the bull run in India, and everyone was convinced that we were the next big thing in the global arena. People talked of 40k and 50k Sensex by the end of the year. There was only one report which predicted a downturn, but that too predicted a value of 19,500 by the year-end. Looking back, all that seems a different era all together. There wasn't a worry in the world, and everyone was minting money. Now, things have come crashing down (apart from Mumbai real estate prices). Hoping that the next year won't be another mad year.

Catcher in the Rye

2008-10-13T00:41:00.002+08:00

What do we want to become when we grow up? I have pondered long over this question till a few years back, and then stopped asking myself. Each one of us, as a child, had dreams and fantasies of becoming someone. And here we are, all lost in this world, chasing some dream we don't even know about.
Catcher in the Rye is one of the most famous books in the history, and also, amongst the most controversial as well. I was surprised to learn about the controversies though. When I read through the book, I found nothing so much objectionable. It is a story about a small boy named Holden Caulfield. He narrates the story after he has been expelled from his school, and how he spends his couple of days away from everyone. He talks at length about his family - his brothers and his sister. He describes the relationship he had with his classmates at the school, and a couple of his ex-girls. One of the better books I have read in recent times. Would suggest the book to all those interested in quality writing.

Independence Day

2008-08-17T20:19:00.001+08:00

This was an extended weekend in India, with 15th August being a holiday. This is the date when we celebrate our independence from the British empire. More than 60 years have passed since we became independent, and am not sure how good or bad we have performed. As a democracy, we have been very successful, and all the governments we have had, had been elected to power, and all the power transitions have been peaceful. However, as an economy and as a society, we haven't had the desired results.

Next day, 16th August, we had the festival of Raksha Bandhan. This is another Indian festival celebrated annually.

Tomorrow the weekend ends, and another week starts. I have had couple of pending works on which I'm running late. Hopefully would be able to complete them this week.

Go Kiss the World

2008-08-17T15:00:00.002+08:00

I recently finished reading the book 'Go Kiss the World'. The book is written by Subroto Bagchi, one of the co-founders of MindTree consulting.
Most of the books start with the important part of the story plot. For a biography, the most of important part is one's birth. That decides so many things in one's life. Here, Mr. Bagchi goes even beyond that, and starts with the life of his grand-parents. To some extent, one's destiny is largely influenced by one's family history, and values. And hence, to understand the person, its vital to know the full history.
The book then moves on to his education, and his early work life. He started working at a government office with a clerk's salary, and then went on to join DCM group in Delhi. That part of the book is really fascinating and has great lessons for everyone. Great lives need not start with a bang, and from the word Go. They happen slowly over time, and you learn from unknown sources.
Overall, a good book to read in your free time. One of the better books I have read in recent times.

If GOD was a Banker

2008-08-10T01:42:00.002+08:00

I'm quite interested in Indian writing. When I read the European and American writers describing the beautiful places and scenery, I always wonder about a native writer writing about the beautiful Indian cities. Someone who would make an outsider fascinate about the country.
Alas, most of what I have read of Indian authors, I am quite disappointed. The basic problem seems to be that no one here actually thinks writing as a viable long term career option. Most of the people just intend to publish a couple of books, and feel happy about it. And none of them is a full-time writer, all are busy with their real profession as well. Books are just another feather in the cap, something they work on in their free time. And this explains the quality of the writing.
Well, 'God must be a banker' is no different. It is just another attempt to write about one's experiences, and hasn't been given much time either. Nothing much to write about the book, its a tale of two bankers (which some people claim is a real life story) and how they grow within their company. Nice storyline, but the writing leaves a lot to be desired.

Kane and Abel

2008-08-10T00:02:00.002+08:00

There was a time when I didn't read novels. For no great reason, but just didn't read. Then one day, one of my friends (Rolly) asked me to try one of them. He gave me 'Love Story' by Erich Segal, and I did like it. I borrowed another novel from another friend named 'As the Crow Flies' and I liked it too. Later my friend told me that it was one of the worse novels of Jeffery Archer, with 'Kane and Abel' being his best. I didn't have a great pocket-money in those days, hence I never bought the book to verify.
After 6 years, I finally read the book. Well, my choice have changed a little, and I mostly read Finance and Economics books these days. Hence, it took me a long time to buy this one, and give it a read.
It's a story about two men, born on the same day, but in very different families. It narrates how both of them grows with vastly different experiences - one goes to Harvard and wins more and more scholarships, whereas the other survives the first world war, from the Germans and as the Russians. They both grow on to become rich and powerful, and somehow, start hating each other. Its a nicely written fast flowing story, and narrates the incidents from birth to death of both its characters.
For all the Jeffery Archer fans, this is a must read.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

2008-07-21T01:23:00.002+08:00

So little does the world knows about Afghanistan, and our view is solely based on the actions of a few. Most of the times we forget that there are ordinary people like us living there, who suffer more than what the US did. And yet, no one raised a finger then.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a story about a little girl, who was an illegitimate child of a rich man. However, his father never accepted her, and instead, sold her to an Old man in Kabul to send her away. It talks about all the tortures she goes through while trying to be a wife to an old drunkard.
It a beautiful story about the real sufferings in the country, and why the world should have been united against its rulers. A book worth read for everyone.

Jaane Tu.....Ya Jaane Na

2008-07-13T21:49:00.002+08:00

When was the last time I actually wrote about a movie? This should tell a lot about it.
Went to watch this movie first on 'monday' (yes, thats during the week!!!) and then again on the friday. This is a really cool movie, may be in the same league as DCH.
Its a story about two college friends, who have been the best buddies for years. Its a young, colorful movie, and is surely a treat to watch. The songs are awesome, specially 'Kabhi Kabhi' and 'Pappu can't Dance' :)

Life Otherwise

2008-07-05T14:17:00.002+08:00

Life apart from the job has been quite good recently. Have been watching almost every new bollywood release, and have been reading a lot of good books as well. Apart from the weather and traveling, have got quite comfortable living in Mumbai.
Recently finished the book 'Life of Pi'. The book starts off with a family in Pondichery who looks after a zoo. Then they decide to move to Canada, and boards a ship. The ship sinks in the pacific ocean, and a small boy named 'Pi Patel' is the sole survivor. The book is about this boys journey in his lifeboat through the vast Pacific Ocean.
The book is very similar to 'The Old Man and the Sea', only much more detailed.
Overall, a good read, though I should warn that the story is very slow, and hence may not interest the fans of Jeffery Archers of the world.
Next Read: The SCAM

Why is MS the worst?

2008-05-25T01:02:00.001+08:00

What would happen if Microsoft was run on the same lines as Apple Inc?

1. US would be using Microsoft Vista in 2008, UK and other European Nations would still be on Windows XP, whereas Asia and Africa would have a choice between Windows 95 and 98.

2. Windows Vista in US would cost $400 only, and no one would be using the lower versions. In Europe, Windows XP would be available for $500, whereas Windows Vista would be available in Black Markets for $800. In Asia, Vista wouldn't be available at all. Windows XP would cost close to $1500 in black markets, and the standard Windows 95/98 would cost $600.

3. All the users would only be allowed to watch movies on Windows Media Player, and the moment they download any other player on their machines, their guarantee would be void. Also, the Media Player would only play .MPG and .DAT files. One would still have options of downloading the codecs, but again at the risk of voiding the guarantee.

4. The users would be able to access broadband only from a selected list of service providers. The machine would be disabled to work on other networks.

5. None of the standard Keyboards and Mouse would work on the machine. If the normal keyboards have 70-80 keys, the OS would be designed so as to work with a keyboard with 90 keys. And these keyboards would be supplied by only MS certified suppliers.

6. One month after you buy your machine, that would no longer be available in the market. It would be replaced by a more sleazy and better looking machine.

7. None of the spare parts would be available from the market. So the only two choices would be - (a) Pay 50% of the cost of new machine to get any spare part, or (b) Get a new machine itself.

And everyone blames/fines MS for being monopolistic.

The City that was Bombay

2008-05-19T00:58:00.001+08:00

When the British left India, Calcutta was perhaps one of the most happening City in India. It had a great history, scholarly people and one of the best literacy rates in the country. 60 years after independence, Calcutta is dead. It was replaced by Kolkata, and that represents everything that went wrong with the City. You might ask what's in a name? Well, there is nothing in the name, and that is the whole problem. Whenever a City's name is changed, the following things are at play - (1) The government is bad enough to develop the state, and hence it resorts to these kick-out-English-in-comes-Hindustani stunts, (2) The government is also playing the regionalism game here by using a name in local language, and hence creating a vote bank of locals for the themselves, even at the cost of their state being branded anti-nationalist and against the unity of the country, (3) It is a symbol of one's preference of locals over cosmopolitans. And these are the reasons why Kolkata could never match Calcutta irrespective of all the efforts by the IT Czars and the government.

Some people refuse to learn from history and Bombay is forced to make way for Mumbai. Bombay is everything that represents India's advancement in Finance and Industries. Once it is dead, Mumbai would never be able to match the splendor of the City. Mumbai would become another Kolkata, a City known for its monuments, and traditions, a City that is a must visit who wants to see the India's glorious past, a City from the history books rather than from Business Magazines, a City that would stop its growth, and put all its energies into preventing its decay. And once it decays, it would be known as another Antique City.

So where does this leaves us? This leaves a scope for another City to come forward, this leaves a room for another Shanghai to leapfrog Beijings of the World. And the City which might take the lead would be Delhi, for the simple reason that it has been known as Delhi for more than 60 years. I am surprised that no other State has taken the lead to call all the companies that are reeling under political pressure and sky-high rentals in Mumbai. It makes sense to pay even exorbitant amount in a City for the future, but not Mumbai. Mumbai is being pulled back by its political class, and its only a matter of time when it joins Kolkata.

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

2008-03-21T00:15:00.001+08:00

On Nikhil's recommendation, read the book 'Reminiscences of a Stock Operator'. Its a real life story of a very successful stock trader who practiced the habit of tape reading. It a story based set in the begining years of 20th century. Its a story about the legendary trader Jesse Livermore, and how he made and lost fortunes on the wall street. There were numerous instances when he lost all his earnings on the street, but everytime learnt something from the mistakes.

The book more than anything else stresses on the art of tape reading. The trader here concerns himself only with the story told by the tape. He sites innumerable stories of great traders, one of them I would never forget.

One day a very close friend of Livermore came to him and passed a tip that some Mr. XYZ was buying all the suger in the market, and he too should buy as there might be some good news expected on it. He added that Mr. XYZ was literally grabbing all the suger contracts available. Livermore, instead of buying, gave an order to sell 10000 lots. He waited for the fill, and after getting the fills, gave orders to sell 10000 lots more. His tipster was baffled, but he was calm. All the offering was gone in a second. Then he gave the order to buy 50000 lots. As he explained later, by selling 10000 lots twice, he was just testing if the information was correct. If he was able to sell everything without moving the price at all, it meant that someone was ready to buy everything at the market price. He tested it twice, and once convinced, bought the largest stake he could have afforded.

Its really a wonderful book, and anyone aspiring to be a good trader should read it atleast once.