Hour Wise Day Foolish

    
Trying to save a few hours to devote for something very critically important, i end up spending a full day tending the wounded soul of a good friend. 

Man thinks of his monumental blunders in contrast to his spectacular achievements - what lies between these extremes is the daily life. This is better brought out by Schopenhauer "Opinion obeys the same law as the swing of the pendulum: if it goes beyond the center of gravity on one side, it must go as far beyond on the other. It is only after a time that it finds the true point of rest and remains stationary". 

Not sure if an hiatus would ever work, i am back. Taking a Miltonian approach '...they also serve who only stand and wait' 

Hiatus

           
Examples i could cite you more;
But be content with these four;
For when one's proofs are aptly chosen
Four are as valid as four dozen.
                                                    MP

Am taking a short break from blogging - have some urgent work to focus upon.  As  i mentioned sometime ago, have taken many things for granted in life. No better time than now to prioritize!! 

Desires

   
Not to set foot on the moon or go anywhere beyond my means and milieu, but visit these places near Bombay;

Insanity

     

People who go insane find in insanity a feeling of importance they were unable to achieve in a world of harsh realities. Not everything is always fair. In life, no man can be utterly impartial. Personal preferences, public taste, subconscious bias, enter into any decision or choice he makes.  I have always loved this quote "Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not".

      

Well Connected Dots

                                        
My wife must have been taking me for an unemployed and possibly to motivate me, she gifted me this book - "Connect the Dots" by Rashmi Bansal .

I hardly read. Many years ago i made a new year resolution that i will not read others' works because that would kill my thinking power.  When you read and follow, the other person does the thinking for you. 

And lately, have been so focused in my trading career that nothing interests me that is not about a new trading technique. That needs to change. Obsession kills. People are often ruined in the side of their strengths. 

This book is a good collection of short essays about successful people who have made it to the top all by themselves. By their exemplary entrepreneurial skills. That way, it complements my belief in life - nothing succeeds like hard work. 

Thanks Deeps!!

Drugs, Accidents, Scandals and Sports

                            

I could have plainly written CWG as this much anticipated sports event that could have been the simplest way to showcase our heritage and growing clout as a super-power gets underway. If not strictly in that sequence, the keenly awaited sports event in the capital is suffering a dress rehearsal like the caption.

First we had reports on corruption. Then the ban on athletes suspected of drug abuse. A bridge collapse. Floods. Sting on security (where in the world can this happen). Overseas athletes pulling out. What more to come.. If you pen down all these incidents on a piece of paper and tried to link it to a country or center, India could hardly have been the name. But it is.

We Indians lack pride. Scams and scandals are interwoven in the fabric of our society. Corruption and embezzlement is a way of life for some. But could we all not have rallied together to support a super event like this. I don't know if it is an irresponsible way to react but i strongly deplore the role of the media (i am sure  many reporters currently covering the Delhi Floods will be thoroughly disappointed if Yamuna doesn't cross the 410m mark). Like the ignorant grandma, i will have to sit through the next few weeks with prayer on lips and beads in hand.

Like a  popular new channel kept flashing, it is Common Wealth Games and not Commonwealth Games.

On Being Advised

                    

'Take the pace of a royal elephant and don't mind a few barking dogs alongside' I got this piece of advice from one of my mentors. That was a very powerful advice. How many people would you come across that takes serious interest in others' welfare. 

When i probed him why he said what he said, he further advised. 'One of the wonders of the world is that obviously intelligent people make elementary but serious errors in thinking'. That was a bit confusing for me as he was talking about intelligent people and we were only two of us.

Whatever, it makes us feel good when we are cared for.  Read this somewhere on bringing up children 'They may forget all you said. They will never forget how you made them feel'. How profound!

Thus Spake...

  
News Item :"India’s Planning Commission watched ‘Peepli Live’ to gauge the common man's perception of major government programmes....."

Was that a fashion statement or is it  possible that the Planning Commission's secretariat has been moved to Washington after 26/11.

Should we then exhort the film producers' guild to produce more movies on social issues so that the decision maker is able to get a glimpse of realities. 

Economic Chicanery

News Item: "The US recession had ended in June 2009......."

Was it on the 19th of June 2009 at 0847 hours EST?



ps: why am i so critical today - moodswings, perhaps!!
   

Dabang

Torture to a troubled mind - if cinema is a source of providing you escapement and relief from life's travails, it can sometimes add to your miseries, too.

Had so much of expectations (didn't actually read any review) that i wanted to sit through another 'GangaJal' kind of experience. Perhaps my preference for such surrealism  was driven by a need to puncture a society that was deceit laden.

Whatever, the movie appeared to be a remix of Quick Gun Murugan. Re-recording, the sole plus point. A talent like Mahesh Manjrekar is thoroughly wasted.

  

Toast of Twenties - Sensex at 20k again!

  

Not just cricket, even the stock market index in India has a date with Twenty.

Sensex scales the 20 thousand mark yet again.

The previous time it covered this handle, it was with tremendous momentum and large divergences. This time around, the move up has been by and large a slow grind and seemingly sustained.  And no divergence in key momentum indicators except in the dailies. But beware the ides of September. If i had my trading portfolio, i would be looking to book profit and square up. No one died taking profits.

Valuation-wise, one-year forward PE at around 21 for the Sensex is way ahead of the rest of the investment destinations and any investment decision, therefore,  needs to be tempered with caution.

An Astrologer's Moment

     
Like all traders, who are as good as their last trades, here is a moment of glory for the astrologer in yours truly.  Sometime back (Jan 25th to be precise) someone asked me what the future held for him in his career and if he will buy fixed assets, and showed his birth chart for analysis. Not someone to let go an opportunity like that in my spare time, i had a look at the chart (printed below) and said something like what follows:

• Will certainly invest in a fixed property
• Will win lottery
• Will suffer unexpectedly large losses in investments
• Will adopt a baby (as opposed to giving birth)
• Not to lend, be vigilant
• Will change job
• Will move to distant places
• And a few other personal delineations

Very surprisingly, the person writes back to ask what are the chances of me being wrong in the last three, more precisely the penultimate two.  Apparently he has lived to realize the first 5. Like all beneficiaries, he is yet to give his fees (usually Re 1) and details of how the first 5 materialized.
 

The biggest mystery for me is how is it  that astrology fails or is totally off-mark on some occasions (belonging to the half-glass full race!!). If i had a way to unravel that, life would be on a different plane, ain't it?

  

Reactions

       

Human reaction to an event is almost always similar through generations i suspect.

Had an experience recently of a mishap - where there was an incident, a perpetrator or two for sure, a handful of witnesses and a dozen odd self-proclaimed sleuths whose purpose in life was to die in Page 3. While the real incident or its fate is of little consequence, i am reminded of another entry in my old book.  I had written this some 21 years ago when i happened to see my couple-friend burn to death, alive. That was the goriest of anything i will ever get to see.  If their death was an irreparable loss to me, the trauma of handling public reaction and gossip was monumentally difficult - merely because i was present there or solitarily privy to their lives.

Extract from my diary against 2nd April 1989.

.......This is what happens when there are some witnesses to any incident - each one waits for another person to make the first move and then a collective paralysis sets in. A majority of them tries to pretend that nothing has happened or at any rate, there is nothing they could have done to prevent it and there is the minority Sherlock Holmes tribe that is looking to pillory anyone that was an inconvenience anywhere anytime. In the end, everyone gets everything but the real facts...

The Joy of Giving

Yes,  i am borrowing that phrase from a  legend.  Imitation is the best form of admiration. One of my bosses used to say 'we should give back to market what it gives us - liquidity'. Great thought.  I have always yearned to spend life in backward areas, teaching children. My present responsibility of having to support a few lives around me and the wafer thin bank balance are big deterrents. So what... I have someone with me who does this work with passion. Yet to get full-time into this, her sporadic effort is indeed something that i would want to emulate. 

Even if one of the above becomes educated, the mission is a success.

On a related note, i found this piece about education absolutely brilliant - again from my book and quite likely a straight lift.

Education is a companion

No misfortune can depress

No clime can destroy

No enemy alienate

No despotism enslave

At home, a friend

Abroad, an introduction

In society, an ornament

And in solitude, a solace...

How true

 

The Indian Rupee

 

Having started trading currencies in early 90s, i had the opportunity to quote Indian Rupee as a 100-unit base- currency. A Rupee trader is a rare commodity and a good rupee trader is rarer. For all those tracking rupee market over the last many decades, there are a number of milestones. Those twin devaluations, then the LERMS - which was the most messy part of life - and finally the real liberalisation process, we have come that proverbial 'long way'. Rupee is now talked about by everyone globally. I had always wanted to know how currency trading, rupee especially, was like in the 60s or 70s or even 80s but even google doesnt throw much light. Got this interesting data on how the rupee has moved in the last 37 years.

(These are average rates for the year - by courtesy of Forecast-Chart)

The Economy

   
RBI hiked yet again - this time the hike also tantamounted to a narrowing of the LAF corridor. It could be too early to think that  it is the beginning of a regime that would ultimately lead to a single policy rate and the re-emergence of Bank Rate as a signal rate. The decision to hike was logically compelling and it goes to RBI's credit that it yet again demonstrated its independence on monetary matters. From a market perspective, this could well be close to a last in the series of hikes as we may have reached  that vague theoretical 'normalisation' level. Normalisation of rates is much like the poverty-line concept of those days. We used to joke in our college days that the best way to move more people above poverty line is to lower the very line itself.

The next moves from now on should be on CRR or other tools that impact liquidity directly. With Credit to Deposit ratio showing appreciable downturn, policy transmission  gains that much more traction  by fair-pricing of liquidity.

Creative Relationships - Do they work?

  
There are stories galore of a pair or a group of people working together and being successful  while there are equally distressing stories of brothers falling apart. Be it business or any walk of life, how do two people - who would otherwise be perfectly capable and talented in their own ways - explode into brilliance while working together.. I have tried to understand the chemistry of this human behaviour in my disarranged reading habits. Finally some success..

The article offers an excellent insight into the psychology of collaboration. Was so impressed by the subject and the author's other works, am inclined to post it here.

The Link:  http://www.slate.com/id/2267004/pagenum/all/

A Day to Remember

My Best Friend celebrates her birthday today.

I wouldn't be whatever i am today if not for her intervention in my life. That was one of the few divine interventions i would cherish most.

The best way i can describe this great soul is to borrow from Lord Byron " Beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity - All virtues of mankind without his foibles" . God Bless you mate.

The Inner Voice

Hxkdkdj  bkieie@3   7yhxbf  Tm  @&&&@ nbsbsdf mkdo Ahdkk  eheek d  jekwow hbie e  ejjeiei 21&^%  audkleq dk$  Lkka&  9dnwei adlsk  unhg@  pnbhg$  kimn ghuy$  jskddee 7opmnheu &6y lkji,mn  amd . ow hbi ieisbsdf mkd.

No,  that’s  not a coded message for someone. It is one of  my sophisticated  methods to vent out my frustrations and disappointments.

All of a sudden the new blog address is drawing more attention and I am getting some valuable suggestions alongside lots of questions. Some are also angry with me.  Isn’t it true that man would  forgive most things if he knew the facts.  I also want to state this blog is not a forum for public debate – it’s my mind’s jotting pad where my thoughts and my thoughts alone find some form of expression.

My focus is also a little different these days. For a large part of the last decade I had taken many things for granted. I suppose that life has it's own way of reminding us not to take anything for granted. So it has  now my fullest  and singularly undiluted attention. 

A Fusion to remember

  
I have often turned away from such 'ensemble' albums whenever i visit music stores.  Partly due to a fear of suffering a cacophony and partly due to my ignorance to appreciate, much less understand, jazz or any of the fusion forms.

This sabattical helped me listen to a performance by Rajesh Vaidya on Veena to the accompaniment of  a few brilliant players on keyboard and drums. Charukesi and Valachi were treated with such intricate brilliance that i wondered how he managed to tight-rope walk the nuances of Da Sa and Sa Da Pa when playing the latter. Malayamarutham and Valachi are often gray areas for me but today the subtlety was brilliantly  discernible..

Rajesh is really a master in his own way. And am glad to realize that he played Veena for a music album i helped bringing out some 12 years ago!!

Random Thoughts

The mind is sometimes a seething cauldron. Could well be because human beings judge a dilemma in life according to the mental fabric they are made of. Their own upbringing and their personal experiences in life often colour their judgement and a rational view most often becomes a rarity – rather a psychological impossibility. 

I am fighting hard to recollect a few events of a none-too-distant past. In a muddled mind, it’s a mental warfare. Memories are like candles in a dark room – no more than tiny spots of brilliance which, when viewed through the lens of time, darken, distort and grow dimmer.

The beauty of someone fighting for truth is that he wins either ways. If the ruler concedes his demand, the cause of truth is advanced and therefore he wins. If the ruler does not, the truth of what he has been saying about the ruler is established further (this is from my book - not sure if it is my original work)

A correction that is overdue

  

Stephenvita has this nice article about how markets display prolonged periods of oversold state and how if a fat tail takes hold, these metrics lose value. Dow index has more than 90% of its stocks above the 10 day moving average and at year's high.

On a less related note, there is a great article Habits of Mind by a great mind that calls itself Without Geometry, Life is Pointless. Please read on - it is still work in progress and some of my learned colleagues can contribute too..

  

Depressed and Depression

   

Happened to read a good article by Paul Krugman where he compares the Japanese economy of the 90s to the modern day US economy and goes on to explain how the former is somewhat depressed but not in depression. Appears to be  an exercise in semantics to the uninitiated but there is a whale of analytical truth between the two. 

This is said about man - 'the reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man'.  It could well become true of economics and the path of prosperity

 

The Road to Success

Many years ago i wrote a nine-point collection of what contributes to success in career, in my diary.  Reproducing this along with a review of where i am in that chain.  On a scale of 6, these are my personal ratings of how i have evolved over the years..

Parameters                                        My Rating

Do Excellent work	5
Become Visible	2
Present the right Image	3
Avoid Deadwood	1
Control Information/resources	3
Develop good relations	1
Be Mobile	3
Help your boss succeed	4
Find a Sponsor	1/2 (or0.5)

Must have terribly failed in the last one, while overly focused on the first .  Well this is  just my view - don't i enjoy that bit of constitutional right to be prejudiced and opinionated!!

  

Friends

                                  
I have only a handful of friends. I take considerable  time to get closer to anyone  but when i do it becomes doubly difficult for me  to move away. The best thing about my friendship is i am  rarely or rather hardly in regular touch with these closer ones - but we have never missed each other ever. Much like a mother - never visible but always available.

MVR - We studied together between my first and fifth grade. Till date he remains my role model. If anything, i am always intimidated by his simplicity. And he is  now such a towering personality that i have to be intimidated for more reasons.

GK - My love for music and the ability to understand music in its technical form was nurtured by this great soul. He is a different person - a great talent and has a tremendous future ahead. Will surely track him.

MGS - Another one in the GK mold and a living example of how hard work and perseverence can take someone to great heights. If simplicity is his virtue, piety is his strength.  He would always remind  me of my favorite theme "you cannot ignore talent". Well done MGS.

GD - The easiest way to describe this person is he combines something of everyone above minus the experience in formal education. As irony would have it, he has not gotten due recognition in life although everyone needs him for some reason or the other.

KS - It is said 'the hands that help are holier than the lips that pray'. But what do you call a person who is blessed with a pair of hands that is always helpful and lips that has only prayers for others' peace. Faith manifests in many forms. If anything, this person personifies the power of faith.

Will soon come up with a second in this series...

A Clearly Confused Mind

Sometimes i suffer from clarity of confusion. Sounds abstract? Well, it could. Wish i had a better explanation. Probably life is an art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises!  Whatever,

Man never knows precisely what is right

So, torn between a purpose and a doubt

He first makes windows to let in the light

And then hangs curtains up to shut it out

Horizontal vs Vertical Money (Credit vs Cash)

While i do read a lot of economics i consider it sacrilegious to  harm anyone with my economic philosophies as i am myself a beginner and  a perpetual learner.

One recent article that interested me a lot is the quarterly BIS report. Not just quite topical., it offers an excellent perspective into the phenomenon of debt implosion and some of the references to the current US policies are most apt (do i enjoy that freedom of speech to even comment on a  BIS publication!!).  For someone who is an inveterate believer in the occurrence of another Great Depression like life-and-times (unless fiat currency system is banished), this report gives me a kick that i may not be wrong, afterall. Please read on..

http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1009.pdf

   

Humor in Press

    

A leading financial daily carries this headline story about some alleged irregularities on forex remittances on behalf of a cricketing body. Nothing wrong. What is humorous is this ..

"...  Under FEMA norms, advance remittances worth more than $500,000 (INR 2.34 Cr) made by an Indian entity for any current account transaction, requires RBI's prior approval. Current accounts are maintained to run the day-to-day business of an organisation".

The correspondent had the same treatment for anything that was 'current account'.
 

The Zen of a Key Decision

     
If you call this a good decision, you oppose its reality.
If you do not call it a good decision, you ignore the fact.
Now what do you wish to call it?
   

Three Mistakes

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Everyone does commit a mistake or  two now and then. The beauty of life is in remembering these 'slips in the course', avoiding them  and carrying on with optimism. I am not about to mention the mistakes of my life - i would require a week of dedicated typing to list them. But i do have some lessons to share:

• Never Trust Anyone - beyond a point, everyone has his/her self interest to look after and my trust in someone is always going to have its shelf-life depending on the trusted one's circumstances
• Never fall in Love with your Organisation - An organisation, by and large, is an assemblage of people and processes and we (i mean the many Is like me) are afterall time-sensitive finite components where each of us has a pre-destined purpose to serve. An organisation cannot emote - its action is often guided by its many stewards. Do your duty with passion but remain dispassionate.
• Never Protect a Laggard - This is best explained by an analogy: 'He exerted the perverse power of the weak. The greater his troubles, the more support he demanded. And received.  In any dependent relationship the protege can always control the protector by threatening to collapse'

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To The Eshwariahs with Love

.

If there has ever been a phenomenon on earth it should be Mother and Teacher. I must consider myself fortunate to be living with such noble phenomena in these fast-paced, rat-raced dog-eat-dog times where humility and integrity are way behind in the long queue of ingredients for success.

I take this moment to salute all my teachers who are completely responsible for whatever little success i achieved in life. The fact that i still remain a Reluctant Guru is purely my effort - possibly my teachers did their best to take this horse to water but never could make it drink!!

It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly. And it is yet another of those foibles of human mind to judge others. We often judge the teaching profession by its ability to turn morons into marvels. That is the biggest casuistry of all. A teacher is someone who shows the path. For those in the habit of trekking, you would come across guides - a teacher is much the same. He knows what and where the goal is and his role is confined to showing us the path. It is up to us to either reach there, improve over that or digress and fall astray.

In my student life, i have been singularly fortunate to have come across some great minds.  Never after pelf or pride, these selfless living Gods have contributed to the society much more than  my batch of 1988 could ever have!! 

Thanking all the teachers who helped shape me into a  humble and responsible human being, an ever grateful son, a sincere husband and a caring father. There is still a long way to go....
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Lord's - An Ignominy in Waiting

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I had nearly resolved not to write about cricket, astrology and movies - not because i understand their technicalities better but just because there are a million other things on earth to write about - but the latest scam surrounding Butt's team is threatening to bury the game at the same place it was almost born. Not many would know of a Grace or an Ackermann.  Lindwall and Larwood are part of Google's repository. The history about Lord's as cricket's mecca (to borrow a cliche) would soon join the ranks of East India Company among the modern day whizkids. And none of that is my concern. So please read on..

The issue that bogs me down is how come one frustrated human being turns a demi-approver and starts implicating the sources of her defeatism. Am speaking about a Veena who now is the fountain-head of all truths relating to a damning scam.  True, the Butts and the Asifs of the world found it easier to earn by stooping down to extents not generally seen in sports but isn't there a Limitation Act of sorts for anyone to turn into a bastion of honesty! What was the lady doing when she was enjoying the sun and beaches of Bangkok. Would she still have said these if her life was normal and colourful.  Still, that's only a smaller issue.

Will we react in the same manner if someone said that Bedi deliberately bowled donkey drops to Zaheer Abbas when the latter scored 274 a few decades ago, just because he was promised three nights and two days at his choicest hotel in South Mumbai.  As i wrote a few days ago, the incentives to be morally upright is far less today in our society. The unlucky ones get caught and the lucky ones get to preach. Still, however, these are less important aspects.

What is important to me is restoring Test Cricket its coveted status.  Don't bother if attendance is low during test matches. Don't we sometimes watch Golf on TV?  Well, my appeal is will anyone join me in "Save Test Cricket" campaign and light a million candles to cleanse Lords of the ignominy inflicted on it by a few lesser ethical souls.  Wally Hammond's square cut, Colin Cowdrey's cover drive and Randall's antics in the centenary ashes-test are as precious as the Big Ben.

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Remembering "The Fallen Idol"

I am not too sure if it is "The Basement Room" or "The Fallen Idol"  but Greene's classic story is worth recounting for its simplicity and suspense. 

This one is an intriguing story that is narrated as an insight  into the world of a  young boy who thinks their cook, whom he idolizes to a fault, has committed a murder. To complicate matters the boy has also seen the cook with a young damsel, who in the words of the  cook is his niece. In trying to keep the  cook’s secrets, the boy makes everything more complicated.  He tries to guard his secrets but ends up telling them. He bluffs to protect, even though he knows he should tell the truth. He resolves not to listen to adults' stories any more.  Secrets and lies become the dominant themes of his young life….

 Greene indeed at his best.  The boy is shown as the son of a diplomat, who gets his life's only attention and care from the cook. If one understood Greene's tormented childhood, one would find a root of his earlier days in each of his brilliant work.

Some years ago the story was supposed to be morphed into a movie with the same title  but my record of hollywood-watch is atrociously poor so not sure if a movie ever was made. 

Am a big fan of R K Narayan, who himself acknowledges Graham Greene as one of the best of this century. Suddenly finding this new-found interest in Greene's works.

ps: This post would rank as my most troubled effort - a dozen times i have tried to write, re-write, edit, change the font, change the font-size and out of frustration finally moved the entire text to a word document to perform my surgery  - only to discover the title stands miles away from the body!!  We wander about like cardboard symbols through a world that is paper-thin (that's a straight lift!!)

Whither the Rupee - An occassional commentary on financial markets

  

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. ..

The above statement gleaned during a random read prompted me to look at the currency markets - and some basic economic data - to understand if we are about to move into a new trend. Or it is just another fight  between various forces in administration and regulation that shams as a trend and dies down under the weight of political priorities.

The trade policy for 2009-14 doesn't provide great insight. Nor do the projections of an estimated $125 billion trade deficit. The short term relief lies in managing the deficit via the Capital account - and the success of this strategy ironically is predicated on a shun-the-developed-markets and move-to-growth-economies theme among investors. With some Fed members already clamoring for another round of expansionary policy-line, there is some hope of another global financial market crisis or a prolonged slowdown across majors. And therefore, possible surge in capital flows into India. What is not clear is how this will pan out against an inflation fighting central bank. Sequencing of policy moves could do the trick.

Moving to the main item, Rupee looks vulnerable for now. Current account deficit (i would rather avoid trade deficit as it is a narrower benchmark) to GDP could well scale the handle-4 and that indeed is  an ominous event. I was a big fan of the sell rupee (and buy dollar) trade idea most of the times this year and that could come to pass. We should be prepared for a sustained rupee weakness in the months ahead.

Call it coincidence - rupee just got its new symbol and must probably be the fifth currency in the world of economics to get that coveted honor. And the crystal-ball gazing fraternity must soon be wondering if there was some bad vastu around its curves that makes rupee weaker. Much similar to the new bull that was installed in front of BSE a few years back and how much flak it drew for the sensex crash during those days!!