An Update on Life

It has been ages since my last post...something which I deeply regret. A lot of things have taken place in the past year, which I assume would have changed me and my perspective. I regret not blogging regularly so I could look back figure the change in thinking. Anyway, better late than never I guess.

Most people have a fascination towards the world of finance nowadays. I too am a part of that lot. And to satisfy my curiosity, off late I have been trying to discover the secret knowledge that everyone my age is looking to seek - to have an idea of what it is that these movers and shakers actually do. And have I? To some extent yes. But the funny part of discovering things is that you always want to know more... and there are more questions to ask than answers to give, aren't there? And so it is these new set of questions that I'm now pondering over.

The world of finance is undoubtedly complicated, exciting, highly mathematical and relationship based at the same time and very, very interesting. The risks taken are enormous, the gains and losses even more so. From the professional setup to the high profile meetings, from the millions of dollars to the bitter competition, it really is a kick for those who are of that mould. But in the past few months, there is one thing that seems missing in the whole system. And the something is empathy.

Now dont get me wrong, I love what I see. There is something about this world that just draws you in. I cant explain it, but I sure as hell can feel it. And don't assume that I'm saying the place is devoid of ethics either. Its a highly ethical industry. Well, at least the professional ones whom we associate the financial industry with are. But being ethically right sometimes does not mean being morally right. Being ethically right may not be being sympathetic or empathetic either.
Though not clearly, I now can relate to why most successful people turn toward philanthropy at the later stages of their life. The speeches by Bill Gates and the story about high profile CEO's quitting their jobs and turning to non-profit organizations make some sense now.

There are people who are ambitious and there are people who have a passion to do something for the society. And then there are those who are both. Isn't it a real challenge when your job doesn't satisfy both these aspects of your personality? I'm not talking about a situation where the job requires to do something against your principles and the likes. That would make things back and white, far too easy. The question arises when you end up in a job that is challenging, extremely satisfying, something you love to do and have a bright future with but doesn't involve other aspects of your personality. For example, say you have an amazing job that is really stimulating and challenging and you love it but it does not have an impact on the society per se, which really matters to you. Or you are doing a socially meaningful job but it doesn't have the future or career path or remuneration that you are comfortable with. I think these are the questions that will matter the most a couple of years down the line when we get out of college life and the first couple of months of earning and spending recklessly. I guess people don't really want a single thing in life. Each one of us has a certain expectation of himself, and would like to be satisfies that he is able to tap his potential to the maximum. But there are hardly such tailor made jobs and even so, then comes the question of taking the risk to make that jump from one job to another. Sometimes it may involve shifting fields, taking risks like never before.

Another thing that I noticed, something which is quite an obvious statement to make, is that theory is not the same as practice. But another observation that I made is that the difference between theory and practice can be made up for in many ways. In case it isn't, it may result on one not being successful or being just a little successful. In some cases it is made up with assumptions, based on historical data. "This had happened before so it may most probably happen again". More often than not it is made up for by learning, through books, keeping aware or through relationships(professional or personal). But the most successful and beautiful way to make up for this difference is to use all these methods and combine it with a not so common thing called creativity. And I guess most of us will agree to the fact that the more we seem to acquire knowledge and grow old, the more we also feel that we are losing our innate creativity at the same time. Its a peculiarly funny problem to which there seems to be no perfect solution. One just hopes to keep a little bit of both and make up for it with another substitute known as experience.

I have a feeling this post is going to seem like a really vague one to all of you, but its something to ponder about. I hope all of you can relate to it with your lives as well. It may make way for some really interesting introspection and discussion.

Music to my ears

Have you ever traveled in a really noisy bus. Though initially the noise pisses you off, after a while you tend to find a sort of rhythm in the noise the bus is making.

I think that is the basis of music.Patterns!
The first thing that attracts us to music is something distinct that we can identify it with. Some people love basic chords, some have a fascination for crazy guitar solos, some are suckers for an amazing voice hitting a really high note. Each one of us may have different tastes, but all the interests have one thing in common. We love a certain pattern and that is the prime reason for us liking a particular kind of music.

Why do some people like rock? I think initially everyone takes a little bit of time to adjust to rock from soft music because it takes time to identify the pattern. It takes time to get used to finding the beautiful sequences that lie buried in the heavy base and distorted chords. But once you get it, the respect you have for the inherent beauty of the creation is so overwhelming that you want to listen to more and more music of the same genre. There are some songs which get more and more addictive as you hear them, just because each time you do there is some pattern you have never heard before. The depth of the music overwhelms you, and you feel that you can associate and identify with these patterns in a manner that no one else can. That it is something tat only you and the creator of the song can understand, and that means so much. You are so thrilled at being able to identify these patterns and connect with them so much that you start un-liking the previous music you used to admire as a by product of this new found enthusiasm. And then there are those who love heavy metal, thrash metal ,grunge metal etc. The heavier it gets, the tougher the pattern is to recognise.
But the beauty of the entire thing is that it just isnt about identifying hidden patterns. Its about the music you love to listen to. Its not about whether your ears are capable of bearing the harshest music. Its about whether you enjoy it.

Whats music to ones ears and noise to another is just a matter of perspective. But this perspective is a good indicator of you, of what you are, how you feel and what you believe in. How else could one explain wy people grow out of some genre's of music and get enticed into some others as the grow. I believe it is true when one says that you can tell a lot about a person from the music he listens to. But the problem is that how you judge the person would depend a lot on the kind of music you love as well.

And so I have evolved from loving Backstreet Boys to Linkin Park, from Metallica to Iron Maiden, from Black Sabbath to Rasmus, From 3 doors down to Jimi Hendrix, from Pink Floyd to Red Hot CHilli Peppers, From Dire Straits to Bob Dylan.And I feel Ive only just begun.......

Calculating the worthiness of an individual

(Please read this most only if you like math enough to understand it and hate it enough to bear my interpretation of how it can be used)

Let us consider a situation where a person's value (I know it’s a vague term) varies from 0 to 1, where 0 stands for a guy with no morality and is despicable while 1 stands for the ideal morally conscientious guy.
Every decision a person takes would involve levels of morality and immorality, hence varying from 0 to one. Let us say we frame the system in such a way that 1 would stand for a morally correct decision where both the person as well as the persons he is affecting from the decision gain from it and all the parties are morally satisfied with the decision as well.
Once I have defined 1 in this manner, then obviously a possibility arises of a decision carrying a value of more than 1, when the person taking the decision gains nothing from it but the remaining parties do. If one thinks with this logic, if the person makes a loss, then the value would be the greatest.
The trick of playing this game called LIFE would be :
1)To have the ability to make these decisions
2)To have the ability to make decisions to affect many people hence increasing the value of the decision.
3)To make decisions so as to increase the overall value of the net effect of all the decisions at the end of the game.

The net effect could be calculated as

N.E = D1*D2*D3*D4*.........Dn
where n is the total number of decisions taken in one's lifetime.

There are certain traits that one can derive from this above formula.

1) If the value of the decisions is consistently less than one, N.E tends to 0 (for large n)



2) The only possibility of boosting N.E is if the value of D is greater than 1, i.e: when the person taking the decision gains nothing from it but the remaining parties do.



There are certain factors which affect the value of D
1) Due to empirical evidence, it is assumed that most people want to have a large value of n.
Also, most people are also influenced to a great extent by the effect of D rather than the value of D, i.e: the impact of D on the parties concerned rather than whether the value of D is lesser or greater than 1.
Also, there is a correlation with the impact of D with the consistency of D lying between 0 and 1
It has been noticed that when D lies between these limits, the impact of D tends to be stronger. However, this is true only during a certain stage of N, i.e: from the beginning to a certain value.

Considering all these factors, man seems to have evolved with time to use a time tested strategy of playing the game called LIFE.
He starts not bothering much about the value of D, but with the impact of D. Of course, there are aberrations here and there, however this is the overall trend.
At a certain n (the point is primarily dependent of how powerful the impact of his D's are, but n is generally greater than n/2); man takes a shift and starts gradually changing the value of D's to greater values. However, these too, are calculated to ensure that the decline in the impact of the D’s is not too great.
When the n is close to its upper limit( man is aware of this because there would now be considerable periods of time where he would not be able to take any D's as he would by busy with other activities, like staying alive), the value of increases greater than one significantly.

The general trend that is observed is that despite this, N.E is less than 1
However, as man relies on evolution and improvisation, most new generations just try to find the optimum points where they choose to increase the value of D. Some succeed most don’t.

The Pursuit of Happiness

It is the best movie I have seen.Ever.

Terrorism and our response to it

I was in my friends room studying for my end-semester exams in the middle of the night when I heard of some gang war taking place is in Mumbai. Then I heard something about shots being fired in the Leopold Cafe and the Trident. With my father’s office being just next to the Trident, alarm bells started ringing in my head. Only when I confirmed the safety of my parents and close friends did I come to know about the extent of how bad things really where. I couldn’t contact a friend of mine because the mobile phone service seemed to have been jammed but did receive a reply to my message which was this :
“All of us are okay. We had good for a movie near VT station, heard the gunfire and ran home”
This message told me many things, the most blatant of all the absurd normality that the word “gunfire” seems to have in the sentence. I guess I am freaked out even more as all the attacks have taken place in areas where a have lived in the past two years, where my home, my school and friends are. But I guess everyone is agreed on the fact that this is by far the most daring attempts by terrorists on Indian soil.
When the train blasts took place in September last year, the marked difference was that the people responsible wanted to escape. They had a desire to live. That itself can play a huge part in helping the intelligence agencies in foiling many such attempts. But what do you do if they just don’t care what happens to them. I am pretty sure that if I today decide that I don’t want to live and want to take down a lot of people before I go down, I could to a pretty decent job myself. How effective can an intelligence agency actually be in a country as dense, vast and different as India is? I admit I don’t know the kind of technological capabilities they have but I seriously feel it is unrealistic to be expecting much from them.
The point here is not that any one of us could have carried out acts of terrorism easily (though not of this magnitude, of course). The point is that even if we could, we wouldn’t. Because that’s the way our thoughts have been moulded. Talking tough, even acting tough cannot stop terrorism. Only thinking straight can. Even with the Pakistani governments cooperation all that can be done is apprehending those responsible. It will cause no change in the rate at which terrorists are being made out of innocent people. In fact, it may just increase the number. When we talk so much about terrorism in the Kashmir valley, we blatantly ignore the number of outfits that exist in Assam today, primarily because we cannot blame a neighbouring country for it.
And let’s face it; there is no way India can realistically hope to become a developed nation without Pakistan developing alongside. There is just too much history between the two. The more India develops and the more Pakistan faces these problems, the more will be the disparity between the people of the two countries and hence the better the opportunity for jealousy, hatred and terrorism to spawn. I am pretty sure that both the countries would have been playing opposite roles to a great extent of it was Pakistan that was developing the way India is and if it was India which was caught in a myriad of failed dictatorships and corrupt democracies.
I agree that we must be tough in our dialogue with Pakistan and must be firm in our demands and must make sure that the guilty are brought to justice. But I also think that we need to be realistic as to who would actually gain from this whole episode. I does not make any sense for Pakistani forces to be involved in it simply because they have everything to lose from this conquest .However, Pakistani nationals would seem to be the perfect people to brainwash and send to India to carry out these plans if the people behind this atrocious act seek the change in the global attention to the Indo-Pak peace process.
Barak Obama was elected the new president of the USA with propaganda of going and finishing the war on terror where it started, in Afghanistan. He is due to take his seat in the White House early next year. He has repeatedly stated that Pakistan will have to take a strong stance against the war on terror and support USA’s fight against the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Under this pressure, the Pakistani troops participating in the war have been steadily increasing in number over the year. It is interesting that this latest terrorist act comes right after Obama is elected President and right before he assumes office. In the ongoing political turmoil, the USA under Barak Obama will no doubt demand Pakistan to put in more troops to help in the war in Afghanistan to convince the world arena of Pakistan’s stance on the war against terror. If Pakistan does not comply, it would seem to the global community that they are siding with the terrorists or playing a balancing act between the two.
If India does not negotiate with Pakistan in a diplomatic manner, Pakistan will have no choice but to respond in kind. After all, it is a weak democratic government in place there after years of dictatorship. If India makes extraordinary demands out of Pakistan which they do not fulfil, the Indian government will be forced to take action in retaliation to the attacks given the elections next year. In case this happens, the world can say goodbye to cooperation from Pakistan on the war against terrorism, and the war against terrorism cannot be won without Pakistan’s aid. Initially, Pakistan will have to regroup its troops to the Indo-Pak border and sooner or later the USA will have to side with India given the global political pressures.
Once that happens, Pakistan will send all its troops as it sees fit and under the intense global political pressure will seek the support of countries and people who would support Pakistan. And finally, this will lead to cooperation with all those forces that it now stands against.
After saying all this, I surely don’t mean to say that we as citizens do nothing. If there is one thing I found stupid after the train bombings, it was the way the radio stations used to proudly comment on the Mumbaikar attitude of never letting anything affect them and the Mumbai spirit which made them get on the same trains the very next day. How stupid can the guys actually be? It’s not the spirit of Mumbai, its the desperation of the people. They have to earn a living for their families and there is nothing they can do but go on the same trains and risk their lives every day. The people who never travel by those trains and attend high class social functions call it “The Mumbai spirit” over cocktails and drinks. It is nothing but ignorance and desperation. If the terrorists want attention, I think its about time we gave them just that. But not by doing the same things that they do and definitely not by just holding the same peace marches that last for a day and lighting the same candles which last for even lesser, but by taking some concrete steps.
Having studied in a lot of schools all over India including Kendriya Vidyalaya, I have a pretty decent idea of the importance value education is actually given in education. It is not even a course that affects one’s percentage. How can one expect a student to take the subject seriously when it does not even affect his/her percentage? Instead of spending ages discussing the names of various party politicians that should be there in the history books, it is this that is screaming for attention. I do not know what we, as individuals can actually do but recently I heard about something called a professional party. The idea behind it is that it would consist of working educated professionals not part of any of the present political parties who want to get into politics to make a difference and are willing to put in the effort. I think it is an amazing cause, which even if not successful will definitely force other parties to rethink their methods of publicising themselves.
I would really appreciate more ideas on what we could individually contribute to make an impact on our united fight against terror.

Sin City, World and Life

It is 4 o clock in the morning and I have just finished watching all the episodes of the first season of SMALLVILLE in a marathon session.Prior to this I saw a documentary called Zeitgeist(an awesome thought provoking watch about which I intend to write a post soon). If anyone of ou has seen both of them then you would know the stark difference, one a teenage supernatural drama while the other a documentary on mindboggling conspiracies!

While watching Zeitgeist it dawned on me how much we don’t know about the world and how less we try to find out. And then I spent 24 hours watching all the episodes of a thoroughly mediocre television series(Season 1 that is,I plan to start the season 2 marathon tomorrow). And now, finally before I call it a day I decided to just jot down a theory that crossed my mind after this watching spree.

I think at the end of the day, people just do things to derive satisfaction out of it. And this would primarily be based on how we are brought up.For example, Lex Luthor in the series derives pleasure from doing things to prove his Dad wrong while Clark Kent does so from saving people’s lives. But at the end of the day it is the same motive everyone has.

Ethics is based on moral philosophy.It has many definitions and branches but the gist of it is that people must do things that are socially acceptable. Hence, by definition they depend on how the society is at that time.

Today it is considered good to work hard, concentrate on studies, go up the ladder and become something in life. But I don’t think that is actually true. It would be equally acceptable for a person to just get an ordinary job and have an ordinary life as long as he does to derive pleasure from being really successful. I think this is what actually is the cause of why some people are really successful and some people not.

I do not think it is mere coincidence that successful people’s kids generally end up doing decently well. They would be brought up in such a way that the thing that gives them satisfaction is to be successful.The same goes for people who are self made.They are generally brought up in such a way that there is a thirst to do something to change things. It is what satisfies their craving.

So, technically being successful, as the term is used socially does to necessarily mean going up the ladder and becoming someone. One could actually live a successful life by just being normal and living an ordinary life as long as they are conditioned and brought up to be satisfied that way.But the problem nowadays is that it is considered socially unacceptable to have limited dreams and achievable targets.

Coming back to the satisfaction theory, wouldn’t this mean that at the end of the day all of us are just looking for our own kick? Some guys work out and get their six packs to make themselves feel good, while some eat a dozen hamburgers. Some get into drugs, while others get into social service. Yet some of these are considered “good” while some “bad”. This definition of good and bad is obviously dependent on the social environment. A classic example would be how Human Rights were considered sacred in America until the twin tower attacks after which now Homeland Security has the power to arrest, search and torture any person without a warrant. This is a classic example of how “bad” can become “good”.

I do appreciate the fact that we must have certain rules to be followed for a society to become civil. But the basis of these rules has thus far been purely experimental and very bloody ( from whatever history we know). But finally at the end of the day, does it all really matter? I frankly cannot see any purpose in life other than making myself feel happy, whether to me it means making others around me feel happy or just watching a TV series alone in my room. A logical question from here would be that is it is all about satisfaction, then why do we actually even bother to go through anything that causes the opposite.

You are going to laugh when you read where I actually got a lead to the answer to this question – The movie THE DEVILS ADVOCATE (yes, I do watch a lot of movies).See, I believe that that man identified the primary things that actually satisfy him classified them into seven categories namely lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. The primary cause of why we do go through situations which do not give us pleasure is simply that we want to continuously experience all these sins. But this is where we reach a problem. It would be very tough to balance an equal amount of “sin”. For example, if one indulged in gluttony too much it would affect his indulgence in pride accordingly and hence he would stop and go through the trouble of hard work to rework his pride level. So in the end our entire life would be a task of attaining this equilibrium.

Consider a hypothetical situation where a person is brought up in such a way that the only way he can derive satisfaction is by helping people. Then that will be what he would do. Similarly,if it is by killing people. My point is not how people can be shaped so easily into doing things over the long run, but that either way why would it matter. Both would serve the purpose to the person who is doing it.

This is one of those random posts that are just supposed to be food for thought and has no conclusions. Can’t think of anything more to comment so all I’m gonna say is Good Night.

Political Debates in India?

During the past three weeks, I had the opportunity of watching the US presidential debates for the first time in my life. What struck me first, was obviously how different the system in the US works as compared with India.

Be it Obama or McCain, both the candidates have very commanding personalities. While McCain has an unbelievable track record, with serving 20 odd years in the Navy, Obama makes up with his razor sharp focus and amazing eloquence and clarity. Even though I would love to see a debate of the Indian prime ministerial candidates in the coming elections, u, it does not seem likely in the near future.Rajdeep Sardesai, a journalist from CNN-IBN whom I admire a lot, has been trying to initiate this culture in India requesting for the same but thus far these has been unsuccessful.

And unsuccessful he has been for obvious reasons. While India boasts about being a secular country, everyone knows that the primary propaganda of all parties is to reach out separately to different communities on the basis of religion. While with the BJP it is the Hindu’s, the Congress uses the idea of equality amongst religions to primarily target the Muslims and other religions. Hence, the absence of a candidate being partial to a particular sect at a debate aired throughout the nation would be catastrophic for its base voters.

The basic problem that is cited is that even when people are uneducated in the USA, there is a common language everyone understands– English. Hence, everyone can follow the debate and arrive at a decision. In India, of the educated, the people in the north speak in Hindi and are primarily weak in English. In the south it is even more divided as every state’s language is different from the others. Of course, there is the obvious solution of translating the debates in various regional languages, but somehow it is simply not considered.

Another aspect that I admire about the system followed in the USA is the focus on the topics to be discussed. The questions put forth by the press are clear, concise and cutthroat, leaving no room for error, while the answers by the candidates are equally eloquent. One of the questions which was put forth in the third debate (Obama vs. McCain) was – “Given the nature and effect of the present economic crisis, by how many years do you think the government can balance its budget with respect to debt?”.When the candidate did not give a number, the moderator quickly pressed, “Are you willing to give a specific timeframe or not?”.The beauty of the discussion was that the entire episode was extremely polite but equally firm and demanding. Is this not democracy at its best?

However, I do not think that having a prime ministerial debate would be of much help in our country just yet. The primary target audience of the debates like these is the educated middle class. The upper classes (who primarily consist of the business class) would already have decided whom they would support as they would have to be associated with politicians in order to thrive in their businesses (as these factors are of utmost importance while being in the business sector in India. For Example: The latest Tata Nano episode).T he problem is that the majority of the people who vote live in these rural areas and are uneducated. And most of the middle class in India do not vote. Hence, the political parties are just taking a logical decision when they use regional influence to obtain the votes of the uneducated. Because it works, and because they are the ones who finally go and vote!

But though the debates will not be feasible for the present elections, conducting them now may be the reason why it will be in the later ones.Debates such as these will be a investment to changing the culture of politics in India. Since the policies towards globalization and liberalization in 1991, the percentage of people shifting from the poor to the middle class is increasing at such a phenomenal rate that one can expect nearly half of India to be in the middle class bracket by 2050. The middle class would vote only on the basis of what they perceive is best for them and the country and would not buy any of the ideologies that are presently part of the political parties. Hence, the political parties will have to change their strategy as well.

But the question is, why not change NOW? The truth is that with the phenomenal growth of the middle class in the past decade, the parties should be implementing the changes right now! But they are not doing so only because the middle class is simply not voting. Ask any college undergrad about his favourite movie and most of them would inevitably name Rang De Basanti. In case of a war (for example: The Kargil War), millions of the youth will line up to stand up for our motherland. But the most important part is standing up not in times of catastrophe and radical change but ensuring that we cause the consistent and gradual improvement that our country always seem to lack. This is the primary difference between our country and developed nations and the Asian tigers. In terms of consistent growth, we have a terrible track record. We so love Sachin Tendulkar and adore the unbelievable hundreds after the 10 ducks but find the ever consistent Rahul Dravid boring (Note: I am referring to the Dravid of the 90’s).We loved the idea of massive reform is 1991 when we were at the brink of the economy’s collapse and had to pledge our gold but were mum for 50 years prior to it when the growth rate was dismal.

I think the press will have a huge role to play to bring about this change. Beautiful ideas like Lead India are definitely good initiatives in this direction. I find it hard to believe that given the number of public and private institutions coming up why has it not been made mandatory for every college undergraduate to compulsorily obtain a voter ID card yet. If discussions on politics are not encouraged at this age then it is very unlikely that one is going to take interest in the development of the nation in the future. Some of the talk shows like “We the People” and “The Big Fight” are amazing ideas but are watched avidly by people in their late 20’s and 30’s.If these shows are held in different colleges with students as part of the audience, different city halls of those cities that have been earmarked by the government to be the metros of the future it would slowly and steadily cause a change.

We are at a very interesting stage in our country’s history. Dr.Abdul Kalam’s dream – Vision 2020 could be satisfied only if decisions like these are taken on the nationwide level. No matter who is the next president of America, there are going to be huge negative impacts on the Indian economy due to the economic crises in the USA (more so if Obama becomes the president, as his plans include taxing huge companies – those that primarily are driving the IT boom in India by outsourcing to us and provide companies with tax reliefs if they employ US citizens).I think this is the kind of climate our country actually needed. With the US and other country’s trying to stabilize their economies, we will have to reduce our dependence on them and start looking at our fundamentals and improve job opportunities and conditions in India to provide for the ever growing Indian workforce. If done properly, I am convinced that this would be the deciding factor on how fast we develop into a superpower.