Not the boy next door

But you are the Grand fatherly voice of reason, they will listen to you. You just have to say it once.

What...fun event and take him along...umm, no yaar, not him. Somebody else who is more lively perhaps!

May be you just don't know when to have fun and when to be serious, and are taking even the fun instances seriously.

It is the songs that you listen to, all of them from a world that is past.

Look who's flirting, buddhe pe jawaani chaayi hai

Aap chal rahe hain...aap ke liye to yahi theek hai...aap kya karenge in sab cheezon ka...aap, aap, aap

All right, I am jaded, old, and without any spirits. I don't know how to be fun for myself or for others. I am the Big Daddy, the Grand Father who everybody looks up to but nobody looks at, as an equal with the same vulnerabilities and wishes as any other guy. All right, I am not the boy next door...the uncle next door, perhaps?

A clear sky, at last!

The clouds seem to be lifting, slowly but surely. After one week of uncertainty, Nani's condition is improving and the blood sugar level has finally come down from an extremely high number of 500+ to a more manageable 150+. Thank God for his mercies.

Now that I have the luxury to think clearly, Mode C will hopefully be back to more frequent and regular posts, with two of the immediately pending posts being the one on newly elected Backwaters Committee members and the other on the immensely enjoyable Freshers party...but all this and more later. 

Let us do something different this midnight hour

Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.

Fifty eight years ago, as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru spoke these golden words, and declared India independent at the stroke of the midnight hour, he would not have even imagined that the very national borders that were sacred to him and his contemporaries will start to lose meaning only half a century later. But that is precisely what is happening and precisely what should be happening.

As I stood in the administrative block grounds staring proudly at the Tricolor and listening to Rohit speak of the wars we still need to fight before becoming truly independent, I realized that perhaps there is another basic thing that we are all ignoring in the blinding light of passion and nationalism that a National Festival like the Independence Day fills us with. Perhaps we choose to conveniently ignore on such occasions that it is no longer about your country and my country, it is no longer about your progress or our progress...it is our world, our progress now.

Perhaps it is not realistic to talk about the principles of Vasudhaev Kutumbakam right now, with the super power in US rearing its ugly head every now and then to dominate and crush those constrained by geographies that are not as powerful. Perhaps it does not make sense to talk about boundarylessness with wars being fought on the slightest of pretexts and tensions simmering between borders, including our own. Perhaps it is not wise to imagine a world where humans, as a specie, will rise together and pursue their collective dreams, fight their common demons.

However, this is what the reality is going to be like, pretty soon. With the enemies that we are fighting against making their real faces visible, the realization is slowly creeping in that Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest is not as simple as fighting against your fellow beings if you need to produce your offspring and ensure its and your survival. We have to fight much more...illiteracy, poverty, ignorance, sickness, diseases, terrorism, immorality, crime, and much more if we are to survive. There is little time on our hands with the threats of an energy-less, resource-constrained, hard-winged religious, communal, and regional, nuclear anarchy looming right ahead.

The only way we can fight all this, as most of us have already come to accept, and others will do in the years to come if Darwin's evolution theory is to hold any water, is to stop giving so much importance to national borders and work towards fighting these evils plaguing our future collectively. We need to build upon our dreams and not live in the past by fighting over strips of land, drops of oceans, and breathfuls of air.

We do appreciate what the freedom fighters did for us at that stroke of midnight hour when the whole world slept and India awoke to light and freedom. We do realize the contribution they made by getting us the right to be free but all the same, the time has come to not just redeem but redefine and then redeem the pledge that they made...to let the whole world awake to light and freedom together... let none sleep this midnight, let all get up, arise, fight and be counted.

Hmmm...

One of my friends writes,

Another problem with me, I want people to reciprocate things. And I move 5 steps backwards when some one doesnt. So be it, I am happy this way. If I take the first 2 steps, saamne wale ko bhi to mujhe kuch bhaav dena chahiye. And if they are caught in their own lives and dont feel I can do anything for them, why should I intrude ?

I agree, absolutely.

Water water everywhere and quite a lot to drink

Hi!
Oh, hello!
Are you from here?
Well no, not exactly. What about you?
I am from the US. We are here for a short visit to some folks.
Oh ok...I am from a nearby place, doing my MBA there.
Cool! Is this ride too scary?
Oh no, not at all. It is just that when it gets to the top and stops, hanging you upside down in mid air, there might be, you know, just a bit of a problem.

Oooh, it is going to be fun, all right!

This is not too bad.
umm...humm..yeaah?
Hellooo (waving to a bunch of people on the other slide)
Hee Hee (wondering why those people look familiar)
Wow, hey are they stopping?
Are they? Wow!

The Space Gun at Veega Land was worth all the rides I have ever had in any other amusement park anywhere else and wonderfully, that was not all that there was to it. What was it all about, you say...well, it was nothing much, not more than a group of 17 people, one dts mini bus, one driver and cleaner who presumed anything coming from us to be understood only through signs (even though the person speaking might be a Mallu), one movie and the beginning of another, 10 bottles of beer, raiding of a Pizza Hut outlet, DVDs, excellent breakfast and some heart warming hospitality, water, water and more water.

Starting off with a plan to go sight-seeing in the hills of Wayanad and changed later to a trip to this amusement park in Cochin (it helped that one of the trip planners was from Cochin), this one turned out to be one of the most well-spent tours over the last year or so that I have been here at IIMK. We started off at 4 in the morning and by the time we were through with catching some sleep and the movie "The fast and the furious", we were almost about to reach Cochin.

An excellent breakfast of idli, wada, halwa, chole, and excellent tea at Sandeep Gopal's house was mixed with Bunty's excellent rapport with Sandeep's mother (given her soft spot for Bengal). We reached Veega Land by 11 and honestly speaking, there was nothing happening till then to give any indication of what was about to come.

We started off with dashing cars and all my visits to Appu Ghar and Essel World came back in a flash as each of the group wowed to dash the other cars off the floor. As if dashing the cars around was not enough, we went on to spinning cars and after that came the much discussed by now Space Gun in which I had the fright of my lifetime. I couldn't even place the people waving to me till the last time when I was hanging upside down. It was only then that I realized that they were part of my group and here was this girl from the US, waving to them as if there was no tomorrow while I was hanging tight to my buckle.

The rollercoaster and horror cave were interesting, too (the one boob skeleton witch was particularly hilarious and so was the message in Malayalam telling us that the power had gone off...pray how did they plan to scare non Mallus?) but the best part of the day was still to come and how it did come!

The water rides opened with a bang. After the usual slide, we saw something different and went right ahead to try it. It was a rapid river flowing through five channels with ropes that you had to hang on to if you want your life belt to drag you down the rapid. Oh, what fun! Getting toppled over and toppling people over had never been this interesting.

The Water Rugby (we plan to patent this game and offer it to the Olympic Committee) was up next and the wave pool made sure that we had more than our heart full. As the weaker team (with Sam and Ravi being in the other team) scored 10-6 over the more heavy weight team, it was just the right omen for the waves to come calling. Having been in Chennai for two years, waves were not new to me but being able to go to the source of the waves, knowing fully well that I won't drown was another experience altogether.

Some more rapids and water slides and we were as exhausted as anything and what better to relax us than piercing streams of water. This platform had jets from all sides trying to go right through you while the bucket at the top kept toppling every few moments, pouring sheets of water on those below.

The pizza was something I had been looking forward to for quite some time and so were the DVDs (although I was unfortunate in not being able to get more of Amitabh collections). Some shopping later, we were ready to go into deep slumber, aided for some by the beer bottles and for others by the humming audio of The Bourne Identity which ended even before it started.


 

The nation is rocking to it, are you?

I have been meaning to write this post for a long long time but unfortunately, I had not been able to obtain a proper image to give this topic the feel that it deserves. Now that I undoubtedly have a deserving image, I must say what I have been wanting to, ever since I watched Bunty aur Babli. Apart from the movie itself which was, at least to me, value for money (in the manager's lingo) and fulltoo timepass (in the tapori's lingo), the sizzling appearance of Aishwarya Rai and a one over another performance by the Bachchans was something completely else.

"Kajraare Kajraare mere kaare kaare naina" goes Aishwarya Rai in a costume that suits the character and the song to the tee. Unusual in a modern movie and yet, all the more enjoyable for the reason, the song pictures a bar dancer in the garb of a courtesan singing an old timers' qawwali. Although I admit that Aishwarya Rai would not have been on my mind when I imagined the set up for the first time but then again, she has done a fantastic job of looking suitably bar dancer-ish and raising her eyebrows and biting her lips ever so theatrically to give an original (though not very natural) feel to the song.

The point at which the song begins is a classic case of perfect placement in itself. As the cop and the thief sit gulping one drink after the other (with some of the drinks equivalent to tickets to the moon), the belle starts off with a couplet and follows it up with a tantalizing display of skin, all for the eyes of the senior (with a capital S, perhaps) member of the cop-thief gang. As she sways in her back-less choli and lehenga to the winsome tune, the junior B is shown making an absolute ass of himself while the senior seems to be unaffected.

Till this instant, the song is like just another song, but for Aishwarya's antics that have just started to make themselves felt. As soon as the Big B makes an entry, however, things change dramatically. Abhishek's dumb act becomes all the more effective and Aishwarya's lip biting even more pronounced as Amitabh Bachchan jumps on to the dance floor with his own brand of hip shaking and hands stretching. Combine that with the UP and Bihar feel of the lyrics and the singing style and you get Bachchan Sr. on his home turf and on his home turf, the legend does not disappoint at all.

As the song picks up steam and the two Bachchans come into their element, even the skin show of Aishwarya seems to move to the background and all that the viewer is focused at is the fast pace of the song, the expressions of the three actors and of course, the relaxed at times and yet pacy at others rendition that has more modulations than I have seen in any other recent song. In fact, by the time the end comes and the song reaches its crescendo, the feeling is almost surreal and any hopes of catching the meaning behind the song (if at all there were any) are utterly and completely lost.

It has been a long time now since the song hit the TV screens but its popularity does not seem to subside any more than it did in the initial few days. Of course, those who did not like the song did not like it right from the word go and the day one but those who did, still swear by it as one of the best songs to have hit Hindi Cinema in recent times (whether it be in terms of music or picturisation). I know of at least one place where the song has almost become an anthem and that is Room no. 8 of G Hostel of an institute called IIM, at a place called Kozhikode.

As the still continuing promos on some channels say, the nation is truly rocking to it.

Just a little something

My mood swings have stopped bothering me ever since I realized that I am perpetually in a bad mood.

For all those who have nothing better to do, do browse through Abhinav's take on Calvin and Hobbes in The Fight Club.

Picture this: a hyper, self-absorbed child initially concocts an imaginary friend as the ideal playmate, to whom more realistic qualities soon become attributed. This phantasm becomes a completely separate personality, with his own likes, dislikes, and temperament—and the imaginer and the imagined clash and argue constantly, though remaining fast friends. This pattern continues to the point where the child begins to perceive what was originally mere fantasy to be reality.

Just as Calvin has an imaginary jungle-animal friend named Hobbes, whom everyone else believes to be nothing but a stuffed toy, "Jack" in Fight Club has an imaginary cool-guy friend named Tyler, whom no one but Jack can see.

This one is a must read for all those who swear on Tyler or Calvin but I won't say any more...go right ahead and read it for yourself.

Deciphering...continued

Carrying on from where I left last time, I will try to give a logical conclusion to the discussion (for whatever it is worth) that I started in the last post. I was talking about the fair game that Prof. Uday Damodaran had introduced us to and about our willingness to play the game. However, as I had tried to show in the last post, the actual payoff from the game was an uncertain Re. 1 which was to be won by giving in a certain Re. 1, which we were to understand, was the job of a gambler and not that of an investor or even a speculator.

Going forward, if we consider the utility that the player of the fair game has for the amount that he/she is going to put in to the game and the utility that he/she has for what he/she is going to get out of the game, we might just have a better idea of the way things stand. Let us say that the utility is represented by the alphabet 'U'. Therefore, the utility of the 1 Re. spent in playing the game is U(1). Utility of the Rs. 2 won if a head turns up is U(2) and the utility of 0 that is the return from the game if tail turns up is U(0).

Therefore, for an intelligent and rational investor who prefers a certain Re. 1 over an uncertain Re. 1

U(1) > 1/2 * U(2) + 1/2 * U(0)
[1/2 because that is the probability of either of the two utilities to be obtained by the player]

Multiplying the above inequality by 2 on both sides,
2*U(1) > U(2) + U(0)
or, U(1) - U(0) > U(2) - U(1)

This, as Dr. Damodaran explained, is nothing but the principle of Diminishing Marginal Utility. As we can see, the utility of going up from 0 to 1 is higher than that of going up from 1 to 2. This is the reason why most of the investor behavior in the financial markets follows a utility function that has a negative slope (assuming that there is no negative utility of wealth, which might not be true in the case of goods in the microeconomic sense where for example, eating more of say, fruits will start giving negative utility after a certain number has already been consumed).

To put it into more practical terms, the investor's risk taking behavior or tendency goes on decreasing as the amount of money involved starts increasing which is what you would expect, won't you?

Can you decipher this?

One of the courses this term that I have been really enjoying is Prof. Uday Damodaran's Portfolio Management. A change from the somewhat theatrical to a definitely more structured course being one important parameter that has grabbed our attention, there are several other reasons why there is almost full attendance in his classes, even if they are held at 7 in the morning.

Anyways, talking about the teaching methodology of Dr. Damodaran was not the purpose of writing this post. Ever since the last class, when we played the game that is popularly called St. Petersburg Paradox and subsequently analyzed it, I have been wondering if the explanation was so simple that even a lay person with absolutely no idea about finance or economics can understand the same. I will try to enumerate what took place in the class room and leave it for the readers of this blog to decide if they can decipher what I am talking about.

The game went like this: the class was divided into groups of six with one person in each group acting as the gaming house and the other five enacting the roles of players. There were five rounds in total with each round starting with closed bids by the players being submitted to the gaming house. The gaming house, based on the received bids, chose the player it wants to play with. Ideally, the player chosen should be the one with the highest bid but in case of ties, it depends on the gaming house's discretion. Irrespective of whether a player's bid has been accepted or not, he/she has to forfeit the amount that he/she has bid on the round to the gaming house.

Once the player is chosen, the game begins. The game involves tossing a coin till a head comes up. The number of times that the coin has to be tossed before the head turns up decides the payoff for the player who gets 2 raised to the power n where n is the number of tosses before a head appears. So the minimum that a player will get out of this game is 1 and the maximum can be infinity. Similar methodology is followed for the other four rounds.

Once the game was over, an average was taken of the amount that the players had bid for (including successful and unsuccessful bids) and for our class, it turned out to be nearly 7. Next up, Dr. Damodaran presented another game which is popularly known as the fair game. In this game, the player gives 1 Re. to play and a coin is tossed. If the coin turns head, the player gets Rs.2 and he/she gets 0 if it turns tail. When asked about how many of us would play this game, the majority said they will.

This, Dr. Damodaran said, disproved the basic assumption of finance and economics that we had been trying to understand for the past sessions of the course. The probability that head occurs is 0.5 and that of tail appearing is also 0.5. The expected payoff from the game, therefore, would be 0.5*2 + 0.5*0 (that is, a summation of probability of event multiplied by payoff from the event) which turns out to be 1. Thus, a person playing this game would be foregoing a certain 1 Re. for an uncertain 1 Re. (return from the game is only an expected payoff, remember but the money that the player puts into the game is a certain Re. 1). This is certainly not rational investor behavior but something that most people would claim to have when asked about it, primarily because of the positive connotations associated with risk-takers.

However, a similar payoff vs. investment analysis exercise carried out with the St. Petersburg game shows that the reality is quite different. Here, probability of getting head in the first toss (with payoff of 1) is 1/2. Head in the second toss has the probability (1/2) squared and the payoff is 2 raised to the power 1. For the head to appear in third toss, probability is (1/2) to the power 3 and the payoff is 2 to the power 2. Going on in similar fashion, we find that for each event (where event means the number of times that the coin has to be tossed before a head comes up), the product of probability and payoff is 1/2 in each case. Thus, expected payoff from the game would be a summation of 1/2 infinite times, which comes to infinity.

For an infinitely paying game, therefore, the average amount that our class bid was only Rs. 7. And we said we are risk lovers when asked about the fair game...just goes on to show how there is much more to behavioral finance than just asking the basic questions and trusting the investors' answers blindly. If put in a guise, the real picture does come up. There was a further follow up to this discussion, explaining matters in much greater detail but perhaps, I will save that for some other post to avoid an overdose and of course that post will come up given this one makes at least some sense.