Employing Basic's Instinct

Sometimes I think I am too harsh on myself. I always thought all my education was a futile exercise which basically distanced me further away from my interests. My efforts to pursue academic knowledge were mostly retaliatory – a struggle against my inward instincts, to put the book aside and saunter back to slumber.

And more often than not, the instincts won hands down. The few times they were surmounted, I mounted the throne of material success. So, it basically boiled down to the choice I made at each instant of indecision where I alternate the decision taking powers between the two halves of my brain. It is very similar to the toss of a biased coin, one side of which is always more intent on embracing the warmth of mud. I am still trying to catch that oft-guilty half.

Few times has my education helped me. Today was indeed one such instance wherein I used the trace skills of Marketing Research I had acquired during my two year faux pas termed MBA. I am thankful to the moxie of such few courses which were adamant enough to desert me despite my earnest efforts to unemploy them.

Coming to how I redeemed such traces scraping the phrenic vessel - I was caught up choosing between going for a career at US vis-à-vis a career in India. I did the following analysis to take a more objective and informed decision. High time I realized the significance and reach of academic knowledge.


* F&F - Family & Friends.

I listed down my parameters which I believe are going to impact me in one way or the other during my brief stay in this world. I also gave them weights in the second table. I scored those parameters on the scale of 1-10. A parameter scoring 10 would mean it is the best given the combination. For example, US team scores 10 - it is the best team I could ever work with. Food in US couldn’t scale much and gets a couple of points only for obvious reasons. The second table is based on simple logic – if I had Rs. 100, what would I spend on each of them. So, its basically a constant sum of importance which I have to break between all the parameters. The next step would be to compute the score of each parameter, given their importance/weight. Its just multiplying the weight with scale to get the score. I cumulated the scores to obtain the final figure for both choices.

As one may say/see, there is very little to choose from. However, I think I have made my decision! Only time will tell if I have to thank Malay Bhattacharya for teaching us Adv. Mktg. Research.

'--''ve take on life

I wish I could, hence I always tried to do what I always thought I should. But it never did show up amongst the things I did; instead it remained something I would do if I could, but never did. Now I thought about it and said, I should, but it turned out that it is a thing of past and I should grow over it and de-list it from the to-do tasks I always thought I should. It dawned on me that it was never mine!

It’s more confusing to me than what I have just written. Such are the frailties of human life that one never knows that choices are already made before one’s birth. It’s a matter of persistence one should subject their humble selves, to understand what's been chosen for them. However, may you experiment, one will invariably end up with the choice made for her. Its right out there, whatever one wants, but one may not get it, just because it was never hers.

Why are the choices made without our consent?

Wealth Creation Potential - Comparing Infosys and Chandrasekhar

I hope this is one blog my boss wouldn’t read.

There are times when I keep wondering what am I being paid for? There seems to be a tight race between the corporates to reward the most mediocre efforts. More so in the BPO industry where the reward/hour rate is a function of the service offered. Let me explain you the context.

Some days my work reduces to playing sudoku on the internet and ogling at heroines on the web. The virtual presence of fairer gender is good filler to my otherwise state of ennui. There are the remaining days where my work is hardly a couple of hours per day. But I have taken a positive from this seemingly frustrating situation. I realize when my firm is paying everyone the same salary, I must be generating an awesome value add per hour to the firm. In effect, I could be adding as much value per hour as our Chairman. Perhaps!

After some number crunching, I just realized that I am being paid $15per hour of service I render at my firm. A person working sixteen hours per day at the same wage rate would earn a whopping $2.16 Million – round about what our Chairman would earn!

Another interesting observation is that Infosys charges $20 per hour of offshore service rendered. Out of which $2 is paid to the employees at the hourly rate; The remaining $18 is Infy’s income. Simply putting, I am creating as much wealth as Infosys per hour. Not a bad societal contribution. Ohh guilt! Where art thou?

Reservation or Retribution?

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry is a fine read even if you account only for the author’s keen eye for detail. But that’s one way you would disparage this skillful individual’s efforts to not only to present an interesting account of peoples’ lives, but also earnestly present the lives of downtrodden humans in our country few decades ago.

I don’t want to waste my time in explaining something that cannot be done better than the author. Though I don’t completely believe him on some of the accounts, I would say it is a commendable effort to explain the pithy of untouchables and where-in lies the birth of naxalism.

That’s when I thought, perhaps, reservation system, an element of our constitution is actually the retribution, forward caste members are offering for the eons of suffering the lower castes had undergone in their hands. And oddly enough, and I feel bad when I say my profession as an equity research analyst makes me to identify underlying patterns to estimate the duration this concept of reservations could last in India. Can the sins be atoned in a matter of few decades, say from 1950 to 2000? Can all the pains be forgotten, and the deprivation be overcome in a span of two generations? Right now, perhaps the significant deprivation the downtrodden elements in our society are facing is their lack of right to information. How many are utilizing the reservation facility? More importantly, how many know about it? 10%? 20%? I don’t know.

The caste system is so segregated that, even the four varnas (Brahmin, kshatriya, vaishya and shoodra) are further sub-divided into sects - one sect which looks down upon another belonging to the same varna. For example, a chamaar (skinner & tanner) who belonged to the shoodra varna, wouldn’t let a bhungi (feces remover from homes) enter even his street apart for anything other than just let him have his daily pick-ups. It’s strange, it’s confusing and it’s awful.

On a lighter note, the novel also throws light on various vocations (or call them professions at your own peril) practiced by different sects of people in the rural India till few decades ago. Some are explained above. Its not all agriculture alone, some such tasks were necessary for a lubricated society.

I am yet to complete this book. But having read half of it, I am amazed by the simplicity of mistry’s characters, his understanding of the psyche of each human element, portraying mumbai as it was 3-4 decades ago and lastly for the sheer courage of its chief protagonist, Dina Dayal.

Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.'s Bday

It was Martin Luther King’s Birthday a couple of days ago. I remember reading the text of this awesome speaker's speech sometime ago. Just shows that quality of thought has no bounds like caste, creed, race or gender.

"All are caught in the inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality".

I was in such a mood when I read this the first time, that it hit me very hard and everything seemed to be so verily correct.

Suspense element

It’s supposed to be a special day –and why not, people were waiting for over a year to know what’s their sweat’s worth. Well, JP Morgan has declared the IC (incentive compensation OR Bonus) to its dearest employees. There was a mass gathering and IC letters were distributed like they used to do give away progress cards back at my school. Whatever little interest I had in the entire process had evaporated by then.

I wonder if there would ever be an instant of boundless joy or sorrow – some completely unexpected windfall of (mis)fortune that would sink me, make me feel numb, helpless, vulnerable yet, reversible. Life has been unkind to me to say the least.

Whether it was with my entrance exams or competitions or placements or any thing else which is significant, I had this unwanted gift of premonition - which is at times too accurate to my discomfort. The moment I came out of my JEE exam, I still remember telling my dad, my rank would be around 1000, and I got 1104. Coming out of CAT I said I would get call form all the IIM’s and I had call from four of them. The moment I sent my job application to six companies at IIML, I was sure I will get through JP Morgan, and I did. And today the bonus again did me in. I got exactly what I thought I would, a couple of months ago.

I wish there were some suspense element in my life!

Cricket Panchabhartruka (Cricket's Five Husbands)

Yeshhh... I dont have anything to do today. Such state generally results in some wierd thoughts flying wild.

Draupadi in here prior birth penances and Lord Sankara appears before her. I dont remember her name in her earlier janm. But thats unimportant. She asks Sankara to give her a husband who is an epitome of righteousness (Dharmam), strength (balam), valour (veeratvam), beauty (saundaryam) and patience (sahanam). Sankara ponders for a while and expresses his inability to create such an individual, and saying that he himself doesn't possess all such qualities. However, he further adds that her boon can materialise in her next birth if she can make certain concessions - to which she heartily accepts. But poor Draupadi, the meaning of the word concession dawned on her much later when she ended up with five husbands, each personified individually with each one of above qualities.

Today morning, watching Dravid and Sehwag take Pakistani attack to the dogs, I was wondering if the above five qualities were present in our Indian team itself. Except that the word beauty is replaced by a more contemporary - Glamour.

Righteousness: Anil Kumble (never was his name included in any of the controversies)
Strength: Dhoni (any doubts?)
Valour: Virendra Sehwag
Patience: Rahul Dravid (any doubts here too?)
Glamour: Yuvraj Singh

Strangely, as you may have noticed, Sachin isn't in any of them. But just let me remind you he is second in all the aspects except Glamour. So he aint that bad. Just that there is at least one person to elbow him out in each cateogory.

I am utterly bored...

"Money is like manure. It only works when you spread it everywhere".
--Henry Kissinger

"Take care of your pennies; pounds will take kare of themselves"
-- Old saying

"There are wise and then there are otherwise"
--wise saying

Some great lines... from the holy sire

1) maaya maanusha yaovvana garvam
harathi nimisha kaalaa sarvam
(Sanskrit) - Aadi Sankaracharya Swami

(The pride associated with your youth is only a mirage. It eats away minute by minute and with that your whole time)

2) Chitram vatatarormooleh
Vriddhaat sishyaan gururyuvaan
Gurostumounam vyaakhyaanam
Sishyaastu chinnasamshayaat
(Sanskrit)- Aadi Sankaracharya Swami

(Aha! what a strange thing! Under the banyan tree are sitting the teacher who is in his tender age and his disciples who are all frail, senile persons. The teacher is all silence; yet he is able to obliterate all their doubts)

Life antonym-ized ;-)

Today's breakfast was an enriching one. Adil said there are three kinds of people according to oneself. People whom you like, people whom you dislike and of course the unfortunate ones whom you do not care for.

To add to it, I would say, there are instances when you would like to tell someone, "love me or hate me, but don't stay indifferent to me". Luckily, till now (apart from few forgettable aberrations) all the linkages had been of the first two kinds :D

There are three kinds of feelings you can have towards someone you know. The noblest - you love them; the ordinary - you hate them; and then the worst - you are sypmathetic towards them. I think I am the kind of person, who can forgive even his enemies but not someone who is sympathetic towards me. So be ware of such notions in future ;-)

What's life without enemies? Even Yudhishtira (mahabharata fame ;-) ) could not remain an Ajaatashatruvu. There is the catch. You know about Yudhishtira (the love) only because there was a duryodhana (the hate) and more so because you felt both of them strongly before.

You must know how to hate, to learn how to love. But then, once you know what love is; could you ever hate anyone anymore?