Muses: Of Driving, Office, Isosceles Trianlge and the Moon

Driving is a mindless thing. No wonder drivers get paid measly. I realise I was more cautious a driver when I had started. Now I almost sleep through it. Sometimes completely oblivious of mirrors, indicators and even the traffic lights. I do not have a license and I have never been booked for jumping any of the umpteen traffic lights. The whole department of transport seems a joke; a fraud to me. While driving, absorbed in my inner sanctum, something rarely wakes me barring an occasional horn honked hard. Now slowly I am getting convinced that if I shall ever attain enlightenment it would be while driving. If Buddha had a Peepal I have my car...:)

Whatever little I understand, I realise that correlating variables is an important aspect in analytics. Rot mathematical techniques may aid or facilitate it but it also is an art and asks for creativity. It is easy to forget this while doing routine assignments one after another. Pressing clutches before shifting gears. Where's the scope to create? I do not have an answer but I am sure that mindless applying of tools, techniques, models etc without grasping the context may turn the whole exercise a joke to a point where everything appears nothing but a fraud.

Drivel apart if I do not check my driving habits I may be heading for a disaster!

So, when SS comes and announces a general training session on the whole lending business by some Mr.GF from US, I say yes within.SS while he goes individually to different people checking their availability he skips me. I am an outsider but it gives me a vantage point which is very dear to me. Like sitting at the back of a class, passing out last in the college, taken for a dumb at times. I try not to mind!

SS by the way also is the short for the’ Schutzstaffel ‘ the infamous German protection squad under Hitler which later assumed disproportionate powers committing worst crimes against humanity.

A little later I am sitting in this room too close to the whiteboard. GF's talk reminds me of the stereotyped pot bellied money lenders in old Bollywood movies. They would invariably wear white perhaps to inspire trust. Sitting with legs folded on a 'gaddi' behind a 'munshi table' wearing a cunning smile, these lenders mostly served as complicating agents in the movie plots. I look with disgust at GF for a moment. Rest of the talk I liked him for his organisation, humor and explaining clearly at outset about his concentric circle approach whose innermost basic cicle we couldn't somehow break away from during whole length of the talk.

Much of his content and explanation was also guided by the kind of questions he was asked so we couldn't blame it on him if we didn't like his talk. ‘The onus was on us’. Perhaps we didn't ask the right questions. At one point I felt a question rumbling inside me. I had just read an article prior to the talk about the credit card companies in US decreasing their lines due to weaning credit. It increased the Debt-to-Limit ratio by 50% in certain cases with a potential to affect the scores of concerning customers. Now, only if there were some less overt ways to manipulate the scores of customers so that only the manipulating company is left with the 'real' information while others are just left speculating over whom to offer a loan. I still think for the interest of the larger group I kept quite.. :))

The room was filled with smart people. I don't know if GF noted there were just two ladies. It was reconfirmation that analytics is similar to IIT when it comes to the gender ratio. Now how many girls would rack their brains trying to prove that if a triangle has two equal internal angle bisectors then it is necessarily isosceles?? My neighbour on the right warns me about its complexity. I take note and on the whole way back home while driving I think over it, driving oblivious of other fellow travelers, distracted couple of times only by the beautiful thin crescent the moon has been since last few days floating across the Delhi night sky. Earlier the way to the office was spent thinking of my father, revisiting old memories. I wonder how much we forget in relationships. I wonder how different people can get on a single day with their thinking alone.

I finally meet Neil Padukone at Green Park. I am disappointed he is not even remotely related to Deeepika Padukone but m delighted that he is writing a book collaborating with some think tank. Now what exactly is think tank I shall ask him sometime next. At present he is here to see the accommodation that I am planning to share with him. We go through the place. I explain him my plans. He listens attentively and leaves, deferring his decision until tomorrow. At the precise moment I receive a call from the property dealer that the room has been taken by some other client. As I turn looking upwards cursing my luck I see the bow shaped moon again behind the silhouette of a giant old tree. The yellow bow in the dark blue sky. It's beautiful and you don't have to steal glances at it. The moon doesn't mind being looked at lovingly.

Later in the night I google and come across the solution to isosceles triangle problem. I find sleep, contented that I was thinking in the right direction. I believe means if right shall eventually get you to the right end!

OnBlogging: Writing,Blogging,Loving,Flirting...

Writing is a serious thing. Blogging is a fling.If writing is loving then blogging is flirting. Writers spend months,years or decades to produce a jewel that shines beyond their lifetimes.Writing needs patience. Writer is a believer. He isn't lazy and he might work his ass off trying to find that one right word that sometimes doesn't even exist. Like love it eludes but he is at it, focused, oblivious of the life passing by.This creativity to his satisfaction is his life.Writers are a different breed. Rare and Dying!

'Writers are assholes! ' -- a blogger may write thus and attract more than hundred million visits. He may title his blog 'the best page in the universe' and hoardes of easily impressionable idiots may scoop every pointless point he poops in there. And that exactly is the point of blogging.You may be dumb,different,dissent or indecent; you still can publish and reach out to your kinds. So is my attempt.

Blogger is a 'cool dude'.He is seldom fixated with a word. He works with the substitutes.Mostly he writes crap. So, most of the blog titles have words synonymous with nonsense,madness,confusion etc. Most blogs die their own slow death .Few others, however readable are easily forgetable. Who cares?! Like a flirtatious glance it is to be enjoyed while it lasts. Why to ponder over its permanence?

Blogosphere is buzz with newness. Blogspace is more a place to share than to create. An active blogger posts frequently and an active blog has larger no. of visitors sometimes quantified by Alexa Rank. This activity pretty much sums up the life as a Blogger. Shelf life of a post seldom goes beyond the last posted comment. Bloggers are breeding. Already too many and increasing.

I see blogging as my flirting with writing. Flirting may lead to love and I may write something someday.Hope never dies! Until that time I would like to 'post' things here that I could edit, re-edit and revisit many times even after the last commet has been posted and replied!

Bimbo says there is no harm in healthy flirting. I am not sure what she means by 'healthy' but I shall accept her unquestioningly.She is always right.. :)

And for all you dumbos who are new to blogging here's a starter.Educate yourself!!

Rhymes: some rhymes from old times..

I have some fascination with rhymes. If you try hard I think you can write a rhyme for any occasion reflecting any sentiment. It sometimes is very pleasing and satisfying to have expressed a complex idea in some simplest words. We may grow in our respective personal and professional lives but we should never fail to reach out to the innocent,trusting child in us which we were all once. My writing rhymes is one such attempt.

Many of my rhymes are lost and I feel sad for them. Through this blog I hope to give them a little longevity. Here, I recall some of the good old rhymes that I penned or rather tip-tapped on the keypad.Few of these have been shared widely with friends.
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Limericks:

Once in a city much older than France
I got a chance to work in Finance
A tower so tall, I didn't see
A museum so big, not for me
Ahh! This work full of 'sheet' in Finance!

* written in 2007, describes my initial summer internship experience in Paris..bogged with my work and preparation for CFA Level I exams I hadn't seen either Eiffel or Louvre during first four weeks. A sequel and an antithesis to the above written before leaving Paris is sadly lost now... :(

I shall add more to this section as I excavate more from the past!
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Haikus :

I call
You loose temper
I sleep

And this day
Quite to your dismay
I write

Well, Haikus which are three line poems with less than 17 syllables are deceptive in their appearance and the better ones present two contrasting ideas left for the reader to decipher. One of the better Haikus for starters that I read on Wikipedia goes like...

Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator
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...And Some Random Rhymes:

One on myself

Once I was a storyteller
a charmer with words
then I lost my voice,
my head,my heart, my hair..:))

..but not one to accept defeat
albeit with shaking feet
I am finding my voice sane
taking heart, yet again!

....and another rhyme dedicated to a 'shy n sweet' friend

Anukriti -- to tell she is pretty
won't be a lie
if u can try
her poems few
And this is how i grew
- fond of her!

Her poems i reject, she writes fast!
Her feelings i respect,she thinks vast!
Her friendship is such,
Things heavy how much,
You can empty on her!

Usually mild, potentially wild
An adult trapping an exulting child
Warm yet coy
I wish her a boy
Who fathoms her heart
Or some of its part
Since grasping the whole
Is a futile goal
That no man should aim
Without giving up on same
- all his life!!

...and the one aching with the longing to be accepted as a friend...

You make me sad at times,
But never it lasts for long;
With all my stupid reasons n rhymes,
I have to bounce back strong.

And then some day;
I hope you will say --

"Well, you win! I give in,
Now both our hairs are grey;
I thought you'd wean, but it's long been,
Now I have something to say."

Such time will come and come it must,
For your fears and reasons to end,
To not to forgive, and not to trust,
And not to accept me as friend.

BookReview : India Unbound - Gurcharan Das

Reading is one of my favourite pastimes.You may abhor the idea if you think yourself as one of the fun-loving,action oriented types. But then I bet you never laid your hands on the right book.Reading can be fun. It can 'broaden your horizons' wherein you can see the fun in things you thought were boring earlier.Reading has the potential to make your life more lively where it just doesn't goes on and on from one day to another.


I shall present a very strong case for reading sometime later. Here, I write about a book that got me interested more in reading. Furhter, I believe one shouldn't read passively or only for pleasure.Reading with a purpose will not only help you select the right books but increase you exploits from the reading experiences. If you read with a questioning mind correlating facts and corroborating evidences from your real life it would not only help you to become more practical but give you a distinct voice of your own too. My voice however seems struck with nursery rhymes...

Now without much ado
I present the book review
which I wrote long ago
for my witty bimbo**
my coochie my coo my puff-paste
who makes my readings all waste
for what good is a book-pile
that fails to bring her one smile!


"...Well, 'India Unbound' is a book that I re-read recently. Both the book and it's author has impressed me very very much. It's author - Gurcharan Das, when he was a baby, his parents laid him on the feet of the Guru at Satsang Beas who named him 'Guru+Charan+Das'.


You may find more useful details about the author at this site:
http://www.ccsindia.org/gdas/gurcharandas.htm


This book though being a non-fiction goes like a gripping story of transformations that India underwent since independence with particular focus on it's economic policies and their manifestations. I better take care not to sound too technical, learning from the author of the book, Gurcharan Das(GD). His book is intended for layman and serves as a very good entry point into many things at once. Reading it interested me more into host of things like history, sociology, politics, economics, business, management and most importantly correlating pieces and visualizing the future.

It's written in a very crafty manner...unlike this review.. and personal anecdotes from author's life dot the narration of various factors shaping the country. And this is what makes it enjoyable unlike other non-fictions. So we come to know that GD sold news paper, went to Harvard, worked with Procter and Gamble (India) since its infancy and took voluntary retirement to write and now he serves as a consultant to a number of companies living happily with his wife somewhere near IIT in posh South Delhi itself. He is cash rich with children all settled. He has already lived the 'middle-class household dream' that we have been entrusted by our parents and which many of us will realise or are realising while working in the glass towers at Gurgaon and elsewhere..lols.

However commuting between glass towers and our homes, doing our routine part and returning home exhausted day after day many of us slowly get alienated from a larger context. This is where we begin to differ from GD. Most people reduce them to money making machines,trapped in their EMIs, chasing the middle-class dream but few like Nandan Nilekani who are leading big corporations like Infosys have to inevitably know this greater context that books like India Unbound makes us laymen aware of. (Nilekani's book 'Imagining India' can be another good read.)

GD in his wide angle view of Indian economy invokes history as old as Alexander-Puru battle to give plausible explanations. He writes about failings of leaders as great as Gandhi and Nehru. Quoting from Adam Smith to Amartya Sen he investigates things like 'developement' and 'modernization'. He charts routes of Ambanis' success in frustrating license raj and few business failures post liberation.He identifies values we acquire in families and castes and nations and their implications in business.

GDs canvas is very wide and lot of things converge in his complex context following a strict time line spread over 364 pages which I can't reproduce here. But most importantly it gives a lesson to inculcate in us an insatiable hunger to know, to tinker to think and to see trends and connections between what we know, to vision what the future would be like and finally to use it to our advantage. His book ends at very optimistic note predicting the boundless opportunities that exist after India was unbounded in 'the golden summer of 91' with initial economic reforms.

The rest I leave for you to discover yourself if you choose to read the book, which I think one should in our positions. For ours is a formative period and we have to be conscious about what we are feeding our minds with and what we keep thinking in our heads. My head reels with just one thought however..."

My pretty bimbo
would you now be please kind
and get out of my mind .. :))

** Bimbo for now is a figment of my imagination. But being a hardcore romantic I firmly believe she is there somewhere. I have invented her with my craving for giving love and being loved. She does inspire many beautiful thoughts. She would surface frequently in my writings just the way she intrudes the interludes between flipping of a book page or uploading of a webpage. She is always on my mind. More on bimboo,my undying love for her and the detailed psychoanalysis sometime soon .. :)

..to start with!!

I should have started lot earlier.Weighed by my own expectations I waited enough to gain perspective, voice, opinions, art, wit,wisdom etc, etc. Finally, I realise that 'now' was the time since long back. Anyways, it's never late to begin... :)

Here's a rhyme that is somewhat similar to my sentiments at present. Slowly, I shall unfold different dimensions of this blog. However, to start on a positive note I am sharing this simple rhyme. Here it goes...

Do it Now
-------------------------
If you have hard work to do
Do it now
Today the skies are clear and blue
To-morrow the clouds may come in view
Yesterday is not for you
Do it now

If you have a song to sing
Sing it now
Let the tones of gladness ring
Clear as song of bird in spring
Let each day some music bring
Sing it now

If you have some kind words to say
Say them now
Tomorrow may not come your way
Do a kindness while you may
Loved ones will not always stay
Say them now

If you have a smile to show
Show it now
Make hearts happy roses grow
Let the friends around you know
The love you have before they go
Show it now

Actually, I got it from my father's diary at home. He must have noted it down from somewhere. He's not into poems or writing diaries. He's very practical and quite prosaic and would never show any weakness,particularly of heart. It's only mother who lets his secrets out to us. Me and my sister. His diary had more numbers scribbled than words... phone no.s, money dealings and all. He is retired, richly experienced and well above the youthful emotional vagaries that people of my age are prone to. Still, he not only appreciated but also noted down these lines in his diary. And that's why this poem which initially I would have casually read and easily forgotten, I thought to share it here.

And the point NOW....

If you ever wanted to blog
Blog it now
Write of any princess and frog
Or crib about your boss rogue
Story,rhyme or an error log
Blog it now!!