The Wait

Is our world essentially made up of good people or bad people? That is a question that has plagued philosophers from a long long time. I think you will agree with me, if I were to say that being good or bad for most people is a temporary state and we are all good or bad at some point or time. Is violence of any form good? Is fighting a war good? A war for a good cause perhaps.

Due to our increased interference with environment it is apparent that we are opening windows to alternate worlds or our forces of projection are becoming so powerful so as to force reality. A couple of years back, a strange young man was suddenly seen somehwere around Bangalore. He was wearing an attire never seen in those parts before, a wrap around of some sort and heavily armored. His crown was made of pure gold and was armed to the teeth. Even from a distance it was easy to tell that this man belonged to some class of nobility, a class that does not possibly exist right now. When he was caught by the police, he was carrying a bagful of antique gold coins and had claimed to be a king. The police claimed he was an antique thief.

The picture of him was too authentic, so I went to meet him. One rarely gets to meet different people these days. The jailer told me that "king" knew that people wanted to meet him and the authorities had made long visiting hours possible. I was led through a few corridors and soon was being led to the main library. The jailer and his men had taken a liking to this "king" and had given him the largest accommodation, library. They had managed to find a bit of antique furniture and through a real antique smuggler and had arranged all of these to resemble a court for the king. One of the other jail inmates was reading something to the self-proclaimed king when I entered the court. The king welcomed me warmly and said it was important to treat travelers like me very well because we were the only history that people would refer to eventually. Written history in the same kingdom will have the bias of the winner and oral histories would be corrupted. It was important that I wrote about him. I told him that it had to be a story worth writing about.

He claimed to be Pulakesin II, the great Chalukya emperor. Taking that on face value was difficult enough, but the guy either had enormous wealth or was a sorcerer considering what he had converted the jail into. Human beings innately want to be led, they need a larger sense of purpose of living their lives. People like me provide the channel. A long time back me and my minister had concluded that the sum total of the number of people who are willing to fight and die was infinite and the sum total number of people who could lead their people into that fight was limited. So, it is easy to entice foot soldiers into dying for whatever cause they are drilled into whereas the generals need opportunities to create the events. He had found that the world now had billions of people, the concept of the world and his people was amusing to him. The current generals are doing a bad job he said, people need to believe that theirs is the only single society that had stood the test of time and there was only darkness around. It was important to propagate this so that the people remain under control. He was reading lot and this sort of control was best served through democracy, give people a semblance of choice and they will always feel contented. He held referendums at the drop of a hat and never lost any.

He would now prepare an army and attack I told him about being organized as nation states and that it would be future to attack another state (Pulakesin was reading maps and history to find out what happened to the clans he hated) and Pulakesin had a hearty laugh. I was not getting the point, going to war was an end in itself. It was in him and it was in every person that had a few followers. If an opportunity of attack persisted, he would attack. Otherwise it was important to let everyone knwow that you are ready, have an army and are ready to attack. The some total of violent people had to be constant, someone would get violent enough soon.

Last I heard Pulakesin was still waiting for the war, though he was member of parliament now.

Knee Twist

The park is symbolic, it almost stands out in defiance surrounding it. The parks are gardens are symbolic of cities of which they are a part of. For large cities, they are places of recreation. For cities that are cramped for space and teeming with millions, they offer space - albeit of a different variety.

The other day I was walking in the park in the morning. The park is circular and is relatively small. It was a mix of running and walking and within a short period I had completed a significant number of laps. It was damn hot ( I am usually highly delusional, heat makes it even better) and slowly I saw the path turn on itself, sort of a mobious strip. The thing is, if you create an electro-magnetic field in the form of a mobious strip and then cut along the centre, you can get transported (not really, but I had read about this "experiement" a long time ago and this seems a suitable explanation). My own physical energy created the field and I had walking along the centre cutting the field. The more I think about it, the more details I can remember about the exact sequence of events that led to this remarkable course of action, almost as if my memory is willing to accept the reality that which fits its logic.

Unfortunately I did not seem to get transported well or to a land of naked women. I sort of seemed to be an apparition in a world which was dimensionally complicated. People and objects could move through me and I could the same myself, so I was not physically present there. The movement was almost cartoonish, the way they show some who has massive inherent speed criss crossing from one point to another. This criss crossing was happening in a three dimensional realm, so lots of people were seemingly simultaneously everywhere (that must be physically possible, if you did travel at the speed of light then the observer wouldnt know the difference of where you are, at any given point you are present everywhere). Atleast the physical features were similar to ours.

Technologically and visually, the place was a paradox. The place was a mix of our technology few thousands year back and a futuristic technology (houses that appeared and disappeared at will, made of a strange material). Given the fact that I hadnt been transported fully meant that I might not have too much time here. I was observing this particular gentleman (who looked a lot like Captain spock), who was appearing all over the place, with completely different expressions each time. Upon closer examination I realized that the clothes that I was seeing on him were but some sort of clock, his real clothes seemed to be changing everytime he appeared. It was the same with everyone there.

It was now dawning on me, I had entered the no-man s land of universes. Everyone and everything was there at the same time, but they werent.

A sharp pain bought me back to reality. Funny that it should always be pain of some form that brings reality into focus, I had twisted my knee.

Pressure

I say it is not so easy anymore. No, its not a "our fathers had it easy", sort of thing. Nor is it anywhere related to the economic crisis (though I would have wanted to be invited to Silvio s parties). Well, maybe its got to do a little bit with the trauma of watching Freida Pinto as Phaedra, but to blame this entirely on Freida would be giving her way too much credit.

These days everyone is under pressure to do something cool, something unique - something that will put people in awe of you. The normal does not catch attention, it has to be something unique. "Kya Yeh Gaay Alien Hai" comes close, I am sure the editor saw it as an unique opportunity.

One of my friends who expert culinary skills include being able to maggi was talking the other day about cooking seafood and the different varieties of olive oil. "Crash, boom" - sorry even while thinking I crash into "Don't know what to do, will become a photographer" kind, gotta be banned. Someone was going bonkers in a "desi" store for clothes, turns out that to be taken seriously while talking about unknown world movies it is important to look like a culture vulture. The other day while I was taking a walk in the park, I got pulled into a group for a discussion. There was this one guy who said today's topic was "has the govt. done enough for this park" and proceeded to then talk for the next one hour. Found out later that he was training to sound like Arnab (bugger doesn't know that there can be one and only Arnab). My friend tells me that people on twitter are all into unique stuff, so unique that she shudders at the ingenuity being displayed.

I tell you that this social networking is a conspiracy to keep unsuspecting people from thinking clearly. Imagine the bygone days, you went out and saw an Akshay Kumar movie and quickly retreated home hoping that no one saw you. These days you would announce it on your favorite network and quickly wait for the race to see who has seen the worst movies (nice try, people can watch absolute crap). The Arab spring has its roots on facebook we are led to believe (and if reports are true CERN is run from facebook), so we ought to take it seriously.

I want to take these things seriously, but that wouldn't make me unique would it (must control urge to declare that I have produced something unique by writing this.

1. Whatever goes around comes around

Not giving sufficient attention or thought to avoiding harm or errors

(of an action or its result) Showing or caused by a lack of attention

Not concerned or worried about

Showing no interest or effort; casual

These are the various meanings of the word careless. I like the one that says not concerned or worried about the most, but it is actually best defined by meaning no. 2: lack of attention. This lack of attention can afflict me at any given point of time, in whatever I do, irrespective of my proficiency in it. Truth be told, now that I think about it, there is no such thing as a careful person. Every person is careless at something or the other during any given day, its just about how the plot unravels - explains the seriousness of the carelessness.

I tend to bunch up my visiting cards in my shirt pocket. So if a card that is similar to mine ends up being clubbed with my cards there is very high likelihood that I could hand over someone else s card as mine. Sometimes I end up meeting foreigners. Sometimes these foreigners are are of chinese origin. Sometimes such chinese people hardly understand who they are meeting, will not ask questions and will stick to e-mail for correspondence. Sometimes, I could hand over my card to one of them. Sometime that card could have a woman's name on it.

And you know what the consequences could be. In India, you possibly still keep your job. But out of the various careless things that I can and do, like stepping onto a manhole while reading a book or banging onto a pole while walking, I begin to wonder which of the carelessness will eventually turn out to be harmful.

I have a very common name with a different spelling. I have handed thousands of my cards. Sometimes my cards are with foreigners. Sometimes these foreigners are of chinese origion. Sometimes such chinese people hardly understand who they are meeting, will not ask questions and will stick to e-mail for correspondence. Sometimes, they mark me assuming it is someone else. Sometimes it ends up being the same person I gave the wrong card to.

Loneliness

She was born this way. Of course she did like to see, but currently it was not possible. But the best she could do now was not to get swayed by feelings of sel-pity and get depressed. So what if she could not see? She knew she could feel everything better than everyone around her, she know when her mom expects something from dad but he does not notice, when seema wants to be left alone but dad does not get it, or how the room was about to erupt but stood with silence when Uncle Rakesh spoke for the first time about his divorce, she got this things instinctively. But during other times when people spoke about things around her, dresses of people, TV, internet (i cant believe all the information in the world can be made available on any gadget - a gadget itself was imaginary for her, but then she had vivid imagination) and the changing colour of seasons. That above all, the changing colours of seasons depressed her a lot, maybe because she could smell the change but couldnt see it, so at those times she usually unsuccessfully tried to change the topic.

Dad was always supportive of her and seemed to treat her almost as if she had no problems. Luckily they were well heeled and she got the latest hearing aids and went to a good school for blind people and also had a private braille tutor at home. She was a diligent student and absorbed everything that was thrown at her. She had a soothing voice and had a lot of friends in

the blind school. She loved school, everybody was like her and they spent long hours together what each other felt as people in the normal world (she did not understand it, but she always thought she was abnormal, but couldnt lay a finger on why that was the case) talked about different things. Things that they could touch were easy, apple, phone, book they were able to learn remember and appreciate, but things like countries, universe, physics (why would anyone want to learn what goes beneath what you can see?) etc... and culture. There was the culture of her world were things were imagined and there was this culture of the normal world thats all there was to it right? Her world views were simple and sufficient: If you can see things how can you misunderstand?

Medical technology has made amazing strides in the recent years. They had found a new way of treating people like her and they were going to try the new method on her, her dad told her. The operation was successful and she needed about a week to open her eyes. Slowly she came to terms with the new world, everyday was a new experience in what she could see. She understood that they were not that well to do and Dad had spent a fortune on her, she saw that countries had boundaries which people did not really understand, she understood physics to be the challenge of understaning movement she understood that culture was what each person sees and hence the misunderstanding, she understood that universe was expanding for no particular reason than that it was. What she did not understand that there seemed to be no one like her, she could not connect with anyone. No, one would talk about everything under the earth freely, giving shape to what they have heard and seen and coming to terms with the perceptions of each other. She seemed to hit a wall with people. Almost as if people decide that at some point they cannot allow someone to see further inside. Initially she was the hightlight of everyplace she went.

The person who had begun to see recently, everybody wanted to talk to her, to know how the world appeared to her, but soon she realized that it was just a novelty factor and most people were not really interested in what she saw or thought. Even those who were interested, interpreted what she tought of things in some theory that they saw fit. Men especially, their understanding was so narrow she thought, she could lead their thought process anywhere and they would follow. Women understood her better, so she spent a lot of time talking to women. About men, about dressing, aoout their lives and struggles everything, but at some point she always hit a wall.

The more she saw, the more lonely she felt. The soothing nature of her voice was gone and she felt a strong attack of self-pity. It was better in the normal world.

State of Affairs

Bbcworld wanted to do a story on the issues of food and education in
india. So they decided to ask each of the political parties for a
view. The reporter was quite new to this part of the world actually, so he decided to start at the ground level, the party worker:

Congress worker: We will go as per the diktat of the party high command.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati (no one else could be found as they were busy
building statues): Hum jo bhi karenge bahujan samaj ke hith mein
karenge

Samajwadi Party (SP): Its a conspiracy against minorities. Amitabh and Amar
are behind this. We will continue to fight this oppression.

Communists: We will tell you after reading arundhati s (roy) views in outlook. And do you say you want to speak to workers? We are Indian communists. Btw, while we wait for Arundhati to write, you can always refer to the notes of Chairman Mao on this.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK): what did the edhar kachi (other party All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)) say? Bottles, stones, riots.

Bjp: we are waiting for our next national committee to convene a "different" response to this problem. Its on our agenda. We have run through 4 party presidents to get to this point. The future is ours. Btw you guys did a story on our rise, can you share it we me? We need to train those rss fellows.

Finally, manmohan singh: "it is a grave problem and will take difficult decisions".

And bbcworld reports: india is shining away in the 21st century. There is increasing political resolve to solve the age old problems of food and education.

The correspondent: My boss told me India is an important market and I love my job.

Organization building

1) How soon does it take to put up blinds on a window ? : 6 months

2) HR figures that the actual working hours are next only to France on this planet and hence proposes a siesta time which would be added to daily working hours

3) There are value systems, value coaches, value huddles and other things that would increase value

4) Firmwide HR responsible for a business does not know what the people in that business do

5) A million dollars and more on executive training

6) Everything is stuck between the nth meeting and the n+1th meeting

welcome to the growth organization. god bless.

Perpective

Our times cannot product great art writes Aakar Patel in his piece in mint. Everything that is great in art has already been done and hence from here on our lives shall be doomed to wander in a rewind mode. True? Quite possible. After all, in most fields what s to be created has since long since been created. New particle, new political theory, new religion have been true relics of the past, we don't hear about such things so easily. Why would art be any different?

Art becomes an important barometer because of two very unrelated reasons: Measurement (of the goodness of an artist) and a sense of perspective (for the the artist regarding the wider world). What s so different about the current artistic environment against maybe something two or three centuries ago? Patronage. As any artist will tell you, patronage allows one to pursue art for art s sake. Art was/is opium of the nobility: My court artist is better than yours, I can identify a high note, this piece is so good lets put it up at the Louvre, the whole audience gave in to the uplifting music.....these are phrases that we seldom here these days. The reasons for that are too obvious: nations are comfortable about their culture and communications have fundamentally changed.

Sculpture: Give me rapid prototyping. Literature: The twitterati are waiting. Paintings: Everybody is a photographer. Without the opportunity to put people on pedestals and the ability to compare them, art will never seem creative enough. Till we get that "perspective", we shall continue to believe that we dont see great art these days. Someday, 21 st century art will be great, but the measurement of the same will definitely not be traditional.

Short Story: The Beautiful Night

When do you realize that the night is beautiful? When it has passed right? You, know you wake up suddenly and realize that the night has passed? Of course the night is beautiful when the stars are shining on you? Hmmmm, what then on a starless night? That happens in cities you know. Of course you do, don’t lie you looked it up on google right? Anyway, the night is still beautiful today in its starless moonless way. I was just wondering how cats possibly think about night? I mean if they do think i.e. They must surely be thinking about it because my mom says they can see at night. Good thing for cats, otherwise they would be falling of walls or bumping into parked cars just like that. The good black cat, actually for this story line why should the cat be black, lets make him white, ok why only white, maybe white with a black star on its head like black beauty, for that I would need to give the poor cat one off foot to be black too. Maybe we should give it that too. But then maybe I should let the poor black cat go in peace and continue with my story. Three cheers to that. So where was I exactly? Ah the beautiful night.

Why are love stories set in night times? Candle lit dinner, moonwalk sort of thing, maybe some Greenpeace guy thought up of it to save electricity, that one sounds lame so it likely isn’t the reason., but lets continue with our man “the night” as the protagonist. I mean the night and not the Knight, caught ya, I am sure you word spell checker using idiots wouldn’t have known the difference whether it was knight or night. Gotcha. I digress.

I was not exactly sure how I was born, nor who was born first, my brother or is it sister day or me but suffices to say most people understand that I only appear after the day. If it were not for love stories I would have been confined to some corners of the English dictionary (actually its got more to do with time and physics), but here I am alive and kicking. Today as it is my season, I started a bit early for work. Kind of monotonous it is, not to have the option of not appearing to work one day. Hmmm. There was this couple over something. From afar I thought it was one of those couple fights, random with no particular reason but possibly essential to a relationship. I crept up on them as they sat on the park and realized that were discussing Star Trek, some discussions on space etc. I am getting ahead of myself, the couple were busy in an argument and seemingly were unaware of my distant cousins the stars brightening the sky or the vain display of her beauty from my wife the moon. You cant miss my wife easily can you? But these two were completely oblivious of the entire surroundings and left each other s company cursing me for the darkness I brought upon them. They have been repeatedly replaying the conversation of what went wrong trying to figure out what went wrong.

That’s how it goes, take it or leave it. I alone remain witness.

Short Story: Being an Author

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me begin by thanking you for entertaining this humble soul today. I do not know what each of you does for a living, what your thoughts are, what your ideals are, what keeps you awake at night…. infact I know nothing about you. You are but a face that I see, faces that I most likely will not remember, nor will I be able to tell apart. What I do know is the fact this 30 mins will change your life profoundly, it will provide you a beacon of hope in your dreary humdrum existence, it will help you connect to what is possibly your most important possession: a book.

What does a book represent? A book is but a means for an author to propagate his thoughts. The author is the representative of the sane voices of society. We live in an extremely topsy turvy world, a world where change is the only constant. A world in which you are looking for symbols, something to hold on to, something that will keep you from going insane. The book and hence the author is your route to sanity.

Writing a book is a tedious and mind altering process, something that the author goes through so as to help humanity. Each word is carefully weighed, thought upon, rehashed and then re-written, do you even understand the meaning of such careful thoughts? I bet you just read every book as if it were a piece of fiction, without ever bothering to read what the author is trying to tell you.

Every author goes through a self discovery process. He travels through different lands and sometimes time itself, he meets different people, assimilates different cultures, adopts new ideas and acts as a funnel to supply you with words that best represent all that he has learnt during the course of his life. He is a mirror to the society that he is a part of, he probably defines what a society means. You look at a terrorist and you feel insecure, the author feels for the terrorist because he has grown to understand what creates a terrorist in the first place, the society itself. You are bound for fickleness, living for the next moment, whereas the author is looking for the larger piece that will provide you meaning in you life. If you have not read an author who has changed your life, you haven’t lived life at all.

“Is he usually like this?”

“Not really, this happens once a fortnight, rest of the time, he is deeply reading”

“So what next?”

“What next indeed – keep watching?”

Professor Rudrasen – don’t you think that most authors are just writing for commercial reasons?

Well young lady, it is true that some people have sullied the profession by writing purely for commercial purposes, but what else can they do, they have succumbed to the same need to attend to the basic instincts that inflicts mankind today. That wouldn’t have happened if society at large maintained a funding mechanism for authors, who are the true purveyors of art, not some random movie maker or your next youtube hero.

So professor, in your opinion a fiction writer is upto no good? – another young voice.

Hardly my friend, fiction is just a stepping stone for one to think of higher reaches of literature, a stepping stone towards realizing one’s true kind of author. As you rise up the level of literature, you shall find the life-changing author.

“Hmmm, who all attends these lectures?”

“All the junior doctors here and sometimes the senior doctors who are interested in literature too. The Professor is quite good you know”

“Is he harmless?”

“Yes, he needs an audience to talk to every fortnight that’s about it”

“Since when has been here”

“Since the time Professor wrote his seminal work: Being an author – a guide towards sanity.”

“Hmmm, it figures”

“Yeah I guess, time to put the good Professor to sleep for today, till the next fortnight”

Hedgies are not dead .... not yet.

http://www.iimagazine.com/Alpha/Articles/2165684/TODAY/Brother,_Can_You_Spare_a_Billion?.html

Inspite of the stupendous losses that the markets have seen (a year of great learning as a colleague puts it) a few fund managers have made staggering amount of money. On average $474 million. Awesome. Someone should put out a number on funds that went down.

Mr Obama are we going to regulate this next?

Next story about their lifestyles? Voyeurism at its best.

RBI cuts rates!!

I have been tied up a bit - but this rate cut by RBI is very very intriguing. By clearly signaling that they want to keep the window of rate cuts only for the next crisis only a few days ago, the RBI has done an about turn and cut key rates. The cuts are even more baffling considering the comfortable liquidity position of the system and by now it has become pretty clear that interest rate cuts will not lead to increase in lending by banks.

In terms of monetary actions there is nothing that this cut would do unless there is expectation that govt. borrowing would suck out all liquidity from the market. Or more likely is the this a politically forced bailout to stimulate the now dead real estate market.

None of the commentators I have read have called for a rate cut. What is going to happen?

1) A large scale govt. borrowing program
2) Calls for banks to reduce lending rates (whether they lend or not is a different matter). Having recently seen the benefits of the PM s scheme to build local roads I am convinced you are better off putting money into people s hands that way.
3) Rupee under further downward pressure.

Interesting times.

What is the reason for the optimism?

Been traveling and working late the last few days. There seems to be a muted optimism in the markets, almost as if people expect a breakout. I am not very good at this predicting thing, so lets see what has been dished out.

A flurry of positive news
1) We did (will do) 7.1% growth apparently, what grew that much you might want to ask?
2) The Govt. will announce a new stimulus plan on Feb 16th, they have a lot of room to play with the interest rates how far will they go and how soon
3) Implied change in FDI classification, I mean implied because the fine print is what determines the validity of any of these announcements
4) A host of real estate firms have rolled on their debt, falling interest rates hence are making home owners come back
5) The worst is over, Q 3 is possibly one of the worst ever quarter, but you cant really go down on earnings from here

US collapsed yesterday, but India (along withe Asia actually) held pretty strong. Deal flow seems to be pretty good and fund managers seem to be more inclined to listen to stories.

Everybody is a friggin realist now. Bhalue is king.

5 lakh jobless; Stats and wicked stats

Sample size of 2581 units covering 20 centres across 11 states was taken up for the survey. Eight major sectors like textile and garment industry, metals and metal products, Information Technology and BPO, automobiles, gems & jewellery, transportation, construction and mining industries were also included in the survey.

5 lakh? ~0.04% ? Not a chance, must be way higher. Ports are at a standstill, house construction has stopped (when was the last time you heard of someone you know buying a house), auto sales/CV sales are down, bank disbursements are down, industrial productivity is flat, tax collections are down....

This should be seen as to be in the category of the "quick" estimate released by the Central Statistical Organization (they have two revisions from their first numbers - this is the first revision). GDP will still grow spectacularly. Election tactic? Not so sure. Heard that the 'noodle strap' agitation is being done in national interest, if you wear more cloth it will mean more employment in the textile industry. In the same vein the well draped Sushma Swaraj is going to ask all of us to wear more, now that she is not contesting.

Anil Bhai and Mukesh bhai, all their 'refined' and 'power'ful troubles not withstanding are still close the top of the Forbes list... among other news.

It takes great courage to cry....

In what turned out to be an extraordinary ending to an extraordinary Australian open, Fed Ex, the great Fed Ex broke down. Federer - the expressionless almost cold demolisher. Match after match, game after game, tournament after tournament Fed Ex played his impersonal game. Till he faced his counter at the other side (both are of the gentlemen kinds tho'), a guy who knows his limitations, a physical player and a guy who has nerves of steel.

"God, it killing me", he said and then he started crying. He could not stop it even if his life depended on it. I guess modern sport is unforgiving, putting you under the scanner. Every single shot analyzed. Every statistic replayed. And then there were the records. When you ve lost the chance to make it to the history books, it becomes lonely.

Was Nadal into his psyche - making his task near impossible? Was it being so close to greatness? Was it just the reaction because he blew it, this time more than any time ever in his 13 defeats. It was his match to lose after all, and he lose he did. Spectacularly falling apart in the final set. Why could nt he, arguably the greatest player ever effectively conquer his only true competitor? What more could he do?


Some week it was? Murray and Djokovic - the new entrants to the drama were blown apart. The French Triplet (or how many ever there are) Tsonga, Monfils, Simon all played their part. Verdasco stopped everybody in their tracks and he seemingly should have taken out Nadal too - he hit 90+ winners in that epic match. That match was atleast 2 notches above the tennis quality of the final and Nadal had stood his ground.

Thats precisely what you love Nadal for. His sheer will, his game honed through enormous practice and a steely determination and his superstitions. Banana, bottles, undie .... and the guy is a sportsman. Nobody will ever doubt that Fed Ex is possibly the greatest tennis player of all time --- its only unfortunate that he has to face Rafa Nadal the greatest tennis athlete ever seen.
I thought after winning the US, Federer would regain his confidence. Thats not to be...

National award for Shakeela please

Whats the criterion for selection of the Padma awardees one may ask? It’s a topic that raises questions repeatedly, it is by the way our money that is being spent for the awards. Maybe we should use RTI to find out what exactly goes through.

This year atleast a few blokes must have been easy: you can beat Kazakhs and Cubans as Sushil and Vijender did but that would mean little to the organizers. You need to have a life time full of achievements like that of an Akshay Kumar who s made a khiladi of generations of Indian s and our very own death knell of acting, that 27^th wonder of India, Mrs Bachan, not the older one, but Aishwarya. Other notable awardees include the Tamil comdedian Vivek for his outstanding contribution to the mirth in Tam land.

I think in the same breath I propose to give a national award to Shakeela (imdb reference here, and maybe a posthumous reference to Silk Smitha) too, those beauties who have provided to large part of South Indian lands (or maybe South Indian xxxxx after the close sounding Hindi word). In an era where women were not seen in pubs (and hence did not get bashed up), the only (ok not the only) source of entertainment to those masses have been these two breath taking women. The horny southie (it progressed very fast across south of the vindhya s I am told) male s lust was quenched by banging the moth filled chair in some dingy theater (or his own home after all those channels started beaming them later) and more often than not the first introduction of the male to nirvana. For educating thousands, I hereby propose Shakeela name for national awards – lifetime contribution.

The other way to do this is for someone to stand up and say, “we give a damn to what you guys think about who should win awards, we will award them to whoever we please”. Maybe they already did and I did not listen. Too dense to understand about national honours.

PS: No offense to the actors mentioned...i mean Shakeela and Silk Smitha

Chart of the day (via bloomberg)

Bloomberg shows the attached chart on performance of banks in which the Govt. has bought in through TARP. They have lost 4 times more than the S&P.


How far will the fed go in its bailout?

Surreal, Dilbertesque.

Drop in Merchant Power Demand?

The Indian Electricity Exchange started operations over a month ago and some of the trends in the day ahead market (the so called merchant/spot) market have been interesting. The peak tariff went up close to 9 rs/kwh and now has moved back to close to 6 rs / kwh (currently we may even have excess capacity, almost as if the power companies prefer load shedding rather than buy expensive power).

IEX is promoted by the Financial Technologies (there is another Power Exchange too promoted by the NSE) and has some key players with stakes in it. Currently the regs are a bit unclear (ahem - when were they clear? ) on who will regulate the prices (you cant allow profiteering you see). The govt. also might want to control the prices because buying/selling electricity is a zero sum game.

Each state is allocated a certain quota based on its requirements (given by the SLDC s to RLDC s to the national grid). If you overdraw, it becomes kind of an overdraft and that would force the defaulting state to pay up. So states can make a killing by managing their demand effectively.

A quick download:

Source of fuel: Non-thermal power plants can ride the merchant game much better because they can be switched on that much faster. Thermal plants cannot really be shut down and hence their ability to service the spot market entirely is questionable.

Transmission: Regional Load Dispatch Centers to State Load Dispatch Centers to the national Grid on the broad level. Transmission returns are still regulated (the new CERC ROE applies to transmission too? ).

Contracts: Contractual obligations are usually over 10 years, you just cant sign variable fuel contracts in the country.

How does it work? Power traders buy capacity from producers (PTC, Adani etc) and sell it in the day ahead market (producers need to give the schedule of availability in intervals 24 hr s before production).

There is likely to be a pricing upturn close to the elections as every party will maximize power availability in this parts of the country. Any clue on how to trade this?

Tata Capital: Public Issue; Why now?

Some of the large Indian Business Groups true to form diversified into every conceivable business and Tatas possibly lead the pack in this.

2008 was a forgettable year: Corus, JLR, Singur and the blasts took a toll on the group that still possibly represents true blood Indian Corporate: Mai-baap types.

So which is the one business that trust is very important? Banking for sure. Considering that financing as a NBFC was not making any great deal of money (and NBFC s have gone of out of fashion) now, banking is the only business left. Tata Capital (coming in with a fund raise, download document here) is possibly the first step in that direction.

The prospectus will be for non-convertible debentures, 500 Cr raise. The pricing possibly will be determined at the time of the offer. The total leverage of the NBFC would be about 3.38 times post the issue, not bad except that most the funding is in the retail sector which could end up leaving higher NPA s than the current 0.5 times. The document per se is very interesting.

Proceeds of the issue is general purposes mostly. At 6,000 odd crores, the business does possibly need capital - but the timing is odd. RBI is unlikely to hand out banking licenses to industrial groups, primarily because of the obvious conflict of interest.

In a falling interest rate regime, should be interesting to look at the pricing that the market offers.