Habatri

VSN

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Apr 2020 00:05:00 +0000

VSN Satsang links

Shloka Name	Telugu Lyrics Link	English Lyrics Link	Audio Link
1. Ganesha Pancharatnam	శ్రీ గణేశ పంచరత్నం	Ganesha Pancharatnam	Audio
2. Lakshmi stotram	శ్రీ లక్ష్మీ అష్టోత్తరశతనామ స్తోత్రం.	Lakshmi Ashtottara Satanama Stotram	Audio
3. Vishnu Sahasra Namam	శ్రీ విష్ణుసహస్రనామస్తోత్రం	Vishnu Sahasra Nama Stotram	Audio
4. Nama Ramayanam	నామరామాయణం	Nama Ramayanam	Audio
5. Hanuman Chalisa	హనుమాన్ చాలీసా	Hanuman Chalisa	Audio
6. Arathi	ఓం జయ జగదీశ హరే	oṃ jaya jagadīśa hare	Audio

All these years - Telugu

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 05:11:00 +0000

Pavan Chittapragada, a very dear friend of mine - for over 30 years, had translated my earlier poem - All these years in Telugu.

Proud to say that this is the first "work" of mine that is translated in another language.
Here is the link.
https://manatelugumaata.blogspot.com/2019/06/blog-post.html

Pavan and I "must have" first met when we were in tenth grade during a city-level debate competition in the last century. The reason I say "must have" is - there were 50 other kids representing our respective schools in a debate competition on a rainy afternoon. I am sure we probably ran into each other that day during the competition.

But, the first time we really met was on a Telugu newspaper headline. It was a short blurb in a local newspaper titled - "పవన్ ప్రకాష్ ల ప్రతిభ" - Some journalist showing talent in combining our names that reads "Pavan Prakash la Prathibha" - along the lines of "Pavan and Prakash's talent".

The two of us were selected for the next regional level in a different city and that is where we really met in person. Since then, we went to college together, stayed in touch with each other and our families are growing up together in two different countries. Last year, it was great to see our kids spend time together during the holidays.

Between the two of us, the one who retained his talent for the native tongue is my friend. For those who can read Telugu - here we meet together again in the translated world ! For those who can't - sorry that you are missing the translation - it is better than the English version !

All these years...

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 16:04:00 +0000

You stared at me from in between the words.

And yet, in all these years,

I barely recognized you in any sentence...

You ceased at every breath I ever took.

And yet, in all these years,

I hardly felt your presence...

You stood quiet in between the beats of the music I loved to listen.

And yet, in all these years,

I was focused on humming just the tones, voiding your very essence...

You are the home in which every speck of matter in this Universe resides.

And yet, in all these years,

I ran after seemingly spectacular things looking for your absence...

You are the spirit that fuels every cell in all life and otherwise.

And yet, in all these years,

You hid so deep for me to grasp you behind all that material substance...

In all these years,

Space, pause, still, lull- you have been speaking in silence, dropping many hints.

Now as I grow older,
I yearn for what the mystics could experience of your quintessence...

Every morning, you flash in between the chirping birds and whispering leaves while the wind blows.

As soon as the clock roars setting the tune for a busy day, I begin to forget your existence...

But, with a little more persistence...

Amidst a cloud of thoughts, I have started sensing your momentary interludes.

I wish I could hold you past the meditations with a little more consistence!

PS:
A night at Marriott..

PS: A very good friend of mine did the translation of the above into Telugu.

Currency adjusted Returns - with absolute values for exchange rates

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Sun, 02 Sep 2018 22:00:00 +0000

In the previous post, we had three percentages to start with for the cross-border investor 1) Absolute rate of return in local currency 2) Currency appreciation/depreciation rate 3) Inflation rate. And, we compared how to assess performance.

In this post, we have access to the exact and absolute values for currency exchange rates, instead of the just the appreciation/depreciation rates.

So, in the first method, we calculate the rate of return when you have absolute values . We also validate in the second method, using the Formulae 1 and 2 from the previous post.

In this example, Let's consider that Ms. Uma Sheldon (USA based investor - henceforth Ms.US) purchased an asset for 120 INR (when 1 USD = 40 INR) and sold at 300 INR (when 1 USD = 60 INR)

Method 1 - Using Absolute values for currency exchange rates

To calculate her currency-adjusted returns in USD:

Purchase price = 120/40 = 3 USD
Sale price = 300/60 = 5 USD

Hence the rate of return for Ms.US in dollar terms = (5-3)/3 = 66.67%

Method 2 - Validation using the formula from previous post.

Now, let's validate the same using Formula 1 and Formula 2 from the previous post.

Formula 1) Rate of Return (Nominal Rate of return)

In INR terms, the rate of return is (300-120)/120 = 150%

Formula 2) Currency Conversions

The currency depreciated from 40 to 60 in this period.
Let's calculate that percentage decrease.

1 INR, at the time of purchase would have procured 1/40 USD.
At the time of sale, 1 INR would have procured 1/60 USD.

So, the rate of depreciation is
(1/60 - 1/40) / (1/40) = -33.33%

So, using this for the currency appreciation rate in Formula 2 from the previous post:

[(1+nominal rate) * (1+currency appreciation rate) ] - 1

[ (1+150%) * (1-33.33%) ] - 1 = 66.67%

This is the same result as you had in Method 1.

After arriving at this number using either Method, you can continue with the inflation-adjusted real rate of return using Formula 3 from the previous post.

How did I do on my investment ?

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Mon, 27 Aug 2018 03:27:00 +0000

How did my investment perform ? What information do I need to calculate my performance? How do I calculate my real rate of return? How to calculate returns for investment made in a different country?

This blog is inspired by several discussions over the years where first-generation immigrants generally struggle in comparing their investments across two different countries. Hopefully, you will find this useful. I am not a certified financial planner. This is not meant to be taken as an investment advice.

Let us consider the case of two siblings - Inderjit and Uma. Both were born and brought up in India.
Mr. Inderjit Narayanan Dikshitar (Mr. Ind) continued to live in India. He only invests in Indian investments.

His sister, Ms. Uma moved to the US, married Mr. Sheldon and has been living in US for the last 30 years. Ms. Uma Sheldon (Ms. US) invests primarily in the US. However, she has also made investments in India.

Let's compare three investments across these two siblings.
I1) Mr. Ind invests in in the Indian stock market on May 26 2014.

I2) Ms.US also invests in the Indian stock market on the same date. The main difference being Ms.US converted her US Dollars (USD) to Indian Rupee (INR) on that day.

I3) Ms. US also invested in the US stock market on the same date.

So, the two questions we will be asking are
Q1) Who did better: Mr. Ind on his Indian investment or Ms. US on her US investment ? and by how much ?
Q2) Which investment was better for Ms. US: her Indian investment or her US investment ? and by how much ?

In this article
- Mr. Ind and Ms.US refer to the individual persons
- INR and USD refer to the actual currency
- India and USA refer to the country names

For this example, I will be using the data from the table at the end of the previous post titled - How is my country doing? Summarized below for India and USA. If you need to understand how to get that data, please read the previous post.

All these values were pulled on 8/23/18. Excel gives a formula to calculate the number of years in between the start date of May 28, 2014 and end date of Aug 23 2018. Using YEARFRAC(start, end) - the duration for these investments is 4.24 years

Let's answer the two questions on these three investments using the following four formulae.

Formula 1) Rate of Return (Nominal Rate of return)

This is the easiest to start with. Expressing gain or loss over a particular period as a %age of original value.

(current value - original value)
------------------------------------- * 100
original value

If you have another investment, you can use the above formula to calculate your personal returns. Needless to say, use the current and original value in the same local currency. For cross-border investments, do not take into account the currency fluctuations yet.
For example, if your asset increased in value from INR 120 to INR 300 over a period, the gain is (300-120)*100/120 = 150%.

This rate of return is also called the Nominal rate of return. Think of this as the returns on paper.

In our case, the USA stock market increased by 45.69% and India market increased by 51.19% over the same period. (Ref: table above)

So, based on this data alone - let us try answering the questions
Q1) Who did better ? Mr. Ind seemed to have done better on his Indian investment (I1=51.19%) compared to Ms. US on her US investment (I3=45.69%)
Q2) Which investment was better for Ms. US ? Unable to conclude since we don't have currency information at this stage.

Formula 2) Currency Conversions

Let's try answering that 2nd question for Ms. US now.

During that time the Indian currency depreciated from the 58s to about 70 - a 16.25% depreciation per the table above.

If Ms.US were to sell her Indian investment and bring it back into USD today, here is the formula to calculate her rate of return, taking into account the currency conversion.

[(1+nominal rate) * (1+currency appreciation rate) ] - 1

Using 51.19% for the Indian stock market return from the original, and a negative value for 16.25% for currency depreciation , her personal rate of return on the Indian investment is

[(1+0.5119) (1-0.1625)] - 1 = 26.62%

So, based on this data - let us try answering the 2nd question.
Q2) Which investment was better for Ms. US ? Her USA investment (I3 = 45.69% - no change to this one) did better than her Indian investment (I2 = 26.62% calculated in this section)

PS: Sometimes, you are able to combine the two formulae 1 and 2 above when you have absolute values for your exchange rates, as described in this post.

Formula 3) Inflation-adjusted rate of return (Real rate of return)

While the investments may have certainly increased , the underlying currencies (both USD and INR) are not as worth now as it was before. A $100 that was worth in 2014 will get you fewer goods in 2018. Similarly, 100 Rupees in 2014 will also get you fewer goods in 2018. This is captured using their respective inflation rates in their countries.

From the table above, the cumulative inflation for that period in US was 5.68% while in India it was 18.6%. So, let's calculate the inflation-adjusted rate using the formula

(1+nominal rate)

Real rate of return = -------------------- - 1

(1+inflation rate)

For the three investments, here are the returns

I1) Mr.Ind on his Indian investment - use 51.19% for nominal rate and 18.6% for inflation rate

His inflation adjusted return is 27.48%

I2) Ms. US on her Indian investment - use the currency-converted 26.62% calculated in Formula 2 section above for nominal rate and 5.68% for USA Inflation rate.

The reason why we use USA inflation rate of 5.68% is - she intends to spend this money in the US. She had a choice to invest in US vs. India. So, just like her US investment, the inflation rate is also US.

Her inflation adjusted return on Indian investment is 19.82%

I3) Ms. US on her US investment - use 45.69% for nominal rate and 5.68% for USA inflation rate

Her inflation adjusted return is 37.86%

Now, let us try answering the questions, adjusted for inflation.
Q1) Who did better ? The roles are reversed from the conclusion in Formula 1. Ms. US did better on her US investment (I3 = 37.86%) compared to Mr. Ind on his Indian investment (I1=27.48%)

Q2) Which investment was better for Ms. US ? Her US investment (I3=37.86%) did better than her Indian investment (I2=19.82%)

By how much ? It is too tempting to do (37.86 - 19.82) for Q2 and (37.86-27.48) for Q1 to answer the question by how much.

You would not be wrong in this case because all the investments (I1, I2, I3) were purchased and sold on the same date (by design to keep it simple)

Formula 4) Annualized return
If these investments were done on different dates and held for different duration, you wouldn't be concluding correctly. And, that is where the final formula comes into picture.

With an annualized return, you are comparing apples and oranges by bringing them under a common umbrella. The question that annualized return answers is : What is that "hypothetical annual rate of return" over "a same period" that would produce these respective cumulative returns for 3 different investments I1, I2 and I3 over "different periods" ? Here is another good article on this topic at the Motley Fool.

The math behind is:

(1+ annualized return) ^ n = 1 + Cumulative return
where n is number of years over which the cumulative return was calculated.

In other words,
annualized return = [ (1 + cumulative return)^ (1/n) ] - 1

Here are the annualized returns for these three inflation-adjusted returns calculated in Formula 3.

I1) Use cumulative return = 27.48% ; n = 4.24 => Annualized return = 5.9%
I2) Use cumulative return = 19.82% ; n = 4.24 => Annualized return = 4.36%
I3) Use cumulative return = 37.86% ; n = 4.24 => Annualized return = 7.87%

As you see, the value of n is same across all the three investments. Hence, you could have compared regardless. However, this formula 4 is very helpful in real life situations when different investments are held for different duration.

Final Answer to the two questions
Now, let us try answering the questions, adjusted for inflation using the annualized returns above.

Q1) Who did better ? The conclusion is still the same. Ms. US did better on her US investment (I3 = 7.87%) compared to Mr. Ind on his Indian investment (I1=5.9%).

By How much ? Now you can do the subtraction (7.87 - 5.9) = 1.97% annualized

Q2) Which investment was better for Ms. US ? Her US investment (I3=7.87%) did better than her Indian investment (I2=4.36%)

By How much ? (7.87 - 4.36) = 3.51% annualized

Bonus Insight:
Look at how the same Indian investment was better for Mr.Ind (I1 = 5.9%) than for Ms. US (I2=4.36%). This was because of the lower inflation rate that we used for Ms. US in the case of I2. In other words, the two siblings were better off investing in their respective markets. This is under the assumption that Mr.Ind didn't have access to US stock market.

Additional considerations :

Here are some additional considerations that we didn't get into.

1) Taxes - I have not discussed taxes on these investments to determine the post-tax return. Ideally, the inflation-adjusted rate should be calculated on the post-tax return. Depending on the duration you hold (Short-term vs. long-term capital gains), the kind of account you invest in (tax-deferred vs. not), the income tier one belongs to (the top marginal rate could be different by country) and country of origin (US tax on global income) - these returns are to be discounted with different tax rates.

2) Transaction costs - I have not accounted for transaction costs in trading these investments. I just used index as a broad metric. Similarly, if your investments are real assets, you must include all the transaction costs in buying, maintaining and selling the asset.

For instance, the currency conversion costs are not included in this analysis. There is some additional small leakage in this case as the rates that you would get from your banks are not the same as those used in the table above from fxtop site.

3) Risk-adjusted return - Not all investments are the same. Some are riskier bets than others. For an in-depth of treatment of the various risk ratios, WallstreetMojo has a good article.

4) Internal rate of return: Finally, all these three investments above are a simple transaction - with a single purchase and a single exit. So, it was easy to calculate the rate of return using Formula 1 for these investments.

In some cases, there are multiple and non-periodic cash flow situations, before the asset is finally disposed off. Using XIRR (Excel) for Formula 1 is topic for another day !

Trade and Wars

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 03:49:00 +0000

If you liked the blog on how your country performed and like doing extra homework :), check out the following topics.

1) Battle-related deaths

- When Somalia, India, Pakistan, US and UK are selected.
- Include Afghanistan and see the Y-axis scale
- Add Syria and now watch
- And, for a comprehensive data (not visual) list on this topic, here is the wiki
- And, a good empirical perspective with infographics.

2) Trade

Check out the Trade to GDP ratio of various countries. This is a measure of how open a country is to international trade, and is also called the trade-openness ratio.

If you are surprised by the graph and want to dig more, here is the link to the graph from the Google Public Data Explorer using the Human Development Indicator dataset.

How is my country doing since... ?

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 03:28:00 +0000

How to compare the performance of different countries over a period of time? What are some good financial and economic metrics? Where do I find them ? Is it free and easy ?

A few of us in our private whatsapp group discuss politics quite passionately. This blog is inspired by those discussions. I used the start date of May 26 2014 as a reference to do an even comparison of different countries across multiple metrics - and summarized the stock market performance.

If you want to know the significance of the date, get quickly to the bottom of this blog titled - Results ! For those who are patient with the journey, you will have access to cool data visualization and data sets that are publicly available to draw your own inferences.

1) Stock market performance

Yahoo still runs one of the best finance websites. Chart specifically allows you to monitor performance over a custom date range. Here is the performance of the major stock indices. Which country gave a 51% increase in just about 4 years ? Check out below. Investing.com is another good source for historical data

2) Currency Comparison

Fxtop has historical exchange rate comparisons over a custom date range. Some major currencies listed below. When you invest cross border, go beyond the absolute performance of the asset. Take into account how foreign exchange eats into or aids in your investment performance.

You must have seen a lot of media coverage for Indian Rupee hovering in the 70s against the USD. Any guesses on which other OECD country didn't fare as well as the INR ?

3) Macro Economic data

I found the Google Public Data Explorer very useful.

Google has hundreds of public datasets. I specifically like the World Development Indicators dataset provided by Worldbank. This has very good cross-country comparison across Economic policy, Labor data, Health, Infrastructure and many more.

For instance: Real GDP (adjusted for inflation) for specific countries over a defined period. Not surprised at the emerging economies flying high !

You can also use the link functionality on the top right to share it like this, where I compare consumer price index across multiple countries.

Another equally powerful site is tradingeconomics.com . It has a lot of economic data all in one place and can be exported via API. But, I couldn't find charting functionality across countries. Here is another example of comparing historical inflation rates. Check out how Inflation rate is going down in India from the high of 12.17% in Nov 2013 to hovering around 4% range in 2018.

But, I love their calendar functionality below. It is a good stop to look at your daily economic calendar But, I digress !

Another source to find Inflation over a custom period for certain countries is StatBureau.
Could find all the countries I am tracking for this article except China.

Results

If you have come all the way here .. you probably are looking for the significance of this date.
It is the day on which Modi was sworn in as the Prime Minister of India. Not that, a country's performance is tied so specifically to a particular date. But, you can decide for yourself on how a country performed relative to other countries - all during a common time frame, using the tools described above on this blog.

Here is the summary of investing in each of those countries - adjusted for inflation, over the last 4 years and 3 months approx.

India, Japan and US were the top 3 on different metrics. China, UK and the Europe were consistently on 4th, 5th, and 6th across all metrics.

1) India did the best in absolute market returns (10.25% annualized). However, an equally high cumulative inflation (18.6%) knocks the real rate of return to a 3rd rank at 5.9% annualized - slightly ahead of China, and clearly ahead of UK and Europe.
2) Japan did the best (9.15% annualized) on real return due to low-inflation. However, since the currency also depreciated against the dollar, it only yielded (5.98% annualized) for the cross-border US investor.
3) For the US based investor, US market was the best at (7.87% annualized real rate of return)

If you want to understand the math behind the calculations, check out my post - How did I do on my investment ?

PS: If you are interested in additional insights using the Google Data explorer, check out for insights on Trade and Wars.

Your Umbrella Personality

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 05:26:00 +0000

What is your Umbrella Personality Type ?

I like rainy days.

It is a wonderful time to slow down and an opportunity to get in sync with the flow of life. As every child did, I remember watching the dance of the rain drops down the glass window panes. Some times two drops come together to merge and form one; and after some time they get bogged down by their own weight and split; and yet some other times they are so near and yet they don't even mingle. As a thoroughly trained Indian movie goer, my favorite was the one where they come from two different paths, merge some where midway and go all the way together till the bottom of the window and disappear at once !

In my adult life, this hobby extended to being a little more reflective during rains and at times - engage in people watching. I am impressed at how people use their umbrellas. There is a whole gamut of scenarios that is unfolded here.

Starting with the most usual type - some one walking at a steady pace with a reasonably-sized black umbrella to cover themselves while in rain - Sure, you see several of these. But, nothing fascinating. Some carry an umbrella that is probably enough just to cover their head - but do let their bags over their shoulders get wet. A few other slender looking types carry something too big to accommodate some one else comfortably in.

Most are black. A few bold types venture out now and then with flamboyant colors. I occasionally see the transparent ones which are a pleasing thing to watch. On the other hand, nature scores a goal against man when the umbrella is being torn or ripped apart by a stronger wind.

It is fascinating to see how people behave without their umbrellas while raining. A few walk confidently and slowly down the road as though they are entering the stage to perform in the role of a king. A few others run as fast as they can splashing water along the way, and probably getting wetter from the splash below than the rain above ! The best sight to watch is when a group of kids enjoy their dance in the rain when parents are not around. I have to admit I do occasionally stick out my tongue in the rain and blame it on the kids :)

I have seen a few who struggle to open their car trunk in the parking lot, while getting wet - only to realize - Surprise ! There is no umbrella inside. A few others, who run in rain carrying their umbrella (without opening it) because it is just a short distance to get to the building. Others who enter the building, fold it properly put it in their own umbrella bag while a few others use the throw-away bag at the building entrances.

I know of a friend who is so meticulous that he keeps one in the car and the other in his office so he is always covered. And sometimes the planner/lazy types who brought his umbrella to the office that morning (knowing that it was going to rain in the afternoon), comes out of the building during lunch without his umbrella , yet lazy enough to go back and pick it up and thus decides to get wet any way.

In Seattle where it is a surprise when it doesn't rain, I have seen a "community umbrella" concept in some malls/buildings where stores and offices keep a reserve of umbrellas in a bucket at their front door. Anyone picks it up while exiting, uses it for a short distance and drops at the next "drop off point".

Umbrellas in Disney World are a painful scene to watch - Kids are oblivious to the weather and are having a great time while the parents have to keep one more thing together in addition to their truck load of things for the day.

It gets more interesting when you see a person to umbrella relation is not one to one.
We have all seen a group of folks coming together from lunch where there is just one person short of it and squeezes between two umbrellas either to get his head or butt in - but not both. And sometimes, the private person who really doesn't like to share his and yet grudgingly accommodates - but takes the lion share of his own umbrella, practically providing very little coverage to the other. Some times it feels bad to watch two people walking out of the same building at the same time, walking in the same direction - one of whom is fully covered by his umbrella and the other walking right next to him without.

A few other memorable ones that caught my attention over the years:

An elderly couple during their morning walk in Atlanta - both carried their respective umbrellas in their hands and strangely - they were unopened even though it was raining. May be they were too engrossed in their conversation.

A man walking with his dog and both had their respective umbrellas.

My personal favorite - A dad and his daughter (may be 5 year old) walking some where around Times Square with only one umbrella between the two of them while it was drizzling. Dad was carrying a backpack on his shoulders, a shopping bag in his left hand, no umbrella for himself and holding a kid's umbrella for his daughter on his right hand - all while letting her walk at her pace. I ran to him, patted on his back and said.."Nice job buddy. That's what Dads do" !

The President has 6 Buttons

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Sat, 30 Jul 2016 05:05:00 +0000

In this election, before we focus on whom to vote for, can we talk about what we want in the first place ?

--- In response to my above statement - the discussion kept going in a whatsapp group , and finally I had to get to a long-form article, and here we are on the blog. Hope to revise this draft soon, but you get the gist in the meanwhile. I will probably leave the casual language as it is .. to keep the original intent of convincing a friend.---

You made me think a little more on what I want.

It was long time pending, to pen this article..
I used to say every President has 6 buttons on their desk. They don't have time to play with all of them at any time. Sometimes, one-term is not even enough to press one button. And, what they press on - shapes us for ever.
I got home as fast as I could today from work - thanks to a button that Eisenhower pressed in the 50s.. more than 65 years ago !

Finally, put the detailed thought in categorization. Here is an easy way to remember. The six buttons are IBCDEF - Immigration, Benefits, Culture, Defense, Economy/Energy, and Future.

1) Immigration
Having started as a country of Immigrants, this is uniquely differentiating factor for this country. That is the reason I put this on the front. It is the DNA of the country. We can never afford to be anti-immigrant.

For more facts.. A few notable ones..
- immigrants’ share of total output was about 14.7 percent over 2009–2011. Note that this is actually larger than immigrants’ 13 percent share of the population.
- Unauthorized immigrants are a net positive for public budgets because they contribute more to the system than they take out. (Not saying this is a reason to keep unauth.. just the facts on their impact)

Inc. said .. The most entrepreneurial group in America wasn't born in America

2) Benefits

This is the safety net. Another way to look at it is.. this is the Cost of Progress or I would even say - Cost of Civilization.

In the Jungle or the animal world - there are only two choices - life or death.. The law of survival of the fittest dictates that the unfortunate and the attacked have no choice.

Even in the human world - in the game of life that we all play - everyone is NOT going to be a winner. And, since we have "progressed" through the civilization - we take care of the "losers". I don't intend to use the word "Loser" with a demeaning context at all. This includes all those who never had a chance, who are caught blindsided, who played a fair game and lost (because there will always be winners and losers in a game - as long as you play)

Social Security, Education, Health Care, Minimum Wage on labor - all these policy issues come here. As civilizations progress, the "risk" we take would be reduced through these safety nets.

If you lose a job - would you need easier access to health insurance ?
If you have been in an industry all your life that you lose a job after 30 years - would you need some help in re-tooling yourself ? That is also part of education.

3) Culture
This set defines who we are and how we want to conduct life. We tend to ignore this when there are bigger issues. This keeps re-surfacing generally when other problems are solved.

No Racial discrimination, Abortion, Legalization of Drugs, LGBT/Human Rights, Right to Privacy, Democratic Elections etc.
In another way - these are kind of "rich world problems" as some tend to think of. But again, these define who we are as put in the Constitution.

4) Defense
Regardless of what Aristotle said - Man is NOT a rational animal. We tend to do stupid things. When others do it, we have to stop them. We have to make sure we don't do stupid things.

Military spending, fighting the right wars are part of this category.
Sometimes, we even get crazy enough to shoot our own selves - That is where Guns become a problem too.

Similarly, Foreign Policy shapes who our friends and foes are.

5) Economy and Energy
This is what makes life possible in the modern world - Taxes and Trade on the "Revenue" Side. Energy on the "cost" side and Regulation as a "control valve".

Taxes - source of revenue - how much to collect, whom to collect from - Individual vs. Corporations ? Should rich pay more than those who are not ? Will taxing corporations screw up the creation of jobs?

Trade has been happening for years. This is where the "losers" we talked about earlier are impacted where there needs to be a safety net.

Energy - What sources, how much to depend on internal vs. external sources etc are part of this discussion.

Regulation is like a valve. You open too much and you make a mess with an overflow. You open too little and you constrain the flow. So, this tap needs to be "regulated" depending on market timing.

6) Future

Finally, this section is to think of Future - beyond the current generation that has elected the current government.

Environmental issues like Climate change, Carbon tax etc. and Investments on Infrastructure, Science and technology are a big part of shaping our future.

Tim Berners Lee was working at a government facility - CERN when he created the www. If the government hadn't funded institutions like DARPA - a Department of Defense initiative - I wouldn't be sending this article to you in less than a second after I finished typing. If NASA were not there - SpaceX would NOT be worth $12 Billion today.

This is an area where credit is not given for the government.
Government should have the deep pockets to make long term funding. That is how it is supposed to work. Some bets will be right, some will not.

Now, you decide how you want to press the six buttons and decide who is the best to get to the destination you want.

The buttons to press
1) Immigration - No Wall

2) Benefits - Keep ObamaCare, protect those that are dis-enfranchised by trade with support on education (as I said - not just limited to 4 yr colleges), Also AI/Machine age is coming soon. So, education all the more important.

3) Culture - Keep as is - Try to resolve issues like BlackLives matter amicably and without getting into "rich world problems" - Bathroom laws. The issues will be there, but not too much time to focus on now..

4) Defense - Fight ISIS only on global coalition including the Arabs.
As Bertrand Russell said - War does not determine who is right - only who is left !
More Americans are killed by guns since 1968 than ALL WARS in the HISTORY of AMERICA. Read that statement again. If you don't believe, check out
So, NRA has to be weakened. I am not talking about violating 2nd amendment.
Just that we got to have more common sense laws to take away guns from those who shouldn't be having it in the first place.

5) On Economy and Energy -
Keep it buzzing. Got to do financial transaction tax as source of revenue. Just remember that High Frequency trading is a game played by machines for which the humans pay the cost ! Check out here for more on this..
Nothing crazy on trade. Use the Regulatory Valve appropriately depending on the market !

6) And, as much as climate change is real, this is likely ignored again - at least in the short term. I think we will be busy solving the others that we need another term to get to this fight ! The earth will last another 4 years !

Now, remember - I did NOT talk about the candidates. I just talked about what my destination should be. Now, you tell me if you agree with my destination and who the driver should be !

Aa Rojuley Baagunnayi (Telugu)

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Sat, 09 Jul 2016 05:51:00 +0000

The party in our minds

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 05:02:00 +0000

Regardless of whom one supports in this elections..
A Very well summarized view of perceptions

Timeless problems

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Fri, 25 Dec 2015 20:49:00 +0000

After a late night Christmas party and the usual early morning presents by the tree, this Christmas was slightly different.

My wife’s cousin, who just came to US a couple of days ago, is with us for the weekend before heading to Florida on Sunday for his Masters in Aeronautics. I happened to notice his book on “Flight Stability and Automatic Control” and was drawn to the calculus - derivatives and integration used in the text book. And, it soon lead to reminiscing about some math problems.

I am usually intrigued by Math problems that younger students ask as it allows me an opportunity to indulge in a common language despite the age difference! He posed the following.

Is it possible for velocity of an object to be 0 and acceleration to be non-zero ?
What is larger - x or 1/x ?
A vehicle moves 1Km at 30 Kmph from A to B. What velocity would it have to move from B to C (another 1km distance) so the average velocity from A to C is 60 Kmph ?
What is the derivative of Sqrt(2+sqrt(2+sqrt(2+sqrt(2+..… infinite series
And then, once he assessed me with that, he got on to the real one.. derivative of Sqrt(x+sqrt(x+sqrt(x+sqrt(x+..… infinite series

I don’t consider myself a math whiz, but take pride in my interest in basic math and like solving problems like these from time to time. After answering all of them, I must have gained the right to ask and it was my turn.

I am not particularly good at recalling problems from my memory, with the exception of this one below. That was because I created this problem myself, as I was learning Integration around 12^th grade – almost a quarter century ago!

I asked him - which of the following, if any, is/are integrable ? And, if they are, solve them.

1/(1+x^4)
x/(1+x^4)
x^2/(1+x^4)
x^3/(1+x^4)
x^4/(1+x^4)
x^5/(1+x^4)

As soon as I said that, my 7 year old daughter who is still struggling in getting her 2 digit additions right – accidentally blurted out the correct answer – “All of them”. She probably figured the pattern in how I quiz her already J. I told her she was the first one who ever answered that question correctly. (and definitely the one to answer without even solving them !)

And, after a good discussion in solving all of them with the 21 year old student, he told me – “You created this problem even before I was born”. That was a profound observation. And, one of the reasons why I love Math problems – the timeless nature of the problems and more importantly – their solutions. Strangely, the solutions provide a sense of stability in this day and age where everything changes at a frantic pace. I cannot say how many other solutions remain the same over such a long period of time!

I look forward to asking the same question in about a decade when my daughter learns calculus. I am sure I will remind her she got it right her first time :)

After writing this article, I prod her – “how did she answer it correctly when I asked her about the “integrable” question?. She says - All of those are “Incredible” – the word she heard ! Math problems and solutions are incredible indeed– with their unvarying answers in this ever-changing world!

Don't get SMACked like "The Martian" !

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 19:11:00 +0000

In the movie – The Martian, Matt Damon gets “smacked” by flying debris from an intense storm leaving him stranded on the planet. After watching the movie (a very good one BTW), my daughter and I started playing the “What if” game – what would be doing if we were in his shoes. Somewhere along the way, a thought occurred – What such event could hit us in the ever-changing technological storm that we always seem to be in middle of? Thus, the seeds for this article were sown from another planet. :)

SMAC, an acronym coined by Cognizant in 2011 - seems to be the storm brewing recently. It has made its presence felt in the technologies that enterprises are working on today. It stands for Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud Computing.

Considered the fifth wave in computing, SMAC’s solution market is expected to hold 80% of all total enterprise IT investment in the next 5 years, generating about $225 Billion of revenue for IT service firms.

This article explores trends in each of these areas and ways to train yourself and learn more about the technologies of this wave. Most, if not all, of these courses share a few common traits.

Available as online courses, certification programs or just DIY links.
Can be learnt for free or for a nominal cost.
Many of these take no more than a couple of hours per week – and more importantly - on one’s own schedule(of course, the time varies based on the technical depth of these courses and individual background )

Course Delivery Platforms

Many of these courses are available in three distinct environments.

Enterprise Environment: Companies like IBM, Google, Hubspot, Cloudera and many others offer several learning opportunities on their websites. These lessons and certification programs are generally found in sections listed under Training/Developers/University.
Academic Environment: Universities like Stanford, MIT (Open Courseware), Harvard (Extension School) and others offer courses in academic and online setting. Not all of these courses are free, especially if you require credit hours towards a degree or specialization.
Hybrid Environment: Many venture-backed, for-profit Companies like Coursera, Udacity, Udemy, etc. and non-profits like edX, and Khan Academy generally fall under the category of MOOCs – Massively Open Online Courses. There are various distinctions within this category. Many of these courses are free if you just want access to content. If you need a link to certification at the end of the course (after passing the exam), most of these cost about $50 to $100 per course. If you need access to additional help like Udacity’s Coaches – it could cost about $200 per month.

Now, let’s look at how these sectors are evolving and how to be prepared in each of the SMAC categories.

Social Media

Hubspot offers a comprehensive marketing course that covers the Inbound Marketing methodology. It gives you enough breadth to cover the new age of marketing – especially in the B2B world.

How do you get visitors to your site and get them interested in your products?
How do you track, nurture, and convert those leads into prospects and customers?
How can Sales and Marketing work together on inter-dependent and aligned goals?

During a recent CMO Argyle event I attended, it was not uncommon to hear many B2B marketers generating at least one-third of their sales from Inbound Marketing.

If you want to get a quick overview of best practices in Search Engine Optimization, Blogging, Email Marketing, Social Media Distribution, Content Analysis, etc., this Hubspot course is for you.

Mobility

As much as there seems to be an app for everything we ever want to do, the tipping point of Mobile Media time being greater than Desktop media did indeed happen for the first time in the last year- as shown in this comScore’s graph.

10 great courses to learn Mobile App Development is a great starting point to view courses in each of the three categories of course delivery platforms discussed earlier. Both Android and iOS courses are listed. All of these would require a decent amount of programming experience.

Analytics

This is my favorite one. Though “islands of Microsoft Excel culture” are scattered in many parts of the enterprise, 43% of organizations are restructuring and reorganizing their organizations to exploit big data opportunities and 2/3rds of them either already have or are planning to appoint a C-Level role (ex: Chief Data Officer)– as summarized in this CapGemini and EMC study.

There is an EXCELLENT metro-map that outlines the path to get on the Analytics train. It can feel overwhelming, just like any of the metro maps in a foreign country – especially if you don’t know where you are and where you want to go.

If you think you are the right-brain kind of person and are generally scared of numbers, I would encourage you to start by browsing a few chapters of the book - Naked Statistics.
If you can calculate tip at a restaurant without pulling your calculator, comfortable with basic math, vaguely recall that PDF meant Probability Density Function (in the pre-Adobe world), and are willing to learn on your own, I would start with what you may have already done years ago - An excellent introduction to AP – Statistics Course. (I also use this while I tutor 10th grade students. The best comprehensive statistics material all in one place).
If you already know the difference between Descriptive and Predictive Statistics, and slowly want to get into the programming/tools side of statistics- a good place to start is with a programming language like R. Coursera’s data science specialization track is helpful – especially R Programming.
If you are comfortable with doing basic data analysis for yourself – either in Excel or R and want to get into more sophisticated tools and concepts, you can start indulging in Machine Learning and Data Visualization. All the MOOCs have great courses on this. Stanford’s course on Machine Learning by Andrew Ng is generally considered the rite of passage into the Machine world. Udacity also allows you to access for free their Machine Learning course, part of their Nanodegree offering.
When your data analysis skills start to crash your laptop(because you can no longer open large files in Excel locally), it may be time to jump into Distributed computing technologies - Map Reduce and Hadoop – also referred to as Big Data Technologies. And, here is where it could get a little hazy – on the Analytical vs. Cloud nature of these technologies. Both IBM’s Big Data University and Coursera offer several courses in these areas.

If you want to get the sexiest job of the 21st century – as deemed by Harvard Business Review, here is a terrific infographic detailing the roadmap to become a Data Scientist.

Cloud Computing

Globally, cloud apps will account for 90% of total mobile traffic in 4 years, compared to an astonishing 81% at the end of last year. 57% of IT Architects and tech professionals are running apps on AWS today, as summarized in this Forbes article.

Rackspace eases you into the terminology of Cloud with a basic/free 10-chapter CloudU Certification course elaborating the differences between public, private and hybrid cloud.

Cloud Academy offers multiple learning paths to traverse the cloud platforms from Amazon, Azure (Microsoft) and Google.

Conclusion

There are several paths to start the SMAC journey. We barely scratched the surface. Many of these technologies usually converge in many real-world enterprise projects. For instance: Analyzing (A) social network (S) data using Big Data technologies on the Cloud(C) combines three of these technologies.

The key is to start somewhere closer to the world you are familiar with in one of these areas, and without getting stranded, step by step, expand into others and get Home to the field of your interest.. Just like the Martian did !!

What is Freedom?

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 03:34:00 +0000

Class Notes - Sep 20 2015

In the last class - we discussed the roadmap of the course and a multi-disciplinary outline of the various aspects - Philosophy, Science, History, Art etc.. of the Self.

In this class, we shall review one of the terms - Freedom, which would fall under the Philosophical side first - as we try to understand the theory in class. Once we understand the theory/concept behind this term(download in this class), each one of us will have to (install => Homework) in order to experience it.
Download and Install are part of the framework used in last class.

We started with a discussion of
- what we thought Freedom meant
- how none of us are as free as we want to be
- how rules constrain our freedom

Experiment
There were 17 students in the class and I did a quick survey based on three questions answered by them.
Q1) Write down any word you want to
Q2) Write down words that start with the letter "S"
Q3) Write down the maximum number of words starting with the letter "T" in under a minute.

Both Questions 1 and 2 were also answered in 1 minute (where I asked them to stop at the end of 1 minute). Prior to Question 3, the students were not aware that they took one minute to answer those two questions.
In other words, all three questions were answered in exactly one minute.

After the 3rd question was completed, I asked them to count the number of words written under each question. Each student then, reported three numbers.

Results
After collecting the individual responses from each one of them, here is the average number of words in each case - to generalize across the entire sample of 17 students.
Q1) 5.12 words on average
Q2) 7.9 words on average
Q3) 16.1 words on average

Though they had the exact same time for each question (Q1 and Q2 unknowingly and Q3 knowingly)
- Most, if not all, of them were able to write more words in Q2 compared to Q1.
- All of them wrote more words in Q3 compared to Q2 and Q1

Insights

We talked about why that was the case. A couple of insights that they uncovered during the discussion.

- The ability to express was limited when they perceived no limitation(rules) in Q1
- Adding a constraint(rule to follow) in Q2 (starting with a particular letter) helped them to express more freely
- A time pressure added to better performance in Q3

Analysis
Though, the time given for their "freedom of expression" was the same across all three questions, there are key differences amongst these questions
- Q2 had a "constraint" or a rule to follow - a starting letter
- Q3 had a "constraint" and a "goal" - finding the maximum words in a minute
- Q1 had neither a constraint nor a goal - in other words a perception of unlimited freedom.

The freedom to express was more when a constraint was followed (Q2), and the most when a goal was pursued (Q3). Though we perceive that our freedom is more without any goals and constraints, the actual freedom we experience is the most when we practice intelligent self-restraint in pursuit of our goals.

Back to Real World
1) A constraint allows us to establish that we will NOT go below whatever the lower limit we have identified for ourselves. That is the floor on which we will stand and continue to improve from there with time. In no time, shall we go below the constraint that we establish for ourselves.

A goal allows us to pursue our personal best higher and higher till we get to the ultimate goal.

2) A constraint is something that we have to STOP ourselves from doing. These are things that we are currently doing or that we have easy access to. When we tell ourselves that we will never hit below the floor we establish for ourselves, we program it in our brains. When our parents or elders ask us (provide feedback) to stop doing something, we will have to analyze for ourselves and establish those as the floors below which we won't go.

A goal is something that we have to START doing, that we are not currently capable of - in which case we have to start building the capability to reach our goal.

With time...
The following visual is just an example of how we can progress with time. In class, we discussed the lowest scale (the minus infinity) is Murder. Similarly, the highest scale (positive infinity goal) is the maximum happiness for not only ourselves, but for everyone around us.

On the constraints we will have to impose on ourselves - it may be "sleeping/eating more" for some of us, while it may be "sleeping/eating less" for others. In other words, the rules we want to follow will be different for each one of us depending on where we currently are.

As we see in the visual below,
- though it may "appear" (=> we just perceive) that we have unlimited freedom when there are no rules and goals
- we will actually continue to experience increasing freedom as we start practicing intelligent self-restraint in pursuit of our goals

Homework.
Define your personal goals and self-imposed constraints that you want to follow to experience maximum freedom.

What do we study in Self-Unfoldment

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 02:56:00 +0000

Class Notes - Sep 13 2015

In the last class - we saw an introduction into the book - Self-Unfoldment.
In this class, we discussed how this book shall be used in the context of this course.

There are two things that we have with us always, if not most of the time.

One we are aware of - The Cell Phone.
The other we are unaware of - Our self fun :)

Before we jump into the topic of Self and understand what we are going to do in this course , let us look at the more familiar world of cell phones first.

What we do in the world of Cell Phones

1) Most of our beloved apps that are available on the app store are first downloaded onto our phone.
2) These apps are then installed on our phone before we try them out.
3) Once installed, we start play/interacting with it

Summarized by the picture below that we saw in class.

What we do in this Course of Self-Unfoldment

What we do in this course of self-unfoldment is not much different from the world we are familiar with.

1) We download the various topics related to Self. For instance- Understanding the History, Science, Philosophy of self . This happens in the class when you come to learn about these various topics.
2) The act of installation- happens only when you start using these principles to work on your own self. We will get into the various practices that are part of this process - like Introspection, Reflection, Meditation, Pranayama etc..
3) Once installed, you get to use these new techniques and behaviors while interacting with the world around you. Over a period of time, these interactions will happen with the new behaviors you start to develop.

Summarized by the picture below that we saw in class.

Home Work:
We talked about the various combinations of doing and not doing these three activities and assess where we particularly are at this stage of the course. Across the three combinations of Download (Learning/Studying), Install (Practicing/experimenting on your self) and Play (Interacting with the real world), the following eight combinations serve as a guide to assess where we are and what we intend to do with this class.

Introduction to self-unfoldment

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 18:29:00 +0000

Class Notes - Aug 30 2015

What is the subject of this book: Self-Unfoldment ?
Why do we need to study another subject when we are studying so many other subjects?

What would I know when I study about the Self?

- Why am I sometimes happy, sometimes sad ?

- Why do I feel guilty after I lie?

- Does it make a difference whether I lie or not?

- Where was I before I was born?

Define Success…Discussions around

- Wealth

- Achieving the goal one sets for oneself

- Happy

Journey of Life series

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 15:32:00 +0000

From Atlanta..

28 year old cab driver from Guinea..

Eldest of 5 siblings,
Last one in the family to come to US just 6 years ago after studying Networking in Africa,
Currently driving cab from 3 pm till night- after going to school from 7:30 am to 2,
Studying Aviation Maintenance - a 2 year program on 50K student loan,
Looking forward to work with Boeing or move to Europe/Asia if jobs are tough here.

Spotted doing homework in his cab while waiting for passengers at Dunwoody Marta.

Inspired by his drive to succeed, while he is driving around town.

Hats off to him !!

Top 12 Favorites - KPCB 2015 Internet Trends

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Fri, 29 May 2015 15:41:00 +0000

One of the very few times where I look forward to the 100+ slide decks.. :)

The Annual Internet Trend Report from Mary Meeker (This is her 20th Annual report) @ Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers - published yesterday.

Here are my Top 12 favorite slides from this year's.. (The complete deck has 197 slides - http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends )

1) Slide 8 - Impact of internet yet to hit these sectors - Education, Healthcare and Government/Regulation Policy;

2) Slide 10 – Smartphone subscription “growth rate” is slowing in most mature markets (US, Japan etc)

3) Slide 16 – We haven’t seen enough ads yet on Mobile

4) Slide 47 – Messaging still the Killer App Globally

5) Slide 85 – 400+ companies approved to operate drones in US - mostly "old economy" sectors

6) Slide 95 – Three regions with almost equal share of Global GDP - US, Europe, and China. This is adjusted for purchasing power parity.

7) Slide 97 – Gap between Goods-producing Jobs and Services jobs - continues to widen. Reminds me of the Alan Greenspan quote years ago on the "physical weight of US economy" getting lighter.

8) Slide 109 – More Millennials than Boomers and Gen X in the workforce

9) Slide 120 – E-commerce barely at 10% of total retail sales in US .. what more is in store for the traditional retailers as this trend continues ?

10) Slide 126 – Freelancers are about 1/3rd of US Workforce

11) Slide 133 – Online platforms are becoming a reasonable source of earning income

12) Slide 167 – India often #1 or #2 for Global Internet leaders unlike (Korea, Japan, China - where home-grown varieties tend to flourish )

Journey of Life Series

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Mon, 11 May 2015 15:35:00 +0000

From Miami..

Jamaican Cab driver who has been driving taxi for 35 years in Miami, hasn't visited Jamaica in last 16 years ever since his daughter was born here(His only teenage daughter turned vegetarian in last 4 years after watching animal cruelty videos)

Trying to find another field of work in the coming months..

Due to 40% customer drop in daily traffic and $150k drop in his license/medallion asset value.. in the post-Uber world

While Uber is currently illegal in Florida and he is likely to be impacted further if it becomes legal soon..

Wishes he had the foresight to sell his license a few months ago and pay off his mortgage before the $150K drop... now thinking of new career options...

And, he knew Uber was valued at $50 Billion.

The Guru Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Mon, 04 May 2015 21:59:00 +0000

Summary

Analysis of data on Hindu Institutions shows some individuals or institutions (The Guru) are better than others - to learn from.
Institutions that are more focused, and have a good succession planning are better likely to survive for generations.
The best individuals or institutions help us in teaching the ideas of Hinduism to maximize our full potential in life. The art of putting those teachings into practice solely depends on us.

Introduction
Many of us can recall the amount of time we spend researching on a particular item or a service before we commit to buying it. Just think of the time we spend - reading reviews on Amazon drifting from one product to another, comparison shopping before we buy that flight ticket for our next destination, finding the amenities available at the hotel we are staying at just for the weekend, researching the career track of the kids before considering putting our own toddler in the neighborhood day care (OK…The last one may be a stretch). Yet, when it comes to selecting an individual or an institution that can influence the most valuable possession of our lives – our brain, we tend to skim the research and trust in the Gods of probability.

For those of us who are fortunate enough to have stumbled upon the spiritual path, the journey usually starts off with a friend or a flyer describing some workshop or a session over the weekend. It may also be due to a book or a blog referred by someone we trust. After attending a couple of sessions or skimming through a few chapters, if one is convinced enough of the benefits and would like to be around other followers of similar thought– the journey is likely to continue further.

For the serendipitous- That is how it is supposed to be. For the skeptical – the question is: Is there a better way? There is nothing wrong if the journey happens to be a pleasant one ... not only in the short term, but also for years to come. But what if, the Guru (either the institution or the individual) we plan to ride with in our journey of life – takes us for a ride?

Is there a better way?

With the number of Gurus (both institutions and individuals) making headlines for the wrong reasons, despite having thousands, if not millions of followers - have we learnt enough to avoid the treacherous path in trusting our Gurus? Every religion has had and continues to have their share of issues from sex and violence to Terrorism- AsaramBapu or Nithyananda; The Church of Scientology; The Catholic priests ; Madrasas and Buddhists - all came into light for the wrong reasons.

I strongly believe that most followers of all religions (including genuine atheists in pursuit of maximizing their potential) go through the same quest of life. However, just because every religion failed in some of their leaders or institutions, we simply cannot urge everyone to turn into atheists - In other words, you cannot throw the baby with the bath water. Every one learns differently and some need Gurus more than others. Just like we all learn a skill or a trade differently- Some of us are tinkerers in our basements while some go to technical colleges, while a few start a business and learn along the way- there is room within the so-called “organized religion” domain for us to learn from.

So, the question is - Is there a better way to find our Guru (both the individual and the institution itself) in a more structured approach? Let’s look at what the data says. If you want to jump straight to the conclusion, skipping the detailed analysis - please go to the last section - Whom to follow.

Analysis of Hindu Institutions

I am going to limit the scope of my analysis to Hinduism, a school of thought that I am reasonably familiar with. The same approach can be extended to other schools of thought and any other religion or philosophy.

Hinduism doesn’t have a founder. It has a lot of proponents who have created numerous ideas and institutions. These proponents and their institutions focus on many of the core concepts and package them differently for different audiences. In the business parlance, if these institutions were offering products, some of the key product lines can be considered as Karma Yoga, Bhakthi Yoga, Raja Yoga, and Jnana Yoga; Some treat Hatha Yoga, and Kriya Yoga also as "product-line extensions".

This is akin to open-source software philosophy – which doesn’t necessarily have a true founder. Different people came together with the concepts over a period of time. Yet – institutions like Red Hat, SUN, and Google have all "profited" from Linux, Java and Android respectively and some survived better than others. They all have concentrated on different product lines and sectors – Operating System, Programming Languages, Enterprise Applications, Educational content (Open Courseware, Wikipedia, Khan Academy) – Yet, all of them believe in the fundamental “philosophy or values” of open source.

Is it wrong ? (Individual vs. Institution vs. Ideology)
Sometimes there is a feeling that we are not supposed to question the institutions or their founders in the religious path. A few would even go to the extreme of describing it as blasphemy.

Questioning or analyzing the Hindu institutions is not tantamount to questioning the religion or the ideology itself. In fact, the core values of Vedanta encourage a strong individual analytical reasoning and thus we are following the true spirit of Hinduism.

Survival of the institutions is simply dictated by market forces and organizational dynamics - How well they are run in the short term and how well they are positioned for the long run. All of these institutions are formed with a core purpose (just like start ups), many of them fail (with in the first generation), and a few succeed (for several decades or centuries). However, most of them espouse the values of Hinduism and offer the "same products" we discussed.

And institutions themselves are founded by individuals - all of whom will have to leave this material world in about 80 years. In the first few decades of a new institution, it is hard to differentiate the individual from the institution. Those founder individuals who are able to successfully articulate this differentiation enable the institution on a successful path for future generations.

And, regardless of whom we are relying on to teach us the ideas- the individual or the institution, we would have to personally put these ideas into practice and annihilate the other "I" - the Ego . And that is the lion's share of the work - that totally depends on ourselves alone.

The Data

Looking at the religious institutions that survived over the years, is there a pattern that helps us place our bet on the right institution or the Guru? There are about 60 institutions that I started with. It gives enough sample size to start the analysis. I gathered the following attributes for these institutions.

Foundation
Who started this organization? How did it get started? Is it a “spin-off” from another organization of the same or similar philosophy? Is it a “split-up” from an institution with a common founder?

I tend to think of founders of any system/institution (religious or otherwise) as rebels from existing systems/institutions. Those rebels who end up successful with their philosophy or institution get branded as founders. Those rebels who are not successful keep fighting the battle till their ideas are either decimated or become successful(in which case they become founders). For instance, Jesus who rebelled Judaism and Buddha who rebelled Hinduism were successful founders of their respective religions. Daniel Jones, would be considered more a rebel and not a founder because his concept of Jediism did not succeed.

Practically, many successful Hindu institutions claim the lineage of Adi Sankara. Swami Narayan is another common founder across many institutions of similar philosophy. Similarly, there are a couple of institutions that associate with Swami Vivekananda / Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.

How long have they been in place? Especially in their current institutional form?

For instance, the four original Sankara Matams have been in place for centuries in their current form. Sangh Parivar, for instance is known to have created many institutes (VHP, RSS, Samskrita Bharathi, Hindu Munnani etc.) over the last century.

Succession Planning
Chinese have a saying – Wealth never survives three generations; Even in English, there is a saying attributed to Andrew Carnegie - “From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations”; If an institution survives for at least 60 to 75 years, the odds are high that it has solved the problem of "transfer of power or control" at least twice. For instance, If you are associated with institutions that have been time-tested, the chance of your relating with your grand-kids is higher on topics that emanate from these institutions. Other wise, they will be searching for their own institutions just like we are searching for institutions different from what appealed to our grand parents.

Questions to consider are: Who is the current head of the organization? Is it still being led by the founder generation? How many times have they been able to successfully transition power/leadership to the next in-charge? What is their philosophy of succession planning? Do they have a source of next -generation leaders ?

And, this is where lineage comes into question. If founders don't associate themselves with lineage (another Guru that they learnt from) - called as Guru parampara, how could we expect a successful transition of their own power/control to the next generation ? Do they intend to mean lineage starts with them? Or do they intend to run this as a single-generation organization? If so, do we still want to be associated with it?

Having a source of next-generation leaders is likely to put some checks and balances into any institution. And, even if there is disagreement within the current institution, there is a possibility for some of them to spin-off another institution - which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Founders like Jaggi Vasudev (Isha Yoga) claim to not be associated with any lineage or teachings from within the religion. Sathya Sai Baba's organization struggles to find its place after the founder's death because there is no identified succession planning.

Most people invoke Ramana Maharshi as an example of a realized person even without a Guru. He was one of those rare ascetics who also rejected being initiated into Sringeri Sharada Peetham - one of Adi Sankara's peetams and did not promote a lineage. There can always be some true exceptions. But, not every one is living the life of a Ramana Maharshi.

Core purpose
What is the core purpose of this organization? How many sectors/product lines - Jnana, karma, Raja yoga etc.. are they in ? Are they focused on single sector? Are they diversified into multiple sectors? (Philanthropy, Temples, Hospitals, Educational institutions etc.)? Are they growing too fast into multiple sectors?

Sathya Sai Organization is in diversified sectors. Chinmaya Mission or the Sankara Matam temples can be considered to be in fewer sectors – Jnana Yoga and Bhakthi Yoga respectively.

Scale
What is the order of magnitude for current followers of the institution? Are they in the hundreds, thousands, or millions?

Scale is a double-edged sword. Too few or too many are symptoms to watch out for. Scale is one of the dimensions for the viability of a successful idea. At the same time, one may not feel connected enough if there are too many followers- especially since Groupthink promotes network effect in these cases.

Some concepts never reach the scale though they may have been in place for a long time. Naga Sadhus (in Hinduism) and Amish (outside of Hinduism) come to mind in these cases as examples in this category.

The Framework

The picture started to emerge after I mapped it along two dimensions.
On the horizontal axis – I used the dimension of time to represent the number of years these institutions have been in place. This data is relatively easy to obtain based on the year of their founding and what qualifies for a true institution. I used 75 years as a rough approximation to account for transfer of power/control over three generations - assuming the founder runs it for about 30 years and is able to do two transfers over the next 45 years.

On the vertical axis - There is a way to think of these institutions as having scaled or not. As mentioned earlier, scale is relative. For those that have scaled - are they in diversified sectors or are they focused in delivering their messages in a few areas?

The 9 Regions

Region 1:

This is the group that hasn't scaled enough in the last 75 years.

Most of us find our Gurus in extended family who pass on their wisdom, especially while we are growing up. Parents, Grand-parents, Uncles and aunts, and even siblings and friends - Their collective teachings are the foundation on which our experiences are built. Lucky are those with a solid foundation in this corner. With time, and at the appropriate time, each one of us will have to come out of this shell and experience wisdom from other institutions for wider applications of our life. Eknath Easwaran is one of those who found his Guru within the family -his grand mother as his spiritual teacher.

There are other genuine individuals whom I have heard of - Performing meditation in the Himalayas or some such place. Many of them like Tapovan Maharaj and Ramakrishna, who didn't scale by themselves, but enabled their students to scale.

It is also in this group that we are likely to hear of many individuals, who are smart enough for the common man, yet no where near a truly learned individual. Commander Selvam, who was recently put behind bars is an example from this category of people.

Since it is difficult to differentiate these individuals, unless one is on an active search for Guru oneself, it is generally better to find an institution after having learned enough from our extended family. Well run institutions have a better chance of "selecting" or "promoting" good individuals. In other words, for most of us - this is a good region to start with, that we would have to mature out of - at the appropriate time.

Regions 2 and 3:
These are institutions that have NOT been fully time tested and are in early stages. Some are first generational while a few are in second and third generation. These institutions are
- split/carved off from existing ones (AVG with Chinmaya roots, Sathya Sai off Shirdi Sai)
- started as a child institution off a parent umbrella (VHP off Sangh parivar)
-first generational founders with no lineage (Nityananda, Deepak Chopra, Isha, Asaram Bapu, Art of Living, etc.)

As the data reveals, there are not many institutions that stay diversified after the founder is gone. The only ones you see operating after 75 years are all those who constantly nurture a group of leaders.

Region 3:
Those that are diversified across multiple sectors usually have higher mass appeal and they are in Region 3. Leaders of this region, like Ram Rahim Singh of DSS - Dera Sacha Sauda have acted in movies. Either due to their innovative /unconventional techniques or due to focus in diversified sectors, this region is prone to more controversy than other regions.

I do not intend to say there is no room for founders. New ways of teaching are always good. But Innovation is different from sustainability. Data shows that many of these institutions in Region 3 wither away by the time they get to 3rd generation or die a premature death after the first generation founder passes away or get into trouble even while the first generational founder is in place.

Either way, it is important to understand the risk in relying upon first generational founders that have not yet ceded power/control at least once or have not even established a credible base/source of leaders for future generations.

Region 2

Those that have a specific focus on a single purpose usually follow Jnana Yoga or Karma Yoga path. They are usually in Region 2.

The really mature ones nurture a group of leaders preparing for a successful organizational transition for generations to come. Chinmaya Mission (2nd generation – 62 years) and Arsha Vidya Gurukulam (1st generation -34 years) are excellent examples of institutions in Region 2 that have a steady source of next generation leaders.

Region 4:

Region 2 institutions that continue best practices for 75 to 150 years finally get to Region 4. These institutions were founded in the pre-independence era. In addition to focusing on a few sectors very well, they have successfully transferred power/control for about a century.

They have enough dedicated audience to keep them going, but are generally not as big as the diversified institutions. These institutions mainly face challenges in bridging the gap across multiple generations without losing their core purpose.

Brahma Kumaris (Sister Shivani for instance) and Ramakrishna Mission (Swami Sarvapriyananda for instance) are great examples of how they brought Vedanta into the campuses of IIT in India.

Region 5:

These are the GEs(General Electrics) of religious institutions. Few succeed over the years staying together as a diversified business. BAPS is one example that came up in my data. Just like any institution with a diversified purpose – they cater to a wider audience. And, just like any institution is expected to have, they have had their shares of splits and mergers in the early years and have successfully overcome the initial hurdles.

Regions 6 and 7:

Institutions that have done well for more than 150 years obviously have done a lot right. Many of these institutions are likely to appeal to those pursuing the path of Bhakthi Yoga. These are the regions that get tagged with “Organized Religion” and are likely to be perceived as more “traditional or ritualistic”.

The Matams established by Adi Sankara for instance have been in place for more than a thousand years and had a successful lineage of more than 70 leaders. Many of these temples are the institutions that reveal the timeless nature of Hindu philosophy. And, yet - their successful scale could become a deterrent making us feel not connected enough.

Regions 8 and 9:

These institutions have lasted for more than 75 years or 150 years - despite having not scaled enough. The word that comes to mind is "cult" - but, not in a negative sense. This way of life or teaching appealed to enough people that it lasted for so long. As much as I hear about Naga Sadhus every Kumbh Mela (once in 12 years) – I would not consider them to have had any scalable effect. Please use caution in clicking on this link and this link about Naga Sadhus. It contains nudity.

None came up in my data for Region 8. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist. If they really don’t exist – it must be because the world has stopped creating fringe organizations of not too big scale in the last 100 years. If Church of Scientology survives for another 2 decades, we could see it here one day J

Whom to follow?

If your heart or gut says you have found the institution or guru to learn from, you knew all along this article was not for you. Thanks for reading thus far and I hope you found the right one and wish you the best in your spiritual journey.

If you were searching for an institution, I hope this article helps you in driving a closure in your mind, thus putting an end to wandering from one Guru or institution to another.

Twenty years from now, you wake up to the breaking news that the institution you have been following for half your life is mired in a scandal. If this is the risk you want to avoid – stay with institutions that have been there for at least 60 to 75 years with successful transition of power/control at least once or twice, and also have a group of next-generation leaders ready. These are typically in the later parts of Regions 2 and most of Region 4. Depending on the sector that interests you - Jnana or Bhakthi or Karma etc, there are many institutions available to be affiliated with. Most of these shown in the circle are dedicated to the path of Jnana Yoga.

If the institution that you follow is not listed, ask yourself the questions listed under the data section, and map your institution using the framework. This reasoning should allow you to know more of what you are really seeking.

From time to time, it is still critical to seek inspiration from the temples and institutions that have been there for centuries. It would be good to visit them from Regions 6 and 7. These are the annual pilgrimages where our parents and grand parents have taken us. In other words, listen to your Region 1 institutions too - Your family !

A Thought(full) of Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 03:24:00 +0000

More frequent than the physical activity of breathing, Thought, a mental activity, consumes most of us throughout the day. On an average, a person at rest takes about 12 – 18 breaths per minute. Medical science calls it the respiratory rate which amounts to 17,280 to 25,920 breaths within 24 hours. Supposedly, an internet meme, we have anywhere from 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day. Leaving the exact number, duration and definition of a thought to the scientific skeptics, most of us can personally vouch for accommodating multiple thoughts, at times, within the same breath. By any count, that is a lot of thought on how many Thoughts we have!

Science and Vedanta use different words to describe the mechanism of thought. Scientifically, the physical organ that allows for the thoughts to occur is our brain. The Upanishads have defined a flow of thoughts as the mind. From the biography of a thought, the essence of life is linked to a thought.

To understand thought is to understand the secret of this entire creation, and even that which lies beyond all manifestations. To understand thought is to understand our self – because our present identity is nothing but a product of our minds – a mere thought, and so is this big creation too. It is also a product of our minds – like the dream world, but with some slight difference. Creation is available for experience only when mind is and fades away into oblivion when the mind goes into unmanifest state. It will thus not be an understatement to say that to understand thought is to understand life.

As a beginner in my spiritual journey, I, at times, get lucky enough to sit with a steady mind for barely a few seconds during meditation. However, many times during the day, thoughts race at a frantic speed - sometimes, even causing palpable change to heart beat, and the emotional state of mind. I began to wonder - How to control thoughts during the day and retain a balanced state of mind. The moment I framed it as a problem statement - the consultant in me took over.

Categorization of Thoughts

First, I wanted to categorize the various thoughts I have during the day. And then, assess which of these thoughts were to be entertained and which to be discarded. Most thoughts are either about an event that has already happened or an event that is about to happen. I started monitoring it for a few hours and most of it fell in this simple bucket of past events vs. future scenarios. The mind was either playing the same tape over and over from the past, leaving me to analyze or ruminate over this thought. Or, it would indulge in the various possibilities or scenarios that are likely to happen. It appeared I had my first variable to categorize – a time attribute of the thought.

Impact of Thoughts

Now, how would I decide the usefulness of a thought? I started pondering on the impact a thought causes. It occurred that the evolutionary mechanism in us may have already provided us with an answer. Most thoughts leave us with either a pleasant or an unpleasant feeling. Our inner voice/gut instinct within us probably judges the true value of this thought and leaves us with a feeling. In the language of Vedanta, Swami Chinmayananda explains in his Geeta in Prose, that while a mind is the doubting factor, intellect is the discriminating capacity. After the fluctuating mind settles down, the intellect in us takes over leaving a firm decision. It appeared that during this transition between the doubting mind and the discriminating intellect, we are left with a feeling of pleasantness or not. That seemed to be a good second variable to categorize the thoughts by – Feeling attribute of the thought.

In psychology and philosophy, the topics of emotion and feeling have gone through a severe analysis over the years. Quite a lot of thought has gone into the categorization of emotions too. It appears, there are various ways to categorize. I used Robert Plutchik’s wheel of emotions to describe the feelings my thoughts caused.

Analysis of Thought
In a typical MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) framework, there are four possibilities to look at each of our thoughts.

Future scenarios that leave us with a positive feeling – Events that we are looking forward to leave us very excited and cause a lot of anticipation.
Past events that leave us with a positive feeling – These past events cause a feeling of joy and an element of surprise.
Past events that leave us with a negative feeling – When the mind plays these tapes back and forth about a past event, most likely, we are resenting this event. In the process, it causes anger, disgust or sadness and we become critical of the people that were part of these events.
Future scenarios that leave us with a negative feeling – Events that are yet to unfold, go through quite a few scenarios and Monte Carlo simulations. None of these are real. Those that we don’t want to face cause a feeling of fear.

Graphically, it started to come together as below.

Introspection

If our goal is neither to brood over the past nor build castles in the air - how do we live in the present, and keep the mind out of agitation? Most spiritual practices talk about control of breath and deep breathing to slow down the thought process. That definitely works. However, that doesn't necessarily put an end to that thought reincarnating at a different time in a different form. In other words, how do we bring a thought to a formal closure ? That is when the pieces of the puzzle started to come together. In his book, Meditation and Life, Swami Chinmayananda writes about the practice of Introspection.

Practice introspection at the close of each day. Order a parade of the day’s incidents, thoughts, words, actions, emotions and reactions for your impartial review.

A couple of hours before going to bed daily, I practice the method described above.

1) The first phase consists of reviewing current day events, doing a self-critical feedback on thoughts and emotions, and identifying opportunities for improvement.

2) The second phase consists of planning and prioritizing your next day. Armed with feedback from first phase, the second phase allows you to plan a productive day ahead.

I also tend to think of this method as downloading thoughts end of each day to put a formal closure to them. An analysis of thoughts and feelings probably brings the rational left and the emotional right to the same party each night for a closure.

Though it is hard to actively not think about a specific thought at will, it seemed a little easier to guide the thought to wait for its turn. Once this practice starts, it is easier for the mind, at the time of agitation (about either a past event or a future scenario) to relax - knowing that it will be addressed at the end of day Introspection.

Swami Ishwarananda in his book, Conscious Living, talks about moving from many thoughts to a single thought first before attaining the state of thoughtlessness during meditation. This conscious decision of delaying those multiple thoughts - at any time of the day (knowing that it will be addressed later in the day during introspection) allows us to gently move to one thought so we can be mindful of the present moment.

We have always heard of striving to live in the present. However, the mind takes control of us by engaging in the thoughts of past and future . By following this process, and having a placeholder to address them - it was increasingly becoming easier to separate past and future thoughts from present like separating chaff from grain and start living in the present.

Journey of Life series

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Sat, 11 Jan 2014 01:21:00 +0000

From Las Vegas yesterday..

71 year old Honduras man, starting his day at 3 in the morning, currently a cab driver, was a sailor in the marines and traveled through Europe for many years and held many other jobs, whose 60 year old wife is a recent cancer-survivor, who lost one of his sons a few months ago, has 21 grand kids, 11 great-grand kids, takes pride in being a very honest driver in the sin city....says NY and Las Vegas are the two cities where there are always jobs for any one ready to do hard work...

One of those visibly happy people.. says the secret is .. Any time some one asks.. How are you doing ?

His Reply.. Doing Good and "Getting Better". Say the Getting better part every time and there are no problems in life..

Journey of Life series

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 01:27:00 +0000

Chennai taxi driver. Makes about 600 rupees per day. Spends about 200 per day on daily loan payment (at 15% interest) for his 5th grade son in English school to pay school fees of 50k per year .

Left his agricultural land in Tiruvannamalai district as he cannot find people to work on farm land anymore...because he says people have access to easy money with little work thanks to NREGA. (National Rural Employment Guarantee)

Looking forward to return to his village after his son gets into college.. Story of another immigrant (village to city).
His son is doing very well( first rank) in school.

Journey of Life series

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Sat, 25 May 2013 00:32:00 +0000

Bay area… Jewish taxi driver, happy to have been married for 44 years, whose grand mother, in 1903, ran away with 9 kids from Basra-Iraq to escape persecution and moved to Bombay-India, went back to Basra after a few years to find her husband killed, and then made it safe to Jerusalem…

We were Singing Raj Kapoor's Shree 420… Ichak Dhana on our way to airport
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dx_STgFLLo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

He said the ride with me reminded him of his home
With so many places, I didn't ask which place… on my way to my home

Journey of life series

noreply@blogger.com (Habatri) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:33:00 +0000

In the last 2 weeks..
- A 70 year old Palestinian father of 3 attorney sons, who moved to Georgia in the 60's, never got on a flight since then, Physics graduate from Ga Tech and driving for the last 3 years after retirement - driving me home at 11 PM
- A 60+ year old Bangladeshi father of three, whose parents are currently 107 and 101 years old and believes "a Happy family leads to a healthy individual"
- An Ethiopian man, who moved out of his country, but never experienced "stress" while there - talks about stress in Corporate American passengers
- A Korean, who walks for 3 hours each day, here in Atlanta
- A 30 year Polish driver who moved to Chicago recently, looking forward to joining his wife and new born (4 months old) this summer in Poland, after saving enough money

One thing in common across all...
Each and Every one of them - Visibly Happy and Healthy - despite driving around in traffic all day.