Absolutely Topicless

I Exist

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:32:00 +0000

Well that's about two months since I posted last. Given my irregularity these days, you are not even going to ask me what happened. I give it to you there! But I will still rant on what I had been doing all these days.

Of course you know I have been busy organizing world's information and making my home. The third thing is what I want to update you on.

The better half has started a blog. It is called All About Presentations. You can access it here. If you are even remotely interested in presentation design or making presentations, this site is going to be of immense help! And I am taking care of the blog - hunting hacks, tips and tricks around for it.

I am wondering something about that blog - even though it has had so many visits and pageviews, why are the comments so low? Can you figure out whats amiss? Gotta fix that one soon...

Till we meet next...

~*~ Bhars

Trip to Puri

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 12:02:00 +0000

We had planned to go to Puri immediately after our marriage in January! This plan made my sister and cousins scrap each other on orkut saying what kind of a 'pazham' I was to go to a pilgrimage place for honeymoon! By the time I got married, I was unwell and the trip got canceled. May be I should say postponed to September.

After arriving at Puri and checking into a hotel, it was around noon we went to see the Lord Jagannath. Amidst great hunger and intolerable heat, we arrived at the temple. There was a whole set of pundits who were after devotees wooing them into making pujas. Apparently that was common in that place. One of the pundits stuck to us like a leech and was bent on making us do some rituals. While I was getting irritated and tense, the better half held his calm and kept answering to all the unsolicited comments that guy gave. Finally the pundit gave up when he understood we were not the type that was going to give in.

Puri Jagannath temple is a small place (but then when you have been to a whole host of temples in the south – Madurai, Kanchipuram, Kanyakumari, Rameswaram, Srirangam, Thiruchendur to name a few and have your home in the city of 'Big' temple, every other temple will seem 'small') divided into smaller temples to give space for different Lords. Even inside the sanctum sanctorum, the devotees were not let be in peace. The leeches were still around. For example, one guy closed his eyes and lied down for a sashtanga namaskaram. One of the pundits ran and stood just in front of his head and gave blessings suddenly. When the guy got up and opened his eyes, he started demanding for money for his blessings. Blame it on the hunger, or the irritation left behind by the rude priests and stalkers or the hot sun – I hardly remember what I saw in the temple.

Post our temple episode, the better half and I went to have some food. After searching for a decent restaurant in the hot sun for more than 30 minutes, we settled for a Oriya restaurant. I should mention here I am hardly a sport when it comes to trying new kinds of food. I went to Udhaipur once and hunted for a south Indian restaurant and had all my meals in the same place hearing the scoldings of friends :D. So I go and order this Oriya food thinking I might have changed someway and that I should be open to eat different kinds of food, experience different cultures bla bla blah. Finally came a meal with rice and potatoes – 4 different ways of cooked potatoes. I managed to finish about 20% of the meal. The better half got me a packet of Sunfeast cream biscuits (I usually hate other brands - being a total Britannia loyalist) which I gulped down to add to the meal and went for a great afternoon nap.

It was 5 in the evening when I woke up and understood the best thing we had done in Puri was to choose a sea facing hotel room (even though you would get rooms at half the rent which are non-sea-facing) in Puri Hotel. The setting sun and the evening breeze were phenomenal. We went for a walk in the seashore and slowly started forgetting the frustrations of the day. As the sun set we moved away from the sea to the shopping areas. The initial idea was to just ask for a few prices and buy some stuff if they were reasonable. Oh boy, we bought a big bag full of stuff for under 500. The handloom tops and kurtas were awesomely priced. While there was bargaining that won in the seashore shops, the formal shops in the city had fixed prices – the prices were so low you wont even think of bargaining. It was some fulfilling shopping experience that filled our bag with clothes, some bags, purses, some showcase items and other junk stuff.

Watching the sun rise from the horizon is a divine experience indeed. I remember seeing the sun rise from the sea in Kanyakumari. I thought of it and both of us woke up at 5 and sat by the balcony awaiting the morning sun. But it was a day with a lot of clouds and we couldn't get a full view of the sunrise. But the slow spread of the rays made our day anyway! We went to the sea for a morning walk and started our day.

We were on our way to Konark by 9 in the morning. It is about 40Km from Puri, taking hardly an hour's ride. We went to Konark to see only one place. The sun temple. No wonder Orissa tourism has chosen this as its USP. It is by itself beauty personified. And with God watering the temple just after we arrived added as a special effect. I don't know how long it is going to stand – already lot of engineering work is being done to keep it safe. I'm so glad we went!

So are you thinking of going to Puri? My verdict is GO! A few tips -

Stay in a sea facing room
Be prepared for eating more. Something in Puri's air makes you hungry.
Take an extra shopping bag. You will want to buy lot of stuff.
Visit Konark and the beach.

Happy Journey!

~*~ Bhars

Of difficult times…

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:12:00 +0000

When every index worth its while comes down crashing, I suppose it is a difficult time for all who have some market investments, Vishal and Suhas included.

The past 1.5 years have been a great learning for me as far as markets is concerned. (When you have internet and no work and all social networking sites are blocked, I suppose watching the market rise and fall is a great hobby) I started investing officially sometime start of 2007. I did not know anything about the market when I started. So I stuck to mutual funds. One thing led to the other and I ended up with a bunch of funds by end of the year including a tax saver fund bought when BSE was at 21000 :) Oh yeah a demat account to trade shares was opened on 3rd Jan 2008. By end of 2008, I have seen, learnt and understood (hopefully) how the markets work! Wonder if it all were staged just for me ;-)

The stocks I thought had hit the bottom and bought started hitting new bottoms the next day. The stocks that I thought reached their peaks and exited started rallies or stayed put there! Well if only I sold the stocks I bought and bought the ones I sold, I'd have been a great investor now ;-) When I login to my demat account these days, it asks me 'Bharathy, do you really, really really want to see your portfolio? Are you sure?' and then shows me the shades of darkest reds possible!

Ever since I bought my first mutual fund, I started advising everyone I know to put their money in the market ;-) One of my managers at Dell – in spite of being a financial risk expert and years of project financing experience – says a strict no to markets. I tried to convince him it was a great way to diversify his funds… I am glad he didn’t listen to me. My dad, a wonderful banker – doesn’t have a demat account – except for managing my sister’s account once in a while. Another person I tried to convert and failed. My previous functional manager – another guy who saved his money by not heeding to my advice :D

When you see a 10K investment grow to 16K on your first fund in under one year, you tend to do that! You don’t start asking a 'Why' when you haven’t seen downsides at all... You don’t start by asking 'What is your financial objective' or 'What is your investment timeframe'. You just 'invest' at 60% per annum!!! You talk about 'concentration' putting eggs in a single basket. You start giving financial advice to every single person you meet in the cab. And yeah, one of the cab conversations I overheard – when two salesreps where talking… One said ‘stock market is a great thing. We all must start our demat accounts. Even if we get JUST 5000 per month, its extra money, no?’

When Sensex went down to 19000 from 21000, I was in a deep asset allocation dilemma. Whether to extend my loans and invest my money or just pay the loans off with the spare cash? Of course the market had a 'crucial support' at 18924 ;-) Somehow my instincts led me to believe 'even if you miss a 50% investment opportunity, you meet your obligations first' - that old fashioned scenario of giving up 'investment' opportunities to clear credit first you know! So, I finished off my earnings in paying back loans and missing great opportunity at 18000, greater opportunity at 16000 and whatever at 14000.

I loved ‘One up on wall street’ by Peter Lynch when I read it first. Now, I am thinking of making it a Bible for financial markets. When I read it in late 2007 where the markets were up up and away, some of what he says looked like a bit outdated - like pearls of wisdom from the past century. Of course this century is the technological marvel… You can just make 60-70% a year just like that! Now with sensex down at 10000 odd from 21000 odd a year ago, those pearls remain pearls instead. I also get reminded of reading Warren Buffet say most people get rich by investing in them than by trading in the stock market... May be that is true as well.

One thing that strikes me so hard over this period is the brokerage ratings - when sensex was at 21000, they predicted 28000 by year end. Now the same guys say 8500... ICICI bank was a great buy at 1200 with a target of 1400. Yesterday its price was 300 odd. Well that’s why Lynch says 'Analysis' has to be done by self. Or maybe just index investing is a good strategy without much analysis... Ya, some difficult time this is - to clarify for oneself what one wants to achieve financially!

I wonder about all those 'early retirement' guys. What are they doing now? Whatever would have lasted for 40 years they thought would now last only 20 years? May the best way to retire early is to get a job you love - you just don’t have to work a single day!

I got my peak of fears when I saw 300 people queued in ICICI bank to withdraw their savings. I did not have much left to withdraw is a different issue, but that is even possible! In today's technology and advancements in finance, that is a possibility one should consider. It was worse than the only bank run I've ever seen (in 'Its a wonderful life' movie). While I'm worried about my job, the better half's job, the economy, the slowdown, the crisis, I am thankful in a few ways...

I am glad - none of my father's or grandfather's savings are there in the market. For them life is as usual - at least financially. Just fighting inflation is all they have to do

I am glad - I had seen 'a black swan' right at the start of my investing history (in just a year and half that is). Now I know what is possible... atleast I will account for it somewhere.

I am glad - it happened when I am near 30 and not when I am near 60.

Thank you Peter Lynch, Warren Buffet and Taleb for educating me by your words, SUCH crashes are possible.

Thank you God for everything else :)

~*~ Bhars

Organizing World's Information

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 07:03:00 +0000

I know I haven't been writing for long now. Mostly because of frustration and partly because of active job search :). A quick post here to share my search ends here - as I move on to Google as a business analyst.

God bless!

~*~ Bhars

Me, the internet and the long tail...

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:05:00 +0000

A few days back, I came across THE LONG TAIL blog. I was much impressed by the concept and the thoughts of the author. Promptly, I went and ordered a copy of the book on landmark. As I read the book, I looked back at my own experience with the internet...

I had my first email account somewhere in the year 1999 when a friend of mine created one for me. I sent an email to his account and he replied back. And that account was forgotten. When I was doing my internship in AUKBC a center for internet technologies (then), my friends were telling me I should be proud of my 24 hour connection to internet. I told them I was coding AES in Java and that did not need internet connection. And ya I did not even connect to the net in those two months...

Then I entered the corporate world in 2002 and started coding in ASP. I was good enough to google for code bits and search how to fix apache and jrun when they did not seem to work... I learnt more of my HTML, Javascript, VBScript, ASP, etc from W3Schools than from the SSi course that I went to learn from. Ya I registered for classroom courses for Java - which I think I should have learnt from home with a book. I did that for linux programming though.

In 2003 I advanced enough to search for whatever would help me in cracking the CAT. I joined Pagalguy which took more than fairs hare of my days time but added more than fair share of my CAT knowledge as well. Had an online bank account... Ordered something from eBay.

Then came 2004 IIMA - 24 hours of internet and full use of the computer to get anything to complete assignments, chatting with long lost friends, blogging, orkut, gmail, etc. Big time online fund management (had to count every penny in every account to make ends meet then), online credit card bill payments, eBay shopper, etc...

Then started work in 2006... Keeping track of blogs became a difficult thing, hence switched to RSS reader... My friends who used to write diappeared from their online worlds... Suddenly all the information was there - but time became a premium... I became information overloaded... So cut back on internet time...

Today I use internet for work related searches, code syntax (I still code sometimes - ASP, VBA), bills payment, funds transfer, trading / investing / tracking stocks, reading blogs, shopping for books... the last one in particular comes handy in Hyderabad. Earlier in Bangalore, I will walk to landmark in forum and I know I will get the books that are in my list. Here, I am yet to find such a store which carries that amount of variety. Also driving back and forth in the traffic!!! The equation is all in favour of online order in landmark!!!

The book also brought to my notice, the field of self-publishing (Lulu) When I read the paragraph on that, I ran and grabbed the computer from the better half and started browsing on what it is... It struck me hard that I could write a book and get it published for under Rs.10,000. Till then I thought of writing a book as a dream that would never get fullfilled in my lifetime unless I improve my writing 10000%. Now I can just get it published for under.... God!!! I was so enlightened about this I couldn't go back to reading this book, but kept on dreaming when I would write and what I would about... (reminds me of calvin writing his autobiography in 2 sheets of paper)

So all in all I had a great time reading this book... and understood so much about web 2.0 (which might not have been the author's intention)

~*~ Bhars

P.S: Going by this book, this blog is in the loooooong end of the tail, but still useful enough for a few who come in here everyday... Thanks readers!

Peace

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:46:00 +0000

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,

Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

-Robert Frost

Wish I went to sleep everyday like this... but ya today I will.

~*~ Bhars - the contented

Z.E.R.O

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 07:04:00 +0000

Know what, having a zero balance saving bank account helps :)

And ya, I am debt free :) Yay

God bless
~*~ Bhars...

Tirumala...

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:20:00 +0000

I always liked Tirumala / Tirupati for one good reason - the climb up the mountain. This arduous task of walking 9Km seems pretty tolerable to me, compared to the wait times in the long queues. I have climbed it many times since childhood, but for the past few years, I haven't done that. Hence went for a trip with the better half.

The 9Km journey from Alipiri (foothill) to Tirumala can be divided into two different stretches. One - the first 2 Kms - is highly inclined and made of steps. You can watch out for milestones every 200 m. The end of the steep climb is marked by the Kali Gopuram.

The second stretch - 2nd to 9th Km - is a cake walk compared to the first. The walk is on smooth plains and slight slants with fewer steps, studded with deer parks, beautiful sceneries and if you are in the early morning a wonderful sun rise. One mistake first time climbers do is to walk fast in the first stretch and lose their energy when the start the second stretch. I feel one should rest and relax as much as necessary in the first stretch so that energy is conserved to complete the second in time. 2hrs each for each of the stretches would be my unsolicited recommendation to first time climbers.

I get disturbed when one has to be in a queue for 48 hours (thats the case these days on weekends) even when all amenities are taken care of. Agreed, Balaji is a big guy - amidst all those Gods who give things that you ask, this is one guy who gives you things with out even you having to ask! But so much crowd? The last two times I've been to the dharshan I always felt guilty coz I was using influence to get ahead of the queue.

I prefer dealing with the God who stays closer to my home... particularly the one with less crowd...

God bless!
~*~ Bhars

Memorables

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:05:00 +0000

In 26.5 years of life, I have accumulated enough memories. It is hardly feasible to recollect all of them everyday. In the normal routine of day to day activities and deadlines, I hardly recall any memories at all these days. Sometimes, a trigger comes in form of an old email that someone forwards, or an old piece of paper that falls out of a book, or some other way. These memories come in all flavors, good and bad, happy and sad - but precious all the same, for its all mine!!!

Hyderabad has a wonderful climate here in June. I wish I could bunk office and go for a long drive in my activa everyday. But see, I am my sincere (ahem ahem) self, hence end up dragging myself to office. Last Thursday was no different. I looked out of the window and would have bet it was 6PM, but my watch, computer and internet all showed 12 noon IST unanimously. You know, my lifestyle is great. I wake up, cook, get ready, come to office, work, go back home, eat, sleep. Whattay! I hardly get out of office, not even to see how it looks from outside. Well I thought, the climate is so nice, lets go for a walk! The walk triggered some memories...

I saw an image of the girl walking past me in the very same hitec city roads with an umbrella... She was the only one in the road who was walking in that hot mid may afternoon. She was walking one kilometer when all her friends came by auto. Well, she's saving money. After all, she's going to get higher education soon, every penny saved will matter, no?

She walked back 3Km to reach her room. She finished the pathetic hostel dinner and went back to studies at 7PM as usual. She studied amidst the main road's noise and friends' chatter. She went through the practice tests she had taken that morning praying to God she did not repeat any mistakes. She studied, practised, strategized for the next test - till the clock stuck 11, long after her roommates had slept. She closed her books, said her prayer and went to sleep.

She woke up at 4:45 to answer the alarm, enthusiastic as though she was going to change the world that day. She opened the balcony door and saw the empty main road shining with bright neon lights. She prayed again, hoping her future was bright as well. Another dawn another test for her. She evaluated her tests (usual silly mistakes awww), woke her roommate and went to have a pathetic breakfast. She walked through the balcony staring at the morning traffic and started mugging up the words from Barons. Even an hour a day was not enough to get her English improved. Duh! Out she came at 8:30 with her bright violet umbrella and started walking again.

That active, cheerful, studious, hardworking, god fearing young lady was doing a penance in the name of CAT. All this to make the lazy, cynical, confused, unclear, probablistically spiritual me who wakes up at 7:30 after snoozing off the alarm twice and goes for a job that I hardly like... Duh! Dont you hate me? I do :)

Thank God, memories exist!

~*~ Bhars

Research Paper

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:35:00 +0000

Wonder if I bragged about this here... After a long time, I was browsing through WIMWI website and found the following interview in a newsletter. Something somewhere sounded vaguely familiar... Oops this was the project I had done 3 years back! Its already THREE full years now??? Wonder if anyone not so familiar with portfolio allocation (for that matter, even the ones who are familiar with it) will understand the following interview, leave alone the original research paper. The project report looks like its worth 28$ a copy! I have no clue where the money goes - that is if somebody takes the pain to buy a copy!!! So apart from adding 4+ GPA to my CGPA, the work has added more value to me and the world (hopefully ;-) Over to the interview now...

Portfolio Allocation: Beyond Mean Variance

Professor Arnab Laha

Q Arnab, you have moved away, or if I may say, dared to think beyond Markowitz, a Nobel Prize laureate. Where and how does your work differ from that of Markowitz?
A Markowitz’s mean-variance framework assumes that returns on the stocks constituting a portfolio have finite mean and variance. It has been known for quite some time that some stocks do not obey this requirement. In such situations one cannot obtain the optimal portfolio using Markowitz’s approach. Our paper discusses portfolio allocation when some stocks (or assets) in the portfolio do not have finite expectation and variance.

Q What are the benefits of your model vis-a-vis Markowitz’s model?
A Our model is more general than that of Markowitz and can be applied to obtain optimal allocations for any portfolio and makes no demand that the returns on the stocks in the portfolio have finite expectation and variance.

Q What is the new criterion developed by you to take care of stocks which show “heavy-tailed distribution”? Arnab, as I am using a technical term from your paper, can you please explain in simple terms the meaning of these terms.
A The term “heavy-tailed distributions” refers to distributions for which we have higher chances of obtaining extreme values (high or low) than that would be expected for a normal distribution. There are a large number of distributions which are heavy-tailed, of which, some do not even have finite expectation and variance. We develop new criteria for portfolio optimization which are applicable for any type of return distribution.

Q Can an investor use this model? What are the benefits?
A Yes, investors can use this model to their benefit. The results in this paper show that if the returns of one or more of the stocks in a portfolio are heavy-tailed, then the portfolio allocation done by our method performs much better than the portfolio allocation obtained by a naïve application of the mean-variance method.

Q Can your model account for the recent crash in the share market? If yes, why and if not, why not?
A No, ours is not a market model and hence it is not expected that it will be able to predict market crashes. However, the results in the paper show that an investor may be better protected if they do portfolio allocation using our method than the mean-variance method.
Laha, A K; Bhowmick, D and Subramaniam, B (2007). “Portfolio Allocation with Heavy-Tailed Returns,” Applied Financial Economics Letters, 3(4), 237-42.

You can click here for the paper and here for the interview !

~*~ Bhars

P.S: Also, this becomes the 150th post in 4 years now! Lets see how and where it goes!!! Bbye!

Mothers' day...

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:48:00 +0000

Just read the article and I am really moved by what Thomas Friedman writes about his mom in NYTimes....

I don’t recall her ever uttering a word of cynicism. She was not naïve. She had taken her knocks. But every time life knocked her down, she got up, dusted herself off and kept on marching forward, motivated by the saying that pessimists are usually right, optimists are usually wrong, but most great changes were made by optimists.

I do not believe in these special days like mothers day, fathers day, valentines day and the like. (Well I prefer holidays though ;-). But know what, I did call my mom yesterday - just like any other day. In fact, I called her twice (the second call was to ask what to do with the left over sugar syrup after cooking gulab jamuns ;-). In fact I didn't even know yesterday was mothers' day. I wonder if she knew it as well. Hmm... should I call her up and say "He he he mom... you know what belated happy mothers day and ya I love you :D" I am sure she is gonna say 'Podi naaye phona vayiii!' duh!

I was a jerk when it comes to my relationship with my mom (may be I was that dad's girl)! I never managed to win her love as dramatically as my sister did. The cry baby nitpicking teenager I was, I promptly complained to her she doesn't love me at all... She had one sentence to answer for all my loooooong sessions of cribs. That was 'You will not understand it today, the day will come when you will!'

Ever since I was away from home, I missed her. Ever since I had a home for myself, in the past 3 months, not a day passed by without silently acknowledging what she had done for me all life. I think she must be smiling secretly in Thanjavur knowing that I am realizing it all everyday! May be she even knows what are the further lessons that await.

I wonder if there are ways to give back to parents... How much ever we account for, these remain irrepayable debts... One generation can at the max loan to the next, may be...

God bless moms!

~*~ Bharsss

GM Diet

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:53:00 +0000

Gotten bored with my routine office schedule, I wanted to try something new. Hence went on a GM diet last week. It is a program crafted to lose 5-7 Kgs in a week. Have known a couple of friends who have tried this diet, some completed, few gave up. Wondered how I would fare.

Prior to the diet week, raided the Venkatagiri Sunday market for all sorts of vegetables and fruits. One small watermelon, one papaya, 3 mangoes, carrots, raddishes, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, beetroot, drumstick all to consume for a week!

Day One

... is an all fruits day (no bananas though) with lots of melon

During the start of the day, I figured out the way to the office gym and weighed myself (lets say X ;-)

Cut half a water melon, quarter papaya, slices of mango and ate every now and then through the morning and afternoon in an indistinguishable brunch. I had forgotten about the diet and was immersed in the CoD dashboard that I had to send by the end of day. For snack and dinner, I had a fruit plate each from the cafeteria.

Had a mild headache, caused more by CoD dashboard than by the diet. Slept peacefully!

Day Two

Woke up with dreams of steamed potato for breakfast. The diet said 'ONE' potato. I thought one would be too less for me. Hence boiled about 2.5 potatoes. Added a tinge of butter, salt and pepper to the potato pieces - never thought that could taste like heaven! And to my surprise, I couldnt even finish one potato. I was no longer hungry. I stuffed myself to finish that saying I will need carbohydrates for the day!

Packed the rest of the potatoes along with 1/2 cucumber, 4 carrots, 6 ladies fingers, 4 cauliflower pieces for lunch and snacks (after all they dont sell vegetables in the cafeteria)

Once I reached office, I ran to the gym to check weight - that was a X - 0.5 Kg! Wow is this thing working? Or this 0.5 is just a calibration error on that dabba machine?

Had more carrots, more cucumber and cauliflower pieces for dinner and went to sleep. But sleep seemed to have lost my address... And there was a dire need to eat something sweet... I controlled till 1 AM, finally when I gave up, went to the fridge and ate a piece of dairy milk that the better half had left as my share! Only then could I sleep well...

Day Three

Had the same urge for sugar as last night. Opened the day with another piece of dairy milk. After eating a quarter papaya and a few mango pieces for breakfast, had a spoon of the kesari that I made for him...

Its a fruits and vegetables day (no bananas no potatoes) today and the weighing machine already read X-1.5 Kg. Wow!!!

1/2 a cucumber, 4 carrots and a cup of cooked cabbage made lunch! Had fruits for snacks and fried ladies finger and cooked cabbage for dinner.

My sister had called and I was telling her how sincerely I was sticking to this GM diet. She says simply "Oh now I understand why vegetable prices and inflation are sky rocketing... Its all you...!!!"

Grrr

Day Four

Bananas and milk day (with soup)

Had a full cup of horlicks with milk and sugar! Gulped 2 bananas for breakfast, 2 for lunch and snacks, had a banana milkshake for snack again, one more banana for dinner and slept

Felt no urge for sugar that day though! Weight stayed at X-1.5 only... I knew somehow that it wont go further down.

Day Five

Rice and Tomatoes day (more water today)

No hunger, made a cup of tomato rice - ate half for lunch and half for dinner. Had a cup of vending machine chai at office... already got bored of the diet!

Day Six

Rice and vegetables day

Ate some soup, some rice and some vegetables on the sixth day... totally bored of the diet... I was not longing for food but was just plain BORED

Day Seven

Ditto as previous day

Learnings

What is the point of doing something when I dont learn anything? So, here it goes...

I dont *need* as much food as I actually end up eating
Clearly 4 trips to the vending machine and cafeteria per day is unwarranted
I have understood, chai is my favourite (and the one I missed the most during this week)
I have some amount of control still left in life!!!
My 1.5Kg loss may be purely calibration error :D

Thank God I am in right BMI category and wont need any of these fancy diets in the near future..!

~*~ Bhars.

Are you ready?

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:15:00 +0000

Get rich Slowly is one of the blogs I read regularly. I know I can take a few ideas from there, sometime later. Most of the content being America centric, I will not be able to follow some of its articles - for example, living out of credit cards - I never use revolving credit (once I forgot to pay in time and it got revolved. From then on that is) None of my friends around use it to revolve. All of us promptly pay back. So, I dont really expect to understand someone getting into credit card debt. Talking about credit cards, I love their reward points. Recently I got a 5 knives set and stand from ICICI loyalty points - Being a killer cook myself (ahem ahem) I just love those knives. But ya I guess culturally our financial priorities are different.

That aside, I read this particular entry (actually all the 100 odd comments as well) and thought how true! I have myself known of people like this, who SAY they want something but actually DO nothing about it. Of course I myself sometimes do. I should remember these for life, should recall whenever I'm confused

One just won't DO anything (that requires quite an amount of effort) until they actually WANT to - until they are READY!
When words and actions conflict, judge by the action!

BTW, I am ready for the Indianized version of the famous GM Diet. Are you ready for something?

~*~ Bharsss

Trip to Chilkur

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:39:00 +0000

What is this Chilkur thing?

In our 5th term in IIMA, we had a case study on Tirupati Balaji. It was an excellent situation to apply our learnings on the queuing theory. We had to solve a single server (God) multi-client (that too loooong winding queue of clientswaiting to get serviced) problem. While solving it, we learnt some more queuing theory, some stuff on perceived-vs-real waiting time, and had great fun in class explaining basic terms like 'Balaji', 'Dharshan' and 'Laddoo' to the foreign students who had come to the campus as part of the student exchange program. One of the closing points the professor (who had actually made the current queuing system for Tirupati) made was to create duplicate servers - or a copy of the same God in different places - for example in Chennai T Nagar, there is a replica of Tirupati Balaji located on the Venkatnarayana Road (I should mention that the queue in that replica temple is so long that we have to consider replica's replica these days)

Looks like long before the learned professors could come up with this concept, 'The' Balaji himself had come up with His own replica in Chilkur. You can read the base story of this place here. You can only ask Chilkur Balaji for some wish to be fullfilled, only after having taken 11 pradhakshanas (walk around the temple praying) around Him. I think this practice is to make sure you dont go to God asking for some of the impulse wishes to be fullfilled. It is believed that the God grants you the wish once you do this. After the wish gets fullfilled, you have to go to the God again and take 108 pradhakshanas to thank Him for the same.

The Activa Vrooooooooooooooooom

The better half had prayed and taken the initial 11 pradhakshanas there. With his wish fullfilled, he had to go back to complete the 108. With our new black activa (brag brag ;-) around, having a three day weekend got us thinking about a drive to Chilkur. From the local map that we had in our store room and from Google maps, this drive seemed straight forward. So we started on Sunday with the fuel tank filled to the brim (Oh yeah, its a _new_ bike na, I have to measure mileage)

Balaji must have told the Sun and Wind Gods that we were out on a drive. They both were so pleasant on us. Banjara Hills Road No. 12 seemed like Heaven on earth at 2 PM that day. We had thought given the temple is very famous, we would have milestones guiding all the way. He he he. When we reached Mehdipatnam, we knew we had no clue as to how to go. We gave up on all the mugged up map routes and asked a friendly cell-phone-cover seller how to go to Chilkur. He told us to catch a 288D. We smiled and said we were driving - he said 'Go straight'. Thats the first of the infinite number of 'Go straight's that we heard that day.

We had reached the outskirts of the city in a few minutes wondering if we were in the right route. Once in a while a share-auto driver confirmed us we were in the right road asking us to 'Go straight' further. A few times, we saw a 288D coming in the opposite direction and told ourselves we might be in the right road after all. A few other times, we saw a lone traveller walking(!) on the road and confirmed from him that we are in the right road. I kept cribbing to the better half next time he prays, he better pray to a God who is closer home. A lot of confusion, few wrong turns and drive backs brought us finally in front of the small temple in Chilkur.

The Temple

The better half told me that the last time he had come on a Sunday, it was very crowded and the dharshan queue went till the roads outside the temple. May be on this particular day, people were worried if it would rain and postponed their Chilkur plans - we had very manageable crowd there. I saw a lot of people taking their 108 pradhakshanas. I saw the temple's board read, 'Concentrate on the God, not on the number'. To make sure the counting is taken care of, there are printed cards kept there. Every time you cross a certain point, you can cross out the numbers on the card, to manage the count. I saw this temple did not have a hundi - they believe that they should not get money from devotees.

I realize my Bhakti has gone down over the years - more rationalization, more belief in 'I can', may be lesser failures hence the lesser need for God... I remain a probabilistic theist (check out Scotts explanation here ;-). Well I dont mind doing some calculations on our pradhakshanas. My guesstimate on the perimeter of the temple is about 60m. So our prarthana meants about a 6.5 Km walk! Isn't that cool :-)

Take aways

If I had told the better half, 'Come on! Lets take a 6.5 Kms walk this Sunday afternoon', he would have just said 'pagal hogayi kya'. But through this prayer, not only did he walk the full length, but also put up with my lack of stamina many a time. Well its all about perspectives in life!!!

The way as much as I figured it out, when you go from Mehdipatnam towards Chilkur, take the locate the second circle on the main road and take a left from there. There are signs all the way till the Artillery center, follow these signs - Always follow the main road. The Artillery center comes on your right. It is a big red building after which comes Tipu Dwar. Take a left there - the road opposite to Tipu Dwar. Then go straight following the main road, if need be confirming from shared autos or 288Ds till you reach Swaminarayan Gurukul - a big bright colored building that comes to your left. From there take the road that goes right. You will see a board for the first time saying something like 'Welcome to Chilkur', from here the road to the temple is pretty simple (go straight ;-) and there are signs wherever you need to take a turn.

Hope the directions were helpful. You can see the same directions explained differently here. In case you have a different route, let me know through comments.

Whether you choose to drive or not, you gotta visit Chilkur Balaji. Whether you visit Balaji or not, you gotta drive to Chilkur :-)

Take care...

~*~ Bharsss

Will power

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:52:00 +0000

I just read this article on New York Times. That is one of my favourite things-to-do when I am taking a break from my process-engineering work (BTW, thats what I do to earn my livelihood these days). Reading NYT for me, is to just look at the top 10 read / blogged items on the right side. I hardly read anything else, including the headlines. I get a well filtered content of the site, somehow in just these two clicks. Coming back to the article, it throws light on two things -

Brain has only a limited amount of willpower
Practice can improve willpower capacity

I guess these two will help me now to get out of my Everything-O-Mania. 'Whatever you do - give it your best' is what I have lived by all the while, trying to take up as many things as I can and trying to give as best I can. I tell myself all I have is one life, I have to do so much... Marriage has just added things to that list... like cooking, home design, etc.

Now that I understand a bit about how brain works, I am going to select ONE thing and focus! Let me see how it comes out...

~*~ Bharsss

P.S: The better half faces a puzzle everyday when he gets to office. Help him solve it?

Restart...

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:05:00 +0000

Ever since I left Bangalore, it was last week that I went to a bookshop! After waiting for years thinking someone will reprint the book with a bigger font size and probably with hard cover, I finally gave up the waiting and bought my personal copy of "Atlas Shrugged" (with the small font size)

The first time I had read was a copy borrowed from Vandana. From then on I have hanged on to words and phrases from that novel through out my life. Read it again like mad over the past week - every moment I could think of a break... Even took an hour off yesterday from office and ran home to complete it.

Prior to that, I was caught in wheels of time and was cribbing I had no time at all. I got married about a month and a half back. New responsibilities made me wonder where my 24 hours of the day are gone before even I realized it... and I could not take out time for anything else... Work was a mess (oops I used past tense ;-) and other activities remained void... until I bought this book...

On a different side, I knew I was out of touch with my mother tongue these days. I knew if you gave me a sangam poetry to translate, I wouldn't be able to do as well as I did in my class X. But what dawned as a shock to me this morning was I could not name the 18 base letters of the language... I kept counting there were only 17... I was almost crying with this knowledge... Had to open the dictionary to find out what I had missed...!

Never thought my mind was capable of forgetting things like that... something that had lived in me for my life... though I haven't put it to use since my class XII. Is the mind capable of this kind of rusting? Wondering if this is the mind's warning that something is wrong with my left brain? (Oh if you haven't seen the presentation Garr's mentioning, do watch it, its worth it)

I am in the process of serious introspection... May be I gotta restart it all over!

God save!!!

~*~ Bharsss...

Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 11:08:00 +0000

It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about? --Henry David Thoreau

Thats one of my all time favourites. Thats precisely what I have been asking myself for sometime now. Sure, many things have been happening on and off, but nothing so happening that I can't even take 10 minutes to pen down my thoughts.

When I went to Bangalore a year and a half ago, I had most of my friends there. In activities like evening walks, visits to the temple, minor shopping, eating out, my weekends would vanish without even my realizing it. Over time, a few of my friends got married, a few moved, a few started studying and my weekends ended up waiting for the next week to start. And the time came for me to move as well.

I had a great time in Bangalore. I took my first job post MBA and moved to Dell there. I was fortunate to be part of a wonderful team that I will miss for life. Being an analyst was a great experience. I grew more confident, learnt to deal with set backs and to fight back, understood people, process and system issues and to separate them. I became a better programmer than I used to be :-) Worked to become strong enough in Excel to train others. I would have been happy to continue in my role for more time... but then I have one more update to make... ;-)

After about an year of courtship, I got engaged to Vivek on Dec 2 in a heartening ceremony in Chennai with blessings from family and friends.

As he is in Hyderabad and I had an option of internal transfer, I took up as a process lead and moved to Dell, Hyd. I see a new year to start with new responsibilities for myself, personally as well as professionally. Hope God guides me as usual...

Wish you all a happy and a prosperous new year too!

~*~ Bhars.

Seasons Greetings!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 11:29:00 +0000

Merry Christmas, all!

Bhars.

P.S: More from me soon.

With the Photographer...

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 15:17:00 +0000

A friend of mine used to head the photography club in college. I remember taking a campus walk with him, clicking my way to glory and talking about photography - why a digital camera will never match the charm of a roll camera and the like. In one of these conversations he mentioned he used to get a lot of invitations to do marriage photography. I opined that must be an interesting job, to which he begged to differ.

His view was that the bride and groom are always under some pressure (may be that of a new relationship) that they hardly smile in the function. The photographer has to say a thousand 'smile please's to get one. And there is this classical problem of people closing their eyes in a photo (Flickr solution)

So here's the rule of thumb for calculating the number of photos you have to take of groups less than 20: divide the number of people by three if there's good light, and by two if the light is bad.

When the photographs are developed, the first blame goes to the photographer for all the kids moving around, someone closing their eyes, or someone not smiling, or something else is out of place.

May be I took my learnings from him, and thats why I became only the secondary photographer in my close friends' marriage / engagement functions. I would agree totally with my friend, its one of the toughest jobs one can do. Apart from the professional photographer - the one that is paid to do the job, there will be dozens of self proclaimed photographers roaming around with their digicams (some with mobile phones). All of them will occupy the stage and ask the bride and groom to smile. WOW!!! And every important act (be it getting the wedding saree or tying the knot) has to be repeated possibly even in slow motion so that the stupid camera of a distant relative captures it without a shake!

Of these three instances where I played the photographer, I got to see the pictures of only two. My experience says at least 50% of the pictures are not printable for some reason. Of the remaining few, only one or two might be good framable pictures. Whether their precious moments get captured in my camera or not, I make sure I wish them a great life ahead and come back (My thoughts would read - that would have been a great picture, if only he hadn't closed his eyes... sigh!)

~*~ Bhars

Teaching...

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 15:42:00 +0000

Leonardo once said, "The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding". When I read that earlier, I went back to my diary and wrote I differ. I know there is something nobler. The joy of making others understand. As of now, I am equally divided between the two.

I was in high school when I figured out I was good at making others understand (There were times when I aspired to become a teacher). Somehow, I loved to teach my friends maths and science (Did I tell you about my ninth class rank sheet where I averaged 50 + in English , Tamil and History with 95 + in Maths, Science and Geography?) In my engineering days too, this continued - debugging source code, helping my friends identify circuit errors, etc were my activities then.

Recently, I designed, developed and facilitated a course on 'Excel for Analysts' in my office (ok ok - that becomes a CV point ;-) It took a lot of time and effort to put things together. When the classes started, people's expectations were all over the place. Three nightouts were needed to put them together and weave a course.

Prof. Brij used to tell us in our communication classes 'Whenever we go to give a presentation, most of us have one objective - not to mess up. That is where you start failing'. I tried desperately to change my objective but it came up all the time - I let it go -

Objective #1 - Not to fail in my own eyes

When that was set, everything else flowed through. When I came out of the training room collecting my participants test papers, I knew Objective #1 was met. A stream of happiness ran through my heart. I celebrated my minor victory by taking my team for a Barista treat.

A formal feedback for the course was collected and I received amazing results. Another stream of happiness.

A participant stopped me at the cafeteria and thanked me for covering certain topic in the course which made his life simpler and helped him get a credit from his customer. Another stream...

I get a call from someone asking if I am open to do a freelance training on some non excel topic, since they recognized I had a flair for teaching. Another stream...

I often wonder why the C N Krishnans, P V Ramakrishnas, Ravi Cs, Sameer Baruas and Devanath Tirupathis of the world waste their time teaching some stupid students instead of going into the industry and making a great career for themselves... but if handling just ONE course for a corporate can give me so much happiness, probably their personal choices are not so misplaced after all...

Though there are still five days to go, I hereby wish a happy teachers day to one and all in the noble profession of teaching...!

~*~ Bhars.

Tree

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:09:00 +0000

Photo courtesy - Poza

கிளைகளாய்க் கிளம்பி
கிளைகட்குள் குழம்பி
வசந்தத்தில் ஆடி
வாடையில் வாடி
வான்தொடத் தாவும்
இம்மரமும் ...
... என் மனம்போல்

Vague translation -

Branching out everytime,
Intertwining among its own branches,
Smiling when the spring comes,
Dulling out with the winter blues,
Always reaching out for the skies
Oh see how this tree behaves ...
... its just like my thoughts!

~*~ Bhars

Embroidery

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:12:00 +0000

Freakonomics blog tells me it is Thread the needle day today. What better day should I wait for to let you know that I've formally learnt embroidery from Sameeksha

My work !!!

~*~ Bhars

Sold Out !!!

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 12:28:00 +0000

I declared my old digital camera (a Kodak V530) dead a month back. The service center guy had confirmed a problem in the main controlling unit. He estimated the repair cost at 8 to 9 K. I was confused for a while whether to repair or replace and decided the latter. From then on, I browsed the net everyday for camera stores, prices, features, reviews and what not. Tentatively I had diwali time frame in mind for completing my analysis and making a purchase.

I built my consideration set steadily. Talked to different camera enthusiasts. A Canon loyalist vouching for the brand, the brand receiving the Readers' Digest "Most trusted brands - Gold" award and also the pictures I've seen of Canon - made that brand prominent in my mind. And Ranga's advise on powershot series 540/710/640 made me do a comprehensive study on these models! I saw my uncle's Sony DSC W50 and immediately it raced ahead of others in the consideration set. I went to G K Vale and eZone, got pricelists and updated on the back of a sheet I always carry with me (which happens to be the list of books I would like to buy/read)

Arthi had come this weekend with a sole purpose of reducing my bank balance (how much ever hard I think, I can't find a second reason!!!) and the best place to get that done in Bangalore is to go to a mall. We chose forum. After roaming around here and there, I walked into Whizz telling Manoj (who had joined us by then) and Arthi that we can ask prices of few models and come back! Thats what I thought when I walked in keeping my sheet ready for writing down prices.

The sales guy showed us some entry level cameras, which had just the LCD display and the click button. I smiled and told them I am a intermediate level photographer (you know I love to say so ;-) and would like some adjustable settings at the least. Then he showed a few cameras and came to the Kodak C763 - he said it had 7.1 Megapixel, 3x Optical zoom and I nodded thinking ya every other camera has these days. Then came the package - 1GB memory card and an MP3 Player free with it as a weekend offer and an option to enhance this free elements to 2GB card and a DVD player for about 1.5K. Over and above that, a 24 month interest free EMI option on ICICI credit card (knowing that I dont have 11-12K in cash then)

That's when Manoj made the decision to push me to buy that then and there (after all he's the one who goes to buy a black jeans and picks the first black jeans the shop keeper shows which fits him!) Now, Arthi also started showing her pester power. I told them I would go research on the net about this model and come the next day (after all the offer was valid for two days!) I wanted some quick expert advice and called up Poza asking if it was a decent deal. He asked me to enquire about the battery life and said it seems fine (But then if you call up some sales guy in the month end and ask about some silly thing, very likely you'll get a it seems fine!) All in all it was a hard to resist offer and I ended up swiping my card!

If somebody told me I would buy a digital camera by impulse, I would have laughed before that. I used to think my buying choices were rational! I thought I could see through and was beyond all marketing and sales gimmicks. I thought all I sought I was value and nothing but value from a product. The Whizz guys proved me otherwise ;-)

End of the day, the camera works as good or even better than my old camera. The DVD player works as well. No cribs as yet. Will update if I end up finding I was cheated ;-)

The fan's running at speed 5 - hehehe

Everything - O - Mania!

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:20:00 +0000

That is what I call the disease I have been suffering from off late. I want to do everything in life.

CFA
Statistical techniques and get drowned in equations
Fabric Painting
Ceramic Painting
Embroidery
Tailoring
Excel programming
Learn Base SAS
Reading
Writing a lot - on paper, on this blog
Investments
Poetry
Religion

Wow! The list goes on and on. As each of my interest pulls me in one direction, I hardly advance in any of these. End of day I remain lot of 'wanna bes' with nothing achieved! Needless to say, that doesnt impress me much.

Recently I went for an eye check up. The person asked me to remove my spectacles and asked me to read whatever was there on the board. I could hardly read the E (you have to first of all, imagine that the biggest letter on the top is an E and then look at it - it might appear as an E after all) and I told him so. He gave me a visiting card and asked me to read. I thought he was checking my near vision and started reading the visiting card. He said "there is a hole in that card, read the board through the card." I was wondering for a second 'ye kya bakwaas hai' and focused. Surprise surprise - I could clearly see the E (just to make sure it wasnt just another imagination, I checked again imagining it was a W and glared at it). I could read the next row letters too. (Only the third row required the power of imagination again)

Though I have read about pin holes and light properties in Physics, this exercise educated me on the importance of focus. (If you are still wondering if such a thing is possible, google for peripheral vision) Reminded me of stories from the Mahabharatha.

Drona was the teacher for both Duryodhana and Arjuna. Once he took both his pupils and went to a forest. He showed them a parrot sitting on the branch of a big tree and asked them to point their arrow to its right eye. He asked them what they saw. Duryodhana says 'I can see that big tree, on that I can see a branch, on that branch I can see a parrot and then I can see its right eye'. Arjun replies 'All I can see is the parrots right eye'.

Is it good to lose sight of the surroundings and running blindly after what you are after ;-)

I dont know. But I am so dazed that I dont mind getting a bit focussed. God help me

~*~ Bhars

P.S: I haven't quit blogging, yet !

Whats the answer?

noreply@blogger.com (Bhars) — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 10:41:00 +0000

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that its not the answer

I have felt so all along but looks like somebody put it into words long back! Recently read in some borrowed copy of old Readers' digest. And that should not lead to any kind of conclusion that I am free enough to read books