Bah!

The never ending grind is getting to me. And the cut-throat competition! You never know who is setting you on fire. Bah!

I have been a little too anxious and disturbed of late, for my own comfort. Nothing catastrophic. Just a lot of small innocous things which all add up and cause the mind to wander.

After much contemplation, I have decided I would anyday be lucky than smart (as if..). In the roll of the dice, if you hit 3 sixes, do any of the other specifics really matter?

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You know what? In a state of boredom, nostalgia, homesickness, and missing my grandfather, I googled my great-grandfathers name. I was amazed to find this.

N Sundaram Iyer, who successfully ran the City Motor Service in the 1940s, was a multi-faceted personality. He taught mathematics at the Loyola College and later at the Vivekananda College, Chennai of which he was honorary principal for a few years. He was considered a great teacher of complex variables.

Sundaram Iyer used to persuade many applicants for an undergraduate course to persue the the B A (Hons) course in mathematics. Reason: due to his love of maths and perhaps more to his love of business. The maths course, unlike other science UG courses, did not call for expensive laboratories. All that were needed were blackboards and a few pieces of chalk. And he had an abundance of good teachers, including the dedicated T R Raghava Sastry. The intake for the post- graduate courses was a liberal 40 plus.

The practice was similar in several other colleges. In the land of Ramanujan there was a natural flair and interest in mathematics.

My grandfather actually went to Loyola College and was taught by T R Raghava Sastry. How a 65 year old man would remember the name of his favorite teacher!

The City Motor Service was the pre-indepenance pre-cursor to our beloved moving Leviathians, Pallavan Transport Corporation. Sundaram Iyer was quite the businessman-academician. While continuing to teach, he built up the business from a single second hand bus that he had accidentally come to possess. I used to be enthralled throughout my childhood by my grandfather's tales, tales of important people, grand houses, many cars, servants and a most nice life. Sad that some disastrous business decisions later on in life would cause ruin.

This reminds me of another time when I was transitioning from the 10th to the 11th. I had to start up on the IIT coaching classes, and coming from a not so competitive school, I was late on the whole game. Going to the right tutors and being with the right peer group is all important you know. I wanted to join a retired professor, KS Ramachandran for maths. I went to meet him with my grandfather. My grandfather was my willing handy man, keeping track of the endless details necessary for "successful engineering entrance".

KSR as we was fondly called was quite the old-fashioned type, didn't like kids landing up at the last minute. We tried our best to get him to change his mind but it just wouldn't work. However, as luck would have it, oldish thatas were on my side, as they always tend to slide into small talk and reminisce of times passed and faded. My grandfather asked him if he had heard of N Sundaram Iyer. At this, KSR left out a whoop of amazement. A B. A (Hons) Math scholarship 50 years ago. I did go to KSR.

In my family, my great grandfather came to symbolize everything in life that you should and should not strive for. Academic achievement, goodness of character, business canny, over-confidence, poor judgement, and failure.

Goldspan opens his mouth...

..and the market drops. Or was it the 8% move in China? Or was it the Yen carry trade * ? Or was it the sub-prime meltdown ? Predictability is to finance what coyness was to Anna Nicole Smith. You can try as hard as you want, but it just isn't there, and is never going to be. Every guy has his own pet theory which predicts the state of the economy out to 20 years, and weirdly if 1000 guys come out with their theories, in the end someone is going to be right! It is impossible to distinguish skill from luck! Better be a lucky fool than an unlucky genius! (Think about it, why do you need to be smart if you have rich parents?! Not the paavam middle class boy I am.) Anyway, most of the trouble comes from it being this weird cat and mouse game, where all your time is spent double guessing the joe across the street.

Of late, I have been following the market quite closely. A bit too obsessively you might say. I can tell you what the SPX did on each day over the last 2 weeks. A 2% move is actually life event, and a quite a talking point. (That would also provide generous hints as to the quality of my life). Its not that I have a stake in whats going on. As a matter of fact, I do, in some vague general survival of the universe sense, but not enought to get worked up though. However, if you are surrounded by a bunch of people whose lives print tick by tick you cannot but help.

One result of this is that my "GK" a.k.a "General Knowledge", that thing you knew to do quiz contests in school and college, is better than it has ever been. See, I have heard something about anything and everything that can move the markets. Democrats vs. Republicans. Obama vs. Clinton vs. Mc Cain vs. ?!. Iraq war. Will US declare war on Iran ? (Well do you want to pay $4.00 a gallon? In that case you might have to. ) Medicare. Medicaid. Social Security. The imploding housing market. Ford and GM. The wreck that is the American car industry. Cheap money. Takeovers and mergers Happy times ! Lets get hitched! Arcelor and Mittal. Tata and Corus. (Even Indian companies have joined the fray. Brothers to the rescue! ) And who can miss the skyrocketing and exploding (like fireworks) markets of India and China. And I follow the non business section as well. Britney baby, to the rehab, one more time! Life is busy but interesting.

* Any trade tries to buy something that is cheap and sell that is expensive, thus making a profit. People lose a shitload of money when they interchange the cheap and expensive part. ( Not very hard to figure that one out, but hard to carry out in practice.) So, the Yen carry trade borrows in Yen (which is cheap as interest rates in Japan are zero) and buys stock in India (which gallop up and down, so you can net 25% if you get lucky). In other words, borrow money from the bank and bet it all on horse or two.

** A month or two back a couple of friends of mine were giving me heat about my largely sceptical view of the crazy run up of real estate prices in India, US and elsewhere. Well guys, take a look at whats happening in the US now. The piece of shit is exploding. Finally, its a good time to buy a house. Palm it off some bankrupt dude in foreclosure. Heh.

*** Spring is back. Hells yeah!

*^4 Remind me to get my camera out. I go on Flickr and see such brilliant photos. I like taking photos! I need to take some! One underestimates how hard it is to capture the perfect moment. Once you have it, it all looks so obvious. Hindsight is 20/20.