India Etc.

In the London subway, there are more escalators going up than down. Why?

Its because people trickle into a train station in one's and two's but exit all at once. The distributions are different. Cool no (yeah right!).

India has changed a lot over the last few years - it is finally competing in the global marketplace, international firms are taking opportunities within India seriously, creating jobs and pushing money into the country, and the standard of living has improved substantially for the middle class. (It can be argued that all this development has done little for the poor, the people who most urgently need upliftment. I agree to a good extent.)

India is the fastest growing market for mobile phones in the world. It is expected to have atleast a couple of hundred million handset in a few years. I do not doubt it. A mobile phone costs about 2500Rs over its 3 year lifetime. Thats less than 100Rs a month, or 3 Rs a day. Very affordable.

Median salaries have shot up over the last few years, atleast from what I have got to observe. When I joined college in 2000, just after the technology bubble burst, the best job on campus was with ITC. I think it paid about 6 lakhs. Then came McKinsey the super high-profile consultant job paying about 7. That was around 2004. At that time I thought the scene was good. I had no idea! This year I found out that Deutsch Bank recruited for their NY Office, paying 100k+USD. Lehman Brothers, Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs came as well. I know for a fact that this is beyond the range of most of those recruited even from the fancy pancy Ivy League schools in the US. (This heartens me much. Wait till some of the Princeton and Harvard schmuks I work with hear this. Ha ha. To get you to understand my antagonism, 2 of them actually asked me if I had failed my training exams.) Even if it is argued that these are just some numbers out in the tail, the median has gone up to about 5 lakhs as well.

I drove down Old Mahabalipuram Road the other day. The amount of development is simply awesome, inspite of the road being a total wreck.

Though I feel there has been a lot of real growth, there seem to be some signs of a speculative bubble. I am quite the novice, and might be wrong, but do allow me my opinion.

The first thing that comes to my mind is the self-congratulatory rubbish that is filling the media. They make it sound like the only direction prices can go is up. I saw this flash across on NDTV Profit :

40% of Analysts Bullish on the Market.

A little common sense will tell you that if 40% are thinking that the market is going to go up, 60% think that the market is going to stay put or go down. The latter would be the more relevant albeit unpopular piece of information.

Real estate prices have doubled over the last couple of years. A 2 bedroom flat in Kalakshetra costs about 1.5 crores. Thats about 400,000 USD. It used to cost about 70lakhs a year back. In a reaction to this, the Association of Industry(..blah) said something to the effect that this was just the beggining and there is much more to come. I am sure the Seths behind the chamber have quite a few flats to sell.

The whole thing smells suspiciously like the hoopla that surrounded the technology bubble. Though the dot com revolution indeed revolutionaized our lives, it was nowhere near what it was made out to be. It ended up making a handful few absurdly rich (through selling their stock at absurd prices), and very many poorer and much disillusioned. A similar phenomena is going on in India, I feel.

Much of the price increases seem to me to be fueled by speculative buyers - people who buy hoping to sell it for a good profit a few months later. It works like this. Looking at the price go up, many people feel bad on having missed out on the bonanza, and enter the market. This pushes up prices further. This increase attracts more people who want to make a quick buck, and so on, and so forth. Eventually, the prices become so absurd that even the moneylust deranged back off. The bubble bursts. The guy who bought last is the biggest (and poorest) fool. The investment banker from Goldman Sachs and Mr. Behari Singhania, the first to buy, and the last to sell, are left much enriched. (Its called the bigger fool theory. There is some good material on the subject by Robert Shiller, and Charles Kindleberger.)

I heard that Japan had this huge spurt in the stock and real estate in the early 1990's. All kinds of folks started speculating, and when the bubble burst, things got messed up. Japan has still not recovered in 2007. The Nikkei is less than half of what it was in the 1990's. The housing market in the US is also going through a similar blow up right now, after going up absurdly over the last few years. It looked quite invincible before shit hit the fan (atleast by how things were made to sound in the popular press.)

My point is that India is being made to look invincible, and like nothing can ever go wrong. Economic trouble in the US can shake up the IT and BPO industries, and make the money dry up pretty quickly. It is sometimes a little surprising to me how short the collective memory is. It reminds me of the Indian cricket team. All previous performances are promptly forgotten, and we root for victory in the upcoming match with breathless enthusiasm.

Question

I was asked this very interesting question.

In the London subway, there are more escalators going up than down. Why?

One answer is that people don't mind walking down a flight of stairs, but hate walking up.

However, there is a more fascinating answer.

I am heading to India in a week. I very strongly think that the amount of nostalgia that you experience is inversely proptional to the time left before you head home. 90% of the Tamil movies that I watch in the US are in the few weeks preceding my flight :)!

It should be fun. Actually, much of next month looks good. I am returning back on Jan 7th, and heading to LA on the 12th for the Martin Luther King Day weekend. And then, its close to the end of Jan - 70% of winter is done with. At the rate at which this winter is going, it should feel like summer by then.

Ah Summer! Spring comes in between, but lets not get into that.

Also, there is work. In Finance, the 2 things that people obsess over day and night are volatility and correllation. Volatility is the amount by which a thing bounces around. Correlation measures if things bounce around together or not. Its fun when things go up, and not so much fun when things blow up. Well, the volatility in my life is highly correlated with the volatility in my work. If work isn't getting done, life sucks. If work is getting done, life is cool.

Well...

..how weird is that?

Atleast, the numbers have gone down.

This and that

The Economist, Dec 2nd - Dec 7th

p18 - Blast from the past - America's nuclear deal with India
p48 - India's Muslims - Don't blame it on the scriptures
p87 - Indian Cinema - Let them come to Bombay

The Economist, Nov 25th - Dec 1st

p 42 Kashmir - The invisible scars
p 64 CSN v Tata - Steel the prize ( This is so good. The East fights back! If this deal works out, 2 out of the top 5 steel companies in the world will be of Indian origin : Mittal Steel, Tata Steel.)
p73 India's Economy - Too hot to handle

India seems to be doing quite well for itself, seeing the amount of press it is getting.

..The successful young director of KANK was asked by a fan at the the Toronto film festival when he expects his career to bring him to Hollywood. " Never! Let them come to Bombay" said he.

In other news, Chicago is bone-freezingly cold.

I might go to India, for about 10 days in early Jan.

We need some kind of bill that prohibits analysts from being driven like slaves. Spending all Sunday trying to get some shit to line up to 2 decimal places isn't fun. Why don't they round prices to the nearest dollar?

Whats up with OJ Simpson writing a book about how he might have killed his wife, if indeed he had had the opportunity to kill his wife, hypothetically, since he so obviously didn't kill his wife. The things people do.

I am almost done with 'An Equal Music' by Vikram Seth. I have been reading it for ages. This is especially embarrasing since it isn't even that long. The book is quite nicely written. Its all about Schubert and Vienna and the Musikvieren and the Trout. There seems to be a kind of melody to the words themselves. To really appreciate some aspects of it, I feel one should have some background in music. Also, I feel I am too pragmatic to truly appreciate the love story, but its very touching at times.

Thanksgiving II

What would you call Con Air, if it was shot in Illinois?
Corn Air.

What would you call American Idol, if it had a Tam-Brahm participating in it?
American Idli.

Ha ha. Very funny.

I had an interesting Friday. Usually, my floor is bustling with activity fairly late into the evening. This time around, there were exactly 4 people on my side of the floor. It was nice, because no one was actually hoping to get any stuff done. Mostly holiday banter and exchanging of plans for the weekend.

Its quite the experience to play softball soccer on the 37th floor. You kick the ball. It flies towards the lake, towards millenium park, just to the right of the AON center, bounces off the glass and comes right back. Sometimes, you don't really feel like playing soccer, but would rather just push your face up againt the glass. You are suspended up in the air. You see cars snaking their way through the streets 40 floors down, through myriad lanes, through the highway going out into the horizon. Light glinting off the lake in the distance. A lazy boat bobbing in the water. Clouds. White, fluffy and free. Thousands upon thousands of buildings, filled with people, eating, sleeping, living; caught up in the infinite detail of their lives. Each with family, friends, an education, anecdotes and scars; worried, happy, anxious and relaxed. You then step back and see the synthetic carpet beneath your feet. Its time to head to the cooler for a can of coke, back to the desk, back to work.

I head out early, at about 5. I need to buy a suit. There is a cocktail party next week. I have little experience buying suits, or attending cocktail parties. However, its the day after thanksgiving, and an ideal time to pick up discounts. I head down to Michigan Avenue, and in the maddening holiday crowd, I bump into my boss and his partner. I find it shocking how often I meet people from work outside of work. It is almost as if, people who work in the same company, have almost identical preferences in general as well. However, they don't have the same purchasing power! Life in many ways remains a rat race. As you grow older, the tracks change, but the race remains the same. Should I earn more, just so that I can afford a suit at Nordstorm? Or a Tag Heuer watch? Anyway, I head over to Macy's and buy almost the same suit, at a far more reasonable price.

Its 7:15PM. I have a train to catch at 8PM. I don't have enough time to head home and pack. Its the day after Thanksgiving. Almost every car in Chicago seems to be out on the streets. Wisely, I decide to head directly to Union Station. I pick up my tickets at the counter and board the train to Champaign.

Thanksgiving

Well, its the eve of Thanksgiving. Its 5:45. I am sitting at my office writing this post. Which makes me wonder, why am I sitting at my office writing this post? To add injury, to this insult, I am coming in on Friday as well. See, Thursday is Thanksgiving. Saturday and Sunday are holidays (duh!). So, most people with a functioning brain take Friday off, and fly to the Bahamas. However, I took last Thursday and Friday off, on a trip to Vancouver to get my H1B Visa stamped. (Its one of those stupid semi-humiliating things you need to do to work in the US of A.) Given the fact that I have guilt issues, I have been unable to bring myself to taking this Friday off as well. I shall be coming into work, starting up emacs, and running crap through gdb, while the rest of the universe basks in the Bahamian sun. (If you didn't know what the first part meant, its just some technocrap.) Bah! Life is unfair!

To make things a little better, though not all that much, I shall be setting off to good old mid-western praire desert freezing cold and very windy dwelling place, Champaign-Urbana, in the Land of Lincoln, Illinois. This is like a fairly loser thing to do, but who am I to disagree.

Che

No more of this crap. I want to go to Madras. Madras nalla madras.

A nice apartment, a fun interesting job, and nothing really to complain about. However, there is no place like home :).

Besant Nagar Beach. Mount Road. Gangotree. They have the best Bhelpuri I have ever had. Its sad to see the prices being hiked over the last few years.

I want to sit around at home. Have my mom make tea for me in the afternoon. Nice food , nothing to do. Take a walk down the beach in the evening.

Kalakshetra has become so crowded. Why does everyone have to come there?

I miss my grandfather. What would he say if he saw me today? I can't even seem to remember him that clearly. He just seems to come in my dreams.

I want to meet my grandmother. I want to go to Tata house and just sit with all my grandfather's books.

I want to go to IIT. Go around the hostels. Pity I am likely to know little to no one. But, thats ok.

Its December. I have been to the Chennai Open ever since it opened. I probably won't be around this year.

Tennis at Nungambakkam Stadium. 50 bucks an hour. A little expensive but not all that bad.

I want to laze around at Landmark. Go to Satyam with my old school friends. Walk around Khader Nawaz Khan road. Nothing that complicated. None of the fancy bullshit. Just cheap nice pure fun.

Can I have that? I think not. That is life I guess.

On Ballerness

A couple of years back, a Professor from Princeton wrote a book called "On Bullshit", a fine commentary on the chronic human tendency to mis-represent information i.e. lie. That prompted me to name my piece "On Ballerness". It deeply investigates and explores the subject of ballerness.

Historically, balls have always been linked to strength and capacity, though some theorists assert that no real statistically significant link exists between the size of balls and the ability to swing from tree to tree (an obvious manifestation of strength and capacity). There are a number of problems that prevent an establishment of this link, reliable data points being one. However, as we have seen time and again, scientific accuracy has scarcely held back the establishment of beliefs, and this is no exception (Creationism for example).

With the passage of time, the variety of usage of this (spurious?) connection grew. There came to be many word forms.

"Balls to you!" - Which means, you don't possess the article.

"Balls!" - Which means, I posses the article. The article is big and strong, and is a noun, and not a verb. I can swing from tree to tree. If you bullshit me, I will wring your neck and chuck you down from the nearest Banyan.

Soon, this word transmogrified into a verb.

"Ballin" - It is an assertion of the ability to swing from tree to tree. It no longer refers to the possesion of the article that enables the act, but an actual reference to the act that results from the possesion of the article.

"Baller/Ballerz" - It refers to the person who posses large and copious amounts of balls.

The word that greatly interests us right now is the word "Baller". We have all agreed that it refers to this supersonic person who has the ability to swing from tree to tree with reckless abandon. However, as swinging from tree to tree is a dangerous activity, alternate forms of expression of the same primeval ability emerged. Also, the introduction of clothing could be interpreted as necissitating a proxy for the size, stregth and luminosty of the aforementioned article. Thus, different ballers are characterized by the kind of proxy they use. A natural heirarcy surfaces.

In ancient Nubia, your ballerosity was mentioned by the number of random people you could slaughter every day and get away with. The non-baller was the person who got slaughtered.

In ancient Arabia, your ballerosity was measured by the size of your harem. The uber baller had an harem, where each member of the harem had their own harem. Ballerosity was also measured by the number of humps on your camel.

In 1600's England ballerosity was measured by the tightness of the clothes you could get your companion to wear. The super-ballers got their wives to wear corsets. The non-ballers wore looser (and more comfortable clothes). It was also measured by the number of extra-marital affairs that could be had whilst escaping the guillotine.

Moving on to more modern times, the traditional homie homeboy type of mega baller, is measured by the amount bling, ka-ching, cribs, bi-syllabic vocabulary and hoes possessed. The lack of blink or ka-ching or cribs or hoes or a bi-syllabic vocabulary leads to lower ballerosity.

The ph d. toting research megaballer has a research area that is completely un-decipherable. For example, "Strings in AdS(3) and the SL(2,R) WZW model. Part 3. Correlation functions." is more baller than "A study of monkeys doing strange things in the jungle".

The high tech megaballer knows "XML and CORBA/RMI/XML-RPC based MOM (message oriented middleware) for Java/C/C++/Perl/Tcl/Python" while the not so baller can "Code a bit in Java".

In the investment banking industry, ballerosity is measured by the number of monitors the individual sits in front of. Information Techology (IT) slaves sit with 1. Analyst crum sit with 2. IT slave drivers sit with 4. Trader megaballers sit with 8. Relative ratio of money accumulated (quantified ballerosity) is given by 2^(# of monitors).

Thus, through this study we learn about the classical conservational property of balls. Balls cannot be created or destroyed, but can only go from one form to another.

PS: As you might have guessed it is random crap. No intent to offend anyone! It started of with an obervation of how people in my firm (especially the junior ones) measured their importance by the number of monitors they sat in front of. That kind of led into how people like to display how successful they are. Then, I couldn't make it a pedantic monologue. Hence, some dubious analogies. There!

Some people are attributing this fine piece of prose to insanity caused by excessive work. That would be open to interpretation. What is the definition of sanity?