"Laughter is an instant vacation" - Once my boss told me so. So in case you guys are going for a vacation in next 5-7 minutes, please hand over $10 after the speech. Respected Judges, fellow toastmasters, ladies and gentleman. A very good evening to you all. Today I am going to speak on "Yes Boss".
Last year I wanted to participate in "Humorous Speech Competition". I went to my Boss's cabin.
"Boss, I want to partcipate in humorous speech competition." I told her.
"Humorous speech competition!! Whatz that!! Anyway you are a default winner, if competition is among the lossers.Have you seen your ugly face? Your dressing sense? Your pathetic pronunciation?" "Yes Boss" I told her. But, I could only disagree to her in silence. But my wife encouraged me a lot. She always belived I can win a competition. So here am I to-night. I hope I will win the competition and prove my boss wrong and make my wife happy.
When I joined my company, on the very first day, my boss took me to a closed room. She said " Remember, I am the boss I have been waiting for.So please don't mess with me". I was so much of scared that I consumed 2 litters of water that day. From that day till now my water consumption has increased exponentially. Today I consume 5 litters of water daily and that is because of my Boss.
My boss was born in Venzuela. Her parents belonged to Madagskar and most of her life was spent in scnadinivian region. But to me Venzuela,Vanzula,Madskar, mudgaskar, scandinivian, kandinivian all sounded same. Soon I started feeling that I am over a hot air baloon which will burst at any moment of time. Like this passed couple of months.
One day, me and my boss was travelling in MRT. I asked my boss " Boss , the world is flat. isn't it?"
"Yes yes, the world is flat. Infact these days I am reading a book titled 'The world is flat' by Freedman"- Boss told me.
Boss didn't know that I had sneaked into her cabin and saw that book in her absence.
"Boss what do you?" I asked my boss.
" I hate people like you who vacate the restroom without washing their hands properly." Boss told me.
From that day onwards whenever boss around I will ensure that visible water droplets on my hand if I meet my boss. Now Boss has started liking me. Whatever she would say I would simply say "Yes boss".
"Singapore is the most powerful country in the world" Boss would tell.
"Yes boss".
"Sentosa island is the biggest Island in the world."
"Yes Boss"
"George bush would become for 3rd time primeminister of US"
"Yes Boss".
Now boss has become good friend with me. But I always realised friend is a friend never a gal and gal is a gal never a friend.
Today I met my boss and told "Suggest some topics for today's speech competition".
"You can talk about Man falling in love with female crocodile. Blue cheese chicken curry. Cylindrical roti paratha, or you can talk abt joker like you."
Then I thought why not I speak about my boss. She is perfect material for humorous speech competition. I think you guys must have enjoyed my "Yes Boss". I hope judges will be impressed as well and give me a prize, so that I can prove my boss wrong and make my wife happy.
Yes, whoever has laughed, don't forget to give me $10.
Thanks. Over to toastmaster of the evening.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Thursday, August 30, 2007
FAQ in Finance
1. What is a market?
Ans: the world of commercial activity where goods and services are bought and sold
2. What is equity?
Ans : Its just ownership in a company. Its otherwise called owners' equity.
In financial statement analysis, its defined as Assets less liabilities.
3. What is fixed income securities?
Ans: A kind of securities from where investor at least expecting a fixed amount of return.
4.What are various day count basis of the bond?
Ans: Actual/365, Actual/360, Actual/Actual, 30/360.
Actual/365 : Called as bond basis. All years are assumed to be 365 days.
Actual/360 : Called as money basis. All years are assumed to be 360 days.
Actual/Actual: Actual year is calculated as it is. e.g. Leap year 366 days, 365 days
30/360: All months to be assumed to be 30 days.
5.What is dirty price of a bond and how its calculated?
Ans: Dirty price of a bond is the price of the bond with accrued interests
6.How can a bond issuer alter the maturity of a bond?
Ans: The bond issuer can alter the maturity of a bond by special redemption provisions such as call options, sinking funds, put options or purchase funds.
7.What are evidence of ownerships in case of bonds?
Ans: There are two evidences of ownerships: Bearer Form and Registered form.
8. Difference between bearer and registered form?
Ans: Bearer form:
a) Possession of bond gives the holder the right to receive interest and principal.
b) Interest is paid when holder presents a coupon.
c) Owner is not registered anywhere so is anonymous.
Registered form:
a) Owner is listed by the issuer on a register.
b) Name of the owner is printed on bond.
c) Bond can only be transferred through endorsement by the owner.
d) Interests and principal payment made to the registered owners at appropriate time.
9.What is soft Dollar and Hard dollar?
Ans: A means of paying brokerage firms for their services through commission revenue, as opposed to through normal payments is called soft dollar.
Fees or payments paid to brokerage firms in return for their services are called hard dollar.
For example, a mutual fund may offer to pay for research from a brokerage firm by executing trades at the brokerage. Let's say that Cory's Large-Cap Value Fund wants to buy some research from XYZ brokerage firm. Cory's may agree to spend at least $10,000 in commissions at the firm in return for research from the brokerage. This would represent a soft dollar payment. Alternatively, if Cory's wanted to simply buy the research and not agree to any kind of soft dollar fee, he might have to pay the brokerage $7,000 in "hard dollars" (cash) for the transaction.
10.What is net proceeds?
Ans: The amount of money received from a sale, after subtracting transaction costs.
11.What is settlement amount?
Ans: Net dollar amount expected from a dealer so as to complete the transaction.
12.What is gross consideration?
Ans: "Gross consideration" refers to anything of value, including cash or other tangible or intangible property, that a taxpayer pays in consideration for the retail purchase of utility services for consumption before deduction of any costs incurred in providing the utility services.
13.What is redemption value?
Ans: Redemption of a financial security is the repayment by the issuer of principal, accrued interest and in some cases a premium above par, at or prior to the redemption dates.
14.Define zero coupon swap.
Ans: A zero coupon swap is similar to the basic interest rate swap in that one party pays floating interest and the other pays fixed rate interest. They differ in that the fixed rate payments are not made periodically throughout the life of the swap. Instead, only one fixed payment is made on the termination date of the swap, whereas floating payments are made periodically throughout the life of the swap.
15.Give some examples of risk arbitrage.
Ans: Risk arbitrage is basically the investment in securities of corporations that are subject to takeover bids, liquidation, restructuring, recapitalization, etc. Traditionally, risk arbitrage meant the simultaneous purchase of stock in a corporation that is being acquired (target) and the sale of stock of the acquirer (bidder). However, in modern finance, it is associated with capturing the spreads between the market value of announced takeover targets and the eventual price at which acquirers will buy target shares. Therefore, it is basically an attempt to make a profit between the value of the stock at the time of the deal and the actual takeover price. Investors can partake in risk arbitrage individually or through investing in a hedge or arbitrage fund.
16.Explain cross currency swap.
Ans: A cross currency swap is a swap that converts both the basis of the interest rate obligation and the currency in which the interest rate obligation is denominated. In general, one interest payment is calculated using a floating rate index and the other using a fixed rate or another floating rate index denominated in a different currency.A cross currency swap sometimes entails an exchange of principal. This initial exchange occurs at the beginning of the swap with a re-exchange at maturity.
17.What are price taking and market making?
Ans: If the dealer calls the counterparty, the dealer will have to be prepared to accept the counterparty's prices if the deal is made (price taking). If the counterparty calls the dealer, the counterparty will trade at the dealer's own prices if they prove acceptable (market making).
18.. What are nastro accounts?
Ans: Nostro accounts are foreign currency accounts that a bank maintains with its various correspondent banks abroad.
19.In financial terminology, what is risk?
Ans: The possibility of financial loss
20.What are major categories of financial risks?
Ans: Risks can be broadly categorised into credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk and operational risk.
21.What are various types of Credit risk?
Ans: Sovereign Risk, Country risk, Legal and Force Majeure risk, Marginal risk
,settlement risk.
22.What is marginal risk?
Ans: Marginal risk is the risk of loss arising from replacing a contract.
23.Give an example of liquidity risk.
Ans: If there was a sudden run on a bank and the bank found it difficult to raise fresh deposits, or if borrowers drew down on committed loan facilities, perhaps to meet tax demands which had not been anticipated. With credit risk counter party might not be able to pay where as in liquidity risk Bank might not be able to pay.
24.What is basis in future market?
Ans: Basis in the futures markets refers to the difference between an instrument's cash market price and its futures market price.
25.What is cost of carry?
Ans: With financial securities/commodities, the cost of carry refers to the net effect of borrowing funds and investing them in a security for the same period. If the interest earned on the security is greater than the borrowing cost incurred, then the cost of carry is positive. If the interest earned on the security is less than the borrowing cost incurred, then the cost of carry is negative.
26.What is yield curve?
Ans: A yield curve is a graph which depicts the structure of interest rates over time.
27.For a portfolio consisting of n securities how many covariance required?
Ans: [n² - n]/2
28.Why its necessary to identify the perfectly negatively co-related returns?
Ans: It will ensure risk-neutral environment. e.g. , then the return on stock A is 12% and the return on stock B is 6%. If condition 2 pertains, then the return on stock A is only 6% while the return on stock B rises to 12%. It is clear that an equally-weighted portfolio of the two stocks will always yield a return of 9%, no matter which market condition pertains. As the return on the portfolio is guaranteed, its risk will be zero.
29.What is systematic risk?
Ans: There is some risk that is present no matter how many securities are included in a portfolio. Such risk is known as ‘market-related' or systematic risk.
30.What is that bond called which obliges the issuer to repay or repurchase a predetermined amount of the issue each year while it operates.
Ans: Sinking fund.
Ans: the world of commercial activity where goods and services are bought and sold
2. What is equity?
Ans : Its just ownership in a company. Its otherwise called owners' equity.
In financial statement analysis, its defined as Assets less liabilities.
3. What is fixed income securities?
Ans: A kind of securities from where investor at least expecting a fixed amount of return.
4.What are various day count basis of the bond?
Ans: Actual/365, Actual/360, Actual/Actual, 30/360.
Actual/365 : Called as bond basis. All years are assumed to be 365 days.
Actual/360 : Called as money basis. All years are assumed to be 360 days.
Actual/Actual: Actual year is calculated as it is. e.g. Leap year 366 days, 365 days
30/360: All months to be assumed to be 30 days.
5.What is dirty price of a bond and how its calculated?
Ans: Dirty price of a bond is the price of the bond with accrued interests
6.How can a bond issuer alter the maturity of a bond?
Ans: The bond issuer can alter the maturity of a bond by special redemption provisions such as call options, sinking funds, put options or purchase funds.
7.What are evidence of ownerships in case of bonds?
Ans: There are two evidences of ownerships: Bearer Form and Registered form.
8. Difference between bearer and registered form?
Ans: Bearer form:
a) Possession of bond gives the holder the right to receive interest and principal.
b) Interest is paid when holder presents a coupon.
c) Owner is not registered anywhere so is anonymous.
Registered form:
a) Owner is listed by the issuer on a register.
b) Name of the owner is printed on bond.
c) Bond can only be transferred through endorsement by the owner.
d) Interests and principal payment made to the registered owners at appropriate time.
9.What is soft Dollar and Hard dollar?
Ans: A means of paying brokerage firms for their services through commission revenue, as opposed to through normal payments is called soft dollar.
Fees or payments paid to brokerage firms in return for their services are called hard dollar.
For example, a mutual fund may offer to pay for research from a brokerage firm by executing trades at the brokerage. Let's say that Cory's Large-Cap Value Fund wants to buy some research from XYZ brokerage firm. Cory's may agree to spend at least $10,000 in commissions at the firm in return for research from the brokerage. This would represent a soft dollar payment. Alternatively, if Cory's wanted to simply buy the research and not agree to any kind of soft dollar fee, he might have to pay the brokerage $7,000 in "hard dollars" (cash) for the transaction.
10.What is net proceeds?
Ans: The amount of money received from a sale, after subtracting transaction costs.
11.What is settlement amount?
Ans: Net dollar amount expected from a dealer so as to complete the transaction.
12.What is gross consideration?
Ans: "Gross consideration" refers to anything of value, including cash or other tangible or intangible property, that a taxpayer pays in consideration for the retail purchase of utility services for consumption before deduction of any costs incurred in providing the utility services.
13.What is redemption value?
Ans: Redemption of a financial security is the repayment by the issuer of principal, accrued interest and in some cases a premium above par, at or prior to the redemption dates.
14.Define zero coupon swap.
Ans: A zero coupon swap is similar to the basic interest rate swap in that one party pays floating interest and the other pays fixed rate interest. They differ in that the fixed rate payments are not made periodically throughout the life of the swap. Instead, only one fixed payment is made on the termination date of the swap, whereas floating payments are made periodically throughout the life of the swap.
15.Give some examples of risk arbitrage.
Ans: Risk arbitrage is basically the investment in securities of corporations that are subject to takeover bids, liquidation, restructuring, recapitalization, etc. Traditionally, risk arbitrage meant the simultaneous purchase of stock in a corporation that is being acquired (target) and the sale of stock of the acquirer (bidder). However, in modern finance, it is associated with capturing the spreads between the market value of announced takeover targets and the eventual price at which acquirers will buy target shares. Therefore, it is basically an attempt to make a profit between the value of the stock at the time of the deal and the actual takeover price. Investors can partake in risk arbitrage individually or through investing in a hedge or arbitrage fund.
16.Explain cross currency swap.
Ans: A cross currency swap is a swap that converts both the basis of the interest rate obligation and the currency in which the interest rate obligation is denominated. In general, one interest payment is calculated using a floating rate index and the other using a fixed rate or another floating rate index denominated in a different currency.A cross currency swap sometimes entails an exchange of principal. This initial exchange occurs at the beginning of the swap with a re-exchange at maturity.
17.What are price taking and market making?
Ans: If the dealer calls the counterparty, the dealer will have to be prepared to accept the counterparty's prices if the deal is made (price taking). If the counterparty calls the dealer, the counterparty will trade at the dealer's own prices if they prove acceptable (market making).
18.. What are nastro accounts?
Ans: Nostro accounts are foreign currency accounts that a bank maintains with its various correspondent banks abroad.
19.In financial terminology, what is risk?
Ans: The possibility of financial loss
20.What are major categories of financial risks?
Ans: Risks can be broadly categorised into credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk and operational risk.
21.What are various types of Credit risk?
Ans: Sovereign Risk, Country risk, Legal and Force Majeure risk, Marginal risk
,settlement risk.
22.What is marginal risk?
Ans: Marginal risk is the risk of loss arising from replacing a contract.
23.Give an example of liquidity risk.
Ans: If there was a sudden run on a bank and the bank found it difficult to raise fresh deposits, or if borrowers drew down on committed loan facilities, perhaps to meet tax demands which had not been anticipated. With credit risk counter party might not be able to pay where as in liquidity risk Bank might not be able to pay.
24.What is basis in future market?
Ans: Basis in the futures markets refers to the difference between an instrument's cash market price and its futures market price.
25.What is cost of carry?
Ans: With financial securities/commodities, the cost of carry refers to the net effect of borrowing funds and investing them in a security for the same period. If the interest earned on the security is greater than the borrowing cost incurred, then the cost of carry is positive. If the interest earned on the security is less than the borrowing cost incurred, then the cost of carry is negative.
26.What is yield curve?
Ans: A yield curve is a graph which depicts the structure of interest rates over time.
27.For a portfolio consisting of n securities how many covariance required?
Ans: [n² - n]/2
28.Why its necessary to identify the perfectly negatively co-related returns?
Ans: It will ensure risk-neutral environment. e.g. , then the return on stock A is 12% and the return on stock B is 6%. If condition 2 pertains, then the return on stock A is only 6% while the return on stock B rises to 12%. It is clear that an equally-weighted portfolio of the two stocks will always yield a return of 9%, no matter which market condition pertains. As the return on the portfolio is guaranteed, its risk will be zero.
29.What is systematic risk?
Ans: There is some risk that is present no matter how many securities are included in a portfolio. Such risk is known as ‘market-related' or systematic risk.
30.What is that bond called which obliges the issuer to repay or repurchase a predetermined amount of the issue each year while it operates.
Ans: Sinking fund.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Thursday, August 24, 2006
“I Am A Professional”
It was a cloudy dreary winter afternoon when we left Paris Airport. There was bit snowfall outside and atmospheric temperature was down to twelve degree in negative in Mercury Scale. That day the Lufthansa officials were bit strict unlike other days. The reason was quite obvious. The home coming crowd after a long vacation in Christmas were carrying more luggage than expected. Even by paying extra charge many were not allowed to check in more bags and majority of the crowd were disappointed while dumping their valuables purchased from Paris. But i was fortunate enough to get the window seat and looking around to find pair of envious eyes upon my self satisfaction. Already the air-bus was late by two hours and another half hour was delayed further arranging the big extra bags. It was most packed journey I had ever met in my life. After a short announcement by captain, we were all set to take to the air. I was terribly tired after a restless travel for five days at a stretch and when the sleeping beauty came in and i surrendered before her, i didn't remember. Suddenly a big announcement opened my eyes. When i looked around I found all are praying God. It seemed as if some terribly bad happened. When I asked what's wrong, I was told that some problem with the airbus due to effect of the atmospheric conditions and we were heading for an emergency landing. No sooner I got this information, there was a big bang. O No. There was a fire inside the plane. In a minute i was having the safety devices and oxygen mask with me. The plane was vibrating like anything and soon all were instructed to jump as there was no alternatives as plane had already damaged by fire. I was sure that it was my last travel in my life while jumping down from the door. I had closed my eyes with a hope that i won't be able to see my own death in opened eyes. How much time i remained in the air I didn't remember but when i opened my eyes, to my utter surprise I was alive, lying near the bank of the big sea. With wounds all over, I had barely enough energy to stand on my own. While looking around, I found a little man starring at me. It felt as if he was in his same position for a long time. With small height, grey haired, robust build body, he looked like country man who had adopted the modern changes. A ray of hope energised me. At least i am not in no man's land. "Hey, you!!” He was calling me. He was speaking English even. My happiness reached no bound. He asked me "From where have u come from?" He continued,” Do you know where you are right now?" Its the land of Baltimore Ulaska- The devine land. I had always the impression than my geography was very good. I had always topped in world geography in my college days, so from where this divine land came, I had barely any information about. The stout person's name was Gyaro. Gyaro told me "Don't be surprised as i will explain you every bits about our land. Come with me". I had no other options than to follow him. Gyaro was carrying a remote control with him, which was thrice the size of normal remote control for electronic devices."Do you know this device?" Gyaro was pointing to his remote."Its called zypton.Unlike remote control we were using in old times,which was using digital signal processing, this devices use opto-electronic super high frequency phase shift methodology. With this devices various digital and analog devices can be controlled by superimposing stationary frequencies with the normal phase shift. In lay man's language all possible frequency variations can be met with this device. Forward block management coverage of the device caters the frequencies, that are yet to be generated by natural or artificial processes." I was stunned. As I could not catch hold of what he told me. Being an Engineering Graduate, at least i should have heard those terminologies. I was scolding my professors in my mind who were unfair not to teach all the details during our course curricula. We were slowly moving away from the sea shore. Suddenly he pressed his zypton. There suddenly happened a climatic change across the plane land near the sea. Gyaro kept on saying "The Programmable Logic Array with environmental ladder switch mechanism controls the environment across your territory. The environment you see here is sharable across the objects. The object means you, me ,this zypton, the environment, the sea. The master object is zypton which controls other objects by giving the shared resources in the unit of objects. So you see this climatic change by pressing this button, but at the same time some other person might be seeing something different though his zypton controller. This zypton has a password mechanism which is governed v-CMOS mechanism. You may ask what is v-CMOS? Yes, that is known as variable Cryptographic Metal oxide Semiconductor(v-CMOS). Semiconductor was based on tetravalancy of carbon where v-CMOS uses the variable valence of natural elements. The function of the v-cmos solely depends on the power xylematic fluid from the fibre plant. Again you will ask what is power xylematic fluid. It’s similar to xylem tissues found in the shell of the plants but hybridising with self tissues by applying some helium granules at super conductive temperature. The advantages of the power xylematic fluid are many, one of which i explained now only." I was mesmerised. How such a scientist remained unnoticed from the whole world. Gyaro kept on saying," By using v-CMOS the password of the zypton remains authenticated by one user. It uses the touch authentication methodology and easily recognises my fingers even if I wear gloves while typing in the passwords. If someone by any means tries to hack the passwords then variable CMOS easily recognises the same and issues the antivirus which travels in the air by using super power digital signal processing (SPDSP). You won't believe that took almost 50 years for Edwin Huxley to develop the technology. With the zypton you can control day and night, your appetite, your sleep, covering habitat and above all the birth control. But only thing that we have left in this zypton is control over death, and that was done intentionally.
We use this zypton for mutating the objects to create the extinct objects like Dinosaurs. Now we have fifty of them with us. We control the time machine and zypton does it all by pressing a button. So we can move in the past and revolve in our history." I was listening very eagerly. What this man was telling me? "Who are you? Are you a scientist who is living in this deserted land?" Gyaro turned back," Neither i am a scientist nor you are in deserted land. You only can't see the live objects as I have pressed the invisible options for them. Then he presses the button." To my utter surprise i found many cosy and beautiful faces around me. Some were taking sun bath near sea shore, some busy with adventurous games inside and still rest playing volleyball. I was speechless. "Now listen", Gyaro told me again."I am not a scientist. I am a beggar over here who doesn't have so much money to do soul implantation. So i preferred travelling through the past through my time machine installed in the zypton. There i saw you meeting the death after a sever plane crash. You were 200 years behind as today is 22nd Dec of 2204. I captured your soul and then modulated that to existing environmental setup. So you become alive again. But you know I am a professional. I don't do anything without any reasons. Now you have to give me your soul and i will decompose your dead body after extracting the soul." My eyes became wide open. I was not saying anything - trembling with fear. Suddenly I felt as if someone kicked me on my back. Hey it’s my friend Mano. So it was a dream as I could realise that i was lying over the floor after i fell down from the bed after that deadly dream. Oh No!! I survived. I was consoling myself while drawing a parlance between the dream and my reality.
We use this zypton for mutating the objects to create the extinct objects like Dinosaurs. Now we have fifty of them with us. We control the time machine and zypton does it all by pressing a button. So we can move in the past and revolve in our history." I was listening very eagerly. What this man was telling me? "Who are you? Are you a scientist who is living in this deserted land?" Gyaro turned back," Neither i am a scientist nor you are in deserted land. You only can't see the live objects as I have pressed the invisible options for them. Then he presses the button." To my utter surprise i found many cosy and beautiful faces around me. Some were taking sun bath near sea shore, some busy with adventurous games inside and still rest playing volleyball. I was speechless. "Now listen", Gyaro told me again."I am not a scientist. I am a beggar over here who doesn't have so much money to do soul implantation. So i preferred travelling through the past through my time machine installed in the zypton. There i saw you meeting the death after a sever plane crash. You were 200 years behind as today is 22nd Dec of 2204. I captured your soul and then modulated that to existing environmental setup. So you become alive again. But you know I am a professional. I don't do anything without any reasons. Now you have to give me your soul and i will decompose your dead body after extracting the soul." My eyes became wide open. I was not saying anything - trembling with fear. Suddenly I felt as if someone kicked me on my back. Hey it’s my friend Mano. So it was a dream as I could realise that i was lying over the floor after i fell down from the bed after that deadly dream. Oh No!! I survived. I was consoling myself while drawing a parlance between the dream and my reality.
“ Looking Inside –An Introspection ”
Have u ever felt that climate has its effect on our daily
behaviour? I have heard in stories that Abraham Lincoln was
brave as he was born near country side . Daffodils was inspired
by the atmospheric effect on WordsWorth . But every time I was
reading some stories like this I was just telling myself not to
put much brain into the same as those are only stories, nothing
else . But when the same thing happened to me, I was convinced
that we r just minuscule in the hands of natural processes which
guide our all actions. Till other day I was too much
frustrated. I didn’t have calling card to call anyone ,didn’t
have lanID to connect to network and phone was not responding to
my RAS VPN Id ,food stuffs that I cooked was too bad to taste
,there was no good movie on television ,no one to talk even etc
etc.In brief I can say that the day was one of the very bad days
in my life . I went to bed around 9 pm.The best thing I find
within me is that whenever I am angry over anything, I just feel
too much of sleepy and things just settle down after that .While
lying over bed, I was remembering that little story which I had
ever read in my childhood about the Life of a Prisoner ,who got
lots of pleasure by freeing the birds from the cage ,on his way
back home after spending a long time in Jail . I was just trying
to console me ,but in vain . When the sleeping beauty came to me
and I fell asleep, I don’t remember. When I got up ,I found
alarm clock was ringing , telling me to start a new day with
smile . With eyes half open and half closed I was pushing myself
towards the bath room .I was just thinking about that 5 year old
son of the Cramers family in the Movie Crammers Vs Crammers
(that was English version of Akele hum Akele Tum which had own 5
Oscars in a row) who used to help himself after his mother left
his father in the wilderness to get more personal recognition .
I saw that movie twice in airbus during my travel to US. Anyway
I could help myself take my bath and then asked the taxi to be
there by 7:30 .It was 6:30 am by then . Then I cooked my
breakfast . It was 2 pieces of hotdog, 2 bread slices, a cup of
milk and a banana . By the time I finished, the cab person was
already at my place . I don’t know, but I was feeling very good
.As if some good things were in stored for me- was coming to my
mind again and again. When I came outside my apartment , it was
all white .Everywhere it was snowy . I could not believe my eyes
.The walking streets, the cemented chairs nearby park ,the roofs
of all houses, the branches of the tress all were decorated in
an uniform colour . I had always longed to see that natural
white . But I could be able to see that in my life ,I had never
thought of. When the flickering light of the Cab fell on my eyes
, I could realise that I was just starring around forgetting
that I was about to leave for the office and the cab person was
waiting for me . When I looked at my shoes it was half white by
then . O!! No! If there were no office ! I was just telling me
while pushing myself through the doors of the CAB. The driver
was asking me the route and me looking at the beauty outside .
It was such an amazing site that I was not interested to talk to
driver .Instead I was interested to reach office late so that I
could get more time in deriving the pleasure. I was feeling as
if some white pearl was being dropped from sky . I was feeling
bit cold but at the same time feeling very good . When I reached
office I could see the all the cars in our office was white too
. It seemed as if all of the office staff were forced to paint
their cars white by overnight by some official instructions . It
was a good sight .Now feeling good within me I entered the
office premises . In the day I took a couple of snaps ,
executed some official tasks ,had my lunch at Canteen , used the
Tornado Settlement area twice( I had not used that for last
three days) and came back to my seat and felt like writing
something. This is the article which came out of the same .
Things have not changed since yesterday . I still don’t have
calling card to call anyone ,don’t have lanID to connect to
network and phone not responding to my RAS VPN Id ,noone to talk
even .But this time I am not so unhappy over anything . Things
have changed . The cherubic smile of the white beauty had her
magical touch on my mind and my mind is ruling my bodily
existence . I solved few official problems out here . Impressed
one lady here with whatever little skills that I have in Unix
.OOPs!!! Now ready to leave office .While closing my windows on
my system I am asking to me ,what is the difference between
yesterday and today ? Why I was unhappy the other day and today
so happy? Yup!!! ,I got the answer .Its the way I looked into
everything. Life is governed by the way we want it to be
governed . We are the reasons behind our happiness .That day I
was unhappy as I wanted to be unhappy . I was complaining about
everything and problems kept on accumulating .The final outcome
– A line of frustration .Now today I tried to be happy and happy
I am . Happiness is not bounded by materialistic pleasure , its
chanellised by the way we feel about the same . Now even I am
happier . I have found a new means to keep myself happy –Looking
inside . I was looking outside world for happiness ,but only
adding to my sorrows . Now I have started looking inside and the
things have changed .
behaviour? I have heard in stories that Abraham Lincoln was
brave as he was born near country side . Daffodils was inspired
by the atmospheric effect on WordsWorth . But every time I was
reading some stories like this I was just telling myself not to
put much brain into the same as those are only stories, nothing
else . But when the same thing happened to me, I was convinced
that we r just minuscule in the hands of natural processes which
guide our all actions. Till other day I was too much
frustrated. I didn’t have calling card to call anyone ,didn’t
have lanID to connect to network and phone was not responding to
my RAS VPN Id ,food stuffs that I cooked was too bad to taste
,there was no good movie on television ,no one to talk even etc
etc.In brief I can say that the day was one of the very bad days
in my life . I went to bed around 9 pm.The best thing I find
within me is that whenever I am angry over anything, I just feel
too much of sleepy and things just settle down after that .While
lying over bed, I was remembering that little story which I had
ever read in my childhood about the Life of a Prisoner ,who got
lots of pleasure by freeing the birds from the cage ,on his way
back home after spending a long time in Jail . I was just trying
to console me ,but in vain . When the sleeping beauty came to me
and I fell asleep, I don’t remember. When I got up ,I found
alarm clock was ringing , telling me to start a new day with
smile . With eyes half open and half closed I was pushing myself
towards the bath room .I was just thinking about that 5 year old
son of the Cramers family in the Movie Crammers Vs Crammers
(that was English version of Akele hum Akele Tum which had own 5
Oscars in a row) who used to help himself after his mother left
his father in the wilderness to get more personal recognition .
I saw that movie twice in airbus during my travel to US. Anyway
I could help myself take my bath and then asked the taxi to be
there by 7:30 .It was 6:30 am by then . Then I cooked my
breakfast . It was 2 pieces of hotdog, 2 bread slices, a cup of
milk and a banana . By the time I finished, the cab person was
already at my place . I don’t know, but I was feeling very good
.As if some good things were in stored for me- was coming to my
mind again and again. When I came outside my apartment , it was
all white .Everywhere it was snowy . I could not believe my eyes
.The walking streets, the cemented chairs nearby park ,the roofs
of all houses, the branches of the tress all were decorated in
an uniform colour . I had always longed to see that natural
white . But I could be able to see that in my life ,I had never
thought of. When the flickering light of the Cab fell on my eyes
, I could realise that I was just starring around forgetting
that I was about to leave for the office and the cab person was
waiting for me . When I looked at my shoes it was half white by
then . O!! No! If there were no office ! I was just telling me
while pushing myself through the doors of the CAB. The driver
was asking me the route and me looking at the beauty outside .
It was such an amazing site that I was not interested to talk to
driver .Instead I was interested to reach office late so that I
could get more time in deriving the pleasure. I was feeling as
if some white pearl was being dropped from sky . I was feeling
bit cold but at the same time feeling very good . When I reached
office I could see the all the cars in our office was white too
. It seemed as if all of the office staff were forced to paint
their cars white by overnight by some official instructions . It
was a good sight .Now feeling good within me I entered the
office premises . In the day I took a couple of snaps ,
executed some official tasks ,had my lunch at Canteen , used the
Tornado Settlement area twice( I had not used that for last
three days) and came back to my seat and felt like writing
something. This is the article which came out of the same .
Things have not changed since yesterday . I still don’t have
calling card to call anyone ,don’t have lanID to connect to
network and phone not responding to my RAS VPN Id ,noone to talk
even .But this time I am not so unhappy over anything . Things
have changed . The cherubic smile of the white beauty had her
magical touch on my mind and my mind is ruling my bodily
existence . I solved few official problems out here . Impressed
one lady here with whatever little skills that I have in Unix
.OOPs!!! Now ready to leave office .While closing my windows on
my system I am asking to me ,what is the difference between
yesterday and today ? Why I was unhappy the other day and today
so happy? Yup!!! ,I got the answer .Its the way I looked into
everything. Life is governed by the way we want it to be
governed . We are the reasons behind our happiness .That day I
was unhappy as I wanted to be unhappy . I was complaining about
everything and problems kept on accumulating .The final outcome
– A line of frustration .Now today I tried to be happy and happy
I am . Happiness is not bounded by materialistic pleasure , its
chanellised by the way we feel about the same . Now even I am
happier . I have found a new means to keep myself happy –Looking
inside . I was looking outside world for happiness ,but only
adding to my sorrows . Now I have started looking inside and the
things have changed .
Patriotism sandwiched in Hypocrisy
Galore are the challenges we face in the emerging global order. We have seen the exhilarating spectacle of yesterday’s implacable foes becoming today’s prominent friends, the uncheckable march of consumerisation engulfing into the vital domains of our nervous system, devastation wrought brought by local wars and internecine strife , creation and demolition of power blocks making the route for small powers for a temporary gyroscopic orientations. And all these hurly-burly changes that keep on adding to the ever growing human queries always force us to pause and look into the elucidation in deep detail. This concealed craving in human cerebral hemisphere has given birth to all the scientific evolution that keep on changing the shape of every present and future of human being. Me ,being no exception, stare at some of the societal laws of our value system, to get into the source of this all this confusing compulsions that has been amalgamated into our whole bodily existence. I ,pause ,I think and ask –Am I right ? Or what I visualize and realize are all correct? This dilemma in self realization keeps on haunting me to scrape all the principles of societal obligations and fabricate my own world in my own hands. But Alas!! I find myself too weak to redefine this fixed laws of the Almighty, let alone execution of the same. Most of the time I revolt only to find, I ,being the looser again and again. But In the morning in the dining table, one small discussion among the intellects from our colleagues had banged again my tiny spinal cord to filter out the awful from the rest. The discussion started from the recent cricket tour to Pakistan. Being the hot topic of the town, all were quite energized to contribute their part. The discussions revolved around the way India should play, the issue of support of the Muslims opposing India when India fights with the Pak in the play ground. This topic geared up to produce few debatable topics that had all impressed the political celebrities to generate their citadel of hypnotic political clout. One gentleman questioned the Patriotism shown by the Muslims in India and their love for Pakistan. He questioned the manner in which Muslim populace in side the boarder react when there is a big cricket match on the ground. At the very moment he was bombarded with a counter argument which is worth mentioning here. The other gentleman asked “If we feel we are patriot enough then why we cry over dollar going down against rupee when we come back from overseas tour and have handful of money to be converted in the Indian rupees.?” Since everyone was busy adding their arguments and counter arguments, so his voice could not reach the eardrums of all. But, nevertheless he told a very valid argument to shut up every Indians who claim to be true Patriot. Yes ,lets put his arguments in a logical steps to make those things bit clear. Most of Indians (me and you all included) claim that we are patriot. What are the parameters, when you ask somebody, then many prompt replies that just comes out like spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings are like this-
--Yoo Man(The accent of Desi Englishman)Me patriot because I love India Very much. I love Indian foods, love Indian heritage(when u ask them ,many of them can’t say few lines from the Ved , Koran or bible?). Yes, most of them will tell Christmas on 25th Dec , Mahabharata was a B.R Chopra production and Mohammed has been maligned by Salman Rushdie in Satanic Verses. That is the way they call them true patriot.
--So what if few could not reach the Patriotic ladder. We are patriot, you will hear this shrill voice from every nook and corner of the city. See, we speak national language that is Hindi and that too very fluently. When asked about the no of letters, no of matras in Hindi alphabets, many of them falter and give silly excuses for not remembering the same . This I am telling from my practical experiences . Still some of them don’t know what is called national language. We had strong debate few years back on the topic and one of my friends just made me clear that in Preamble, there are 15 nationalized languages and Hindi is official language, which was latter misinterpreted as a language without which we cant call ourselves a true patriot. Shame on us. We are all hypocrites . Do we filter the patriots from the non-patriots on the basis of languages only? That means a deaf and dump cant be patriot at all?
--Still you will find few others who will show you searchlight in the name of God, in the name of Puran and in the name of historical incidences. They just forget that we learn from the mistakes from our past. But not carrying the past mistakes ,mingling with present and still carrying forward to the future , which has got no correlation with the same. So what if Rama Janma bhumi was devasted by Babar? So what if a Muslim monument was destroyed in the past? They are all historical incidences which if mingled with the present can bring in sorrows and apathy to all of us . Some say if few had made mistakes then their offspring should suffer. But had it ever happened that a historical win was possible which was based on revenge only? A big no pops up.
We all know how much the enmity with Pak is costing us. More than 17% of our budget is spent on the same, which could have changed the fate of India in one budget itself. But alas!! We are all hypocrites .We are all selfish. We change our rules to suit our selfish wishes and always claim that we are true Indians only to show others, though we know very well that we are not. Why I ask same? You will definitely ask. Here are the logic. If any of the answers turn out to be no for anyone , then he could call himself as true Patriot.
1> How many of us don’t do illegal means to hide tax payments to governments?
2> How many of us don’t forget to take bills for every purchase they make?
3> How many of us don’t become happy when there overseas money gets good INR returns?
4> How many of us follow all the traffic rules ?
5> How many of us are very honest to their work? Honest I mean they never keep their work till tomorrow. As honesty delayed is honesty lost.
6> How many of us know exactly what is a civilian rights and duties towards nation? And how many of them implement the same?
All the questions find a big NO to prove that we are not patriot enough. If we had patriot enough then we would not have been ruled by a small Island for more than 2 centuries . And still we are far behind the economic super powers like Japan, France, US etc despite having 100 crore dedicated patriot Indians. There goes a saying first step to become great is feel great and first step to become patriot is become honest to ourselves only. Till the time we live in idiosyncrasies of false paradigm, we cant come out of shell and enjoy the true freedoms that were ever dreamt by our warriors of the independence . I remember the few lines of the Movie Prahar by Nana Patekar where he shouts against this rule of ours. Let’s defy this rule and come together to bring in better world for India.
--Yoo Man(The accent of Desi Englishman)Me patriot because I love India Very much. I love Indian foods, love Indian heritage(when u ask them ,many of them can’t say few lines from the Ved , Koran or bible?). Yes, most of them will tell Christmas on 25th Dec , Mahabharata was a B.R Chopra production and Mohammed has been maligned by Salman Rushdie in Satanic Verses. That is the way they call them true patriot.
--So what if few could not reach the Patriotic ladder. We are patriot, you will hear this shrill voice from every nook and corner of the city. See, we speak national language that is Hindi and that too very fluently. When asked about the no of letters, no of matras in Hindi alphabets, many of them falter and give silly excuses for not remembering the same . This I am telling from my practical experiences . Still some of them don’t know what is called national language. We had strong debate few years back on the topic and one of my friends just made me clear that in Preamble, there are 15 nationalized languages and Hindi is official language, which was latter misinterpreted as a language without which we cant call ourselves a true patriot. Shame on us. We are all hypocrites . Do we filter the patriots from the non-patriots on the basis of languages only? That means a deaf and dump cant be patriot at all?
--Still you will find few others who will show you searchlight in the name of God, in the name of Puran and in the name of historical incidences. They just forget that we learn from the mistakes from our past. But not carrying the past mistakes ,mingling with present and still carrying forward to the future , which has got no correlation with the same. So what if Rama Janma bhumi was devasted by Babar? So what if a Muslim monument was destroyed in the past? They are all historical incidences which if mingled with the present can bring in sorrows and apathy to all of us . Some say if few had made mistakes then their offspring should suffer. But had it ever happened that a historical win was possible which was based on revenge only? A big no pops up.
We all know how much the enmity with Pak is costing us. More than 17% of our budget is spent on the same, which could have changed the fate of India in one budget itself. But alas!! We are all hypocrites .We are all selfish. We change our rules to suit our selfish wishes and always claim that we are true Indians only to show others, though we know very well that we are not. Why I ask same? You will definitely ask. Here are the logic. If any of the answers turn out to be no for anyone , then he could call himself as true Patriot.
1> How many of us don’t do illegal means to hide tax payments to governments?
2> How many of us don’t forget to take bills for every purchase they make?
3> How many of us don’t become happy when there overseas money gets good INR returns?
4> How many of us follow all the traffic rules ?
5> How many of us are very honest to their work? Honest I mean they never keep their work till tomorrow. As honesty delayed is honesty lost.
6> How many of us know exactly what is a civilian rights and duties towards nation? And how many of them implement the same?
All the questions find a big NO to prove that we are not patriot enough. If we had patriot enough then we would not have been ruled by a small Island for more than 2 centuries . And still we are far behind the economic super powers like Japan, France, US etc despite having 100 crore dedicated patriot Indians. There goes a saying first step to become great is feel great and first step to become patriot is become honest to ourselves only. Till the time we live in idiosyncrasies of false paradigm, we cant come out of shell and enjoy the true freedoms that were ever dreamt by our warriors of the independence . I remember the few lines of the Movie Prahar by Nana Patekar where he shouts against this rule of ours. Let’s defy this rule and come together to bring in better world for India.
Looking Inside Professionalism
Today while browsing through orkut, I came across one article titled: Why I hate Narayanan Murthi of Infosys? Tempted by common human instinct, I stopped to look at what is the hot content inside. Sujoy, was the name of the person who had written that article, severly critising the work and culture at Infosys and finally blaming the man behind that NRN Murthi.He had stayed in Infosys for around ten months. During that period he was put into shift works and worked for an outsourced project. Being an IIT student, he felt it was disgrace on his part to work under such environment and finally stepped out with an impression that Infy can't cherish his dream of working in a true Indian IT company with quality work. It was big article, where he had compared the works of NRN Murty with that of Akio Morita of Sony fame. Finally he had concluded that it's a totally unprofessional company driven by vested personal interest. That give rise to a question worth millions. What really means by professionalism and how it’s linked to personal interests? Every now and then working in corporate world we hear the buzz words like - His working style is totally unprofessional, he has no professionalism inside so on and so forth. So what is this professionalism? Is that something which is definable? Many people have their own definitions of professionalism. As per Webster its "The expertness characteristic of a professional person". Other way we can say specialized characteristics of a skilled person. Many people in the corporate world use this as an arsenal against their colleagues/sub ordinates /bosses to sprout their unhappiness over something/someone. They claim that true professional culture can safe guard from unwanted disastrous events which otherwise will not only malign the company's reputation, but also lessen the individual growth. But does professionalism is really different from individual expertness? Can it be isolated from individual expectations? Is it possible that person is really bad at personal level but a true professional? My experiences till date force me to say a big NO to all these questions.
When we grow old and pick up a job to start an independent financial life, we bring in individual expectations to the work place, which we choose to work for. Apart from technical things, that work place demands, we learn how to deal with various types of persons, how to tackle the difficult situations, how to execute task on time with all hardships. There we give a new dimension to our not refined bookish knowledge. Now we are into practical world where time is to money, work is to worship, profit is to business. In order to achieve these three factors we do tasks accordingly. Some people become work-alcoholic- Severely obsessed with their work, some try to make fool of others around them to get their work done. Still some just execute their responsibilities and come back home. Now germinates three satisfaction levels: One whose expectations are high befitting his hard work. He demands all perfections from everyone around him. Anyone working lesser hours than him comes under his surveillance and criticism. His level of professionalism is confined to working late hours and delivery before time and always believing that he is the best. Those persons rise faster in their career ladder. But what they miss is companionship. They don't have time for others so as others for them in the time of need. Once the work juggernaut comes to a standstill, they find what they have missed over the period of time. Needless to say that they, as per definitions are true professionals. Then comes second category whose course of action revolves around making just fool of others and getting their work done. They work less show more, always complain about their system and find problems within it. But never do anything to change the system. In the race for the “Survival of the fittest” they also get their share in many occasions, rise to ladder of so called success, cultivate the hatredness of fellow colleagues, helps in dismantling the company reputations and finally one big hand in collapse of the entire system. These people are not only very dangerous for corporate world but also dangerous for entire society. But we often here from them severely critising others for not being professionals. Then comes third category who does their and go home. They are the biggest cross section of the society who just do whatever been told to do. So if they become professionals or not depend upon those other two categories who virtually become mentor for this third category.
Now let’s go back to Sujoy’s case again. He calls someone who has shown new dimension to India’s software industry a fool, unprofessional, selfish, self- centered money minded person. He even went to the extent of comparing Infy to a cobbler’s workshop. Language he used “Like Cobbler’s repair shop is to Nike showroom as to Infy is to Oracle”. What a comparison. Pat on his back. At the age of 23-24 he could visualize the painstaking activity of opening of a new company and that too managing 30,000 odd engineers, whom he considers all fools.
This is not his mistakes, rather his immaturity which assimilates the highest level of frustration sandwitched between his own self interests. He could not get what he wanted. So he reacted. If he were in New Jersy doing the same low level work for some big firm for bigger salary, probably he won’t have reacted the same way as he reacted. This is not just personal conclusion rather a generic observations. People shout, complain, when they don’t get what they want. And those who don’t get after several trysts are probably those who don’t deserve that. And the level of frustration they show upon colleagues and sub-ordiantes. Even their bosses don’t go away from their deceptive attitude. These second category always tell lies in front their bosses to make them happy and then do the reverse with their sub-ordinates. One thing Sujoy should remember that negative attitude doesn’t give big success in life. Whatever happens attitude towards others and attitudes towards life should be positive. If he didn’t get what he wished, probably he could explore other options. But that doesn’t mean company is bad and people are all fools. Any organization that is giving bread and butter to many, adding value to country’s economy are all good. Yes, the level of work, business acumen, type of culture vary. But one fact remains firm- Any enterprise build upon strong ethics, morals, business expertise will flourish and those build upon falsity, bamboozle will perish no mater how ever big they become in a short span. We have seen debacle of Worldcom, Enron to name a few. Sujoy lost his temperament because his level of frustrations took the driver’s seat. But those who believe in themselves should not carry on their lives with Sujoy’s notes. Big empires demands big commitments and still bigger is feeling for others. Man by default lives in a society and any course of action pitted against societal obligations can’t be coined as “Being professional”. Sujoy may or may not learn with the passage of time but certainly we should try not to pat on our back thinking that we are professional and just doing the reverse.
When we grow old and pick up a job to start an independent financial life, we bring in individual expectations to the work place, which we choose to work for. Apart from technical things, that work place demands, we learn how to deal with various types of persons, how to tackle the difficult situations, how to execute task on time with all hardships. There we give a new dimension to our not refined bookish knowledge. Now we are into practical world where time is to money, work is to worship, profit is to business. In order to achieve these three factors we do tasks accordingly. Some people become work-alcoholic- Severely obsessed with their work, some try to make fool of others around them to get their work done. Still some just execute their responsibilities and come back home. Now germinates three satisfaction levels: One whose expectations are high befitting his hard work. He demands all perfections from everyone around him. Anyone working lesser hours than him comes under his surveillance and criticism. His level of professionalism is confined to working late hours and delivery before time and always believing that he is the best. Those persons rise faster in their career ladder. But what they miss is companionship. They don't have time for others so as others for them in the time of need. Once the work juggernaut comes to a standstill, they find what they have missed over the period of time. Needless to say that they, as per definitions are true professionals. Then comes second category whose course of action revolves around making just fool of others and getting their work done. They work less show more, always complain about their system and find problems within it. But never do anything to change the system. In the race for the “Survival of the fittest” they also get their share in many occasions, rise to ladder of so called success, cultivate the hatredness of fellow colleagues, helps in dismantling the company reputations and finally one big hand in collapse of the entire system. These people are not only very dangerous for corporate world but also dangerous for entire society. But we often here from them severely critising others for not being professionals. Then comes third category who does their and go home. They are the biggest cross section of the society who just do whatever been told to do. So if they become professionals or not depend upon those other two categories who virtually become mentor for this third category.
Now let’s go back to Sujoy’s case again. He calls someone who has shown new dimension to India’s software industry a fool, unprofessional, selfish, self- centered money minded person. He even went to the extent of comparing Infy to a cobbler’s workshop. Language he used “Like Cobbler’s repair shop is to Nike showroom as to Infy is to Oracle”. What a comparison. Pat on his back. At the age of 23-24 he could visualize the painstaking activity of opening of a new company and that too managing 30,000 odd engineers, whom he considers all fools.
This is not his mistakes, rather his immaturity which assimilates the highest level of frustration sandwitched between his own self interests. He could not get what he wanted. So he reacted. If he were in New Jersy doing the same low level work for some big firm for bigger salary, probably he won’t have reacted the same way as he reacted. This is not just personal conclusion rather a generic observations. People shout, complain, when they don’t get what they want. And those who don’t get after several trysts are probably those who don’t deserve that. And the level of frustration they show upon colleagues and sub-ordiantes. Even their bosses don’t go away from their deceptive attitude. These second category always tell lies in front their bosses to make them happy and then do the reverse with their sub-ordinates. One thing Sujoy should remember that negative attitude doesn’t give big success in life. Whatever happens attitude towards others and attitudes towards life should be positive. If he didn’t get what he wished, probably he could explore other options. But that doesn’t mean company is bad and people are all fools. Any organization that is giving bread and butter to many, adding value to country’s economy are all good. Yes, the level of work, business acumen, type of culture vary. But one fact remains firm- Any enterprise build upon strong ethics, morals, business expertise will flourish and those build upon falsity, bamboozle will perish no mater how ever big they become in a short span. We have seen debacle of Worldcom, Enron to name a few. Sujoy lost his temperament because his level of frustrations took the driver’s seat. But those who believe in themselves should not carry on their lives with Sujoy’s notes. Big empires demands big commitments and still bigger is feeling for others. Man by default lives in a society and any course of action pitted against societal obligations can’t be coined as “Being professional”. Sujoy may or may not learn with the passage of time but certainly we should try not to pat on our back thinking that we are professional and just doing the reverse.
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