APinion

Paper Airplanes and Vents

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:50:00 +0000

Three things struck me as I walked in; the long corridor, a brass bell hanging about 6 ft high around halfway on the left along the corridor and a stick hanging by a leather strap a 10 ft ahead of it. Of course, the zero-th thing that must have hit me was the 2 queues along the walls of the passage. But the feeling of nostalgia was invoked faster than the 'Oh-Shit' feeling incited by the queues.

Probably every average school can be characterized by the long corridor and a hanging brass bell, and perhaps occasionally by the guard's stick. This wasn't my school, but memories like slideshow flashed my mind.

As I perspired in the queue, I realized that these corridors never have any fans. As I looked towards the ceiling my eyes fell upon the ventilation of the classrooms, secured by vertical glass pieces arranged alternately. My immediate sense was of pity towards the students who study in those classes. They did not have those traditional concrete vents in elaborate traceries. My school had ones with an interlocking diamond pattern. And reason I felt pitiful towards the students was that they probably would never have a memory as vivid and fun as I have of that vent, in which each diamond opening was stuffed with a white paper airplane.

What makes it even more memorable is the three teachers (I remember only one of that trio now - my Geography teacher) standing with the "LOOK AT THAT!" faces. Well, it were my seniors who had managed the feat, and to this day, I don't know how. One may hazard a guess as to how many notebook pages might have been torn, how many folds a pair of hands might have creased and how many throws a pilot would have needed, but those details aren't fun.

These chain of memories was now interrupted by the shrill long beeps which had grown louder as I advanced to classroom 3 converted for the day as polling station 146/224. Yes, I was at the polling booth, this time for assembly elections.

Standing in the queue, I was reminded of a joke of two economists who meet in a queue for voting and confess to each other that they are both there only on the insistence of their wives. They mutual consented to keep the knowledge that the other voted a secret.

Of late, even I have similar feelings about elections, which have nothing to do with the marginal cost-marginal benefit conditioning of economists, the premise of the earlier joke (Not that I am not conditioned, my job requires me to be). My frustration has more to do with the first past the post system of elections we have in India and more generally, with the fact that how much little information a yes/no kind of instrument (the ballot) captures about real socio-economic issues which polity has to ultimately address through its governance and provide a reasonably accurate comparative evaluation of capabilities of prospective leaders/policy makers as well as of different approaches presented by them to address the identified issues. Of course, these details aren't fun. Willingly alienating one's right to govern oneself isn't either.

These frustrations (augmented by the never ending queue - a result of only 1 ballot station per booth, a result of insufficient EVMs, a result of too many candidates*) with world's largest democracy, begged me to ask myself why was I (and others) here to cast a vote and endorse the system.

I don't know if the senior class was punished for the stunt they pulled with the paper airplanes and the vent openings. Probably, they were lectured on why it was not the right thing to do. What I do know is nothing substantial happened; for anything such would have become one school gossip which would never be forgotten.

I sometimes do wonder, why nothing substantial happened? Maybe our teachers chose to consider the act of indiscipline as a one-time mischief and ignore it. Maybe they didn't want to punish the entire class for acts of a select few. Maybe even with all the power to punish, they were rendered powerless by the senior class's desire (and commitment to it) to have fun, to be just kids: each stuffed airplane a testimony to that.

Perhaps, I and others were there in the poll queue to express our desire to be free, even with a dysfunctional democracy; and, hopefully, through this expression render those powerless who have taken it for granted. Or perhaps, we were just bored, or our mothers/ wives dragged us there.

* There were 19 candidates in total, 2 of which cared to campaign in my locality, party of another 1 campaigned and rest did not care.
P.S. I voted around 1:00 pm taking the voter turnout in my constituency to near 36%.

Victims of Perception

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:44:00 +0000

Guys are so much victims of perception. Of course, I have been one the worst affected victims of these perception. How I wish I could sue all those those who perceive so!

By the way, in case the guy's hair happens to shwet-shyamal, do what he may, the Perceived Age curve and Actual age curve will never meet! Sad but true (at least, I think it is sad, and it most definitely is true).

This one is inspired during the lunch conversations at Bombay House canteens.

Cricket is an unfair game

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 30 May 2009 18:11:00 +0000

During the IPL, there used to be a commercial aired by Parle 20-20 (clever spin on the name from 50-50 to 20-20) in which the team was awarded the cup on the win of the toss, trying to emphasize the “short me niptao” tagline of Parle 20-20. I personally liked the hindi commentator commercial of Parle 20-20 though.

The Parle 20-20 commercial kindled an old curiosity of mine to understand the effect of outcome of a toss on the outcome of the match. Of course, then I was not acquainted to the statistical methods, and even if I did I wonder where I would have obtained the data from; and so had no way to figure out the answer. Anyway, this time around with the superpower of statistics and cricinfo with me, I set out on the quest for the truth.

I chose the IPL2 dataset wherein it is said that anything can happen. This is what I found.

The 3 matches with no results were the 2 abandoned matches and 1 match which was tied and had to be resolved in a super-over. So, 33/56 = 59% of the time the match winner wins the toss. In terms of statistical probability, we can thus say that there is 59% chance that if a team wins the toss, it will win the match.

If a game has to be fair, all outcomes must be equally likely. The two most likely outcomes of a match are that Team A wins or Team A loses. I know of the tie outcome, but how many limited overs cricket games have been tied ever, less than even a 0.1% of all games? So, Team A wins or Team A loses is equally likely implies there should be a ½=50% chance of either happening. But, in cricket the toss changes the odds significantly towards the winner of the toss. Now, that is not fair. I really wish I had worked this math out before the bets I placed in T20 world cup – had to give a good number of chocolates to a friend.

On further analysis, I found something very interesting. Two of the four teams, which made it to the semi-finals of IPL2, were leading the tally in terms of toss-winnings also.

But then this could be one of those spurious correlations like the Redskins Rule. The real question is whether, the variables winning a match and winning the toss are independent or not. Of course, a more rigorous analysis is needed.

So, I googled and found this interesting paper: To bat or not to bat: An examination of match outcomes in day-night limited overs cricket which finds that winning the toss and batting first increases the probability of winning. The study conducted over day-night matches over 1979-2005 uses logit regression to prove the point. Though this does not actually address the toss-win implies match-win hypothesis and does not cover the entire ODI spectrum but does partly address the problem. I did not find a comparable study for test matches.

The cricket fans who ardently believe that “anything can happen in cricket” will argue about the role of strategic decision making on every ball, pitch & weather conditions, team composition, selection criteria, politics in cricket, racist attitude towards Asian teams, yada yada yada on the outcome of the match. To all ye, I say, prove it statistically!

I have to agree these results are not enough to make a generic statement that “Cricket is an unfair game”. But I have instinctive feel that any study would return toss outcome as the topmost factors that affect the outcome of the match. And hence on basis of my hunch, I claim: Cricket is an unfair game.

P.S. I hope I have the freedom of speech to make such a statement. These days, anything can happen: big media (proponents of free speech) can legally ask a blogger to remove his post, political parties can ask award juries to award only "deserving" people. Who knows, BCCI might take offence to this non-trivial albeit somewhat naive analysis of IPL2 or cricket and I might be sued to take it off blogosphere!

The Beauty Arbitrage

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:57:00 +0000

So, I visited the barber last week for the regular trimming and getting that clean shave, advertized in the Gillette Mach 3, Turbo Mach 3, Vector Plus, etc commercials, which I consistently fail to achieve by myself. There was this new chap there instead of my regular barber and his first glance at me was that of utter disappointment – not because I happened to drop in at his breakfast time or because it meant additional work. This was a different sort of disappointment – the kind that I would feel if I was asked to do a menial task like data entry – of being underutilized and more importantly under-challenged. Professional that he is, my thin shwet-shyamal hair offered him little challenge; little room to style and all you see.

The barber’s reaction was new because of his selfishness. But, I am not unaccustomed to reactions to my hair. I could fill libraries with volumes of books about the care and concern that people have shown towards my balding. Indeed barbers all over the country, from Mumbai to Guwahati to Chennai to Bangalore never fail to point out to me that “bahut safed baal ho gaya hai” or “bahut patla ho gaya hai baal”. Duh! And then there are those concerned friends, estranged school acquaintances, relatives, etc who on every meeting do not fail to suggest remedies ranging from wearing a topi to protect from dust, going completely bald so that the new fasal can grow, daily usage of some maha-bhringaraj oil, consumption of hair-growing tablets, visit to Dr Batra's Clinic, etc. Most concerned are my parents and first-cousins: “kes aahet tovar lagna karun ghey” (marry while you have hair). Indeed, this concern for hair is a proxy concern of not being thought of as handsome; (similarly, there are proxies for beauty in case of girls) and the indisputable importance of beauty (or handsomeness) with marital prospects of a girl or a guy.

This chain of thoughts reminded me of a beauty arbitrage, some friends had told me about. What is it all about? Let’s have a look at the marital prospects market. Each marital prospect will be valued based on different parameters including beauty like earnings potential, compatibility, etc. The mix of these parameters will determine the valuation. Thus, someone who may be beautiful but have low earnings potential could be equally valued as someone who is not-so-beautiful but who has earnings potential.

However, as the hair raising concerns described above show, beauty is perceived as a relatively more important parameter (especially when both parties are young). This perception distorts the marital prospects market. There is a greater demand for beautiful prospects. Two prospects, one beautiful and other not-so-much, who are valued equally (V_actual), will be valued differently because of the excess demand for the beautiful and the lack of demand for the not-so-beautiful. People will be over-valuing a beautiful prospect (by a premium p) and under-valuing the not-so-beautiful prospect (by a discount d). What will happen over time is that the perceived value of the prospect will approach actual value (consistent with my economic theory of relationships).

Herein lay the opportunity as Buffet would say. We have an undervalued marital prospect which not many want to engage with. If one gets engaged and stay so for the long term, while those who had paid a premium for beauty will see erosion in value of their relationship, one would see an appreciation in one's relationship value. This gap in actual value and market value is the beauty arbitrage.

So, to all those people and barbers who are interested in making someone not-so-beautiful or not-so-handsome into beautiful or handsome, all I have to say is this: They are good as they are, in fact they are the best marital investment opportunities around. If you are really care, then find them some intelligent investors.

Of Distances & Difficulties

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:55:00 +0000

This one actually counts for more than 1000 words. Inspired by the sheer mundaneness of weekdays!

Oh, in case you are wondering what how to go from B to B'. It's not difficult. One just needs the ability to ignore one's cellphone bills. True story!

All about cuts...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:08:00 +0000

This one is inspired by the daily commuting I do along the Eastern Express Highway using the Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS). A distant inspiration is also one of my friends who likes to think of the EE highway as a racetrack.

Mumbai Attacks - Analysis Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 06:31:00 +0000

A month has passed by since my last post and the attacks on Mumbai. I did come up with several ideas for new posts in the past four weeks like review of the book Love in the time of Cholera by Gabo, update on the two pigeon chicks in my home, completing part 2 of Asset Bubble and I & Reservation post, an arbitrage theory of beauty and implications on marital prosperity among others. But repeatedly these ideas have been sidelined by the thought of Mumbai attacks. Despite a personal resolve to not write posts pertaining to politics or religion, not so much because of the controversies they invite but because of their sheer irrelevance to the present day world; I had to do it. Anyway, after I drew an outline of the post, I realized it won't be related too much to politics and even little to religion.

It is almost stuff for history now; however to set the tone of the post, I am summing up what ensued. On 26th November, few crazy young attackers (I will not acknowledge them as terrorists giving them credit for having achieved their motive of instilling terror in me) entered Mumbai, blew bombs in places and captured the Taj Palace, Trident Oberoi and Nariman House for a couple of days. They also engaged in random gun fire on Mumbai CST station and on the road. They were carrying Kalashnikovs, MP5s, some advanced kind of grenades, and some kilograms of RDX. After around 3 days (I had expected a minimum of 7 days; and it would have been, if it had blown up into an hostage crisis), 14 martyrs, a captured attacker, several hundred dead, even more injured and rescued, the Taj, Trident and Nariman House were recaptured. Some foreign nationals were killed in the attack and the FBI, Scotland Yard and, if some reports are to be believed, Israel's Mossad landed in India to assist in investigations.

Of course, Indian media outdid itself once again in the lows it could reach, the trough of which was a news channel refusing to cooperate with the ministry in the rescue operations. Once, in a discussion, a colleague claimed that India media has double standards. I refused to accept it, as it presupposes existence of standards in the first place. Sadly, I have been vindicated. It is not just a baseless outburst against the media; I was glued (probably like many others) to the TV set and was appalled to see the 11/26-11/28 coverage. I have watched the 9/11 coverage on a couple of leading foreign news channels and it was very different in its objectivity and lack of melodrama in the news (26/11 coverage appeared like a TV soap). Indeed after such abominable conduct reflective of a lack of essential self-censorship, Indian media has lost the moral authority to argue against Government intervention through a statutory code of conduct for media in such circumstances.

Theories of Attacks

There have been quite a few theories behind the attacks. The latest and the one backed by most evidence, accepted by FBI, is that the attackers came via sea route from Pakistan and that the attacks were organized and coordinated from the territories of Pakistan. The attackers have been proved to be Pakistani national's beyond reasonable doubt and links to Pakistan's ISI's involvement have been established, albeit not in a fool-proof manner.

The motives of the attackers are not known. An earlier theory, while the rescue operations were going on, was that the attackers planned to hold CST, Taj, Trident and Nariman House hostage for around 30 days. With a limited supply of dry fruits, steroid injections and ammunitions, I wonder how they planned to accomplish it. This theory is debunked.

Another theory is that they wanted to take 5000 lives (stated by the, now removed, home minister of Maharashtra in a press conference). But why not just blow up some busy place to do it? Why ask for people with British and American passports, when the attackers were inside the Taj and Trident? Why attack Nariman House? This theory also raises several questions. Answers to them will probably be found eventually as the investigation progresses. Although, I am not sure if I would want to rely on Kasab’s (the captured attacker) testimony alone, the reasons for which I will discuss in a while.

I have reached a somewhat disturbing conclusion, if this was indeed the motive. If it was so, then the organizers of the attacks had at least couple of options to accomplish their objective.
a. Plant RDX bombs at places and blow them up. Past few years have suggested it is not that difficult to do it in India.
b. Send people armed with guns, limited ammo, food supplies and few grenades to do the job.

Option (a) is efficient and effective. Also, in a war (which the attackers claim this is), one needs to minimize damage of lives to one’s side – making again option (a) preferable. However, as we know that they chose option (b). Maybe they didn’t have enough RDX. Possible, but highly unlikely.

One way to explain it is that the organizers of the attacks really didn’t see the plan through. It is possible, but less likely, given that they have planned this for several months.

Another reason could be they thought that the attackers could come out alive out of this by holding hostages (it also indirectly implies they viewed India as a soft target which will submit to their demands.) But the attackers stormed the targets in pairs. There movements were largely not coordinated, one group acting independent of the other. Without a commander on field (Ismail, one of the attackers, who has been claimed to be the leader could have been put to use more as a coordinator rather than a commander) and just in pairs, I wonder how they even thought they would be able to pull-off a hostage drama at multiple sites. It is possible that the attackers might have been told that it can be pulled off, but I doubt if the organizers really believed it could be done.

This leads me to conclude, that the organizers knew that it was not possible for their foot soldiers to come out of it alive. As I said before, in a war, one’s men are one’s most prized asset. Each man’s life is important. Since, saving their men’s lives was not a prime decision criteria, it could mean at least one of the following.
• The attack was meant as one-time diversion, not intended to be repeated again i.e. loss of lives was limited to this, to distract India, and possibly the world, from something. If one theory is to be believed, the intention was to incite attack from India on Pakistan’s eastern border forcing relocation of Pakistani troops from Pakistan’s western border, where they fight along with US forces against Al Qaeda and Taliban. But this is too much of a conspiracy theory for me, for; firstly we have a Prime Minister, who has little, if any, knowledge of geo-sociopolitical issues, and has even lesser incentives to engage them actively, as he is not popularly elected to the Parliament. For that matter, even the removed Union Home Minister’s case was similar. Also, with both countries armed with Nuclear weapons, a full-scale war is less likely. Moreover, it will be India’s loss if it would have gone to war. If however this is true, then Al Qaeda’s involvement in the attacks cannot be ruled out, for it would have been the direct beneficiary of such an eventuality.
• If it was not meant as one-time attack, it could mean that the organizers were not really concerned with loss of lives. This lack of concern implies for it means the organizers can recruit more such foot soldiers relatively easily for their war. This is upsetting. It is indicative of the idea that there are a larger number of youth who see such extremism as a way of life. This is the direct result of the instability and resultant unpredictability in several region of the world, dominantly Islamic, viz., Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, some African nations and some of the Soviet offshoots. Misguided youth are choosing the path of death willingly in return of what appears to me as a vain promise. I really don’t see entry into heaven (where fairies are at one’s service) – at least, that is what Kasab said he was to receive in return – as really something. (How much faith can be put into such a misguided youth’s testimony? How much of what transpired in reality is he expected to know? He can tell us only what he has been told or rather indoctrinated with.)
• Of course, one can dismiss the idea that this was just a senseless one-off attack and not a part of any larger scheme of things. But the objectivity of the actions – choice of an upcoming business destination like India which is getting close to the United States, killing foreigners, choosing internationally known targets all point to the idea of attracting global attention to the extremists’ cause. I see this as a pilot attack, and it was a largely successful one. The future holds the answer whether such an attack would be reattempted and if it would succeed.

Political Response

India’s political response to the attack, during and after, can be described as the work of a novice at best. Interestingly, our prime minister’s reaction to the situation came much after the reactions of international leaders had flowed in. The (removed) home minister’s clarification to the situation was that security of Mumbai was a state subject and not a centre subject – reflective of lack of understanding of the gravity of the situation. Maharashtra’s (removed) chief minister in his reaction seemed to be little bothered by what was happening, making it appear that he considered the responsibility of the attack did not lay with him or even if he did, it won’t affect him. Maharashtra’s (removed) home minister at least had an expression of worry on his face, though whether it was due to the fear of loss of his position or due to the enormity of the incident is a puzzle. He started claiming Pakistan’s involvement even before investigation had started. Indeed, stories like attackers landed by boat at Gateway and then made their way to the Taj were his creation. The opposition at centre restricted itself, for a brief while, from attacking the government, but most probably afraid of losing the chance to influence votes in the elections going on then, later on, exploited the opportunity as much as possible; in vain, as it appears now. And the otherwise vociferous and loud opposition parties at state level were largely silent, as if drawn into a coma. Cat got their tongues?

India’s steps on the foreign front during and immediately after the attacks were hmm… there weren’t any at all. Whereas, Pakistan’s foreign affairs minister was claiming innocence of Pakistan to its key allies, China, US and others, India’s foreign affairs department was sleeping. Where there should have been diplomatic efforts to gather sympathy as terrorized secular democratic nation and garner support against a terror-sponsoring theocratic state, there was nothing. All of this is related to the massive incompetence and lack of willingness of the Prime Minister, Home Minister and External Affairs Minister in handling such issues. At the same time, the remote-controlled operating structure of the ruling party at centre could have played a role in delayed response – as the stooges would have been waiting to be told of what to do or speak.

In effect, while the nation was facing one of its worst attacks challenging its sovereignty, the politicians were busy doing chance pe dance and there seem to have been no indications that they were in control of what was happening. I estimate confusion must have been rampant inside the Indian political structure at that time. Thanks to the clarity of purpose and action demonstrated by the brave Indian commandos, the situation was controlled. Although it could probably have been brought under control earlier, had they had quicker transfer facilities and the bureaucratic delays were avoided.

Problems on the surface

When an external organization/nation succeeds in attacking a nation, there could only be two reasons behind it at a high level.
• The external organization/nation is too strong (financially, capability-wise, etc) for the nation
• The internal structure of the nation is too weak to fight off such external attacks

In this case, the external bodies are strong. Terrorist organizations are well-funded, probably trained by people trained by premier intelligence bodies of the world and as I proved earlier most likely having no shortage of manpower. However, India too is one of the top 5 richest nations, purchasing power parity wise. We don’t lack intelligence or training machinery either.

But I believe in the past decade, our internal capability to fight off such attacks has not kept pace. For starters, India’s defense budget for 2008-09 is just 2% of GDP. On average it has been less than 3%. Compare that to United States, a democracy third of our size. It has been over 4% of GDP (this for a nation which has amicable neighbors and almost an eternity of oceans on its west and east). Check this map which shows military expense as a % of GDP. Our neighbor on west, which for a considerable part of its life as an independent state has been a military dictatorship, spends around 3.5% of GDP and on east, over 4% of GDP. Of course, if compared in absolute levels, whereas India’s 2008-09 budgeted spend is $26.5billion, US will be spending over $600billion dollars. That is more than 22 times Indian defense budget, whereas US GDP is around 13 times Indian GDP. This lower budget translates into poor salaries for our defense, law and order professionals, poor equipment, facilities and amenities, outdated arms and ammunitions (World War 2 rifle vis-à-vis AK-47 and MP5) and last but most important, poor intelligence machinery. It takes MORE to preserve freedom and sustain a democracy.

Other dominant problem has been structural. The non-independence of the state law and order machinery or the central intelligence machinery from politics inevitably leads to politicians unduly interfering with the workings of these bodies, often to the peril of national security and sustenance of law and order. Coordination between various state and central bodies has been quoted as an issue. I fail to understand how creation of a new federal body would resolve that and not add to existing confusion and bureaucracy. The same thing could be possibly accomplished by a setting up a coordinating committee. A new body will add another ego in the equation, additional overheads, and probably little improvement in existing effectiveness.

Another structural issue surrounds the counter-terrorism laws. While the United Nations Counter-terrorism Committee had suggested that India needs stronger anti-terror laws last year, Indian government still considers that the present legal provisions are sufficient. The ruling party’s soft stand on the counter-terrorism law is part of its long standing appeasement policy towards of its vote banks, which I will discuss later. Their counter is the human rights violations resulting from the misuse of the law. It can’t be denied that the law is not liable to misuse. However, the trade-off between misuse of law leading to human rights violations and absence of law leading to attacks like the one in Mumbai has to be carefully weighed. In both the cases, innocents are killed. It is anybody’s guess which side the balance will tilt in such a trade-off in India, set in such a fragile context. To reduce human rights violations, what is needed are elaborate countervailing protocols to ensure that in execution of the statute, errors resulting from misuse of law are minimized, and, if possible, eliminated. It isn’t easy, but it is doable. Our anti-terror laws are indeed weak and they create incentives to inaction for the law & order and intelligence bodies. In the absence of an amenable environment, how are these bodies expected to perform their jobs?

The last issue, I believe, is that of gun control. The Arms Act, 1959 supplemented by Arms Rules, 1962 make it extremely difficult for law-abiding citizens in India to hold guns. Add to that, restrictions on private weapons manufacture and on import of weapons and you have made it nearly impossible for citizens to buy weapons, legally. The logic in favor of such legislation in present times would be that it increases rate of crime. There is little evidence to support this hypothesis. United States, where a gun can be bought like a car, has a small fraction of violent crimes resulting from licensed weapons. The logic against such regulation is aptly stated in the II amendment to United States constitution, specifically in the Bill of Rights: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Indeed, if gun control was absent, it is likely that security at Taj would have been prepared with weapons after being threatened of an attack; it is likely that the attackers at CST would have never made out of the station alive; it is likely that the organizers would have considered twice before attacking the Taj, Trident or CST. The government now plans to increase the strength of the industrial security forces at centre level and establish an equivalent force at state level, to provide security to businesses. Is this force going to ensure security for all the businesses in India, from the nuclear reactors to the local provisions store? Besides, from where are they going to find enough men to fill in those jobs? The Army and law & order bodies are already short of manpower in India.

It is a constitutional mandate that India’s union government has to secure the citizens from internal disorder and external aggression. The past decade has shown that successive union governments have largely failed to do that. The state has proven that it is grossly underprepared to avoid occurrence of a situation like the Mumbai attacks and to handle it, if it happens. In such circumstances, the state should allow the people their fundamental right to defend themselves and deregulate weapons market. I am not claiming that there are John McLanes all across India who would do a Die Hard every time something like Mumbai attacks happens. (This also tenders merit to the argument of mandatory military conscription if gun market is deregulated, for at least some of the people would know how to fire a weapon and not be knocked out by the recoil on firing the first shot). There also is considerable signaling and screening value associated with gun decontrol. That rate of violent crime using weapons might rise marginally, is possible and it will have to be remedied through better education.

Problem runs deep

The problems on the surface can be remedied through some solutions, but the effectiveness of these solutions will be limited. That is not to say, that those solutions should not be thought of or implemented. If marginal improvement in effectiveness implies reduction of chances of loss of lives by even a basis point, it should be done. However, it should not be used as an escape route to run from the real problems; those problems which are much more serious than mere lack or excess of policy.
... continued in Part 2

Tracing Paths...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:22:00 +0000

The other day, the rickshaw I was in was following a Hyundai i10 whose driver was driving so erratically, for a moment it made me wonder whether it was a female driver. The driver was male, but I found the reason for the erratic driving. That has inspired this post.

The dotted part of the lines are the brief Super-man moments when the car hits a bump and literally flies or is at least a few millimeters above the surface.

GTalk Status messages at 2:33 PM 24-Nov-08

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:56:00 +0000

Have some time at hand today, so decided to do another of the gtalk status message posts. Here goes.

Bula rahi hai Life, Paas aake dekho !!
This is one of the dur se dekha, paas se dekha kind... paas se dekha to wife chilla rahi thhi...??

I display the wonder traits of charm and courtesy
Blatant lies in a status message!

is feeling empty!
One always does... especially after paying a visit to...

Desperate times call for drastic measures
K

is thinking of Jack London's views on Übermensch...
Philosophy has done nobody no good. Philosophical criticisms more so!

ich bin glucklich und du?
Ich bin immer glücklich!

del dxb del
Some coded message... Too lazy to google it up!

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results
Oh, comon! People doing jobs are not insane!

Tread softly
to where?

has started training for the marathon, but forgot to register
Yeah, we all buy the "forgot" argument.

:D
:D you back!

Fairytale World...
Really, if this is fairy tale, what would reality be like? *shudders*

If only I'd be a little less critical of everything.......
You haven't done a good start, have you?

It's not about how hard you get hit, its about how much you can take
And the winner of "Not changing the status message since eternity" goes to this fellow!

...lull before the storm...
Ok, which company is going down now?

Banking... finance... private equity... fooey...
Fooey is the odd one out!

Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes
I know what this means, but that does not mean I am what it means, it only means that I have the means to find out what it means!

Whatever your 100% looks like. Just give it.
My 100% looks like 0% :)

Eagerly waiting for 29th.
End terms getting over at campus for juniors...

Super busy
Sounds like a super hero name.

New Day Has Come....
Why the heck did it have to be a Monday?

I'd give all the wealth that years have piled, The slow result of Life's decay, To be once more a little child, For one bright summer day - Lewis Carrol
Wait till summers hit you and then you would rather wish for a winter day again!

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Services/IIM-B_ranked_as_best_Bschool_in_Central_Asia/articleshow/3660325.cms
Yeah, B ranked 1st in Central Asia. B rulez!

Scotty doesn't know!
I don't either!

Now there's a look in my eyes... Like black holes in the sky...
I haven't shrunk to a singularity yet, so there are no black holes in the sky...

Life is all about ass; your are either covering it, laughing it off, kicking it, kissing it, busting it, trying to get a piece of it, or behaving like one.
LMAO

Conphoosed
hoo eej naut?

got his hands boiled :(
Hopefully, now you will dread fire or boiling water... whatever!

Nick Fury is back... and he has a plan
So what? Every super book hero has one.

End Terms
Why do they call them that? They never end... One simply follows the other!

Dead Eyes see no future
You mean every human's eyes are dead!

Religion, Introspection, Transcendence
Deep!

What happened when XXXXXXX went on a merry-go-around?
He went around!

When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half
Let me tell you a secret, we all didn't.

Nenjukil peidhidum maa mazhai!!!!
Translate please.

in B-school, anything beyond 2x2 is matrix algebra!!
Bows, you do 2x2 in your brains. I pull up Excel for even doing 2 + 2.

found my old art :)
Nice nice.

SDM and India Uninc :(
Course names for the uninitiated.

Footage - http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Marching+on+with+firm+resolve&artid=UZ8ABr1gHEw=&SectionID=Qz/kHVp9tEs=&MainSectionID=Qz/kHVp9tEs=&SEO=IIM,+students,++professor&SectionName=UOaHCPTTmuP3XGzZRCAUTQ==
Yeah, Placus of IIMB got footage. Good work nonetheless.

./a.out >&2
Ah, those coding days... miss bash, ksh, sh...

Is mod se jate hai kuch sust kadam raste kuch tez kadam rahein...
Conphoosed!

Happiness, once again, is a kid with longish hair and cognac brown eyes!
Maybe, I haven't met the kid yet!

no enthu! :(
Agreed!

No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated and disciplined. - Harry E Fosdick
Who is this Fosdick fellow anyway?

Nostalgic
Tell me about it.

ND office it is
Someone's back in ND

Time heals nothing... it merely rearranges your memory :)
Profound!

Gotama
I knew what this meant... But my memory has been rearranged.

zzz...
I write this to avoid switching to the mode this person is in!

Read my Blogs - http://xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxxx.xxx
Some subtleness needed macha. Can't order people around to read blogs!

wants to be in Amritsar this winter!
ticket katao and go na then!

Happy Birthday to.... Have a good day :)
This is like mass customization. Whoever's birthday there is just fills his/her name in the blank and this person doesn't have to go through the trouble of typing it out again and again!

Haule, haule...
This one is my status message... Song from upcoming Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi... All songs are okay... But I liked this one...

And like before there were three people flashing their numbers... two claiming they were at work and were busy and one with an orange sign and claiming not being at his desk! Duh!

Homelessness...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:15:00 +0000

This one is a break from the previous graph posts. But it will be short one, with some pictures. So, one fine day, I look out of the window of my parent's flat. I don't remember why I did that - perhaps to check out the kids shouting at the top of their voice as they played cricket or to check out for the nth time the dumb guy who can't reverse his car and has a reverse siren so shrill that I have at more than one time thought of throwing a rock on his car from the top, or perhaps, I looked out for no particular reason at all. Anyway, I found a pigeon perched behind one of the flower pots in a corner. Now usually they fly off as soon as they get wind of a human around, but this one didn't.

My natural suspicion was that s/he had probably setup a nest behind the flower-pot. I confirmed about this with my Mom. So, the nature photographer in me was aroused and what resulted was these pictures.

That was two weeks back. This weekend, I found that those two eggs were now two yellow haired chicks. The she-pigeon made me wait a lot to get the following picture and videos. She would not budge for around couple of hours. The fact that my Mom spread out some rice grains for her didn't make my job easier. She didn't even need to fly out for fetching food for its young.

Next weekend I hope to capture some more pictures of their ongoing transformation.

So, how's this all related to the post title? These nests have not been uncommon in my house. Every mating season some pigeon or sparrow tries to find a spot where it can nest. (Only this time I could observe one this closely.) What's happened is this: our need for homes has made these creatures homeless - lack of trees to perch upon, to setup nests safely in the mating seasons. I have known the term destruction of natural habitat before but probably for the first time, I am able to understand what it means. It means being rendered homeless.

Is there a difference between thousands of Americans who are living out of their cars, have to queue to perform daily ablutions, etc after the credit crisis and this pigeon who has setup nest in our home? Both have been a result of excesses: excesses of ambition, excesses of population, excesses of poverty... Or wait, may be it's not the excesses but the lack of reasoned thought, lack of acknowledging the idea that the life that we can't restore we have no right to take, lack of the knowledge that we can live harmoniously between us as humans and with others on this earth... Wishful thinking? Or is it?

Being tall has its advantages...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 14:49:00 +0000

Well, yeah... being tall does have its advantages if you are commuting in a Mumbai local.

Factors like sitting or standing affects effective height. Indeed window seats are best in such circumstances. With roughly 16 choices of window seats per coach, the clamor for window seats can be understood!

Discovery of Levitation...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 09:31:00 +0000

Probably, my posts will be related to commuting in Mumbai locals for a while. Here goes another on Mumbai locals.

Few of my colleagues, who are new to Mumbai and local trains, have actually managed to experience levitation a lot in a short period of time. In fact, that experience has driven them to take a cab to office daily.

Commuting in a Mumbai Local

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 05:08:00 +0000

I haven't been unable to post in past couple of weeks now. And the list of half-written blogs is growing. That's as much I have been able to do since I joined Tata Power in Mumbai couple of weeks back. So, inspired by Jessica Hagy's blog: Indexed, I am going to try to do small image posts. And here's the first one in hopefully a long list of those.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. And thus I complete my thousand word blog for the day.

Bootstrapping

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 08:48:00 +0000

Finally after almost around a fortnight (gosh, writing reports is crazy), I returned to Google Reader to read the nearly 2000 unread articles. And so started the process of marking all the small daily briefs as read and screening through all the articles/posts which were worth reading. And in the process, I encountered this article by Sanjeev Bikchandani, Founder, Naukri.com, on bootstrapping which appeared in Mint (awesome news daily).

Bikchandani talks about the importance of bootstrapping (for the uninitiated, here is a formal definition of bootstrapping) one's venture. Athough, he makes convincing arguments, the article dangerously borders on providing general advice to budding entrepreneurs to most certainly bootstrap without actually understanding ground reality. As sooner or later everybody finds out, there are no certainties - bootstrap! don't bootstrap! is all an illusion. Heck, even scientists can't be completely certain if F = m * a or F = m^1.01 * a^.99or F = m^.99 * a^1.01 where F is Force applied to a mass m causing it to accelerate with a (that is Newton's second law of motion for the uneducated). The models we build are only as precise as our decision-making requires. To tackle uncertainties we rely on frameworks, a structured way of discovering reality, when it actually happens.

Bootstrapping is an option among several others. The choice of funding a budding entrepreneur should go for, will depend on several factors. By the way, I can speak authoratively about it, because:
* I have worked with one startup (Quetzal) for nearly couple of months (awesomest 7 weeks of my life)
* I am presently giving some MBA insight to a friend who is starting a new venture.
* I did actually start a small venture when I was 16

As I said, there would be several considerations while making a choice of funding. Some key considerations would be:
1. What does the entrepreneur want to do with the business?
Now there could be 2 generic type of answers in this context:
* I want to create & sustain something of my own and I want to be make as much money as I can while I do it. For these bunch of people, their business would form their primary source of income (unless they are living of the proceeds of their earlier business or inheritance). Somewhat like a lifestyle entrepreneurs. Money is inevitably tied to ownership i.e. equity. And so is control.
* I want to create something, sell it out (and invest the proceeds or join a consulting firm or something like that). These are the guys for whom starting a business is not the end, but a means to something else. Making money would be important but secondary to other important things person wants from life.

2. Has the idea of the product or service been proved?
This is a no brainer. Only two broad answers possible.
* Yes - there is a clear demand of the product in the market.
* No - the product or service is going to take off slowly, and market may need to be created.

3. What is the competitive environment for the product or service?
Three broad scenarios possible.
* New entrepreneurs but no well-established existing players
* Existing players are serving the need(s) of customers
* Zero or little existing players in the field

If we combine all these options, we end up with 12 scenarios. The following image defines the twelve scenarios.

Firstly, couple of observations: Where ownership is important, the founder needs to hold as much equity with him/herself – in fact, it is best not to allow the equity to fall below 51% – to retain control of the organization. When however cashing out is important and controllership is not important, equity can be allowed to fall to 26% the minimum required to protect one’s stake (from Indian point of view). Not that it will protect the founder fully, but some amount of protection is offered. However, in this case typically the founder will have a returns expectation over a period of time. I would think that one would ideally want to beat the highest returns that can be obtained from the stock market. But that is what I would think. Somebody else might think something else.

Secondly, there are three broad financing choices open to startups:
1. Bootstrap
2. External equity – this is the VC route. It doesn’t come with many strings attached, but results in loss of equity.
3. External debt – this is the loan route from banks or otherwise. It comes with a lot of strings, most important of which is interest payments. However, there is no equity loss.

With this background, let me discuss what could be the relatively appropriate financing strategy in each scenario.

A – In this case, where demand is proven and several others are in running after the same pot of gold, you would want to be first to develop a quality product, sell it, establish your distribution presence, etc (what could be called leveraging first mover advantage). Assuming the founder does all other things right (pricing, costing, etc); the right amount of funds will help you attract premium talent, penetrate market faster, etc. If one has sufficient funds with oneself, then bootstrapping is obvious. But if more funds are required, it is better to opt for debt (loans from banks). Ideally some amount of debt might also help in raising the Return on Equity for the founder, plus interest payments do force a discipline in fiscal matters in the organization.

G – When cashing out quickly is more important, the aim is to bring the business to a position where it fetches value significant to get returns. Secondly, it would be necessary to find a buyer. In India, right now the secondary market for business is not very developed. Angel Investors can help looking for buyers through their network. So bringing in external equity might serve well. This equity would help in growing business quickly, if the product is good. This will increase value of the business. Having excessive debt on the balance sheet would be a hindrance when selling the business. Some combination of debt and equity can be used effectively here, to raise value of the company and preserve enough equity to quit the business with very expected returns.

B – In this case, typically nobody understands the customer requirements clearly – including the customer. So the product evolves over several iterations involving the customer. First mover advantage will only be helpful if one gets the right product bang on the first time. But that will happen rarely. Also, risks of failure of business will be high. In this case, ideally one would want somebody else to give money to setup the business. Well, if one is lucky or if one has contacts in the investor circles or if one is really good, then chances are one might get other people’s money to play with. But most likely, neither of the three will be true. It would be even more difficult to raise debt. So, one will be forced to bootstrap. In a way, this would be the real test of one’s risk-taking abilities.

H/J/L – The create market scenario is ill-suited for entry of time-bound returns focused entrepreneurs. Because, creating a market is a trial and error process. As such predictability of future cash flows in such a case is almost zero. If founder has something that gives him/her a distinct advantage over his/her peers, then it can be leveraged and external debt/equity can be raised for growth. Size can be accumulated enough to cash out of the business. Otherwise, cashing out quickly is really a dream. Pumping any amount of money would not make the business success, if market is not proven. It would be better to look for other opportunities which will give the kind of returns the entrepreneur is looking out.

C – There is an existing market and you are trying to make a dent by serving some (niche) under-served or unmet need of the market. In such a situation, one of the most important things to be considered would be the reaction of existing players’ reaction, if they are few. And if there are many then their reaction would need to be considered, but may not be most critical. Also, in such a market price would probably be the only basis of competition. As one would expect, unless the founder’s value proposition is strong enough or there is proven room enough for at least one player to grow, VC’s won’t be very bullish on such a venture. The returns will be always under competitive threat. And if the competitors are few and big, expect them to spend obscene amounts of money to defend their turf. Raising debt would be advisable, but to a limited extent. Margins in such market may already be thin and interest burden would reduce them even further. So, forced to bootstrap!

I – The prospect of cashing out with super returns in the “Existing Players” scenario is dim unless one has a magic product or service to meet the proven demand and competitor reaction will do little harm – a combination which is very less probable in reality. Bootstrapping is preferable if investment is low. If externals funds are needed then it is a choice between debt and equity or its combination so the founder gets expected returns. If it can be done easily and cheaply, debt should be raised. As long as, founders’ returns expectations are not impacted, limited external equity can be raised too. Revision of expectations can be done, but that means lesser cash when exiting.

D – There are existing players and you are trying to create a market. This is typical when one is coming up with a new product to meet an existing need. Again, a strong competitor reaction is expected, when they are big and few and they would employ several tactical measures to delay the absorption of your product (not ruling out unethical practices, remember Virgin - British Airways). Getting external equity funding may not be difficult, if the product/service is good. However, to fight off the competitors, considerable funds may be required and that would imply a giving up considerable equity. A mix of external debt and external equity can be adopted to meet funding needs though in that case external equity investors are going to want to buy equity cheaper.

If competitors are many and small, then quickly penetrating the market with the new product/service is important, for their reaction would not pose a great threat. The best way forward, would be to develop right sales strategy and focus on selling, instead of competitor reaction. After bootstrapping initially, next strategy would be to raise debt (short-term or long-term depending on needs). If switching costs are high and customer acquisition process lengthy, then long-term debt would be needed otherwise, short-term should be fine, unless there is arbitrage possible.

E – When there is little competition to worry about and a proven demand, the best strategy is to establish and grow oneself as quickly as possible. Bootstrapping is obviously preferable. Quick growth and expansion would likely need a lot of capital. So, some debt/equity infusion can be sought at the beginning. Equity is better for the lesser hassles. But debt brings discipline which helps in long run. But discipline can prove to be an obstacle to growth. And undue freedom may compromise the long term prospects of the company. A balanced view should be taken before deciding the preferred route. Once an IPO-able size is attained, then external equity infusion is best sought from the market – hot market, if possible. The first mover advantage should be leveraged to the extent possible.

K – This situation is similar to E, except that one may choose to exit early by selling off to investors and not necessarily in an IPO.

F – This is usually the case with a highly innovative product or product for niche market. The problem in such a case for the first mover is – s/he may be able to create a market and not exploit it later – once the demand is validated. In such a situation, initially it might be very difficult to find cheap funding from VCs. The strategy should be to raise capital with short term point of view. Getting good valuations, at first go, would be very difficult. One has to be able to raise capital by bootstrapping during initial period, and later in small tranches to meet needs in short-term through external equity. It will not expose too much capital to excessive risk in one go. As the demand is validated, the risk will go down and the cost of capital will be cheaper. Of course, you would need to have or develop good contacts amongst the investor circles, so that capital can be easily obtained, when needed.

The following table summarizes what strategies (will) could fit best in the scenarios.

Of course, the beauty of the business world is that there are hardly any singular models which can be followed to make decisions. The challenge and excitement is in drawing one's own theories, hypotheses and then validating them. I asked some questions after reading Bikchandani's article and this post is the answer.

Asset Bubble - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 05:06:00 +0000

I think the effect of bursting of Asset Bubble is most noticed by (may not be most pronounced on) graduating batches of engineering and MBA colleges. The first signs of a burst are always seen in the colleges. Recruiters stop coming to campus, they don't bring any souvenirs for take-away for those who have borne their pre-placement talk, they make token number of recruitments to maintain relationships with campuses, they make excuses of not getting the right candidate for recruiting the token number, etc.I have never been that unlucky to be caught in the time period when the bubble burst. However, once I did get caught in the time period when the economy was recovering from a bubble burst and this year when the bubble was about to burst, and eventually did. I saw my seniors caught in the burst when I was at IIT and now I will be seeing my juniors caught in the burst at IIM. Although, it is not as bad for the people who are caught in the transition phases (recovery or burst), it isn't that good either. The period of flux is very confusing indeed.

I was intrigued by the question of what an asset bubble is even when I was at study engineering. And one can find lot of good articles on the net explaining the concept. Here is a story which explains how a bubble builds up. I couldn't locate the source, though I am sure it must have been written by someone affected by an Asset Bubble. For explanatory purpose, I have embedded an image in between.

Once there was a little island country. The land of this country was the tiny island itself. The total money in circulation was 2 dollar as there were only two pieces of 1 dollar coins circulating around.

1) There were 3 citizens living on this island country. A owned the land. B and C each owned 1 dollar.
2) B decided to purchase the land from A for 1 dollar. So, A and C now each own 1 dollar while B owned a piece of land that is worth 1 dollar. The net asset of the country = 3 dollar.
3) C thought that since there is only one piece of land in the country and land is non produceable asset, its value must definitely go up. So, he borrowed 1 dollar from A and together with his own 1 dollar, he bought the land from B for 2 dollar. A has a loan to C of 1 dollar, so his net asset is 1 dollar. B sold his land and got 2 dollar, so his net asset is 2 dollar. C owned the piece of land worth 2 dollar but with his 1 dollar debt to A, his net asset is 1 dollar. The net asset of the country = 4 dollar.

4) A saw that the land he once owned has risen in value. He regretted selling it. Luckily, he has a 1 dollar loan to C. He then borrowed 2 dollar from B and and acquired the land back from C for 3 dollar. The payment is by 2 dollar cash (which he borrowed) and cancellation of the 1 dollar loan to C. As a result, A now owned a piece of land that is worth 3 dollar. But since he owed B 2 dollar, his net asset is 1 dollar. B loaned 2 dollar to A. So his net asset is 2 dollar. C now has the 2 coins. His net asset is also 2 dollar. The net asset of the country = 5 dollar. A bubble is building up.
(5) B saw that the value of land kept rising. He also wanted to own the land. So he bought the land from A for 4 dollar. The payment is by borrowing 2 dollar from C and cancellation of his 2 dollar loan to A. As a result, A has got his debt cleared and he got the 2 coins. His net asset is 2 dollar. B owned a piece of land that is worth 4 dollar but since he has a debt of 2 dollar with C, his net Asset is 2 dollar. C loaned 2 dollar to B, so his net asset is 2 dollar. The net asset of the country = 6 dollar. Even though, the country has only one piece of land and 2 Dollar in circulation.
(6) Everybody has made money and everybody felt happy and prosperous.
(7) One day an evil wind blowed. An evil thought came to C's mind. "Hey, what if the land price stop going up, how could B repay my loan. There is only 2 dollar in circulation, I think after all the land that B owns is worth at most 1 dollar only." A also thought the same.
(8) Nobody wanted to buy land anymore. In the end, A owns the 2 dollar coins, his net asset is 2 dollar. B owed C 2 dollar and the land he owned which he thought worth 4 dollar is now 1 dollar. His net asset become -1 dollar. C has a loan of 2 dollar to B. But it is a bad debt. Although his net asset is still 2 dollar, his Heart is palpitating. The net asset of the country = 3 dollar again. Who has stolen the 3 dollar from the country?
Of course, before the bubble burst B thought his land worth 4 dollar. Actually, right before the collapse, the net asset of the country was 6 dollar in paper. his net asset is still 2 dollar, his heart is palpitating. The net asset of the country = 3 dollar again.
(9) B had no choice but to declare bankruptcy. C as to relinquish his 2 dollar bad debt to B but in return he acquired the land which is worth 1 dollar now. A owns the 2 coins, his net asset is 2 dollar. B is bankrupt, his net asset is 0 dollar. ( B lost everything ) C got no choice but end up with a land worth only 1 dollar (C lost one dollar) The net asset of the country = 3 dollar. There is however a redistribution of wealth. A is the winner, B is the loser, C is lucky that he is spared.

End of the story

A few points worth noting -
(1) When a bubble is building up, the debt of individual in a country to one another is also building up.
(2) This story of the island is a close system whereby there is no other country and hence no foreign debt. The worth of the asset can only be calculated using the island's own currency. Hence, there is no net loss.
(3) An overdamped system is assumed when the bubble burst, meaning the land's value did not go down to below 1 dollar.
(4) When the bubble burst, the fellow with cash is the winner. The fellows having the land or extending loan to others are the loser. The asset could shrink or in worst case, they go bankrupt.
(5) If there is another citizen D either holding a dollar or another piece of land but refrain to take part in the game. At the end of the day, he will neither win nor lose. But he will see the value of his money or land go up and down like a see saw.
(6) When the bubble was in the growing phase, everybody made money.
(7) If you are smart and know that you are living in a growing bubble, it is worthwhile to borrow money (like A ) and take part in the game. But you must know when you should change everything back to cash.
(8) Instead of land, the above applies to stocks as well.
(9) The actual worth of land or stocks depend largely on psychology.

Agreed, it is very simplistic explanation though it is hardly trivial. Also, here it is very simple to identify the winners, losers and spared. Imagine when we blow up this model, bring in intermediaries, how complex the model would become. I will discuss these complexities in Part 2 of the post.

I & Birthdates

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 08:57:00 +0000

One fine morning, I land on the my Orkut page and suddenly the section of upcoming birthdays which had just 1 row a few days back had 4 rows. That is a dramatic increase. That was mid-August and the number of rows of upcoming birthdays has stayed constant at 3 since then now. I suppose the trend is about to stay.

That prompted my curiousity and I asked myself, if indeed people are more likely to be born in few months of the year? And if so why? I had a hypothesis for the why. But to prove it no data. So, the trained manager that I am, I put my skills to use and did this: Start > Programs > Google Chrome > Google Chrome > Alt + D > distribution of birthdays across months > Enter. Actually, I have a shortcut for Chrome (Ctrl + Alt + G, I am really hooked on to this browser), but the former method has some hint of sophistication.

Rest assured, Google always has the answer - actually 30,900,000 answers. And in this case, I found my answer at Google Answers. It led to this page - An Analysis of Distribution of Birthdays in a Calendar Year. This guy had actually taken over 400,000 birth date data points (all United States) and plotted their distribution, by day-month, by month and by day of month. He conducted chi-square test of fit of a distribution to check if it is uniformly distributed and found that it is not.

Birthdays were higher than expected from July to October while for rest of month it was lower than expected (significantly or insignificantly). Of course, a logical conclusion is that October (July - 9 months) to January (October - 9 months) where 9 months is the average period of pregnancy, is somehow a suitable time period for conception. Now in US, figuring the equation out might be pretty simple, especially, where the North Hemispherean winter is harsh and people are forced to stay indoors most of the time in that period. Also, in the holiday season, they stop relaying new TV shows. So, you really have nothing but one thing to do. Should I name it? In the interest of keeping this post clean and avoid the risk that some "ist" might report abuse of this blog, I will not, but I guess everyone must have figured what I am talking about by now. If not, I really sympathise with you.

However, this might not be an explanation applicable to all. Now, somebody in hot Texas or the humid California and Florida does not really have to worry too much about the winter. It may as well be true that the distribution of birthdays is uniform in such temperatures. But winter may not be the only reason that could account for this distribution. It is known fact that high temperature environments are ill-conducive to generation of the agents of change (to put it unabusively). Besides, it would be difficult to play baseball when one is perspiring. Baseball is a game very much like cricket. Except that they don't have stumps, their bat is a mini club, they call a six as a home run... Wait a minute, I wasn't writing about baseball. Hmm... where was I? So, even in Texas, 9 months from the lowest temperature period of the year, the North hemispherean winter, would most likely account for more births than other months. Thus, there could be physiological and lifestyle reasons for the observed distribution.

Wait another minute, I do not have a single dumb friend. Then why am I studying US data. What waste!

And so, I browsed through the results to look for Indian data. I clicked a link which led to another and I found this: Seasonality of Births and Possible Factors Influencing it in a Rural Area of Haryana, India. This study of 35,328 births between 1972-90 show that there is almost a sinusoidal frequency curve with a clear trough and clear peak. And the peak was spread over July to November. Actually this study includes a discussion on factors too. They discuss the following:

1. Seasonality of weddings (and hence first wedding nights) coupled with lack of contraception in rural India (in that time period). But I don't buy this. Most auspicious dates for wedding start from mid-March to early-June. I know because of the hordes of wedding invitation cards, my parents receive each year in that period while receiving scanty invitations rest of the year.
2. Next factor, they figure is winter. Taken.
2a. Combined with lack of privacy, however, winter, they say, should have adverse effect.
2b. Availability of leisure time due to slackness in agricultural work.

And then they list this set of "potentiating" and "inhibiting" factors. Potentiating: holidays/festivals, conducive weather, agricultural cycle, seasonality of marriage, use of contraception. Inhibiting: air conditioning of homes, contraception, religious proscription, food availability.

But these are for rural India and with almost 19 year old data in rural Haryana. Now, most of my friends actually hail from cities and as far as I know, most of them weren't born in rural Haryana. Unfortunately, there is no study about seasonality of births in urban India. Pulling data of Orkut is going to take years. So, I am commissioning a primary research to study seasonality of birth in urban India. I request you to cooperate with me and help me in this quest. Please fill this form (click here). I promise you that you will get nothing but my sincere gratitude in return of your debt. Savvy investment bankers can make a CDO or a CDS or any other funky named instrument out of it and make money. Anyway, once there is enough data, I will post the summary data.

I & Welcome to Sajjanpur

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:23:00 +0000

A lot of new movies have released in the past few weeks. These new movies have been my only break from the monotony at work, since past several weeks now. This week a couple of them were on my radar - Righteous Kill and Welcome to Sajjanpur (W2S). In a way, I was spoiled for choice. But, a Shyam Benegal movie v/s a Pacino & DeNiro one. Shyam Benegal. Period. Decision was made.

After Bheja Fry, W2S is one movie that has made me laugh heartily in a long time. But I don't intend to review the movie here. There are lots of them around - I liked the Reuters one, though. The movie made quite an impact on me - a Benegal movie could not be without a message, even if he did not intend to pass it on.

In a way, I think the movie depicts, without being judgmental at any point of time, the state of a large proportion of this country's population, who were thrust to face the free economy completely powerless. A population who was told that they have the power to choose, without empowering them with the knowledge of their options and even less with with tools to evaluate them. I am talking of education here.

What is the difference between literacy and education? However, some may have defined it - for me education is about learning how to make choices. Literacy is about knowing that a gun exists, but not knowing how and when to use it.

The literacy infrastructure in this country is abysmal. Education infrastructure best not talked about. Even when it comes to the "premier institutes of higher learning" - their infrastructure is nowhere as good as universities abroad. They, however, do have some world-class faculty. With their limited infrastructure too, these institutes do provide one an opportunity to get an education. Nevertheless, the fact is that they only help a minority of this nation's large population.

What most would agree is that the education infrastructure at large number of primary and secondary schools is more dismal than probably at a levels of higher education in India. Our governments, have however been focussed with playing around with the existing institutes of higher learning, achieving nothing in the process eventually. That a learned economist like Manmohan Singh also would endorse the situation by not objecting to it is really a shame.

The whole vote-bank politics (a feature of democracy) combined with a large-number of uneducated / mis-educated mass of voters has ill-incentivised adopting, with mission-critical urgency, measures which will secure this nations future. We surely need nuclear power, deregulation of economy, growth of domestic industries, fiscal inclusion and all that. But what use it is to a people who don't know what choices these will create for them and how they would evaluate which is best for them. Unable to evaluate themselves, they have to rely on statements of politicians, who claim to be proxy evaluators of individual choices. Delegation (not alienation) of right to make decisions, is a feature of any democracy. However, whom to delegate these rights to is again a problem of choice. Can an uneducated/mis-educated individual who can't see the effect of his choice beyond a day's meal, make a choice which might affect him for years? Let's say s/he does see the effect of his choice through experience, but does s/he understand what his/her options are in the first place? Answer to both is in the negative. But a choice has to be made, a vote has to be cast, empty stomachs have to be fed. In darkness of ignorance, people end up making wrong choices, being forced to be educated by suffering, if at all. And thus, the cycle continues.

Is there no way to break the cycle? Yes there is. Apparently, the dominant view is that development will cause education - for why had the former BJP government and the present UPA government running after deregulation, nuclear power, etc. Obviously, both factors reinforce each other through the cycle, albeit slowly. But reinforcement does not establish causality. It merely models a dynamic behavior of the two. What is the trigger - development or education?

My hypothesis is that the trigger is education and not development. An educated people is aware of their options. They will be aware of how to evaluate them and choose that which is best for them. They will know that they have an option to assert their right to having an option - of a clean environment, of faster government services, of quick dispensation of justice, of growing their own business, of private property, etc. In short, as a book title succinctly puts it - options of exit, voice or loyalty. The knowledge of these choices will make them demand jobs, products and services; will make them know that they have to supply it; will make them demand better justice system; will make them demand better governance and governors. These exchanges ultimately would lead to development. On the contrary, a development hoping that education will happen as a byproduct will be met with resistance from the same people for they don't understand what it means for them and hence fear it.

Of course, the onus of educating an uneducated people lies with its representative body. But how can the blind lead the blind in a right direction? It is sorrowful that the nation whose freedom struggle was led by educated people such as Gandhi, Patel, Nehru, Ambedkar, Bose, Azad, Jinnah, Naoroji, etc hardly has any politicians educated similarly and/or whose rhetoric stresses a dire need of formal education.

Why this sudden post about education, development? W2S reminded me of the importance of education and that the next general elections are not far, and I will have to choose the lesser evil. It is a matter of individual opinion what the lesser evil is. For me, it is a party who will promise delivery of an education infrastructure. Of course, what if no party promises it, which is very likely. I sure hope some of my educated colleagues who have a talent for politics enter the arena and have educational infrastructure improvement on their agenda. Why not me? Call me a hypocrite, but I have my reasons not to do it now.

Lastly, what would an improvement in educational infrastructure mean. Some ideas:
a) Improvement in the physical infrastructure of primary and secondary schools - which means not only improvement in school buildings but also availability of tables, chairs, computers, blackboards, playgrounds, art infrastructure, libraries, etc
b) Availability of soft infrastructure - books, teachers, coaches, stationery, etc
c) Improvement in adult vocational and civic education infrastructure

How? Well, there are answers to this question too, but it has been a long time since I have been typing now. So, I will reserve that for another post.

I & Atlas Shrugged

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 09:24:00 +0000

I finally read the 1000+ pages (one of the longest novels written in English) Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I had deferred reading Ayn Rand for a long period of time. The reason: I saw what it did to people. I didn't like what they had become and I didn't want to become like them. Of course, I presumed that people who have read Rand actually understood her. After reading the book, I realize that I had been wrong. Anyways, I will not be discussing her philosophy. Like a true INTJ, I ask myself – does it work for me without adhering to a philosophy? And the answer is: Yes. So, brush aside philosophy. Think movies.

Well, the plot of the book seemed very interesting to me and I was wondering why no one had thought of making a movie/TV series out of it. So, I wikied and found that Atlas Shrugged (the film) is actually in a development hell since 35 years. I believe that The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged will be best made as animation movies/series, like The Old Man and the Sea (the 20 minute film is a must watch – almost brings the book to life). Anyways, what if it was not made in an animation movie? Even as I was reading the book, I was imagining who could play the roles of some of the characters in the book. So, whom would I like to see playing its characters if Atlas Shrugged were to be made in a movie?

Dagny Taggart – The movie slated to release in 2009 is going to feature Angelina Jolie. I can't visualize her at all – the pouted lips are a big NO for me. I think I would like to see Carrie Ann Moss (remember Matrix) or Uma Thurman (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill 1 & 2) in that role. I also thought of Julia Roberts and Rachel Weisz. But it is difficult to view Julia Roberts in such a serious role and Rachel Weisz somehow fits Lilian Rearden's character better. Also, Halle Barry – kind of shorter for the role though.

James Taggart – Actually the first name that comes to my mind is Abhishek Bachchan. The second name that comes to mind is Tim Robbins of The Shawshank Redemption fame.

Hank Rearden – The first time I read the description of this character – Russell Crowe was the name that came to mind. It seems that somehow Ayn Rand was imagining Russell Crowe when she wrote about this character. I know it's impossible, still.

Ragnar Danneskjöld – Well, if it has to be a pirate then no other than Johnny Depp. Yeah he may need a bit of dyeing his hair. But I think he would fit the character perfectly.

John Galt – Even before I read the description of this character, in Part 3 of the book, it seemed to me this character has to be an African-American – particularly Adrian Lester (Micky Bricks in Hustle – BBC TV Series). But the description won't fit. Next choice is Hugh Laurie (House MD, Stuart Little). But a bit too old for the character. Next, Hugh Jackman (X-Men, The Fountain). Apparently a fresh face is being (has been) sought to play this character in the movie. A certain Jamie Clay is being rumored but not much is known about him.

Franciso Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia – I loved this character in the book. Apparently, Brad Pitt has been touted to play his role as per Wikipedia: though that would be the most singular aversion for me to watch the movie. I think Ayn Rand has developed this character very richly throughout the book, equally if not more than any other character, even Dagny or Galt for that matter. Keanu Reeves, Christian Bale come to mind, but somehow don't fit the bill. Maybe, I would like to see some fresh face in this character. John Abraham also came to mind – can't put my finger on why not – but not him too.

Orren Boyle – Marlon Brando was the first thought. Then I realized he is no more. Next, Danny DeVito – and might do justice to the role too. Again kind of short for the role, but I am kind of out of options in my brain here.

Dr Robert Stadlar – Robert Duvall fits the description, though he is kind of too old for the role. But I think might do justice to the role.

Wesley Mouch – The description of Mouch made me actually imagine the Frankenstein. That Rand did this purposefully is not at all likely. But searching for an actor that fits the description is very difficult.

The book is full of very interesting and deliberately sketched characters like Hugh Akston, Midas Mulligan, Quentin Daniels, Owen Kelloggs, Ellis Wyatt, Dr Pritchett, Balph Eubank among others. Of course, my flight of imagination was restricted to a few characters and the various descriptions of events in the book. Converting this book into a movie, is probably as herculean a task as converting Tolkien's Lord of the Rings in a movie, especially if all details are given attention to. How the final product turns out is something that I will have to wait till next year to find out, if it at all gets produced by then (IMDb reports that the director has separated from the project).

GTalk Status messages at 7:41 PM 10-Sep-08

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:16:00 +0000

Ok! I am not all idle. But I was bored after work. And someone commented on the last post that I continue the ritual. Adequate incentive, I say.

http://www.google.com/transliterate/indic/
Some non-geek discovered google transliteration...

Big Bang!!
Oh comon, it wasn't a big bang... I didn't even hear it!

Back in Mumbai
Get this status message off please... It's making me sad!

Coffee?
I would have said yes, if you were Olga Kurylenko.

New Number – XXXXXXXXXX
Ok, this person lost his cell some time back... He is allowed to display his number

Rock on rocks bigtime- awesome movie !!!
Hmm... Out of n people online on GTalk right now... You are the only 1 saying so... Not significant at p = 5% (Yeah, I am busy analyzing surveys)

My blog: http://xxxxx.yyyyyyyyy.com
Publicising blogs: It works.

Ommmmmm!!!
Oh will you please gulp down the rashogulla!

Gypsy in Time Caravan...
Reminds me of Brad Pitt in Snatch!

Bangalore
Ah... I miss Bangalore!

Infinite Crisis! (TM)
I know what you mean!

XXXXXXXXXX
There's always going to be somebody displaying his phone number when I am going to this!

chhoti ungali pe nachaayegi - small town gal!
Wow, who says that America's got talent? Can any American do this?

http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/user%2F18427797761006025272%2Fstate%2Fcom.google%2Freading-list
This video is a MUST watch!

SSS - Shaastra '08... speechless!
Publicity of Tech Fests / Biz Fests / Cult Fests / Tech-Cult Fests / Cult-Tech Fests / Tech-Biz Fests / Biz Tech Fests will begin on GTalk now...

Away
Don't lie on GTalk status messages, please. I see your red GTalk status indicator. You are busy not away.

Bang Bang Bang
Some decorum in status messages, please!

is just waiting, waiting and waiting...
Don't worry... weekend is just two days away! I am enjoying mine as I write this, BTW.

:(
Someone's sad. Wish I can cheer you up.

http://xxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxxx.xxx/xxxx/xx/xxxx.html
Someone publicising his/her blog... I am gonna do that once I am done with this one.

xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx
Something in devanagari... Too ist-ic for me… Best no commented about.

I'm not here right now
Oh, please

It's important to know who you can live with. But it's absolutely essential to know who you can't live without.
Never-ending love… ah, it's like a dream!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXXXXXXXXXX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXXXXXXXXXX
Couple of videos from IIMB...

Back...
Some junior is back after the term break. I didn't get a term break last year! I want a term break!

geography is history...
Oh no... geography is geography; history is history; A is A

Away
Ok, the indicator was orange... factual...

confused to be confused!
Hmm… uh… confused to be confused… *rolling my eyes*… I am confused!

13
I only understand 11 and 42 and nothing in between...

A momentary flash of reason... http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/dave-barry/story/646851.html | Dubai No. +XXX XX XXXXXXXX
Classic Dave Berry! Enough said! Sure a weird flash of reason…

Stay loose...
I still got on Uh... huh... for this one...

Another feather in the cap for IIMB http://www.eduniversal.com/business-school-ranking/country/india/100
Yeah, this one's by one of my juniors... Wait till reality hits you... All rankings are nothing less than BS :)

The season starts.. The Terminator Chronicles, Fringe and True Blood
Well not interested in the first, never heard about the rest two... Excuse my ignorance...

has a day off, but can't get past sneezing!
Common cold is worst than cancer! May be not but sure feels like hell!

Who let the jatts out
I want to know who managed to hold them!

FIA Sux... Hamilton deserves the 10 points!
Yeah, I agree. Though I don't know zilch about it... means I am a fan of Hamilton... He's gonna be the next Schumacher! Yeah, boo all you Ferrari fans... but he's gonna be!

It happens only in India: http://www.livemint.com/2008/09/09225354/For-this-Haryana-village-the.html
This one's my status message. You gotta read this article. You would be ROTFLYAO.

GTalk Status Messages at 2:43 PM 29-Aug-08

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:50:00 +0000

I was bored at work. So typed out GTalk status messages… J italicized are my first thoughts that came to my mind after I read the messages.

k
This muggu fella has almost found enough time from his slogging at work to put a profound k

How many "knight-outs" does Batman put in a Month?
This person is too busy! He hasn't changed his status message in weeks now. Nice play with words, btw.

and one more week passed
Here is someone like me… has sufficient time to notice that a week has passed by.

You play 2 hrs to die like this
Hmm… played 2hrs... I suppose this person has sufficient time at hand and also access to games…

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake
Have a heart! And at least don't say this openly. One never knows who the enemy is.

... only fools rush in
This one's like a cryptic message… fools rush in… So? Figure it out…

Power never comes from position, it comes from influence...
I thought power comes from hydroelectricity, thermal, nuclear, wind or solar sources…

"Hello-Hi chhodiye, Jai Mata Di boliye!" - The LabView Einstein of our times
Arbitmax! This person must subscribe to Arbit!

Back in Mumbai
Someone is back to Mumbai… I am waiting to be back…

India is more than a country. It is an idea that must be protected and defended at all costs.
What an idea, Sirji!

Dil Do Kisi Ek Ko, Wo Bhi Kisi Nek Ko-Par jab tak woh nek na mile, propose karte raho har ek ko
This person is obviously desperate. But explicit display of desperation is unlikely to win any takers from opposite sex.

All one should care about is how one is "seen":"being" some one is a passe, it is difficult anyway...
Being and Becoming – I thought those were the only debates… Now, it's Being, Seen and Becoming…

Its not how hard you get hit, its about how much you can take
The missing apostrophes suggest how busy this individual is… And also the fact that the status message hasn't changed in like 3 and a half months now…

nrszatnmotw
I really don't know what this means!

bleh!
Short, simple, effective… what does it mean anyway?

Please to be suggesting new status message
Heights of outsourcing… so busy that can't think of a new status message…

Its London Baby @ +44 XXXX-XXX-XXX
Someone's reached London!

new number - XXXXX XXXXX
I will not call… even when my company pays for it…

XXXXXXXXXX
Ditto…

Tarditas et procrastinatio odiosa est---Cicero
Something in Italian I suppose… Nah, I am too lazy to Google…

--
A couple of dashes… This person is definitely not as busy as the person who put a k… For he has put extra effort of typing a symbol difficult to reach on the keyboard twice… Hmm…

Celebrating Life (@Mumbai – XXXXX XXXXX)
This person has been celebrating life since ages… I don't think the status message has been changed in over two years now… except for trailing changed numbers…

Weekend Ahoy!!!
Somebody is happy that s/he doesn't have to work on weekend… Envy! I will be coming to office over the weekend.

The most commonly used lie: We're just good friends
Hello! You don't have to tell everyone such a closely guarded secret.

Jagjit - Sarakti Jaye Hai
Someone was enjoying melodious songs…

Back in Mumbai XXXXXXXXXX
I miss Mumbai!

Projects!!!
Plural… BOWS!

sick
Someone is sick… Take care…

Away
OK… So your status indicator is green and your status message says Away… Liar, Liar!

What to do
I am asking myself the same question!

stay loose...
Uh, huh…

What's the use of happiness? It can't buy you money. -Henny Youngman
Profound… Wish there was a happiness exchange where one could make money out of it?

Chaos (Lambs to the Slaughter - SnakeNet Metal Radio - Home of the Metal Nation (Requests are back)) - Acid Reign
This person must be a total Music Nerd – Observe how detailed the song description is

End of another Term...
Some junior of mine happy at the end of another term at IIMB

Watta song!!!!
Which song????

The world is moving so fast these days that the person who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.
I beg to differ… I say it umpteen million times a day… I have even said… My project can't be done… But nobody interrupted me… Especially nobody who was doing it… From whom I could copy it!

I am gone right now, but I will be back later
Stating the obvious!

It's important to know who you can live with but its absolutely necessary to know who you can't live without
Doesn't this sound like a message by somebody passionately in love? Wait till you get married!

Zindagi ne zindagi bhar gum diye... jitne bhi mausam diye num diye...
Which gum was it? Centerfresh, Boomer, etc. Be happy to get a life-time stock of gum!

Half way around the globe!!!
… you would be in Atlantic Sea!

@Work - leave a message
Someone's busy but doesn't want to stay out of touch with friends… So like a phone recorder… leave a message… Could have been adorned by: You have reached Bruce, Grace and Sam. Please leave your message after the well… message!

... and it's all such a sham too!
Yeah, isn't it? What is being talked about btw?

lost in the depth of emotions forever... god give her happiness
Someone's had a heartbreak… Drink lots of vodka, rum, whiskey… You will start floating around…

http://www.macworld.co.uk/business/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=22580
Bloomberg publishes Steve Jobs' 17 page obituary. 17 pages!

Stupendousman!
Is this a new superhero?

It's a womans world
Down with all the "isms"!!

There is no charge for awesomeness!
Somebody still has the Kung-Fu Panda hangover!

It's a new day, it's a new world
Something new has happened in this person's life… ATB!

Ommmmmmm !!!
Status message written with a rashogulla in your mouth?

IN Bangalore @ XXXXXXXXXX
I miss Bangalore!

Selfishness is not doing what you want, but making others do what you want
Profound. I just hope the work gets done that way… If everybody keeps passing the buck around that way, imagine!

Blog updated with Euro Trip experiences!
Someone's hung over the Euro Trip taken last year!

You ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies
Hmm… so everything this person told me has been a lie! Darn, I should have known…

.................
Somebody's counting periods…

My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog thinks I already am...
Someone has a rather unique goal in life… ATB… You are lucky to have a goal!

We make a lazy man's dream come true...
This one's my status message… Honest! I get paid without doing anything

Love v/s Arranged Marriage: An Analogy with Investing

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 05:48:00 +0000

Act 2, Scene 2:
The candidate is facing the interviewer. He has confidently answered most of the questions till now (weeks of mugging is paying off). The question which is to follow is not going to be difficult, too.

Interviewer : Why do you want to pursue management?
Candidate : There are two reasons. Firstly, a management degree will accelerate my career growth by providing me a holistic overview of business. Secondly, it will enable me to achieve my long term goal of someday becoming the CEO of a company.

Of course, our candidate has coached himself into not speaking the third reason for pursuing management. The third reason, never acknowledged in an interview, nevertheless ubiquitously dominant in driving the decision to do an MBA is dodging the parental pressure to get married. By the way, this is also a fairly common reason among the fairer sex to do an MBA, lest they presume the not-so-fairer sex is the one afraid of commitment, afraid of marriage. In this case, we all sail in the same boat. Well, after getting into IIM things definitely get more dynamic.

I acknowledge that I did have THE third reason. But little did I know, that I can run but never hide. As soon as I had returned home after the convocation and was having my first meal, the dreaded question was asked "So, you also should get married next year" (I know it is not a question, but it is a trick parents use: make an assertion but tone it like a question, out of respect you would not dare defy them, you would prefer not to answer - neither accepting nor declining - hoping your silence to be interpreted as a state of deep thought or even no... however, parents gladly interpret it as a Yes.) I had expected it; but not that soon. Anyway, I had a premeditated strategy for such an eventuality. (All those in need for tricks can get in touch with me in person).

But, that triggered my thought process about marriages. And so it follows. We will consider the Indian context for the purpose of the discussion here.

Marriages can be classified into two kinds - Love and Arranged. There is a cooked-up third kind, Arranged Love marriage which is basically a love marriage only. For the uninitiated, love marriage is when A and B fall in love (with / without knowledge / permission of parents), court each other for a period of time and then finally, if things are working out for them, get married. In Indian context, the courting will very rarely imply a live-in relationship. It would however imply watching a lot of movies together and/or spending time at a remote CCD in afternoon hours looking into each others eyes and/or having candlelight dinners/wada pav/pav bhaji/moongfali/paani puri and/or giving missed calls to each other every 5 minutes from office or college and/or walks along Marine Drive and/or sitting together in a secluded spot at Bandra bandstand for hours together, etc.

In an arranged marriage on the other hand, you like a photograph of a prospect, your parents/guardians talk to the prospect's parents/guardians, if both parties are interested then a self-proclaimed expert in the science of prediction is summoned who on the basis of comparison of position of cosmological elements like stars, planets, moon and sun at the time of your and prospect's birth delivers a figure - the number of common traits - (anything above 20 is considered good, the desperate kind settle for 10 to 20 common traits and below 10 is a reject), followed by settling concerns related to financial assets of the prospects, wedding expenses, dowry, etc and fixing dates for engagement and wedding. Depending on the wedding date, the to-be-weds may or may not get an opportunity to court each other. In most cases, an initial conversation between the to-be-weds precedes the summoning of the prediction expert. And most often, it is a mere formality to ascertain the truth in the claim of the photographic advertisement of the the prospect, as well as to determine any hidden catch in the deal.

At any point of time in either process, the deal could be called off. In the former case, it could lead to removal of the partner from all possible friend lists, orkut, yahoo, gtalk, hi5, linkedin, tagged, etc. Yeah, also deletion of all SMSes, emails, etc. No, gifts are not returned. In the latter case, however, it would depend on the stage in which the deal was. The earlier the deal is called off, more peaceful would be the end while later, it could lead to considerable melodrama on part of either party followed by extensive mudslinging for an extended period of time. Most often, gifts will be returned. For a demonstration, of what happens in this latter case, I would recommend watching K-Soaps or some Hindi films like Virasat. It would give one a more or less accurate picture of what happens.

I believe that love marriage is better than arranged marriage. To explain how, let me draw an analogy between love and arranged marriages and investing. The asset that one looks to invest in here is the a person of the opposite sex, the statistically significant case. Investment here would imply a long term commitment in the asset. The most common way of expressing this commitment is to marry the other person. It is a financial and emotional commitment.

Now, we know that every market has its speculators and its fundamental investors. Speculators gamble in the market while fundamental investors take well-understood risks. Warren Buffet is a fundamental investor - never had a loss making year. Most of all who lose in the market are speculators (at least when they lost).

Arranged marriage is essentially a speculative investment. It is like I look at the P/E of the stock I am looking to invest in and the P/E of the Market, and if the former is lesser than the latter, I go on and invest. Making decision on such criteria may pay off in 1 in 1000 cases but not always. Similarly, just by looking at the position of the cosmological elements and predicting if you are going to be happy with someone in a marriage is a mere speculative investment. 1 in 1000 times it may pay off. Of course, in the stock market, I can simply dump the stock and limit my losses. But, in a marriage if you dump your investment, by means of divorce, you end up losing cash in the form of alimony continuously. Also, in the stock market you can maintain a portfolio of assets and diversify your risk. Polygamy is now legally illegal in India (wasn't in the old times - One Hindu God as we know had a very large portfolio) and thus such diversification is not possible. Also, just as by looking at the financial assets of a firm, we can't judge its ability to generate value, it is difficult to judge if a marriage prospect is going to generate value - keep one happy - by observing the financial assets of the prospect.

Love marriage, is however a fundamental investment. As a fundamental investor, one tries to learn about the industry environment, the competitive positioning of a firm in the industry and most importantly understand which assets generate value for the firm - the operating assets. In a love marriage, one gets time to value their may-be-to-be-partner, through courting. One gets knowledge about how your partner is differentiated from the bunch. Also, beyond the financial assets, we learn about the operating assets that will keep us happy - it may be the smile, the understanding s/he shows, the sex, etc. One also learns about the risk of making the investment - the in-laws factor, the factor being socially outcast, etc. Thus one understands the risk-return trade-off before making the investment. Thus such fundamental investment is always a sound investment.

However, in an arranged marriage, the amount of time and money that you invest is lower compared to a love marriage. Thus in terms of returns, the returns could be comparable to love marriage if the investment pays off in the arranged marriage.

Again, in both kinds of marriages, there is the risk of being cheated. Some hidden catch may be revealed only after marriage in case of arranged marriage. In case of love marriage one could be provided wrong information which would lead to incorrect valuation (watch the movie Khoon Bhari Maang for an example of this). This is primarily, because of the absence of a regulator like SEBI in the marriage market. In a stock market, the management of the company would be held accountable for providing any information that misleads the investors. However, in the marriage market, there are no such deterrents for lack of a regulator. However, with a fundamental investing style one would still be in a better position to identify the risk of being cheated as one takes time in to understand the investment.

Thus in many ways, love marriages are better than the arranged marriages. But, somebody has to lose in the market for somebody to gain. I can't say if playing in the marriage market is the zero sum game, but if it is then without the speculators the fundamental investors will have nothing to gain :)

ECONOMIC THEORY OF RELATIONSHIPS

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:18:00 +0000

Management education changes a person in more ways than one can imagine. That would be an understatement actually. One is completely metamorphosed. I am not sure about my colleagues, but I sure have. The following exploration into the factors that make relationships work, is just one such exhibit of how my thinking and outlook has changed, rather, metamorphosed.

RELATIONSHIPS

Let me first begin by defining the scope of relationships. We will not be concerning ourselves with working or professional relationships which have been very well explained through various game theoretic models. We will worry ourselves here with relationships between a male and a female, the statistically dominant case. However, it is equally applicable to other cases. So what makes relationships work? I have an explanation.

DEFINING POSITIVE NPV OF A RELATIONSHIP OR ATTRACTION

The idea here is simple: for any two persons to be engaged in a relationship and continue to do so, they individually need to derive (or perceive, in the least) a positive net present value by being in the relationship (be attracted to each other, in simple words). Chapter 11 from a certain dreaded text from Term 2 tells us that positive NPV comes from economic rents. What are these economic rents?

My contention is that the NPV for any individual in a relationship can be formulated into three Mutually Exclusive Collectively Exhaustive parts.

NPV = Information Rent + Feelings Rent + Etc Rent¹

Let us look as all 3 components individually.

INFORMATION RENT

This arises because of information asymmetry between the two individuals. Person A lacks some information about person B and vice versa. Person A places a higher value on the information that is disagreeable to him/her – because of clash with belief and value systems – to him/her and is missing in person B. This information asymmetry results in the information rent for person B. As an outsider, person A resultantly values person B highly.² So, this valuation is basically the information rent which leads to positive NPV, causing attraction. Any attraction caused because of these factors is what we refer to as infatuation. It’s good at the start but it never lasts. With the passage of time, new information will come into light. It is highly likely that some of it, one just can’t get oneself to agree with. That is when the information rent decreases bringing down the NPV or net attraction.

It is a common belief that new information that any individual in a relationship acquires which s/he agrees with would increase the magnitude of feeling. The universal reference, Google, returned no previous studies which could prove or disprove this hypothesis. A primary research can be undertaken to establish empirically once and for all the truth of the statement. One may not have to travel far, as there are sufficient data points available on campus for the study.

Where data is unavailable (as in most situations it is), we must exercise judgment. In my judgment, agreeable information does not have any effect on the information rent or even the feeling rent to be discussed later. It is basically the myth of positive information. If a person A was faced with identical twins B and B’, will the attraction be same in either case for person A. It won’t be. Agreeable information has no effect. It is disagreeable information we are concerned with.

FEELING RENT

Let me begin here with separating emotion from feelings. We know that there are ten emotions.³ The idea is emotions are triggered by some chemical reactions happening in the body. Feelings on the other hand are more difficult – nearly impossible – to explain. For the purpose of this discussion, we will concern ourselves with only one type of feeling – love. Hate is nothing but negative love or inverse of love.

What affects love is difficult to understand and so also it is to estimate its magnitude. So, in this case we will consider that either love exists, does not exist or inverse of love exists. Agreeable information as explained above is most definitely not one of the factors that affect the feeling rent.

Feeling Rent is determined (in magnitude and direction) once in any relationship, after which it is invariant. So, if you feel love for someone then that you will continue to do so forever. However, whether the feeling rent will be high enough to cover the other two components is what will determine if the relationship will survive.

ETC RENT

Etc Rent as the name suggests includes rent due to several other considerations, primarily social. We will restrict ourselves to rent arising due to social imperatives here. These social imperatives could arise in situations like:

All my friends have boyfriend/girlfriend. How can I not have one? Classic herd mentality
I need to have a date for social events: show-off case!

A classic situation in Indian context where this Etc Rent is higher is the social stigma of not getting married early in life. Of course, the form of relationship also gets determined in this case.

In yet other cases, Etc Rent could be higher simply because of search costs involved in breaking an existing relationship and getting into a new relationship: a case of pure laziness.

SOME APPLICATIONS

When you felt attracted to that particular girl/boy you saw, say during orientation, it was basically because of the high information rent. There could have been a feeling rent, but it is highly unlikely. And when you lost that attraction eventually, it was because the information rent got reduced. And attraction was lost and so was any chance at a relationship.

Romeo and Juliet, Heer and Ranjha or Laila and Majnu - eternal love stories! I beg to differ. High information rent was the reason for their attraction. Since, they were never together, as in a marriage, this information rent never reduced and so did their attraction. Eventually, an abrupt termination of the relationship never allowed them the opportunity to gather the requisite information. The villains in the story should have just allowed them to be together. Time and reduced information asymmetry would have taken care of separating them. Feeling rent might have been there, but given the facts, it is highly likely that information rent drove the attraction more than anything else.

The reason why girls or boys groom themselves is to consciously increase the information asymmetry – hiding one’s true self, increasing information asymmetry and thus the information rent. The feeling rent is almost always nil.

In cases, where feeling rent is positive, as in the movie Notting Hill, when after knowing a lot about each other that one does not agree with (information rent going down), the two still are attracted to each other. I spent a lot of time looking for real life examples, but I guess relationships were love is present, exist only in movies.

We can also explain the relatively low rate of divorce in India. The social stigma associated with divorce increases the Etc Rent, making relationships attractive even when information rent has turned negative. The feeling rent was always zero, in any case. But Etc Rent could be so high that attraction still exists.

The theory also offers insights into extra-marital affairs. The information rent goes down over the period of time in any relationship, and so it does even in marriage. The feeling rent was always absent. Etc Rent though positive is not enough to sustain NPV levels comparable to the other opportunities where the NPV could be substantially higher. Consequently, individuals engage in relationships beyond marriage.

There are several other cases that the theory can explain. But, I would limit myself here and allow the readers to examine their own relationships in the light of it.

¹ I would like to thank a certain F-Topper here, for he was instrumental in completing the theory by bringing to my attention the Etc Rent component
² The Fin Studs would argue that person A should actually discount this information asymmetry. But it needs to be understood that this discount rate will be same. The risk involved due to information asymmetry would be same across all candidates. If not identical, it will definitely not be hugely different. As such, what will matter will be the magnitude of the Information Rent more than the discounting effect. Although, with new information the discount rate will go down, the reduction in Information Rent will be, more often than not, such that the NPV will continue to decrease.
³ Reference: Unmaad 2008 Posters

I & Reservation

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 07:54:00 +0000

Part I - Search for the Right Reasons

Last week, I was talking to one of my old college chum, and during the course of our conversation, we went off tangent from our discussion of babes, books, etc… to the issue of reservation for OBCs that has been in the news since almost the past couple of months… He said that he would like to know my opinion as it would be interesting. I wonder why it would be; perhaps because I graduated from IIT and would begin pursuing my studies from IIM later this month and to add to it the fact that I am an OBC. I seem to be in an ideal catch-22 situation. It makes me appear like the Hamlet split between moral integrity and the need to avenge his father's murder or like Vijay in Zanjeer – torn between his duty and his love.

I guess I did disappoint him though, since there was and is no dilemma for me. Two roads do diverge in the woods on this issue, and I chose my path in a split second, without any second thoughts.

Then he asked me to put up my thoughts here. It was then I started thinking about the entire issue – not only about reservations in educational institutes but reservations in general – deeply. Till then, I had taken the call subconsciously.

More I thought about it, the more it confused me. The issue indeed is complicated. But, it was not the complexity of the issue itself that vexed me but the perspectives of the pro and anti lobbies. Both sides have made intense arguments attacking or defending the logic of reservations. Somehow, I could not grasp what cause was being fought for by either side.

And if you are puzzled as to why is this important?

I was watching this comedy “Still Standing” on Star World. In the episode I am talking of, the teenage girl kid tries to get a hicky (I really don’t know what that means or if it is spelt the way I did, but what I gathered from the context is that it is somewhat akin to a love bite or a deep-long-suction kiss) from her boyfriend next door. Her parents are obviously furious at this. Apparently, at her school the achievers identify themselves with colored wristbands for their achievements (read hicky, kiss, etc… you got the point). The poor girl was trying to get a red one (the lowliest of the colors). When her boyfriend refuses to do or give so, taking the morally high road, she and her friend give it to each other (don’t let your imaginations fire up) with a vacuum cleaner. Her mother on learning this explains to the kid that whatever she does (right from getting hicky, kiss, etc…) it is OK if it is done for the right reasons.

Right reasons, I guess those are what I am looking for. Do the reasons that have been given qualify as right, or to use a less ambiguous word, rational? Let’s find out.

Reason: Merit is compromised if reservations are in place

My ex-girl friend – an OBC – was a topper all through out her school years. She gathered one of the best scores in PCM in standard XII exams and during her engineering years, at one of the best departments of University of Mumbai, too was a topper. Now, she is pursuing her Ph. D. studies in States on full scholarship.

One of my other chums, again an OBC, secured admission to one of the best engineering colleges in Maharashtra. At the time of graduation he had offers from 3 companies including 2 MNCs. He took a job with one of them and has been a consistent performer at job. At his job, he leads a small team and is also up for promotion this year.

Then there was this chap at IIT, from the reserved category, the best of chess players at that time in the institute. He also acquired superb skill with drums and drumsticks at IIT. His solo composition had rocked the Institute Day celebrations.

Lastly, I topped at school in standard X exams and was ranked 30th in State. I was ranked 5th in the department at IIT. My clients here at job are pleased with my work and have appreciated the innovation I have brought in my work. And, I made it to the IIMs.

And I have to add this example: Dr. K R Narayanan, the former President of India also belonged to the reserved category. I need not say much. The man’s achievements speak for itself.

So, how accurate is this statement that merit is compromised. Once into an institution like IIT, IIM or AIIMS the reserved category students compete and study just like others. Some perform, some flunk - just like others. There is no real objective way of measuring the so-called compromise of merit. The reality as I know from my personal experience is that they, the reserved category students, are as hard-working and as capable as any other unreserved category student.

The logic of its anti-reason is far more unconvincing. By refuting the argument, reservations can not be justified. Personally, it is hard to see why someone who is capable and hard-working wants reservations.

One reason that is offered to answer the question posed is…

Reason: The social and economic backwardness for thousands of years disables them from competing

It is true that the lower castes have been and are socially and economically backward, for some this is truer than others. But, does a person’s social and economic background deprive him/her of his/her intelligence? It does not, right! Yes, but due to their backwardness, they may not be able to nurture their intelligence through out their blossoming years. So, adequate avenues are required to learn and grow for such students in the young years? The need is to expand the pie and not to divide is proportionately.

Another closely tied reason has evolved taking cues from this reason.

Reason: Provide reservations in primary & secondary education and spare the institutes of higher learning

This is a loose argument, extremely speculative and kind of oversimplifies the larger issue of social and economic inequity by making it a total function of a person’s educational background.

Education, be it primary or secondary or higher, is not just teaching the person to read, write and count. It is not about teaching a person to sign using a pen instead of a thumb-print. Education metamorphoses the thought process. After each level, one gets wiser. Can we claim that our primary and secondary education accomplishes or has accomplished this?

Not to say that primary and secondary education does not help and emphasis on it is not required. But, given the dismal primary and secondary education infrastructure in the nation, will it really make a difference, and if it will, will it not take at least another 15 years to see any results. Reservation has been proposed as a solution to present socio-economic inequity. So what do we do about the present; nothing is it? Blame it as a failure of the successive governments for the past 55 years and sit back?

Reason: Is 55 years of reservation not enough to reduce socio-economic inequity?

This argument is a perfect example of the “wisdom” that the present standards of education endow on the youth. Does today’s youth live in a real world?

A few days back I received an email mocking reservations. It was supposed to be a transcript of a statement by Azim Premji, which I believe was put in the email to sell its contents that not only reflected the immaturity of thought of the mind that composed it but also the sheer ignorance of, indifference and insensitivity to the realities. And this email reached me thrice in 3 weeks from 3 different sources (which is some measure of the power of internet as a propaganda tool).

There were some ridiculous suggestions that 60 runs scored by a “reserved” player be counted as a century, or a “reserved” player should not be bowled at more than specific speed, etc. As I mentioned previously, the socially backward are only seeking an opportunity to perform. The entry criterion is the only thing that is relaxed for them and not the criteria for securing a degree or a job. It is a level playing field there.
But, it is saddening that today, we, the youth, tend to dismiss social inequity and its effects as unreal. Most of the flock at our institutes of higher learning is urban (and vociferous in anti-reservation protests). Caste based exploitation is quite unreal for them. But is it as unreal as it seems? Has this educated populace stopped listening to the news? Almost daily in crime news, we hear stories of how the lower caste boy/girl is punished (read killed) for loving an upper caste girl/boy. What do we have to say about upper caste people not ready to share emergency shelters with lower caste members after the tsunami? Is this not exploitation? And these are the stories which are reported. For a real understanding of the gravity of social inequity, one has to see rural India. Face it, social inequity exists – even after 55 years of reservation.

And, most of the socially backward are also economically backward. They do menial, dirty and dangerous jobs and live from hand to mouth. And those among the educated like you and me, what do we do for them?

The sewage workers, as an example, clean the sewage nearly bare-bodied. They get into the filth and clean it so that the environment stays healthy. And what has been done for them. I am not asking personally but professionally. Why have the educated in the administrative posts not enforced any occupational safety norms for the sewage workers? Not asking anyone to share the piece of their pies, just give these people what they deserve – not because they are socially or economically backward but because they are a part of the economy and contribute as much as anybody else. But do we or have we? It is not only the government that has failed but also the Indian society that has failed.

The Indian Constitution resolves to secure all its citizens equality of status and of opportunity. I read once: In a democracy, equality of results is the price the people pay for not ensuring equality of opportunity. And this is the premise, reservation is based on.

Reason: Institutes of higher learning should be forced with reservation

Having studied at an IIT, I have a first hand experience of its culture. Autonomy of these Institutes is a feature that has made them the best apart from having world-class facilities and teachers. I am not in favor of pushing anything down their throat.

All renowned institutions of higher learning around the world, be it Harvard, Princeton, Oxford or Cambridge, are differentiated not by the facilities or the teachers only but by the culture they have nurtured. And it is as true of the IITs, IIMs and AIIMS. Any short-sighted change forced on them might irreversibly damage what has been built over years. These institutes have built a system that has been successful. Trust them with their system! Give them a vision, but let them evolve themselves. And most importantly, as they house the best talents in India, seek their vigorous involvement to address these and other problems of the nation.

For example, IT penetration in rural areas would empower the socio-economically backward sections of the society with information to take intelligent decisions. Active participation from IITs should be sought towards implementing such systems cheaply and effectively. Already, IIT Madras has done some progress in this area.

Also, agriculture in rural areas and especially among the socio-economic backward sections of the society is largely fragmented and consolidation in this regard can do considerable good to them, socially and economically. The IITs and IIMs can both help in this regard. The former could suggest preferable crop-cycles across seasons and the latter could advise on how land resources should be engaged to achieve maximum profits. Although, these are definitely easier said than done, the best of the breed at the IITs, IIMs and other institutes of higher learning would and should definitely find it challenging.

This is why I feel that reservations should not be thrust on the institutes of higher learning. But the common reason that has been given is quite not it.

Reason: Reservation as a solution has failed

Statistics collected by the IITs, IIMs and Parliamentary Committee on the welfare for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have been given in support of this reason. These stats suggest that almost 50% of the reserved seats are going empty and that of those that are filled 25% fail to finish the degree in even 6 years.

Statistics themselves don’t say anything; their interpretations do. So, one might say that since of 100, 63 seats are wasted or not utilized efficiently, reservation is not working. But, one might even say, that since 37 are benefiting out of it, removal of reservation might help even fewer or none. So, by that we would be making somebody worse off to make someone better. Economic definition of optimality does not really allow for that. One interpretation of these numbers would be that when it comes to IIT they perhaps are not giving enough emphasis on the weaker students and hence they tend to fail. Interpretations, they are mere speculations; some could be more accurate than others.

To interpret them correctly, I believe that you should always go behind the veil of numbers and seek the realities that drive them.

One of my pals at IIT, from reserved category, flunked quite a lot. But I won’t say he was not capable or he could not cope up with IIT studies. He worked part-time to pay up for his mess fees. Yeah, the tuition fees were waived as a measure of financial assistance. But I remember him finding it difficult to even pay up the 4 digit tuition fees one semester. He never indulged in any kind of bad habits and lived an utmost simple life. I don’t want to write more about it hoping I have made the point.

Another class-mate at IIT, from reserved category, is perhaps the first in his family to perhaps earn a 5 digit salary. His family somehow managed to pay for his expenses at IIT. He worked hard and was serious of his studies and though he did not land a job at IIT, primarily because not many construction companies turned up the year we passed out, he got one as soon as he received the degree. Reservations do have an effect, they have changed lives.

The number of years a reserved student takes to finish a course does not really tell you anything. Efficacy of reservation has to be measured across more socio-economic parameters.

Clearly, the reserved seats that go unclaimed for lack of deserving takers in the reserved category should be awarded to deserving candidates from the general category. Wastage is something that should be curtailed whenever and wherever possible, because the opportunity cost of wastage is high.

Reason: Reservations work and hence implement them

It is true reservations have had an effect but nothing proves that it is the best solution of the problem of socio-economic inequity.Any solution should pass the test of marginal analysis before it is implemented. By that, we must analyze that assuming that the socio-economic inequity is at 100, by how much would the inequity decrease by introducing unit positive discrimination (or reservation). Such analysis should be done to anticipate any impact of the introduction of newer reservation.

But this is far too complicated – as I have explained earlier – the impact of reservations can not be fully understood. For one, we don’t know for sure what the size of population we are looking at is. The Mandal commission, the NSSO and the National Family and Health Survey have all come up with their numbers for OBC populations. We don’t know for sure, if it is helping the cause of the socio-economically backward sections, and if it is by how much. We also don’t know for sure if they are not helping or if they are causing any side-effects. The point is, if we don’t know where we are and where we want to be, how we can even decide upon a path.

I guess I have covered most reasons that I felt were relevant for rational argument. Apart from these, what have been mostly offered as reasons are either irrelevant, emotional appeals or is mudslinging by both parties at each other. They are too hollow to deserve any second thoughts according to me.

So, at the end of it, what do I think? I would have to do that in Part II, as this is how long I can really type continuously.

(Comments [criticisms, clarifications, seeking explanation to more reasons] are invited.)

I & IIMB

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 11:55:00 +0000

There has been heightened interest in my performance at IIM B GD/PI (5 Orkut scraps from 17 does make for heightened), which is to my delight and surprise. Ok, let me tell you the story about I & IIMB.

It is a fine tuesday morning of 21st March 2006, I woke up early, completed the morning rituals, got sumptuous poha for breakfast and right at 8:00 AM we set off for Institute of Hotel Management, Dadar (also known as Catering College). 40 minutes of bike ride and I am there.

Sweating, inevitably - Mumbai summer beaten only by the one in Guwahati, as I was, I made it to the first floor after a bit of in-the-bike-mirror grooming. I met some guys from IMS. We were asked to be present there before 15 min. As we stood there it was 8:50 AM: just us - no IIMB Professor around. 8:55 AM - still no movement. And I started wondering if this is how IIMs worked, according to IST. But I was in for a surprise. 9:00 AM sharp (guess IIMs do work as per IST not figuratively but literally) a Professor arrives and announces 7 names (which includes me and a name of a person who is missing) and asks us to go to 5th floor. He aims for the elevator and we follow suit. He turns back giving us that look which hints us to take the stairs or something but no one is in mood for that. As we cram ourselves in the elevator (which appears to be kind of a service elevator to me. Catering College folks! Any bells ringing?) a bulky guy who reminds me of our very own Super Sand, making my thoughts drift to how he has done in his GD/PIs, when the late entrant identifies himself as the missing One (purely coincidental and no pun intended here).

5th floor: the Professor, whose visage kind of has started suggesting to me that he has had a severe case of constipation or has been asked to perform a lowly duty, in his opinion of course, of interviewing us by the IIMB administration and is mentally uttering words identified by some as bad but are part of regular vocabulary of others or perhaps these are just fantasies conjured by a nervous mind and I just mistook his dull professional precision, asked us to be seated around in the lobby for a while.

I was kind of a stranger amongst the other 6 who as it appeared had had frequent acquaintances during non-IIMB GD/PIs. Also, some were even acquainted to the venue very well. It was kind of scary for me with just one call.

In the 5-8 minutes that passed, I got a brief idea of what or rather who I was up against. The bulky guy had got 5 calls (C exception-ed him which is really weird since the exception-ing thing is more prevalent with B or A) and some 6th sense told me that he was an IITian. His vital stats: 99.76. There was an other guy who looked real neat in the black suit/pant – it looked like the mannequin from Raymonds outlet walked out straight that morning to IHM, Dadar. Vital stats: 99.99. Uffs! And then there was this guy with a pink shirt. Vital stat: Forgotten (Pink shirt on a guy at an IIM interview!!! Isn’t it too suggestive?) I didn't speak much (in fact may be just a word or too) those few minutes and as it might be evident was busy observing my competition, probably waving off any fear flies from around me.

9:10 AM: the same Professor led us to a room called the Senate. Another Professor, a bit senile with a cheerful countenance (which lifted my spirits), ushered us into the room. The room: around the same area of my IIT hostel room but bit elongated along 1 dimension, with 7 chairs put in kind of a parabola whose mouth opened to a table behind which the two Profs comforted themselves.

I hate GDs without a table for the folks in discussion. Thank God! My certificates file had a tough outer and kind of served as pad.

The cheerful Professor introduced himself (Narayanaswamy) and his colleague (Prabhu) and gave us the instructions: 10min (to organize thoughts) + 15min (to discuss) + 15min (to sum up) format, topic would be a case-let. In his cool way, in a tone which was informative and warn-ful at the same time, asks us not to use too much of throat power. Methinks – “throat power” is a good substitute for high deciBel levels GD or fish market GD which sounded very cliché-ed. He then reads out the formal set of instructions just to make sure he didn't miss any.

9:17 AM: Sheets are distributed, in the same order that our names were called out first and according to which we were seated in the parabolic arrangement. Sheets with face down – needless to say the simplicity with which they carried out the entire process was impressive.

9:20 AM: We were asked to turn the sheets and Phase 1 starts.

Case-let was about a Mongolian town which expended its budget to build a bridge over a river to the next commercial centre. The bridge proved to be a bane during peak hours when severe jams occurred. Economists suggest use of taxation to rationalize demand. Politicians (leftist) can't do that. Suggest local politician what to do to prevent jams.

I scribbled my points on the case-let sheet and readied myself.

9:30 AM: We were asked to start. I did not break in. But I had a good point and observing that nobody else had thought of it, jumped in with my point which would provide a quick short term solution to the problem – to encourage use of river for transport (ferry rides in Guwahati were of some help). Rest of the time the discussion kind of revolved around graded taxation which was mentioned in the case-let as a possible solution and how to implement it (in the case-let it said, it was difficult to implement graded taxation). I made few entries from Traffic Engineering point of view (Transportation Engineering I & II, Pavement Design – everything has got some use if you think of it!)

9:45 AM: We still had not reached a conclusion. We were asked to stop and sum up. Sheets were provided.

10:00 AM: Sheets were collected. We were told interview would be around 15-20 min per person starting from 10:15 in the same order as we were seated and that we could suit the time accordingly.

Well, in my opinion, if GD was the decider in this game, I had a done a job better than most in my group. I believe the sutta-ed and sometimes non-sutta-ed discussions at IIT on anything under the sky from religion to the sexiest of Hollywood babes have contributed towards it. But it was not the time to rejoice yet.

GD was going to be easy for me and I knew it mostly. Even at IMS, during the mocks, the moderators there never had any comments on my performance. They did not say that, I was perfect, and did not say, I was bad either. I cursed them a lot then. I travel from Borivali to Andheri just so that I can get any hints to improve and all they give me is nothing, how frustrating!

It was then and during the interview mocks, I knew, the toughest part for me was going to be the interview. And I got some real bad comments from the interviewers during the mocks.

And thus, I had prepared. Done my homework! General Knowledge - Stats on India, State Cabinet, Census information. Current Affairs - Indo-US Nuclear Deal, Iran Vote, Oil Prices & OPEC, Economic Survey of India 2005-06 (Yes! I read the 10 chapters - no kidding) Budget 2006. All about Stanley Kubrick, Nirvana & Kurt Cobain, Harper Lee, Salman Rushdie, Bubble Sort, Quick Sort, Merge Sort, Algorithms, Order of algorithms, Normalization, RDBMS, etc. I was tired. Imagine – Jan 2nd I know I have a GD/PI for IIMB on 21st March. It is a long wait and very tiring.

Cut to IHM, Dadar. It is 10:05 AM and I have helped myself in the comfy but a bit dirty sofa (either it was dirty or the color was just not right) in the lobby. I started revising some stuff, when I am interested by the conversation going around. Bingo! The bulky guy is an IITian. IITB Chemical Engineering graduate, we struck cord when discussion about a guy from IITB popped up who finished his B. Tech. thesis in 4 years (well that is a rare achievement for those who are not acquainted with IIT style of working - if you still don’t get it, I am being sarcastic when I say achievement). Well, it was pleasant talking to Abhijit (the bulky guy) and knowing about him. He did MS from US, had an accident, returned to India; setup his own consultancy shop, helps companies setup plants. He gave us all a brief on bribing in India (which he acknowledged – if his words are to be taken true – in front of the IIML Panel), its nature, the sums or %ages, the difference in bribing cultures across various Indian states. Only thing weird about him was his tie – he was wearing a party-tie for an interview, with fishes swimming all over.

Last-minute revision is not something I usually do (unless it is Borbora's Economics paper) and I let myself to these musings. Kept myself updated with the cricket score (could be handy if the Professor asked for it). Also, learnt the both Professors were not engineers and was really happy about it. I know well how much sadistic pleasure engineers derive by making their kind suffer or see them suffer and what better place than an IIM interview. I was to follow Abhijit, so after he was in, spent time with others there. I got some quick gyan on Capital Account Convertibility from the Raymonds Manequin – then got bored. I needed to refresh myself (I was all sweats!). In the restroom, the tissue paper made me think to myself, what genius designed them and what makes me or anyone use them? Reminded myself that the Professor would be least interested about my interest in the genesis of the toilet paper and the reasons of it’s omnipresence across all restrooms of the world, and that while I did not find them of much use, my ideas could conflict with those of the Professors, if he chose to discuss on the topic, worse, he could be of the cult who finds them of sincere use, and decided once again that if asked what I liked to do in your spare time, repeat the prepared answer “I like writing blogs” and not to say, even by slight slip of tongue, that I liked deep-thinking. Thus giving myself a wake-up call, reminding myself of the mission I was on and I quit the deep-thinking I was into.

Abhijit's interview lasted a whole 25 minutes, which somehow made others think that he was definitely in. I wonder if there is any relation between getting selected and long interviews. As he moved out, he asked me to get in after 3 min. I set my watch – tick, tick, tick,... And exactly 180 seconds later as I was about to push the door, Prof. Prabhu opened the door. I was in. The parabolic arrangement had been dismantled but an isosceles triangle formed easily between my chair and both the Professors' chairs. My chair was kept away from the table at least a 3 feet distance – may be to disable me by virtue of the configuration to read the notes they scribbled throughout the interview. I asked them if they would like to see my certificates which they gently declined. And a train of questions started about me and – let me think – about me and – let me recollect more – yet about me. No GDP numbers, no inflation, nothing like what is the Finite Element Method or the FMEA or Six Sigma? Just all about me! It was good friendly conversation though and I enjoyed it. Well, my interview ran to 25 min too. I felt like those minutes passed by in a jiffy.

After all was done, I was happy that it was over. I helped a fellow candidate out there with a joke (just in case he was asked to tell one) as he was not prepared with one.

Well, I don't know if I am through or not or if I will be through or not. And wait upto the results, is an ordeal. But, I think the real ordeal will begin just after that!