'God' in it!

A good, easy and quick read! That’s the feeling you get when you finish reading Chetan Bhagat’s “One night @ the call centre”. It also gave me a feeling that I could relate better to the call centre guys than to the IIT-ians. However you can’t dismiss the feeling that last 50 odd pages were “bollywood style” giving out strong “make me into a movie” signals. Even if one could convince oneself to believe that the characters survived the awful car accident, it’s extremely difficult to believe the telephone call with God. Thankfully the author himself deals with it in the epilogue. And when given an option to choose between two versions, one with God and the other without, he opts for the one with God, which seems like an obvious choice. The narrator then says, “Just like life. Rational or not, it just gets better with God in it”

I must have read / repeated this sentence more than a 100 times, since I finished the book last night. It feels good!

Simple Joys of Life - 1

To have one of your favourite songs played on the radio while you drive and zip past the lights, not having to brake or cut gears.

Observations :

• The feeling of joy is enhanced if there is no traffic and one is able to shift to the top gear.
• The effect is dramatic if its bright sunny morning and there's a gentle breeze, and the song is as good as “Kaisi hain yeh rithu ki…..

Bazooka

I heard a woman on radio this morning saying the word Bazooka sounds very East European and what comes to her mind - is a woman in a flowery skirt dancing. I was amazed at people's thougt process. There are a few things that came to my mind on hearing the word bazooka, but surely not a woman in a flowery skirt!!

At the first instance I thought of a huge airplane (beluga connection?), next thing that came to my mind was “Videocon Bazooka”. It also sounded like some magic spell, a distant cousin of “jee boom ba”. I would associate the word Bazooka with anything that is round, roly-poly, chubby etc.

Coming to think of it, who ever said the woman in the flowery skirt dancing around, should “be” slim & slender!

Never the same.......

There are few things in life, that once experienced, never let's the person be the same again. I recently had two such experiences. One was the visit to the Europe, the history and beauty of the place changes one's outlook towards life.

The other is Ayn Rand. I had read the Fountainhead some time back and felt very rejuvenated and recharged. Before the feeling could wane, I picked up Atlas Shrugged, but repeated attempts to read the book, just left me depressed and defeated. It’s more than a year now, and purely for want of anything else to read, I started (again) to read Atlas Shrugged. Once I had crossed 100 pages, I knew this time I wouldn’t put the book down till I finished. It has been a superb experience just reading a book and living with the characters for the last one week. Like any other book, I'm sad its going to end, despite 1000+ pages I still feel, I have not had enough of it. I also know that had the story continued, it would not have been as interesting, but nevertheless it still makes me want to read on and on. This, I think, truly reflects the brilliance of the author, making the reader want for more. I don’t think I can ever imagine the characters in the book to be fictional; they have become part of my life.

But having said this, I feel it depends on how much value one attaches to these experiences. Going to Europe may not be a big deal for some people or for that matter spending week to 10 days reading a book may sound criminal to some people. These things are important to me; I cherish these experiences. Somewhere deep down there is also a feeling of pride and achievement ;)

Freedom from ?

Forgetfulness is a form of freedom - Khalil Gibran

Events or experiences of everyday life, be it pleasant or unpleasant, but with special significance graduate to become memories. All along I have been of the opinion that these experiences play a major role in the grooming of a person and the development of his ideologies. I believed that a person is, what he is, largely due to the impact of certain events or experiences in one's life etched in his memory. But this line of the poet has made me think...........

If one has to forget all that made him or all that he identifies with, to achieve freedom, then what exactly is this freedom, what does the poet implicate?

What the poet means, is freedom from one's own self, freedom from the identity dreived from memories and experiences. I would certainly want that kind of freedom. The freedom of just "being" and not "being someone". Unfortunately it's not a question of choice, it's a way of life and surely not an easy one.

The words are so simple yet so intense.

Accident

My soul is hurt, and is weeping a corner.
My heart is shattered and strewn around the make believe world.
My mind, used to taking orders from my heart, is lost completely.
The road to recovery to long, dark and lonely, and the will is not as strong.
The pain may wane with time, but the scars are there to be.

Meeting at the office

The whole purpose of a meeting is defeated if there is no proper exchange of information. I think most people blindly believe in the statement "Boss is always right" - may be he is most times, but he may not be too, he is human after all. I can't understand how people can sit through a meeting without voicing their opinions, knowing very well that they don't agree with what's being discussed. Reasons could be :

• Boss may not be open to suggestions
• May not be willing to see the team's view point
• Boss may have different kind of pressures at his end.

Our team is fairly new, and we work under tremendous stress, which is accepted and acknowledged by all. In such a scenario, there are more chances to voice our opinions and be heard too. But most of my teammates operate on the premise that the boss would not agree to what they say. Another reason being, if the team challenges the Boss and for some reason beyond their control, are not able to prove their point, then they get into a much more difficult situation. So they feel, they are better off taking orders. Ultimately I feel this reflects poorly on the team as such, because the outcome is not in line with expectations.

The universal truth about financial markets is that, nobody can "time" it, and perception differs from investor to investor. Unless the team gives proper feed back on investor sentiments and mentality, it would be very difficult for a financial institution to structure a reasonably good investment product. In today's market, it's possible to come up financial structures of varying combinations. Markets are mature and technology is superior, and this can be used to the best advantage of the investor. But when there is a bunch of jokers discussing exotic financial structures, using hi-end jargons, without any clue what they are talking about, how can one expect proper dissemination of information. I have in the last six months seen my teammates going ga- ga over investment products in front of the boss and later on breaking their head over the terms of the structure. And when finally after the deal is done and the structure sinks in, they realize it was not that good after all.

In our meeting today, we decided the future strategy would be to target big tickets - meaning USD1mm and above. I had to try hard to control myself from laughing. Guess, I don't fit there!!