Author: SK

Tenure Matching

One of the fundamental concepts of finance is to match the tenure of assets and liabilities. That the tenure of source of funds (equity, debt, etc.) need to match the tenure of what they are used for. So, if you need money to tide over till your next payday, you need to take an extremely short-term loan. If you need to borrrow to fund a house – an application that has a long tenure – you need to take a longer-term loan. And so on.

In fact, a common refrain about banking crises is that they happen mainly due to the tenure mismatch – banks borrow by means of short-term deposits, and then invest these in long-term loans. Most theories regarding liquidity crises cite this as a common problem.

Now, my contention is that this banking/finance rule is just a special case of a much larger rule in life. Remember that funding, or raising money, can be looked at as a “problem”. By classifying it as a problem, I’m not necessarily saying it’s a very tough problem. All I’m saying is that it’s a problem. And when you do raise money, it is a solution to the problem. Thus, the generalized form of the rule

The tenure of the solution needs to match the tenure of the problem.

So before you look for a solution for any problem in life, you need to first figure out about the tenure of the problem. And then generate a list of possible solutions which have similar tenures, and then pick the best among them. And based on my limited anecdotal experience, most people don’t really appreciate this concept when they suggest, and sometimes even implement, certain solutions.

So on Monday I called up a friend and told her that I was going through a strong bout of NED and we should meet up. She started philosophising and said that this is a fundamental problem and that I should think of a fundamental solution. That I should get a new hobby, or learn a new instrument, or some such long-term thing. Of course, I know myself better than she does, and so I knew that my problem was short-term, and so all I needed was a nice evening out. A short term solution to a short term problem.

On the other hand, during my previous job, I used to go through prolonged periods of NED. A little analysis revealed that the fundamental reason for this NED was my job, and that until I got a new one, I wouldn’t be happy. It was a long-term problem that deserved a long-term solution – of finding another job. However, most of the advice I got for my NED was of the nature of “go get drunk, you will be fine”.

My mother also doesn’t seem to appreciate this tenure concept. Nowadays I’m afraid to crib to her about anything, because if I crib, she assumes it’s a long-term problem and suggests that I should get married and that she’ll intensify her efforts in the arranged-marriage market.

Yes – people not appreciating this tenure concept is a long-term problem. The solution to this should also, thus, be long-term. They need to be taught such a lesson regarding this, that they won’t forget this concept for the rest of their lives.

Shoes

I bought these Adidas sneakers earlier this year. Maybe in February. I ddn’t really need a pair of sneakers back then – my old Nikes were just fine, but I thought some retail therapy might help cure my NED, and hence the new sneakers. The therapy’s effects were short-lived. I got back to my then-ground state of NED the following day. NED meant unwillingness to wear my new sneakers to the gym, or to work, or anywhere else. So they lay, in a box, until I brought them to Gurgaon three months back. The old faithful pair of Nike was left behind in Bangalore.

I don’t know if my feet have grown in the last ten months. Or if in my eagerness to shop way back in February, I didn’t check properly for the size. But the sneakers are simply too tight. One theory is that my right foot is bigger than my left, and when I had tried out these sneakers in the showroom, I had put the left one on, found it perfect, and bought the pair. This reasoning is based on the observation that it’s only my right foot that hurts, and my left one does fine. The length of the shoes is perfect. It’s a problem with the width. The fourth and fifth toes of my right foot end up getting squeezed.

Having made a mistake the last time I shopped for sneakers, I don’t want to take any chances now. I don’t want to buy another 2K+ pair. I want something cheap, yet comfortable. Went shopping last weekend, checked out all the major showrooms, and whenever I found what looked like a good pair, I would chicken out, head and feet full of self-doubt. I still wear the same tight pair to the gym every morning. And the fourth and fifth toes of my right foot still hurt.

It is winter in Delhi, and gets fairly cold in the evenings, and sometimes even during the day. In Bangalore, Madras, Bombay, etc. my normal footwear (when I wasn’t required to wear formals or sneakers) was floaters. That clearly doesn’t seem to be an option here in Delhi. Which means I need a general pair of shoes. So far in my life, I’ve owned only one “general” pair of shoes. The rest have either been uniform, formals, floaters, bathroom or sneakers. That one general pair I own has been left behind in Bangalore. It’s an old faithful comfortable Liberty pair. Now, the presence of that shoe in good condition, even though it isn’t accessible, deters me from making up my mind about spending on a new pair. Last weekend, I found some really good shoes at Woodland, but again chickened out. Maybe the scars of the wrong choice of sneakers has started affecting in my other shopping decisions also.

On a different note, one thing I’ve noticed here in Gurgaon is that service providers who come home (for example, the guy who fixed the washing machine) refuse to take off their shoes when they enter your house. They even don’t think twice entering the kitchen wearing shoes. Coming from a background where shoes inside the house are a strict no-no, I find this fairly shocking. I remember reading in A Farewell to Alms about differences between Japan and Europe. Japan seems to be like South India in this regard, outlawing footwear inside homes, while Europeans had no such restrictions and is hence like Gurgaon.

Disco Raaga – Taana – Pallavi

This is one of those posts that I’ve been intending to post for over a couple of months, but each time I think about this, I don’t happen to be in front of a computer, and even if I do, I don’t feel like writing about it. So here I am – finally blogging this. As I write this, I’m listening to the Ledzep Live Album The Song Remains the Same. This post is about this album, and other related stuff.

As you might have figured out from the title of this post, one thing I’ve noticed about this album is about the approximate Carnatic format that the songs in this take on. It may not be in the strict order that Carnatic music prescribes, but these songs are roughly there. I’m currently listening to Dazed and Confused, and after the first few lines of the Pallavi were sung, Page has now gone off into an extended Aalapana of whichever Raaga this song is set in.

Periodically, they return to the song, and play a few more lines. Now, Plant is doing his bit by improvising with a few lines of his own. Jones and Bonham are dutifully doing their background stuff – Bonham will get his footage later in the album – for Moby Dick features a full-blown Tani Avartanam. It ends the same way Tani Avartanams in Carnatic concerts do – with the main line of the Pallavi being sung at the end of it. I know I might be force-fitting some Carnatic concepts into this album; nevertheless, all these improvements make for extremely interesting listening.

A few days after I had first noticed this, Udupa told me that a large number of concerts in the 70s were like this – the musicians would simply jam on stage in the middle of the songs. Created music on the spot. Spontaneous stuff. Unfortunately, Udupa continued, the trend changed a few years back when less informed audiences started demanding that more songs be crammed into the three hour concert, thus reducing the scope for such improvisations.

The best thing about Carnatic concerts is that each one is unique. You might look at two concerts – played by the same set of musicians and with the same line-up of krithis, but there is a very good chance that the two are markedly different. This is because Indian Classical music, in its concerts, encourages the musician to innovate, to play whatever comes to his mind at that point of time – while adhering to the fairly strict rules. It is this element of innovation that makes each concert special, and an experience in itself.

Western Classical music differs in this regard – especially in the orchestra form – since the large size of the troupe leaves little scope for innovation and the musicians are literally forced to play it by the book. In that context, it seems like it was genres such as rock which brought in the spontaneity and innovation into western music.

Nowadays, bands don’t tour as much as they used to a couple of decades ago, which means that whenever they visit a city (which is once in a few years), the fans in the city will want to hear as many songs as possible. And that kills innovation. It is not the bands’ fault – they are simply responding to the market. And I don’t know what it could be that could get them back to their RTP days.

Here is one of my retirement plans. For each song that I like, describe a Carnatic Raaga into which it can approximately fit into. Tinker around with the stanzas, to create a Pallavi-Anupallavi-Charana format. Try to make the raagas as rigid as possible – Vakra scales will be preferred. And then put RTP. Use some Western instruments too – for example, I definitely want the Bass guitar to be a regular feature in Carnatic concerts. I think the result is likely to be phenomenal.

It’s been a few years since I picked up the violin. I plan to do it sometime. And implement what I’ve described here. Hopefully I’ll do a good job. In the meantime, if there are any bands out there which want to implement this concept, they can feel free and do it – I promise I won’t sue them later for IPR.

why is the level of English in North India so low?

I had sent this mail to a mailing list of 60-odd super-intelligent people. unfortunately, in their fondness for Savita Bhabhi, Vidarbhan farmers and child-eating, they weren’t able to come up with any convincing explanation for this. So I thought you super-intelligent readers of my blog might be able to help. I begin.

Three months back I moved to Gurgaon from Bangalore. And one thing I’ve noticed is that here practically no one can speak English. I’m referring to service providers here, people who are typically from the lower middle class. Taxi driver. Electrician. Waiter. Accountant. etc.

None of them can speak a word of English, and  I mean that almost literally. In Bangalore and Madras, we can see that people in these professions at least make an effort to speak English, and even if you don’t know their local tongue you will be able to communicate with them and get your work done. Here, unless you know Hindi, it is impossible. There is only so much you can communicate in Dumb Charades, right?

I suppose one argument will be that people in the North would have never had the need to learn English since most people they come across can speak Hindi. And that since linguistic regions are much smaller in the South, there is greater incentive for people to pick up and learn new languages. And since they know that a knowledge of English helps get them more business, they make an effort to pick it up.

But again – even if you exclude those who haven’t gone to school, the knowledge of English here is horrible. Isn’t it aspirational in North India to send kids to English medium schools? If not, I wonder why this is the case – given that in the South practically everyone want to send their kids to English medium schools.

Ok here is my hypothesis – remember that it is a hypothesis and not an argument. I wonder if people who are native of regions where the same language prevails over a large geographical area are linguistically challenged. because everyone they need to interact with know their language and there is no need for them to learn any new language. and this affects their ability to pick up new languages. on the other hand, people from linguistically diverse regions will tend to find it easier to pick up new languages.

extending this, it might actually help if the medium of instruction in your school is not your native tongue. having learnt a new language early, you will find it easier to pick up new languages as you go along.

sometime last month I was at a high-end restaurant with a couple of friends. spoke to the waiter in English and he didn’t understand. one of my friends who was with me said “don’t bother talking to these guys in English. if they knew some english, they’d’ve been working for Genpact and not become waiters”

Twenty Six

The reason I’m writing this so late in the day is that I’ve been confused as to what to call this post. I started from a short list of maybe a dozen names, and then brought the list down to two – “twenty six” and “twenty fucking six”. Finally I decided to go for the former since the swearword in the latter doesn’t seem to add much value.

If I were to count my years using letters of the English alphabet, I would today increment it from Y to Z, taking into consideration that the Gregorian calendar may not be perfectly accurate. However, for this kind of a time horizon, and given our desired least count, it is definitely more accurate than the Hindu calendar so we will stick to it. Ok, if you have still not got the point, “aaj mEra happy birthday hai“. Imagine me wearing a yellow suit and shouting that line upwards as you look down from your balcony.

My original plan was to write about birthdays itself, as to how they seem to have lost significance, and as I’ve grown older, and started feeling old, they seem to have been reduced to a counter. I was planning to write about how I have to go really long back in order to find a memorable birthday, and about how it’s generally been a disappointment in recent time.

Vyshnavi Doss, who is older than me by ten days, decided to use her Twenty Sixth by writing something on these lines. It was as if she was exploiting her seniority by taking away words from my fingers. Here is a quote, but I urge you to read the whole thing. I completely empathise with the first part of the essay.

Now this is going to sound nutty, but I used to feel more pressure than elation on my birthday. Not counting my school years of course. That was when by default, either you distributed sweets to everyone at school, or your mom hosted a party for you and you got all the attention and gifts. Your birthday was announced at the assembly, your classmates sang for you, and you pretty much owned the day! Those were the protected years. Then I got into college where I had to work my way up towards making friends. I am a confirmed ambivert. I am a friendly person, but not necessarily popular in the zillion people on my friend-list sense of the term. So the birthday situation after I left school had always been very iffy – there was noone to really ensure it was special. To give me that “Surpriiiiiiseee!!!” People have always mattered a lot to me, and I believe that a good birthday is made up by the people around you. And while my birthdays after school were simple and pleasant, my expectation of something utterly out of the world remained the same. So the worry on my birthday could be attributed to mainly two things – a small closeted social circle, and high ambitions. Often my expectation has been met with disappointment. Don’t get me wrong – of course my parents, my relatives and my close friends have made all the effort in their capacities to make my day special. And I have been happy. But I think I’m quite a tough-to-please person. I’ve always wanted that climax.

Instead, I think I’ll do one of those this-day-that-year things. Given my superior long-term memory, I think this is the kind of stuff that I’m likely to be good at. Here are some excerpts.(rest under the fold)

Continue reading “Twenty Six”

Meeting Sickness

Ok here is another reason I can think of as to why I didn’t do well in my consulting career. This is based on something I’ve been observing at office over the last week or two. I suffer from what I call as “meeting sickness”. The inability to work immediately after a meeting.

Rough empirical analysis tells me that for every meeting of N minutes that I sit through, I need another N minuts of downtime following it before I can get back to work. I don’t know why this happens to me. I don’t know if I’m having to spend too much willpower inside the meeting. Or if it is just that at meetings i get into high-intensity mode and that drains me out.

Whatever it is, in a typical consulting environment, you are expected to attend lots of meetings. If you work for a company that believes in the philosophy that all work is to be done at the client’s location (such as AT Kearney) then you have meetings throughout the day. it is only in between meetings that you get time to work, and usually the way the projects have been sold means that you can’t afford any downtime.

So that explains it. The other big reasons I’ve come up with for my failure in consulting environment are it requires a high degree of willpower which I dont’ have; and that it is an essentially fighter job. Maybe these are inter-related. Need to think on these lines and come up with something.

And if you didn’t like this post, my apologies. I had an extra-long meeting at work this evening from 4 to 7 (and had sat through three other meetings since morning). I fled immediately after, but I’m yet to recover.

Of Pepsi and Perk

Can be best described by looking at the “objects” that defined our bets at different points in time. Most of those  phases seem to have faded away, but I clearly remember two of them – the Pepsi phase and the Perk phase.

The Pepsi era started with their “nothing official about it” campaign during the 1996 World Cup. It was a brilliant campaign, and had all of us 13yearolds hooked. This became our excuse for any little crimes we would commit (like i would hit someone and say “nothing official about it”). I’m not sure if we used it as an excuse for larger crimes, but I suppose we would’ve used it quite regularly as an apology.

Pepsi seemed to have done a good job of identifying itself with this slogan, as soon Pepsi too became our “weapon of choice” when it came to settling bets, and suchlike. This was the period of time when a tiny bottle of Pepsi had just become affordable by saving up on pocket money, and it was put to good use. The unofficial inter-class cricket tournament became “the pepsi cup” – the losing team was supposed to sponsor a bottle of pepsi for each member of the winning team. If my memory serves me right (it usually does), the tournament never got completed.

This phase lasted for almost all of my 9th standard, if I remember right. Maybe it was briefly replaced by other phases, but this was the defining brand of that academic year. All bets were settled with pepsi. Whenever we went out, usually to play cricket, we would refresh ourselves with pepsi. It was the time of life when people had just started courting. Budding couples would go out to have – a Pepsi.

I don’t remember the exact date, but by the time we had moved to 10th, Preity Zinta had struck. With her “thodi si pet pooja”. Perk was the thing now. Considering that a chocolate bar is a much better device for putting blade compared to aerated cola, the number of “couples” also increased. Also, in 10th standard, the number of people going for tuitions increased, and this seemed to cause an increase in the general levels of pocket money.

There were people in my class who would stay in class for lunch break (when everyone else went out to the field) because knew they knew that raiding a certain classmate’s bag would yield them a rich haul of perks (the guy was simultaneously blading some four females, so his stocks always remained high). Then, unlike pepsi, perk could be consumed discreetly. Copious quantities of it were consumed while sitting in class (i used to sit in the first bench so that I could have unhindered view to a certain junior classroom, but  that didn’t stop me from eating perk in class).

I remember that on a certain day in August that year, the shop near the school ran out of Perk stocks. It was the day after rakshabandhan, and given the quantity of unsolicited blade that was happening then, the number of rakhis tied had seen a sudden increase. And that had to be reciprocated – with Perk of course. Some rakhis weren’t acknowledged, which meant that this was probably the only day in more than a month when certain people DIDN’T give Perks to certain other people.

The first four of my five “pursuits” were low-cost (three of those were in school; and even the fourth was before I had drawn my first salary, so you can’t blame me). All four of them put together, I don’t think I spent more than a hundred rupees on blade. This included ten rupees that I had spent on a perk for #1. She had dodged me all day, and by the time I gave it to her at the end of the day, it had melted in my pocket.

I think I should incorporate this scene in one of the movies I’m going to make. Boy chases girl all day, trying to give her a Perk. She skilfully dodges him all day, and evades his offer of Perk. And each time she evades him, he is shown putting the perk back in his pocket. Finally at the end of the day, they meet. It’s time to go – in the distance you can see her father on the bike, waiting to pick her up. And he gives her the perk. She opens it. The perk has melted. And then her heart melts. Ok I must stop now.

After a long time – a very decent talent show

I was planning to blog about this, but i’m not sure if I actually wrote about this. The idea for this was generated this September, which was a low-intensity blogging month for me, when I was staying at my relatives’ place in Gurgaon. My cousin used to be a big fan of “reality shows” of various hues (she still is), and on a few occasions I watched them along with her.

I got a taste of several reality and talent shows across various channels. I watched the first episode of the horrible Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena. Tried sitting through a few episodes of Bigg Boss. And then sat through parts of episodes of various talent hunt shows, most of whose names I don’t remember. Some would have an abrasive host, and abrasive judges. Others had viewers voting, which would lead to fairly random results. Even kids aren’t spared, with them being subject to extreme levels of pressure. Overall, it was a horrible watching experience, for someone bred on stuff like Close Up Antakshari, Philips Top 10 and TVS Sa Re Ga Ma. The good old talent hunt show was dead, I thought.

As I write this, I’m watching the finals of Canara Bank Ede Thumbi Haaduvenu (“i’m singing full of heart”). This is a talent hunt show for kids on ETV Kannada, and is hosted by SP Balasubramaniam. He is an excellent host. He seems fairly objective in his evaluation of the kids, and even when he has to offer his criticism, he makes sure that it’s measured and in a tone that the kid will find constructive. He offers the kids constant encouragement. And the judge in this program is usually a respectful senior musician.

This being the finals of the program, the quality of participation is also extremely high. All four little girls are singing really really well, and I just hope they and their voices are suitably well taken care of so that they become successful singers when they grow up. And one other thing I notice is that the voice of each of these girls is very “eccentric” – in the sense that they are far removed from the average voice of a 12-year-old girl, and in different directions. Seems extremely encouraging.

I suppose the current season of this program will end in another five minutes, but I suppose this series will continue. Hopefully there will be more such real  talent hunt programs, rather than the horrible stuff I’ve been seeing on the Hindi channels in recent times. And if you know of any other good programs like this (either in Kannada and Hindi) let me know.

A couple of observations to end:

  • As I mentioned earlier, SPB has been doing a great job hosting this show. In terms of his tone of voice, presentation, language, etc. We also need to keep in mind that he is a Gult, and he mentioned during today’s show that he didn’t speak Kannada too well when he started this program. Given this, the way he has performed here is truly exemplary
  • This program has been so good today that I haven’t bothered switching channels to even briefly check the scores of the Chelski-Arsenal game that is happening right now

PS: program just ended. the finals are not over yet. 2nd part will happen next sunday.

Short selling Indian Hotels

I’m writing this post in protest against people who have stupid ideas such as declaring “no blog day” in order to protest against “hatred and terror”. I’m sorry I don’t get the point. I dont’ see how this kind of thing is going to help. And I don’t know how anyone who cares will be bothered by this.And if you don’t like this post, you might want to take some tablets which can cure irony deficiency.

So yesterday morning, after the end of our usual morning meeting at work, I switched on Bloomberg as is my usual practice. After checking on the Nifty, I  opened another window and checked up on Indian Hotels (the Tata group company that owns the Taj chain, among others). The stock was down 15%. Ruthlessly hammered down. By short sellers.

While the Taj Mahal was burning, and our security forces out in full force in order to salvage it, you had ruthless short sellers and market operators who were trying to profit from it by shorting the stock. This smacks of disrespect and needs to be condemned using the strongest words. What the owners and managers of Indian Hotels now need is our support, and you have people who are doing exactly the opposite.

Strong steps need to be taken by the government to improve regulation of markets in order to stop capitalists and monopolists from taking advantage of other people’s troubles. One model we could adopt is what has been seen in the Karachi Stock Exchange, where stock prices are not allowed to go down. This is an excellent step, and can be used to prevent operators from making a fast buck out of someone else’s misery