Author: SK

About NED

The concept of NED has existed as long as mankind. Maybe even longer. If you have read Christian Theology you would have read that God took six days to create the world, and then took rest on the seventh day (Sunday). The truth is that God wanted to create even more and wonderful creatures, and give them even more wonderful features. He just happened to put NED. Since at the time that the Bible was written no one had quantified the concept of NED, the writers decided to take the easy way out by saying that God took rest on Sunday.

NED, for the uninitiated, stands for No Enthu Da. I don’t know how to explain it. In fact, no accurate explanation exists for this in English, for if it did, I wouldn’t have bothered inventing this phrase. By sacrificing some bit of accuracy I can say that NED is a state of mind where you don’t feel like doing anything. You just want to do nothing, and you don’t even have the enthusiasm to do nothing. Yes, if that confused you, you need to remember that there is no perfect explanation for NED in English.

The modern usage of the term is supposed to have originated in April 2007, or so I would like to believe. However, Aadisht (his website is putting NED currently) says that the term stretches back to January 2006. I think the incident he is referring to is the one where he was supposed to take the Lalbagh Express to Madras and join Kodhi and me for the Odyssey quiz. When he failed to turn up, he concocted an explanation that he couldnt’ find autos to get to the station. I think he just suffered from a bout of NED.

If Aadisht denies the above incident, it will be a strong indicator that NED entered the IIMB lexicon in March/April 2007 – a full year after we had graduated. I’m especially proud of having contributed to the lingo after I graduated (I had also contributed to the lingo while I was on campus – with Are). Of course, I didn’t develop any new concept. I just gave it a name.

In December of 2007, Neha Jain sent me this mail:

You did me a great disfavour by introducing me to NED
I have been suffering from an acute case of that since Saturday
I don’t know what it is
But I cant get myself out of it
No matter what I do
Or think about

I didn’t introduce her to the concept. I had only introduced her to the term. But as she says, you can never permanently get out of NED. If you think you have overcome NED, you are only fooling yourself. All you are doing is to temporarily get out of it.

So, sooner you learn to accept this fact and start worshiping NED, the better. I can’t really tell you right now how you should worship NED, but if you do, you should request Him to spare you from His clutches for as long as you want. Of course, you should remember that this is only a temporary release.

Welcome to the new blog.

K Serials

Many people may claim many different things, but I think the main motivation for people to watch so many soaps is schadenfreude.

  • Why do you think most characters in soaps are shown leading such miserable lives? I mean not miserable in the material sense, but everyone seems to have one problem or the other.
  • Assuming that people who watch soaps, on the average, lead not-so-happy lives, I can’t think of any reason why they will want to worsen their state of mind by bringing in more negative thoughts – if anything, by indulging in activities classified as “entertainment” you are supposed to be looking to lighten up your mind blah blah

The only other explanation I can think of is that all these soaps are part of some elaborate joke, and avid watchers are silently giggling as they watch these soaps. That they don’t want to let their secret away so they give reasons such as “it reflects life so we love it” and all such.

Commie uncle and family

This blog post is about a relative of mine, who, for purposes of this blog post, shall be called “Commie Uncle”. That name is intentional, for he is surely a commie. Ages back, he managed to land himself a PSU job with the help of a recommendation from his cousin’s wife’s cousin’s girlfriend’s cousin’s uncle. And no sooner had he got his appointment, he became prominent in the union, and started fighting against the very person who had recommended him for that job. About four years back, he had visited us, jubilant in the knowledge that the left would play a major part in the UPA government. My father and I had tried to drill sense into his head, but not to much avail.

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What should we use as the risk-free rate

The cost of credit default swaps (CDSs) for 10 year US Treasury bonds have reached an all-time high, trading at as high as 24 basis points. In this regard, what should we use as the risk-free rate?

Traditionally yield on government bonds has been used as the risk-free rate. But when the government bonds are themselves not really risk-free (as the CDS rates show), what should we use? One measure I can think of is to use the yield on treasuries and subtract the CDS price from it.

Of course, this method assumes that the CDS on the government bonds has been priced properly by the market. Can you let me know how we can do better?

Regarding the Kumble controversy

Last week, Kumble was issued a notice by the BCCI for talking to the media about selection committee meetings. Kumble’s “crime” was telling the Mumbai Mirror that he insisted on two specialist keepers in the party.

Leaving the controversy alone, my hunch is that the selectors might have insisted on Parthiv Patel being the lone keeper on tour, thanks to his excellent batting in the last Ranji championship (albeit in the Plate League). Even if Patel has improved, the only thing Kumble remembers of him I think is the Sydney test in 2004, when he kept missing stumping after easy stumping, which was ultimately partly responsible for India failing to win the test and the series (Bucknor was the other reason).

In contrast, even if he gave away a record number of byes in his last test, Dinesh Kaarthick has generally kept well to Kumble and co. The general opinion is that he’s a better keeper than Dhoni, who usually gets the nod for his superior batting. I remember that during the last tour of England, every day Siddhartha Vaidyanathan used to write an article in Cricinfo demanding that Dhoni be dropped.

It is quite clear that Kumble significantly prefers Kaarthick’s keeping to Patel’s, and Kaarthick is also a competent batsman having played a significant number of his tests as a specialist batsman. And when the selectors wanted to pick Patel over him, Kumble reasoned that the best way to keep Patel outside of the area behind the stumps was to also get in Kaarthick into the squad.

The economics of motorcycle maintenance

Yesterday I gave my old bike for servicing. It was in such bad shape that for a while I was worried that the cost of servicing would be greater than the salvage value of the bike. This morning, when I went to pick it up, I was pleased to see that the bill came up to Rs. 445 only. The first thing I did after that was to ask the mechanic how much I could get if I were to sell my bike. And he started laughing loudly.

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Russian Mags

Long ago, Soviet Russia decided that a good way for them to propagate propaganda in India would be to distribute magazines at subsidized rates. My father had taken the bait and subscribed to all such magazines available – Soviet Union, Soviet Woman and Misha. All of them were available at dirt-cheap rates (don’t exactly remember them). It was so cheap that buying the magazines and giving them to the raddiwala was almost a profitable business.

This is the extent to which the Russians went to propagate their propaganda. And sadly, in those days, the world was yet to hear about anti-dumping duties.

For some reason, I never liked these magazines. My father would sit with me and make me read Misha. He would help me set up and play some of the games mentioned in that. Even then, I never managed to appreciate the magazine, and most of it went straight into the raddiwala’s hands. However, given the extremely low cost, my father didn’t particularly mind.

It was a jobless summer afternoon – as jobless as you would expect a seven-year-old kid without siblings during summer vacations would be. The postman had just dropped off the post – two fairly heavy books. The latest editions of “Soviet Union” and “Soviet Woman”. I don’t clearly remember, but looking back, it seems like I wasn’t in a terribly good mood that afternoon. And so I set to work.

I decided to tear the two magazines to pieces. Each and every page of them. I tore it out carefully from the book, and using my hands, tore each page into innumerable shreds. I must have either had tremendous determination, or tremendous patience, or both, for these books were fairly big. However, I diligently sat down and did my job. And I wouldn’t budge until I was done with each and every page.

I think seven (or maybe I was eight then, but I tend to believe I was seven. Even my super-strong long-term memory can’t? give me a clue on this) years is an early age to display your political leanings. However, watching me having diligently and efficiently torn down the Soviet Union and Soviet Woman to pieces, I think my parents were convinced that I’d grow up to be a right winger.

Shortly after this incident, I was taken to a field near my house and enrolled into the RSS.