Author: SK

The midweek break (independence day) was spent in Madras attending the 15th Annual Landmark Quiz. We (

, kodhi and I) qualified for the finals and came last, which I think we would term as a par or justbelowpar performance. That coupled with meeting people, strong dinner, etc. contributed to an excellent break. Only problem was that it made going to work on Thursday and Friday that much harder, and ultimately led to yesterday’s NED.

I started off at 5 am from my granny’s place in Jayanagar desperately hoping to find an auto that would take me to the station in time to catch the 6 o clock train. A few minutes of looking around here and there didn’t yield results and without any other options, i walked towards the nearby bus stop. Sure enough, there was a bus which had deposited me in Majestic before 0530. I’m quite impressed with the BMTC I must say (this bus was part of the ‘night service’ and charged double the normal fare;? I didn’t know that the BMTC ran a night service.

The train journey was comfortable and didn’t leave one tired and sleepy at the end of it, like most day journeys do. For the first time in my life, I was traveling by Shatabdi (thus fulfilling a lifelong ambition) and I must say it was pretty good. Of course, they have tried to make a lot of things “flight-like” (the arrangement of seats, tray tables, food, etc.), though the leg space is far better and the loos much dirtier! The food, surprisingly, was pretty decent. A decent quantity of upma with chutney and sambar and two slices of bread. Coffee sucked though.

Traveling with us across the aisle was a couple of extremely accomplished quizzers from Bangalore. And the first thing they do upon settling in their seats is to pull out a quiz book (one of the “general knowledge quiz” types. i later peeked and found out that it was”the ultimate india quiz book” or some such) and start mugging, like a bunch of schoolkids mugging for the KQA inter-middle school! I thought of giving them dirty looks, but then refrained myself for they were too busy to take their eyes off the book, and even if they had caught my eye, they would’ve just given a nodi swamy, naaviruvudu heege look!

One funny thing about the train was that we were all traveling backwards! Every one of us! The thing with the Shatabdi is that all seats face the same direction. And all of us were moving backwards. For now, my conjecture is that in the “up” journey (madras-bangalore) everyone travels forward, and that there is simply no mechanism for turning the train around! There isn’t a big enough loop where they can turn the train 180 degrees. So they just change the position of the engine and make everyone travel backwards!

The quiz prelims were good, and all of us seemed to be in decent form. More importantly, it was damn good to have Navin back as the quizmaster (don’t think any of us would’ve traveled to Madras if Derek had done it). And thankfully, there wasn’t much of “aeroplane paandi”. One of the two madrasi questions in the prelims was about IITM, so that was duly cracked, though for the other we put a well left.

However, as I have mentioned earlier, the most painful part of this kind of a quiz is the ritual in which they announce the answers. Especially if you think you have done well and have got a few good guesses in. You just want the list of answers read out at a speed faster than the average pujari reciting his mantras and be done with. 27.5 (or 28.5 if they gave one doubtful decision in our favor) was a good score, we thought, as we walked out of the audi.

Unlike in Odyssey, where they announce qualifiers one by one and ask them to choose their places on stage, here the finalists are called backstage beforehand and a great show made of raising the curtain on the finals. And seats in the finals are picked by lots rather than allowing the prelims toppers to choose. We were allotted seat 1.

The finals was ok, not up to the high standards set by the prelims. There was way too much inconsistency in the standard of questions, which is ok for prelims but not for finals where everyone is not tested on the same questions. Overall, however, it was pretty good – at least it kept me awake till the end, which doesn’t usually happen when my team is not doing so well in the finals. However, I think there should have been more weightage for the buzzer round!

And as is usually the case with Landmark quizzes, I spotted a really goodlooking girl in the audience. She had been sitting in front of us for the prelims also, though it didn’t seem like she was taking part. During the length of the finals, she sat in the first row (reserved for sponsors, press, dignitaries, etc.) directly in my line of sight. Exchanged a few glances and drew inspiration but unfortunately she didn’t stay on till I had gotten off stage (Navin doesn’t have the habit of throwing out quizzers midway through the finals). I quietly cursed my luck.

We had a mini IIMB meetup for dinner, which was at Cedars (by the way we had met

for lunch earlier in the day). Strong food (at Cedars in Kotturpuram) accompanied by extremely strong conversation (about the Ladder Theory, the Afghan War and batchmates’ engagements among ohter things) and at the end of it GB dropped us to the station.

I guess I had been feeling rich while booking the tickets, so I had booked myself on 3 tier AC for the return journey. For some reason, I didn’t particularly think it added much value and next time round, I’ll travel by AC only if normal sleeper is not available. The Shatabdi earlier that morning, however, was extremely good value I thought. Anyways, I slept soundly and woke up only when we had passed cantonment. And I must mention that the queue for the prepaid auto at the city station is usually as long as hanuman’s tail!

I’m feeling lonely. Terribly lonely. While that is not an unusual feeling, the circumstances make it really unusual.

I’m in Bangalore. In the house that I grew up in. Living with my mom. Left work at 4 this evening (after a really are not day).

I had got this feeling a number of times when I was at IIT, in London and in Bombay, and each time i had dismissed it saying that it was because i was away from “home”. At IIT, I would just go park myself at the Patisserie, and good conversation would usually follow. At London, I went for long lonely walks along random roads. In Bombay, took the train to South Bombay and walked along Marine Drive.

Somehow despite being AT HOME, no solutions! Nothing. Tried an old favorite of just wandering around the Jayanagar Shopping Complex. To no avail. Relief seemed to occur in bursts but the emptiness of the whole place (it? was 2130) just put me off. Didn’t get too many ideas so just returned home!

I’ve stopped watching TV. I don’t have any movies. I don’t read fiction, and whatever I have with me now is too heavy for the occasion. So here I am, cribbing! Wonderful right??

This is the kind of mails you get from your CEO when you’ve been LBOd!

As I mentioned last quarter, we are increasingly focused on EBITDA as we gauge the company?s profitability and cash flows, because we believe these metrics more fairly represent the performance of our ongoing operations, given that including interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization can sometimes obscure how we?re really doing.?

Thank goodness the LBO happened before the current crisis in the debt markets! And I just hope the buyout firms took a fixed rate loan! And to think that I’m in a division which is not exactly profitable!

“Living in is perfectly ok. But no, we don’t drink – that’s immoral”

bah!

One new thing that ESPNStar has introduced recently into cricket is the introduction. Just before a batsman comes in to bat, or a bowler comes on for his first spell, he has to ?introduce himself?. While it provides some kind of context to the amateur watcher, it also gives out some important insights. And it gives the players an opportunity to literally make a statement.

For starters, there is Paul Collingwood. He describes himself as a ?right hand batsman and right arm (pause) fast bowler? with the emphasis on fast. Perhaps he believes that with the liberal support he is getting from the umpires, he is as threatening, if not more, than a fast bowler.

Another ?character? in this regard is Dhoni. He is perhaps the only guy who doesn?t use his first name to introduce himself, preferring just ?Dhoni? instead. One wonders if he would do the same if his surname were something much more common such as say ?Sharma?! The other interesting thing to note about Dhoni is that he says ?wicketkeeper? before saying ?right hand batsman?, maybe to make a statement that it?s he and not Dinesh Kaarthick who is the number one keeper.

This kind of an introduction is also likely to cause some kind of trouble to someone like say Tendulkar, who has no clue what kind of a bowler he is. He tries to get around the problem by describing himself as just ?right arm bowler?. Interestingly, even Anil Kumble describes himself the same way ? ?right arm bowler?! Wonder if he is trying to make a statement with that.

The most powerful statement, in my opinion, however, is by V V S Laxman. He describes himself as a ?right hand middle order batsman and right arm off-spin bowler?. While it is interesting that he mentions his little-used bowling skills here (without Sehwag, India lacks a part time off spin bowler), the more important thing is the emphasis he places on ?middle order?. I?m sure he is hitting out at the selectors and team management of the late nineties who tried to make an opener out of him. A strong opportunity this was to make a statement, and he has grabbed it with both hands.

If not anything else, this concept of introductions has made viewing much more entertaining, at least for those who care to listen to it. One sincerely hopes that the broadcasters carry this forward and make this a regular feature for all series. However, one needs to see how this would gel with teams like Pakistan and Sri Lanka, where a larger number of players can?t speak English. I won?t be surprised to hear Inzy (if he gets picked) saying ?Inzamam-ul-haq. Inshallah 36 years. Inshallah right hand batsman. Left arm bowler inshallah?!

Cross posted at Critics Corner

I’d never been able to learn macroeconomics. With all due respect to Prof Chiranjib Sen, the IS and LM curves and M2 and M3 money supplies never really excited me, and despite scoring a high A in the course, it left me much more confused than I was when it started. Immediately after that followed a short stint at JP Morgan where I had been safely tucked away in the interest rates swaps sales desk, which didn’t have much to do with actually predicting how the rates moved, and other similar macroeconomic things. I quickly became really good at swaps, and even some more complicated structures, but never learnt macroeconomics.

Looking back, it seems like the primary reason I didn’t learn it was because of lack of excitement. Unlike a lot of other fields which had a large number of related anecdotes, which made learning so much more simpler, macroeco had come across as a dull thing, which one should avoid as much as one could.

The recent bloodbath in markets world over seems to have finally provided me the reason. Over a month back, when my aunt Sowmya told me that she had sold her Chicago home for much less than what she had bought it for a few years ago, nothing seemed amiss. Then came the news that KKR’s public offering had cupped. Then, the local stock markets crashed. With each passing day, things became more and more interesting. Yes, I have lost money for some stocks I hold have been going down, but the excitement of the whole episode has been unmitigated. And day by day, the happenings have intrigued me to learn more. To find out why what is happening is happening. In other words, to learn macroeconomics.

Over the last week or so, I have been bugging my friends in investment banks to explain the things to me. My brief background in the domain is also helping me appreciate things better. I’m asking a lot of questions. Talking to these guys, and thinking a bit, and finding answers. I think I’m learning. I’m learning macroeconomics.

All these days, I was figuring out pieces of the puzzle. And it all seemed to be fitting in. Still, the big picture was missing. How did this happen? How did it all begin? Yesterday I sent a mail to Vennai titled “chicken and egg”. “Which came first? The housing market crash or increase in interest rates?” I wrote. The discussion that followed helped ease matters a bit. I had a good idea now. Then, today I stumbled upon this? , and all my questions are answered I think. I think I know what’s happening. It all seems so beautiful now. Macroeconomics can be interesting, I finally agree! If only all this had happened in Jan 2005… 😛

Ok for starters, this has nothing to do with my previous post, though both of them relate to food and both of them relate to structuring. In that one, I tried to use food concepts to explain structuring, while here I use the concept of structuring from ibanking and use that framework to explain some food stuff.

Now that those formalities are out of the way, let me get to the point. One of the basic differences between North Indian and South Indian genres of food is the way in which it is structured. In South Indian food, you just order the “main item” and you get a host of side dishes free. For example, if you order idli, you get sambar and chutney free. If you go to Madras, you get chutney in three colors (coconut, pudina and tomato) free along with the Idli or dosa. Back home in Bangalore, you get unlimited refills of sambar and chutney. Sometimes you even have a choice of side dish. If you don’t like the sagu they give with puri you can ask them for potato palya. No cribs.

North Indian food is fundamentally different from this in a sense that there are no “set combinations” of main dish and side dish. In fact, the side dish is a side dish only by name – it usually costs much more than the main dish. And yeah, you order the main dish and the side dish separately, and make your own combinations. It is like a complete bipartite graph! And you can choose a few vertices here and a few there!

Another thing with North Indian food is “packet size” – typically one serving of a side dish serves two people (thatz teh thumb rule while ordering). This fundamental characteristic of this genre makes it much more suitable for eating out in a group, and makes it prohibitively expensive to eat alone. During my days in Bombay, I used to take two rotis and one dal fry, for 60 bucks. And about half the dal would get leftover. And there was no question of me having any vegetable – unless I decided to forgo dal that day!

OK, I guess that was too long a background for this (otherwise) extremely short post. And I think the whole point of the post has been summarized in the title (yes, I think i’m finally learning to give good titles).? Thing is fast food joints thrive on standardization. In a way, they are like Ford about a 100 years ago. They have a small number of items, which they sell in large quantities, and well at a faster rate. That way, they can reduce spoilage, inventory cost, etc. For example, have you noticed that Dosa Camp has only 3-4 basic varieties of batters, and that the N types of dosas they make are all embellishments on one of? the basic batters?

Now, if you think about this, it is tough to sell north indian food with this kind of a model. You need to have stuff to make a large number of gravies, and a large number of vegetables. Even for an “assemble to order” framework, you need a large number of ingredients, with a lot of them having extremely volatile demand – thus rendering it expensive.

There are many other reasons why North Indian food is not exactly suitable for Darshini joints. As I’ve explained above, you need to make the stuff on an assemble to order basis, which apart from rendering it expensive, also takes a lot of time. Then, eating north indian food is an elaborate exercise and consumes space – for all the main dishes and side dishes and plates – unlike south indian where you don’t have to serve stuff! Given that in a darshini, space for eating is limited, and that sometimes you may have to eat standing holding a plate in one hand, this is again not tenable.

In light of all this, the concept of the “Roti Curry” that is there in a large number of darshinis todya appears to be a masterstroke. For the uninitiated, it is north indian food structured in a south indian fashion. One in which you order the main and side dish together. For one plate of “roti curry” you get one (or sometimes two – varies from place to place) roti, one small cup of dal and one small cup of a sabji. Along with the mandatory slices of onion and cucumber and lemon. All for a very reasonable rate (<= Rs 20) For one, the “curry” is fixed for the day. And is usually one of the more popular stuff (they usually don’t give stuff like say palak which a lot of people don’t like) – like chana masala or “mixed vegetable curry” – which means that there is no loss of demand due to dissatisfied customers. The lack of choice in the curry means that it makes forecasting much easier, and hence reduces wastage and thus decreases costs for the restaurant. Another advantage of the fixed curry is that it can be made to stock, and thus the only bottleneck is the time it takes to make the roti, which at high demand times can also be made to stock! Then, the structure of the meal means that it all comes together in one single plate – which makes it extremely easy to fit into the darshini culture. It doesn’t take much space on the table, and can also be eaten holding the plate in hand. Apart from this, it is excellent value for money. For about Rs. 20, you get enough stuff to constitute a full meal (yeah, the rotis are usually huge). Of course, I don’t think they give extra curry free, but they usually give enough dal and sabji to last the full roti for most people. And the restaurants have a foothold in a genre which was hitherto untouched. Given all these advantages, it is no surprise that this concept is open in almost all darshinis which are open at dinner-time. I don’t know who started the practice, but it’s an excellent practice nevertheless. The crowds at the “north indian” counters of the restaurants will bear testimony to this. OK, it turns out that the post is longer than I initially thought it would be. So that elaborate introduction seems justified after all. And does anyone know of any place (apart from wholesellers like Nammora Hotel) which sell Idli and Chutney and Sambar separately?

Structuring is like making bhel puri. You buy the vegetables, peanuts, chutneys and all other ingredients. You don’t bother into their formulation and all. You just put all of it together in proper proportions so that the customer likes the end result. and get paid for that!

Update: Some responses from my investment banker friends.

The guy from Goldman simply agrees.

The guy from Deutsche says

NO
its fooling the customer and making sure you get sued

The girl from Lehman says

no it isnt

its like making cake

you get a tonne of ingredients – get the basic batter

then bake it

then start embellishing

different bits differently

and then cut up slices so that everyone thinks they got the best slice at the bets rate 😉

The guy from Lehman is yet to respond.

Update

The guy from Lehman responded. He says

it’s pretty hard to sell products to be honest..? and customers shop around so they always go for the best bhel puri… wall street is like? row of stalls at shanti kunj.. 😛

I haven’t done it for a while now. So while I’m at it, let me break away from the usual TV ads and focus on voice ads for a change. Driving to office every morning, listening to ad-infested Radio City in order to catch the wonderful Vasanthi’s wonderful voice gives me an opportunity to listen to a lot of them.

The most jarring of them all is this ad by Puravankara. They have made a song in hindi which has a bad tune and bad lyrics with stuff like “mila hai mujheeeeeeeeeeee, purva mein gharrrrrrrrr” and stuff. If only I knew exactly how long the ad would last, I’d put the radio on mute for that much time. Sometimes it completely takes the joy out of listening to Vasanthi!

Then, there are these welfare ads put by the ministry of family welfare I think, which are absolutely hilarious. Some of them deal with cleanliness at roadside eateries, while others say that you can’t play with hens! And they have a number of versions of these ads, all of which provide for a good chuckle. Of course, there are also the “eye ads”. There is a song in kannada about glaucoma, which is sung in the form of a duet! One wonders why the ministry wastes valuable resources putting these ads in the mostly upmarket radio city. Wouldn’t its objective be better served if it were to be put on more junta channels such as Big or SunFM?

Then, of course, there are these TV ads from which the voice is removed and the ad played on radio. Most of these again turn out to be extremely irritating, for I think it’s mostly visual impact. There is this salt ad, which is in Hindi, which is perfectly fine for Radio City.

Today I found a new set of ads – for UTI Bank, which has just changed his name to Axis bank. They take examples of how Rajiv Bhatia became Akshay Kumar, and Shivaji Rao became Rajnikanth, and how nothing much changed. And that UTI Bank is like that! Coming to think of it, whoever had heard of Rajiv Bhatia? Or of Shivaji Rao (except for commuters on route 10A)? Is UTI Bank admitting that they’ve not been a good bank so far?

I’ve noticed one other thing with radio ads – initially they are all mostly in Hindi, including on the Kannada channels. After a while, though, they re-make the ad in Kannada, and put it in Kannada on all channels! Interesting stuff. The latest to do this has been Indian Oil, which has released it’s extremely irritating “ah aaah pucho pucho” ad in Kannada.

When I was a kid, we used to without fail celebrate my birthday on the 6th of December, and my father’s birthday on the 30th of the same month. However, never once did we celebrate my mother’s birthday. Repeated questions in this matter went unanswered for a long time, and I grew up wondering how amma couldn’t have a birthday!

Later, I figured out that the problem is not that my mom doesn’t have a birthday – it’s that she has several! When she was a kid, my grandfather wanted to admit her in school a year earlier, so a false date given to enable that (those days people didn’t care too much for birth certificates). Later, when she took up employment, she realized that she would have to retire a couple of years earlier because of this birthday. So she got herself a new birth date, a couple of years later.

Then, for some other reasons, she wanted to become younger, and got yet another certificate. And so forth. The title of this post may be an exaggeration, but I know that my mom uses at least four or five different dates of birth! And with my maternal grandparents both gone, and my two doddammas being of the forgetful variety, no one really knows when my mom was actually born!

So now, this causes immense confusion, and at times it’s quite funny trying to guess what my mom’s age with respect to this particular document is. At other times, it’s not so funny. There will be documents which will have to be produced together, but then suddenly we figure out that they have different dates of birth mentioned on them. And there is some extra effort we have to put in order to correct this inaccuracy.

Now, I just assume that my mom’s age is a quantum state. A random number. And I’ve been asked to wish her every year on 27th of January. Of course, none of the documents show this as her actual birthday!