Past to Present

Changes are inevitable. Changes do occur with time, to which we invariably adjust and realign ourselves, our approaches, process, thinking and the way we pursue the things also changes. But at time we come across the changes which are not healthy and deviate from the core objective.

I have observed once such dramatic change which has happened within last 10-15 years; baseline for which remains intact but the other core issues getting diluted. Non core issues getting gold plated and the basic fundamentals losing the shine. I’m able to compare it as I have seen and experienced both the aspects of the issue. I’m presenting my observations about the traditional “Akhadas” and the modern health clubs “Gym culture”.

When I enrolled myself to one such “Akhada”; the learning that was imparted was to be humble, genuine and have empathy for others. “Akhadas” followed traditional Indian culture of respect, humbleness and Life long relationship between Guru (Instructor) and Chela (Student). Getting selected in “Akhadas” was not easy as there been some predefined criteria’s for selection and the selection consisted of lot of rituals, it was purely based on Guru to enroll someone under him as Chela, after all it use to be a question of life long relationship between the two.

Once getting enrolled it was Guru’s job to teach his Chela the practices of grooming and sizing the body. Before starting the workouts Chela use to take blessings from his Guru by touching his feats, then seeking divine blessings by worshiping the Hanuman Idol, and in case if Guru is not present then the Chela use to express his regards to the place where his Guru use to sit daily. The atmosphere, ambience and surroundings use to give a divine feeling, the culture itself inculcated to be obedient, loyal and to have respectful insight.

Slowly the “Akhada” culture was taken over by “fitness clubs” and “Gyms”, relationship like Guru Chela got lost and Chelas got replaced with clients. Entrepreneur started coming up with Fitness joints with a business objective and being business institutions they aimed to make profits. No moral objective/responsibility being behind the inception and delicate relationship got commercialized.

All the curtsey, traditional touch, discipline and warmth of relations got replaced by purely business formalities, neither the joints could provide the divine atmosphere or the feel of “Akhadas”.

Everything got blown away in loud music, people performing exercise in dance numbers, leaving relations, courtesy at the entrance door. The rituals are now called health programs one tries to fit his wallet into the slot of these program and ascertain his well-beings.

I can’t say that whatever has happened is for the betterment, but this is the hard core fact.

Apni marzi se kaha ke hai, kidhar ke hum hai!
Rukh havao ka jidhar ka hai, udhar ke hum hai!!

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The forbidden desires

Apart from the basic needs human carry lot of wants; wants are basically aspirations which can be never ending; and those who are able to achieve most of there wants are generally known as successful. One becomes successful as he is able to pursue common things uncommonly well. But once the taste of success gets associated with the individual, he start forgetting the fundamental baseline that he is pursuing common things only and nothing exceptional.

Though success is subjective term and varies from individual to individual; but one thinks he is successful when he compares his efforts and results with other counterparts or someone makes him feel that he is winner in terms of ROI as compared to others, in both the cases individual starts thinking that he is better off.

As one forgets the baseline he boasts on the success he encounters, builds up ego and loses on empathy, decorum and humanity. I pray to god that I should not behave the way I have seen many of so called successful people behaving and I should never forget the baseline.

It happened that I was standing in front of one of my wants; an “Ultra luxurious car “, probably driven by the owner himself and accompanied by a co-passenger. The gentleman who was on the driver seat was dressed well and I thought that he might be the owner of car. I was admiring the car and was in a different world altogether, suddenly the person started hooting the horn, I couldn’t understand what went wrong with this person and why is behaving non sense.

He was blabbering something, I couldn’t understand the matter, he released his seat belts and jumped out of the car, only then I could understand the matter.

He was shouting on the parking incharge as some other vehicle was backing up and he feared that it would dash his vehicle. He uttered the colorful, unreal and undesirable MC, BC type of lingo.

I was surprised to hear that from the gentleman for whom I was about to build a perception of being successful. He behaved unexpectedly like a driver, rather it was worst than a driver, even the driver wouldn’t have behaved so rudely in the same situation.

If this is what success results to; I’ll be more than happy to be an unsuccessful man rather than a nasty successful.

Wear A Smile :)

Smile is contagious; but smiley faces we rarely encounter might be over commitment to life, unfulfilled expectation and to achieve more of cosmetics has stolen the “smile factor”. Everyone is running for God knows what reasons whereas slowing down on human factor. To smile and laugh is purely human.

People generally are introverts and carry lot of reservations while greeting or sharing a smile/ to the people they are not acquainted with. In traffic jams, in elevators, in crowded places when one is negotiating to cast a way, one may find people yelling and no hint of a welcome move is celebrated..

It is not that urgency, frustration or unknown, unseen situation makes us unresponsive but generally in known and familiar situation also we refrain from putting a smile on the face. Recently I took a membership of a health club and I noticed the same phenomena happening. Club having a lot of young crowd and matured individuals, but all of them moving in particular groups and not interacting to other group members and neither knows other members. Acme of aloofness being people walking in the club, doing workouts and leaving out quietly, no body felt the presence and so the absence.

I don’t understand how people can so mechanized and reserved in a vibrant and energetic environment of a health club and how people can stay muted without a friendly expression when there is lot of energy in the surrounding. If we talk about the fairer sex, they generally don’t mingle with known-unknowns very easily and this behavior is what we anticipate, but seeing the same behavioral habits of male counterparts is shocking indeed.

I’m talking about a state that has a heritage of over socializing mix, which is landmark of vibrancy itself, right from its name to dance and music, denizen being liberal and woman liberalization and empowerment is what we witness in the state every nook and corner and seeing people living in shell doesn’t appeal to the eyes.

I love the place because if I say “Kem Cho?” to any person whom I’m facing for the very first time he invariably replies “Maja ma”, meaning that he is happy and delighted and doing well. “Kem Cho?”, I spoke to many associates in the health club to which everyone uttered the expected answer and thus we formally got introduced. But the next day most of them appeared to me as unknown-unknown, they were blunt and didn’t carry any expression of warmth, neither any hint of pervious introduction. I never found them appreciating and motivation other efforts. I don’t know what state of “maja ma” they are?

It might be a perception and may not hold true with all the known-unknown scenarios, but this being a fact that smile factor is slowly eroding from our lives and it is now a rarely found expression in the cities.

Too often we under estimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around....

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Data Not reliable.

Post economic downturn, every one of us might have heard representatives from ruling government coming over the mike and expressing there view regarding the inflation and GDP growth. Expressions of these estimates were very frequent and were not governed by a single spokesperson slowly it become a routine in our life to come across through varied figures of growth and inflations through various sources. Whoever found a forum to address took an opportunity to share his estimates of inflation and GDP.

Ground reality as a citizen I encountered is totally different and opposite to what government claims. I never felt that inflation has cooled off; rather I felt that it is rising with each passing day making survival more difficult. But representatives are claiming that it has cooled off and further cooling will be seen in coming months. GDP can’t be felt on an individual level but the figures disclosed by government are discounted on the bourses, so have less faith on those numbers.

Raising doubt on these numbers might have proved to be a sin if an individual would have dared to, as one’s capability, competency and status would have proved insufficient to question government machinery. But finally someone dared;

A statement from RBI came as a big question to these figures, in its stance RBI said that they cannot make policy decisions relying on the data provided by the government as they are facing severe headwinds on multiple fronts because of the erroneous data published by the government-from advance estimates of GDP to revisions in industrial production (IIP) numbers to the preference of WPI over CPI as the measure for inflation.

Further RBI stated that if the data released by the government is inaccurate then the policy drafted by the central bank may turn out to be suboptimal, though the figures are seen with suspicion, but in the absence of any other alternative, they have to work with unreliable numbers.

In February 2010, the advance estimate for GDP growth for 2009-10 was pegged at 6.8%. Three months later, this was revised to 7.7% while in February 2011, the quick estimates pegged it at 9.1%-a change of over 40% within a year. This sort of projections fails to give analysts and policy makers the true state of the economy apart from hampering policy decisions.

Now as RBI has raised this issue probably the decision makers will address this with little bit of seriousness.

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Chasing dreams on a Jet !!

I’m enthusiastic risk taker; I love to speculate and want to deal in everything that is traded. My love and appetite for risk has many times put me in situation where I had touched the proximity to bankruptcy, but this has not killed my desire to trade, speculate and bet on many things. Even after Having close shaves to bankruptcy many time I trade with whatever little kitty I accumulate with time. I see my future in future contracts and that’s the reason I love futures.

I have never met with windfall profits in trade rather my trades largely ended with windfall loss; it’s not an intelligent approach to speculate/trade when the results are making one poorer with each passing day, but this don’t deter me. I’m sure some day the trade approach will strike the right cord and cover all the losses incurred.

Profit and loss are part of business and might be because of this intrinsic risk-rewards businesses have profit and loss accounts, Though trading is not my business nor my profession but I desire to adopt it as my business and profession.

All who are in business understands that loss is the baseline and everyone tries to float above the baseline. As entrepreneur I know the baseline, risks and want to float above the baseline. Am I an entrepreneur? Well I don’t know.

As a trader I don’t wish to have business boundaries and as every entrepreneur wishes to have pan global presence, I wish to trade globally. Trading only in Indian bourses alone doesn’t satisfy my risk appetite; as in a day if one of the trades goes wrong there is hardly any room for further negotiation. I have encountered many such situations, though there are many hedging tools to preserve one’s interest, but the ground reality is that any of the hedging positions doesn’t gives you profit; it only safeguards your capital and prevent further loses.

It is a day-dream if I could have a private jet, I would have started my trading from Japan/ Hong Kong then moved to India placed my orders; by afternoon I would landed to Europe; traded there and by night moved to US to place my orders.

I would have preferred to take rest only on Saturdays and Sundays and during the course of my journey. By Monday, before I start my journey from Japan my accounts team would have given me the status of my profit accounts so that I fuel up my jet for the next week journey.

Though the dream has to come true, but a development which I have learnt and happening is that NSE is planning to start S&P 500 and DOW future trading, which gives me an indication that trading in US futures will be a reality now. Intricacies of that trades are yet to be understood but I also wish that all other futures also become available at Indian terminals.

I also wish that my bigger dream of having own jet become true, as that being the ultimate goal; implicit to which is that if I’m able to afford jet then I’m a billionaire… J and that’s what I, as an individual want to be…

Only Millions don’t charm me, what attracts me is millions of millions…!!!

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