Unity in Adversity

A terror attack has again been unsuccessfully averted. Political heads have rolled. Indians have expressed a spectrum of emotions from angst to desperation. And Pakistan buckling under pressure from US (and apparently India too), ostensibly seems to be in hot pursuit of its home-grown terrorists. At the end of the day, unimaginable and irrevocable damage has been done to the lives of many a people. Lets temporarily pause here and shift our attention to another problem plaguing the world currently - 'financial whatsoever'. When the bubble first burst, I was frustrated as to how the 'financial wizards' could have committed such a blatant blunder. But as the sun kept rising and setting, the frustration has turned into awe as to how the crisis can transmit itself across the global without any loss of information (networking at its best!!). Everything under the sun seems to be affected, to the extent that having a job by itself could make you the most eligible bachelor in town. So these two adverse scenarios set me pondering if there was anything positive that might pop out?The fact that countries across the globe irrespective of their ethnicity, geography and economy are falling prey to stateless extremists, gives them an opportunity to group under a common umbrella to shield themselves. The sharing of intelligence, joint counter-terrorism exercises and joint monitoring operations could infuse some sort of good-will between nations. A fine example is how the US and NATO forces have come to depend heavily on Pakistan to purge the Talibans out of Afghnaistan. In the same way, Pakistan feels the urge to engage with India to wrest its country free off the same terrorists which it had surreptitiously trained to be used against India. When US was feeling the heat of insurgents in Iraq, it vaguely hinted at seeking the help of Iran with whom it had severed all diplomatic ties since 1979. On similar lines, the financial downturn has elicited an unequivocal consensus that only a concerted action by world nations can rescue us out of this carnage. The egos of developed countries has been severely dented and they are looking up to developing countries like China and India to play a key part in their rescue. Infact economists have been suggesting that China can play a key role in rescuing the US financial system by lending $500 bn from its huge forex reserve of $1800bn. Similarly developing countries like India which have an 'outsourcing' economy, need a buoyant economy in the US, EU and other developed countries. Russia with its 'petro' economy is also wary of the global recession as oil prices are plummeting with declining demand. A lot of relationships that are forged now might be symbiotic, but we can hope the positives that come out of these associations enthuse nations to carry the camaraderie forward.
Mother Earth also for its part provides us with frequent opportunities to unify ourselves in the face of natural disasters. But at the end of the day if such crises and disasters fail to motivate us towards a common goal of universal harmony, you can only wait for divine intervention. And people like me have to wait for some extra-terrestrial intervention.

Lonely at the top.....

It is getting pretty lonely at the top these days. And if you want to know how boring and melancholic it is to be alone at the top, ask Sachin or Roger or Tiger. But it wasn't like this always. Few years ago a lot of my friends were performing at the top most level and there was a lot of healthy competition between us. As we grew older, the going got tougher and the pressures and anxieties started building up. A lot of my friends were not able to stand up to these adverse conditions and they slowly started fading away. And even those guys who supposedly were smarter than me weren't able to compete at such dizzy heights and succumbed to the pressures. Luckily for me since my fundamentals were strongly rooted, I was able to stand up to these challenges and perform better than them. At one level I am happy that I have been able to stand the test of time but at another level I am missing all the fun I used to have with my friends. And with every passing day I am not very sure if I can withstand the crescendoing stress levels. But it is very pertinent that I hold my nerves together and somehow cling on to the top slot. Else it might leave the author completely bald!!

As cribbed by the lonely hair follicle in the above narrative, the author has not become so progressively bald. But it dreads this might be the case soon.

Honey, where’s our money???

Looks like I too have joined the bandwagon of writers who have taken advantage of the financial crisis to hog some internet space. But then the crisis is real and so are the fears and the critiques. Also this is not a conscious effort to pen down something, rather something that stuck me genuinely. This is more about the lucky few who still have some savings to worry about, rather than the unlucky many who saw theirs vanish at the speed of the crisis which seems to travel around the globe in few seconds. So what should these ‘few’ do with their hard earned money?
Well, I would be considered extremely insane even if I remotely thought of stocks as an option. They seem to be the most capricious entity man ever invented. These days the sensex seems to be responding to every other thing happening in any remote corner of the world (Globalization!!). And for many, the stock market has been the perpetual reminder of the existence of Murphy’s Law. If you thought of outsourcing the risks involved in stock trading to the Masters of the Universe (read as Fund Managers), the financial crisis has showed they have been living altogether in another universe. They have been taking pride in inventing esoteric financial instruments and testing them with lesser mortals’ (atleast that’s what they have been thinking about us till now) money. But the recent crisis has seriously dented their narcissism. So if we move from Wall Street (or Dalal Street) to the Main Street (read as Commercial banks), the situation looks to be no better. Traditionally these banks were considered to be more immune to such turmoils than the investment banks. But to a large extent this immunity has also been breached as is evident now.
Now if we thought of getting back to time tested investment avenues like real estate, gold etc even these are not always sticky up and are prone to the vagaries of the market dynamics. Atlast after considering (or rather unconsidering) all these options, the best choice seems to be to hoard our hard earned money with ourselves. But in that case a larger crisis looms in the form of ‘wife’, who can convert the money into her wishes at hitherto unknown speeds. So why don’t we ourselves spend off all the money we earned, rather than someone doing it at our cost? Or if someone has a better idea of how to invest money, you could do a world of good by sharing it with us.

ENGINEERING A SUPERPOWER

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With the disintegration of USSR well under the way, UK and France still reeling from their World War wounds and Japan pursuing pacifist ideologies, USA was cruising along as the sole superpower for almost two decades since late 80's. But during this period there were some significant tectonic movements in the geopolitical landscape of Asia. On one side, the Chinese were rapidly and steadily building an empire founded on an oxymoronic ideologue of political communism and economic liberalism. On the other side, Russia was exorcising the disintegration demons of Mother Russia under the dynamic and assertive stewardship of Vladimir Putin, with the abundant natural resources at its disposal. And our own India was starting to reap the benefits of the demographic seeds it had sown for a long time - courtesy economic liberalization and IT revolution. And now the stage has been set for an intriguing battle of superpowers.

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If becoming a superpower is a politico-economic feat, sustaining it is an engineering one, though not in the literal sense. When a nation is evolving into a superpower, it develops quality infrastructure, optimally utilizes national and international resources and attains socio-economic supremacy. But once there, it starts hogging into global resources and exerting its influence on global political scenarios to maintain and assert its hegemony. And to do this, it sets in motion many Machiavellian endeavors (which the esoteric political scientists seem to decipher only when its well and over). And the pioneer of such “engineering” attempts has been our Uncle Sam. If its botched attempts to assassinate Castro was to undermine communism, then the war on Iraq and its ardent support of Saudi Arabia are to quench its thirst for oil. Even the much touted Indo-US nuclear deal is suspected of some hidden foreign policy agenda. But if there is one political goal that it has pursued steadfastly, it is to undermine the supremacy of USSR (and now Russia). From the 70's race for outer space to arming the Afghan mujahideens against the Soviet forces to the expansion of NATO, the US think-tank is more concerned about eurasian politics than its one. Even the recent Georgian crisis seems to have been maneuvered by US (atleast to some Russian parliamentarians). And many of these political misadventures have come back to haunt the US and also the world at large. The recent economic downturn has its roots in the Iraq war and the Islamist terrorism had its progeny in the hegemonic Middle East policies of US. So its the world which is paying for the misdemeanors of Uncle Sam. Not a worthy engineering pursuit, looks like.

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Those halcyon summers.....

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—

With school and college days well behind us and a long career ahead of us, these immortal lines by W.H.Davies are very much relevant during this phase of our life. So I decided to derive some nostalgic pleasure by recollecting some of those bygone days. There used to be a pocket of two months during school days when life took a dramatic U-turn - all play and no work. Its that time of that year when children think parents have no moral authority to decide what they should be doing. And it's a luxury you got only till the age of eighteen. Well, who can forget those sunny, carefree and fun-filled summer vacations....

There are many harbingers of these pleasant days. The mercury starts soaring mercilessly and juicy mangoes and rotund watermelons start populating the fruit stalls. With annual exams in full swing and summer holidays just around the corner, there is that familiar mix of apprehension and excitement gripping our hearts. Also school bags take an all new dimension and books give way to writing pads – which gets improvised into a cricket bat. And once the annual exams get over it's the start of a literal merry-go-round (As a ritual I used to throw my bag to a corner of the house after the last exam, metaphorising freedom from the clutches of studying).

As every summer set in, I used to promise myself long hours of sleep during the holidays. But somehow sleep never had a sense of occasion. When I was intently burning the midnight lamp, there it would arrive unannounced. But when I had all the time in the world to do nothing, it never yawned on me. Anyway with cousins who would come down for holidays and friends equally ready to relish the holidays, there were lot of other interesting things to do than sleep. We used to have a wide spectrum of games to chose from. Sometimes it was a game of hide 'n' seek with its myriad nomenclatures. Though simple in its conception it can easily make for a lot of fun-filled moments. The way we scrambled in search of a hideout turning every nook and corner of the house into one are still fresh in my memory. Some other times it was another of those time tested games. If we were indoors then it was one of those ingenious board games. And for those more in love with the cyber world than the real one, there were the computer games.

Though some of these games lost favor as we grew up, one game still remains close to our heart. With the streets turning into a boiling cauldron and moms yelling to get indoors, playing cricket was never going to be easy. But the love for the game that has become part of our genome code due to natural evolution ensured we spent long hours in the boiling sun. I still remember how we roamed our locality armed with bats and balls in search of another game of cricket. And as the sun was signing off for the day draping the sky in an orange splendor, we prolonged the plays as long as an iota of light was available.

Apart from playing, the leisurely mood of the summer holidays is a propitious time for catching up with novels. The vicarious pleasure derived by journeying into the fictitious worlds of "The Hardy Boys" or "Three Investigators" or our very own "Swami and his friends" is something every bibliophile will cherish for eternity. And no summers can be complete without paying a visit to our good old granny. Granny's place were always a breeding ground for fun 'n' frolic because it was a conclave of relatives and also we where away from the scrutinizing eyes of our dad. Hmm... How I wish I never grew up....

Irregularity saves the day!!

Warning : This article is a product of my random thought. So don't mind the insanity....

If there is one trait of mine that makes me hate myself the most, then that has to be my irregularity. Its not that I worried about it much, but people around me seemed to be affected by it a lot - one of the shortcomings of being a social animal! My non-systematic approach to life had cost me a lot. In-fact in hindsight I think I would have achieved more – it’s another thing that I have not achieved anything yet - if only I hadn’t been as irregular as I was, am and will be (Old habits die hard). In short, regularity and systematic working is one of those traits that still keeps evading me.

But as nothing is eternally good in this world, so is regularity too. And this discovery came from a very unlikely source - Hollywood movies. A lot of guys will be familiar with a genre of Hollywood movies that deals with some kind of heist like The Great Train Robbery, Rififi, The Great escape et.al. The most riveting part of such movies is the immaculate planning that goes into pulling out the heist. And the entire planning takes advantage of the systematic routine that is embedded in the target environment. Now you should be knowing where I am arriving at. Yes exactly there. It struck me as very ironical that a trait that is so much desired seems to have a shortcoming. So guys anyone planning to run a bank or start a jewelry boutique, remember to operate your venture in a non-systematic manner!!