Return...

What is it about past that imbues it with such purity and beauty ? And why is it that present is always spent miserably, in dread of the future and in painful reverie reminiscing of things colored beyond recognition by my fantastic sub-conscious...always plotting and planning to escape the humdrum and mundane that is today and was in all probability yesterday. With me, it has always been difficult to deal with the present - I like ghosts, they tread lightly and their company is not demanding - no weight of expectation for they are beyond redemption...and they keep changing ever so subtly to fit in with my moods. May be that's why I had put you to sleep. But now I am waking you up, braced for another confrontation with reality - the here and now.

The homemaker and the exotic beauty

You see that pretty young thing, fall head-over-heels in love with her and have a romantic passionate affair. You decide she is the one , pop the question, she - the level headed practical girl that she is - thinks and decides you would be a good, reliable companion for life. Follow wedding and kids. Soon, regularity creeps in. You look at her, she is still beautiful but she reminds you of your mother now. She is your homemaker. You wake up in the morning, and you immediately look at the small stool beside the bed - there it is ! your morning tea just as you like it with the newspaper carefully folded and put beside it. You come back from the office, tired as hell and there she is ready with the magic wand to take your weariness away. But you are bored now. You snap at her. You find her tendency to shower excessive attention irritating. Yes, she reminds you of your mother. Then one day, you see this ravishing beauty. She has a mysterious allure, she is exciting. You are smitten. Follows a tempestuous affair. You are careful though. There ought not to be any tell-tale signs. You are having the time of your life. Then, one day you are asked to make a choice. The homemaker and the exotic beauty. The mother of your kids and the exciting, adventurous lady. The faint creases and the flawless skin. The determined eyes and the deep, alluring ones. The strong pallu-covered shoulders and the naked ones below the long, slender neck. What would you choose ? I know what I would.

Running (or probably just rambling)

It happened when I saw Prof. Saurav Mukherjee jogging. Prof. Mukherjee is a teacher in the Organizational Behavior area at IIMB. My association with him goes back to the time when he took my CAT interview. Flashback:

Prof. Mukherjee : "You seem to be an idealist"

I (in an extremely combative frame of mind) :"Appearances can be deceptive"

Prof. Mukherjee : "Are you sure you can survive the cut-throat and often dirty competition at IIMB without compromising your principles?"

I: "Since when did lack of scruples become a qualification ?"

I got through IIMB (needless to say to my great surprise). I later realized I must have done well too, for I was shortlisted for AVB scholarships, which means, I was among the top 20 students joining IIMB based on the written and interview stages of CAT2004.

I met Prof. Mukherjee again as a teacher in the first term. I learnt he was an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur. I learnt he had given up an extremely lucrative job to join academia where he felt his heart lay. The term saw numerous arguments between Prof. Mukherjee and me. He never seemed to be irked by my argumentativeness. He commented once about how toppers from IIT, used to a very quantitative / engineering kind of thought process, found it difficult to adjust in a qualitative, ambiguous course like MBA. I passed his course with a 3.82 on 4 which, for those strange to the grading process at IIMB, is quite good.

By this time, I was smitten by Prof. Mukherjee.

Now, recently even as I was dismayed by my propensity to tuck in a blob of fat or two wherever it seemed ugly, I noticed that Prof. Mukherjee was shedding weight with a briskness that almost (but not quite) equalled the alacrity with which Miss Sherawat sheds clothes. And then I saw Prof. Mukherjee running.

Here, as predictable as Sharukh Khan in a Karan Johar tearjerker, I started running. And I surprised myself. I mean, who would have thought that I, who had scratched his back once or twice in the name of physical exercise, could run well. It seems I have good stamina when it comes to running and I can run quite far.

I feel extremely nice after running. The dull throbbing ache in my legs long after I have spent myself and the shooting pain in stomach as my lungs scramble to gasp in oxygen when I have stopped give me immense pleasure. I wonder why I can run so much. Is it because I feel liberated when I run or is it because I have found another way to inflict, however temporarily, pain on my body ? May be its a bit of both. Maybe, it is because I am so bored these day, that I would do anything to pass time. Most probably, it is because running allows me to set newer (farther) goals and feel the flush of pleasure as I achieve them everyday. Or may be its because I like the wet, tingling sweat trickle down my neck and beads perspiration form on my flush hot face. Who cares what it is!!

My IIT and the IIM

The other day the MD of my desk introduced me as a graduate of IIT and not as an IIM student. I was vaguely pleased. Since then, I have confirmed my hypothesis that there is more awareness about the IITs than about the IIMs. ( This one gentleman on the trading floor, upon being informed that I am from an IIT commented "The one that is better than the MIT!!" Anyway, as I said, I am vaguely and childishly pleased whenever the superiority of the IIT brand over the IIM brand is affirmed. And this has made me wonder why ? Perhaps, because IIT was the result of a youthful dream of "being someone" and not of the mercenary motivation of "being rich" , perhaps because IIT gave me my first identity, perhaps because IIT is where I met some of the most intelligent kids I have met (and I cannot say the same of the IIM). I do not know why but IIT has become a part of me while I look at IIMB from the outside as a detached observer. Perhaps, IIT has the lifelong charm that one's first love has for one. Or, perhaps, I resent the hype that the coverage that the IIMs attract becaus of their placements . It is like IIT Kharagpur is my poor, unsung family and IIM Bangalore the rich family that "I have adopted".I sincerely hope that by the time I pass out I start loving IIM Bangalore more. For I sincerely believe that It has give me much - as much, if not more, than IIT Kharagpur.

What have I been doing in London

In the last post I tried to list some of the things that I have learned from the internship in Citigroup. Let me list out in this post what I have been doing outside work in this period.

• took an open bus tour of London ---> a great concept; you can hop on and off the bus and visit many places in a day; had a ball with Arjun; our first day out in London and I was smitten by the city and its heritage
• visited National Gallery ---> one of the best art galleries in the world featuring works of all the great painters; given my lack of interest in and appreciation of the nuances of a painting as well as the Biblical associations of the painitngs which I could not relate to, this visit is just a point on the "resume"
• Imperial War Museum ---> High point; amazing, cannot be covered in a day
• Natural History Museum, Science Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum ---> London is a city of museums and they cannot be missed
• London zoo ---> a disappointment, the ones back home are much better
• Watched "The Phantom of the Opera" in Her Majesty's Theatre---> My first musical play performance and an unforgettable experience, highest point of the stay
• Saw Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square at night ---> London at night is extremely different from the one in the day; it's lively, it's joyous, it's vibrant
• London Eye --> Disappointing

I have bought a very nice Samsung Digimax A 7 camera and an Ipod Nano.

I have had various things and

--> the Crispy Creme Doughnuts are amazing

--> I hate the cold sandwiches

--> the wraps here are delicious; my favourites being spicy tuna, cajun chicken and paaprika chicken

--> I have had more coffee here than in my lifetime and they, unlike me, like their coffee strong and sugarless here

--> Portuguese food is spicy and delicious

--> tha Thai and Chinese food we have at home are quite different from the ones you find here

Steep Learning Curve

In the last six weeks (of the internship at Citigroup, London) I have

• learned that Investment Banking is very different from what I thought it was
• learned that the trading floor ( the Fixed Income trading floor commonly called the 2nd floor in Citigroup) has more than 2000 people of more than 100 nationalities
• learned that the Black-Scholes model of valuing options is the most important model in Investment banking sales and trading
• learned that Black-Scholes is not good enough but the best
• become conversant with the Greek letters and know that you must know the alpha, amma, theta and vega of your derivatives
• learned that there are the vanilla options and then there are the exotics - barrier, chooser, asian, rainbow, quantos, best of n, knock-in, knock-out
• learned swaps, swaptions, caps, floors, collars
• learned asset swaps, securitization, repackaging, credit default swaps, collateralized debt/loan/bong/mortgage obligations, single tranche portfolios, first to default baskets
• learned you try and trade all kinds of risks - interest rate, forex, volatility, credit
• come to know there is delta hedging, there is gamma hedging
• learned that there is static hedging, there is dynamic hedging
• learned constant portfolio protection insurance, option based portfolio protection insurance
• learned what hedge funds are and what their strategies are to generate alpha

And I have been paid 960 pounds per week to learn all that and more that I am sure I have missed out and many that cannot be put in black and white.

Amazing, aint it?

Thank You Songs

These have been my friends - true friends through thick and thin. With me in the darkest days of my life. I have lain in bed, lights switched off, eyes closed, listening to these, transported away from my worries and problems. In a world where sadness is sweet and lovely. But then when is sadness not sweet and lovely. Some songs (in Jagjit Singh's pristine voice) that have never failed to touch me. The songs I have lived.

Dhuaan uthaa thaa divaane ke jalate ghar se saarii raat

lekin vo khaamosh rahe duniyaa ke dar se saarii raat

(When I fought and lost)

Kaanton ki chubhan paayi

phoolon ka maza bhi

Dil dard ke mausam me

roya bhi hasan bhi

(Last year's romance with Kolkata, my season of pain and sweet memories)

Tere vaade par jiye hum

to ye jaan jhoot jaana

ki khushi se mar na jate

agar aitbaar hota

Ye na thi hamari kismat

ki bisaale yaar hota

(The promise of truth and purpose that is yet to be and perhaps never to be realized)

Unke dekhe se jo chehre pe aa jati hai raunak

wo samajhte hain ki beemar ka haal accha hai

Humko maaloom hai jannat ki haqueequat lekin

dil ke khush rakhne ko Ghaalib ye khayaal accha hai

(Ghalib's poetry, Jagjit's voice and my feelings better than I can put them)

Thank you songs!!

About London

I have been remarkably silent about London on this blog....well may be not because I am mostly silent here and remarkable are the few times I decide to write something. Not that I dont have things towrite about, they are plenty. Its just that they are disjointed, random thoughts that I find very difficult to synthesise into a well structured, coherent essay. There have been so many occasions in the recent past when I have started apost and then crapped it midway. On most of those occasions, I felt midway that the posts were coming out contrived and not nearly as natural and fluent as when they were thoughts in my mind. Anyway this is another feeble attemp at describing my experiences in London.

Let me start by saying that what I attempt to do below is not a description of the city. It is beyond my limited abilities as a writer. What follow are my feelings about London and my experiences.

London, cliched as it may sound, is a complex organism. I sit on a trading floor where I have met more Indians and French than the British. And that is London for you. Travel in the tube, walk down the streets, enter the various shops and the one thing that strikes you between the eye is the mind-boggling diversity. It is as if the city assimilates everything. When I go to shop for food in the the department stores, I find packaged food catering to many nationalities. I could not believe it when I first saw rotis, papads, pulao and various other Indian food available in plenty. And this sort of variety is true for other cuisines too - Chinese, Thai, Moroccan - you name it.

Another thing I have noticed here is how well dressed most people here are. May be that is because I live in one of the most expensive areas of the city what will all thebanks around. However in my various forays outside Canary Wharf (the splendidly prosperous and therefore mind-numbingly drab locality where I am put up), I have observed that people here are very careful about there dresses and keep themselves very nattily attired. And they are very well mannered too.So, you keep getting surprised by these "thank you"s and "sorry" directed at you from out of the blue for no apparent reason. And while it is pleasing, it makes you wonder how people can be so polite all the times. Compare that with Kolkata where people manage to be rude most of the times without any reason. (May be it is the weather in Kolkata!). This manners are ingrained in people here. What it also implies is that these words soon become meaningless out of being used to death. And people just grunt out these false expressions of gratitude and regret mechanically. I have been advised by a few to take the praise from the English (rather the Europeans as a whole) with a pinch of salt for very often they are just platitudes; and be alert for crticisms for they will be expressed rather subtly and will more often than not be cloaked.

There is not the great divide that one finds in my country India. While there are very rich people, and the not-so-rich people, I haven't really seen a very poor guy around. I mean even the beggars here seem quite well fed and dressed with dignity. You will normally find beggars in the tube-station subways and they would usually be playing some musical instrument. Most people here have got the right to live with dignity unlike India where many live and indeed die in wretched animal conditions.

There are other things about London that may be worthwhile mentioning. However, I am feeling sleepyand its always a long day here. So, I'd better go to sleep. (Also i am bored of writing this.)

Good night!!

Daadi Ma aur Gaon aur Bihar aur bahut kuch…..Jadheen

(Please ignore the mistakes – grammatical or otherwise. The following will remain unedited)

LONDON, 12:00 A.M

I have been trying to sleep but cannot. Faded, dusty images keep forming and reforming themselves, reminding me of a past not too distant yet very far – history disowning me, taunting me with amorphous, hazy images that wring my heart with nostalgia so deep it hurts. An old woman, very weak, drained of all life looks at me with strange eyes. I can’t make out that look on her ancient face criss-crossed with creases -signs of the passage of time. Is it pleading or surprised? It is lonely for sure. Are those betrayed promises in her eyes? Or is it fear of the night that is soon to come and then never go away – no more dawns, just the eternal night with its all enveloping darkness where she will not be seen nor heard. Perhaps it is just sadness – deep, profound sadness; perhaps she too is thinking of the past like me – of a long gone youth. Of a young 14 year girl, married into a large family…….

Chacha Ji called today. “Do you remember me ?” “what!! Ofcou…” My voice sounding strange to me. A very fair, handsome man. Doting Chacha Ji. Bhaiya is crying, clamoring for attention – the eldest child – had after many mannats. “Somebody, look at gelha also”. I stare at him with the mute gratitude of a two-year old. Gelha – Kabootar ka baccha – the young one of a pigeon.

Really dusty village – Mangwaar. I faintly remember a pucca house – one of the very few in the village. And the mango orchard with machaans where ghosts resided. Anchu bua – What was I then, seven ? I had a huge crush on her. She is no longer that beautiful and I have never had any crush since.

We would come to Mangwaar in Holis and Dussehras. In Papa’s government jeep. And urchins would start running behind as the jeep neared the village, trying to touch the jeep. Mummy would drive them away and I would look at them receding with wonder – not, as I do now, with sympathy at their barely clad emaciated bodies.

“Daadi shapath?” We could not swear on Daadi and lie. Or she would die. “Who do you love more ? Mummy or Daadi?” “Daadi!!” three voices in unison. And a pair of flashing eyes, somebody got up and walked away. Sounds of laughter all around. When there were fights between Daadi Ma and Mummy, the three of us would form a ring around Daadi – to protect her and she would hug us.

Mangwaar has electricity now. Four hours every day. And our pucca makaan has a toilet. I am relieved to see that. I don’t have to take a lota and go to the fields to defecate. Though, I am told the toilet is chiefly for the ladies. The men still use the open spaces.

The mango machaans are no longer there. The ghosts have been evicted. I wonder where they reside now.

The woods are thinner. And there he is – I hate him. We call him Kutil Baba. All children dislike him – he has a habit of showering affection by tweaking the ears sharply – very painful. He is bent now and walks with a stick.

Its been 4 years since I saw Daadi Ma. The accident has rendered her immobile. Now she just sits in a corner, staring at the kitchen with vacant eyes. The kitchen used to be her domain. She had worked all her life and now..

“Can I bring you some khaini Daadi?” She nods her head pleased.

St. Xaviers – roundabout the time Mummy took ill. And Daadi left to live with Chaacha Ji. All her life she had lived with us and now…

St. Xaviers has a huge library. Agatha Christie’s novels and those afternoons…Mummy would seat us in chairs in the sun in winters. I and “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” – 8 A.M to 4 P.M….the book is about to finish and my pace has increased to the point where I am barely reading the sentences – just registering the story. Can’t wait to get involved with lengthy sentences, I can smell the murderer – should I just look at the last page.

The Father’s quarters is very peaceful and serene. When I come early, I can catch Father Horan pacing in front of his quarter with a book in his hand – he has a habit of walking and reading. “I want to become a Jesuit Father”, I had confided to Harsha.

You know how I landed in a hostel in standard three? I and Bhaiya. It was all his fault. Or the cap’s fault – the fateful Mr. India cap that we bought after watching the show from stolen money during school hours or “what went for a school” hours. Two or three huts, open sky – to get enrolled, you could come and start attending classes under the sky. And we met Papa on the way back – our topis nicely tilted and Papa looking incredulously at them. Off we were – bag and baggage.

So, there she is. Looking at me and I cant bear her scrutiny. She isn’t the loving old Daadi Ma. She is demanding answers now. Or may be I am just imagining like Macbeth.

Mangwaar –> Madhupur –> Birpur –> Hazaribag –> Patna –> IIT Kharagpur –> Kolkata –> IIM Bangalore –> London.

Where are you from?

Guilty as charged – rootless.
No Chacha Ji….You are right – I don’t remember you.

My first year at IIT Kharagpur – a Bihari, proud to be one and passionate about it. Very unsophisticated – a guy who had learned English by reading a lot of books. Very few people had read as much time. He had had time what with Mummy’s illness. Couldn’t speak properly, but wouldn’t take time to learn.

Very sophisticated. From the best of colleges in India. IIT, IIM. A potential Investment Banker. “Pseude” –yes the right word for me. Sometimes the worst of places throw the best of words. Now, can’t speak English nor write. Am in the country of English and find myself woefully inadequate. Can’t speak Hindi either. All those creative writing prizes in Hindi a souvenir or the days gone by when I was a Bihari. Now, I am no longer a Bihari. When is the last time I visited Bihar or thought about it? Can’t speak Bihari or act like one.

No, not a Bihari, nor a Bengali nor a Kannadiga – A creature of the metropolis. Everyone speaks their own language here. I have my own – a curious mixed accent – A mixture of Bihari and English and Lucknowi and IIT KGP lingo and….

I am not rootless because I am in London. I am rootless in Bangalore too.

And whose is that weathered old face peering at me through squinted eyes from the depths of my dream – Daadi Ma of course. But why does she not recognize me? She is calling out in Maithili. Now, how do you respond in Maithili?

The other day, the French guy on my desk, asked me – “How do you bid good bye in Hindi?” I am blank. What the heck..of course we say something…”we say good bye”. “But, that is English”. “No, that is what we speak…it’s a mixture of languages”. Is it Alvida. That is Urdu I suppose.

No, I can’t visit Jogbani. It is a small town and very far. No flights there, not even trains..well there are trains but only local trains..and I hate local trains. Infact nowadays I can’t even travel in an A.C compartment. Its got to be flight or the place is inaccessible. No, I know Daadi – you are immobile. Too bad, for I am too. I need to be carried in plane.

Don’t look at me like that. I don’t recognize you.

I will close all the gates. Who left the doors open? I always shut then when I go to sleep for it is then that I am most vulnerable. No, I will shove them all in their respective compartments, banish them to the inner recesses where they were for so long. I need a stronger lock. Or May be I need to change houses. Lock them all up.

Its useless. Its too late.

Guilty as charged. Rootless

I am in a rut....

and I know it

After A Long Time

Hi there! I know I have been missing a long time. But I am back and this time for long (or so I hope). This blog was created to feature some of the outputs of those moments of inspiration. Evidently, there weren’t many. The modern education system has, I discovered, added me to its list of victims, sapped the creative juices of my brain. The left brain has completed its conquest of the right brain; it requires far too much of an effort to be creative and the effort shows. Thus, the long silence.

I am breaking this silence however. Since January, when I last posted, things have changed considerably. And so have my needs. Then I had the company of my best friend, always ready with a friendly ear to listen, a sympathetic shoulder to cry on and a helpful hand to lend. Alas, I have these comforts no more. Time has sundered us. He is still my closest companion, yet we are separated by a journey of two nights by train or a neat sum of five thousand by plane. I have not the two nights, nor the five thousand rupees. And so I revive this blog, untended and ignored for the last few months – this time not as a recorder of my flashes of creativity but as a faithful listener to my periodic rantings and outpourings of thought. It is going to be my companion in this journey that has recently begun and seems so long and lonely.

And so I revive this blog, untended and ignored for the last few months – this time not as a recorder of my flashes of creativity but as a faithful listener to my periodic rantings and outpourings of thought. It is going to be my companion in this journey that has recently begun and seems so long and lonely.

Here’s to your reincarnation my friend.

p.s. The journey that I am alluding to began four days ago when I joined IIM Bangalore, one of the premier B-schools of India. I will write about my experiences here, during this brief period, in the subsequent post.