True Master

Dev D

Dev D generates extreme reactions from the audience. The first part delivers the shock value, mostly through its suggestive dialogues and explicit sexual overtones. The second part just lets you languish in the pain of contrasting lights which do not blend with superb background score. There appears to be have been more focus on the form than the substance itself. But its definitely worth a watch. Emosanal Atyachaar, Pardesi and Nayan Tarse are the songs that you should have on your playlist this season!

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

If not for the overhyped Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button should have been more than just a second best for the Best Picture this Oscars. This movie is one that will pack a punch. You will love it. We have not had one like this since Forrest Gump changed the way we saw our lives!

Frost/Nixon

Narrative revolves the first post Watergate interview given by Richard Nixon to David Frost. Frank Langella's as "under-fire" Richard Nixon is absolutely brilliant. But the movie is slow. I fell asleep for a brief 2-minute period during the movie. Since the story is largely fact based leaving little room for manoeuvring the script, its the lead performances that really need to stand out and they do. My bet is on Frank Langella for an Oscar.

While I was traveling to Bangalore this weekend, a cab rammed into my bus from the rear. However, no major damage happened to either the cab or the driver. But the bus driver needed an FIR to prove to KSRTC that he was not responsible for the damage from the accident and the cab driver also needed it to prove that he was not responsible either. The funny part followed. The police arrived and an FIR was filled in on the spot. Just when the bus driver was ready to sign the sheet, some intelligent soul remarked that he should not sign the document because he did not understand the language in which FIR was filled - Tamil. The bus driver knew only Kannada and Telugu. The  cab driver knew only Tamil and the police knew English in addition to Tamil. The ACP (Traffic Police) who arrived on the scene blankly said that Tamil Nadu police has FIR template only in Tamil and no other language. With great difficulty a passenger procured a blank sheet of paper and wrote the details of the incident in English and explained the same, verbatim, to both the drivers. I really find it silly that police department cannot have an FIR template, at least in English. I am not sure if other state police departments in the country also maintain such records - especially the ones that are regularly required by the normal citizen, only in their state language. At least, in this particular case, the details were simple and factual and hence easily explainable. I wonder how more complicated situations are handled.

The US economy has officially entered into a recession, according to NBER data. Home mortgage originations have badly shrunk over the last one year. Looks like credit cards are the next bicycle in the stand. Banks have already started withholding credit for many users. Given that two-thirds of the US credit card landscape is occupied by 5 banks (JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, Capital One and Amex), card users stand to lose a lot of their bargaining power going forward, as banks reduce their lending. Credit card related problems are expected to have full blown impact on the end consumer only by mid 2010. With job losses and further shrinkage in credit card driven liquidity, the end does not seem near for the credit crisis.

I am totally opposed to batting power plays in cricket that are being tried out in the current India - England one day series. For all the talk of making the game less batsmen friendly, this is not a good idea. But ICC can do with some more rules that can add spice to the game and bring back the lost charm:

1. Trial Ball - Batsman will have an option of calling any one ball a 'trial ball'; one such ball per team per innings. Will extend the innings of guys like Chattergoon by one more ball!
2. One bounce catch - Michael Clarke & Ricky Ponting would love this! Practised all over India, one 'tipp' (bounce) one hand catches will save mental bandwidth of guys like Munaf Patel who think twice before attempting a daredevil simple catch.
3. Have only two stumps instead of three. Anything that goes between off stump and leg stump will obviously be hitting middle, whether it physically exists or not. This will help save wood. The next Green Idea!
4. Another green idea - do not use bails. Consign them to ashes. Wicket keepers anyway break the stumps without any regard for the poor, un-threatening life of a bail. Why have it? Many an unlucky bowler has not found his wicket when a stubborn bail decided to stay put on the stump. This will also help the TV umpires on run out decisions - one less decision variable to consider.

Its kinda depressing these days. All this talk of recession and job losses, is not good hearing. Life is at a standstill. Last time the world faced a problem, I was doing my engineering with campus placements still 3 years away. Life seemed much better then. All I had to worry about was attending classes and eating and playing and studying. Thats it. Its during times like these that you feel ignorance is a god-send bliss. Back in 2001-02, no one had heard about the Lehmans, GS, JPM etc. Now I am sure these names strike a chord with villagers in this country. Problem is with selective understanding of issues. Neither fully aware nor fully ignorant. Since there is so much to know and assimilate with so little time, its easier to stay ignorant. World would have more confidence in its own ability to survive.

Its also times like these that you really love to have a heart-to-heart talk with someone who understands you well. Intelligent conversations can really brighten up your day! I am trying hard to have those. I am imposing contrived intellectualism on mundane events to make them look enticing.

Somehow, short term incentives are looking very appealing; which is completely antithetical to the times we are living in. But some entities are really inspiring / happiness - inducing : the Bourne Trilogy, Savage Garden, Pomegranate seeds, mom's besan laddus, afternoon naps!

I am on vacation. Not the time of the year you would expect to be on one. But then, two successive Thursdays as holidays and I decided to execute some consolidation on my leave plans. After exactly an year, I made a trip to my hometown  - Dharwad. Nothing at all seems to have been disturbed from its place over the last one year. The roads are just as cramped, trees just as old, the language just as soothing (at least to my ears). But beneath all this, I am sure, people have changed. I have surely changed. Families also have changed. Mine has. I was just probably forcing myself to look at the "statics" in the environment. Actually, things really are not the same compared to the year-ago period!

After all this mess on Wall Street, I have strongly come to believe that the guys at the top of these banks - the executives and all must be made to pay for this. Especially if the Treasury Sec's thinking is, "There has been reckless borrowing and reckless lending", then both the parties must be punished. Putting together a US$1trillion bail out package has burdened each US tax payer by an average amount of US$3000. This is NOT done. What about the AIG chief who happily walked away with close US$10mn pay cheque last week after failing to prevent his firm's collapse? What about Dick Fuld and the honchos at the troubled banks? Shouldering moral responsibility alone will not do. The US government should probably introduce some control over the compensation committees of these banks. Sadly the Fed seems to be more interested in banning short selling on financial stocks. Which again is a regressive step. Just because John Mack (of Morgan Stanley) cries hoarse over the short selling on his company's stock, when his own traders short sold many stocks as a matter of routine during the 'happy years' is simply ridiculous. Interestingly, there is hardly a CEO on Wall Street who has put his hand up during the last one year and agreed to take home a symbolic US$1 as salary.

Friends keep asking me how this crisis has affected my company and my work. So far its been alright. Fortunately, nothing negatively drastic has happened. Though last week, one of my much awaited and 'kick-ass' presentation at work got postponed due to 'prevailing market turmoil'!

* Beijing Olympics were really phenomenal. The way Indians performed, and if they keep doing it across many disciplines, I wonder how many more sports we would have to watch!

* Snoop Dogg rap version in 'Singh is Kinng' is super cool. After the movie, one of my friends, obviously unaware of Snoop Dogg's human form, asked - "Uss gaane mein kutta kahaan tha?" (where was the dog in that song?)

* Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino is a good book. The book delves deep into Japanese mass mentality, the dirty underbelly of its school system and the peer pressure to excel in all fields, no matter how. Though translation from Japanese could have been better, its not as bad as the translation in Paolo Coelho's books.

I watched The Dark Knight last weekend. It is easily one of the best movies I have watched in a really long time. Though I would not say it is the best movie ever made (imdb poll says so). It is just not another super-hero movie. There is intensity, action, drama and philosophy. However, I was a touch disappointed with the length of the movie. You could feel the audience getting a bit edgy in the last 30min of the 2.5hour long movie. Also, some of the scenes, especially the one in which passengers aboard two separate cruise boats are supposed to blow each other up as a part of The Joker's "social experiment" are quite unnecessary. As far as blood, gore and violence is concerned, I found it very tastefully done. Not mindless at all. It was classy. All in all, I think it is a movie not to be missed. It will make you cringe. It will tantalize your senses. It will awe you. Most importantly, it shall make you think - whether you like it or not!

P.S: Heath Ledger as The Joker is insanely phenomenal!

I spent a nice extended weekend at home, which now happens to be in Bangalore. Parents have moved into a new house.
supreetjoshi will realize major cost & emotional synergies!

P.S: Nothing quite like getting back to work from a holiday, when the weekend is just 2 days away!

You must have a look at Blackstone Group's annual report. It is Vanity Fair, Vogue, Conde Nast Traveler, all in one. Financial details are added just as an afterthought.

The names of Private Equity firms follow a set of themes.

For example
- Oceans / water bodies (Texas Pacific, General Atlantic, Silver Lake, Pacific Equity)
- Some terrestrial things (Blackstone, Terra Firma, Summit, Bridgepoint, AlpInvest)
- Mythological names (Cerberus, Pardus, Apollo)
- Trees / plants (Oaktree, Oak Investment)
- Strength (Citadel, Fortress)

The common thread seems to be vastness & stability, to convince people, 'We are here to help you, you are in safe hands'!

    I completed one year at my first job today!

I have been meaning to read Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis for a very long time now. I completed it last week. The book essentially talks about the rise & fall of the US Bond market in the early to mid eighties and how one firm - Salomon Brothers (Michael Lewis was a bond salesman at Salomon London office) made huge sums of money on it. The book is a funny account of the lives of traders & salesmen of Salomon, the boot-licking sycophancy of Salomon and the foolish-yet-kick-ass attitude of the Salomon executives.

To read it in today's times, gives one a sense of deja vu as it was the credit crisis & myopic management that lead to the ultimate collapse of Salomon.

* attractions of the book:
John Gutfreund (King of Wall Street, ex-CEO Salomon)
Larry Fink (the bond king at First Boston in 1980s, recently in CEO race for Merrill Lynch)
John Meriwether (ex-Salomon bond trader, who headed & then beheaded Long Term Capital Management in 1990s)
Michael Milken (Junk Bond King at Drexel Burnham; later indicted on several counts of racketeering & fraud)

There Will Be Blood

Daniel Day Lewis deserves every bit of the Oscar win for the Best Actor for his role. The movie beautifully brings forth the classic conflict between ambition of an 'Oil Man' and blind faith of a church priest. The dialogues are severely impactful and deep in conviction. This is a must watch movie.

Atonement

This movie did not live up to my expectations. Though there are some moral take-aways from the story, the plot meanders rather slowly and does not keep the viewer engrossed. Thumbs down.

Death at a Funeral

After a long time, I have come across an intelligent British comedy. The story revolves around a funeral, to which all the friends & family of the deceased man arrive to drive their own personal agenda. The motley bunch of relatives which includes a man who is high on a hallucinogenic drug, a gay dwarf lover of the dead man and a handicapped uncle who thinks he has seen more than one dead body at the funeral all make for a great 90 minute watch.

supreetjoshi    and me went to watch the Formula One race in Sepang, Malaysia. The race itself was largely uneventful, but the experience was awesome.

Thanks to supreetjoshi, the best part of the race weekend was the paddock visit, where we got to see all the F1 cars from close quarters, and spoke to Force India team engineers.



Petronas Twin Towers


More Pics from KL & Sepang

My brains completely stop working the moment I enter a bank. I do not understand what happens inside. I cannot seem to fill any form without asking another person standing there for some clarification. All forms look the same. May be they are the same. They appear same even when they are different. Pink forms - Yellow forms - Blue  forms - White forms - Dotted lines - Straight Lines - Credit - Debit - all get blurred into one major heady confusion!

On a rare occasion when I come totally prepared to a bank, oozing with confidence and chutzpah, showing determination and gumption, defending like Dravid on a wet Headingley pitch, some sod tells me "Rules are rules, this is the way it works" and dumps all my logic on why I should not be filling a redundant form!

Ironic as it may seem, my dad has been a career banker for the past 30 - odd years!

The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak

Its a story about a poor girl and her family who hide a Jew in their basement during the WW II. The book talks about how this girl  - Liesel Meminger, and the Jew develop a special friendship. During the course of this story Liesel finds meaning and beauty during the most ugliest of times in human history, through words. Words read from books that she loves stealing from the town Mayor's home. The characterization of the key elements in the story is fulfilling. But the best part of the book is its narration. The author finds the best character to describe the scenes of death and destruction during the war - the Death itself. That is the USP of this book - the first person narration by Death.

Its one of the better books I have read in a really long time.

Ok. So here I am. There is some greenery in the markets today, after quite a while. Not that I am overly concerned with it, even after a whole year of profits having been wiped out from the markets in the last month or so. The best thing is to remain detached. As if it was never your money. The other day, somebody told me that his a** was on fire with all his investments down the drain that flows through the Dalal Street. I told him that his a** was not alone. The market was touching new "bottoms" everyday!

Jokes apart, the ones seriously affected are the business news anchors. They are out of new words. Even this year's World Economic Forum at Davos could not come up with any classy terms. So we have to rehash the old ones in newer, albeit contrived, yet convincing scenarios. As a result we have moved from theories of "decoupling" to "selective re-coupling" to "recoupling". But there are a few who do not like all this talk of friendly, family-oriented, happiness-reflecting words that signify coupling. So we have slick gelled anchors toting the "divorcing" of fundamentals from the commodities bull run. By the way, this is also because OPEC refused to "turn on the faucet full flow" on the oil tap. Or may be some bored trader decided that there is much more antimony and magnesium under the surface of this earth than gold and platinum. He should gift his wife a lead ring on the anniversary. May be a thorium necklace will do just fine!

Quite a few of these "gyaan-givers" are still searching for value picks at lower levels since the time of 21000. The hidden gems are still hidden, pristinely virgin, unknown to any investor. Some have become even more compelling buys than they were earlier. When you have run out of all these value picks and are tired of searching at lower levels - just blame the sentiments. More importantly, the negative ones. The positive sentiments are always influenced by global cues such as "improved output of typewriters in Japan", "docking of a posh yatch in Kowloon Bay" and "a monkey spilling precious palm oil in Malaysia". And please inform Karan Johar on the outpouring of such copious sentiments on the national television.

Coming back to the troubled souls on the market, the ones actually having a ball of a time are the one-man research firms! Like, "On the phone line now is Mr. Bright Commodity of Commodity Investments LLC" or, "Lets hear from Mr. Capital Protection, from Protection Research Inc, joining us from Cushing, Oklahoma". These guys are asked damn easy questions anyways. Usually they are asked 5 questions, which are:

1. What do you make of this credit crunch? Is it still sub-prime or prime? Oh... are they rational, by any chance?
2. Is the Fed repeating its 1970's mistakes?
3. How are emerging markets doing? Would you apply the "coupling" theory or the newly minted squawk - the "Divorce" theory?
4. Where are the commodities heading? Are they running wild? Can Indian Tigers be the new asset class - their supply is limited too and are definitely wild?
5. What advice would you give your clients right now? Have they still their homes and hearths in place?

Usually these answers can be found out by asking a taxi driver in Bahamas on how the US dollar is doing.