2 little mice

How many times has it happened to you that some song/dialogue/quotation fits your mood and you think you should've said it?? It was one of those countless times when I was watching the movie "Catch me if you can", I noticed that a few lines just perfectly described the conditions I was in.....and I quote:

"Two little mice fell into a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up & drowned. The second mouse, he wouldn't quit. He struggled so hard, that he eventually churned that cream into butter & crawled out. Gentlemen, as at this moment; I am that second mouse!"

Hasmukh :)

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P.S.: I got my first job through a campus placement (after a very long & at times intense waiting) on 'day 55' (Novemeber 23rd, 2007).

A year (since he) passed away

It was the morning of November 17th, 2006; just another ordinary day. I woke up feeling cold, for the winter had set in & went to drink tea with yellow coloured business newspaper in my hand. The newspaper was full of crap about politics, business, etc. of which I was expecting to make some sense. Tucked away in some corner was a small note, with the title "He Freed Men". The man in the picture below is Milton Friedman, and today is his first death anniversary.

His career as an economist began with a small paper published in some journal during his graduation, which caused a stir half-way across the world; and since then, the name has become almost legendary in the field of economics.

He won "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" (more popularly known as "The Nobel Prize for Economics") for the year 1976, "for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy".

This post is an amateur economist's tribute to one of the greatest economists of all times. Visit the link below; after all, its the least we can do for some one who "freed men"!

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/11/16/stories/2007111651780900.htm

Hasmukh :)

Indications

With the placements around, people are getting really sick of not getting placed (at least I am!) and for others who are already placed...they are unhappy with themselves & asking themselves why they didn't wait for the better companies. And each time I encounter the situation; I am always reminded of the fact that whether good or bad; the past is no indication of the future!! Consider this...

On January 24, 1848; James W. Marshall found the first piece of gold and hence began The Great Californian Gold-rush. The pity is that the piece he found was only a few grams in weight; with people later on, reporting to have found pieces weighed in kilograms!! Furthermore, it was the first and last gold nugget ever found by Mr. Marshall; but there were others who made big fortunes; and I mean, really BIG (after all, they had quite literally, STRUCK GOLD!!!!)

On the other hand, while the markets were just about to go for a tail-spin as a result of the sub-prime crisis, Bear Sterns became one of the first houses to declare losses...a whopping $ 700 million. But looking at it in hindsight; it seems to be almost a winner. The biggies like Merill Lynch, UBS Securities, J P Morgan, etc. had booked losses; none less than a billion dollars each, with Merill Lynch topping them all at about almost $ 5 billion!!!

The moral of the story: don't judge your condition based on the present...lookout for what the future holds. After all, who knows, it may not be as severe as you percieve it to be...!

Hasmukh :)

Of grass & grapes

It's every mortal's innate desire to loom in people's memory for something he did after he has crossed the bar...but I have neither done anything worth writing; nor written anything worth remembering. In the words of Chandler Muriel Bing (born April 8, 1968), "If I were to die right now, the only way people could know of my existence would be by the ass-print I leave on this chair!"

In a desperate effort to make one's own name the first thing in history, a chinese king once destroyed all the clay-tablets (the means of recording history in those days, quite a few millenia ago) which predated him. I doubt not that my best friend, who happens to be a history geek, would start recalling the entire chapter in an orderly fashion...but the paradox is that I, myself, still don't remember his name; thus for me, His Excellency's entire excercise has proved only too futile!

So in an effort to make my contribution, I hereby call upon to unite the entire world; on the mere fact that we all at some point of time face failures. And then, I divide it once again into two parts. From my wide & rich collection of anecdotes I could deduce a theory (which is not to be taught in class-rooms of course!) about how poeple take the events happening to them.

The happy lot following the theme of "half a glass full" more often than not, keeps thinking about what they didn't get & keeps cursing it; what Aesop's fox did, when it didn't get the grapes.....what is known as SOUR GRAPES SYNDROME!

The unhappy lot, on the contrary, following the "half a glass empty" theme; keeps thinking about how they could have got something better and that they still don't have something good enough. To summerize in one line using the language of a glibberty gibbets, they believe in "The myth of the pastoral foliage being inequitable for the better being consistently induced in the onlooker of the meadow which is made marginally inaccessible by a palisade!". Now rephrasing it for those less well-versed with the lexicon & 'Wren & Martin', these are effectively the people who believe that "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence!".....what I like to call the GREEN GRASS SYNDROME!

Always remember, whatever decision you make, you are constantly falling in either of the two categories, because as of now I don't seem to find any grey areas. And though the world will neither come to know of my theory nor get to the imprints I leave on my chair; it will continuously & consistantly keep justifying my theory, like it has always done so far. Now the reader might dare ask what new I have propounded, but then, did you look things up in this light ever before? There lies my claim to fame & immortality...!

hasmukh :)

Now it is my turn to "keep the faith"

Phew,

Placements season on in our b-school, and today was my first interview; failed miserably. Then I thought of listening to some sad songs and hence turned on the lappy and when I got signed into g-talk, there was a friend's status saying "Keep faith in him"

And the most amazing part was when I read the poem by Arthur King Clough, serving as my desktop, for the umpteenth time...:

SAY not the struggle not availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been, things remain;

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed;
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves vainly breaking
Seems here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.

-Arthur King Clough (1849)

It so happens that I used to sign-off my emails (and other communications) using the words "untilnextime:keep the faith".......so I believe that now, it is my turn to "keep the faith"!!!

Hasmukh :)

One small blog for man...

Hey,

I have finally managed to enter the world of blogging...the credit goes to the MBA which has put me (of all the people) into the habit of continuously doing something. The third semester being officially over today and about 3 days to go for "day-0" of placements, I am left with pretty much nothing to do and have thus chosen this path.

While I am typing this, there is a spell-binding scenario seen from my fifth floor balcony. I hear the sounds of rain & thunder as the omnipresent green horizons are faded by the rain, wind causing waves in the falling water (just like what we see in Hindi films when the "actress" is standing in the rain wearing a chiffon sari and a lace blouse and is embarrassed of the situation, which of course she didn't think would arise when she was in front of the mirror!). I feel like having tea while I am looking at this, but the thought reminds me of my home.....

Home; place where I can lie in the position I want to, looking at anything I feel like, and wearing anything I am comfortable in. Home; place where the juniours are going today. Home; place where I spent 21 years of my life. Home; place which brings to my mind the most nostalgic emotions. Home; place which dictionary.com primarily defines as “a house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household”, but still fails miserably to capture its meaning. Home; where you return to when you feel like you want to stop feeling. Home; place which, to me, still remains but an abstract noun.....just like a major chunk of my dictionary. Home; place where I can have the amount of tea I like, just the way i like it.

But coming back to tea, I see that the rain has stopped, the sky is clear and the spectacular window by the table (which is much more advanced than an electronic canvas) is now portraying a sunset; which tells me that I am again going to be late for tea in the mess.....I'v got to hurry!

Hasmukh :)