A 50-50 Life

How do you live your life when half the things happening to you are not in your control? Must you still dream, believe and plan or should you rather resort to indifference? What is growing up after all? I guess it is learning to survive Life, irrespective of what happens to you and what you make happen.

Must you give up on the quest for Mr/ Miss Right because of a string of terrible partners? Must you ridicule Disney World and slam it off as a mere childhood fantasy?  Must you lower your ambitions in the face of a continued onslaught of failures? Must you refuse to rest any faith anymore in the goodness in the world?

I don’t believe in leading a sad life, I cry so much when something big goes wrong that I soon get fed up of my own tears and quickly move on; quickly move on remending my mistakes, amending plans and lusting for a new aim, a different aim, a higher aim or a more challenging path to get the same thing just gone wrong. I have wasted a good amount of my life mourning losses and by now, well I no more tolerate the mourning period. You choose your aim, take an aim and then you shoot! If it doesn’t hit the target, well you shoot again, if you don’t hit it after 5 more tries you change your bows and shoot again. Some fine day, Life takes mercy on you and your arrow hits the bull’s eye! There are no failures on the roadway to success; every failure is a success in knowing what not to do. If everything else fails, you at least succeed in growing up.

Can I give you a quick tip, Mr. Reader? Learn to love yourself! Be there for yourself through all your thicks and thins. Understand that Life is a 50-50 partnership between you and God. Yearn to give the whole of your half, and learn to graciously accept whatever comes from the other half. Sometimes the other half is predatory and takes away more than you gave, leaving you miserable. Sometimes it is so overwhelmingly positive that it covers up for all of your sluggishness. To quantize it, both your and destiny’s efforts can range from (-∞, +∞). If you ensure your side is always a + ∞, you always know the downside can never be net negative. Well, don’t go into the mathematics of Limits though; I know it’s a rather crude analogy! Is there a logic to Destiny’s number? Is there a probability distribution it follows? But I know for sure that it is the same shape for every one of us, but just that the observed value is different for everyone in a particular event and hence the different conceived share of luck. Also, you must realize that your half and Destiny’s half are not independent variables. I guess you can as much as affect the parameters of the probability distribution of Destiny’s half!

 But the point is, learn to go easy on yourself. Even how much you will want to contribute, how hard you shall work is also ultimately controlled by the will of God. We are all here to serve some purpose in the big world, a piece of a giant jig saw puzzle that God toys with. Don’t smirk on your efforts or feel bad about the lack of them. It’s okay, let it be, you are a mere insignificant instrument in the hands of God. Just love yourself, like Karina Kapoor says in Jab We Met “Mein apni favorite hu!”  

Also, lastly, live your life! Don’t lose emotions, it would be as terrible as losing your soul, like being kissed by a Dementor! Don’t lose hopes in the dreams you hold dear. Weep if you must. Laugh if you can. You are a human, you were born out of love, you deserve to be loved. Give your best to the world, be kind and forgiving. I am sure the mean of the distribution of what the world throws back at you is a net positive number!

Paris Diaries

I am so overwhelmed, Mr. Reader! It’s just so beautiful here at HEC! And it’s so quiet, so quiet indeed! The campus is far away from the mainland Paris and has got such dense woods and such large fields around, complete with a lake. I chose HEC primarily because it has its own campus (and ofcourse the ranking), and I must say the campus has come true to my every expectation; it was love- at-first-sight with my room, the classrooms and even the mess-cafeteria!  Ofcourse the food is horrible though; well if you can even call it food in the first place! Plus, I am a vegetarian, so I am reduced to just choosing between salads and fruits. Blimey! I am a vegetarian, not a cow!

There are some Indians around and we hang out together all the time. I have also met so many more people from so many different places on the globe. We have such an eclectic mix of backgrounds in the class- there are law undergrads and finance bachelors, Egyptians and Americans, traders and investment bankers. Suddenly I have become so conscious about my heritage and  also so consciously proud of it; I am loving the Bollywood songs almost fiercely here, like I were trying to desperately hold on to a shred of connection with my upbringing.

I am so nervous, Mr. Reader. Nothing in my life has prepared me for my life here. It’s very competitive but excelling in academics is no longer adequate. You have to “network” and pretend to be calm and relaxed when talking to burly 6 feet 5 inch European men, like all your life that’s all what you have been doing. People talk about politics and tax rates; when I say I am from India they discuss the falling Indian rupee with me (that ofcourse has never been my opening lines with friends ever before, never even the subject matter really!)

I can go on and on- the co-ed hostels, the drinking parties, the short skirts. That’s not exactly scary but just so new for me. I wear skirts too and I absolutely love to put them on- so that’s one good thing about Paris, I feel so free, it’s so liberating! I wish India bettered it’s sorry state for the women. I don’t drink and sometimes I panic with the liberal amount of drinking endorsed here.

The French are so polite and use oh-so-much French! Even my bank account documents are all in French! Did I tell you Mr. Reader that I had tried taking a French course in Aurangabad for last two months? Well, I realise now I don’t understand one word of this French version of French and I feel completely lost in this regard as well.

One adjective if I have to give to everything- exciting! Well Mr. Reader au revoir for now. Time for a skype call to mom! 

Little Things

Life is a cluster of tiny moments. The biggest of the things are often about the smallest of the joys and the vice-versa. Sitting back at home I thought would be merely an endless wait, but as it turned out it’s being rather good so far. Endless leisure, self-reflection and a laid back lifestyle are agreeing well with me. Here’s a list of a few little things I discovered that can make an ordinary day a delight.

#1 A bowl of hot soup or a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and a good book in the other. I absolutely love reading Mr. Reader! I feel it’s an experience we must savour. I love reading the books slowly, taking a pause between the lines like it were a juicy fruit that just left a lingering delicious taste in the mouth. I love to complement reading with the cosiest settings, a hot snack, comfortable chairs, cafes or light background music. It feels good to revel in the delight of multiple senses like you were escaping the real world.

#2 A car drive (no I don’t drive, I love it at the back seat) the wind whipping your face and good music in your ears. The long drive, a short drive I absolutely love them all! Ah and music is a must! And I really prefer headphones over speakers; it makes the experience so much more intense and personal. I like to feel the time slipping by, like I were really journeying my life, makes me feel it moving forward.

#3 Watching my 1 year old nephew smile. He is so tiny! So small so cute! How can anyone be so small and so cute? I love to lift him up in my arms and squeeze him so tight and kiss him all over his face! And when I whirl him up in circles he giggles ever so loud! Watching him every day, learning his new baby tricks makes me reflect on life and its literal ‘small’ joys! He really is the soft little adorable bundle of joy back home! Here’s a little clip of his first attempts at walking :-)

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

It’s always good talking to you Mr. Reader! Especially now that I have hardly anyone to blabber to (how I miss you, insti!) You see I am enjoying my last few days home (you could say months but I am going to pretend not to hear it); I have got admit from HEC Paris for their Masters in International Finance Program! My class commences in September and meanwhile life’s left me to indulge in some (well-deserved?) unlimited leisure. Now, HEC comes with its own campus, hostels and restaurants and hence the cooking lessons have been indefinitely postponed by me. Good as I am at doing nothing (ok that’s different from good-for-nothing!), I am hardly upto anything these days. That’s if you agree that spending endless hours on TV, reading novels, watching movies and laptop-ing amounts to no work!

I have never been out of India. Plus if you know me, I am hardly a brave heart. Even a cockroach can scare the hell out of me and a 5^th grade boy could get the better of me. On the face of it, I am quite hopeless. But look again Mr. Reader I have aged a lot more last four years (almost an exponential curve if you ask me). Particularly my last semester brought about an uprooting mental upheaval. Nothing had turned out as I had hoped for. I went through a frustrating break-up. The idea to apply for MS – finance courses had caught my attention by then. And you won’t believe Mr. Reader just about how many twists came as each of my admit results came one by one. It felt like Life were unravelling an intense thriller, a world of so different possibilities opened with each one. My results came in almost an ascending order, the final one was the most awaited and the most promising. To give you a quick snapshot, the deadline to accept IE Business School was 25^th of May and my HEC Paris results came on May 24^th! If my life were a story book you would have hanged on until the very last word of this apping chapter! I guess it deserves a separate blog post of its own. Anyways, the point is a hundred emotions danced in my little poor heart last semester and a thousand of them in the whole four years of my IIT.

I have learnt some hard- earned lessons, most prominently how weak man is to the will of God. I have seen my life smouldered to dust, dreams shattered to crumbs and it all seemed so unreasonable, it just did not make any sense. And then quite unexpectedly out-of-the blue I saw my life resurrected beyond my wildest imaginations! Oh dear Mr. Reader what can I say it felt so surreal, like my life were a movie unreeled. After all my hopes dashed, all that I had hoped for was lost, I got success I had never quite believed I was capable of winning.  Yes, I am talking of HEC! It is ranked first world- wide in MS Finance courses. I am a seven pointer. Well I believe my profile had its own perks. Actually I had hoped to sail comfortably in the placement market. But life caught me unawares, it hit me so sudden, so hard, I fell head down on the floor! 17 interviews I rambled on desperate for a job but luck did not strike until 6^th of December 2012! Bless you Holy Mother of Lord! The sheer huge overwhelming relief! But the job wasn’t getting me excited. For sheer heck of it I thought of apping. Where? Amsterdam ofcourse!By then I truly thought I had no better chances than this new unranked private school (the school had its own pros and cons but let me not bore you into the details). It left me speechless when more results followed and I made it to some really good schools. Some even offered me funding. And then of course finally HEC happened too. It was the very same profile, Mr. Reader, the very same resume and yet Life painted two contrasting pictures for me.

At the end of the day I felt Life had dragged me to the destiny, fate had chosen for me. Like it were all meant to happen. I had thought my heart would give away, throbbing with so much heart- ache. But amazingly I discovered that it didn’t, that I was capable of living even after the one who had become my life was gone. . I still miss him, oh yes I do I do but I have learnt to swallow the bitter tears.  All my pride and shame has vanquished away. I have learnt perseverance. A hope still shines in my eyes but I won’t crumble again to dust even if  my dreams did and Life threw me down deeper dirt next time.  For you see, I would be a big girl now. A girl still you can bet, but a big girl I do!

Happy Birthday Mom!

None loves me as you

To none I owe as to you!

Not one strives to make my day

None adorns me your way!

Your love unravels the face of God!

Your heart hums the sweetest ballad

You are the prettiest Queen of the mortal land!

You are the best mother this world has had!

A mere lump of flesh

Yet you nurtured me dear!

Your selfless love

I may never repay, I fear!

A thousand miles away shall I drift,

You are the only one who shall bear no rift!

For your love is my beacon, my guiding star

From your heart, my heart can never be far!

A thousand suns may you outlive

The gloriest summers may your life weave!

The most blessed may you be in all kingdoms seven

For aint you the very God descended from Heaven?

Lehman Sisters

Today the financial industry is popularly stereotyped to be masculine in nature – aggressively risk taking, fiercely competitive, motivated by self-interest and seeking short term profits.  It has made it only more natural to think that men ought to be hired to fill the positions of such a masculine industry. Women on the other hand are identified as the weaker sex being assumed as lesser competitive and lesser committed to their careers.

It is being speculated that the financial crisis arose by permitting young males to behave in an unregulated way. After the fall of Lehman Brothers, a popular question was being asked - ‘What if it had been Lehman Sisters?’ I feel that this question should be analysed through the two contrasting point of views- ‘men and women are different’ and ‘men and women are equal’.

On the onset though I would like to raise a few questions- do personal behavioural traits of the individual employees affect the overall financial industry in the first place? Towards this I feel a strong affirmative. I feel that success of financial industry is marked by the combined balance of economics, mathematics and behavioural finance. On a trading floor for example the human instincts play as pivotal role as the statistical calculations. Next, is it justified to analyse the topic in question through stereotypes? Over a large population, often when trends begin to be observed, although it is okay to analyse through the stereotypical averages it is still dangerous to suggest that an individual will have the traits of its group. So even if we were to conclude a definitive answer to our question through this approach, we still need to understand that we would be limited by the huge intra-sex variability.

Men and women are different

Having said that, I would now like to discuss the differences in the traits associated with men and women. As mentioned above, men are seen as risk taking, self-centred, competitive and impersonal. Conversely (and relatively benevolently), women are seen as risk-averse, protective, altruistic and warm. Women have also been observed to be more consistent long term investors. To a large extent men and women are hard-wired differently though evolutionary and cultural influences. It is tempting to picture that if there were to be more women in finance, it would lead to a gentler and more stable financial industry.

There are several studies that support this claim. In a 2009 article in Business Week it noted that according to the research, from January 2000 through May 31, 2009, hedge funds run by women delivered nearly double the investment performance of those managed by men. Furthermore, in 2008, during the height if the financial crisis, on an average, funds run by women were down 9.6 percent versus a a 19 percent decline in those run by men. Audur Capital, an Icelandic private equity fund wholly managed by women, is the only such fund to have made it through the crisis without a hitch. On the other hand of the spectrum, microfinance institutions (MFI) majorly turn to women to promote micro-lending. Women are assumed to use the money to advance projects while the MFIs are typically wary of what men might do with the money.

For benefiting from a large women workforce though, we would need a more supportive social environment. An industry demanding long working hours is practically a man’s world. It is ironic that in order for woman to be successful in finance today, she has to dwindle down the very qualities that mark her as feminine. Her emotional sensitivity, nurturing instincts and desire to spend more time with children and family are the very reason that is keeping her down on the Wall Street. So, to sustain a strong female workforce it is imperative to promote more women-friendly schemes like on-site company sponsored child care.

Men and women are equal

On the other side of the coin, I personally feel that innately men and women are equal and that the sex differences are widely exaggerated. Even though both set of genders may express their reactions to a situation differently, each of us is characterised by a common pool of emotions. For example, after a stressful call on the trading desk, a man may throw off the phone while a woman may resort to tearful sobs; but I feel that the inherent lust for power or the sense of responsibility are equally strong in both. Also as far as the quantitative skills are concerned both genders are equally matched. It is wrong to assume that women are only good for cleaning up the financial mess during a crisis and that men are excusable to create one.  

To conclude, the topic at hand poses a broad number of questions and to answer them we have to hypothesise a number of stereotypical assumptions. In my opinion it is unfair to quantitatively authenticate the loose qualitative popular images. But, still if we were to assume that the Wall Street were to look at both men and women as equivalent participants, certain characteristics commonly stereotyped as feminine (such as carefulness) would be encouraged industry-wide, and inappropriate male-locker-room and cowboy-type behaviours frowned upon, to the benefit of the industry and society.

Bucket- List

I came to IIT as a starry-eyed kid. I would be leaving it with an even bigger to-do list. I love day-dreaming Mr. Reader; hands down my favourite hobby! And when you dream, you got to dream the biggest, the absolute best. You got to escape to a personal paradise and mentally search the earthly means that might transport you there. There, that then is your dream. Then you got to dream it over and over again until you believe with all your heart that your paradise awaits you just a goal away.

This blog is also one of the passing-out specials in a way. I guess a few years down the line I would like to come back to this blog and chuckle. Mr. Reader, I am going to recite to you my to-do list of life.

To start with, I am still not sure of my immediate plans, but I think I would have them figured out by May end. So, I am going to drop the short term wish-list and go on to a long-term one. That is the more fun one, anyways!

#1: Before I joined IIT, I used to say I am going to study so much in life that when people write down my qualifications, it would fill a paragraph! No wonder I didn’t mind EP at first! Cut to the present, all I plan to do is a good MBA. A great MBA, oh okay a Harvard MBA (It is phonetically closest to Hogwarts!). A MS in Finance also looks lined up on the cards.

#2: Write a novel before 2025.

#3: How I would love to make it big on the Wall Street. You know Mr. Reader, I romanticised every word Mr. I-wish-was-Right ever said to me; 75 % of the time he spoke of finance. What can I say, he had a Midas Speech about him. Every word he spoke turned gold for me. I just got drawn down to finance you know.

#4: When I start earning, I want to buy clothes exclusively from Marks and Spenser; power clothing, simple yet elegant. I am not so specific about the shoes and the accessories.

#5: I am also not specific about a dream home, except that it has to be 50 shades of pink! And if I have girls, I would build a wardrobe full of barbies!

#6: I have always nurtured a little entrepreneurial spirit in me. My favourite shops are Aromas and Crosswords. Putting two and two together, I would love to run a franchise of Aromas and Crosswords. Actually, Crosswords I feel is, well, you know, too sterile! In my tastes, a bookshop has to be much cosier. Have you watched Beauty and the Beast or You Have Got Mail, Mr. Reader? A bookstore has to be like the royal library from Beauty and the Beast or Meg Ryan’s bookshop in the latter! May be I will mix the shops in a combo, that seems to be a popular fashion these days.

Well actually, if it has to be something entrepreneurial and dreamy, then I would go with my own Hedge Fund! (And come to IIT Bombay for recruitment! Ha! That would be fun! )

#7: Watch Federer play! Watch a Wimbeldon Final and an Olympics 100 meter race. Catch a concert of Adele. (They are all some sort of live shows)

#8: Take cooking and spa classes (short-term goal) and find a way to monetize the hobbies (long-term).

#9: I have never been much of a social work enthusiast and I guess my accumulated guilt would only be growing larger with time. So, I plan to turn a philanthropist eventually. I would love to do some charity work in life.

#10:  Find a Mr. Right who would love to be a part of my wish-list :-)