Optimism

I came across this quote some days back and just felt the need to post it here..
"Watching you walk out of my life does not make me bitter or cynical about love. But rather makes me realize that if I wanted so much to be with the wrong person how beautiful it will be when the right one comes along."

QSQT

So this post has nothing to do with Aamir Khan, his movie and bollywood. In fact this post Quarter se Quarter tak (QSQT) is more to do with the fairly lousy world of commercial banking and I have been extremely unoriginal by having picked up the phrase from a colleague at work.

This is the way I believe most companies operate atleast in India and surprisingly so do banks that lend credit to them. Every quarter ending with a green along the year in green is enough for a company to drive a hard bargain for interest rates. Needless to say the stronger player in any game has a higher bargaining power! So everything around credit arrangements is confined to profit maximisation.

This reminds me of my first strategy class where I learnt the difference between profit and wealth maximization and how firms should try to work towards maximizing wealth. But the classic principal agent problem twists the situation. The CFO of a company is still an agent and unlike the principal looks at everything in the company from a short term perspective. So does the bank (very conveniently) when it lends. So at the end of the day of relationship management is neither about relationships nor about fundamentals. It is as my boss fondly says about opportunism (I love the sound to this word!) As I try to grope around in this murky world of lending at least I have figured out that no one cares what happens to the company down 3 years, the CFO met his target for the year and so did I!!!

PS: I am writing this post after a long discussion with my boss regarding how corporate banking differs in India from that in Germany. More on this topic to follow in the next post..

Outbreak

Though I have not read Robin Cook in a very long time now, I admit that I used to love reading his work! Over the years I felt that though the suspense bit was something I enjoyed reading but there was something starkly unreal and the plot of the stories could never occur in real life ever.

I remember reading Outbreak many years back which dealt with the deadly Ebola virus. The H1N1 outbreak and the swine flu deaths in the country in the last few days, just reminds me of this story. Needless to say I feel amazed how sometimes reality can be so close to fiction !

Money and Self Actualization

I belong to this bunch of 20 something’s who have passed out of premier B and when I say this I don’t feel ashamed to admit that we belong to another species of living beings. We toiled to get into one of these schools and then harboured aspirations to make lots of money (at least that holds true for most of us). After trying to put up with all that we could to get our dream jobs something has changed. A rich investment banker wants to do something “meaningful” with his life. The marketer wants to take his chances of rather being an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur feels lost as he is not a part of the rat race any more. The commercial banker looks forward only to the pay day and wishes something could change sometimes even unable to figure what. It is probably only this lot of people that seems to be so dissatisfied with what they are doing. I wonder what makes us so unhappy anyway?
The drivers I believe in each of these cases is the same of being the desire to earn money and yet derive meaning out of life or rather have the life that we always wanted to with all the money. I can’t think of any occupation that gives not one but both but. I only know that we can move up the Maslow’s hierarchy and the first and the last level are far apart. However I always wish I could have the two together. So it is not money vs meaning but more like money and meaning!! How I wish....

Here's one to Friendship day !

I loved this quote since the first time I came across it . As I see status messages of ppl on fb and gtalk I felt like posting this one here

A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked !

In praise of idleness

It is a Friday evening and I am quite kicked about the approaching weekend. After a fairly nice day, I decide to come home early. As I approach my building, to my horror I realize that there is no electricity. Hoping and praying that it would come back soon, I decide to go about small chores in the house. After having eaten, used all the candles and the batteries in the torch to read newspapers I decide to take a power nap. After 2 more hrs I realize that I have killed a mosquito, played minesweeper (after the stark realization that I have no games on my phone ! ) spoken to my parents, texted my boss and even checked emails on my phone courtesy GPRS but no signs of electricity yet. As I seriously contemplate going back to work , I decide to use the last few mins of the battery charge to type this post.
Light failures at home always used to be a time to listen to childhood stories of my parents and each one was like a treasure being pulled out of a chest but as I am alone, this time is killing me. I am not sure what to do. This makes me suddenly realize that not only am I slave to technology, I feel alien to the concept of idleness. Bertrand Russell has written an essay on this topic and even criticized the education system for not inculcating this virtue. I wish I could gaze at the starry night and ponder about all the times that have gone by and all the time to come but that psyches me out completely. As I curse myself of failing to enjoy the small things in life, I realize it is time to change. Hope the realization of this fact makes me discover something about my own self if not gravity like Newton !