one for the blog..

Old article by Vir Sanghvi,

Most modern Indian cities strive to rise above ethnicity.Tell anybody who lives in Bombay that he lives in a Maharashtrian city and (unless of course, you are speaking   to Bal Thackeray) he will take immediate offence.We are cosmopolitan, he will say indigenously. Tell a Delhiwalla that his   is a Punjabi city (which, in many ways, it is) and he will  respond with much self-righteous nonsense about being the nation's capital, about the international composition of the   city's elite etc. And tell a Bangalorean that he lives in a   Kannadiga city and you'll get lots of techno-gaff about the   internet revolution and about how Bangalore is even more cosmopolitan than Bombay.But, the only way to understand what Calcutta is about is   recognize that the city is essentially Bengali. What's more,   no Bengali minds you saying that. Rather, he is proud of the   fact. Calcutta's strengths and weaknesses mirror those of   the Bengali character. It has the drawbacks: the sudden   passions, the cheerful chaos, the utter contempt for mere   commerce, the fiery response to the smallest provocation.And it has the strengths (actually, I think of the drawbacks   as strengths in their own way). Calcutta embodies the Bengali love of culture; the triumph of intellectualism over   greed; the complete transparency of all emotions,the disdain with which hypocrisy and insincerity are treated;the warmth of genuine humanity; and the supremacy of emotion   over all other aspects of human existence.That's why Calcutta is not for everyone. You want your cities clean and green; stick to BANGLORE. You want your cities, rich and impersonal; go to Bombay. You want them high-tech ;hydrabad is your place. But if you want a city with a soul:come to Calcutta.When I look back on the years I've spent in Calcutta.I don't remember the things that people   remember about cities. When I think of London, I think of   the vast open spaces of Hyde Park. When I think of New York,   I think of the frenzy of Times Square. When I think of Tokyo, I think of the bright lights of Shinjiku. And when I   think of Paris, I think of the Champs Elysee. But when I   think of Calcutta, I never think of any one place. I don't   focus on the greenery of the maidan, the beauty of the Victoria Memorial, the bustle of Burra Bazar or the splendour of the new Howrah 'Bridge'. I think of people.Because, finally, a city is more than bricks and mortars,   street lights and tarred roads. A city is the sum of its   people. And who can ever forget - or replicate - the people of Calcutta?I was told that the city   would grow on me. What nobody told me was that the city   would change my life. It was in Calcutta that I learnt about   true warmth; about simple human decency; about love and   friendship; about emotions and caring; about truth and honesty. I learnt other things too. it was a revelation to live in a city where people   judged each other on the things that really mattered;where   they recognized that being rich did not make you a better   person - in fact, it might have the opposite effect.I learnt also that if life is about more than just   money, it   is  about the things that other cities ignore; about culture,   about ideas, about art, and   about passion. In Bombay, a man with a relatively low income   will salt some of it away for the day when he gets a stock   market tip. In Calcutta, a man with exactly the same income   will not know the difference between a debenture and a dividend. But he will spend his money on the things that   matter. Each morning, he will read at least two newspapers   and develop sharply etched views on the state of the world.Each evening, there will be fresh (ideally, fresh-water or   river) fish on his table. His children will be encouraged to   learn to dance or sing. His family will appreciate the power   of poetry. And for him, religion and culture will be in   inextricably bound together.Ah religion! Tell outsiders about the importance of Puja in   Calcutta and they'll scoff. Don't be silly, they'll say.Puja is a religious festival. And Bengal has voted for the   CPM since 1977. How can godless Bengal be so hung up on a   religions festival? I never know how to explain them that   to a Bengali, religion consists of much more than shouting   Jai Shri Ram or pulling down somebody's mosque. It has little to do with meaningless ritual or sinister political activity.The essence of Puja is that all the passions of Bengal converge: emotion, culture, the love of life, the warmth of   being together, the joy of celebration, the pride in artistic ex-pression and yes, the cult of the goddess.It may be about religion. But is about much more than just   worship. In which other part of India would small, not particularly well-off localities, vie with each   other to produce the best pandals? Where else could puja   pandals go beyond religion to draw inspiration from everything else? In the years I lived in Calcutta, the pandals featured Amitabh Bachchan, Princes Diana and even   Saddam Hussain! Where else would children cry with the sheer   emotional power of Dashimi, upset that the Goddess had left   their homes? Where else would the whole city gooseflesh when   the dhakis first begin to beat their drums? Which other   Indian festival - in any part of the country - is so much   about food, about going from one roadside stall to another,   following your nose as it trails the smells of cooking?Certainly, you can't do it till you come and live here, till   you let Calcutta suffuse your being, invade your bloodstream   and steal your soul. But once you have, you'll love Calcutta forever. Wherever you go, a bit of Calcutta will go with   you. I know, because it's happened to me.And every Puja, I  am overcome by the magic of Bengal. It's a feeling that'll  never go away.

idle thought on valuation

When in my usual numb and dumb state, i think about valuation ( so i think in my numb state, hypocratic statement), first lines that come to mind are:

i. nothing less than Mergers & Acquisitions
ii Buyer synergies
iii One can debate endlessly ( with other person of course) about the difference between Fair Value and Fair Market Value
iv. Even Trading and Hedging do not escape valuation.
v. To quote from Adkins , Matchett and Toy, " valuation is fundamental to nearly every aspect of finance"

Valuations are needed for stand alone firms or for combined entities for
mergers
acquisitions
company sales
start-ups
joint ventures
share-option programs
IPOs
re-capitalization
etc

Basically, wherever and whenever there is a transaction, we might need a valuation.

When two boys do a transaction in a playground ( purchase of a cricket ball in return for a promise of a homework or for some money), they are evaluating.

Since, in large organizations, lot of people are involved, transactions such as these have given opportunities to some other firms and persons to claim some consultation fee.
There are mainly two things to care about in any situation:
i Your own basics on how the company works, what different financial terms and numbers mean
ii what is the proposed transaction

Sometimes, a third point you need to care about is the legal/ regulatory aspect.

People who are experienced enough can think of transactions that comply with laws as well as provide maximum possible benefit to their clients.

Most of our intelligence is required only to know our basics and to fully understand the transaction. We all succeed with varying degrees on these two accounts. There is very little 'creative' about finance. It is in general more about retaining your fragile understanding. And definitely, there is nothing that is out of our intuitive reach.

Some One

                                     Some One

Some one came knocking
At my wee, small door;
Someone came knocking;
I'm sure-sure-sure;
I listened, I opened,
I looked to left and right,
But nought there was a stirring
In the still dark night;
Only the busy beetle
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest
The screech-owl's call,
Only the cricket whistling
While the dewdrops fall,
So I know not who came knocking,
At all, at all, at all.

Walter de la Mare

Of leaders and leadership

Level 7 leadership

With more and more people realizing the importance of everyday leadership, theories continue to evolve around the inherent traits and qualities displayed by the leaders. One of the well known matrix, the 9x9 managerial grid, by Blake and Mouton,

has been in use for sometime now to categorize the managers according to the extent of their orientation towards people and productivity. Another piece of work done by Harvard Working Knowledge categorizes six levels of leadership- sociopath, opportunist, chameleon, achiever, builder and the transcendent. These classifications are differentiated by their long term goals  they seek to achieve and somewhat, also by the measures these leaders take to attain these goals. The sixth level of leadership encompasses a large group comprising departments, divisions, companies and perhaps societies. To what end does this kind of leader works is not very well established but transcendent leaders affect the thought process and functioning of a large and a diverse group. A demagogue like Adolf Hitler and a spiritual leader like Dalai Lama may be placed in this category.
If we think of the traits that successful leaders, and not necessarily very popular leaders, have, we may come across many attributes with varying shades. Attributes like technical skills, planning,good communication skills, result-orientation, team-building, conscientiousness, extroversion, empathy, risk taking ability etc. Whether all or some of these are present in the leaders depends on the purpose they are serving. They have a goal in front of themselves and they imbibe one or more of these attributes to be successful. All of this is well known. There may a case for a leadership at highest level, where a leader may never exhibit these common traits. For example, he may possess technical skills, communication skills etc but still self-train himself to keep all of such qualities in some corner of his mind from where these would not appear to guide his central thought process. It is like a person acting as if he is devoid of any thoughts and skills. Such a person can be generally ineffective if he actually knows nothing. But if the person knowingly keeps all his qualities at bay, then he may be doing the best thing for he will not be hindered by any biases. His qualities will come to fore once his central idea becomes clear to him. Execution of his idea will definitely need all other qualities like communication, monitoring mechanisms, technical know-how etc.The best attribute such a leader would possess will be that he has none! One example that come to the mind is that of Mughal invader and Emperor Babur. Babur knew that he was outnumbered by the Rajputs led by Maharana Sangram Singh.   He also knew that Rajputs were very good warriors. He could have approached his men and tried to inspire them all days and nights; he could have told them that they had been successful against the Lodhis of Delhi, that they had cannons which the Rajputs didn't possess. He gave a  totally different angle to his speech that proved to be so effective that it eventually established Mughal rule in India.

best snippet

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf's a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay. 

                                ------Robert Frost

Into my own

ONE of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.
I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
I do not see why I should e’er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.
They would not find me changed from him they knew—
Only more sure of all I thought was true. ------Robert Frost

Free mind

A virtuoso can detect definitively, unfailingly some coherence. What i do, where i go, i may be subjected to new people, ideas. But it is that beauty of relaxed mind that nothing new seems to be happening barring few actions around me. Whatever has to happen and is happening around has already been discounted by mind and thus, it renders almost all data floating around me, meaningless. Consequently the radar system in my head has grown extremely strong to catch anything what may appear to me; important , or funny or curious. and nowadays happiness comes only from nothingness and awareness of nothingness. I just avoided the word 'void' as it has negative connotations for many. But even avoid has a void, to give an example of my earnest desire. It is almost like i have been sailing through crowd around me daily, effortlessly separating noise from myself. No accident that i was laughing in the elevator thinking about some silly office love affairs going on. The most useless of things catch my attention, sometimes. I must here admit that this state is not exclusive to me, and countless people experience it for a short period of time. But a large portion of those people are either in pain, or want to get out of it soon to seek some smile based on tangible reasons. These are the people who make efforts to get out of puddles in the road. Laziness and, the tenet of rejection of any sort of effort, is what enriches my thinking and adds consistency in my case, which happily, is very good. I think Ravana's brother kumbhakaran must also have reveled in the same state for his lifetime. Perhaps this was why staying awake did not add much value to him. ( Well, that was extreme ! )