An evening

Ya, I know it's a lot of blogs on the same day, but lemme write while I am in the mood for it.

Spent the evening with Sabitha, a '97 passout from IIMC. Had met her in Anusmaran and thought we'll generally meet up. Was supposed to meet up for an hour, ended up spending 2.5 hours with her!

We were generally talking about stuff, and it was interesting to find that people who have been working for a long time also do not know what they really like. Sabitha has been working in her field for quite some time, and when she joined it, she felt she had found her true calling, but some years down the line, she's again looking for a change. Related thoughts, do (all) people really find their calling? Or, can you really know when you find it? Most of all, is there something like a true calling?

We were also talking about the frustrations of the corporate world and being independant and Ram Charan (if you do not know who he is, google. Very interesting story the man has). And I was thinking if the "frills" of the corporate world can make you lose interest in what you are doing. For example, instead of actually doing quality work (applying my brain, that is), which any person in his/her right mind would want, you end up attending meetings and making presentations and what not. "Now that isn't what I was looking for", I say to myself.

Which is why it might be a good idea to start off on your own (if you have the resources/capabilities/guts). From whatever idea I have, I believe it really gives you the choice of doing what you want to do, and leave the rest to other people you choose to work with. The obvious risks are there, but then you can always use the risk/reward argument...

All in all, was good fun to talk to her. And probably one of the best things was the compliment I got from her. :) She said she was apprehensive about being able to connect with a person 10 years her junior, but fortunately that did not happen and I kept her interested throughout the time we were together :) Ya, I know I like to brag about myself, so what?! :P

That's all for now, let's hope I post soon enough again. :)

Tata,
Pari

I sometimes wish I had the courage to be an artist or a musician...

A few thoughts

Ok, this is especially in response to sohini's comment:

Read this when i went to MOMA, is by an artist Andrea Zittel, whose works were displayed there
Some Things I Know

1. It is a human trait to organize things into categories, inventing categories creates an illusion that there is an overriding rationale in the way the world works.

2. Surfaces that are "easy to clean" also show dirt more. In reality, a surface that camouflages dirt is much more practical than one that is easy to clean.

3. Maintenance takes time and energy that can sometimes impede other forms of progress such as learning about new things.

4. All materials ultimately deteriorate and show signs of wear. It is therefore important to create designs that will look better after years of distress.

5. A perfected filing system can sometimes decrease efficiency. For instance, when letters and bills are files away too quickly, it is easy to forget to respond to them.

6. Many "progressive" designs are actually hark back towards a lost idea of nature or a more "original form"

7. Ambiguity in visual design ultimately leads to a greater variety of functions than designs that are fucntionally fixed.

8. No matter how many option there are, it is human nature to always narrow things down to two polar, yet inextricably linked choices.

9. The creation of rules is more creative than the destruction of them. Creation demands a higher level of reasoning and draws connections between cause and effect. The best rules are never permanent or stable, but evolve naturally according to context or need.

10. What makes us feel liberated is not total freedom but rather living in a set of limitations that we have created and prescribed for ourselves.

11. Things that we think are liberating can ultimately become restrictive, and things that we initially think are controlling can sometimes give us a sense of comfort and security.

12. Ideas seem to gestate best in a void. When the void is filled, it is more difficult to access them. In our consumption-driven society, almost all voids are filled, blocking moments of greater clarity and creativity. Things that block voids are called "avoids"

13. Sometimes if you can't change a situation, you just have to change the way you think about a situation.

14. People are most happy when they are moving forward towards something not quite attained. (I also wonder if this extends as well to physical motion in space. I believe that I am happier when I am in a plane or car because I am moving towards an identifiable and attainable goal.)

Random stuff

Long time again... that I had not much to write was one reason, that I am lazy is another (more prominent) one.

a couple of things before i forget:
1. you can see my pics at photos.yahoo.com/hotpari
2. read captain's blog. he writes well, certainly not as boring as i am :) sachmuch.blogspot.com

so what's new? well, not much of fun this time, more on the work side. i've rotated to a new desk in lehman. work with mike schmansky and josh spitz on index volatility trading (ya, i know, greek to most of you, but then that's what they trade in, the greeks! :P) really nice people, and well known on the trading floor, so that's an added plus. also, had dinner with all the MDs from the equities side and breakfast the next day with Bart McDade, the head of equities in lehman (ya, the equities division is really pushing it!). the best part of the dinner was meeting with ravi mattu :) he's an IIMA passout (1979) and heads equities and fixed income research in lehman. really big guy. i expected him to be there for a very short time, but to my surprise he was there with us for about 2.5 hours! after all the othres left, we all had great fun together :) ravi was more casual than i expected him to be, and the best was the way he took bhargav's case. :D bhargav is a tam bram, and he kept asking him if he had done all the finance degrees in the world (right from CA to CS to ICW to what not!). all poor bhargav could do was smile :) was good fun that day.

a big discovery that day was the fact that MDs are not as pseud as i expected them to be! i was damn careful about all the cutlery and stuff and not making any noise with it, but after all of them started eating, i eased a bit :) obviously they're good with using knives and forks and what not, since they don't eat using their hands like us indians, but not as pseudly as i expected!

and attended a cocktail party thrown by the IIMA 2005 batch in lehman. was good fun, most of them were nice, except for a couple, whom i blatantly ignored.

so after 2 days of continuous daaru (the cocktail party on wednesday and the dinner on thursday), i decided to go dry this weekend. bad choice since sant invited me over for champagne :( but i had made my decision and stuck to it... am strong, ain't i?! :)

oh, and did i tell u, attended this course on derivatives by this professor from NYU, steven dym. he's really good! thank god i attended this course before attending sankarshan basu's!

and ya, attended a baseball game here (again, sponsored by lehman!) between the yankees and the texas rangers. it was boring... i really find baseball a savage version of cricket. it's like shoaib akhtar (ya, since in baseball u throw the ball, not roll your arm over!) bowling to shahid afridi. true, it's fun when afridi hits, but when he misses, it's very ugly. we left 45 mins after the game started, but it seems we missed one the greatest turnarounds in history by the yankees. doesn't matter.

by the way, on baseball, another quote i read on a starbucks cup:

It's often said that baseball is life, or is like life, or that going to a baseball game is like going to church. Piffle. Baseball is like baseball, and that's plenty good enough because nothing else is quite like baseball.
-- Rob Neyer
ESPN.com baseball columnist and co-author of The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers.

pretty good i thought :) (not that i agree with it)

for those of u who would like to read more of these, go to:
http://www.starbucks.com/retail/thewayiseeit_default.asp

some of them are realyl thought provoking.

what else... well, madhura is coming over to spend the memorial day weekend with me. that should be fun. and di is coming over the next one... so both my coming weekends are jam packed. was thinking of working this one so that i could build up a buffer of work, but my boss just doesn't have time for me! allowed, given the swing in the markets... but i hope i get to do something good here too.

damn, just checked, have written a helluva lot! rest for later

tata,
pari

Jazz rulz (and will always do)

Yups, I finally fulfilled my long term ambition of going to a jazz club :) but more on that later, we'll discuss things in chronological order.

there's this funny (and stupid) thing about NY. it'll be nice and bright and sunny throughout the week, and as if to punish us for the work we do over the week, it'll start raining on weekends! not that i was going to let it dampen my spirits.

so comes saturday (21st april), i wake up at 11:30, and as expected, it's raining. not a heavy downpour, just an irritating drizzle. well, i had an inkling that this was going to happen, and i was prepared for it. so i called up the IIMC junta and ask them if they wanna ghoomo. seems they were too scared they would melt in the rain. neway, so i hurry and get ready (it's amazing how much time you can take if you take your time getting ready) and leave for manhattan. no set plans, just get out and then we'll see where to go to.

rockefeller center happens to be a minute's walk from the lehman building, so that was my first stop. after walking around the block twice, and trying to decide what it was i actually wanted to see (i coudl choose between a radio city tour, and a NBC studio tour, and a NYC view from the top) and eating a godiva peanut butter cupcake in the process (it was amazing, by the way) i finally decided to get a bird's eye view of NYC. so i went in and they first make you look at the history of rockefeller center in pictures and text (i mean, just let me go up there yaar), i finally was taken to the 67th floor (yups, 67th!). before i get to the NYC view though, the elevator was amazing!! it had a glass ceiling, and they had a projector behind it, so as you went up, you would not only see yourself going up the building, but also an advertisement (for lack of a better word) of the place! really good it was :)

ya, now to the NYC view. ummm... it was nice, nothing awe inspiring about it. i could see the hudson go by the city, and a huge park (or whatever it was) between rows and rows and rows of buildings... but that was about all. nothing out of the world.

neway, so after spending some time there (i spent 18 dollars for getting up there, i might as well make some use of it), i came down and consulted the "not for tourists (NFT) guide to NY", which lehman brothers had very generously given all its interns. i found a list of recommended contemporary art museums, one of them being Dia on 22nd street. after asking arouund for directions, and having a chocolate cream cheese muffin (divine) and a white chocolate mocha (divine again) at starbucks, i took off for Dia. the drizzle had intensified (someone please suggest a better word) by then, and the basta*d at barnes and nobles sent me off in the opposite direction, and it was decently long walk, so basically by the time i got to Dia, i was completely wet. bah! neway, the museum more than made up for it! the ground floor especially had amazing stuff (there was also this long quote from an artist which i copied down on paper and am too lazt to post right now). there is this artist who designs mobile homes, and experiments with different materials, and what all you can do in a small trailer and stuff. they also had something called an escape vehicle, which was an oddly shaped enclosure for a single person, which people could customize to their liking. different artists had done nice stuff in it, one had made it into a lounge kind of a place, one had made it up like a dungeon, one had nice white soft pillows and stuff in it... really good stuff there. they also had models of "compact living spaces" so to say, not very different from the cellular sleeping places you find in japan. on the other floors, there were photo exhibits by an islamic photographer, and random shit, but most of my time was spent on the ground floor. for people who visit NY, it's a must see. oh, ya, they also had a video showing how the artist went about experimenting with materials and building her mobile home in a desert and stuff.

ah, so that took some time and it was about 5:30 by the time i left. i called up IIMC people again (as they had asked me to do) and asked if any of them were interested in going to a jazz club. fortunately, priyanka and bhargav agreed and we decided to meet up at lehman at 8:30. yippeee, we were going t oa jazz club!! since i had loads of time till then, and no enthu of walking around any more, i went to a starbucks near lehman, and spent my time there reading the book on jazz history i bought. 8:30, and pinku and bhargav were nowhere to be seen. so i took out my NFT and started searching for places we could go to, i came across a recommended list of 3. fortunately i was carrying my lehman ID with me, so i decided to call them up. village vanguard was full, but we were lucky to get place at birdland :) i booked the last table they had left, and after waiting for another half an hour (they were really late!) we left for the place. afer asking around for birdland while standing right next to it (seriously, right next to it!) we realized our folly and went it quickly (we were already late by abt hald an hour for the 9:00pm show). it was amazing! seriously... one of the experiences i'll always remember (just like the opera i saw in vienna). the singere was really good, and so was his band. classic jazz pieces they were playing... real good fun! and the experience of live jazz is something hard to describe... unfortunately the show went on only for about ah hour and 15 minutes (of which we missed half an hour). neway, we had (a very expensive) dinner there and came out with a plan to get drunk somewhere.

now hard rock cafe happens to be just a few blocks down from where we were, so it was the obvious choice for us to go to. the shop was open when we went in, so we roamed there and checked out overpriced "hard rock cafe" branded stuff (that sweatshirt was amazing though, i'm going to buy it before i leave this place) and after taking pictures of the wall of guitars (seriously, they have a wall made out of electric guitars!) we went into the pub. it was simply rockin'! great music, great bartenders (real enthu junta), great people and great booze (well, that's the same everywhere, but still). i had a chivas regal after a long time, and since pinku was not satisfied by the strength of her screwdriver, i got her an absolut on the rocks!! :D we spent a lot of time there, soaking up the atmosphere, singing the songs playing (ok, we knoew very few of them) and watching sports.... i could understand why the place was so popular! neway, we got out of the place at about 1am, and after having a chocolate muffin (thanx too pinku's craving for something hot and chocolatey, which she didn't get), we got back home.

spent the sunday recuperating from the hectic saturday and cleaning up the house (and making other people help out :D). that was about it. a successful weekend i must say :)

still have to tell you about my visit to MOMA on friday, but it's time to sleep abhi. g'nite. tata!

I'm back!!

Ya, I know, long time since I posted. Sorry, all you people who've been waiting eagerly for another post (I wonder if there are any!). So 2 weeks worth of news to put in (basically, 2 weekends' worth of news to put in, so not a big fight).

so, last to last weekend, I went to see my sis in houston. Got up at 3:00 in the morning so that I could get to some arbit airport in NY (which isn't even connected by a metro station!) on time. It so happened that I reached almost an hour early. Neway, had a hearty breakfast there, and just slept on the flight (as you can guess, no interesting people beside me on the flight). Di was there on time to pick me up... met here after a long time :)

Houston is pretty dead I must say... tons of buildings, some nice expensive houses, but little else. ya, there is a so called museum of modern art (believe it or not, there was a painting there which was about 10feet X 6 feet, which had only a broad vertical white stripe, followed by a broad vertical black stripe, followed by a broad vertical white stripe and... and that's all!). oh, they have a small but very nice museum of contemporary art.

the good thing about houston though is that there are tons of indians there, and therefore tons of great indian places to eat at. so all my meals (barring one, where one of di's firang friends who detests indian food was with us) were indian. pukka indian :D so one day i had a buffet at madras pavilion (nice dosas they make, though the buffet was north indian), one meal at a gujju place (amazing food, i must say, and the owner himself comes and serves you rotis :). really nice) and one meal of chaat pakodi and paneer parathas :D so apart from the fact that i met di (and for the first time got a vague idea of what she does all day in the lab), the food was a real positive in favour of houston. there was also a party at Rice (di's college) where i met all of her friends, though it wasn't as interesting as it mite have been, owing to the fast that most of di's friends are male. :(

oh, and ya, i finally saw RDB (rang de basanti, for the uninitiated) in houston! one of di's friends regularly downloads movies and stuff and he got it for us within 3 hours of us asking him if he had a copy of the movie! amazing guy dutta (his last name) is :)

hmmm... so that was houston, i guess, for those of you who want a break, i'll write about last weekends travails in the next blog. tata.

Starbucks

Starbucks is a really nice place :) atleast the one right next to my house is. they have nice music inside, and awesome sofas where u can sit and look at the hudson and the ferries on it go by... it's as if the whole world is calm and peaceful... beautiful sight.

and then there are the coffee cups which have nice quotes on them :) here's one of them which really struck a chord:

"The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating -- in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life." -- Anne Morriss, Starbucks customer from NYC who describes herself as "an organization builder, restless American citizen, optimist."

so true... when u take a decision and decide to go ahead with it, u lose all fear of failure... when u decide "This is what i'm going to do with my life", it ceases to matter what ppl think abt it, coz their views dnt fuel any scepticism you have within you... in fact, ONLY when u commit can u be successful! everything else is a play of dice. will help me later on i'm sure (tough decisions coming up in less than an year's time).

oh, by the way, the coffee is decent too!

Indian Food!

So, i'm in the US, and ppl would expect me to have tasteless unhealthy western food (ok, that's a bit exaggerated!)... but here i am having some of the best indian food out of home! (considering that i've lived in an IIT and an IIM after that, it's no big deal though). so yesterday we had food in this place called bombay masala, which is the oldest indian restaurant in the US. they gave us amazing food! (and also a complimentary naan). i must say, being in NY, the food was real value for money. and the decor reminds u of indian restaurants, so that's an added plus :)

good, so then i visited the NBC and the ESPN stores in NY. good stuff, these americans sure know how to market stuff! the stores were big, the stores were flashy, the stores made u want to buy stuff! but i resisted the temptation, at least as of now. right, so i come back home and am informed that C ppl are going to the indian market. so i decide to tag along, nothing to do after all. the store is in a place 2 stations down (journal square) boy, was it good! the store had everything u wud find in an indian store! plus, frozen indian food! yyyiiippppeeeeeee! :D i bought tons of stuff... frozen sabjis, frozen parathas, dal, jeera, haldi, the works!

so now today we had to have lunch, and sesky (from A) calls up and asks what we're doing for lunch (indirectly asking for a lunch invitation? ;)). so i invited him over for lunch and got to the task of cooking. we (ok, i) made heavenly mixed veg (thank god, sorry, americans, for inventing frozen chopped mixed vegetables!). must say the heavenly part came about since mrinal told us that he had brought tomatoes the previous night. all 6 (including me) loved the food (or feigned to neway :P). in return, i got all the others (excluding nandita, who was helping cook) to clean up the utensils and the kitchen :D

so after getting appreciated for my culinary skills, it was time to take care of my (pot) belly! but how the hell could i jog in the cold with my shorts on! so off i went to the mall to buy a pair of trackpants. fortunately, there's a sale going on in almost every shop in the mall... had to look around a bit but found decent tracks at rock bottom price (in dollars neway). good for me :) had to resist the urge to buy levi's jeans (on sale too, equal in price to what i wud pay in india). but decided i didnt have the use for it right now (boy, only i know how i restrained!). and hey, i found a sexy cap for only a dollar :D

so with cap and my new pair of tracks in hand, i had to go for a jog :D went for a jog along the hudson... it was fricking cold! but i had a sweatshirt on with the cap put up (on top of my new cap :D) that helped a bit... but it was still FRICKING COLD! neway, i decided not to overdo it the first day (in necase, jogging along the same path becomes a bore after 3 rounds). so came back, and had a nice warm bath :) and now i'm sitting in teh drawing room on the plush sofa, have ghulam ali playing on my comp, see the manhattan skyline in the distance, and am writing this blog... life can't get much better :)

I arrive!

So i'm finally here, after all the visa trouble and what not! The plane journey was ok, had old ppl sitting beside me, and the air-hostesses were old too, so no luck there... but had decently good food and nice wine and vodka on the flight :)

and guess what, as we were about to land, everything outside became white! and i was wondering why it was so... and when we landed, i realized it was snowing :) so after that, and after almost being duped by a cab wallah (thank god i asked ppl before i got there), and after trying to establish the location of my keys, i got to my apartment.

the apartment is very well appointed. in a 2-bedroom apartment, we have 3 TVs! all with direcTV and one with a DVD player! kitchen is even better... we have every utensil and appliance we can dream of needing. and the beds are so awesomely soft that once u sleep u cant hear mrinal ringing the doorbell furiously for 3 hrs! :D and ya, our apartment is right next to the hudson :) looks really beautiful from up here.

right, so that's my apartment. so after getting here, i went arnd to look at what all we have in the vicinity. this area is really well appointed! the path station (the train station that is) is a 1 minute walk... and the mall is a 5 min walk. the supermarket is a little far though, but it'll be good exercise to get there :D made a friend in the mall, but more on that later ;)

had the shittiest burger of my life in the mall... but the good part was that the store was run by indians so i got some info from them. food is damn expensive here by the way! on each meal, i spend almost what i wud be spending in a 5 star restaurant in india! but ya, i shud stop converting... STOP CONVERTING!

well, nothing else special on this day. nandita came back and we went and got some stuff for breakfast (including some heavenly cookies) and had some arbit pizza for dinner. slept early (arnd 11) and slept sound, as would be testified by mrinal :D