Random Thoughts

it is very strange to discover that there is so much talent in a place that, in the opinion of rest of the world, cares about nothing but money. here are two poems that some students have written.

1. the first one is "Dew Drops", written by Abhijit Naik.

The dew drops in thy fascinating eyes
Glistening like pearls in the bright sunshine
Trail the graces of thy silken cheeks fine
When in the lonely night thy bruised heart cries

The callous one who inflicted you so
With cupid's darts made thy blitheness slim swoon
Conceives not with heaven's treasures strewn
Most precious therein on your face flow

Sorrow does not blemish thy beauty's charm
A regal dignity doth thou beget
The angels to thy pulchritude so swarm
More unworthy I could not be and yet

If only, Love, my brow it were that dries
The dew drops in thy fascinating eyes

2. the second one is "Eyes" by Vinay Laamba.

Undoubtedly unmistaken,
I'm sure, I fell for her eyes.
Nothing else,
and she's like warm ice.

Brilliant, like those of an eagle
or perhaps that of the innocent doe;
and of all the things, it was the eyes
that buried me in blissful woe.

Wonder if I am dogmatic.
Still, me finds beauty, deep in the there.
Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder;
I found it lies in the holder, not everywhere.

There are philosophies;
beyond between the legs,
beyond between the ears,
which strike my heart like pegs.

Ego aside, ethics by my side;
I'm sure, I fell for her eyes.
Undoubtedly unmistaken. Nothing else,
And she's like warm ice.

I can identify with the second poem. And no matter how good the first poem is, I honestly don't want to experience its theme.

when do you know if you have seen the girl of your dreams, in the most beautiful dress in the world, having a smile that could kill? here are some of the "symptoms" -

1. the moment you see her, your jaw drops down like you are looking at an unbelievable sight. all the smile that may have been there at your face vanishes, and you suddenly start feeling cold. ( I had seen this in movies, but never believed it till this day.)

2. like a fool you go on blabbering non-sense, never taking your off her pretty face. you two may talk for hours, but of course, you don't remember any of her words afterwards.

3. every now and then you have to stop talking, because you seem to forget your language. you end up saying the same lines again and again. the only thing you remember is to sigh!!

4.you feel like covering your girl in a cloak so that noone could see her, and you want to kill all the 18+ guys in the world who know her.

5.the girl, of course, refuses to believe all the lines that you say praising her. she just thinks you are joking, though you are dead serious.

6. when she goes, you sit down to write a blog about your experience. :)

UK capital markets defy the usual assumptions. it is very well known in financial literature that more often than not, the yield curve shows an upward trend. this is because in the markets there are more short term investors than there are long term ones, and so they demand an extra premium for holding bonds for the long term. this premium is also called the "liquidity premium".

however, the UK market is showing the exactly opposite trend. due to rising population of old people, the pension funds are holding a clout in the market which is unprecedented. since these funds have long term liabilities (in layman's terms, they have to pay people till they die, and thanks to the modern medical marvels most people today die when they are very old. so the pension funds have to estimate payments that they will have to make 30, and even 40 years from now), they don't demand any liquitiy premium for holding bonds. instead, due to the high demand from them, the long term yields on government gilts are actually falling, which is giving rise to a falling yield curve.

it has always been very hard to understand London, be it the capital market, or the people who live there. and this is what I love, perhaps. :)

this post is about credit derivatives, a topic which my FORM professor has been teaching for the past 3 classes. he is teaching a method of valueing credit default swaps which is based on a theoretical method, and quite frankly, which is used by nobody. all the major investment banks use simulation to value those products, because the theoretical models take many assumptions which are not applicable in real life.

the question is, why the hell is the professor teaching those concepts which he also knows very well that his students are not going to use when they go out in the industry? in my opinion, spending time on those concepts is nothing less than wasting time, both for the professor and his students. we could have spent that time more fruitfully reading about some simulation techniques which are actually used in the industry.

just imagine if the prof decides to ask a question based on these models in the exam. why should a student suffer if he knows that the model being taught by the prof is all worthless? it is tantamount to making a student believe that the earth is flat just because by believing so, he will get good marks in the exam. it is very, very detrimental to the intellectual progress of the students. for i remember, that Einstein had once said, that the biggest challenge in front of human being is not to do big, but to dream big. if one tries to conform others' dreams at this early stage itself, how can one expect them to bring their innovative ideas to fruit in this real world ?

you are going on your cycle on a street which otherwise used to be very crowdy, but is deserted right now because it is raining. it is raining now, and the only vehicles you see are either 4-wheels or are rickshaws with water-proof plastic sheets as protection against rain water. you have -3 as the intensity of your spectacles, which practically means that you can't see anything if you haven't them on. but still you are going on your cycle.

the journey is very monotous. but suddenly you see a girl in very good figure walking down the road in a very beautiful dress. you have every opportunity, and desire, to slow down and have a good look at her face and appreciate her vital stats. but alas ! just the moment you decide to do so, you realize that your spectakles are all wet. without them, you can't see anything. and finally you are forced to tread on your path, cursing yourself as to in what god-forsaken hour did you decide as to go to an eye-doctor !!

the more complex things become, the simpler they seem to be. human body is apprarently very simple until you realize that till now scientists haven't been able to model even the movement of our fingers perfectly. the hottest thing is robotics these days, after all that hype about humanoids, is the behvaviour of ants, birds, and fish. their so-called non-sensical movements which seem to be random are found to be much optimized for the type of tasks that they do, and scientists are trying to model their behavior on robots which some day could be used in rescue operations and space missions. telecom industry, to devise routing algorithms for wireless networks, is finding inspiration in pigeons and swarms of little insects. and some years later, the source code for the most complicated website on internet may contain not more than 100 lines. the so-called organic models have the capacity to make redundent all types of database maintenance and data-mining algorithms.

however, this post is about music. after listening, and immsersing myself in almost all types of rock & roll which range from pyrotechnics (Rammstein), psychedelic (Pink Floyd), echoing sonic landscapes (U2), techno (Radiohead) and good old hard metal (Guns n' Roses), i am finding beatles the most sonorous of them all. the simple un-adulterated sound of acoustic guitars and steinway pianos can produce the effect which modern rock bands will die for. their lyrics also plain and simple, like the words you will say to your sweetheart or to yourself when you are alone. and the mouthargon in "Love Me Do" is a delight for anyone has ever tried playing it.

some years ago i was amazed to read in the newspaper that a collection of Beatles published songs was sold out within 2 hours of its release. people had started queueing in front of music stores from as early as 20 hours before the release. i am proud to say that i would have done the same thing then, had i got the opportunity. and no wonder that they are the few bands in the world who rose to billboard no.1 with their first song - "Love Me Do". N-Sync had done that with their song "No Strings Attached", but then they had their professional lyric writers, composers, and a whole army of promoters behind them. Beatles had nobody.

some days ago i was talking to my friend, and he told me that he had to write a letter to his home. i asked him if his home's telephone connection was not working, or whether the place was totally flooded right now, with postal service being the only connection with the rest of the world. i asked this because you actually have some places like this in Bihar during monsoos. there telephone lines break in the middle, and they can't be replaced because the roads are all submerged. the preferred mode of transportation becomes the good old boat, and you can guess the depth of flood water by the fact that my cousins have seen and even tried catching fish that swim in that rainy water.

however, this is not the main point. my friend is a computer engineer, and has worked in software industry for 2 years. i don't think he has any phobia towards use of electronic items. when i asked him, he told that he writes the letter just because the effort that is put in writing a letter reminds him more deeply of his home. his parents are also happy even though they know that there is nothing of significance in the letter and the whole content could have been talked about over phone in just 5-6 minutes. this reminds me of my IIT-graduate uncle, who writes letters to his 80-yr old great-grandmother even though she is no longer able to read and write anything. no wonder, that by now she has forgotten all the names of her grandsons except him.

the most vivid memories of your life are not captured by your ears, but by your heart, which doesn't need the help of sound. silence speaks much louder than words, and the cover of an envelope can tell you much more than what could have been written in the letter inside it.

it doesn't happen every day that ur life gets colorful. but today is rakhi. and though i don't have any sister of my own, i have got lots of rakhis today, all from my cousins. now it may not seem like a big thing to those boys who have sisters, or to those girls who think their brothers don't care for them. but for someone who is condemned to hear the career-related queries from his younger brother every time he calls home, this day indeed makes his life colorful. :)

you see change in almost every aspect of life, but it surprises you when you find it at most unexpected places. for example, just think about the rakhis are sold in the market today. there is not going to be any technological breakthrough in manufacturing or packaging them, nor do their buyers and users care about it. but still every year i find some innovative changes. i still remember that when i was young i used to have those big, and spongy rakhis on my wrist. those were big, around 2 cm in radius, and used to be multi-layered with 3-4 layers of sponge and fancy plastic designs. over the years, however, those went out of fashion and were replaced by thin rakhis. usually they are so thin that you can't tell the difference between the rakhi and the string that is used to wrap it. this year i again noticed a different design. this can be written as some sort of comeback of the old design. only it has fewer layers and it is not that large.

one last thought. many of my cousins are too young to know the signifance of this day. so their mothers have taken the trouble of going to the market, pick up the rakhi and courier it to me. i only hope that when my cousins grow old, they don't forget this big old brother of them. and also, that they don't start sending e-rakhis to my email account. who knows, this might actually come in fashion after some years !! some things are better left unchanged, even though they might seem irrelevant with changing times.

LAB classes usually are very boring, but today it was a pleasant exception. the attendence was full because we had an announced quiz today, and the prof seemed to be at his intellectual best but in a slightly "jerky" way. why am i writing this, will be more clear later.

there was a case in which the court had directed to replace the engine of a faulty car. the prof asked us whether the court should have replaced the whole car instead of replacing the whole engine. i replied, probably it was my only CP in the LAB class till now, that maybe the company had stopped making that particular model by the time the verdict was given. but the prof was looking for some different answer. one guy said that the court was not at fault, since car and engine are two different things. several hands rose to comment on this, and i am writing the conversation exactly as it happened.

A: but sir, i don't agree with his opinion. after all, what would you do with the car if there is no engine inside it.

the whole class was attentive, and the people were expecting some serious judicial explanation. the prof thought for a while, then spoke.

Prof: well, i don't think i have to tell you the other uses of a car without engine.

boys will always boys. while the faces of girls were still blank, the boys started banging the desks with cheer. and their laugh turned hysterical when the prof said," and you can find many documentary evidences of such uses also, in movies like Titanic". :)

but this was not all. during the later part of the class, somehow the conversation steered to the recent controversy in Bihar where a 6-yr old boy is charged with molestation. he quoted an example, and i am writing the words verbatim.

"once a small boy was charged with rape. during the trial, the boy was standing in the witness box. his lawyer, when he was called by the judge to present the evidence, went to the boy and pulled his pants down. he touched his organ by his hand and shook it vigorously. then he told to the judge - look my lord, this organ is not even capable of an erection. how can you think this boy can even rape somebody? the lawyer spoke this line several times and in the meantime, he continued to shake the "organ". finally the boy whispered to the lawyer in his ears - one more jerk, and you lose the case !!!!"

there were 72 people in the class, and 12 of them were girls. :)