Amidst all the skirmishes & thaw in bilateral relations there still exists a bond keeping India & Pakistan together - Mutual admiration for Coke Studio.A well established fact remains that music knows no boundaries and has the power to destroy barriers & bring people closer.At a time where political shenanigans between the two nations have driven relations to a new ebb,CS is a balm on the wounds.Often,unfair comparisons are made between the musical prowess both sides possess despite the fact that both countries have had a rich tradition from NWFP to the North-east.
To celebrate and further the cause of love and togetherness through music, MTV has done the world a huge favor by introducing us all to Coke Studio.Started in 2007 as a face-off between two of Brazil's greatest artists,it has emerged as a confluence of diverse music forms,beautiful fusion of various genres-to create a unique melody which has carved a niche for itself around the globe.
As the format rolls to India,Indonesia & other countries,we take a look as to which artists have made a mark in Coke studio Pakistan & what can we expect from the Indian counterpart
Coke Studio Pakistan:
Rohail Hyatt is one of the best Music Producers in South Asia-PERIOD.This man has executed the concept of Coke Studio to perfection by picking relatively unknown or long forgotten artists from oblivion & giving them a chance to perform on the same stage as heavyweights of the Pakistani music fraternity. A brilliant in-house band comprising of Omran "Momo" Shafique,Zeeshan Parwez,Abdul Latif,"Gumby" Pinto & Zoe Viccaji have been equal contributors to the show's success over the years by coming up with different riffs & melodies every single time to create the trademark "Coke studio" magic.The show's success has clearly underlined the musical diversity of our neighbours,and has shown that their music is not restricted to a section of certain well known Playback singers.Every celebrated name in the Pakistani music industry has been on this stage in one season or the other and have produced some unforgettable fusions.The 3 successful seasons & ongoing Coke Studio 4 have given a platform to some very interesting artists on the scene.A look at the hits:
Zeb & Haniya-Having performed for Strings,Noori & Mekaal Hasan,these cousin sisters classify themselves as a Rock duo,but their music at best can be described as pop bordering on soft rock.Combining Pop music with Turkish & Persian influences & fusing Guitar with traditional instruments like Rubab is a masterstroke.Listen to their renditions Paimona(You won't understand the lyrics,but the music itself is soothing) & Chal diye(sung in collaboration with Javed Bashir) from the 2nd Season of CS.
Arif Lohar & Meesha Shafi-Coke Studio recreates the ageless "Chambe di booti",churns in pop & Sufi elements,and lo,you have an amazingly improvised track.Both the artists complement each other extremely well,with Shafi's powerful vocals and Arif Lohar's Sufi touch giving a new ethereal dimension to this song.Backed up by guitar skills of Omran Shafique,the song takes a different dimension and it becomes a little tough to classify it in a specific genre.Meesha Shafi also has "Main chori chori" to her credit and the two are amongst the best songs of Coke Studio-3.
Mizraab-A quick look at the video,and you realize that Led Zeppelin' wasn't the best on the Guitar after all.For the Paki-Rock fans who love Ali Azmat & Mekaal Hasan,comes the Karachi based Mizraab.The rythm,the bass is Perfect,though singing leaves a lot to be desired,but for fusion-rock at Coke Studio,Mizraab,take a bow!
Asif Hussain Samraat-This little known artist hails from a certain state called Rajasthan in India.Fusing Marwari Folk with classical raagas is truly a job well done.If you love slow,melodious,soulful renditions,you'd love "Senraan Ra Baairya".Summary-intriguing & evocative!
Attaullah Khan Esakhelvi-Somehow,with the likes of Ghulam Ali & Mehdi Hassan around ,Attaullah Khan Esakhelvi is the perennial under-achiever.The man with Guiness record of most number of albums till date has revived the great art of storytelling.His legendary voice is a veritable treat for our generation.On Coke Studio,his track "Ni Oothan waale" captivates everyone who listens to this composition.
Kaavish-Another one of the Quintessential Pop bands in Pakistan,and which,personally has been one of my favourites since long.Many people would raise eyebrows if I'd say that the song which they sung is a lowri!But well,that's coke Studio for you-From Rock to Lowri-all on one stage!Check out Nindiya re..
Fareed Ayaz & Abu Mohammad-"Kangna".
Beautiful improvisation on drums and guitars,great vocals & the surprise element-Magnificent Riffs on Bass.
JoSH-Q & Rup created magic on the 2nd season by collaborating with Shafaqat Amanat Ali & we hope this Toronto based band will put its previous attempt to shame & out-do its previous performance.
Coke Studio India:As a music enthusiast,I am keeping fingers crossed & praying for the success of this show.Even if Coke Studio @ MTV comes remotely close to what we have in Pakistan,we are in for a delightful treat!. Leslie Lewis or Rohail Hyatt-that's something we'll be keenly observing.
Advaita-The Delhi based band already has a cult following amongst the music circles.A highly acclaimed fusion band(and also one of only 4 bands to have worked with John Leckie) with powerful Hindustani Vocals of Ujwal Nagar & Suhail Yusuf Khan,Western Vocals of Chayan Adhikari & a heavy duty line-up of Anindo Bose,Abhishek Mathur,Mohit Lal,Aman Rathore & Gaurav Chintamani are known for mixing Raagas,contemporary music & experimenting with instruments.Watch out for Raag Durga,Ghir ghir,Gates of Dawn & other tracks from their album-"grounded in Space".
Raghu dixit-Their website describes them as "One of the pioneers in India in creating an openhouse for artists from different genres to collaborate & create dynamic sounds and expressions" Raghu Dixit's music is an amalgamation of Indian ethnic music and styles from different parts of the world.His lyrics are quite simple,peppy at times,thought provoking at others,but nonetheless,his songs are quite different and distinct from mainstream indipop.Hope to hear Mysore se aai,Khidkiyan & No Man ever loved you with a dash of Coke Studio!!
Tochi Raina-The man dubbed as the next big thing in the Indian Music Industry,with a very distinct voice is Tochi Raina.Having sung critically acclaimed songs in A Wednesday(which fetched him an award),Iktara & Saibo,expectations are high from this Sufi turned Playback singer!
Wadali brothers-Legends are Ageless,and this brother duo testify the statement.The Voice quality is superb,the range is phenomenal.Anyone associated with music holds Wadali brothers in high regard.One of the most respected folk,Qawwali & sufi singer collaboration in India,Wadali brothers & Coke Studio make for a heady music delight!
Kailasa-The triumvirate of Kailash,Naresh & Paresh form the band "KAILASA" which means crystal,and indeed these three music geniuses make music which is pure & crytal clear.Over the years,they have given hits such as Teri deewani,Saiyaan & Chaandan mein.We are eagerly awaiting the moment when Kailasa meets COKE!
We hope that this palette of genres not only provides a kaleidoscopic view of the Indian Music culture and continues unearthing new talent & promote Pure music but also helps heal relations.As someone rightly put it that after silence, what comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music!
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Zoology Lessons for the Indian Investor ;)
Everyone must be aware of the fact that Apes and Humans have 98% similar DNA. The 2% variation occurred when a Gorilla opened a banana ditch and gave 1 peel to 20 others, promising them 1 banana every day if they gave him one banana each that day. Four weeks later, a whistle blowing baboon discovered that the ditch was empty and in the resulting punch up, brain damage in the tribe led to mutation.A majority of the descendants became investors. The enterprising gorilla descendants became the founder of Operators, brokers, promoters and politicians. The whistle blowing baboon didn't evolve too much. Its descendants started M.A.G.
There is a certain personality element derived from different animals,maybe,it might have actually inspired the Chinese calendar. I always knew that the Year of the Mouse or Year of the Tiger meant that in those years, a Mouse or Tiger personality would lose his life savings in the stock market.
Infact, Kung-fu evolved as a means to punish the stock broking cartels who cleaned up the ming or ping or ching dynasties. The investors had to sell all their weapons and so were left with bare hands to kill the bears.
There are 10 primary animal personas, especially for Indian investors.
1. The Bull Investor:
The Bull Investor is very well known. The Press and Media never fail to praise the bull when it invests in an over valued stock, all the time convinced that it is undervalued.
The advantage of being a bull investor is that there is mostly a bigger bull who believes the other bulls bullshit and buy at even higher prices. This is also known as the "Greater Fool Theory". Logically, we can derive that all bulls are fools.
The last bull normally ends up in the McDonalds double decker burger.
2. The Bear Investor:
The Bear Investor is the master villain in our media. The evil Grizzly Bear brings down stocks because it thinks all stocks are over valued even if the stock earns ten times its par value every quarter.
Nobody understands the psychology of a bear investor. Some psychiatrists who belong to the mixture of Freudian, Phobian and Trobian school point out that inferiority complexes in childhood could lead to a Bear investor self identifying its low self esteem with all other objects of perceived value. I think Bears should attack such psychiatrists instead of the stock market.
In any case Bears also end up being skinned when a herd of mad bulls attack them. Just being a carnivore isnt a guarantee of success at Dalal Street.
3. The Fox:
The wily Fox. It rarely loses. It will speak bull language and eat grasss amongst bulls but sneak into the bear camp when the bigger/dumber bulls start leading the herd. It also gets tired of vegetarian meals after a while. Later on, it will ditch the bears the moment it spots a large herd of even bigger and dumber bulls. Ultimately it gets to eat the bulls and wear bear skin suits.
You may find some foxes in the options and futures market. They get busted only in times of sudden disasters. Its safe to say that this rare species is the most successful of Indian investors. The Indian Investor Wildlife Fund however has the Fox Investors in the extremely rare category.
4. The Rooster:
A Rooster investor cannot wait to day trade! It will rise early each day and rush to open twenty computer screens and scan the charts, crow about its discovery of stock price support and stock price resistance. It will bravely tell other chickens entry and exit points without its feathers getting ruffled by the Index values. 99% of the time, the market will behave in the exact opposite way and as a result, the poultry industry is always stuck with the problem of over supply. Good for Chicken Tikka fans.
5. The Lamb:
The most common Indian investor personality. Excellent epertise in being slaughtered day in and day out, week after week, quarter after quarter and year after year. They (We?) always manage to get in the wrong stock at the wrong time and get out of the right stock at the wrong time. Designed for destruction, you can never fail to identify them, especially in Internet message boards where they scream for help before their bankers drag them to the abattoirs. "Abattoir" is the Corporate Head Office of Butchers, for those who are rushing to get a dictionary.Here is a typical Lamb Message in an Internet Stock Forum:
"Dear Sir,
I bought 100 shares of Pan Masala Pharma Ltd at 2440.50 rupees on recommendation from a leading analyst on @#8* Stock News Channel. The stock has since come down to 2 rupees. Should I buy 100 more to average ? Please tell me what to do!"
What can we answer! It is going to be slaughtered anyway so a Fox investor would ask the Lamb to average by buying 10,000 more.
6. The Horse:
The Horse Investors just want to run and run and run! They cannot stay with the same stock for more than 3 days, sometimes 3 hours. They are blessed with very poor mathematcial skills and this helps them avoid any guilt feelings of booking losses. A cyclical pattern emerges in their lives wherein they lose all their trading money in 2 weeks and get back to their stable, labouring to earn enough for next years loss.
Unaware, they carry a lot of Fox and Snake Investors on their backs….
7. Which brings us to the Snake Investor:
The deadliest possible investor. Even a Fox Investor may lose but a snake investor never loses because it has a forked tongue ie two professions: That of an Analyst or Operator or Company Promoter as well as that of an investor. It will always claim that it doesn't have any vested interests in the stocks that are the focus of its research.
[The Snake never lies to itself else it will bite its tail in disgust and commit suicide. All it will do is maintain two accounts, one for its wife or child to keep those stocks on which it manipulates consent in the general zoo of investors]
You will see snakes every day on a stock channel. They will call the right guest, another member of the brotherhood. The snake brothers would have picked up 100000 shares of ChoriLal PlasticButtons Ltd, talk about a textile boom which would boost the button market 10 times. (Why? because one shirt needs 10 buttons average, dummy) and after the show is over, dump their shares on a 20% upper circuit breaker. The company is likely to be delisted next week due to bogus accounting but the Snakes have made a killing without even having to use their poisonous fangs. The forked tongue is sufficient…Snake Investors also abound in the company of other animals. They will spur the horse to chase after the worst stock, lead lambs to the slaughter on the company ripe for the greatest fall and occasionally conduct special coaching camps for Foxes. Their mere look is enough to hypnotize a bull into action. Even Bears are not safe. Several Bears have been skinned when they short sold a stock in the morning just before a Snake releases news to lock it in 20% upper circuit freeze.
The most dangerous place for a Snake Investor to be is however an internet message board where many Lambs can visit 24 hrs from across the planet to choose the knife to get slaughtered with.Here is a sample conversation, brackets have my comments:
Snake_Investor: "Dear Friends, I have been told from the highest possible source (its maid or driver) that Khooni Knives and Razors Ltd ( Company premises are actually used to make tons of cobwebs) is coming out with a 10:1 bonus issue ie 10 shares bonus for every share held!!! Date of closure is only 30 days away, in their extraordinary general body meeting!!! Buy! Buy! Buy! Stock will triple"
[10 days later]
Lamb_Investor "Dear Sir, Thanks for the info. The share has climbed to 275 from 30. I want to buy 10,000 shares with my life savings. Is there still sufficient chances of growth?
Snake_Investor: "Dear, Stock will reach 1000+. Buy! Buy! Buy!
(suddenly, the hypnotized Bull barges in)
Bull_Investor: "I am buying! Just buy! buy! buy! "
[2 days later]
Lamb_Investor: " Bought 5000 shares as share is now 500. Thanks for the recommendation"
Next day the delisting news will come with fines slapped by the monitoring agencies. The promoters have long fled to Switzerland. Share has no buyers and eventually falls to 2 rupees.
[20 days later, in the slaughterhouse]
Lamb_Investor: "I should have bought at 275 levels itself…."
Bull_Investor : " If we escape the butcher, I have one more pick to help us recover.
Anti-Itching Finance Solutions Ltd , Target 3000 , BUY BUY …Bye Bye (Chop)…."
8. The Hog Investor:
An easy classification. Hog Investors like to make pigs of themselves in Dalal Street. Instead of bringing home the bacon, they largely end up as sliced ham in a Bear restaurant. The Bears do feel like a bit of a swine when they cut up the Hogs but its all in a days work for them. After all, these greedy Hogs should know when to stop buying a certain stock. As you "Sow", so you reap.
Heres a typical encounter, the poetic license is pure Hogwash:
Hog_Investor: "Oink! Oink! Grunt! Grunt!, I need 1000 shares more you runt! "
Snake_Broker: "Against my tendency do evil and shine, I advise restraint and silently whine."
Hog_Investor: "Oink! Oink! I need 1000 more, loafer!"
"Any delay and I change my broker!"
Snake_Broker: "This hurts me more than I thought it will,"
"Got you a 1000 more Piggy, Have your fill."
[2 weeks and 20,000 shares later, the Hog loses his profits and is 90% in loss]
Hog_Investor: "Oink! Oink! How much credit do I have to start afresh?"
Shylock_Banker: "I don't know but I will be knocking for my pound of flesh."
(Actually it will need all 100 pounds of the Hog to pay for the losses, but you get the general
idea. )
9. The Vulture Investor:
Not a bad animal persona to have. Whenever a bubble bursts and millions of bulls, lambs, roosters , horses and hogs become mincemeat in the Snake /Bear owned slaughter houses, the vultures fly down to collect the scraps of stocks left behind after the carnage.
These are the times when Dalal Street is so morose that a graveyard starts resembling a Bay Watch episode in comparision. In some ways, vultures can be more succesful than Snakes and Foxes but have a habit of exiting the scene the moment a recovery takes place.
Afterwards they may mutate to other loser animal personas or stick to vulture hood patiently for a few months more.
10. The Elephant Investor:
This one is a must have guest in meeitngs and high soceity parties! Typically a high networth individual whose great grandfather was the Nawab of Nizamabad, you will see them in IPL matches with elegant women young enough to be their grand daughters.
The names of their suits and ties will have 30-40 letters and sound like a combination of an Italian dish , a newly discovered galaxy and a latin name of an animal species.
These Elephants have the proverbial computer hard disk memory and will recall the board of directors of a company that went bankrupt 67 years ago. (I wont be surprised if the Elephants father made a killing before the bankruptcy. Most Elephants have Snakes for advisors).
Elephants have the size advantage. Ok, I know that cliché wanted you to throw the monitor into my head but I mean it. They get all the juicy IPOs first and a huge allotment thereby allowing them to get bigger. And whatever good stocks are left, the Elephants can use the Trunk advantage to hose it up. They really need to gobble up 1000s of shares of 100s of companies in a typical investment year. Market collapses and bubbles just don't matter.
The Snake and the Fox use the infinite financial weight of the Elephant to ride the Horse for profits before arranging the slaughter of Lambs , Roosters, Bulls and Hogs.
This completes the top 10. You also have several other species behaviours in Investors but they are occasional. A 100 rupee profit will make the investor roar like a horny Lion. A Donkey persona will allow the investor to make an ass of himself while stubbornly catching a falling share. A Shark Investor will loan his profits to Lambs and shear their wool before the Bear makes chop suey. So on and so forth.The moral of this zoology lesson is to overcome your animal instincts and become a Human Investor. Learning from the mistakes of different personas and leveraging their strengths help improve your trade strategies to optimal levels over a lifetime. Maybe you will turn into an Elephant Investor with an FTV model by your side ;)!
There is a certain personality element derived from different animals,maybe,it might have actually inspired the Chinese calendar. I always knew that the Year of the Mouse or Year of the Tiger meant that in those years, a Mouse or Tiger personality would lose his life savings in the stock market.
Infact, Kung-fu evolved as a means to punish the stock broking cartels who cleaned up the ming or ping or ching dynasties. The investors had to sell all their weapons and so were left with bare hands to kill the bears.
There are 10 primary animal personas, especially for Indian investors.
1. The Bull Investor:
The Bull Investor is very well known. The Press and Media never fail to praise the bull when it invests in an over valued stock, all the time convinced that it is undervalued.
The advantage of being a bull investor is that there is mostly a bigger bull who believes the other bulls bullshit and buy at even higher prices. This is also known as the "Greater Fool Theory". Logically, we can derive that all bulls are fools.
The last bull normally ends up in the McDonalds double decker burger.
2. The Bear Investor:
The Bear Investor is the master villain in our media. The evil Grizzly Bear brings down stocks because it thinks all stocks are over valued even if the stock earns ten times its par value every quarter.
Nobody understands the psychology of a bear investor. Some psychiatrists who belong to the mixture of Freudian, Phobian and Trobian school point out that inferiority complexes in childhood could lead to a Bear investor self identifying its low self esteem with all other objects of perceived value. I think Bears should attack such psychiatrists instead of the stock market.
In any case Bears also end up being skinned when a herd of mad bulls attack them. Just being a carnivore isnt a guarantee of success at Dalal Street.
3. The Fox:
The wily Fox. It rarely loses. It will speak bull language and eat grasss amongst bulls but sneak into the bear camp when the bigger/dumber bulls start leading the herd. It also gets tired of vegetarian meals after a while. Later on, it will ditch the bears the moment it spots a large herd of even bigger and dumber bulls. Ultimately it gets to eat the bulls and wear bear skin suits.
You may find some foxes in the options and futures market. They get busted only in times of sudden disasters. Its safe to say that this rare species is the most successful of Indian investors. The Indian Investor Wildlife Fund however has the Fox Investors in the extremely rare category.
4. The Rooster:
A Rooster investor cannot wait to day trade! It will rise early each day and rush to open twenty computer screens and scan the charts, crow about its discovery of stock price support and stock price resistance. It will bravely tell other chickens entry and exit points without its feathers getting ruffled by the Index values. 99% of the time, the market will behave in the exact opposite way and as a result, the poultry industry is always stuck with the problem of over supply. Good for Chicken Tikka fans.
5. The Lamb:
The most common Indian investor personality. Excellent epertise in being slaughtered day in and day out, week after week, quarter after quarter and year after year. They (We?) always manage to get in the wrong stock at the wrong time and get out of the right stock at the wrong time. Designed for destruction, you can never fail to identify them, especially in Internet message boards where they scream for help before their bankers drag them to the abattoirs. "Abattoir" is the Corporate Head Office of Butchers, for those who are rushing to get a dictionary.Here is a typical Lamb Message in an Internet Stock Forum:
"Dear Sir,
I bought 100 shares of Pan Masala Pharma Ltd at 2440.50 rupees on recommendation from a leading analyst on @#8* Stock News Channel. The stock has since come down to 2 rupees. Should I buy 100 more to average ? Please tell me what to do!"
What can we answer! It is going to be slaughtered anyway so a Fox investor would ask the Lamb to average by buying 10,000 more.
6. The Horse:
The Horse Investors just want to run and run and run! They cannot stay with the same stock for more than 3 days, sometimes 3 hours. They are blessed with very poor mathematcial skills and this helps them avoid any guilt feelings of booking losses. A cyclical pattern emerges in their lives wherein they lose all their trading money in 2 weeks and get back to their stable, labouring to earn enough for next years loss.
Unaware, they carry a lot of Fox and Snake Investors on their backs….
7. Which brings us to the Snake Investor:
The deadliest possible investor. Even a Fox Investor may lose but a snake investor never loses because it has a forked tongue ie two professions: That of an Analyst or Operator or Company Promoter as well as that of an investor. It will always claim that it doesn't have any vested interests in the stocks that are the focus of its research.
[The Snake never lies to itself else it will bite its tail in disgust and commit suicide. All it will do is maintain two accounts, one for its wife or child to keep those stocks on which it manipulates consent in the general zoo of investors]
You will see snakes every day on a stock channel. They will call the right guest, another member of the brotherhood. The snake brothers would have picked up 100000 shares of ChoriLal PlasticButtons Ltd, talk about a textile boom which would boost the button market 10 times. (Why? because one shirt needs 10 buttons average, dummy) and after the show is over, dump their shares on a 20% upper circuit breaker. The company is likely to be delisted next week due to bogus accounting but the Snakes have made a killing without even having to use their poisonous fangs. The forked tongue is sufficient…Snake Investors also abound in the company of other animals. They will spur the horse to chase after the worst stock, lead lambs to the slaughter on the company ripe for the greatest fall and occasionally conduct special coaching camps for Foxes. Their mere look is enough to hypnotize a bull into action. Even Bears are not safe. Several Bears have been skinned when they short sold a stock in the morning just before a Snake releases news to lock it in 20% upper circuit freeze.
The most dangerous place for a Snake Investor to be is however an internet message board where many Lambs can visit 24 hrs from across the planet to choose the knife to get slaughtered with.Here is a sample conversation, brackets have my comments:
Snake_Investor: "Dear Friends, I have been told from the highest possible source (its maid or driver) that Khooni Knives and Razors Ltd ( Company premises are actually used to make tons of cobwebs) is coming out with a 10:1 bonus issue ie 10 shares bonus for every share held!!! Date of closure is only 30 days away, in their extraordinary general body meeting!!! Buy! Buy! Buy! Stock will triple"
[10 days later]
Lamb_Investor "Dear Sir, Thanks for the info. The share has climbed to 275 from 30. I want to buy 10,000 shares with my life savings. Is there still sufficient chances of growth?
Snake_Investor: "Dear, Stock will reach 1000+. Buy! Buy! Buy!
(suddenly, the hypnotized Bull barges in)
Bull_Investor: "I am buying! Just buy! buy! buy! "
[2 days later]
Lamb_Investor: " Bought 5000 shares as share is now 500. Thanks for the recommendation"
Next day the delisting news will come with fines slapped by the monitoring agencies. The promoters have long fled to Switzerland. Share has no buyers and eventually falls to 2 rupees.
[20 days later, in the slaughterhouse]
Lamb_Investor: "I should have bought at 275 levels itself…."
Bull_Investor : " If we escape the butcher, I have one more pick to help us recover.
Anti-Itching Finance Solutions Ltd , Target 3000 , BUY BUY …Bye Bye (Chop)…."
8. The Hog Investor:
An easy classification. Hog Investors like to make pigs of themselves in Dalal Street. Instead of bringing home the bacon, they largely end up as sliced ham in a Bear restaurant. The Bears do feel like a bit of a swine when they cut up the Hogs but its all in a days work for them. After all, these greedy Hogs should know when to stop buying a certain stock. As you "Sow", so you reap.
Heres a typical encounter, the poetic license is pure Hogwash:
Hog_Investor: "Oink! Oink! Grunt! Grunt!, I need 1000 shares more you runt! "
Snake_Broker: "Against my tendency do evil and shine, I advise restraint and silently whine."
Hog_Investor: "Oink! Oink! I need 1000 more, loafer!"
"Any delay and I change my broker!"
Snake_Broker: "This hurts me more than I thought it will,"
"Got you a 1000 more Piggy, Have your fill."
[2 weeks and 20,000 shares later, the Hog loses his profits and is 90% in loss]
Hog_Investor: "Oink! Oink! How much credit do I have to start afresh?"
Shylock_Banker: "I don't know but I will be knocking for my pound of flesh."
(Actually it will need all 100 pounds of the Hog to pay for the losses, but you get the general
idea. )
9. The Vulture Investor:
Not a bad animal persona to have. Whenever a bubble bursts and millions of bulls, lambs, roosters , horses and hogs become mincemeat in the Snake /Bear owned slaughter houses, the vultures fly down to collect the scraps of stocks left behind after the carnage.
These are the times when Dalal Street is so morose that a graveyard starts resembling a Bay Watch episode in comparision. In some ways, vultures can be more succesful than Snakes and Foxes but have a habit of exiting the scene the moment a recovery takes place.
Afterwards they may mutate to other loser animal personas or stick to vulture hood patiently for a few months more.
10. The Elephant Investor:
This one is a must have guest in meeitngs and high soceity parties! Typically a high networth individual whose great grandfather was the Nawab of Nizamabad, you will see them in IPL matches with elegant women young enough to be their grand daughters.
The names of their suits and ties will have 30-40 letters and sound like a combination of an Italian dish , a newly discovered galaxy and a latin name of an animal species.
These Elephants have the proverbial computer hard disk memory and will recall the board of directors of a company that went bankrupt 67 years ago. (I wont be surprised if the Elephants father made a killing before the bankruptcy. Most Elephants have Snakes for advisors).
Elephants have the size advantage. Ok, I know that cliché wanted you to throw the monitor into my head but I mean it. They get all the juicy IPOs first and a huge allotment thereby allowing them to get bigger. And whatever good stocks are left, the Elephants can use the Trunk advantage to hose it up. They really need to gobble up 1000s of shares of 100s of companies in a typical investment year. Market collapses and bubbles just don't matter.
The Snake and the Fox use the infinite financial weight of the Elephant to ride the Horse for profits before arranging the slaughter of Lambs , Roosters, Bulls and Hogs.
This completes the top 10. You also have several other species behaviours in Investors but they are occasional. A 100 rupee profit will make the investor roar like a horny Lion. A Donkey persona will allow the investor to make an ass of himself while stubbornly catching a falling share. A Shark Investor will loan his profits to Lambs and shear their wool before the Bear makes chop suey. So on and so forth.The moral of this zoology lesson is to overcome your animal instincts and become a Human Investor. Learning from the mistakes of different personas and leveraging their strengths help improve your trade strategies to optimal levels over a lifetime. Maybe you will turn into an Elephant Investor with an FTV model by your side ;)!
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Startup idea 1
You failed the IIT-JEE?Here's a novel idea to set shop..
How to do it
You somehow manage to get in near the front of long queues (railway stations, college admissions, etc). Then tell the guy behind you he can get in front of you by giving you just Re 1. Repeat that with the next two thousand people in line. If the queue is long enough and the day is hot enough, increase the fee.
Initial investment
None. If you go to sleep by mistake and actually reach the ticket counter, you might find yourself having to buy a ticket. Even in this worst case, do not despair. See our variations below. However a true professional would not hesitate to camp overnight to secure the pole position, so a sleeping bag might make good business sense.
Salary
No upper limit. You can potentially get money from every person in India. Multiple times. Why aren't we doing this ourselves?
Growth prospects
Once you have perfected your first-in-line skills, teach friends and family and employ agents in other cities to do this for you. If you could just get one agent in every college admission and railway station line in the country, you will never have to work again.
After some time, you could open a training institute for queue sacrificers. And then there would be an entrance exam, and coaching institutes for that entrance exam. And one day you'll be like Bill Gates, and someone will start an open-source queue sacrificial institute with a few dedicated fans which never becomes popular.
Possible variations
If you actually buy a ticket/get a form by mistake, go to the 100th person in line, and perform a slow and seductive dance, dangling the ticket/form in front of his/her eyes. After five minutes of this dance (or less, depending on how young/hot you are), start an auction. Black market selling just got to a whole new level.
When you become really good, hire an accomplice - a tired old lady with a heavy bag with a mobile hospital drip line in tow. After you have pulled off your little scheme once and fallen out of the line, the lady enters. She then goes to the first guy in line and says she needs that ticket/form and she can't stand in line for more than 10 minutes or she'll die. He then, overcome by pity, offers her his place in the line. She stands in line, after having called down the blessings of a few assorted deities on his head. After 5 minutes of looking anxiously at her watch and coughing blood, she recognizes a kind gentleman she knows (that's you). You admonish her for being out here with brain, blood and lung cancer, give her money to take a taxi home and take her spot in the line. No one will stop you and there you are, first in line again with 5 minutes effort. If you feel particularly cocky maybe you can pretend to be poor and convince the guy behind you to fund her taxi trip.
A nice supplement to your daily work could be side duty as the Hand of God. Whenever a poor sucker tries to queuejump ahead of you, you jump on him and rip his throat out with your bare teeth. People will start raining money on you without your even asking. You can probably take the rest of the day off.
Things that could go wrong
A queue sacrificer who does it out of the good of his heart. Such people should be destroyed at all costs. Just accuse them of cutting in line and rip their evil hearts out.
A frustrated person in the queue might beat you to death if you ask him for money. Hopefully before this happens, your wife and kids will be provided for...
How to do it
You somehow manage to get in near the front of long queues (railway stations, college admissions, etc). Then tell the guy behind you he can get in front of you by giving you just Re 1. Repeat that with the next two thousand people in line. If the queue is long enough and the day is hot enough, increase the fee.
Initial investment
None. If you go to sleep by mistake and actually reach the ticket counter, you might find yourself having to buy a ticket. Even in this worst case, do not despair. See our variations below. However a true professional would not hesitate to camp overnight to secure the pole position, so a sleeping bag might make good business sense.
Salary
No upper limit. You can potentially get money from every person in India. Multiple times. Why aren't we doing this ourselves?
Growth prospects
Once you have perfected your first-in-line skills, teach friends and family and employ agents in other cities to do this for you. If you could just get one agent in every college admission and railway station line in the country, you will never have to work again.
After some time, you could open a training institute for queue sacrificers. And then there would be an entrance exam, and coaching institutes for that entrance exam. And one day you'll be like Bill Gates, and someone will start an open-source queue sacrificial institute with a few dedicated fans which never becomes popular.
Possible variations
If you actually buy a ticket/get a form by mistake, go to the 100th person in line, and perform a slow and seductive dance, dangling the ticket/form in front of his/her eyes. After five minutes of this dance (or less, depending on how young/hot you are), start an auction. Black market selling just got to a whole new level.
When you become really good, hire an accomplice - a tired old lady with a heavy bag with a mobile hospital drip line in tow. After you have pulled off your little scheme once and fallen out of the line, the lady enters. She then goes to the first guy in line and says she needs that ticket/form and she can't stand in line for more than 10 minutes or she'll die. He then, overcome by pity, offers her his place in the line. She stands in line, after having called down the blessings of a few assorted deities on his head. After 5 minutes of looking anxiously at her watch and coughing blood, she recognizes a kind gentleman she knows (that's you). You admonish her for being out here with brain, blood and lung cancer, give her money to take a taxi home and take her spot in the line. No one will stop you and there you are, first in line again with 5 minutes effort. If you feel particularly cocky maybe you can pretend to be poor and convince the guy behind you to fund her taxi trip.
A nice supplement to your daily work could be side duty as the Hand of God. Whenever a poor sucker tries to queuejump ahead of you, you jump on him and rip his throat out with your bare teeth. People will start raining money on you without your even asking. You can probably take the rest of the day off.
Things that could go wrong
A queue sacrificer who does it out of the good of his heart. Such people should be destroyed at all costs. Just accuse them of cutting in line and rip their evil hearts out.
A frustrated person in the queue might beat you to death if you ask him for money. Hopefully before this happens, your wife and kids will be provided for...
Sunday, September 12, 2010
This doesn’t have to do anything with 'Shiney The BAI-SEXUAL Ahuja', It's all about the despos with slurping bikes and drooling eyes breathing around us. It includes females too,(yes I believe in equality.) Or maybe less,owing to our sex ratio. I have seen girls complaining, that how they get pissed off even when a guy as Docile as ' Vivek Oberoi' (who only listens to his papa ), said "Hii" to them. However they don't mind a Desi wannabe Ricky Martin Singing "I am the desperado, underneath your window" for them. Some real Despos belong to these following categories….:)
THE TECHIES: Those who use these social networking sites the Facebooks,the Orkuts, as their sex pistols (errrrrr weapons to verbally and mildly seduce the opposite genders,) even when their bases indicate 180 Degrees alignment and several KMs of distinction,if a print out of the google map is taken and analysed. If I have to stake my money I would stake it on an Indian Team winning EPL or Tushar Kapoor getting an Oscar award but I won't stake it on their rendezvous. But still they don't mind sticking their two Pennies everywhere. 'Love ya', 'Miss ya', 'F*ck ya', 'Suck ya' are the common mushy phrases ranging from mean to extremes (both the extremes I mean,he he), and I have my aversion for the words 'Babu' 'Shona' and 'Baby'.
Come on man,Babus are too much ready with the red tape,Babies are not allowed on these sites and Babies don't know how to type either, *Period*.
I also hate the the excess 'hugg'ing and 'aww'ing factors…No Actually I love them….Awww…SEE!Just gives me enough pedigree to Laugh My Ass Off,seriously :P
The dudes and dudettes, Put the half naked pics of all the models killing the costume-suspense, and the quotes which they copy from some random sites, are the examples of some wannabe sex-o-holics, who may not even controll themselves while loosing their "I LOVE YOU-GINITY".
THE DESPERATE VAGABONDS: They are always in search of 'True-sex', and their 'soul sex-partners', from Malls to local buses and trains, and sometimes in those Red,blue,green light areas. Majority of 'Oblique people' those who don't satisfy Y=mX+C can be seen on these places,(See,I told you earlier,I am..oops was a science student in class XII).Alright, before you break your head or my head for the above line, Let me tell you that Some Bhatt says "that anything that is not straight is oblique", and I know a little Co-odrinate geometry, and Y=mX+C is the equation of a straight line,where m is the slope,Y and X are variables, and C is a constant....Chiiiii chiii ...Joke ka essence chala jata hai explain karney se :(
THE MICHAEL JACKSONS : Nahi nahi, 'Micahel Jack' ka beta nahi, I am talking about the living prototype of the Human race evolution.
They have the real interests for the babies, even 30 to 40 year old uncles with Don shades, and funky colored costumes, as if will they will really shake their ass like a belly dancer if they are asked to, go literally on their knees with or without their pants. They are not He-mans they are rather hymens, they just break and 'blood'y consequences follow up.
Ha ha ha
THE FAST FORWARDS: They get the guts to approach and assault the opposite genders, as if they are the real Stifflers inspired by American Pie series. These dudes and dudettes have an accent that works from Barahampur to Barbados and Korba to California. Sportsmen worship the Pumping Iron jacks and other tattoo lovers worship Tommy Lee or Megan Fox(Jai Megan Mata). Girls having their hair coloured like a jinx of html color codes,N nailpaint like a catalogue of “Asian paints Royale” and guys having it spiked up from north pole to south pole, are the abundant types…..
Still searching…n will update as I research more!!
P.S : No offense to anyone who got a feeling that OMG ! I belong to so and so category, while reading this post :P
What do we indians need to do?
So..while beching raddi today,I came across an old edition of Economic Times...And The Headline really took me by surprise(or should I say not!)
The headline was-"INDIANS NOT ALLOWED"!
It did stir up some curiosity in me..and As I read ahead...it was a li'l disturbing for me as an Indian!
Haagen Dazs'(In case many of you who have not heard this name...they are one of the world's biggest ice-cream retailers..arguably..even bigger than Baskin Robbins) opened its first store in the capital about 8 months back..(And my wild guess was correct...it had to be in Saket...cuz outlets like Hard Rock Cafe and Haagen Dazs' can't think more innovatively..).But more intriguing was the fact that they had an "Exclusive Preview" Campaign underway to promote their product...and the tagline was "Entry restricted to holders of International Passports Only"..Well..now as an international company who has just opened shop in the Capital of a 1.2 billion strong population,the choice of words could really have been better..and sensible enough.
It was hard to believe that when the 63rd independence day is round the corner..after years of having acheived freedom from the divided world of Whites,Browns and Blacks...The so called MNCs still are so "Backward"!
Well well..I always thought that it was only us Indians who still have certain "stereotypes" encrusted in our minds..but for maybe the 100th time in my life..I was wrong :P
Even the German-American society has yet not moved on!!
The fact I am writing this article is not to throw mud on Haagen Dazs' marketing strategy or to undermine the societies of other "Stronger" and "Powerful" nations (2 adjectives which m tired of...really..Lets think out of the box...The US can be called say..Gladiator...and the UK..maybe Scrumpy jack... :P) but to draw our attention-The Indians to the reality..
The fact remains that we may no longer treat ourselves a third world nation..but the people in other countries still treat us as if we are slaves!Despite the meteoric rise of people such as Indira Nooyi as chairwoman of Pepsico or Vikram Pandit as CEO of Citibank..or Ajay Banga @ Mastercard...The truth remains that Indians still evoke reactions of envy amongst our International peers...
What the Americans could muster after nearly 200 years of independence has already been overtaken by India in terms of its GDP within 63 years of our country's birth!Look at where Pakistan is at the same juncture?While a country like UK is facing a negative GDP..India's has been amongst the highest in recent years!Where the mighty "Aussies" have a "bloody fighting spirit,mate"(Ahem ahem...I mean FIGHT)..we Indians are amogst the most hospitable and accomodating people in the world!The English wouldn't really have thought that we'd follow them back..in their own country when we talk about NRIs being the largest chunk of immigrants in the wrold..
But the reason why we still lack respect is because of our behaviour we put across..We,the common people still lack the level of thinking which has been demonstrated by greats like Jamshedji Tata,Kumar Manglam Birla,Dhirubhai Ambani,Anil Aggarwal or LN Mittal!Our society is still a 100 years off from now(Those who have an argument,you would have to see it when u go to places like Orissa or Tijara..Not while sitting in the Airconditioned confines of your room)..We still act irresponsibly while walking on the streets,while driving on the roads,while waiting on the Railway station or While boarding a plane at the Airport...While being in the Cinema hall,or at the restaurant...or in the Park!
How many of us has ever really never broken the rules?Have not spitted on the "yahan thookna mana hai" warnings..or not overtaken some1 from the wrong side..or never honked in the "No horns please" zone...never ever littered on the road?I can't see the Smoking in the public places ban imposed strictly..Even I belong to these categories...And that is why I always say(takiya kalaam types) that we Indians are the most "Hypocritical" people!
Even a beggar in India owns a mobile phone these days..but yet..he is a beggar...
How long..Till how long will we blame the bureaucracy or the law or the government for this fracas?If we are asked questions..our standard reply-"what can we do about it"...We have surrendered to fate..and we,ourselves feel we are weaker than the "First World"..That is why companies like Haagen Dazs' treat us in the same way...as we want to be treated..
We are trying to be overtly modern..and showing our desperation to catch up with others...leaving behind our own legacy..and traditions..yet clinging on to certain stereotypes...
We would rather speak English in a fake British/American accent...but would rather feel ashamed in saying a "Namaste"!(Grow up people...atleast 50% of the nation knows some English)!
How many French or Germans have you encountered who try and speak in Hindi??If they can be proud of their language...why can't we be?How many of us can say 5 lines in pure Hindi?(I can...Bet)!
Why can't we be more informal while talking to each other in a sophisticated tone...yet not alienated!!
Believe me..we Indians need to change for good...We are sitting at a point which is crucial in India becoming a world superpower...but with economy..what we really need to grow is our mindsets...to get rid of our stereotypes..mix our traditions with modernity...and then we'll beat the world!Once we do that..we might have a board in the next decade outside Haagen Dazs' stores across the globe-"Special priveledge to our Indian customers".... :)
Jai Hind!
(Actually this article was written in February...I lost my diary...so publishing it after a delay... :P and those who are tagged...Are needed to give their thoughts on this,There are only a few good debaters in my friend list...Counter or support...but this really is intriguing!)
Friday, July 16, 2010
India Worse off than Africa!!Be Human..protect humanity..
It is official...
After thousands of Debates,Arguments,Protests & Demonstrations by NGOs,a recent study has revealed that India,indeed is Poorer than African countries combined together.The Multidimensional Poverty index or the MPI has revealed that half of the BPL population by international standards live in South-East Asia,while only a quarter in Africa.
A comparison shows that 421 million poor people live in 8 Indian states alone-Chattisgarh,Jharkhand,Madhya Pradesh,Orissa,Rajasthan,Bihar,Uttar Pradesh & West Bengal while only 410 million people live below the poverty line in 26 of Africa's poorest nations which includes the likes of Somalia & Zaire!
This clearly shows that the number of poor people in India is constantly overlooked,whereas the people reflect upon the Percentage of Poor Population rather than the sheer numbers.While,we the relatively upper strata of the Indian society enjoy necessities like the Internet,there are millions below us,for whom even our basic necesities are luxuries, who can only dream about the same.Due to their sufferings,their sights do not go beyond securing two square meals a day for their family,let alone spending any time to look after themselves.
Can you Imagine??This 12.5% of the world's population or 1/8th people of the world are categorised under the world's Extremely Poor Population-living below $1.25 Dollars a day!
The study was carried out by United Nations Development Programme Agency(UNDP) & University of Oxford,to bring out the harsh realities of the divided world!
Not only this,the oft-discussed Rural-Urban Divide has been highlighted in the report..While in a metropolis like Delhi,the population below MPI is 15%,The statistics reveal that about 81% of the people in Bihar live below the MPI!
Being an Indian,it is a heart rending fact that atleast 15% of the population live beyond Rs.20/- per day...Whereas we,do not even think twice before spending this amount!Where one particular Class of the society afford to live in plush Bungalows & the others in ransacked slums..For these people,life is a bane..with no respite in sight...Only darkness & gloom at every step.
This great Indian System has never been able to come out with innovative ideas to free these people of their problems..New policies are made,laws are passed,bills are tabled,yet the poor are exploited.Neither they get any aid,nor they are able to uplift themselves from their abject surroundings,nor do they manage to eat wholesome meals or feed their families..Whereas we,the common Indians have our eyes wide shut...We are too engrossed in bathing in the sunshine of Emerging India..which to the world is the world's 2nd fastest growing economy,but to its inhabitants is nothing but a prison..
Most of the money allocated for the Social Welfare programs is either gulped by the officials,bereaucrats or politicians and what the poor get is enough to ashame the so-called well wishers,Servants of the poor...Yet we are mum...India has learnt to "Adapt" & "Compromise",2 words which the Indians are most familiar with...Indians have learnt to fix all its problems by the use of "Jugaad" ,by pushing in unfitting pieces of the jigsaw puzzles..
It is a mistake if we expect graciousness from our leaders,our Red-Tape diplomats,bureaucracy or our Legal system or Even the parliament...Change has to start within...The day we incline our attitudes towards doing something big for the country,that will be the day..when we break the jinx of abject poverty..and provide equality to all!!Be Human...Protect humanity..
The Kashmir Paradox-II
If any one of you saw the debate on the "Newshour" on Times now a couple of days back,many people were left Dazed & in a state of horror as to what extent the people of Kashmir are brainwashed against India!Having interacted with my Kashmiri counterparts,it is surely evident that they have been poisoned to such an extent that "liberation" from India seems to be the only objective of their life!
Inspite of the Indian Government doing so much for them,they have just turned blindfolded...They use the facilities,amenities & all conviniences given to them but yet,turn voiceferous when asked what India has done for them??For the first time in my life,I have changed my "stand" on an issue,because it is really imperative for us not to let go of this region..Any true Indian,be it in INDIA or KASHMIR must try & stop what is brewing in Kashmir..In my earlier article,I was supportive of Kashmir's discontent!But is this how they protest?When Indians are sympathetic towards them,they are over their heads & heals for "Slaying" INDIANS!!Crap....
Syed Salahuddin,the LeT commander who is an internationally banned terrorist is a "National Hero" for Kashmir!The same person who is accused of taking "6 families" I quote,"6 FAMILIES" of Kashmiri origin in hostage at Baramullah to fight the Indian Security Forces is a national hero?SHAME...
The other day,Shabnam Lone,of the very famous "Lone" family of Kashmir made a very valid point about the deaths of Kashmiri youth?But has she dissected the truth??Nearly 2 out of every 4 deaths in Kashmir's unrest was caused due to STONE Pelting due to which the Security forces had to set their foot there!If India was not so concerned about Kashmir,why would we have risked lives of our soldiers to protect them??At the same time,she was non-plussed when reminded of the incidence where 3 people were held with $200,000 in 2002 to Sponsor Terror attacks in Kashmir...Is this how much Pakistan loves Kashmir??Is this the love they have demonstrated by acceding a part of their territory to CHINA,which we now know as "Aksai Chin"???
I do not know,Why??Why the so called "Leaders" of Kashmir are engaged in "Dirty" & "Filthy" Politics for nurturing their ambitions of sitting on the PM's chair!!Mirwaiz Umar Faarooque,the Lone Family & Above all Mr. Syed Shah Geelani...who is having one foot in the grave & other on the ground are all examples of how selfish people can be to harbour their ambitions...They can be Perfect examples for parents to tell their children,How not to be....
The next point on which I could not get even a single rebuttal from the people of Kashmir was about the Holocaust on the Kashmiri Pandits...which was named "Ethnic Cleansing"??According to history,Hinduism is way older than Islam...Although,I respect each & every religion..Equally,yet the case seems to get weaker that "Does Kashmir really belong to those living in Kashmir right now"??India has never interfered in Kashmir's politics..BJP has never moved beyond Jammu & the Congress was shaken & thrashed in the Assembly elections...It has always been the Kashmiris who've had a final say in the Regional politics..Be it NC,The PDP...Yet after even 71% turnout in the last assembly elections,some people still want to divide Kashmir...AGAIN??
We Indians are accused to be "Rapists" just because two bloody perverts from CRPF Raped two women in Shopian,huh??While,did we make a bruhaha over the case where Kashmiri shawl sellers Raped a women IN HER HOME??No,Because we had better things to do...Have we made a Bruhaha over Section 370 exclusively for Kashmiris,or the tax exemption they are given??Or the Reservation they have in govt. jobs,Educational Institutions,as prime as the IITs,The University of Delhi etc.??Or the Subsidies they are given in their food??
Leh,Laddakh & Jammu do not want to leave India...How is the Kashmiri economy going to survive??The Rebuttal I get is that "our state is capable of producing 20,000 MW of Electricity on our own,& from the Tourism sector"....Ha ha...Once they get alienated form India,no one is going to actually "BUY" that electricity & the only way to use it would be for self-electrocution,or I even doubt wheether they would be able to actually Produce it as the Infrastructure belongs to India!!!The tourism industry will be reduced to merely 1/10th of what it is now,because majority of Indians would not want to get into hassles of VISAs & stuff!
Kashmir,like Bangladesh will be pushed 40 years back!!With beauty all around,but not even a single grain to feed their stomachs!They don't have that much substantial money,nor population to make even a "Police Force"...How are they going to get an army to save their land??Not people who are ready for killing & dying for their motherland...Infiltrators won't leave them...& then Kashmir would be like Another Swat or PoK,Crying for humanitarian help...TALIBANISED...
I will continue this article because,as a true Indian,Today I have taken a pledge.. I won't let my Tiranga get burnt!!I won't let the sovereignity of my nation get affected..I won't let the sacrifices of my Soldiers get waste...& as a true Indian,who wants every Kashmiri to be happy...It is my duty to pick up my voice!!And fight for what's right...JAI HIND..
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