The Spoon Feeders

I am 50 years old and for the past many years, Life had been nothing but Bull and Bear, Shares and Bonds, Annual Report and P &Ls, Announcements and acquisitions, surges and plunges, listening to superlative comments of bosses and explaining the basic terminologies like intraday trading to clients. This is a regular day for a stock trader and consultant. We breathe Debt and equity and excrete dividends and bonuses. Not a second goes by when we are not looking at computer screen analyzing share prices or taking phone calls from the people who hate us, our clients. To make it worse, we live in India so all the fun part of WOLF of Wall street is absent with our bosses demanding Aaj kuchh toofani karte hain attitude from us every day and wanting High Performance...Delivered. This reminded me of one of HR theories, I mugged up during my MBA days: Acceptance theory of authority. You do as your boss say. He demands perfection and since you have signed a bond with the best stock trading and consulting company in India, you are required to behave like the best. 

My friends have a different say on this, they feel I make easy money like any other stock trader, which is partially correct. To outsiders our life is like market value of 1 Stock of Infosys Ltd.(>3500) but only we know the truth which is face value of the very same share (Rs5). My job does give me money but cut short the time to spend it with weekdays sacrificed to trading and weekends to consulting. There are some things money can't buy, for everything else, there's MasterCard doesn’t really work for me.  Anyways, this anecdote is not about my lifestyle but yes, it is about stocks. What else can you expect from a stock trader?

One normal day at office, after the 4 pm rush when I was about to take my Oh Yes..Abhi break, I heard a lot of chaos from a bunch of kids in our corridor which was obviously unusual in a stock trading firm. Witnessing such chaos after hours of frustrating stock trading and handling stupid clients, the very obvious thing I did was calling the security and tried to inspect the matter.  Before I could put down my phone, I got a tap at my shoulder from my colleague showing me a sheet of paper. I was looking at the results of the annual simulation based online stock trading competition organized by our company for this past month which attracts entries from many professional stock traders and followers of stock market. Unlike any other stock trading competition, we don’t evaluate on the basis of the profits made, but the quality of portfolio chosen which includes: the risks and returns associated with it. Every year, the winner of the event is invited at our office and presented with a cash prize of 5 lacs, a trophy and some more goodies and certificates. What caught my eye was the name of the winning team “the Spoon Feeders” making me realize the reason these school kids were creating this mayhem. They were the WINNERS of our prestigious competition!

How can a bunch of 14 year olds who were supposed to be playing Mario on their PC were in fact doing stock trading and what is even stranger, how can they beat the professionals who spend night and day reading financial news and licking editorials on Business India and other financial magazines. 
I cross checked the names and ages from our registration data but nothing being wrong there too. 
Some Imagination at Work led us to a conclusion that, may be a professional adult would have helped them or it might be a matter of just pure luck, both of which would be proved wrong later on. I was desperate to have an interaction with those 6 kids who were accompanied by their teacher Mrs. Anita. So here we were in a meeting room where may be for the first time a McDonald’s burger was ordered and served, I interviewing or rather investigating the whole matter.” So how are you feeling?” I asked the whole group to initiate the conversation. “Happy with winning such a big event, this will definitely boost our confidence in selecting and trading our future portfolios” replied Nakul. “At the age of 14, I was trading video game cassettes and wwe cards with my friends not stocks and making portfolios” I replied in a funny way.

“Actually we organize weekly business workshops, where students are allowed to read financial newspapers and are taught basic terminologies related to finance to make them aware of the financial world and enable them to savings as we believe that a penny saved is a penny earned. Moreover, Students are allowed to invest in any company but before that they need to explain everything what the company they have chosen does, which lead to a lot of research and knowledge. Know before you buy is our theme” said Mrs. Anita.

I tried to know the reason behind their success and how they made a million dollar choice of building this perfect portfolio of Bajaj Auto, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries, Infosys Ltd., McDonalds, Cadbury, and Hasbro.

Nayan started by mentioning McDonalds saying “We bought McDonalds because, who doesn’t like McDonalds Burgers and Fries?” It was pretty simple, every middle class youth is a visitor of McDonalds so how can they do wrong with their financials. Their share prices did hike manifolds in past 5 years.

Now they explained Bharti Airtel saying that its tagline and jingle’ Kyuki har ek friend zaruri hota hai’ is very impressive and is loved by all. Well it might seem that they were just lucky picking up Airtel shares which soared to Rs 300 from Rs 230 in the past 6 months after launch of this marketing campaign. But, Catchy ads and jingles do make an impact on the customer’s mind while picking up the product, take an example of ‘Better Living Through Chemistry ads’ by DuPont decades ago. They positioned their product well. Yes these kids might not be knowing STP analysis but know what attracts customers. I was amazed so far with their Analysis and here came another one.

Arjun who was in Seventh grade replied,” We bought shares of Bajaj Auto because new Pulsar is amazing, everyone is buying it. My elder brother just booked it and will get delivery after 3 months. There is a huge waiting for it so we had to buy this stock.” A financial analyst might have discarded it looking at its huge debt in balance sheet but this little kid saw something which was more important and forecasted their future sales. I was like What an Idea...Sir Ji!!

Why Hasbro? It’s a toy manufacturing company right? That explains all. Kids explained Cadbury with their love for chocolates and bourn vita and they picked Reliance Industries because they were once told the ‘Rags to Riches’ story of great Dhiru Bhai Ambani and shareholders of Reliance who once invested hundred gained lacs, which created a big impact in the minds of kids. They picked Infosys because they overheard some adult speaking that comeback of Murthy will positively affect the shares of Infosys Ltd. May be this was the only stock in their portfolio which they took listening to adults.

Also what they did well is that they diversified their investments across several industries including food, IT, Power, Telecom and service since not all the stocks are going to flourish. It is a general rule in stock trading that If five stocks are selected, 3 of them will do as expected, one of them will do exceptionally well and might make you dream buying a BMW but there will be one stock which will do really bad and will replace your BMW with a Hyundai. Hence it’s better to diversify to reduce risk of losing as you don’t know which stock will make you rich and which one will shatter all your hopes.

After discussing all about their portfolio they did share with me some of the rules they learnt in their finance workshop.

·         Good Company gives increased dividends

·         You lose money in short run but gain in long run.

·         Stock trading is not gambling.

·         Know the company before investing in it.

·         Never become emotional with any stock, Think Rationally.

·         Only because the stock fell doesn’t mean it can’t fall further.

·         You should not invest in company because its shares are cheap but because you  have done a research on it.           

With this we ended the meeting presenting a huge amount of five lacs to bunch of school kids who don’t have any B.com or an MBA degree but a common sense which made them invest wisely.  Mrs. Anita continues to perform her best carrying out financial workshops and promoting amateur stock-picking. In fact now she in collaboration with other teachers is starting their own investment club with around 20 members including me as an honorary member. 

P.S. The whole story is fictional.

Hindi gaaliya dil pe lagti hai yar,english nhi

It was a stunning IPL-6 opening ceremony. Katrina was so seductive and awesome as usual with sexy moves and deepika on Honey Singh song

s was also an entertainer. The fake macho image of SRK was ignored . What was the main event and feature of the ceremony was PITBULL. A bald american rapper with a gang of bald musicians did rocked the stage. While almost everyone was enjoying his tunes, some  people like me who want to act as a spoilsport and use their narrow-mindedness in an illusion to act like a critic and use their critical reasoning to write critical views of so called critics in order to make reader's mind more critical were concentrating on the lyrics of his songs. My wish was heard when a renown tune stimulated my ears and then came the lyrics I was waiting for " I’m impatient baby, now give me dat a$$". That brought a glow in my eyes and totally cheered me up. Somewhere inside I knew that I have got a new topic for my blog.
Frankly I don't really have a problem with PitBull or his lyrics; infact I turnout to be fan of this bald rapper. But I just could not ignore the people and indian media ignoring this moment; moment when abusive language and words disrespectful to women were used in songs, that too on one of the biggest stage of entertainment with several MPs and VVIPs present. People didn't ignore Honey Singh three months ago when his newyear's night show was cancelled claiming the lyrics of his age old song to be disrespectful and highly abusive. I raised this matter on my facebook wall and there were some funny comments. One of my friend joked " Hindi gaaliya dil pe lagti hai yar,english nhi"; No doubt it is somehow not wrong. We are still not comfortable with the meanings of english words. Infact people boast their abusing-in-english skills. Many of my girlfriends scold me for using BC/MC but they don't see any bad in  kicking  your a$$ and the F word ( okay... not girlfriends but friends who are girls). This language is so in. They call it smart english in which they can leave an oxford scholar behind. Couldn't figure out why I can't call BC/MC smart hindi.
Coming back to Honey Singh, No doubt he is an icon, atleast in the northern part of the country. People love his songs, his music. It won't be exaggeration if I say almost all hindi and punjabi music lovers would be having atleast 2-3 songs of Honey Singh in their cellphone. Then Why there were masses protesting against Honey Singh ? Why his newyear's event was cancelled. Hell yes some of his songs have abusive lyrics, some disrespect women. Is this what we call freedom of speech?


We don't stop artists from making explicit paintings,why stopping a musician. Isn't music an art in itself.
And for god sake, Do we need Songs to judge whether we respect women or not?

KUMBH KA jhaMELA!

I heard of Kumbh Mela when I was a child. Johny Lever once lost his brother in Kumbh Mela in a movie. You can't  lose someone in a mela, I wondered how big this mela would be? Today I read in newspaper that somewhat 30 million people were present on a day in this Mela with around 100 million total visitors which means every 12th indian visit this mela which is for hindus.That indeed makes it a world record and makes India famous. One of the most important religious events, extensively covered by news channels and Media. Indian celebrities like Shilpa Shetty and Sunny leone and some angreji mem expressed their desire to attend the mela. O yea it is one hell of an event to lose a brother.

Mela is organized every 3 years in Allahabad, Haridwar, Nasik, Ujjain with every place organizing it once in 12 years. The dates and duration are decided by high level committee of saadhus. No doubt this mela is an identity of our Country. Unity of Hindus singing same songs and for same cause is a proud moment for our country. They are 100 million people with a common belief.

But why do such a large number of people visit this Mela? Ancient history or Mahabharta ( which could be called ancient history of an ancient history) says that once Gods and demons (rakshas log) were fighting for a glass of Nectar. Finally Lord Vishnu won and did a superman stunt taking away the Nectar as a trophy of victory. But Lord had butterfingers and he accidentally dropped 4 drops of Nectar at 4 different places during his flight. These places are popularly known as Allahabad, Ujjain, Haridwar, Nasik. They say we can wash all our sins by taking 1 dip. What kind of deal is it? I mean it is better than 70% off on Hilfigher or UCB ( sorry, I can't afford Versace and Armani even at discounted prices ). My poor jokes apart, it is like freedom to do all the sins as they will wash away with a dip every 3 years.

"arre bhai kasab aur afzal guru ko bol dete ki dubki maar aao, sab paap dhul jaaenge and faasi cancel ho
jaaegi"

So it is all about a dip in water and your ticket to heaven is booked. It is like fictional money with which you can buy an entry ticket for heaven, just as you buy a ticket to see a movie in the cinema. The more money you have, the better your place will be. So 1 dip will give you bronze and hundreds of dips would be business class with free popcorn, sandwich and coke.
There are also those who sell the tickets and advertise the movies – and of course religion wants to have the house full and show only full shows! So these advertisers have been doing their best to get visitors and after many years, visitors are coming nearly on their own. If you have a look at these advertisers – the Gurus, the religious leaders, the Sadhus and babas, the holy people, they all do their best to get you into that cinema hall and follow the show. If you have your eyes open however, you would notice that it is only an illusion, only fiction and only drama. On the Kumbh Mela, one can watch them all very nicely.

Those holy men are the main attraction at the Kumbh Mela and they walk around everywhere ( and that too nude, don't they have any female assistants??), give their lectures(aur yeh lectures koi bunk nhi maarta), perform ceremonies against money and of course make new followers. In a newspaper I saw a picture of a big crowd of these spiritual people, all dressed in saffron-coloured and orange robes and wearing arms like dabangg. And not only swords or weapons of old times, which could be explained that they are written about in the scriptures but also guns! Holding their firearms, they were shooting into the air, celebrating the beginning of the Kumbh Mela.

"Pehle Yeh btaao Uncle ko license kisne diya???"

Many babas including Ramdev once stood for purification and cleanliness of Ganga but they with 100 million people have made Ganga Yamuna and Saraswati a gutter.
With such huge crowd some mishappenings are bound to occur no matter how big police force you have. Controlling 100 million people at a place is an impossible task for any force. Mela became a nightmare when hundreds were crushed to death in 1954 with dozens dying in 2003 and this year.

People might and do portray this event as a meeting with god, surrendering ourselves to God and peace, a sacred bath,biggest human gathering, an ancient fest which is an identity and pride of India but I see crores of visitors in illusion that their sins will wash away with a dip in water which unfortunately is very polluted due to this very reason.
My friend just visited the mela but it is the same friend who once said GO watch OMG, It's an awesome movie,a must watch.


P.S. I am a theist but not superstitious.

Breaking Rules to Give Breaking News

 Let us try to recall the time when there used to be no word such as news channels, When Print Media was the major source of information all around the world, When Newspaper ruled, When Aaj Tak was just a half an hour news program broadcasted on Doordarshan. Those were the days when 1-2 hour a day of news broadcasting was enough.
When we compare those days with present we see a lot of change. A whole new world of news channels driven by new technology. Another change we see is the entrance of many private 24 hour news channels. One feel excited about updated news served at home 24 hour a day. It takes matter of minutes to serve us with the recent happenings. Videos and animations even make things easier to understand. We get regular weather forecast around the world. LOKSABHA TV RAJYASABHA TV empower you to watch the proceedings of our leaders live. Also the 9 p.m. news shows like News Hour, Face the Nation and Big fight enables us to develop an opinion.

But one thing we must  not forget is that with the emergence of lots of Private News channels, the rivalry of  news broadcasting has increased( which is a good sign) but also what has increased is the competition for better TRP. TRP runs the news channel. More TRP means more advertisements which leads to more funds and more profit i.e. more money with the news broadcaster. More Money corresponds to Big Business, and yes News Broadcasting is a business today which is seriously driven by the amount of money involved. It is the same reason why we see breaking news like YE DEKHIYE UDTA HUA AADMI, HIL JAAEGI DHARTI, BHAGWAN K LIYE TV DEKHIYE,KABOOTRO PAR GRENADE KA KEHER, or Programs like SAAS BAHU AUR SAJISH. News channels shows us what we want us to see, which will hike their TRPs and profits ultimately. No doubt portraying more of the social, political and economic problems we face in day-to-day life and making aware the people of india of these problems in a decent way would be a much better option but this might not bring high TRPs( they show us what we want to see ). Once this TRPs became so important that various news channels broadcasted the 2008 Mumbai Attacks and the measures been taken my indian defense forces at that time which gave live coverage to the terrorists who were watching the activities of NSG commandos .

Channels keep repeating a news item again and again to highlight or create suspense, while you keep waiting for the details or for other news. It gets frustrating! If you are waiting for any particular news, say, the business or sports news, you will have t watch many dragging, useless news (including commercials) in between.Also we see authenticity of the news channel being compromised. The biggest case we just noticed was Zee News asking for 100 Crores to hide Jindal Steel scam.In another case we saw suppressing of ADANI group scam by media and boycott of Social Activist and recently turned politician Arvind Kejrival just before gujrat elections. This definitely questions the truthfulness and authenticity of news we see.

Everything has its advantages and disadvantages. News channels are no different. Many private News Channels are useful to give us news in the least time possible but no doubt they are driven by TRP. But on other hand we can't make the media completely under government control. It is an issue with no proper solution but in the end I would like to leave by quoting " News Channel Show us what we want to see "

We Welcome the NATIONAL AWAKENING

It is really sad that girls are not secure in a country where people worship goddesses.It hurts when a victim go to the cops to register a complaint of sexual assault but instead of investigating they advice them to dress properly and don't hang out with guys.The way cops treat us tells us the complete story. Almost half of the rape cases in 2011 are pending investigation. When we talk about our justice system, we notice that number of judges are well
short. Today 5 times the current number of judges are required. May be this is a big reason for years one has to wait for justice. It hurts when KHAP PANCHAYATS impose peny fines to the culprits of rape. It hurts when politicians make use of such sad incidents to maintain their vote bank. It hurts when
people whom we trust play the blamegame. It hurts when peaceful candles face lathis.
Some people might call our nation impotent, feel not proud of being an indian and feel pessimistic about this nation's future. But I believe a revolution has
already begun.
In the past two years, we have seen something extra-ordinary. Huge masses protesting in public against several issues was not so common earlier.Huge Candle marches were seen only in bollywood movies. Today we see bollywood films coming true. Earlier we saw 1 old man who brought the whole country together in a fight against corruption. And today we saw people coming together to fight for the empowerment of women. Today a part of everyone died with death of a girl.
May be it is right to hide the identity of the victim girl because that girl represents the pain of all the women in india's patriarchic society. Government's decision of shutting down 10 metro stations today shows the amount of anger in today's youth. Several Governments passed several bills for the empowerment of women but I believe this protest will make more impact than any of those bills as it includes the masses. The masses just showed that we will not stop no matter how many lathis u bring.You keep beating, we won't lay a finger on u but the voice raised can't be dimmed now. We won't stop until u answer our questions. Why did it took only 3 days to pass a bill to raise the salaries of MPs? Why do you just cry in the parliament and say move on when you face such issues. We elected you to make reforms not to show us another daily soap opera. Perhaps they think that it is just another rape and it will lose focus in few days but they are wrong;this fire will not extinguish easily. It is not just any other rape,it is the ground reality of indian women. We want leaders who can do much more than crying.Enough of this platitude We want police reforms which actually make a difference. It is time we awaken the nation that cops and politicians are our servants. They don't own us,we own them. No political party can be stronger than the voter.
WE WELCOME THE NATIONAL AWAKENING!!!!

INDIA : A PSEUDO MONARCHY

PS : I WROTE THIS NOTE IN MY VACATIONS WHEN I HAD NOTHING TO DO, SO IT IS JUST A TIMEPASS ACT.

In ancient India, the prevalent system of Government was Absolute Monarchy. Ancient India was administered and ruled  by kings and thus the system was monarchical. It started at the times when there was no india: the times of RAMAYAN n MAHBHARAT. We had the Mughals , the lodis , the mauryas , the nawabs and many more like we read in our history books. Then there were some white chicks with entrance of Victoria and Elizabeth. Then finally 1947 ended Monarchy in India and we were certified DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY. But Is the certification enough to prove us democratic. I mean I will be a certified Computer Engineer in some days and Hello......I get in trouble with C language syntax sometimes. I won't be called a real engineer if i dont practise Engineering. Do our country Practise DEMOCRACY?...Let us See

MONARCHY IN POLITICS : Government is chosen by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE but problem is names of government people( particulary their surname)  are same since independence.What is interesting that every MP in the Lok Sabha or the lower house of the Indian parliament under the age of 30 had inherited a seat.It's like I have Nothing to do so I will join my DAD's Business. After NEHRU>>INDIRA>>RAJIV>>SONIA and now they want RAHUL. AKHILESH YADAV gets the throne of UP. SUKHBIR BADAL is waiting for it desperately being Deputy CM for years. So as AJAY CHAUTALA. Truth is that all over INDIA we are ruled by some political families, say it be YADAV OF UP or YADAV of BIHAR, KARUNANIDHI or REDDY, CHAUTALA or BADAL, THACKEREY or ABDULLAH.
WOW!!!! I wonder Do these Family give birth to GODS. I mean are they the most qualified personalities all over INDIA??? Now coming back to GANDHIs(I don't know why they are called gandhi....why feroz khan suddenly became feroz gandhi just before marrying indira. May be to bring a touch of FATHER OF NATION in the name). They want RAHUL to be the next PM . Let us check out the list of reasons: He is young and the list ends here,,,As if there are only 2 youngsters in india: 1 is AAYUSHMAN( who is busy donating sperms )  and the other has to take a big responsibility of being PM of country. They also say he visits villages of UP regularly. Do all the villages are in UP only?....Oh i forgot CONGRESS always lose elections in UP. How many visits has he made to their villages after recent lost in UP?


:Lets diverge from Politics to other areas. Here we come BOLLYWOOD. Who is that WHAT an IDEA SIRJI GUY??? That SIRJI has given us lot of Flop movies and still he gets opportunities. But the Good thing is he doesn't get SOLO/LEAD roles these days so that movies like DHOOM/2 and DOSTANA can make some money. Another Good thing is that the DUMB guy is seen just once in 2 years in GOLMAL series.Also we have the DUTTs, The DEOLs, The KHANs . The ROCKSTAR is doing well but how many other non star sons but talented people get a lead role in their first movie. I hope we get to see selfmade actors like SRK n AB senior in future. I bet we will, watching IRFAN KHAN n BOMAN IRANI

I hope many of us might agree with me but is it enough? I mean If they are PMs, CMs,MPs or a CELEBRITY,,, its because of us. We made them what they are today. It might hurt us but Indian People are also responsible for all this shit happening.There are both good and bad in the society but we choose to be good... right? Lets make these decisions like we make decisions related to our personal life. Lets make our country democratic indeed  but I know we are too busy in our lives. Just like I wrote this note when I had nothing really to do. But still an INDIAN VOICE inside me says that INDIA WILL CHANGE!!!!   :)THANX for wasting your time on this--ANKUSH ARYA ;)