Mumbai Slice -- DSP Black !! black as Hell

Back to GOD-!-RA... We guys continued chugging in the same rate and pace, filling ourselves with fuel on the Royal weekends. Only thing was.. we had graduated from one Royalty another... Stags graduate to challenges you see. A little expensive and a lot better than the stag. Sometimes bacardi was the drink of choice, which was reserved only for the good times. The best part was, none of us were beer drinkers. All used to hog on early morning Biryani @ 3 and some good drink on the Rocks. After a few weekends one of us ... the more 'adventurous' kind, had an idea. "Why not go for DSP Black today ? " he interjected just as we gave the orders for the usual. Experimenters and a novice namely me! all agreed.

Lets Split the Bonus among us !

The story of King Bruce and the spider is not entirely unknown. Try try try till you succeed. I did not know the same applied to the stock markets as well. Its as if the markets are trying to head to the sky till nothing higher is possible... all in the name of prospects, and future earnings. I know most of the people who happen to read this blog, would criticize my ideas and question my credentials and its veracity, but then I still would maintain my stance kee yah! The recent thing going on in the market was TCS Bonus ... some say thats the reason for it to go high.

I dont quite understand how this market works. I heard my manager say ... TCS is rewarding the stake holders by giving them a Bonus. He also added for my knowledge... Stock Bonuses and Splits are ways to make the share holders happy. Rubbish! I remember this from my childhood days ... the days when a ONE rupee note was big money. Whenever I would pick up a rupee note from my fathers purse and play with it, he would be concerned, I would tear it. To save the pain of sticking it back with cello-tape, he would give me 2 50 paise coins and say ... " See now you have '2' money instead of '1' money". This would make me happy. This is the exact strategy with a stock split. Give the stock holders the same amount of money, decrease the value of the underlying security by factor of 2 and say " See ... more shares :)" and we like kids feel happy and raise the price of the stock to astronomical levels.(Read Cipla prices 2006 pre - split reached 700+ more than 1.5 times its current value even when the market was 8000 odd levels. Dont you readers think, it is just taking advantage of being in reach of the masses while you dilute your offering? Basically, for say X Rs. the total book value you own will be exactly same if it is 1 share (pre split) or 2 shares (post split).
Same is the case with a Bonus... I put in more capital into my company, at the same time increase the number of shares by giving you more shares of the company. Your net value per share has decreased, and the total number of shares have increased by an equal quantity all in all ... no gain. So why the ho-halla about Bonus? beats me!!!

Perceptions....

26-Nov was surely a black day. But what followed was even more darker. The international community freaked out. Hotel Bookings canceled, Plans changed, investment put on hold. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong, horribly! Even now(last week), when one of my boss's seniors' (ironically, of Indian Origin) was coming to India, he opted a hotel, which was totally inconspicuous, and away from the main business district. I pains me. Moving the clock, back in time, to Nov-Dec 08, again, I, with regret, remember the foreign leaders commenting about 'security situation' in India, The conglomerates and incorporates of the world, shouting their lungs out about the 'safety' of their people and more so, their investments. We had the FICCI and every other corporate body from India expressing 'concern'... and what not.

Then the biggest blow of them all, the movement of IPL out of India to a far flung place (when compared to this subcontinent). That too by our very own people. Just to show to the world the how concerned they were! The world hailed this move. Mr. Lalit Modi, please shove these tidbit in the vacuum of your head... WE HAD ELECTIONS, however unimportant the other 50% of India thinks it to be, IT IS A HUMONGOUS EXERCISE, not something which is some thing where people are more interested in who is dancing than who is involved, but to elect the leaders of tomorrow, for good or maybe for worse. This was a far more important issue than your $2 billion 'nautanki'. You being an Indian, moved the 'Indian' premiere league to South Africa, where Delhi and Mumbai played cricket... WHAT A SHAME. Ironically, the elections so far have been really safe and without any major untoward incident.

Where does this leave us? India 1 - Terror 1, does that mean this field is even? May be. May be not! I don't know. What I fail to understand, is what on earth was the world thinking? The so called safe economy, USA, had the worst of all the terror threat, September-11,that too in the heart of NY does that mean US is unsafe? going by the word of the "world", it is unsafe. Britain has a long standing strife with the IRA, does that make the UK unsafe? you bet!!! China may sure be 'safer' but does that mean it is human friendly? I do not know, but sure don't think so. South America has it sown set of problems, internal strife, Mafia, Communism, Dictatorship, Diseases, bad ecological record, name it you've got it. Russia, too is not untouched. Using your own deductions, I proved this world to be unsafe for you. So 'where on earth' will you do your business Mr. Capitalist? Antarctica?

Mumbai Slice -- Am I Disturbing you ? All over again

House Search started all over again. Small ones, bug ones , out of budget ones, short ones, tall ones, cool ones and not so cool ones ... all was being seen and either rejecting or getting rejected. I was finally brought to the same site which led me to the Kandivali(E) Thakur Cplx house. This was a site in TCS which displayed internal advertisements by employees of the company. After some searching, I short listed 3 houses. all stone throw distance literally!! from the office. The first try led me to this place in Cascade. The building bang opposite my office. 10th floor and well maintained, the building I mean. It was posh and the best thing, it was just crossing the road and I was in the office compound. That meant, no more thinking about food. The canteen was open 24 hrs for all 7 days a week. This was a blessing and a good one ofcourse.
I called the number displayed. The person who replied had a heavy Andhrite accent which incidentally the non-south Indians considered the "madrasi" accent. After some talking, I was invited for a check. I gratefully accepted. Oh I forgot to mention, there was another person with me. Manish Verma. This guy also wanted to have a home near the office as was tired of traveling from Powai to Borivali. I along with "vermaji" went to the house. What I saw was a welcome sight. 5 People staying in the 2 bedroom house. 2 in each bedroom and 1 in the hall. The guy in the Hall had complete control over the TV. The rooms were clean thanks to a visiting maid. The rule was, the guy who is the last to occupy the house will stay in the hall and wait for one of the other to leave then he would move in and the next guy will spend time in the hall. I kind of the liked the idea. The window of the hall opened to a good view of Borivali unless you looked directly under the falt which was a small slum. As most of you would know, you could not run away from the sight of a slum. This one below my nose, well, not practically, was more like the poor mans residence, from where the maids and the drivers of the richer occupants in the locality came from. So all in all a good Del at 2000 a head plus about another 1000 for the water, maid, gas and other things. For 3000 Rs in a palatial house, with a maid to clean and a canteen which would cook from me, there could be nothing else that I could ask for.
Manish was not amused, he dint want to be the 6th person in the house even after repeated coaxing that the other 2 guys would be vacating in about a month or so. But what I liked was a big hall for myself and a TV to top it. This was something I was not going to let go. I moved in, sans Manish. Life was good. I was near the office, friends near by, Food at the other end of the road, Ah! Wao ... time to chill out.

Mumbai Slice --Fellowship of Gokul Galaxy breaks

Just before the the fellowship of GOD -- RA group started. I had to unfortunately leave the Kandivili Thakure Cplx home. Sachchu had left following his father's sudden demise. He could not leave his mother and sister in Kanpur, alone, for long. So he opted for a transfer to Lucknow. This change kind of deprived me of a chatting companion. I still remembered those days when we used to sit n discuss everything under the sun. He was a very sharp chap and there was a lot to learn from him. We had some light moments as well. Once my other roomie-- Sandeep's ; friend and the friends girlfriend from Goa had visited us. It was early december '03 and Sachchu n I were getting along well. The best part was, we found someone who would not take our swearing seriously. I from MIT was used to such incessant swearing and he was a UP-ite. So most of the time our sentence would contain a couple of swears before arriving at the point. the presence of a girl in the house was something we had never expected or welcomed. It had made life into living hell for both of us. It was comical scene was to see Sachchu get out of the bathroom after a bath. He would first peep out for any sign of the girl being outside, look left -- look right then tip toe into the kitchen in his towel wrapped body before ramming shut the door to change into something decent. To make matters worse he had forgotten to take his soap n towel to the bathroom when both Sandeep and I were not in the house. Shy that he was, he had locked himself up in the bathroom for over an hour before we could come to his rescue. Even after coming out his peril did not end. He came out and shouted ... "Saale ... tu kahan gaya tha behn..." and there was lull ... then he looked around, got back his senses resumed his conversation; like ".. kahan BEHR (n he spelt as I have written) gaya tha ?" .
Back to May 2004, all the memories became just that. Memories. Sandeep was more of the serious kind and spoke less, at least to me. Not that we had some animosity between us, it was just a part of being sandeep for him. After Sachchu, Sandy got his other friend from BITS Pilani, Gaurav(not sure I remember his name) Khilnani (urf Khillu). Good chap, but his coming made me even more isolated in the house. Both being old friends started having late dinners in wayside dhabas and would return late after midnight. I was alone in the house. Then like a bolt from the blue, Sandy declared, that he was going to Nagpur (his native place) for a month. So was khillu. I was staying alone in the house for over a month. I was seriously bored to death. I was contemplating leaving the place to somewhere nearby my office, hence near my new found friends. Things were getting desperate. One fine day they returned, both of them on the same day. Sandeep says ... "Toh Kini ... I wanted to tell you something , We have landed ourselves a job in Baker Atlas and we are going. ". This was totally unexpected. I knew they were trying for some merchant-Navy jobs, but this was not anticipated at all. Sandeep told me he was giving me 1 month to find a new place to live. "I have informed the owner who will give me the money a week after you leave". "What?" I thought -- he has informed the owner as well ... "And You?" I interjected. "I will be leaving tomorrow". Another month of loneliness. It was driving me crazy. What was more disheartening was, I was to leave the house from which I started my Mumbai journey, that too in such a swift, unceremonious and lonely manner. Those warm weeknights, those washroom washing stints, those floor scrubbing and cleaning sessions all was going to vanish. I was going to start looking for a house all over again.

it was time to leave
501, B4, Gokul Galaxy
1234 CHS hsg society
Thakur Complex, Kandivili(E) -- A house I will never forget.