Appealing to a drunk

Where is that drunk now?

Didn’t I see him right over here before I had momentarily stepped away?

The longer that I was away, the more likely it’ was he wandered away far from where I last saw him,

Out taking a random walk, the drunk’s most recent sighting was probably the best forecaster of his future whereabouts.

What business did I have with the drunk and how did it matter?

The drunk was not on a leash, which could have enforced a fixed distance between him and me,

I regret now for not having him on the leash, because the drunk was none other than I who had spent all day swimming in booze,

I hope that drunk, like an attentive dog with a strong desire to stay close, cuts down on his meandering ways and returns to me. 

A diplomatic admission

Of enemies posing as friends,

Of projecting duplicitous allies as dependable friends,

Of allies criticising each other and playing adversaries against one another,

Of working with bad guys and accepting odious behaviour,

Can one now imagine of sincere diplomacy to be a possibility any more than dry water?

The world probably is a nasty place,

And we may have needed all of the above diplomacy to avoid something much worse still,

A little leak sinks a great ship, what wikileaks may sink is beyond me,

Right or wrong, I do not vouch of their philosophies or their spring-a-leek actions,

But this I have begun to appreciate in the words of Mark Twain,

The principle of give and take is the principle of diplomacy – give one and take TEN.

Parenting risk and rewards

It seems safe to say,

That there are more children who want to be sky divers,

But whose parents want them to be doctors or engineers,

Than those children who want to be doctors or engineers,

But whose parents want them to be sky divers.

About all some parents hope to accomplish in life,

Is to send a child to Harvard, Cambridge or Oxford,

So, are parents necessarily materialistic? My answer borders on a no,

For parents merely err on the side of caution, customs and conventions.

It’s easy to see again that when the son or daughter goes off bungee jumping,

The parents would have no direct share in the excitement of their progeny,  

But if something were to go wrong, a broken rib here or a spine there,

The parents would have got only themselves to deal with the consequences.

Living by imitation

It’s hard to find life’s purpose,

It must be, if only so few do it.

It would not just be merely bad for anyone to say that they are adrift,

But a social faux-pas too lies in admission of no direction on life’s highway.

And so, it becomes conventional to pretend to know and to like what you do,

The easier thing to do is to perform imitations of people who’ve done great things,

For it’s very hard to chart an unconventional route through a conventional system,

And in the process not to starve...

A "go" at it

Wanted it badly, so this time went after it fast,

Should have really done it slow, so got it bad.

Had put down the bag to go hunt for a ball,

Found the ball, but lost the bag anyway.

When you are crazed with something to be just done,

You’re less likely to notice if you’re doing it wrong.

Though got what I wanted,

I lost what I had.

The prestige potion

Prestige is a lot like your name,

You respond to it when others call it aloud,

The opinion of the rest of the world,

Prestige is indeed one powerful magnet.

If you want to make people do a job,

The way to get it done is to bait the hook with prestige,

That is one sure shot recipe for getting people interested,

Causing people to work not on what they like, but what you’d like them to like.

Here now in passing is a free advice to you,

If you admire two kinds of work equally,

But one is more prestigious than the other,

Then you should probably choose the other.

Anatomy of Hate

There is a lot of hate out there,

For people who do nothing positive,

Except taking care of themselves,

They are first in with their interests,

And first out when there’s trouble.

So, are they also evil?

They would be if they were malicious too,

Many people try to help themselves (that is how life survives),

The consequences of which may hurt others,

But very few people are malicious to others,

Unless they choose to harbour hate for others.

So, to believe someone evil,

And to equally harbour hate for them,

One has to believe one knows of their malicious intentions,

Irony is that for the most part we don’t even quite know our own intentions and motivations,

Even as the verdict waits on determining the basis of true intentions – separating “have been” from “might have been” premises,

It’s also easy to see that most hate questioning, but love wrestling.

Novelty of ignorance

When my ignorance is encyclopaedic,

Can I live in it with impunity and conscientious stupidity?

Or must I seek another man’s knowledge.

The confidence of ignorance helps,

To overcome the indecision of knowledge,

But if ignorance is bliss always, I would be a blister in a world so educated. 

Prepared Mind

A prepared mind!

But what is a prepared mind?

When it rains,

It pours equally unto the barren lands and the sown fields.

And then when the sun comes out,

The former singes and the latter reaps a harvest.

On the edge of mysteries,

The veil gets thinner and thinner,

Only when there is a prepared mind on the stand by.

Highlands of forward markets

Meet contango and backwardation,

The two pinnacles of the high sierra of all forward markets.

Spot them and call your shots correctly,

And you would soon be at the very zenith, the Mount Everest of profit making.

All the market players would converge,

And pay homage to thee, the chieftain of the highlands of finance.

Pimp my derivative

The norm was plain equities and bonds,

Generations traded that way,

Then they discovered derivatives,

And trading was never the same again,

Warren Buffet even had a moniker for those new animals of the financial zoo – financial weapons of mass destruction.

Those financial WMDs have bred very well,

Now the offspring, structured derivates, brag their worthy descent,

So, what is the structure in a structured derivate doing?

It’s simple – Its pimping (customizing) your derivate with additional top-up features you desire,

Capital protection, yield enhancement or a lookback option are some of the typical examples

for toppings added to your derivative pizza base to give it the structured derivative flavour.

In wonder the trading of complex financial instruments began,

In wonder it evolved, sprung its next generation, and a new era,

But the first wonder is the offspring of ignorance,

And the second is truly the parent of adoration. 

Play with options

Buy for less, Sell for more,

That’s how you make a profit on the exchanges, dearie.

But there are unknown forces in the market,

And when we give ourselves wholly to them, without reserve,

We may just as well get spited in return.

Stocks, like ice, our footing does betray,

Who can tread sure on the smooth, slippery way,

But with Options, we glide swiftly on – if only we know how to play with them.

Buy a call option at a strike price,

And one earns the right, but not the burden of obligation, to buy at the strike price,

If one buys a put option, it’s not too different in its form - you see,

One earns the right, but not the burden of obligation, to sell at the strike price.

They are those who come to play betting big directly on stocks,

But I, being poor in capital, have got only my options to play with,

So, I have spread my options net under the market’s feet, and am hoping my hedges do not go amiss,

Collars, Straddles, Strangles, Condors, and Butterflies are names of some of my options strategies,

When I am in-the-money, they rake in the moolah; but if out-of-the money, I will be cooked for sure. 

Still stuck with nothing

Would you agree a salad sandwich is better than eternal happiness?

We do have a proof for you here.

Nothing is better than eternal happiness,

A salad sandwich is better than nothing,

Therefore, a salad sandwich is better than eternal happiness.

Convinced or Confused?

So, when is nothing a something?

And when does it truly mean a nothing?

A reunion

Years have passed,

Since we were all together in one room.

Someone’s come up with a brilliant idea,

It’s called reunion and it was a chance to huddle back together in a single room again.

Why should I have gone?

To step back in time and work up the nostalgia?

Or to step forward the frozen clock and check out if winners of yore have become today’s flops?

Nothing here

On the outside,

Opened a storefront business,

On a busy street,

With glitzy neon flashing lights.

And on the inside,

On a bare cement floor,

With bare walls,

I sat.

I sold nothing,

I delivered nothing.

The Underling Investor

In this jungle, the traders all wait,

Looking around for some new bait.

O! This place is like a pot of gold,

With plenty of cash to make, thought one newbie investor.

The bears were staying high up in trees,

And the bulls were roaming around on the turf below.

Come, ye thankful investor of my advice, come; called out one trader,

Join the song of raging bulls, for all is safely gathered in; here, buy these stocks and make some money.

Heresy! Don’t listen to him, come to my temple; invited yet another trader,

Join the mighty army of bears, for ere the winter storms begin; here, sell these stocks and make lots of money.

Farewell my underling investor, farewell!

Lose one or two, you lose a few,

But losing millions is cause for peril,

Because when the hunting season ends,

The bulls make money, the bears make money, and even the traders make money,

It’s just the gullible investors who always get slaughtered.

Satisfying to Satisficing

This life is not for complaints,

But for satisfaction.

Getting satisfied is a job though,

Just as any other.

Getting the best of what’s available on a menu of choices,

Maximises satisfaction to its seeker.

But to seek the best alternative and the highest satisfaction,

Involves costs of decision making and drain of energy.

So it comes to a pass that men revel in their bounded rationality,

Compromising for a good umbrella than a great roof.

From where we buy our groceries,

To which movie we go out for, to how much time we devote to work,

We sacrifice the best alternative to the one that adequately satisfies demands at current time,

We “satisfice”, the unique blend of satisfy and sacrifice, all day long without even thinking about it.

(P.S: The term Satisficing was originally coined by Herbert Simon, a Nobel Laureate, in 1956.)

Move, Rest and the Wings

Move a bit and rest a little,

So, which ought to be a better idea?

Resting in reason and moving in passion,

Or moving in reason and resting in passion.

Oh! It’s just another trap of a confusing conundrum,

For it takes both the camps to put this world together,

Either way, wake each dawn with a light heart and give thanks,

Those, they say, are the wings wherewith we fly to heaven. 

Brother to brother

What is mine is my own,

My brother Kiran’s is his and mine,

I am so in love with my brother right now.

A brother speaks to a brother,

Of moments in their other lives,

Moments buried deep beneath the dust of a very busy world.

In pursuit of happiness

Pause for a moment here,

So, where did it go?

The high prize of life,

The crowning fortune of every man and woman,

True Happiness!

Happiness may just be that,

Only a pursuit and never an accomplishment,

And it mostly makes only cameo appearances,

Just as those happy moments for a tourist,

When he stumbles upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.

Some spice needed?

Praises reap not!

Joys laugh not!

Sorrows weep not!

So, what’s left then?

Directing your ways by plain reason,

May obviate taking pained steps over the burning coal,

But did God not make any provision for enlivening the days spent on life’s pilgrimage?

Fair weather rained on a parade

Ever been lent an umbrella in fair weather,

And got asked for it back, when it began to rain.

Ask me! My experiences are not a thing,

But a slow churn of tricks played on mind...

Got started off toward a plausible goal,

And then by a sudden twist, landed nowhere at all,

Or just where I didn’t expect at all to go...