Metrolife 101

Idea # 66: How to get into a crowded A/C bus in Mumbai

If the bus conductor does not allow you to get into the bus because it is crowded, give him a bewildered look and tell him that your wife is in the bus and you are waiting to be united.


That is exactly how I managed to get into a crowded A/C bus on a rainy day. The only difference here is that I wasnt lying. My wife was already in the bus as she had got in from a previous stop. When the conductor said "Bus is packed" I could not think of anything but blurt out the truth. There was a moment of silence after that as we both looked at each other in bewilderment. The looks on his face were as if I had accused him of kidnapping my wife in his bus. I had never said or done something like this before. I am sure it was the first time in his career he heard it too (He was a young guy and if he blogs then I am sure he is writing "Passenger 101" right now). After the awkard moment passed, it was his turn to blurt out - "Ok ok ..only you can come in, rest please stay out". That was hilarious. It was as if there was a rule in their standard operating procedure - "Allow a guy to get in if his wife is already in the bus". Things could have been worse though. As luck would have it there was a female sitting nearby who - by a strange stroke of coincidence - looked exactly like my wife. I was about to point her out to the conductor in my defense that I was not lying. Thankfully better sense prevailed. Neither could I contain my amusement nor could I garner enough courage to look up and see if anyone else was smiling at me!

Strange things happen in a strange city

Rishi.

How to make your shit smell good

I logged on to Icicidirect for some work. There was a news ticker flashing on the page immediately after login. This is what it said: " We are glad to inform you that Dhanlaxmi Bank given as Strong Buy recommendation with potential upside of 23% and time frame of 12 months has achieved its target price within 37 days of recommendation" The thoughts that crossed my mind were as follows

" You f***ing idiotic son of b***ch analyst - your prediction has come horribly wrong. You are lucky it went up in 37 days instead of 365 days. It means your prediction came true in 1/10th of the time or in other words, you grossly underestimated by 10 times."

Now i understand that stock markets are extremely unpredictable. My grouse is analysts claiming credit for something they have crapped about. The prediction was basically shit. ICICI just made it smell good.

On a lighter note, it would be good to bet your money on stocks that have "Dhan" and "Laxmi" in their name. I mean, the returns are commensurate with the name "Dhanlaxmi"

disclaimer: I have been influenced by Naseem Talebs book "The Black Swan"

Ladki, Kapda aur Makaan

Recently on a trip to Pune I happened to chat with my co-passenger. He was 4 years younger to me and already married for 2 years. Which means he married at the age of 25. He was doing his MBA from SPJain and the discussion veered around how costly ISB was. 27 Lacs, or something like that. His opinion was that at that rate one could get a 1BHK. I sneered at the suggestion but quickly corrected myself, asking if he was talking about Pune or bombay. At 27 Lacs, you would be lucky to own a bathroom in a far flung suburb of bombay. Nevertheless, he asked me if I was married. I said no, but I own a flat which I bought in 2007 in Kandivali, a decent and not so far suburb of bombay. Obviously at today's rate, the flat (or for that matter any decent flat in bombay ) was absolutely beyond his reach. So that brought us to a very interesting point - he had a wife but no (owned) house. I had an ownership house but no partner (ownership here refers to being an emi slave to a financial institution of course)

It raised a very philosophical question indeed - what is more important to have early in life - a good life partner or a good house ? As time progresses, there will still be females to choose from. But will there be affordable houses left? Is a human less precious than real estate?

You can wait for the ladki, but if you wait for the makaan, will you have enough kapda left on you ?

The tale of Scrootie Mcboogerballs.

Ok. So I have decided to write a post on every new South Park episode. The more I watch it, my passion just grows for it.

So, have you ever come across a book which is so revolting that you have felt like throwing up (metaphorically or literally) and yet read it fully and enjoyed it? Alternatively have you ever read a banned book and thought , why in the name of Lord was this banned? If either of the answer is yes, then you need to watch the latest episode of southpark - The tale of scrootie Mcboogerballs. Yeah, funny name. Thats what the kids come up with for a most vulgar novel - and instead of getting banned, it gets to be one of the best sellers! Unfortunately the kids cant take credit for it because they have already framed the vulgarity on Butters, before the book becomes a hit. The prime reason why the kids come up with a vulgar book is because they are disappointed by reading a banned book which has no vulgarity in it. They feel cheated by their school and decide to get back at everyone by writing a book so vulgar that readers vomit their guts while reading it.

It seems that many times a book takes on a meaning of its own. It is the reader's interpretation rather than the author's that is important in making a book a hit or a failure. And when the collective interpretation of readers converge, it reflects the mentality of that culture and generation. In that sense, books are nothing but monsters unleashed on us by well meaning authors. Once published, they no longer remain under the control of the author. Why books, this applies equally well to all art forms which are under public scrutiny.

Rishi.

Law of diminishing marginal DIS-utility

Law of diminishing marginal utility : " A law of economics stating that as a person increases consumption of a product - while keeping consumption of other products constant - there is a decline in the marginal utility that person derives from consuming each additional unit of that product "( http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lawofdiminishingutility.asp)

The same law can apply to dis-utility. The definition of utility is important but we will come to that in a moment. Say you have to take a bitter medicine syrup. The first spoon is always the worst. You almost throw up. The next dose is also bad, but you have adapted slightly and is not as bad as the first. The third day, you are getting used to it and don't feel like throwing up. If we define "taste" as utility, then the first spoon provides maximum dis-utility. On the other hand, if we define "medicinal action" as utility, then the first spoon provides maximum utility i.e the body is most receptive to the medicine. The dis-utility of taste keeps decreasing leading to a point where you may not enjoy the medicine but are not at least repulsed by it. Similarly, regular doses of the medicine start making the body immune whereby additional doses do not have the required effect.

My point is, just as anything enjoyable loses its utility over a period of time, anything despicable also loses its dis-utility over a period of time. Maybe that is what is adaptation. Or that is what they call "Getting used to it"

Turd in a punchbowl.

Southpark did it again..and expectedly so. Season 14 premiers with an episode on sexual healing with tiger woods, bush, letterman et al in tow. Sweet.

Check it out online at http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/267106

The episode draws on the American ( and in general, human ) tendency to blame their own faults on others. In this case, it turns out that sexual addiction amongst rich americans is due to an alien wizard who has cast a spell. Poor chap has only 2 minutes of fame where he is brutally shot to death by Butters and Kyle. Kyle and one more guest character ( who is part of the president's SWAT team) try to convince others that the fault lies with themselves. But they get brushed aside as the proverbial "Turd in the punchbowl".

Ultimately American society (of Rich Americans) is freed of this addiction and Tiger Woods returns to professional golf. Nice.

The flip side is that the new XBox game on tiger woods gets boring as he and his wife stop fighting in the game and tiger woods starts playing real golf. Golf gets boring again. Stan and Eric discard the game to go play outside.

SouthPark rocks. Its a great sarcasm on reality.

Google is smart.

I drafted a mail in which I wrote " I am attaching below as requested". What I meant was to not attach a file but give a description of the required item. When I clicked on send, google gave me an alert saying " You have written I am attaching a file but there are no attachments in this mail, send anyways?" .Now thats smart. I guess thats why google rocks so much. Wish this functionality would have been there in MS Outlook. It would have saved me a few embarrassments of sending mails without attachments.

But there is room for improvement. I sent out a test email with the body "I am attaching an excel file" but attached a power point file. Gmail did not catch it :-)

Cheers
Rishi.

The lines are blurring....

..between advertisements and television soaps. A strong disclaimer before I begin. I AM NOT AN AVID WATCHER OF HINDI TELEVISION SOAPS. HOWEVER IT GETS PLASTERED ALL ACROSS MY CONSCIOUSNESS WHEN THE TV IS BLARING IN THE BACKGROUND AS I TRY TO DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE.

So there is this Soap on colors which goes by the name "Balika Vadhu". Some episodes back they had a scene where the father calls his children together and explains to them a life insurance policy. No, not just any generic life insurance policy. It was a blatant advertisement of Bajaj life insurance. Not only that, he explained in great length about the features and benefits of that policy! As if it wasn't reel life but real life. As if he was about to buy that policy for his reel life kids. WoW!

Then now, about 10 minutes back, in an advertisement break for the same soap, the female actors of that soap were shown advertising for a Pregnancy test kit. They were playing the same roles and wearing the same attire as they do in the serial. WoW !

The time is not far when you will not be able to tell if you are watching a story or an advertisement. The next innovation in advertisement has arrived at our doorstep.

The lines are blurring ...better switchoff the idiot box and go out to play (but hopefully something other than cricket for GODs sake. Maybe Golf?)

Cheers
Rishi.

The Perfect Dilbert Moment

Out of nowhere I recalled an incident that happened in office nearly 6 years back. Its the perfect dilbert moment ( I am sure scott has this covered already)

The situation: User comes to the cabin (and not cubicle) of the IT manager. Conversation goes like this.

U: Good afternoon sir
M: Good afternoon

U: Sir ek software ka issue resolve karna tha
M: Ok. Why dont you mail me?

U: Sir aap to itne busy ho. Mail check hi nahin karte or reply to bilkul nahin
M: Haan true. To ek kaam karo. Email karo aur phir mujhe phone karo

U: Sir aap phone bhi nahin uthate
M: To voicemail me jane do

U: Sir aap email nahin check karte. Voicemail kaha karoge?
M: Yeh baat bhi sahi hain.

M: To ek kaam karo. Voicemail rakhne ke baad mere cabin me aake batao ki voicemail rakha hain ki email kiya hain ki software issue solve karna hain.

ITS THE PERFECT DILBERT MOMENT.
User: Dilbert
Manager: Mordac (preventer of IT systems)
Passerbys: Wally with coffee in hand ( in fact this managers cabin used to be littered with used cups of tea and his cabin could give any government office a run for its money!!)

Cheers
Rishi.

3 Idiots - Myth Busted!

No I am not referring to the chetan bhagat controversy. Honestly I dont give a damn. I enjoyed the movie, Aamir rocks and its great entertainment with loads of message without getting all preachy up your a$$.

However there are some technical glitches. In two scenes, it is shown that a person urinating on an electrified device gets his manhood electrocuted. This is not possible. How do i know ? There was an episode on the popular television series Mythbusters (on Discovery) where they test exactly this urban legend. You can read about the myth at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Patrick_O%27Malley.

Currently I am trying to get my hands on the episode. I had watched it long long back but i vividly remember how they had done it. They made a human model and filled it with urine (fresh out of a real human bladder). They had already measured the pressure with which a normal human being can urinate and then adjusted the model's "bladder" to that pressure. The model was finally made to urinate on an electrified metal strip. Result. No electrocution. Then they gradually increased the pressure to the point where electrocution finally takes place. However the pressure at which this takes place will take super human effort.

Conclusion. You cannot get an electric shock from urinating on an elctrified object (unless you are superman, spiderman or Shakti-man and really pissed off)

Further conclusion. It is not surprising that no reports have come in of children/teenagers getting electrocuted due to such pranks being played by their peers after watching the movie. I am sure they have tried, and thankfully failed.

Cheers
Rishi

28 Lacs

That is the amount I saved by booking a flat in early 2007, as against my neighbours who booked theirs in late 2008. Am I happy? Check this link for the answer.

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_happiness_genie/

Rishi.

Online recommendations on Linkedin.

I want to ask one question.

If I recommend you in a public website such as linkedin, will I write bad or even average about you? Pay attention to the fact that the requestor can choose not to publish recommendations if he does not find it appropriate.

In other words, does it even make sense to write unending paragraphs glorifying a person? (unless of course the readers are pointy haired bosses who dont have a clue)


I would even go the extent of saying that online recommendations should be completely discouraged. Because, any public recommendations are by default useless. As mentioned earlier, nobody will publish a bad recommendation. For that matter nobody will even write a bad public recommendation (its easy to get your hands on a knife).
The only reason I would still believe in them is the fact that the person recommending is putting his/her neck out for you. However two things should then be strictly followed

1. There should only be one line saying : "xyz recommends abc" Anything else is useless.
2. The person recommending you should have been in a position where he/she has supervised you. No friends, no colleagues. Recommendations from them are useless


Apart from the above, online recommendations are nothing but blinding flashes of the obvious. I recommend to keep recommendations private.

Cheers
Rishi

P.S. I myself have a couple of online recommendations. But I cannot remove them unless the other zillion idiots remove theirs. Otherwise I stand to be a loser. Maybe this is another reason why online recos are still popular. But that's herd mentatlity, no?

Are you really yourself ?

Have you tried comparing yourself to what you were 5 years back? Physically ? Emotionally ? Physical change is evident, Emotional change is less so. Both, however are inevitable. What you thought and expected from life 5-10 years ago is different from what you want now. Agree? Now, think about the decisions we make at any point in time. Decisions are made forward looking i.e for the future. e.g you decide to buy an insurance policy for "future" safety. Agree? Now, if things constantly change and decisions are made for the future, can we ever make any correct decisions? Alternatively, we are doomed to a lifetime of cribbing over how we made the wrong decision(s). Now you might argue that although we change physically and emotionally, there are core attributes that remain for lifetime. e.g our height does not change, our basic nature does not change. I would beg to differ. We change as per circumstances. Good can turn to bad and vice versa. e.g the loss of a loved one can turn a perfectly sweet person into a grouch and full of hatred. On the other hand, marrying someone good might turn your personality for the better. I am not saying that all people change dramatically over a lifetime. However people definitely change, for better or for worse, depending on circumstances.

My question is, should decision making then be relegated to a random choice? Or you think it is still better to make an "informed decesion" (whatever that means!!)

Cheers
Rishi

P.S: Dont give me examples of how some of your decisions have been good. Firstly you are only telling me the ones that turned good for you and secondly you have been lucky things worked out as you "assumed" they would when you took the decision. No ?