Mar 23, 2008
How One Thing Can Contain Everything
A beautiful concept-
A meeting in the house of a Sao Paulo born painter based in New York. We are talking about angels & about alchemy. At one point, I try to explain to the other guests the alchemical idea that each of us contains the entire universe & that we are, therefore, individually responsible for its well-being. I struggle to find the right words, but cannot come up with a good image that will explain my point of view.
The painter who has been listening in silence, asks everyone to look out of the window of his studio.
'What can you see?' he asks.
'A street in Greenwich Village,' someone replies.
The painter sticks a piece of paper over the window so that the street can no longer be seen; then, with a penknife, he cuts a small square in the paper.
'And if someone were to look through this hole, what would he see?'
'The same street' comes the reply.
The painter cuts several squares in the paper.
'Just as each of these holes contains within it the whole view of the same street, so each of us contains in our soul the same universe.'
And all of us applaud the lovely image he has found.
(Excerpt from the truly wonderful book 'Like the flowing River' by Paulo Coelho).
Mar 20, 2008
Dare to be Different !
Right now, I am in the midst of a very important phase of my life...The process of job-hunting. More precisely, the term should be 'profile-hunting'. I must say, this has been the most hectic three weeks of my life; what with juggling between GMCS, post-GMCS evening shift office, interviews, campus orientation & a trip to Matheran. Phew!!
Speaking of job-hunting & career, a very important question plaguing my l'il cousin these days is choosing a right career. Being a very intelligent science student, she has a choice between 2 paths; going for a career traditionally considered viable or going in an hitherto uncommon arena.She called me up yesterday with her dilemma; her parents are forcing her to go for the first, she herself would prefer the second. I listened to her patiently, then asked her whether she really needed my opinion.Maybe I sound rude, but honestly, I thought at that time, my cousin had made up her mind in favour of the first option, she just needed someone to reiterate that she was doing the correct thing...Which unfortunately I couldn't agree upon.
Is this something peculiar to my cousin? No, I think it happens to almost everyone. Sometimes we are so attached to our way of life, that we turn down a wonderful opportunity simply because we don't know what to do with it. Every person believes he should get a professional degree, have a successful career, get married, so on & so on. Does anybody ask themselves, "Can I be different?"
Most of my friends today have a professional degree to their name, but does it mean everybody is doing a job of their choice? Definately not. Some got a degree, because at the time of enrolling somewhere people said, in order to rise in this world you need this degree. And thus the world was deprived of some excellent gardeners, commercial artists, writers, sculpters etc. And that is the problem with the entire educational system in India. Perhaps, time has come to now review this entire situation.
I'll let these lines by Robert Frost provide a possible solution to this problem (have already quoted this immortal poem in my blog earlier) :-
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(P.S. Hope my cousin is reading this post. May God give her the strength & the vision to follow what her heart knows is right!)
Speaking of job-hunting & career, a very important question plaguing my l'il cousin these days is choosing a right career. Being a very intelligent science student, she has a choice between 2 paths; going for a career traditionally considered viable or going in an hitherto uncommon arena.She called me up yesterday with her dilemma; her parents are forcing her to go for the first, she herself would prefer the second. I listened to her patiently, then asked her whether she really needed my opinion.Maybe I sound rude, but honestly, I thought at that time, my cousin had made up her mind in favour of the first option, she just needed someone to reiterate that she was doing the correct thing...Which unfortunately I couldn't agree upon.
Is this something peculiar to my cousin? No, I think it happens to almost everyone. Sometimes we are so attached to our way of life, that we turn down a wonderful opportunity simply because we don't know what to do with it. Every person believes he should get a professional degree, have a successful career, get married, so on & so on. Does anybody ask themselves, "Can I be different?"
Most of my friends today have a professional degree to their name, but does it mean everybody is doing a job of their choice? Definately not. Some got a degree, because at the time of enrolling somewhere people said, in order to rise in this world you need this degree. And thus the world was deprived of some excellent gardeners, commercial artists, writers, sculpters etc. And that is the problem with the entire educational system in India. Perhaps, time has come to now review this entire situation.
I'll let these lines by Robert Frost provide a possible solution to this problem (have already quoted this immortal poem in my blog earlier) :-
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(P.S. Hope my cousin is reading this post. May God give her the strength & the vision to follow what her heart knows is right!)
Mar 1, 2008
Budgeting Blues
When I had started writing in this blog, I had promised certain non-finance field related friends, that I would not include any article 'jo unke sar ke upar se jaata hai' to quote their words. Just for once, Shipra & Vikrant, 'Entschuldigen Sie.' (excuse me)
So Chidubond (a term coined by my friend Viren) has toed the line,has come out with a populist budget as widely expected. Yes, he has come out with some very good initiatives in the process...Rationalisation of DDT for one & ofcourse, easing of the tax slabs. And also came up with a good way of cleaning Banks' B/S by taking over their NPAs. Also a gud boost to the realty, pharma & power sectors. All things said & done, can't help pondering on the following points:
1. Agreed the FM has bought all the off-shore registered companies' M & A deals retrospectively into the tax net, but on a related note also wondering why the FM did not take any steps to address the Participatory Notes controversy, when the honourable PM has himself expressed his concerns about the issue in a recent paper to the IMF (I seriously doubt whether altogether banning P-notes is viable; but atleast some steps should be taken to address the recognisibility of funds flowing in the capital markets)
2. The sub-prime crisis & the US recession. The FM said that the impact of these two cannot be ascertained as yet & hence not accounted for in the budget. Fair enough. Just thinking how the rosy pictures & nos. depicted would have been impacted even if a fair amount of estimation could have been made of the looming crisis.
3. And ofcourse, the off-budget accounting of the write off of the farmers' loan. By keeping the write-off below the line, the FM has ensured that he complies with the FRBM requirements (meeting the fiscal deficit target). Can't help wondering how the FM would adjust the funds over the next 3 yrs, to buy off the PSU banks' NPAs ( 65000 crores is at stake here), without accounting for it? Also, on a related note wondering whether the FM has not indirectly punished the farmers who despite hardships have managed to fulfill their loan obligations... uphelding altruism yet again, Mr. FM??
So Chidubond (a term coined by my friend Viren) has toed the line,has come out with a populist budget as widely expected. Yes, he has come out with some very good initiatives in the process...Rationalisation of DDT for one & ofcourse, easing of the tax slabs. And also came up with a good way of cleaning Banks' B/S by taking over their NPAs. Also a gud boost to the realty, pharma & power sectors. All things said & done, can't help pondering on the following points:
1. Agreed the FM has bought all the off-shore registered companies' M & A deals retrospectively into the tax net, but on a related note also wondering why the FM did not take any steps to address the Participatory Notes controversy, when the honourable PM has himself expressed his concerns about the issue in a recent paper to the IMF (I seriously doubt whether altogether banning P-notes is viable; but atleast some steps should be taken to address the recognisibility of funds flowing in the capital markets)
2. The sub-prime crisis & the US recession. The FM said that the impact of these two cannot be ascertained as yet & hence not accounted for in the budget. Fair enough. Just thinking how the rosy pictures & nos. depicted would have been impacted even if a fair amount of estimation could have been made of the looming crisis.
3. And ofcourse, the off-budget accounting of the write off of the farmers' loan. By keeping the write-off below the line, the FM has ensured that he complies with the FRBM requirements (meeting the fiscal deficit target). Can't help wondering how the FM would adjust the funds over the next 3 yrs, to buy off the PSU banks' NPAs ( 65000 crores is at stake here), without accounting for it? Also, on a related note wondering whether the FM has not indirectly punished the farmers who despite hardships have managed to fulfill their loan obligations... uphelding altruism yet again, Mr. FM??
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
