From hedge funds to pizzas!!!

Just read another of this recession stories…. it shocked the hell outta me…

The only good part of this phase is that people are learning a lot and realizing the importance of savings… but do we really implement it till such time that we really face it?! I guess most of us don’t. And me…writing this here… have I really done something yet? No. In fact I just did some crazy shopping this weekend. And I am feeling stupid now. And so I hope I continue feeling this stupid and do something about it soon!!!

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This too shall pass!

One amazing article a friend emailed me today –

My Friends,

Money has no memory. Experience has. You will never know what the total cost of your education was, but for a lifetime you will recall and relive the memories of schools and colleges. Few years from now, you will forget the amount you paid to settle the hospitalisation bill, but will ever cherish having saved your mother’s life or the life you get to live with the just born. You won’t remember the cost of your honeymoon, but to the last breath remember the experiences of the bliss of togetherness. Money has no memory. Experience has.

Good times and bad times, times of prosperity and times of poverty, times when the future looked so secure and times when you didn’t know from where the tomorrow will come… life has been in one way or the other a roller-coaster ride for everyone. Beyond all that abundance and beyond all that deprivation, what remains is the memory of experiences. Sometimes the wallet was full… sometimes even the pocket was empty. There was enough and you still had reasons to frown. There wasn’t enough and you still had reasons to smile. Today, you can look back with tears of gratitude for all the times you had laughed together, and also look back with a smile at all the times you cried alone. All in all, life filled you with experiences to create a history of your own self, and you alone can remember them all.

The first time you balanced yourself on your cycle without support…

The first time she said ‘yes’ and it was two years since you proposed…

The first cry… the first steps… the first word… the first kiss… all of your child…

The first gift you bought for your parents and the first gift your daughter gave you…

The first award… the first public appreciation… the first stage performance…

And the list is endless… Experiences, with timeless memory…

No denying that anything that’s material cost money, but the fact remains the cost of the experience will be forgotten, but the experience never.

So, what if it’s economic recession? Let it be, but let there not be a recession to the quality of your life. You can still take your parents, if not on a pilgrimage, at least to the local temple. You can still play with your children, if not on an international holiday, at least in the local park. It doesn’t cost money to lie down or to take a loved one onto your lap. Nice time to train the employees, create leadership availability and be ready for the wonderful times when they arrive. Hey! Aspects like your health, knowledge development and spiritual growth are not economy dependent.

Time will pass… economy will revive… currency will soon be in current… and in all this, I don’t want you to look back and realise you did nothing but stayed in gloom. Recession can make you lose out on money. Let it not make you lose out on experiences… If you are not happy with what you have, no matter how much more you have, you will still not be happy.

Make a statement with the way you live your life: How I feel has nothing to do with how much I have.

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A Day of Shame – Mumbai Attacks!

Can you anymore invite your friends from outside India to come here and visit you? I can’t! Its freaking shameful… and this time apparently the targets were the poor tourists…for whatever reason! I read that these so-called-terrorists were shouting that they want everybody with a British or American passport…

Its insane…Mumbai, our financial capital, being attacked by these handful of boys (yes boys) between 20-25 years in age…coming on a boat full of ammunition, landing on a beach and whoosh go the guns…and half of our commercial capital is a hostage to this bunch of boys… unbelievable! God only knows how many millions are spent on the ‘so-called-security’ of hotels like Taj Mahal and Oberoi…for what? To welcome these assholes like this?!

A friend said that if still we don’t wake up, we deserve to be fucked like this….and I say…we are like those drunkards…yous hake them, they’ll open an eye, look at you, grin and go back to sleep! And they here doesn’t refer only to our politicians or higher authorities..its me, you and all of us!

A friend rightly said, “The scenes last night on tv were as we are talking about some debt ridden or insolvent country among turmoil of islamic terror like somewhere in pakistan or palestine or iraq.” It truly feels like that!

I know this is not the right time to dig old issues…because this one anyway is big enough for us to handle… but I like one more thing that he said…”Now one should ask those Marathi politicians why they are seeking help from NSG. They should deal with this with an “All Marathi” force. They were busy dividing the country on regional lines while terrorists were planning this.”

On a very different note, a thought just came to my mind… these attackers were all 22-23 years…I wonder how they put their life at risk for nothing?! I mean, how many of us will really put our lives at risk like this? What’s there in their minds? What’s that hatred, that passion, that abhorrence in their heads…????

Anyway…the bottom line still remains that this is one of the worst terrorist attacks on our country and IT IS SHAMEFUL!!! Isn’t this all crap getting very close to genocide?! Or do we already call it that?!

Another sad part is the loss of some of the finest officers that Mumbai had… Hats off to their effort! Its startling to see that the ATS Chief Hemant Karkare, who was coming out with a lot of information on some top ranking army officials and some Hindu radicals involved in various bomb blasts in the country is shot dead. Is it a mere coincidence? I wonder if anyone will evr answer these questions…. he whole episode is just not palpable… are we really that weak and stupid and insane… that just about anyone can come in and start their own battle in the country?!

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Is it time yet?

Read an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal today. The question was – “When did the US recession start and when will it end?” Haha…as if I know! Or for matter, as if even they know!

But nonetheless, what’s the harm in discussing what the whole freaking world is discussing (most of them, without knowing the R of Recession)!

About the start of recession, I agree with what the ‘analysts’ had to say – it probably started somewhere in the first quarter… but of course was detected much later!

Now the bigger question is when will it end? According to National Bureau of Economic Research, in the last 16 periods of economic contractions in the U.S., the average recovery period has been 13 months. Taking this and the halfway-rule in account, it means that this should be a good time to enter the stock market! But only if it was so simple…. Two complications still remain.  A – No one is certain that recession did actually start in the first quarter and B – Doesn’t this look like a worse-than-average recession? And if it is so, it might not recover in the average period of 13 months. It might take 2 years or 3 years…who knows!

Lets see what Mr. Obama has on his mind! Btw, another article also says that Barack Obama is not very favorable for the free trade and if he starts opposing it, it can be a real danger for us and other Asian countries… And they are recalling the last time when a young, energetic and democratic man, who had little knowledge of the policies,  ruled the US (referring to Mr. Bill Clinton here) – he created a havoc in the relations! And according to the ‘experts’, Mr. Obama is even worse – he has even lesser knowledge of the policies and the complexities involved (don’t kill me for writing this, this is what I read in WSJ!)… Well… lets see what ‘CHANGES’ await us!

What do you think?

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