26 on 26

I was planning to write this post for a long time. Last October 26, I completed 26 years of my existence on this planet. Almost a quarter of life is past behind if I believe a lot of astro specialist who have dug into my horoscope many times.

When I reflect back to the life that I have spent, I see a lot of memorable moments and lot of things that I have achieved. Twenty six years were well spent considering the amount of life lessons I have learnt. This has led me to be more mature than my age, having high moral values and more importantly cultivating the traits of a good human being.

I had always been fickle with hobbies. This has got me to learn vast number of skills and do activities like, skits, singing, script writing, public speaking, writing, reading, poetry, watching movies, listening to music, dancing, playing various sports like badminton, table tennis, lawn tennis, bowling, pool, squash, cricket, soccer, swimming and other activities like cooking, traveling, trekking, Para-gliding, water scooter, rappelling, mountain climbing, river rafting and biking.

Professionally, I have earned a good reputation in both technical and non-technical realm related to the service industry and I am also being counted as one of the top performers in my organization.

So far these 26 years has laid a good foundation for me, the only concern now is to build upon these and achieve more. So in the next ten years, following are the various milestones that I would like to achieve:-

Earn Money: This is one of the most important aspect which has started bothering me lately, more so because of the fact that I have to settle down and have a family. Till now I have been focusing on building a solid foundation and now that I believe I have done a pretty good job at it, its time to capitalize it.

Have Family: Because of the social pressure, (I hate relatives bothering my mother about me still being bachelor) and also considering the “social fact” that oldest one should get married first, its time for me to get married.

Build Reputation and Recognition in Industry: Being recognized and appreciated at workplace is not enough, it is important to make presence felt globally across industry.

MBA: A long “un-fetched” dream of pursuing an MBA from a world reputed institute needs to be realized.

Achieving any of the above tasks is not a puppet’s play; it requires lots of strenuous effort and strong will power. 

So wish me good luck.

The World is Flat

If the water level rises one inch at one place, it would raise the same everywhere.
Financial crisis in US has yet again reminded us of the fact that the world is flat.

If you have read Thomas Friedman about the world being flat as I have, then you obviously know how good it is for the world being flat but recent crisis has started a debate in myself that would it have been better if the world was not flat? At least I wouldn’t have lost money in Indian stock market because of mistakes done by the finance companies in US.

Think of the olden times when civilizations & settlements were separate and thrived in isolation. Some civilizations faced grave times, some come over it and some got eradicated. It all happened in separate places and may be since everything was so isolated it did not affect the other civilization/settlement.

Imagine a group of people who are caught in a maze and it is essential that any one of them should come out of the maze and survive, what would be the best strategy? Should the people be together or should they go in separate directions? Mathematically and logically they should separate out and go in different direction in order to have more chances of anybody surviving.

I never stop thinking about a situation or crisis that affects one part of the world and gets transmitted like a disease to other parts of the world because everything is so connected. What are the chances of our survival if something like this happens?

To buy or not to buy - that’s the question

After a lot of rumination, I considered buying a flat in Nandi Wood housing. 

The flat will cost 40L+ which will put me under the EMI of around 45k+ according to the prevailing interest rates.

But I am in complete dilemma nowadays, whether to buy a house or not.

I came across two blog posts:-

First

This blog emphasizes on buying a house when you are young.

Benefits are listed out as:-

1. will save on rent
2. will build an asset
3. may seem higher now but as the time goes by the EMI sum % of your income will decrease

Second

This blog is a straight mockery of the people who are buying house by taking hefty loan. Following are the arguments:-

1. Paying hefty EMI every month will deprive of the much needed cash at the onset of your living
2. House may not prove to be an investment - classic case of US sub-prime crisis
3. With the house loan you loose mobility and risk taking ability

The inference that can be drawn from these two mindsets is that it is always better to buy a house early in your career and it is also not desirable to be burdened by the heft EMI amount of the home loan.

The best case scenario is that you are in 20's and you have enough cash to completely buy the house, no loan, no EMI.

But if this is not the case then certain question arises, what is the extent until which it is financially and logically Ok to be burdened.

After hours of calculation, I derived on the generic method to determine if one is eligible to go for the loan.

If suppose your in hand income per month is X and your average maximum % expenditure for the forecast of next 2-3 years is 30% of X (assume various cases like , you getting married or having children or buying a car etc etc) then EMI should not exceed 40% - 50% of X where assuming 20-30% of X as your saving (You need to have some liquidity) . Please note that if the % expenditure is more that 30% of your in hand income then better pay attention to that.

If you are buying a house then take loan for the amount which can translate to EMI of not more than 50% of your income. You should put in the cash for the rest amount.

Well I have decided to hold my decision of buying the house.

Ramanand Sagar's Genius

After about 22 years, Ramanand Sagar's Ramayana aired again..... On my Laptop. We three room-mates decided to re-create the "Ramayana" magic @ our abode in the very same fashion as '80s.

We fixed the screening time as every Sunday, 9AM. Although, I have all the episodes with me but we decided to see only 1 hr i.e. 2 episodes every Sunday. This actually required us wake up 6 'o' clock on Sunday morning :) as we decide to watch Ramayana after completing our breakfast and Sunday walk.


So, today March 16 was the first Sunday... first episode.... everybody was waiting in anticipation. Will this look like a joke or what.... how are we going to buy the acting, the overdone makeup and the lousy special effects of 80's. As usual we woke up little late then our target and got off only by 7:30 AM..... 1.5 hrs to go...... we walked up to BDA complex which is approximately 2 Km from our Kathriguppe. We had hot idli's with spicy coconut chutney..... really tastes better then before if you have walked that far. I was feeling extra hungry so I had Khara Bhaat too.... it was almost 8:30 when we left SLV..... to go to Caneola (Cane-O-La)...... the sugarcane juice shoppe.....which has honey, lemon, mint, masala, ginger flavored sugarcane juice. After having 2 glasses of refreshing sugarcane juice, one lemon flavoured and other ginger flavour, I was contemplating the various options to reach home on time as it was already 8:50 AM.

After a lot of arguments we decided that we cannot compromise on time, the RAMAYANA, must start at 9'o' clock thats the time that has been followed religiously by the masses since decades. We cannot break that ritual. We quickly caught the Auto and reached home, complete five minutes late !!!! , at 9:05 AM. We were sad that we could not abide by the time.... but Ramayana doest start at strict 9 AM, there is casting and then lot of Ad's before that and that consumes almost 5 minutes!!!! :))) We are on time boys lets start the show :))

The show started in much anticipation when lord Bhrama, Shiva and other Dev's plead Lord Vishnu to end the cruelty and barbarity of Ravana. The story goes on with King Dashrath and the three queens having Yagan's to please the God of fire. The episode 1 and 2 then showed the up - bringing of four prince Ram, Lakshman, Bharat and Shatrudhan till the time they were sent to Gurukul for education.

Nothing unexpected, the story is known to everyone, the characters are popular, but all it matters is the presentation. Even after 22 years we not only were able to bond with the show but also showed the "Ramayana" symptom's of the '80s. This was unexpected!!! Guys got really sentimental and tried to force me to start the third epispde as well. But I kept my nerves, although even I wanted to see the third one, I decided to keep discipline...and thats what Ramayana taught us in last one hour. Even though all the four princes had all the luxury on their feet, they choose to go to gurukul and sleep on the floor, clean the place, beg and eat the food. Despite knowing that his sons will be doing all these things, King Dashrath kept discipline and duty above all, to let them go to gurukul.

Indeed, Ramanad Sagar has not merely directed, written, produced the Ramayan, but he has created the Magic; eternal, pure and ancient magic, which takes the audience to the Satyug. I guarantee that after watching Ramayana you would feel tranquil, happy and spiritually elevated. That's the genius of Ramanand Sagar.........

I Cry......

When you look at me and don't say a word,
When you pass me and dont give me a look,
When you let my hands go off your shoulder,
and When you let tears go down your face,

I Cry......