Didn't know it still existed

Well just a few days ago my mid terms ended. So to celebrate the occasion and to take a break from all the rigour a few of us decided to have a blast at Wayanad.

Off we went with three cars making merry of the way and the awesome weather..We found a nice homestay in a calm and serene location with bread and breakfast. It was away from the busy cities with most of the people living their own life with little interest in the outside world. It is here we witnessed an act which i do not expect to see in any of the big cities where everyone is money minded and tries to look at ways to make easy money.

We faced a few car issues for which we had the help of a few workers there. As a reward we gave the Rs 200 and started checking out. But the management there told us that the money we gave was way too much and it is their duty to help us and so will not accept the money. At first we were taken aback. Where in India would we see such a thing??

Although that day did not go too well in terms of transportation issues but this small act just reaffirmed my faith in humanity

Derivatives - The sophisticated satta market

Had my first class of financial derivatives (FD for short) today. The prof went gaga over how they are instruments for hedging risks as well as their random use for speculation. We were introduced to the various forms of derivatives in the forms of forwards, futures, options and swaps with the introduction session focussed on the first two.

Now we know that futures are exchange traded and have cash settlement as opposed to the forward contracts which are OTC and have physical settlement. But these forwards can be cash settled too if the contract is so made. This means I can enter and speculate on the price of a commodity, the volatility of the stock index, stocks etc. legally to enter into forward contracts with a third party.

So how different is it if I would like to extend the same to the success of India in the T20 world cup or the number of wickets taken, the probable score to be made and so on. Why is it called a satta then? Is it not the form of a futures contract in which I decide the underlying, the price, the mode of delivery as well as the payment date?

Why is speculating on stocks allowed and this termed illegal? And the argument of gambling doesn't hold as that is exactly what you do in stock trading. The future price of the stock is not actually related to the exercise price, it is just a value derived from the current price to which certain risk premiums have been adjusted and in no way reflects the spot price of the day.

So isn't this whole derivative crap a slightly sophisticated gamble??? Let's see what happens in the future classes and whether my doubts are dispelled.....

Three day vacation

Its time for the second year to begin. the registration date given was 10th June which meant that I had to leave on 9th morning to make it on time or else pay a Rs.1000 fine/day.

The flight was full with around 15 of our Komrades on the same flight and so after a lot of harrowing i managed to get my ticket. A 6 hour journey which took us 7 hrs for the flight we were made to sit in the plane for an hour (Delhi's traffic is not just confined to the roads). And above it my book got lost or apparently stolen by the security at Coimbatore who made away with it thinking it to belong to some transit passenger....

So we finally reached K around 3 and made for our supposed new hostel. But the hostel is just not complete. Our whole floor is unfurnished and so we were left to choose rooms on a fist come first serve basis to spend the night and hope for studcon to resolve the matters the next day. The best thing about the room though are the working AC's.

The next day we were hopin to have our registrations done, collect the books and start our classes, but when we saw the timetable it was just *$#^@**. My classes were not supposed to begin before Saturday, givin me 3 days to just rest and relax in my new room which is no less than that of a 5 star hotel ( wish I had a camera to show u all the pics). Just collected and transferred all my stuff from the old hostel which took around 4 trips of carrying the heavy stuff.

But the three days after that were pure bliss. Sleepin for 12 hrs a day, with not an ounce to worry about the studies and stuff. Just relaxing in the beautiful Kerala and having the vacation that I hoped of enjoying through my internship. Ahh its great..

Too bad the classes start tomorrow which also means an end to all the weekends which I am supposed to have

The last day...

Thankfully it is here....

After having to go through that ordeal for the pst two months, was just waiting for the day to come...

Working the ass off on even Saturdays....

Having regular late nights...

Not being able to catch a proper nap in office after the day my VP saw me sleepin..

Thanx to doc for being there, so I could atleast roam a bit around Bangalore, else would have lost the opportunity to see the beautiful city and just spent my time lazing around in the room (that is exactly what i did after doc left)

Just can't wait to get to Delhi and spend the 4 precious days with my family and then life returns back to the luxury @ K

Missed K like hell...........

Its 3 in the morning now. Just had 5 mins of sleep in b/w but the excitement of going back is acting stronger than caffeine.....

another 3.5 hrs here and the smile on my face widens.

17.5 hour workday #@$#$ **#$@^(#

As if yesterday was not bad enough there came today. After spending a f***$% 15 hours in the office yesterday all I managed to get was barely 5 hours of sleep. Meaning like all other days, today too i was feeling sleepy but somehow had so much work that i did not have the luxury of dozing off, like i usually do. (The hours from 12-1:30 PM are the worst. Am usually never able to control myself in this duration and have a few small nap breaks of 2-5 mins)

So I returned from office at 1:30 in the night. Could have gone off to sleep and had good rest for 6.5 hrs but I had just started another Grisham's novel yesterday and was really hooked. But managed to read only an hour or so and finally dozed off at three.

Morning had the alarm set at 7:45 but woke up only after 8. Hurriedly had a shave and a bath and the cab was here by 9. An hour's journey to office (Bangalore's traffic is hell) and there I was ready to begin a new day. But i had not imagined that this would be one of the longest days of my life.

Work kept pouring in, with the output rate being a fraction of the input. And not all of it was interesting. Some or rather a lot of it was pure manual labour (or better called shit work). And the time kept dragging. ManU's loss to Barca added to my miseries ( did not see the match though the TV was on, just heard the commentary). Time kept dragging on... and a good night's sleep still eludes me.

Finally got the day or rather the night off at 3:30 Am. But this was not the end. 17.5 hours stay in the office. But i had to come back too. It again took an hour - there were 3 of us and i was the last one to be dropped. Made it to the campus at 4:30 and still have not gone off to sleep. All for elaborating my nightmare, else with time the gory details are forgotten.......

Well have to get up at 8 tomorrow, so better have some sleep now........

Sunday Filmed

Had a really tiring week with firstly the flu getting to me for which i had to take a day and a half off. Unfortunately also had to compensate for the same by workin on a Saturday when the others went to the Legend of Rock and had a beer cannon. I fuckin hate this work.....

But i had a real good Sunday. Doc's friends in his company, for which he so called works ( have really seen him goin to office for more than a few hours and that too only 2-3 days a week) had organized a so called outing to the Innovative Film City, and I got the chance to go along too. Thankfully it was an informal trip and of the eight people there no one knew more than 3 of the others so it really went well.

Our trip started in the morning when I was woken up by Doc who was too anxious for the trip (or meetin the so called friend of his) barely 4 hrs after i had slept ( NO matter how much tired u r but u rarely sleep early on weekends). And we reached the meetin place Wockhardt Hospital Bannerghata Road, a bare 5 min walk from the campus gate. There I met the gang with whom i was gonna spend my whole day.

Off we left at 10 and after an hours drive reached our destination. Located in a remote area the place was crowded with several families who had also come to have a good day. The place is really expensive for we sheeled out Rs 800 each for the ticket which allowed for so called 16 attractions for which the individual tickets would have otherwise costed Rs 1350. A 100 bucks extra for the camera and we were inside.

Our first stop was an old theater which played 10 min of scene from Sholay and charged 20 per ticket, but the hooting and hearing Gabbar sayin "ab tera kya hoga Kaalia" made up for it. After a click click here and a click click there and we clicked almost everywhere we started getting things knocked off from our ticket.

There was the mirror maze which was really fantastic, with everyone movin around in circles and bumpin into mirrors. The dino park was fun with pics being clicked in different and funny poses. But the fossil museum was a bore - bones had been placed in a hall with a T rex structure at the centre, it was all fake..

By 4 we had only 4 things ticked off with another 12 to go and we did not think we would cover it all. The next stop was the haunted mansion a scary place for kids and enjoyable too. The ripley's believe it or not and the Louis Tussaud's wax museum were great.

Wanted to go for go karting .. to lay off my last years fears of the broken hand but alas it was a huge line. Got a chance though at the very end but since it had gone dark we were given those bigger family cars which were way too slow and the only fun i had was not lettin doc get thru ahead. The Mini golf started great but after the first 4 holes everyone lost enthusiasm and the rest 14 were completed in a hurry and by stroking the ball any which ways and from just about anywhere.

The 4D theater was good. (was my first experience with the 3D glasses too and it was great. But the 3D effect was told is better in IMAX ). The rumbling of the seat, the sudden gust of air as well as the squirting of water made the experience great. But the best part were when the rats jumped at your feet and one feels a tickling sensation by the wires that come out from under the seat.

But the part I was lookin forward to the most was the bungee jumping. But it turned out to be a damb squib. It was actually Bungy jumpmin, the equipment one sees in malls in Delhi where one gets in a harness and is pulled up and down on a trampoline. I was however not able to do it due to the funny sensation that i always have in my stomach ( get the feelin while riding the swing too) and so had to stop after just a few seconds..

It was way past 8, everyone was leavin but still none of us wanted to come back. So we went to the skatin rink where music was playin and started dancin and enjoyin. Call it luck or whatever for a small boy of around 12 broke his hand from a skating accident and there we were with 2 doctors among us to handle the situation. A sling was made and tied before he was sent away in the ambulance by our very own Doc......

Sunday BANGed

So the third weekend arrived after a really hectic week. Was very late coming back from office on Friday, with my body all tired up and showing full signs of the lack of sleep that i had endured the past week.

But still its funny how the concept of a holiday the very next day fill u with some sort of adrenaline to actually keep u awake that night no matter how tired u really are. So i watched a couple of movies before finally hitting the bed at 4. But it is also true that ur body does need its rest and so i finally woke up at 5 in the evening - a good 13 hours of slumber. And i would have definitely slept more had it not been for the informal fresher meet that we had scheduled for 5:30.

Ironically when at K 5:30 would have meant 5:29:59 here we (5 of us) left IIMB only at 5:25. We reached Leela Palace where our meet was scheduled at 6:30, the get together still on but a lot calmed out. I still remember how a year back i had asked 3-4 seniors the same damn questions about the stay at a hostel (it being the first time), but this time I did not find any enthusiastic junior. Don't know what will happen this year????

Finally people started leavin around 7 and there were just 12 of us left, when we decided to go out for drinks and a good dinner.

Next morning aka Sunday enthusiastically i woke up around 9 coz had planned to go on a second albeit a much better sightseeing trip. So me and Doc finally commenced our journey at around 11.

Boarded a bus to MG road/Brigade road (am still not able to distinguish where they exactly are and which is which). Our first destination was the Vidhan Soudha around 1.5-2 km walk from our bus stop. On the way we came across a post office which did not look anything less than a 5 star hotel from the outside.

A long walk but it was definitely a place worth seeing. Although it has now been closed and one cannot go inside but the architecture and the size was really awesome.

Our next stop was supposed to be Cubbon park but having already visited a park last week we just went along its boundary and did not spend much time inside.

It was almost 3 now. Had spent our time walking and so were feeling tired. We grabbed a quick bite @ McD and headed out to the Visvesvaraya industrial and Technological museum. It brought back memories of when i was a kid and was highly intrigued by science ( I still am). we spent a good 2-2.5 hours enjoying the wonders.

At six we made for what was supposed to be our last stop UB City mall, a highly expensive place where we could not even dream of stepping inside any of the shops given our shallow pockets and the hefty prices. Its another matter of fact that i had my office dinner scheduled at Khansama there later in the night.

On our way to drop Doc back to the bus stand we got a chance to tick off another item on our to do list. Had a chance to have the famous Death by Chocolate @ Corner House - Bangalore' s most famous ice cream. After it I went back for the dinner. Had a couple of drinks too but the best part was the food, which was totally awesome and really worth it.

Finally got back at around 1 and so was not able to have a good night's sleep for it was office as usual the next day, this meant i would again doze off in my chair but now i had to be more careful for i had already been caught napping once.