क़ज़ा

क़ज़ा अपने आप में बुरी नही
सिर्फ़ वहाँ तक का रास्ता डर से भरा है
फिर तो सिर्फ़ खामोशी है
और कुछ भी नही...........................

-- काली हवा

तरकश

हमारे शौक़ कि ये इन्तिहा थी
क़दम रक्खा कि मंज़िल रास्ता थी

जावेद अख्तर

T A R K A S H

"hamaare shauq kee yeh intehaa thee
qadam rakkhaa kee manzil raastaa thee"

I saw a film called ‘Blow Up’ in early seventies. I have only hazy recollection of the film. It was about a photographer who, while developing a picture of a park, discovers a fuzzy spot in it. When he blows it up he discovers a hazy profile of a corpse. The rest of the film was about his quest to search meaning of that picture with lot of symbolism. I remember the fascinating climax in which the protagonist approaches a tennis match played with a fictitious ball and a crowd in stands watching with rapt attention. While the players seriously played out the game with imaginary ball and the spectators following the movement of the imaginary ball our hero looks on bewildered. Suddenly a player hits a skewed shot which apparently ejects it out of the court. The camera follows the trajectory of imaginary ball sailing over the fence, it’s bouncing of the turf, rolling slowly and coming to stop near the photographer. Both the players as well as the spectators look at him expectedly. For a while he looked bewildered then picks up the nonexistent ball, chucks it in to the arena. The film ends at the commencement of the game again. Honestly, the entire film simple went over my head yet I was mesmerized by this surrealistic poetry on the celluloid.

When I read ‘The Trial’ and “The Castle’ by Franz Kafka, I had no idea what was going on. In fact lengthy monologues produced reading fatigue despite that there was some kind of magical appeal in the text, which prodded me to go on and complete it not understanding any of the cryptic symbolism. Later when I was told that both the novels were allegorical in the sense that Kafka was in fact in confrontation with his father’s mind. The ‘Castle’ which he wanted to penetrate was his fathers ‘Mind’ and the ‘Trial’ without any charge was actually exploration of Kafka to understand his father. Now I wonder if I had known about the allegorical nature of the novels whether I would have enjoyed them at all.

The point I am making is that work of art need not ‘always’ be interpreted. What is most fascinating about poetry? The esoteric meaning it conjures or appeal of words strung together in aesthetic fashion? I like poetry both at face value and if needed, to explore its meaning. Good poetry just happens therefore even the poet wouldn’t know what he has created. This is prime example of that creation. I would interpret it this way:

I am intensely passionate and that is my undoing. The moment I embark on an objective I am distracted by its loss of appeal. Something else lures me.

But take your pick, nobody can help you there.

The Ber Tree

The vast open space in front of house extended till the small cemented arena where military band played on ceremonial occasions. The ground however was not visible due to tropical trees doting open space and where there were no trees the ground was left ugly with bald and green patches randomly dispersed. Little Babu wished Ber tree in front of the house was Neem tree instead to allow playing of Jhaar Bundar (Monkey of the tree) despite that they did play Jhaar Bandar and injured themselves in the bargain. There was a curious branch forking out of the trunk referred to by them as a ‘surang’ (a tunnel) for its long horizontal run. The girl next door often told ghost stories and once secretly confided that the Ber tree has a resident ghost. Babu was extremely gullible! In summers little Babu slept out doors along with his family, would often try to sneak a view of the tree if woke up late at night through the mosquito net fixed to his bed. One day, a particularly cramped evening with ghost stories he woke up late at night. He thought he saw a dark figure taking round of the tree and as it turned to look it him the figure melted, disappeared. The view never left him though much later in life he came to terms with it as some kind of trick played by his mind.

One day there was a lot of excitement when kids informed him that a mad man was brought to the local dispensary. He had never seen a mad man before but obvious violence associated with a such a person was part of his psyche gathered from all the movies he had seen. So they went to the dispensary in a group. Near the dispensary they began to trudge slowly as if they would be attacked by the mad man on sight. At the turn from where the dispensary was visible they hid behind a tree and cautiously peeked at the mad man tied or rather chained to a metallic cot placed on open ground in front of the dispensary. The tied man would rise and fall violently giving out muffled grunts. He was wearing a stripped pajama with bare hairy chest. The sight frightened him and others too. When officers saw the group they shooed them away. They departed quietly without any further ado however imprint of that view firmly etched in his subconscious mind.

To be continued....

S T O C K S !

There is something magical about stocks; it doesn’t follow hard rules. It is said that the best investor is the sleeping investor waking after hibernation into windfall profits. When the market is down, the instinctive urge is to scavenge discounted shares while on the other hand there are people dumping stocks in a frenzied ‘stampede response’ for no apparent reason. The prime-mover of ‘Market’ is our inherent greed and greed of people has basis in perception of profit, therefore the ‘Market’ is always a ‘perception bubble.’ If the trends are good the indices over shoot reality and if there is a sense of gloom then the ‘Market’ tumbles to unrealistic levels. It just impossible to for anyone to calibrate exact response to economic stimulus, after all economics isn’t exact science like Physics and Math.

All stable states are in equilibrium in universe, static equilibrium and dynamic equilibrium. Static equilibrium is inert while dynamic equilibrium swings from one end to other end like a pendulum. The driving principle of dynamic equilibrium is cyclical nature of events. The ‘Market’ reacts to a stimulus, since it is not possible to make a calibrated exact response therefore response is mostly an overkill, as a result temporary equilibrium shifts to unstable position. Shortly ‘Markets’ realizes instability and reacts to adjust towards stability but it is not achieved in single stroke therefore the stock market has daily fluctuations a sign of ‘Market’ veering towards stability unless another stimulus disturbs the equilibrium.

The only constant in stock market is its cyclical nature. Even though stocks loathe logic, the cyclical nature has basis on sound logic. The fundamental principle of economics has basis in supply and demand. Cost/profits move with supply and demand depending on glut or scarcity of commodity. The simple logic is that in the time of scarcity people invest in production facility but due to time lag in investment and increase in production the true demand and projection of demand do not match as a result a situation arises (gradually) where demand is surpassed by supply at this point people stop investing in production facility but the damage is already done as already invested capital still increases supply bring in a glut situation. At this point there is complete stop on investment in production. It takes a long time for surplus inventory to dissipate due to natural incremental demand and eventually overtake production led supply and create a supply scarcity. We again come to original situation investment phase. This cycle continues ad-nauseam.

Why can’t we find a safe exit point and entry point? There are too many variables for anyone to properly analyze and react. Besides the ‘Market’ is not one man’s creation, it is sum total of collective perception of consumer/ manufacturer/ service provider etc. therefore not even a super computer can properly predict exact bottom or high of market. Without doubt knowledge of individual stocks help but in conjunction with unpredictability of entire market uncertainty remains about its high and low. This is the time when gut feeling helps. Market volatility was first shown to be a significant cross sectional asset pricing asset pricing. The capital moves from one base to another on the basis of perception of people / experts in anticipation of optimum return on capital. Availability of liquid capital impacts stock markets positively whereas avenues of gains in real estate or in services sector or in any other area of economic activity drives away capital from stock market causing wild swings in market.

In conclusion we can say that no amount of analysis, care, safety precaution beats impulsive investment based on gut feeling and instinct. I have a relative, a kind of sleeping investor but a rank novice in knowledge of stock market but supremely confident investor and also a winner. Where as I have been able to keep my money and make incremental profits this person is truly a winner making money by the multiples rather than in percentage points. Having seen the stock market for close to fifteen years I can say invest with your instinct, stick to stocks your gut feeling suggests and hibernate. Wake to windfall profits. Good Luck!

Bandini Music

The soothing song form bandini http://kalihawa.googlepages.com/Bandini-Jogijabsetuaayameredware.mp3

Music & Noise

One man’s music could be noise for another man. Noise apparently is collection of random sounds having absolutely no pattern or periodicity. Music on the other hand have patterns, simple or complex, fast or slow in tempo. Noise also have an essential component; energy! But music can also have bursts of energy. As a teenager I thought ‘Naach meri jaan phata phut’ was great song to gyrate but later in life the same song is no more than irritating noise. Then there is folk music which probably evolved with our need to make rhythmic movement to sounds or vice versa, therefore have energy as an essential element.

And then most arts forms imitate a pattern of building up gradual tempo to reach a climactic crescendo as in classical ragas or western classical music. Pop music though begins and ends with relentless assault of energy filled percussion sounds.

Does life imitate classical style music, a pattern of gradual ripening of taste for less energy but more subtlety? In that sense music canvas of a young man is much larger as he enjoys all kinds of music without inhibitions on the other hand he has little focus nor long attention span.