Is it right time to invest?

The recent meltdown in the US has caused panic across the world. I still remember few days before 1-Jan-2008 NDTV Profit, a popular news channel in India, was telecasting a program. The program was interviews with Fund Managers from big houses and the program was shooted in the cruise. These fund managers were high profile big shots from big mutual fund compaines. They talked about "Where the sensex will go by 2009?". There were very few people who could have guessed it correctly. All the fund managers unanimously said, the sensex would move up to 29,000. Today, it is closed well below 10000 and all those decoupling and growth stories have turned out to be mere day dreams.

Not to blame the fund managers. They have little knowledge about the whole crisis and interestingly the guys who are worst affected like Bear Sterns and AIGs did not know how deeper the problem. The crisis in housing led to a crisis in US financial markets which in turn heated up on US banks. The banks stopped giving loans to people and companies to expand their business. As there is no enough funds, there is no investment. Unlike the dotcom burst, this crisis is much deeper as it affects the entire spectrum affecting the growth of all industries. So, we have reached a place where the governments are trying to infuse money and give a rebirth to the banks.

On the other side, with the current crisis and if you are the first time invester, a good question pops up "Is it right time to invest?". Without getting emotional, a typhical trader/invester has to buy in low and sell at high. Since the stocks prices are going down many investers are pulling out of stock markets and sit in cash. Same is the case with mutual fund redemption. But everyone is not like. Certainly Warren Buffet thinks differently. Few weeks back, he invested $5 billion (read it as five billion dollars) in a bank and surely he is going to get back $50 billion dollars in another ten years. "All time is good for investing" as long as you invest in the righ company.

As far as India is concerned, these days you get many stocks for throw away prices. Shares are sold like mangoes, banana in Sunday markets. Certainly, sensex will not go up to 3000 or 4000 (though reaching 6000 is not ruled out, in a worst case). But on the other side, many long term investers believe that India is going to have a bull market and this bull market is going to be the mother of all bull markets. In a worst case, one can get 100% returns on their investment.

Be a wise invester - buy in dips and sell in highs. Panic will not give you money.

Hope to see the similar program this year. However all the fund managers may be sitting in a 2 Star hotel or near a swimming pool and still talk about so many things which we do not understand. That is why they are what they are.

Happy Investing.

Nachiketas’s Dedication and Involvement – Learning from ancient stories

I happened to hear a discourse on Upanishads sometime back. And I am currently reading one of the modern day recipes of attaining wealth in life – Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. The book is the outcome of research done by Hill. Hill interviewed, studied the life of successful who build wealth of big magnitude and strikingly he identified certain common traits among so many people like Edison, Barnes, Ford. He identified the common traits and written those traits as chapters.

After I read first few chapters and when I was thinking about the essence of the first chapter. The first chapter talks about burning desire, obsession and creating a mental map of that one has already acquired the wealth which he is aiming for. One cannot find equivalent words in any language to express it but Hill did a tremendous job explaining to the readers, not by words but by stories.

However, I find an interesting and much inspiring story from Upanishad. A king named “Vajasravas” was performing sacred ceremony to Lord Yama. During those days, the sacred ceremonies are carried out by priest and it is the duty of the person who is performing the ceremony to offer a lot of cows and wealth. Only then, the ceremony will be complete. After the ceremony was performed, the king gave cows. However, his son, “Nachiketa” felt that the cows offered were bad (though it was good in reality). He argued with his father continuously and he was persistent to know why the priests where offered inferior cows. At some point of time the king was shouted at his son and said that he would give his kid Lord Yama in order to stop his son’s intriguing questions.

On hearing, the little kid kept slient and he believed that his was going to give him to Lord Yama. He started to prepare himself. He was thinking about serving Lord Yama and imagined that he would want to be at least an average servant if not a best servant. In his mind, he started to see himself serving Yama. He was so dedicated and involved in his father’s worship and he visualized being an obedient servant. He had a burning desire to make his father worship successful. A quite impressed Yama by the thoughts and involvement of Nachiketas explained him “What is Brahman”.

In this story, his burning desire and mental map of serving Lord Yama itself gave Nachiketas, the answers to the questions which is beyond human comprehension. By this, Nachiketas is an ever standing evidence for dedication and involvement. So was the case with Prahladha.

You can find this story told in a much better way however I wanted to reflect and dig into ancient storied to bring out modern day management/self development concepts. Truly, I believe in burning desire and if you want to pick up those qualities, read “Think and Grow Rich” and of course my blog :-). Dig deeper into your inner mind, you will find invaluable thoughts and end your day with a nice book. Good books are sleeping pills

Freedom by OSHO - Completed first book

This posting is from a half baked potato. This blog (like my other blogs) may sound illogical, funny and sometimes incomprehensible. After my 12th standard, I got an opportunity to read a full book - cover to cover. I was happy for two things. First, I completed reading a full book. If you know me, I am one of the guys who get book, read few pages and build a personal library. Never cared to pull the book back once it is arranged in my library. I buy books like manic. Secondly, I think that the book I read will take me to the ocean of knowledge, profound understanding and a better human being.

Before reading the book, I thought OSHO as just another trainer. But after reading few pages of the book, I understood the powerful thoughts and in most places, I felt that OSHO was sitting very near to me and presenting a discourse - only to me. The book talked about the social and religious conditionings. The entire books of just painted around single word "Freedom". "Freedom" seemed to be a single word when I started to read the book and after I complete the reading I understood it is the way of life. The book clearly brings out the difference between "Freedom" and "Irresponsibility". In so many places OSHO pops up so many questions. When you read it for the first time, you will never agree it (if you are conditioned in every walk of your life) and slowly you will digest it.

Oh. I forgot to tell you the book, it "Freedom" by OSHO. One of my friends gave me the book (but he got back the book) and I m planning to buy one.

Some other day, I ll be writing a blog which you can digest on "Freedom". Until then, have the freedom to explore freedom on your own.

India Next Generation - A Burning Desire

These days, it seems like I too much carried away with few terms like potential, goals, thinking, creativity, maturity and freedom. Though I have picked up these words from the books of OSHO and from many self development books. One thing that excite me is converting potential to action. The potential is necessary to build oneself but not sufficient. One needs to nurture oneself to convert the potential to kinetic and to mobilize things. In the blog I wrote yesterday, I talked about our role and being socially responsible. I had an opportunity to change the thought process of few students positively. Though, my contribution was so little and can be quantified to negligible. It gave me immense satisfaction because of the fact that I was able to initiate some thought process. (or at least I think that I can initiate). I didn't know anything of my potential unless I see something which can actually take place only if I do some action. Having the potential and not using is sin which is equivalent to not having at all.

Now, I would like to look from another perspective about the gift of giving. It is the natural law and Mother Nature ensures that the person who gives get more happiness than the getter. I am not sure how the getters are going to feel after a period of time. However, the giving elevates one's confidence apart giving him an enriching experience. This particularly idea can be proved correct and one can validate it. For example, I was little known to motivate people just by my talks however by sharing my thoughts I was able to understand my very nature. I should thank Mother Nature for holding this law.

I also feel that if one engages oneself in giving particularly knowledge, the idea can be transmuted to reality and due course the idea spreads like virus. Yep, any idea is contagious and that is "The Tipping Point". Once it crosses the threshold, there will be so many people catching up the idea and buy in to the idea. Each one of them who connect to it emotionally will end up transmuting the idea to reality. This transmutation and the concept of "The Tipping Point" is sufficient to build a great India. Or to put it simply in the words of Dr Kalam, to become a biggest super power.

But all these takes little step on a daily basis. As Robin Sharma says, "Your hours are the miniature of your life". I have prepared to join with rest of the people who are dreaming to make India, the biggest and I want to see human evolution at its top before I die. I want to honestly engage for this cause to make India Next Generation simply because it gives be a great satisfaction and learning. It is a Win-Win composition for both the givers and takers (tilted towards the giver).

Started to Live :-)

It was a great experience and most fulfilling for me. I was invited to speak at Pavai Engineering College at Salem, Tamilnadu. It was an inaugural fuction of a department's association. I prepared few topics that are bit technical (Linux and Open Source). I wanted to revolve around the concept of Open Source Software and how the students can build their career using Open Source Software. There were quite a few thoughts came to my mind. Another topic was in Linux - Basics. So, I was all set for the function thinking that I would speak to the students on these areas.

Two days before the function, I was told that I needed to give an inaugural speech. Though I didn't feel that I was competent to be a chief guest, I didn't want to turn down as it might spoil the entire game. I was sitting with other dignitaries. Except me, all were highly accomplished in their careers and served for the society which was equivalent to my age. I was moved by their presence and their very presence motivated me. I felt that it was my responsibility to pay back the students with due respect and so I decided to devote my entire day with them.

After few speeches (Welcome address, oath and address be Chairman of the college), I was invited to speak. When I was about to start, I could see the entire conference hall was full of students and I could see sparkles in everyone's eyes. The students were hoping to get something from me, since I was from IT industry and they thought I knew more (which is not true). I didn't want to give a monotonous talk but thought I could touchbase with the students. I wanted to hear from them what they wanted from me. For the next 2-4 minutes, the room was in a pin drop silent and with little bit of motivation few voiced their thoughts. Being from rural background many of the students were so closed and even if they were willing to open, they were mouth-tied. On a contrary, I was talking like a guy with oral diarrhoea.

All the dignitaries were helping students to open up and I triggered a question "What do you think you can't do?" There came an intelligent reply from a boy, "I can do anything". My question was "Can you give birth a baby?". The answer was obvious. Slowly and gradually nearly 10 percent of the gathering open their voice and told they can do this, they can do that. Then we discussed about IT industry, the future (why they get job?) and what it takes to come to IT. The first leg of the function got over with a small mind game.

The second half started with a workshop and various technical topics so that they could pursue their areas of interest along with their classmates. We formed 8-10 groups containing 8-10 students in each group. The students talked about various technologies. I really liked and learned a lot from this activity and this activity ran for 2 hours and then we parted for lunch. The post lunch session was on Linux Architecture and actually the prepared one. I covered 4 slides in 90 minutes and stopped the presentation as many students were very new to operating systems.

During my inbound journey back to Chennai, I thought about the differences in India even among the students who are doing PG courses in Software Engineering and Information Technology. The exposure that the village students have is very little. We, the so-called Tech Leads, Architects and everyone working in IT, have the social responsibility. I am not here to preach and ask you do. I feel, serving for the country is very personal thing and no one asked M.K Gandhi to become Mahatma and no one asked Dr Kalam to become lifelong teacher. I wish to follow their footsteps. May God bless India Next Generation.

Overall, after the event, I felt that I started to live and there is a meaning for my existence.