Getting Thin

Hi guys
Today i will write about one of the most important of turning points of my life. Things took time to change for me. Long since i remember i have been a chubby child. And believe me its tough being so, being the butt of every ones jokes for long just because you are different. I always wanted to shed those extra kilos from time immemorial but i never was in the disposition or the discipline to do so. All through out my graduation i have been what people term fat.
One day i made up my mind to lighten up. I have visited the gym lot many times but could never find the schedule right, so i started of exercising at home. I would jog do pushups and a lot many other exercises. I kept a strict control on my diet. Believe me i absolutely ate no junk food. With time i even decreased my food intake, but i kept up the exercise. I was 73 kgs when i started. One thing i didnt do was check out my weight reason being my f5ocus was never to loose weight but to be fit and in shape. Month after month went by One day i did check my weight it was 60 kgs. I never expected it to be so low it even went down to 58. People used to tell me that i have become too thin and even my parents i never believed them. I was doing amazingly well with my regime i was doing 30 pushups in a go and 6 to 7 pull ups. But one day and on many other occasions i felt drowsy and lack of energy. I realised that i need to eat properly gradually i increased my intake those days i used to devour 6 to 7 chapattis in a go. Now i a`m a`t a` rea`sonable 65 to 66 kgs. My regime is still on, i can do 40 push ups in first go 3o after that and 20 to sum it up i can do around 7 pull ups though i used to do 10 but with the increase in weight that has reduced.
All this i am writing after around one year. It took me an year to reach this stage. I still have to go far but i feel to be successful and have permanancy following is what is important.

1. Exersise to be fit not loose weight. Dont watch the scales everyday.
2. Dont overexercise. I do stomach exercises in the morning and later stomach and weight exercises in the evening a`ll totalling to around max 40 min.
3. Eat every thing dont miss out on that cake or that chocolate but eat in moderation.
4. Maintain your schedule but do take breaks now and then.
5. Sleep well. Though i am poor in this part but it is necessary to sleep well.

In short enjoy food, exercise daily and be active. You may go through tons of expert advice but what i have told you is something that took me 24 years to write and 1 year of experimentation and after maintaining tough dicipline.

Take Care my friends and remember just keep at it and if you like Jonnie Walker 'Keep Walking'.

The empty mind

Mind is a whirlpool of numerous thoughts and emotions.
and yet its quite empty. At times events and actions trigger a whirlwind of memories that are bunked up in their slots waiting to be stirred up. Its as if each memory has a ear of its own. When they hear out their names they wake up their mates and stage a small ruckuss. And when they get tired they go off to sleep again.
Picture this, there are billions and billions of slots that are empty and many are constantly being built to house newer and more varied experiences and memories.
Memories relate to each other " okay buddy you got a white pair of socks too hmmm cool." " mine always stink a lot (hark hark )"
"oh ya well my grand papa fought in world war too"
They communicate very fast each one is hooked up to a network right from inception.
And yet mind is empty. no matter how much you stuff it there still is more that could go in.
In this very physically measurable mind, quite often memories get lost and yet they appear out of thin air as if a ginnie apparates.
Such is the complex mind, a vast vast empty ocean.
sshhhhhhh!! listen to the waves they speak a lot !

The subprime crisis

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This what i feel is up with the US mortgage crisis.
US has had very complex financial instruments. Much more complex than we have in India.
They have been very optimistic in lending money. Believing that risk associated with the underlying assets could be divided and sold off after being rated by the rating agencies.
So the problem first started with the lending of subprime loans. subprime means lending to those who dont have a good credit history and are more likely to default as compared to normal creditworthy borrowers. And this is what happwned. Two things struck simultaneously- The housing bubble burst and increase in the intrest rates.
Every one expected the house rates to go up forever. But a point reached when supply exceeded demand and rates strated falling at the same time increase in intrest rates caused borrowers to shel out more. This resulted in a series of defaults. With their asset value shrinking and monthly payouts towards loans increasing subprime borrowers started defaulting. Banks that had loaned couldnt recover the costs even by selling the underlying assets because of decrease in net value and very low demand that had dipped further in the wake of the crisis..
A number of banks had to write off their bad loans. Bear Stearns one of the big investment banks would have been the first casulty had it not been saved by the US govt via purchase by JP Morgan. Still losses on account of Bear Stearns could hit JP Morgan hard. Bear Stearns pulled out its money on account of the losses form developing markets. This has been the phenomenon experinced by all the developing markets. In the wake of the crisis investors started pulling their money from and started taking it back to US. This lead markets into a spin.

With the decrease in consumer confidence demand decreased in US causing the growth to slow down . The fed has been stalling the economy from dipping into a ressions which seems imminent, by way of intrest rate cuts still banks are unwilling to lend even to each other. This has further decreased the growth rate. Imports were hit and the US dollar started loosing its value world over. This caused the exports from other countries to be hit even more. For them exports got costlier and imports cheaper resulting in appreciation of their currency.

Lessons learnt from the crisis is that developing countries need to diversify their trade and not be too dependent on US. They must be careful for such bubbles in their countries and have tighter lending norms but it may come at the cost of economic growth.
In US they have to improve their risk assesment models as well as tighten their lending norms.

So much for now. But with passing months knowledge gets added up to this topic. And it is a topic of much debate .

Does the sun rise from east ??

We are used to the fact that the sunrises from the eastliterally it may be true so, but metaphorically is it? Does sun rise from the east? Or is it just our perception.
We draw a preliminary conclusion of things around us the first time we see them or come in contact with them. Things project a picture that we grasp as their true characteristics, yet due to some reason or the other few of the details either we miss out or they are subconsciously withheld.
As we gain experience we gain insight and we come to the truer characteristics that are projected. We change our mental perception regarding the thing.
These few paragraphs i presented above are quite general in nature but there are deviations from the general perceptions, which we tend to ignore
Firstly at times even though we change our perception with time but in quite a lot many instances the initial characteristics presented may be the truest.
Secondly even though we gain experience with time and form a mental picture of the thing, yet one question we need to ask ourselves is whether we gave sufficient time to understand the object under consideration? Whether our analysis was unbiased? Did our egos subconsciously come in the way of our logical reasoning?
My advice to all is given the time you have, do justice to the object of consideration, give it a fair bit of chance to shine and then only record its value. Most importantly one needs to get out of his comfort zones and needs to move towards uncharted territories to be able to realize relevant opportunities to move ahead in life (if that be your goal), or just simply gain insight of various nuances of life.

Nainital Exploits

XXXXXXX This is the picture i took while climbing for Naina Peak. It shows the Naini Lake and practically the whole of Nainital XXXXXXXXX

Few weeks back i went to Nainital for a market research study. The work was for a single day but i extended my stay for another one.

I had no clear-cut plans as to how i would spend my second day. I had spent the first day's evening roaming the market and places nearby. On the second day i decided to take the rope way till Mountain View. But the thought of trekking up till Mountain View appealed to me more.

The path to the top was made of steep concrete steps. I was carrying a knapsack containing some food and a bottle of water. I bought some chocolates to last me throughout the journey. For a guy from the plains climbing is tough business even though being very fit. I had to stop every 15, 20 steps and take stock of my breath. At all my stoppages I absorbed what ever was present around me, the track up and both down, the hutments and how small the lake Naini looked from my vantage point. After a few hours of climb and after taking quite a circuitous route I reached Mountain View. While on my way to the top I had a few words with a number of people. I enquired them the correct route and sometimes even had a small talk. Once at Mountain View i got this gorgeous view of Almora and Ranikhet hills. I could have seen the Himalayas too, but the horizon was very foggy owing to the overcast conditions.

At Mountain View while chatting with the binocular guy i got my second target 'The Naina Peak'. It was a 4 Km hike from there till the top of Naina peak. The first Km didn’t involve much climbing, but the last three kms were through the woods. This was the toughest part. With not a single living soul the whole way baring a few wood cutters and the route being steep and rugged with cliff on one side and the situation being accentuated by the information that I got from the local ranger at the bottom of Naina peak as well as from the wood cutters that there were a few tigers in the jungle, the climb was a challenge for a guy like me going alone to the top. I had to watch each step that I took, as the route was very rugged. A fall could mean injury and problems while coming back.

Few lessons i learnt while this particular trekking exercise were to be properly clothed while climbing, good shoes and a supply of edibles especially chocolates and water. A climbing stick would always help while trekking. Also it is very important to stay calm and keep reading your body conditions. In the adrenaline rush to reach to the top always have in consideration that you need to get down too. It won’t help if you are on your last leg when you reach to the top. Especially if you don’t know whether a support system is provided for at the top to recover. I was few hundred meters shy of reaching to the top when i had to make the decision to turn back. After a 10 km climb I was bit out of breathe and had 5 km more to reach to the bottom.

Now the most perilous part of a climb is the journey back to the bottom. it is easy to loose footing while climbing down and one must always watch each and every step he takes. But once at the bottom one is filled with this great feeling of having achieved something and that takes care of all the sore feet and aching knees, which you tend to consider as you medals of honor.

Its 23 wake up!!

Today i wanted to write about the oh ! so partial decisions by the umpires. Steve how could you be such a dim witted lark and Mr. Bennson or Bennison or whatever your name is, though I would like to call you Mr. Brinjal, you are such a sucker!! Why did you have to go where Mr. Ponting was pointing ??
Well i will come to my final word on it a bit later.

My main motto of writing tonight is a thought that crept into my mind yesterday. I was thinking to myself rather i was asking myself, what is it that i have been doing past 23 years ? What have I done for myself ? What have I done for the family ? What have i done for the community ? Haven't i been such a sucker myself ? ( Imagine me calling Mr. Brinjal a sucker, at least he is umpiring even if he does a heck of a job. )

What i have realized is that all these years i have been a resourse hogging machine that takes in lots of input, that people have generated after so much sweat and in return what i produce aint good even for the plants hehe !!

Even though this is the reality that i percieve, there is more to it, basically it takes a lot to become a man and there is no end to learning and improvement, which naturally would require hogging of resources true ! But a day comes when we have to give back to this world what we have reapped from it. It is simply passing from one stage of life to the other.

And a day shall come when what remains to be given back is just the physical self.

But boy !! would i love to change that and here I take an oath to do some thing about it !!

Coming back to umpiring decisions, Indians come back, you dont need to continue. It aint a gentleman's game no more!!