Ranji Final

At some point or the other we have cribbed that India is such a big country, why can't we select 11 or 14 Good Cricketer out of Crores. But how many of us actually follow domestic cricket? How many of us tell the pattern of Ranji Trophy, Deodhar Trophy, Duleep Trophy or Irani Trophy? Leave the pattern, do we even know who is the current champion? or whats the status of current championship? If Yes, then its really great.... 

I was too excited about this year Ranji trophy, mostly during and more after semi finals. This might be because aamchi Mumbai is in Finals once again..

So, here is the glimpse of Final (day 3 in progress as I write this) between 37 times champion Mumbai and underdogs Uttar Pradesh, being played at Hyderabad. Mumbai defeated Saurashtra in thrilling semi-final and UP defeated strong Tamil Nadu in semis. Just to give an idea that Ranji matches are interesting: Decision for Mumbai Vs Saurashtra came in favour of Mumbai just half an hour before the scheduled end. 

Before the start of the final, Mumbai were clear strong team, with likes of Wasim Jaffer (skipper), Sachin Tendulkar, Rohit Sharma to bat and Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Sairaj Bahutule and Romesh Powar to bowl. But Mumbai were down to 55 for 4 with Jaffer out on 1 and Sachin out on duck. This is Sachin's first duck in domestic cricket. With some brave batting of Rohit Sharma (141) and Abhishek Nayar (99), Mumbai made 402 in first innings. Bhuvneshwar Kumar took 5 and RP Singh took 3 wiskets, while Praveen Kumar and Piyush Chawla went wicketless for UP. UP innings is on and they are 119 for 3 losing Suresh Raina and Mohammad Kaif (the skipper). Whichever way the match goes but I am enjoying and developing interest in India's domestic cricket and Ranji!

Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire

A: Its Okay
B: Its Good
C: Very Good
D: Amazing

What a movie is this!! Its not more than 5minutes I have finished watching the movie and I start pen down what I am feeling right now. When I watched 'City of Gods' or 'Amorres Perros', I used to think, cant we have such movies in India. And here it is, look and feel of the movie is mostly like 'City of Gods' or 'The Kite Runner'. The idea of showing a real life story of a slum dweller through a realty show 'kaun banega crorepati' is simply superb. It rightly got the Golden Globe award for best screenplay. It shows that best knowledge you get is through life and that's how the protaganist gets all answers to his journey to be millionaire. A well knit love story travels parallely to the entire life story of the slumdog! Music, back ground score is great, story - screenplay is great and acting is The Best. All the child artists have shown the best piece of acting in the movie. All in all, a very very good movie. I don't feel I am capable of giving rating to such movies. I am falling short of stars and praising for the movie..

D: Its Amazing!

Movie Review: Rab ne bana di jodi & Ghajini

*************************Spoiler ahead*******************************

*************************My views only******************************

I will start with one liners of SRK and Amir before their movies:

SRK: RNBDJ will bring smile to tense Indian (as it released couple of weeks after 26/11)

AK: Ghajini is not Memento

Good to know that both Khan's knew the worth of their movie. 

SRK starrer RNBDJ has one thing to describe everything : Shahrukh Khan. Movie does not have number 1 actress, music director (Salim Suleiman), Choreographer (Vaibhavi Merchant) and not the number 1 Director (Aditya Chopra) at present. All it has is Shah Rukh KhaN. SRK as Surinder Sahni has done exactly what SRK has said before, it brings smile to normal Indian. SRK carried this role quite well. He acted like a normal person who luckily gets a more beautiful girl he could have ever expected. His other part, Raj is typical SRK overacting. I give 2* to story, and yes I am convinced by the fact that the wife was not able to recognise her husband in two avtars. In almost all the frames where Tani faces Suri, either she is not looking at her with interest or they are sitting far across the table. So she dont remember, rather dont care to recall his husband when she faces Raj. Another 1* for music and background score. 1* for acting SRK as Suri and -1* as Raj, 1/2* for debutant actress, 1/2* for dance in the movie and -1/2* for the long 15-20 minutes in second half (unnecessary bike scenes etc.). Overall 3.5* for SRK and RNBDJ.

Ghajini is not Memento. In fact it is just a South Indian movie, with South Indian cameraman, actress, director, Villain.. everything. It just needed a north Indian face to be released in Hindi and so it has Amir Khan. All the flashy zug-zug-zug camera movement, bright colours (pink, orange) clothes and cars of Amir in songs, repeated comedy of actress and exaggerated violence. Typical Hindi (or South Indian) movie action in the end when a hero single handedly brings down dozens of large sized villains men. Too much of co-incidence and dramatisation when hero loses his memory after a long time of action exactly when he reaches main villain. In all 1* for story, 1* for acting as there is so little scope for acting of Amir, only anger and anger, love story part is not well knot. 1/2* for debutant actress, -1* for background score. I wonder what A.R. Rahman did, music is good with some good songs but background music is absolutely hap hazard, with techno music anywhere, emotional melodrama somewhere else. -1/2*for  over-violence without much story and 15-20 minutes longer second half. Overall 1* for Ghajini. 

Koi Mil Gaya

Every time a movie channel is showing Koi Mil Gaya, my wife looks at me! Why not, she has married an IITan. We are expected to be technologically superman and woman. Getting inspiration from Hrithik and trying to impress my wife, I tried my Communication and Signal Processing skills. I was trying to send signals so that some ‘Jadoo’ will respond to me. I tried and waited till late night thinking there might be time difference and ‘Jadoos’ may not have woken up. After all we always believe the mightier, richer, western world are in a different time zone, they wake up later and sleep later than us. I also wanted to keep trying as it is the only way I can pass my time when my wife was sleeping. All TV channels show terrorist or politics in one way or the other. These days even shows on discovery also seem like politics, after all survival of fittest is the biggest political theory we have. Just when I was losing hope and about to sleep I received a response..

Me: Hello, Hello.. Anybody getting this message?

{I hear some noise like the mis-tuned radio signal, grrrrr.. grrrhhh and then a mute}

Me: Hello, Anyone there?

 Just then I received a signal, on my screen it says ‘From Mars’

 Mars: Hi

 {I got a reply from aliens, and amazing, they talk in English!}

Me: Hi, I am speaking from planet Earth. Who are you? Where are you?

Mars: I am from a planet not far from yours, won’t tell you exactly.

{May be these guys are afraid if they tell me then humans will invade them. What we have left anyways}

Me: How are you? I am too eager to be friends with you.

Mars: Ya, I know. Now a days we are getting so many messages from your planet. Why are there so many people looking for friends outside planet.

Me: May be because here people like each other less.

Mars: How?

{How?, I was thinking he might ask Why? But he asked How? As if disliking is not a possibility at all}

Me: Yes, because people are from different religion so they follow different ideology.

Mars: What is religion?

Me: Following God

Mars: So why do people follow different God

{May be because they follow different ideology, but isn’t it circular then that we have different ideology because we follow different religion and we follow different religion because we follow different ideology…what should I answer, isn’t it hen-egg situation}

Me: Do you have only one God

Mars: We haven’t thought actually.. We just pray to Light when its day and darkness when its night

Me: So don’t you have separate groups who pray light more and other who pray dark more

{God! I am acting like a politician..shi…}

Mars:……

Me: Anyways, how many countries you have?

Mars: Now what is that?

Me: Countries, piece of land separated by boundary

Mars: You really sound interesting; we do have pieces of Land and seas of Lava. But we don’t have boundaries. But tell me in how many different ways you people are divided?

Me: Only religion and boundary, and yes colour as well in some countries

Mars: What? Colour of what?

Me: Skin

Mars: ha? You guys are crazy

Me: Yes, I know.. that’s why people dislike each other here.. ehh.. That now answers your question that we dislike each other..

{Pause}

Me: Hello? Tell me how you guys are distinguishing each other if you don’t have different religion, country, and skin colour?

{what has happened to my thinking? Is dividing in terms of this parameters necessary in first place?}

Mars: Each one is different in his thoughts, emotions and intelligence. Are you all same on these parameters?

Me: No, here also each one is different in his ways. But we haven’t actually found it that important to classify.

{Really pathetic, we hardly care for human emotions, ideas and intellectual these days}

Me: So do you have families? Do you have money? What do you eat?

Mars: We have small groups staying together that we call family. But we don’t mind adding people of other families to come and join us if everyone wants a bigger family. What is money?

Me: To buy something, to buy food, clothes, house? To get these things you must be giving something?

Mars: We don’t need to give something to get these things. We grow what we eat.

Me: That’s interesting {actually sounds impossible to me}

Me (Now coming to the point): Hey, Can you come to our planet to meet me? I want you to meet my wife and friends.

{To prove that I talked to an Alien}

Mars: We can’t come there. Our elders say that if we go to Earth then we’ll get impure. But it is good to know that you have ‘friends’.

Me: Ohh!!           

(Pause)

(Pause)

Me: Hello..Hello…

(Pause)

{It seems connection broke}

 It was already quite late. Its better I go to sleep now. I anyways have record of this conversation to prove I talked to my Jadoo. On my way to bed, I was thinking of only one thing: It was so difficult to talk to a naïve. It’s so difficult to explain a pure person by heart why there are boundaries, why there are differences, why there is hatred and why human hate human. Why countries war? Why one army kills other. When is this going to end? What if every demand is met? If we make Kashmir independent state, Israel gives Palestine its piece of land, China gives Tibet a status of free nation, LTTE is given part of Sri Lanka they are demanding. Will that end the woes? Will that put an end to Talibans, LeTs, Al-Qaedas, and LTTE? Will that put an end to terror, hatred, fears?

Is there an end?

B for Bombay

Here I am again for Bombay, which is not only a city, it’s a metaphor for ‘struggle for existence’; synonym for ‘importance of life and time’. Bombay is not a common city, it’s a phenomena. It’s a city of dreams, city that never sleeps; it teaches how important each minute of life is. Bombay is the most important metropolitan city also the commercial capital of India.

Bombay has gained its reputation from the way it has faced calamities for more than a decade now. City was shook on Black Friday in 1993, twin blasts in 2003, blasts in local trains in 2006. Not only the terrorist attacks, city come out strongly after heavy rains in 2005 and many more calamities, natural and from enemies. Every time Bombay rose from the shock the very next day. Every day millions of people travel to Bombay for their job, Business and work. Hence it gets the reputation of the liveliest and one of the most important metros of the country.

Yet again, on 26^th November 28, 2008 terrorist took Bombay (or Mumbai) under siege. This time they was stronger, more planned and more dangerous than ever. Terrorist took control of some most important buildings of posh south Bombay. They took over the famous heritage, most renowned Five stars, The Taj, The Oberoi and Nariman Bhavan as well. They have all the courage to open fire at these spots along with VT (Victoria Terminus or Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus), Cama Hospital and at Sir JJ School of Arts. It took a huge troops of Police, army, navy and NSG (National Security Guards) to combat with them. There are so many questions that now rise. There are so many things to note.

1) These terrorist carried some very advanced weapons, AK-47, hand grenades, launchers, RDX etc. They came through sea route and landed at crowded Colaba. Now the question is: How weak our naval patrolling and radar system is such that a boat filled with weapons crosses the border and lands a city place and no one noticed? Pretty tough to believe, but yet it’s True and it happened.

2) They have done it at Bombay earlier in 1993 with aid of Dawood Ibrahim, in 2003 at crowded Zaveri Bazaar, in 2006 multiple blasts in local trains; they have attacked parliament and have attacked almost all major cities across the length and breadth of the country. Is there a safe place left in India? Shall we convert our city into a bigger jail? Check everything, everywhere, every time. This would fear us more. Aren’t we going to doubt every unknown person we see on the street?

3) This time terrorists are more pronounced. They have the audacity to come face to face. Unlike previous times when they were coward to face death, when they just kept the bomb and ran away to kill innocents, this time they faced army, naval commandos and NSG commandos and kept them on toes for two and a half days. Is there any plan ready with government? (I am not calling it current Congress govt. or previous BJP govt.) Has government not learnt with previous terrorist attempts? It seems these questions are not questions, these are facts. There has been no disaster management program. In such cases, what should be our course of action? What should have been the first step? Isn’t it carelessness that NSG commandos entered the site 10 hours after it all started? Shouldn’t all major cities have a unit of NSG commandos? Here, since they came so late they have to rush to the site, mostly uninformed about the inside of Taj or Oberoi or Nariman House. Also, there was no attempt to initiate a discussion with the terrorists. When it was clear that commando operation is getting delayed, terrorists should be tried to keep busy by talking. At least try for one conversation, for what they want? I may sound unreasonable but this could be done via speakers and exchange of words is always useful.

4) What is the point in having local policemen with sticks to protect railway stations? This is not useful even to face a mob throwing stones. How can they try even to fight AK-47s. That means these policemen can be replaced by scare crows. We already have cut-outs (big pictures) of traffic policemen on our express highways to ‘scare’ speeding vehicles. We can have this pictures of policemen at our railway stations, bus stops as well, in any case I have always seen them reading newspaper in between their meals. On a serious note, big stations like VT, Dadar, Andheri etc. should have some armed policemen instead of ‘stick cops’.

5) We should have a media policy. For such long time news channels were telecasting each and every live action. Good that local cable operators cut the cable connections for these places but in any case their lords are getting these feeds live. In turn terrorist were getting all information. So only uninformed people inside the hotels were the hostages, guests who were hiding i.e. the civilians. Media should behave responsibly in telecasting anything live. It would be better if they don’t inform anything to the masses, rather than serving as information media for terrorists.

The open area between Taj and Gateway where these journalists stationed to capture every event was trashed by these people. Can they behave responsible and at least keep the place clean, the least they could have done but no, one can see trash paper, bottles scattered everywhere.

When anyone came for announcements these media persons never let them talk. They just jump on him/them and almost not let them speak. Shouldn’t media be more on the listening side then giving? But the behavior is worth questioning and demanding to have a more stringent media policy. I suggest having a single media team to cover the incidence. This team will be irrespective of news channels, news paper. But any news to be covered should be informed to this team and only that news should be aired.

6) We need a strong management policy for such crisis situation. No politician, minister, VIP or VVIP should be allowed to visit especially during the crisis time. Isn’t it insane that Mr. L.K. Advani, Mr. Jasvant Singh, Mr. Manmohan Singh, Mr. Shivraj Patil etc. visiting this place when security is busy tackling the terrorists? Isn’t it insane to provide these VVIPs security when it is important to protect civilians in the city?

Local people must also understand that it is an unprecedented event. It is so foolish for hundreds of them to reach their with mobile phone cameras, digi cams, to take photographs. Is it a tourist place? Outside Nariman house there was such a big mob that commando Van was not able to move out easily. Shouldn’t police barricade the whole region for everyone?

7) Stop politicizing these issues. Instead of Indian ministers meeting to decide a stringent policy they were busy deciding who to put blame on, who all to fire on account of this to keep government clean. Home Minister Mr. Shivraj Patil nailed down. Here too our PM and super PM played their cards. Finance Minister Mr. P. Chidambaram is awarded Home ministry. Even Chief Minister, Home Minister of Maharashtra might be sacked. But is it really time to play political cards. To play blame game? Are our politicians taking this as an opportunity to achieve their political will?

Terrorists succeeded in what they wanted. They created terror; Mumbai came to stand still for almost two days. School, colleges, offices, malls, cinema halls were closed. Stock market was shut for a day, investors losing crores. Very sad to note that Indian Hotel Group stock price fell by more than 16%. Even after the entire massacre, speech of our PM to nation was not as strong and pronounced as it should be. When it is evident that this involves terrorists from Pakistan occupied Kashmir why don’t we take a strong action. What if this attack was on US of A.? They would have invaded the entire region. Can’t we send a strong message to Pakistan? Why is our government appeasing Muslims and so soft on terror? Why is Afzal Guru not sentenced to death? There are many questions but it seems government and opposition is tackling issues keeping in view of upcoming elections. Till when we will keep quiet. Till when we”ll show our protest by SMS, messenger and orkut status, mails only. We, the people have to do something!

Re-Exploring Bombay

Exactly a week after I explored and strengthened my love for Bombay, I got chance to visit SoBo (South Bombay) a very different way though this time. I went with my family in our car, unlike last time when I was all alone, walking down the streets. Luckily we got parking opposite to Ambassador hotel, a stone throw from marine drive. Throughout our way, we drove at our best to catch sunset and we reached bang on time. Breeze from Arabian Sea refreshes our mind and body. I love when I face the sea and my hairs fly with the wind.
Marine drive is simply amazing. Necklace stretches from Nariman Point to Chawpatty. Though the view ends at Governor of Maharashtra's bunglow at the tip of the curve. Marine drive posses so many buildings facing the sea. There are Five Stars, Government buildings, stadium with flood lights popping up, guest houses, hostels but my eyes stuck at a very small, cute looking street corner restaurant-Jazz by the bay! Its a small restro-bar, all sea facing seats, good country music, dim lights and amazing food. After lovely food we took our our car and start rolling towards Gateway of India, my wife was Ahhhhed on seeing The Taj!! We roamed around for some more time and with a promise of visiting again we left for our home.

Exploring Bombay

On 16^th November 2008, I got time and luck to roam about my favorite place in Bombay-The South Bombay. I had three full hours with me starting from KC College, Dinshaw-Wachha Road, Churchgate at 1030AM that Sunday.

I have couple of options to spend these three hours. One, I thought to take a journey through Mumbai Local. I have planned to take a return ticket to Virar from Churchgate to enjoy the local train on Sunday morning, which is the only time one can find local ‘enjoyable’. But the other option was more enticing. I thought of roaming around the real Bombay all alone, all by myself, without knowing, without asking for direction from anyone.

So the journey begins. There was a book shop – Oxford bookstore, just next to KC College. Being a book lover I couldn’t resist the temptation and the air conditioned shop welcomed me. I recognized couple of faces who came to the shop to ‘kill’ these three hours. After relaxing for 10-15 minutes, enjoying the smell of the books and AC, I realized that am not here to waste time. Why to waste time here at bookstore when there is so much to explore today.

I rushed out of the store and straightaway went to oval maidan. It’s a huge rectangular ground. Very interesting to see there were more than 38 cricket matches played by local boys. Some wickets were so close, I wonder what an amazing concentration needed by the batsman to trace his bowler come out of hundreds of fielders of different match and fielder to identify his green colored tennis ball amongst dozens of balls flying in all direction. But amazingly this is the Bombay which gave great cricketers like Sachin. Just opposite to the ground there was a line of sugar cane juice stalls all of them busy making juice for the budding cricketers. Sugarcane juice is very refreshing. Especially during Indian summer and October heat of Bombay freshly prepared cane juice adds best to energy.

Ahead of this, I walked through the streets that has so many banks; Standard Chartered, UCO Bank, Dena Bank. These streets which see hundreds and thousands of faces in week days is completely empty now. These broad empty roads become the best place to play cricket by the teams who dint get place at the oval maidan. For once, I was surprised to see these roads barren, is this due to current financial market condition or is it because of the weekend. I enjoyed watching ‘gully cricket’ after a long time and that too in Bombay!

Just at the side of the street was a cute, small, old park holding an exhibition from Prithvi theatre in memory of ‘Satyadev Dubey’. I just strolled in the park for some time. As it was the last day of the exhibition, everything was wrapping up there. I read few pamphlets and exited in hope of exploring more. And very soon I reached in front of Bombay Stock Exchange. A smile came on my face on seeing the bull outside the stock exchange. Carrying smile on my face, I proceeded.

After few minutes walk, there were many buses lined up with so many wondering eyes. People were staring at each and every building around. This place is ‘Jehangir Arts Gallery’, the famous art gallery and a dream of budding painters to host a gallery of their masterpieces some day. And hence this is one of the favorite spot, along with Bachchans home at Juhu and Mannat at Bandra, for Bombay Darshan. Visitors were properly dressed for the Bombay trip. And why not, Bombay is dream city for millions and millions. Small distance from the art gallery is famous, historic Gateway of India opposite to legendry Taj Hotel. When I was kid I used to think this is Amitabh Bachchan’s hotel, till now I don’t know if this is true. Gateway of India was built in 1911 and it is said that last British troop to leave India passed through Gateway in 1948. Today, everyday more number of people comes to visit Gateway than those might have came to bid adieu to British troop.

I got too tired walking all the way without eating, drinking anything. So I decided to walk back. On my way back was Mantralay, BCCI (Board of Cricket Control in India). The site of ally with hawkers makes the walk enjoying and makes easy to cover the distance.

After the day, I began to love Bombay more. More than ever!!

Note that I knowingly used Bombay instead of Mumbai because that’s what I feel describes South Bombay as it is. It is Bombay, famous, historic, lovely, dreamy city of Bombay.

Experiment on Life

I still remember when my friend Animesh bought a cute, small pomerian dog, we named her Anny. We were quite young then. I think we were in 5th standard. I remember it because that was our board year, as M.P. Board used to take board exams for 5th class way back in 1992-93. We used to play with Anny a lot. I and Animesh used to go school by cycle. I remember Anny used to run behind us for quite some distance and then return back to home. Happiest moment for Anny was the time when we come back from school. In the evening when we play cricket, Anny was our fielder. She used to fetch the ball for us whenever any of us hit the ball for long. We never felt a need of third friend. The only sad time for her, rather for all three of us, was when we had to study.
Time passed and we began to realize that Anny is just a pet. We started getting bore, playing with her all time. At that time we tried a cruel experiment on her. Though, we really didn't ever realize that the experiment was 'cruel', actually we never realized this was an experiment. We were making our pet follow a 'routine', which we thought is a process of making it more 'disciplined'. We made a strict routine for her. We make her wake up early, taught her to clean the place where she slept (we called her den) with a cloth, get ready for a walk in the morning, collect all our tennis-balls we used to play cricket with and that too before we come from school. Above all we tied her with a rope and make sure that we only open it whenever we want. Though the rope was long enough so that Anny can move around freely only in the garden it is tied. We used to free her very few times, mainly on weekends.
Time passed, we grew old and Anny too. By the time we passed our schooling we made sure that she followed the routine we set few years ago. I and Animesh completed our engineering together. We stopped giving any attention to the poor pet. Then luckily we both got into a good college for Management in US of A. So we had to leave our country for at least 2 years. We were happy that we friends are still together.
After a long time we came to India for a fortnight. I went to Animesh's place, which is now at a distance from us as we have moved to a new home in the suburb. I was so excited to meet Anny this time. When I reached his place, I was so sad to see that Anny has grown old and weak. Animesh's parents have untied her after we left, so she was free to move around. We observed it for quite some time. Anny grew so old to even recognize us. We were so surprised that she still religiously follows the routine we have set for her years ago. She still moves inside the territory we have set for her, though now she is free to move inside the house, garden, and porch. She still cleans as we taught her to clean our place and still looks around for tennis-balls that Animesh's small brother sometimes throws.
I was in deep pain to see this. I now realized how cruel experiment we did on the poor life. We were cruel on Anny to take her independence, her freedom, her life. And now even when she is gifted her freedom, she is afraid of it. We tried our best to bring Anny inside the house, to take her out but she got so scared. She was happy in her own place, as if prepared for the last day. But deep inside, we were ashamed of ourselves. Ourselves for what we did to the poor being…
Isn't it a part of our society or so called modern society? The whole story can be compared to part of contemporary India. In many part of the country, married women are forced to follow a routine. Even now, as we talk of women liberalization, there are woman in our society oppressed by their man. This was prominent in generation above us. Now when these ladies see the modern world of our times they are afraid to gain their freedom. Some have tried and succeeded; others still clean their den, accept their legs tied to the rope, and follow the routine and religiously waiting for the experiment on their life to get over some day! I only want to raise this question: Women are not an animal, why can't they raise voice against the atrocities, injustice. I just hope whatever women of last generation has suffered, may not be experienced by women today.

Enough@26?

Enough@26?
Back in October 2006, Career seemed stuck at Technology department of National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange. Being an opportunist, take it ambitious here; I was trying everything to extract something useful from a free falling organization. Though we were getting more than expected respect there, being first batch from IIT, we were pretty much free with nothing to do whole day. I got to enjoy time with some really wonderful colleagues, who became best friends for life and amazing seniors. I am kind of person who never like to sit idle, want to keep performing and trying and learning new things. In a very late attempt, with the help of a very experienced, senior person, I tried my luck and got a chance to work in Risk Management. This was my first break through to enter Quantitative Finance and to work under an amazing head.
Working in Risk Management at NCDEX led me to give a try to my ‘once dream job’ during placement season of IIT Bombay. When I got a call from HR of Lehman Brothers, I was not at all aware of what all departments are there. Even I didn’t know which department I got call from. I still remember I started studying about CDO when a colleague told me that I got call for Exotic Derivatives. With no preparation, very little idea of whats going to happen, I went for an interview at Lehman Powai, I dint even knew where the building is. Having good luck and little knowledge of commodities, futures, options-all owing to my head at Risk Management at NCDEX, I got through Lehman, Exotic Derivatives. I believed this was because of lucky charm of my fiancée, we got engaged on 1st April 07!!
Life at Lehman started wavy. Got some good friends, handled some hard people. Some were frustrated by the ‘Back Office’ status, some were contended with however things are. This is all part and parcel. This entire time one thing which was on my side is my ability to work hard. And again luck came in my favor to work in Single-stock Exotic. And here began best time of my career.
[Derivatives means financial instrument whose value depends on underlying asset.
Exotic Derivatives means derivatives which are not plain vanillas but either:
1) Payoff is complex
2) Hedging is complex
3) Underlyings are complex]

I made so many good friends. I got little lucky to join before a new batch so that I got friends with both the batches. Some of these are really good friends and I am happy to get respect from all of them. I also got lucky to work on various parts of exotic-derivatives: Option Pricing and Managing Books. Meanwhile, got in good terms with senior traders at London. Whole conception of ‘London guys are mean’ was broken. I began to believe some of them are much better than what popular belief was.
Very soon we were restructured to a new team. We were all happy in a team. I liked all my juniors, with getting proper response from all of them. I never hesitated for any work. I made sure to set an example to my team and staying late if required, standing by the team, making full efforts to protect team’s interest.
I got married and all were happy. We rented a flat 10min walk from office. Her office was in the same building as mine. Everything was going on happy-go-lucky. While this story was building, dark clouds started gathering, on whole financial market.
We were happy in our own small world. Having fun whole day and coming to office was anything but bad. Enjoying days as they pass, totally unaware of the big bubble that was about to burst.
In its first step it blew Bears Sterns, which got sold to JP Morgan Chase at $2 a share. Jammie Dimon, JPM came out heroic in taking over Bears Sterns. Next in line was famous Fannie-Freddie. On 13th July 08 U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve effectively nationalized mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to support U.S. housing market. Meanwhile, Lehman stock was falling free under gravity (Lehman fell by 44% from 11th July to 14th July). We saw Lehman share price coming from 19 to 17, to 13, to 9… All this while we never lost our hopes. There were hopes that someone would definitely take over lehman-may be everyone had belief that we are still good or we were too complacent. Each day like a to-be-married girl, we get name of a possible buyer. With each passing news shares were moving 5 to 10% in either direction. To start with KDB (Korean Development Bank), but its rightly said about Koran belief: ‘if a US investment banker is selling you something, he is cheating’. Hence the regulator’s caution caused lehman losing KDB. Then we were hopeful with Barclays, or a consortium of other banks who could take us. Nothing working out we saw lehman shares down by 45% to $7.79 on 9th September and another 42% drop on 11th Sep to bring it to $4 a piece. We were very much hopeful that over the weekend some deal will be finalized.

15th September 2008
On Monday morning, I casually switched on TV to see the news and first thing I saw is: BREAKING NEWS-LEHMAN BROTHERS FILING BANKRUPTCY. It was totally unbelievable for me, for everyone. When I reached office, I was in no mood to accept it. We got an official mailing stating that Lehman Brothers Holding Inc. has filed chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Chapter 11 implied Lehman will get some buffer time to see where the world moves in couple of days. I tried my best to boost my team to work and prepare morning report on that day. But, of no use. There was no work since then. Its all over. No one knew whats going to happen, what going on. Everyone has his/her own responsibilities. Millions dreams were shattered, no clue of what to do next. May be the company liquidates tomorrow and we belong to nowhere. Not everyone was even ready to prepare resume. Bearing our own trouble everyone was sharing and helping out other more needy. Another bad news of the day: Merrill Lynch & Co Inc to be taken over by Bank of America Corp.
Immediately after Lehman bankruptcy, other I Banks created a liquidity pool of $70bn to face any liquidity crunch after lehman. Worst thing, lehman was not allowed to participate. It seems, what we were dreaming over the weekend, that some I-Bank will take over; These I-Banks were preparing for our funeral!
Part of the reason why Lehman was forced into bankruptcy was because its prime brokerage clients began pulling out their capital. Lehman lost 50 percent of its prime brokerage assets in the last week of its existence. So the fear that Lehman could go bankrupt contributed to its quick downfall.
Prime brokerage clients are like depositors. If they feel their money is unsafe they will cause a run on the bank. But unlike with bank deposits, there is no government-backed insurance plan to protect their funds.
Lehman Brothers: Post 15th September 2008
16th September 2008: Barclays agreed to buy parts of Lehman's North American assets for $1.75 billion.
22nd September 2008 - Nomura Holdings Inc says it will buy Lehman's franchise in Asia Pacific and acquires Lehman's business in Europe. Deal does not include Lehman Powai office.
We were still stucked, uncertain for our future, career. There was news of Barclays, Credit Suisse, Nomura in talks but nothing concrete. Best thing with us was that we were going to office!
6th October 2008-Nomura Holdings COO, Mr. Hiroshi Tanaka came to Powai office to announce the deal. Hopefully there wont be any layoffs as they said retaining the remuneration. May be it’s the pause for a very bad time.

Others: Post 15th September 2008
September 16 - Fed announces plan for $85 billion loan to American International Group Inc in return for 80 percent stake
September 21 - Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley become bank holding companies regulated by the Fed. End of stand alone Investment Banks and the real cream ‘Wall Street Jobs’.
September 25 - Washington Mutual is closed by the U.S. government in the largest failure of a U.S. bank. Its banking assets are sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co for $1.9 billion.
October 3 - The U.S. House of Representatives voted 263-171 for the revised bail-out plan in their second attempt to approve the $700 billion deal.

The story continues. But this is enough to experience at the age of 26? What we have faced was unimaginable for the 158 years old Investment Bank. I still remember the time I joined lehman in June ’07 when Lehman was around ~$ 76 and now I have seen Lehman trading in 5 pence!!
I have seen glorious time of longest running CEO of an I-Bank: Dick Fuld and now I have seen his testimony, posed as a villain.

15 September

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2008