It has happened. A long long wait has ended, more than a decade and a half has Indian Cricket waited for a good captain and it seems like the prayer of the fans have been answered.

I said to myself when i had my Pita Bread with Falafel and Vegetables. Yummy it was. Just as delicious as the Pita Bread and Falafels is the opportunity that we are now being presented with.

Yeah, a couple of people have done this recently through their statements.

Lets start off with the Honourable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Mr Karunanidhi, he has taken a swipe at Hindus and Hindu Culture for the Umpteenth time now. The recent one being the criticism of people's habit of wearing a Tilak on their forehead and a community's habit of wearing a thread over their shoulder.

He has gone on and said that Equality is the need of the hour and caste differences need to be uprooted and people should stop fighting over the existence of a Supreme power.

While i do fully aknowledge the need for Equality and the need to refrain from fighting over the existence of a Supreme Power or Not, i do have some questions for the Chief Minister

1. How does wearing a thread or Tilak on the forehead contribute to Inequality? Now why target a community again and again and create the illusion that a particular community alone is responsible for Inequality, when the reality is very different?

2. And why doesn't the Honourable CM speak about the caste differences that exist in other religions in the state? What is preventing him from speaking about other religions? Votes???

The Second Person is one of the most loved cricketers of the modern era, Adam Gilchrist, Following his recent swipes at Tendulkar, Ganguly and Harbahajan, he has gone on record and called Muralidaran a Chucker.

Now the best part about his statement though is that not at one place has he blamed Muralidharan, he has gone on and spoken about how this whole issue was politicised and projected as a Racist Issue, thereby sidetracking from the main problem.

Notwithstanding the fact Racism exists, the recent hype over Obama being the first "Black President" is a live example of how we are still looking at people.Obama's colour and not his credentials have become the biggest talking point and it is something that i feel we must be ashamed of. We still subconsciously differentiate people based on such silly things.

Coming back to our topic, in spite of the aforementioned fact, I have always felt like Gilchrist that Murali's issue was side tracked and projected as an Issue of Racism. Now I am pretty sure that this Statement will create a tremor or two in cricketing fraternity.

Now people all over the world are asking "Why Gilly?"

Equity Markets bleeding, Commodities tanking, Inflation rising and grimness prevailing might be the situation outside, but step into my room and the atmosphere is of sheer joy, thanks to my wonderful room mate. U might ask me whats so special about him? I must say that he is one of the finest story tellers that i have ever met.

I am really feeling bad for not having met him when i was a kid for it would have been really entertaining then. OK, no more making u wait, here we go, i am listing the gems.

It was a bore and dull evening until my room mate decided to change that with his wonderful story, It was about his story at London Airport, He started off by saying that London Airport is really big and since i have not seen London Airport i did not do anything but to acknowledge it, and then he went on saying that, with 200 terminals it is so huge, I was now shocked, however big an airport might be 200 was a colossal number, but still did not say anything and quietly heard through the rest of the story. Part-2 of this incident was even more funny, he narrated the same story to another set of people the next day and all of a sudden the terminals count became 300.!!!!!!!!!!!. I was dumbfounded, How could construction happen so quickly??? well then i checked it out and it seems that now Heathrow has only 5 terminals,

Surely my room mate cannot be wrong,they must have closed the rest down :)

Second one was when my room mate gave me the most amazing explanation ever given for the rise of USD(US Dollar) against the INR (Indian Rupee). I was having my dinner when he came in and asked me " Did U watch Bill Clinton's speech?", I replied "NO", then he went on and said " It was a great speech and with this Wonderful speech, Clinton has brought an end to the political Instability prevailing in the US and because of that the USD has started to rise".

Never I knew that US was in Political instability" nor did i knew before that " The speech of an Ex-President in support of his party candidate was good enough to move the currency of a nation against other currencies".

Third one was when he enlightened me about how Human Body works. "People moving from Tropical Countries to America and other cold countries can withstand the first winter easily its only from the second winter that these people will start to feel tough" Before i could ask "Why" he came up with the explanation, its because our blood will be hot and hence we wont feel the cold during the first year, but over a period of time it becomes cold and hence we start to feel the chillness from the second year onwards.

I drew a blank face and i did not know how to respond to this. I somehow managed to ask him, Who told this ?, Pat came the reply " A Doctor" but please do not ask me the name of the doctor, for he never revealed that to me " :)

Now don't these incidents justify the title??

Billions and Billions of dollars of Investor Wealth wiped out and there seems to be more pain in the offing. Markets have corrected (?) from a high of 21k to 10k levels and going by the intensity of the downward move, i think it can be safely assumed that we have not yet seen the Bottom.

Global Financial Crisis, has taken India along with it and in fact it had done more damage to Indian markets than it has done to the US markets. Warren Buffet once said ,If one did not have the capacity to see his stock beaten down into half without losing his composure, one must avoid the Stock Markets.

Speaking of Buffet's wealth itself has gone down by $10 Billion USD thanks to the recent crash/ correction. But he seems unperturbed, in fact he has gone on record saying that this is the time to "BUY", and he has actually bought into Goldman Sachs.


So what should we do here in India? Follow the God Of Investing? Well, predicting the bottom is not an easy task, but i would stick my neck out and say that the market has more downside left and we can consider buying after that.

What if u have not sold out of the market when the market hit a high of 21k? Well, as it stands nothin much can be done since u cannot sell out now. But maybe its time for u to analyze why u held on to them in the first place without selling them. Did u join the rally at the last stages? Did u feel tempted and hence held on to the stocks hoping for more upside? Or Did you fool urself by saying to urself that u were a long term Investor and held on to the stocks, while the reality was that you were greedy and held on to them for more profits.

Whatever mite be the reason, treat this as a lesson handed out. The lesson? " Dump your greed and your Stocks when the valuation overtakes the growth rate". Financial Markets have never been a place for the Weak hearted and it is only during times such as these that the truth is felt.

Stop feeling bad, get the learning and Happy Investing.

Which is the most difficult thing to do in a movie? If someone were to ask me this question, my reply without any hesitation will be "To Convey a message in a movie and to do it successfully", as most people who come to the theaters have only one "Entertainment" in mind.


Now Krish the film maker pulls of the aforementioned task with nonchalant ease with his movie "Gamyam (Telugu)" . I must say its been quite sometime since i have seen any movie like this. Absolutely Honest Film making. Handling a story, which had more chances of making the audience run for their Pop Corn out of boredom, the director not only manages to keep the audience interested, but also goes a step beyond and makes the audience think, think for a moment.

I am not going to give any reviews for this movie as its been quite sometime the movie had released and the web media contains enf and more reviews. But i would like to point out some points which i felt interesting about the movie.

I read a lot of reviews which spoke of Allari Naresh as the second most person of the movie, but i beg to differ on this, I name the Lyricist of the movie Sri Vennela Seetarama Sastry as the second hero of the movie. Never before i guess a lyricist played the role of a second hero. The one song where he explains life is awesome to say the least. To Sum it Up "No Praise can be too high for the lyricist."

For the first time or maybe in a long long time we saw "Naxalism" handled in the most objective manner.And the brilliant part is that's not in the main scheme of things too. Such was the attention paid to even the not so critical track.The track was handled in a very objective and honest fashion.

Finally the episode that deals with the dance girl, God! Wonderful, On your face hard hitting dialogues, Never were these episodes treated with such finesse before.

All in all, a fantastic journey, a thought provoking one.

P.S:Although off the topic, i would like to ask this doubt here, "Whats that so special about Philosophy in general, everyone knows the truth but when every time we hear it again and again it sounds like new, it becomes a new learning. Is that the beauty of the Truth or the Human Mind?"

History has repeated itself and as usual, this time too it the items on the takeaway menu remains the same. So will take it at least this time around? Time alone can answer that. So whats the takeaway?

Oops i forgot to mention the subject, its the recent crisis in the Financial Markets.

Investing is all about controlling the two demons "Greed" n "Fear" and unfortunately the "Expert Investment Bankers" never controlled the former and forgot about the latter, In the quest for hefty pay packets, Investor care was forgotten and the market became a place where the "Bigger Fool Theory" was played out. And when it ended the Investors became the biggest fools.

The Investors(?) too need to be blamed (not to that extent though) for not really understanding the underlying business and getting allured by higher Returns that were promised by these "EXPERTS".

The Investing public clearly needs to understand an important point "There is no such thing called as Short Term Safe n High Return. Returns and Risks are Directly Proportional and the more the return the greater the risk. And coming to time frame Risks are far greater if one takes a short term view as Emotions play an important role in the short term"

Now moving on to the other aspect called Leveraging: It is a tight rope walk. Not only the firms but the Investing Public were also guilty of Over Leveraging.Now Leveraging during a Bull Market looks to be a fantastic strategy, but as soon as the market turns bad the Excessively Leveraged will be the worst hit. So Make sure when Leveraging that you are adequately covered with cash to handle any crash.

Now all the aforementioned lessons are not something new. They are as old as the Rocks. Every crash has thrown up the same lessons, but yet we tend to forget them which reminds me of Bernard Shah's saying "If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience."