Reached Dallas

Atlast few weeks back on a fine sunny Friday evening reached Dallas. Though the journey was nice, I missed my American Airlines connection flight at Newark Liberty International Airport. I should have planned such that there is at least 2 hours between the connecting flights. My flight was scheduled to arrive at 10.30 am but was delayed by 15 minutes. My connection flight to dallas was at 11.55 am. When I landed up, I was to clear customs,immigration and pre-flight formalities. Then got an airtrain to move to the next terminal and approached the American Airlines for my boarding pass and came to know that I have missed my flight. They gave a chance to fly standby in the next flight at 2.55 pm.It was full. The next flight with seat availability was at 5.25 pm.It looked pretty wild and intense. I was terribly bored and due to lack of sleep was feeling drowsy. I got an International Calling card for $10. Called my home. Calling costs were high inside the airport,$3/call. My friend annamalai was not reachable. Fortunately around 2pm, got an exit row seat in the 2.55 pm flight. Reached dallas at 5.30 pm. The problem was i requested the International Students Services Organization for pick up at 4 pm. Since I was late, I hired a taxi for $50.At last reached annamalai’s home at 6.30 pm.It took 2 days to recover from jetlag. On saturday, our off campus Mccallum apartment was finalised. It took some time to get settled here. Although, We bought some groceries from India we bought some new things at Wal Mart, a comparatively cheaper place for buying groceries and eatables.

leaving India

Hi folks, This will be the last post which i blog before leaving India. Am leaving to US today. Flight is from Chennai at 8.45 pm. Am starting to Chennai at 6.45 am by vaigai express. My parents are coming along with me to Chennai for send off. Then International Students Service Organization(ISSO) have planned for a scheduled pick up at 4 pm(Dallas local time). I hope I will be joining them. Annamalai, my college mate will be receiving there at the campus. This is the first time am going abroad. Will post other details about my journey after I reach Dallas.

Reminiscing the past-II

Let me continue from where I left in the previous post.

They had already rented an individual house(sorry bungalow) where I stayed. When I joined there was an onset of that interminable light drizzle in which Chennai particularly low land areas like velachery were severely affected. My room mates were ariya and kishore. Kishore was already close to me and ariya was getting closer. My training was at a place called ASV sun tech park near Thuraipakkam. It was a completely different atmosphere with friends from different colleges. Fortunately or unfortunately I was the one who was from TCE. It took some time to get into the professional life. In short, Chennai was too fast for me. The things which i observed would take a separate post and will try to post my views on chennaites in the upcoming posts. The days in cognizant was full of fun and frolic. On the other side, almost all my friends who were waiting for doj got it by December end. Got some new friends at cognizant and the things slowly started to change. A glance at sequence of events in my life

1)Cognizant was fine for me and really enjoyed the days there. We as a class used to go to some hotels frequently. Its because of these people I came to know about the various posh hotels in Chennai.

2)In our home, we got an Induction stove and an electric cooker. Ariya was the master and will give instructions to me and kishore while cooking. I enjoyed assisting him in cooking.

3)Then coming to my MS, I got admits from 4 universities. I chose The university of Texas at Dallas for the reason its a pretty decent one,I had some friends(annamalai and hari) there, the cost of living is cheap there compared to other states in US.

4)Resigned from cognizant, one of the fastest 3 tier IT growing company.

5)Got my I-20 from UTD. In May and June I was busy preparing documents for the visa interview and was traveling between Chennai and Madurai at regular intervals.

6)Got my visa stamped on July 1st and crossed the final hurdle.

Reminiscing the past-I

Waiting for DOJ from May’08 to Nov’09

After I completed my engineering in april’08, there was a long pause in the game of life for me. It was 6 months of free time during which I attended family functions,marriages,etc. I also visited many pilgrimage centers that includes Rameshwaram, Thiruchendur, Vaitheeswaran koil,etc. It had been one of the light summery days when the people started to annoy me asking about date of joining. Most of them were not able to understand what recession was and what is its impact? They advised me to go for some unworthy alternatives.

Till the month of august I had my TCS friends. I used to spend time chatting with them. I felt somewhat lonely when my TCS friends departed to Bhubaneshwar for training. Usually nights of these days were spent at muthu raj’s(a childhood friend and neighbour of mine) home. He too got his doj in september and left madurai. Then passing time became an increasingly onerous task.Everyone were busy with some work and tests except few.I and vins used to discuss about doj predictions and console each other. I can say that this was the time when i and vins came somewhat closer. Late nights were spent with yoganand( school friend waiting for doj from wipro) who was at Hyderabad at his sister’s place. We even used to chat till 3 am. Lots of stories, incidents,gossips…..

Days passed slowly. Everyone called except cognizant and caritor. At last we had some positive words from our apo.All this came as something of a relief to us. Cognizant also started to call our college. Anyhow my name was missed out in the first batch. my name and venami’s name was somehow left out in the department. I was the only sole remaining in my class waiting for doj. Finally on november 11th i got my DOJ. Doj-november 24th and location was chennai. This was something that bought a brief glimmer of pleasure into my glum life. Unfortunately venami’s name was missed out this time also. It was time to leave Madurai where i have been with my parents from my birth. I got blessings from my neighbors and relatives and it was nice to see everyone expressing their concern. I started to Chennai on November 23rd by vaigai express. Had some of them at station for send-off. It was the same time my TCS friends completed their training and returned to Chennai.

To be continued…

Back to Blogging

Its alomost a year since i shared my personal experiences in this blog. I have a lot of posts queued up in my brain. Nowadays many of them rarely write blogs, indeed some of them have stopped blogging. Some of them dont want their personals to go public or they are busy with their work so that they hardly find free time or they are soo lazy to write and post. Anyways I will try to blog regularly.

Inferences

This post is based on my previous post. click here for my previous post.

There is however a redistribution of wealth.
A is the winner, B is the loser, C is lucky that he is spared.
A few points worth noting -

(1) When a bubble is building up, the debt of individuals to one another in a country is also building up.
(2) This story of the island is a closed system whereby there is no other country and hence no foreign debt. The worth of the asset can only be calculated using the island’s own currency. Hence, there is no net loss.
(3) An over-damped system is assumed when the bubble burst, meaning the land’s value did not go down to below 1 dollar.
(4) When the bubble burst, the fellow with cash is the winner. The fellows having the land or extending loan to others are the losers. The asset could shrink or in worst case, they go bankrupt.
(5) If there is another citizen D either holding a dollar or another piece of land but refrains from taking part in the game,  he will neither win nor lose. But he will see the value of his money or land go up and down like a see saw.
(6) When the bubble was in the growing phase, everybody made money.
(7) If you are smart and know that you are living in a growing bubble, it is worthwhile to borrow money (like A ) and take part in the game. But you must know when you should change everything back to cash.
(8) As in the case of land, the above phenomenon applies to stocks as well.
(9) The actual worth of land or stocks depend largely on psychology.

Where did the money go?

Its a period of recession and we can see all the markets tumbling and some of the share holders trying for suicide attempt. A famous economist said “Previously the middle class people were large in number compared to others. But in the future the number of rich and poor will increase in numbers while the middle class will be stagnant.” The basic principle is “If someone is losing money  that means that someone is gaining money”.
I came across this in one of the mailing lists and I have made some modifications to it. This doesnt requires proficiency in economics. Please keep track of the story and see how the situation changes slowly.

The story starts here

Once there was a little island country. The land of this country was the tiny island itself. The total money in circulation was 2 dollars as there were only two pieces of 1 dollar coins circulating around.

1) There were 3 citizens living on this island country.  A owned the land. B and C each owned 1 dollar.

2) B decided to purchase the land from A for 1 dollar. So, now A and C own 1 dollar each while B owned a piece of land that is worth 1 dollar.

* The net asset of the country now = 3 dollars.

3) Now C thought that since there is only one piece of land in the country, and land is non producible asset, its value must definitely go up. So, he borrowed 1 dollar from A, and together with his own 1 dollar, he bought the land from B for 2 dollars.

*A has a loan to C of 1 dollar, so his net asset is 1 dollar.
* B sold his land and got 2 dollars, so his net asset is 2 dollars.
* C owned the piece of land worth 2 dollars but with his 1 dollar debt to A, his net residual asset is 1 dollar.
* Thus, the net asset of the country = 4 dollars.

4) A saw that the land he once owned has risen in value. He regretted having sold it. Luckily, he has a 1 dollar loan to C. He then borrowed 2 dollars from B and acquired the land back from C for 3 dollars. The payment is by 2 dollars cash (which he borrowed) and cancellation of the 1 dollar loan to C. As a result, A now owned a piece of land that is worth 3 dollars. But since he owed B 2 dollars, his net asset is 1 dollar.

* B loaned 2 dollars to A. So his net asset is 2 dollars.
* C now has the 2 coins. His net asset is also 2 dollars.
* The net asset of the country = 5 dollars. A bubble is building up.

(5) B saw that the value of land kept rising. He also wanted to own the land. So he bought the land from A for 4 dollars. The payment is by borrowing 2 dollars from C, and cancellation of his 2 dollars loan to A.

* As a result, A has got his debt cleared and he got the 2 coins. His net asset is 2 dollars.
* B owned a piece of land that is worth 4 dollars, but since he has a debt of 2 dollars with C, his net Asset is 2 dollars.
* C loaned 2 dollars to B, so his net asset is 2 dollars.

* The net asset of the country = 6 dollars; even though, the country has only one piece of land and 2 Dollars in circulation.

(6) Everybody has made money and everybody felt happy and prosperous.

(7) One day an evil wind blew, and an evil thought came to C’s mind. “Hey, what if the land price stop going up, how could B repay my loan. There is only 2 dollars in circulation, and, I think after all the land that B owns is worth at most only 1 dollar, and no more.”

(8) A also thought the same way.

(9) Nobody wanted to buy land anymore.

* So, in the end, A owns the 2 dollar coins, his net asset is 2 dollars.
* B owed C 2 dollars and the land he owned which he thought worth 4 dollars is now 1 dollar. So his net asset is only 1 dollar.
* C has a loan of 2 dollars to B. But it is a bad debt. Although his net asset is still 2 dollars, his Heart is palpitating.
* The net asset of the country = 3 dollars again.

(10) So, who has stolen the 3 dollars from the country ? Of course, before the bubble burst B thought his land was worth 4 dollars. Actually, right before the collapse, the net asset of the country was 6 dollars on paper. B’s net asset is still 2 dollars, his heart is palpitating.

(11) B had no choice but to declare bankruptcy. C as to relinquish his 2 dollars bad debt to B, but in return he acquired the land which is worth 1 dollar now.

* A owns the 2 coins, his net asset is 2 dollars.
* B is bankrupt, his net asset is 0 dollar. ( he lost everything )
* C got no choice but end up with a land worth only 1 dollar

* The net asset of the country = 3 dollars.

The conclusions drawn based on this will be published in the next post.

My Observations

I like to jot down few things which i observed in past 2 months.

1. I took my license in june. One of my friend who went to a (shining) driving school in madurai was not able to take the license because of the negligence of the driving school and he should wait for another month to get it. We will be allowed to take license only after 30 days of taking LLR. They failed to get the LLR from the RTO office. So whenever you go to driving please have a copy of LLR with you. This will avoid last minute confusions.

2. Last month i went to tanjore to visit some of the temples nearby(suryanar koil, vaitheeswaran koil,etc). I got stumbled on seeing the business done at the temples. The way they deal with the devotees is purely commercial. The temple administration is not upto the mark. A person with garlands,coconut and other things approaches hastily. They will say that “I will make you comfortable, give me rs. 500″. When he comes to know that you are posh, he will raise the rates. If you argue with him. He will say if you are not giving this money, ur desire will not be satisfied. Do not trust him. When you have a chance to visit the temples, please avoid sentiments.

3) I went to a famous jewel shop starting with (potato in hindi) for changing a chain which was bought in another famous jewel shop. On skimming through the bill, it will be clear that all the jewelers earn money in the amount of wastage. It will be at least 30% whereas only 10% in local small shops. Whenever any ornament is placed in the gold testing machine, the joints are placed under the machine and they say the gold which you bought contains more copper. Be cautious. The jewelers are very astute. Whenever any jewels are kept in the machine for testing see to that it is not kept in the joints. All appearances and the advertisements are deceptive. No one is insane to give a discount of Rs.1111 for 8g of gold or bonus of 0.5g gold if you buy 8g.

Flaws in TamilNadu educational system.

Its engineering admissions time. Getting admission into top engineering colleges(TN) has become damn easy. The formula is “study, by-heart, reproduce” and also a bit of luck. If you have all the above, then your admission is assured. No need to apply ideas or theorems or principles or formulas. The situation was better few years ago. We had a common entrance test which contributed for 1/3rd of the mark for testing their knowledge. But now the situation has become worse. I heard that they are not even changing the numbers for the problems in maths and physics. Whenever the state board results come out we can see that highest mark is around 1185(99%). This does not mean that she is brilliant. In case of CBSE ,  the state topper should be necessarily brilliant. I  had a friend in my batch who scored 1160, the other with 2 centums and another  with 3 centums. But the truth is none of them were not able to enter the government engg colleges. The TN educational system needs some improvements. Nearly four lakh students compete for the 4500-odd seats in seven IITs in the country. The pathetic thing is on an average only 50 students(40 from chennai) enter into IITs which is roughly 1%. This is the same case for NITs and other elite educational institutions . There is no point in arguing about the syllabus. The examination pattern should be changed and awareness should be created about IITs and NITs. I feel that the move toward loosening the rules and criterias for rural students is preposterous and also the reservations would dilute the quality of student intake. Instead the quality of education can be improved to meet the standards.  Atleast by 2010,  lets hope the “by heart” culture vanishes.

Ravi sister marriage

I went to dindigul to attend the marriage of one of my close friend ravi’s sister on july 14th. Both of them are doctors (Dr.Anitha devi-Dr.Sasi kumar). Minister I.Periyasamy and M.L.A. thandapani presided over the function.  We were served grand lunch.  We enjoyed a lot there.