Profs and their ways........

Once you cross puberty you start assuming that you have become wise. And beyond engineering unless someone comes up with a compelling logic, its difficult to convince you or change your viewpoint. Its more like there is system of knowledge and your way of thinking which gets hardwired into your brain.

But there are profs who can truly change the way you think. Partly the reason is the wealth of experience that they have accumulated over the years. Having seen so many like you they have become wiser with each passing year.

Of late I have had some really interesting experiences. Let me share one of them....

It was a busy day and i had too much of work. I was in no mood to attend the class. But the fear of a surprise quiz made me drag my feet to the class. So I made a plan (Now its too simple to call it a plan..but still). I decided to go till the class and check out if the admin staff was around. With them being absent, it was certain that there would be no surprise quiz.

Hurray!! today is my lucky day I told myself. This is the standard thing that everyone follows. But i wanted to make sure the plan was watertight. So what i did was I choose a strategic position where in I can see the prof in my direct line of sight but the prof can see me only if he raises his head at a particular angle. It was my vantage position.

(The set up was similar to what kings of yore had in their durbars when prosecuting criminals. The king would sit at an elevated position and would look down at the proceedings through a gap that exposed him only till the upper chest. The logic behind that was that any object thrown would have to follow a projectile motion to hit the king. A straight throw would bang against the upper beam and fall down)

So in this strategic position I waited for the prof with my eyes focussed on his path towards the classroom. It was five minutes past the class time. I was getting nervous. Even if i see the prof walk in he would close the door behind him. i would have to run downstairs to catch up with him.

My purpose was to check out if he brought any quiz papers to the class. The prof finally showed up. I saw some charts in his hand and no other handouts. Yes!! I can safely bunk the class. I had sealed all possible loopholes. I went back to my room and resumed my work. I had a deadline to meet.

It would have been nice had the story ended here. But after half an hour i receive a message from one of my friends. It read " Dude !!! the prof is holding a surprise quiz. He got the paper wrapped in the chart!!!"

I read the message twice to make sure i was not hallucinating. I sent back a reply : "Well there is only so much you can hedge against :)"

You can anticipate somethings in life and plan for it but not everything. If I was good enough a planner, it would not have been necessary to bunk the class in the first place :P

So the next time you think you can out out smart your proof (????) think again....

PS : I later got to know that the Prof announced in the class that he wanted to it to be a real surprise. Hence he did not ask for the admin help and hoped that the students would not disappoint him (with an evil grin!!)

You cannot satisfy everyone....jaane bhi do yaaron

Have u ever realized that you have a compulsive need to make everyone feel happy satisfied. Sadly, it is not possible in all circumstances. Imagine two players pitted against each other, can both of them be equally happy at the end of the game??

That's true of some of the situations in life... there is not always a happy ending...
Imagine an argument.. towards the end it need not end in an amicable way...so how do you make this right??

May be you can't but there is a simple test to determine if there was an error on your part in the first place...

If you feel even slightly bad about what happened and ur actions then may be there was some fault on ur side as well...But if you dont feel even the slightest remorse then probably everything was alright...

So whenever ur in doubt ask yourself do you feel the slighest remorse for what happened or what you did.. If not forget it and move on...

Jaane bhi dho yaaron....agar Bhagwan hi sab ko kush nahi rakh paya hai toh hamari kya hasti hai??

As Teague would say : " The trick is to live with yourself"

(For the non-pirates....Teague is Captain jacksparrow's father :))

Arbitrage opportunities and Traffic Jams......

Yesterday I was enroute to forum for watching a movie (what else than "Shankardada zindabad")... I observed a simple phenomenon.. sth that everyone sees in a traffic jam...
You always see bikes zipping through the gaps between cars.The driver behind the wheel watches it until he's pissed off and closes the gap...

Aribtrage is a similar phenomenon in the financial world. Ok for ppl not so financially inclined and challenged by jargon arbitrage refers to an opportunity for making a riskless profit..for example assume that Red chilli rates are higher in US than in India (even after including the transportation costs), then for an arbitraguer it makes more sense to buy chilli in India and sell in US...Now u might say what the heck...this is the fundamental principle of business. Everyone makes money only through spreads or differentials caused due to information asymmetry. Arbitrage is slightly more complex in the sense that you deal in contracts (futures,forwards and options if u want the MBA jargon..) instead of actual underlying... OK too much of fin gyaan.. Let me get back to what i wanted to say.....

So arbitrage opportunites are like those gaps in traffic..the bike guys being the arbitrageurs...The opportunity window exists so long as the person behind the wheel is not pissed off.. and what drives him crazy.. too much of exploitation of the chance

(jyada chance pe dance marenge log tho usse gussa tho ayega hi na...)..and he closes off the gap..

Those who got past in the window make money.. others look for alternative gaps :)
The truck or lorry driver is the one providing such an opportunity.. it can be closed by the car or truck guy ( in which case its like markets responding to the opportunity to close the window) or might be a traffic cop..(ok this does not happen in real life....)..if i were to draw a parallel to a regulator traffic cop seemed to be the only actor there :)

PS: For the fin studs.. please forgive me for simplifying arbitrage ( I hope i got it right).. I know its ur bread and butter...par abhi main to bachcha hoon.. A se apple hi boloonga na....Arbitrage thodi hi boloonga....