Facts n Fiction

From the time when I started my journey to London and amidst making lists of “what-to-do” and “what-not-to-do”, one thing that constantly sprawled my mind was to see the “London Stock Exchange” (LSE), I am kind of obsessed with stock markets. Also, a close friend cum stock market analyst partner of mine had battered enough LSE into minutest of my brain cells. I had to see the London Stock Exchange, one of the largest stock exchanges in the world! My busy and tiring schedules kept pushing my LSE plans away, and they had now drifted so much that the expiry day, last Thursday of the month, was fast approaching :-]. I had to close my call, not that I would have been indebted to huge sum, but rollover is something which I had never practiced. Tuesday morning (yesterday), I decided that I will go and see the London Stock Exchange. Out of terrible excitement and curiosity to see the London Stock Exchange, I had finally located it on the road map. In the evening, after completing my day’s work...

Finally! After all the nail-biting delays and amidst the nervousness, confusion and excitement, I reached London - my first international trip. Frankly speaking, I could not believe for initial 2-3 days that I am in London. Every time I travelled the areas around my office and place where I am currently staying I felt that I was in Mumbai, South Mumbai to be precise, everything resembled so well, almost, tall buildings, double-decker buses, trains, platforms, people rushing in and out of the platforms (like what I have seen at Churchgate station in Mumbai). Gradually, however, I started getting the feel of London with so many white people around walking around in business suits, chilling temperature, and shops that displayed price tags in pounds. I am here finally; for all who know what it took me to be here will understand this better. A week old in London, I have adjusted pretty well and doing quite fine, I have been hogging on non-veg everyday – meat of all sorts with curry, rice, a...

Finally the back-to-back cricketing extravaganza is over, I mean the 20-20 championships. No, I did not take any interest in the IPL, neither did I savour ICC T-20 world cup. However, I did watch some cricket last night – only the last few deliveries when Afridi hit a boom-boom six and a four to bring the match tally to run-a-ball. I was quite sure that Pakistan would win the finals and hence channelled away to some other entertainment stuff. A while later when surfing through the channels, I noticed on a news channel that Pakistan had won the ICC T-20 world cup. The triumph was celebrated with much delight, and most importantly the satisfaction was something to watch for. The Pakistan team, the spectators, were in a euphoric mood, especially the fans on street of Pakistan, who had forgotten all evil that had happened and was happening in their country, they had to kiss many frogs before they met the prince – it was such a moment yesterday. I was feeling somewhat happy too at their win...

Lately I have been reading about the racial abuse that has been going on in Australia with our Indians. I know you must have been following that news item too. As much as it must have angered you, it enraged me equally; I was completely out of my limits. How can they do this to us? Who do they think they are? A fair skin has no right to claim supremacy over a dark skin, certainly not. Going through news on various channels only annoyed me further. I switched of the television and couched back to clear off those slides from the ridges of my brain. However, the shadows would rarely vanish. I sulked and sank more into those thoughts of racism, hatred, and intolerance. Soon I developed a feeling that it is not only about Australia, but events of hatred happen all over the world, sometimes even we (Indians) do it. Hold on! It is not a blind accusation, I have seen it happen. Before that let us look at some dictionary meanings of the word ‘ racism ’, it means ‘ racial discrimination ’ or ...

(Sahir Redij & His First Painting) Look at that! My nephew, Sahir’s first painting (his mother has proudly framed it). Isn’t that great for a two-and-half year old kid? Yes, he might have just filled in the colours in the already sketched octopus, but look at the colour sense, look at the accuracy – very rarely has the colour gone out of the lines, and that’s what makes me flaunt his art here on my blog.

Sachin Tendulkar…where are you? Kuthe ahes tu re baba? Naah…..Naah, I am not talking about the IPL season, I am not all that crazy, I don’t like the IPL kinda cricket, I am not the 20-20 types, cricket is royal for me, and Wasim Akram is the only cricketer I ever loved, admired, and aped. After the recent election results (where UPA had a sweeping majority), I thought of browsing websites of some parties. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s website was one of it. I had visited their website, www.manase.org , just a month ago, and I was surprised about one revelation. Before that, let me also admit that I am a proud Mumbaikar and a Marathi person, and I have loved the way MNS has designed its website – truly prolific. However, there is one little regret! When browsing through MNS website pages, I bumped into a page where it listed all great artists and sportsmen of our Maharashtra. Though I am not a great fan of the little master, Sachin Tendulkar (sorry Gavaskar Sir! for stealing that title f...

I am immensely happy today, for the stunner that happened at our prime stock markets – trading and investing is my religion. I was deeply pleasured on Saturday after the UPA’s clean sweep at the elections, much expected, and the gestures only catapulted today, raising even my happiness to upper circuits. I had a smile on my face whole of this morning and the feeling was like that of a student who had just topped the state in board exams – a merit ranker. I am also delighted that my predictions about the election results and the market openings have seen an optimistic outcome. Many argued with me about the UPA coming to power, I looked dumb when I had no answers to some questions why UPA and not NDA. Yet, a gut feeling paid off well. I don’t want to be a BJPwadi and hence I am a Congresswadi , and also maybe because it comes from my father – a staunch congressman that he is. In my earlier blog, I had mentioned that I would prefer a UPA government for economic growth and stability over ...