Witnessing history

The events of the past few days convince me that we are witnessing history. The demise of Lehman Brothers, Wall Street’s fourth largest investment bank, would surely find its place in history.

I remember the day in March when I heard that Bear Stearns, Wall Street’s fifth largest investment bank, is heading towards bankruptcy. As an aspiring quant in investment banking I had applied for an entry level quantitative analyst role a month ago and was waiting to hear from them about my application. It was taking unusually long for a bank with a proper recruitment procedure in place to respond on my application. I was patient, waiting for a response was much better than hearing a rejection so I did not complain. Least did I know that I would straight get to hear the news of the bank struggling to survive and so being bailed out by the Fed and thereafter bought by JP Morgan Chase at the price of peanuts! Little did I know that the application which I worked on for hours and the cover letter which I got checked from my career counsellor at university and at least two other people were destined to go into the dustbin! Little did I know that those who would recruit me are busy saving their own jobs!

The memories of the crisis at Northern Rock, UK’s fifth largest mortgage lender, and how it had to be nationalised to protect the monies of the hundred’s of pensioners and savers had not even faded, that I was in for this jolt of a prospective employer who was taken over so as to avoid its demise. Things were going to be tough, I realised.

Having completed the course with the submission of dissertation, since the last couple of weeks I had been planning my strategy to go for the application spree again. I chalked out the banks I would target as a single application takes at least 5 hours of thorough research of the organisation. This research made me go through the current financial situations at each bank and I realised that Lehman Brothers was in a bad financial state. I was hopeful that like Bear Stearns, probably Lehman would also get a helping hand from the Fed so that even if my hopes of working for the bank are bleak, at least those working still have hopes of not losing their jobs. On Monday I was in for the second biggest shock, Lehman was not bailed out and so had to file for bankruptcy. 5000 employees in the UK were rendered jobless.

Merrill Lynch, Wall Street’s third largest investment bank, was also having its balance sheet in red, only to be saved by the proposed take over by the Bank of America. My housemate works for Merrill and though he has not been made redundant, since his contract gets over with the bank in a couple of weeks and there is no chance under these circumstances it would be renewed so he is looking for another job. But as he said, there are so many redundancies made by Lehman that getting a job at this point seems next to impossible.

The financial system is in shambles. Today’s BBC business news headline reads “US government rescues insurer AIG”. Mind you, AIG is the US’ largest insurance company and had the Fed not rescued it, it would have to file for bankruptcy. And then the whole system would have collapsed, we would have been experiencing the Great Depression of 1929. However I am not sure if the visible signs are any good to ensure that we are not heading towards it.

Blasts again

Can I please move on from writing blogposts about blasts? I had been really caught up with so many things in life, and just when I decided to sit down to update my blog, all that I can think of are the blasts in Delhi yesterday. But it was too much for me to take this time, I could not stop my tears rolling over my cheek when I heard the news. I could not take it anymore.

Central Park in Cannaught Place has so many memories associated with my University of Delhi days. I remember going there long before it had formally opened and chatting with its gateman. He informed me when it would open and who would inaugurate it. I so badly wished that day for it to open so that I can come down there and hang around with friends. Thereafter, when it opened I came down hundreds of times, mostly Saturday evenings to just chill followed by my favorite pastry session at Wengers. I used to love it. So yesterday when I saw the Central Park being bombed on a Saturday evening, I thought it could well have been me amongst the 20 dead and more than 100 injured in those blasts.

So the pertinent question I want to ask today is, what is my crime? Why am I targetted? Why does somebody want to kill me? Why do I have a threat on my life? How does killing me help somebody sitting across some border? To be very honest to those who do these henious crime, let me tell you something, even if you kill me, nothing will happen which you want to happen, the governments will remain unchanged about their stance, people will forget it the next moment and move on with their daily bread earning routine, life will become the same for all except that it will bring unsurmountable amount of pain to those who love me. So killing me does not help you achieve anything. And remember very well and for sure, that someday that me will be your daughter or sister and that day all that will change is your own life and nobody elses.

Blasts, Inflation, N-deal

The title suggests the way I would sum up the current social, economic and political situation in India. Notable political developments being- the political drama on the way the government proved its majority in the house, the dignified members of the solemn house behaved, Somnath Chatterjee expelled from his party (for me he and CPM were inseparable), the famous 'Sashikala' speech by the junior Gandhi, the upward movement in the stature of Mayawati as the potential prime-ministerial candidate of the 'third front'.

The news channels do not feel tired mentioning in headlines that inflation has dropped, I eagerly waited for the whole news to come up, inflation dropped from 11.91% to 11.8%. Phew! Is that good enough?! News flowing in that RBI is going to hike the Repo and CRR rates to contain inflation. At least somebody is doing something, the government does not seem to have any time to even think working towards containing inflation. First it was busy sorting out the chances of its existence, and now reacting to the 'demonic' problem of terrorism.

There has been a spat of bomb blasts in the country, the major cities like Bangalore and Ahmedabad under the scanner this time. The development that we so much boast of about India, has been becoming a cause of worry. Any city which is on an upsurge, should also get equipped to fight terrorist blasts, randomly occuring in any part without any notice.

But India, and these cities in particular, have shown commendable resilience. We have shown nothing can dampen the new spirit that India is shining with. We have vowed to reach the peak before we start looking down to see how far we have reached.

I wish my dreams and dream my wishes

Will miss 23

I don't want time to pass by anymore. Can somebody please stop the time for me? I am 23 and I will be 24 in a few days. But I do not want to be 24. I am contended being 23 and want to remain 23 forever.

I had a wonderful time as 23. Coming out to the UK, living a life that I had aspired to live since a long time, doing a wonderful course, achieving some sense of fulfilment as regards to career, meeting international people and making them good friends, enjoying my daily new crushes, going out for cinema with friends followed by drinks and dance, sitting in my room and studying for hours without any disturbance, working on various coding projects and then dreaming about those computing codes, eating nice food cooked by me :-) , failed endeavour of making it to the gym and the swimming pool, roaming around London with elder brother, missing home and talking to them for hours over the phone, and lots more. I will miss 23.

Last year when I was about to be 23, I wrote this post: Take charge at 23 and that reflected how dissatisfied and unhappy I was about going on to become a 23 year old girl without the knowledge and maturity of taking her own decisions. But this year I realise, it is not only that to be able to take decisions is important, but more important is to have the right attitude to be able to follow and concretise the decision that you have taken. Decisions may be right or wrong, good or bad, but important is the way you attempt to stand by them and derive your life out of them. I don't claim to have taken the right decisions always, but I will not say that I have taken wrong decisions either. I will not judge them as right or wrong anymore. I would just say that I have taken some decisions on my own and I will see how they go.

Other reason for not letting go with the age of 23 is that there are lots of things that I want to do before growing old, lots of changes that I plan to bring about in my life and in others lives in my own way. I am moving towards it, but then it is taking more time than I had imagined in the first draft of dreaming about it. The dreaming drafts are getting more complex, and hence they demand more time. Either I need to be young to be able to do all that, or I get somebody to spend a life with who understands me. Not sure of how the second option will turn out to be, so I want to remain young, I want to remain 23.

Zindagi

Zinda rehne ke wajah kai hai,
kuchh zaroori hai aur kuchh ajeeb hai.
pyar ko pyar mile to kismat hai -
zindagi uske alawa bhi haseen hai!!