Calling a spade a spade

Rational discourse is standing on its last legs. After all, it is such a drag in front of impressive intellectual outbursts, especially when directed against somebody well-known. Calling oneself smart is cleverly understood to be in bad taste, but hey, there's an easy fix - calling others imbeciles is fine! It obviates the need to explicitly state how you're so much more evolved. Unfortunately, this quickest road to eternal smarts is gaining widespread traction. Who needs to do the hard work of understanding complicated policy implications, when calling Rahul Gandhi a pappu suffices, never mind your own secret failures at telling stare from stair.

 Let me state my disagreement with the extent of slamming Salman Khan, the bollywood actor, is facing for comparing his physically damaging routine while shooting for Sultan, a movie where he plays a wrestler, to rape. I'm no Salman Khan fan, but I'm a fan of trying to understand things in their context. Level-headedness and humility demand that one weigh their conclusions and metaphors before spewing them out to fawning followers. And that is also why I think the comparison Salman Khan drew was ill-advised. But the same preference for carefully weighing what you say is now surprisingly amiss, also, in those who castigate him in every possible way, for what was in all likelihood more a conversational gaffe than the all-out assault on women power it is now being portrayed to be.

 Intellectual heft, today, increasingly depends on identifying the prevailing fashions of the intelligentsia and magnifying that rhetoric in passably good prose. Thinking for oneself is a minority sport, and objectivity is for losers. By his admittedly imperfect usage, did Salman Khan really mean to "trivialize" rape, or did he mean to intensify his expression of the debilitating nature of his wrestling sequences? The answer to this question is not determined by morality or sentiment, but by plain old verbal comprehension. Yes, that boring thing that we only care about when preparing for CAT. Approaching it thus, Salman Khan used a simile - and similes don't have to be perfectly logical, or perfectly concordant. In a simile one often compares A to a more widely understood thing B, often to aggrandize the effect of A. In Hindi we refer to it as Atishyokti alankar - in English, I guess, one would call that hyperbole. As far as my comprehension serves me, in comparing his training/stunts to rape, he grossly over-aggrandized, and which I'm not defending. What I intend to bring forth, in fact, is that it was much more an aggrandizement (excessive, yes, and definitely unwarranted) of his stunts, than a downplaying or trivializing of rape. Efforts to understand and portray it as primarily the latter, in my opinion, distort the reality.

 Let me take the example of the talented singer Sona Mohapatra, of whom, unlike Salman Khan, I actually am a fan, and who took to social media recently to lambaste Salman Khan, calling him stupid, nasty, dangerous and an imbecile, for trivializing rape. Except that when you call a functioning individual an imbecile, you trivialize the hardships faced by the mentally challenged. "Ah, that's silly, you're twisting her intention." Well, maybe. So how about a song of hers she posted the very same day, titled qatl-e-aam, with its recurring "aap ki aankhon mein warna aaj qatl-e-aam hai". As heinous as rape obviously is, I'm sure qatl-e-aam, or mass murder, is just as bad. So is she trivializing murder when she compares it to some arbitrary dude's eyes, insensitive to all those whose loved ones have, in the long bloody history of time, been murdered?

 "Come on, now, you're making no sense - you're just pissed with Sona Mohapatra" you might be tempted to say at this point. And I would whole-heartedly agree - that the reasoning I provide can only be considered spite with Sona Mohapatra, not a cogent advocacy of victims of mass murders. I've already made up my mind on who I want to put down, and I'm stretching things way out of context to prove my point. Alas, that is precisely the point I've been trying to make.

 In a world full of politically-correct bandwagon-jumping, calling BS is a public good. Happy to do my part. Check her song out though, it is pretty awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vosWN0CkDP4&sns=em

On cliches

The trouble with cliches is not their content, the trouble is the fact that they're cliched, so the message passes you by without registering itself. The trouble is that you fail to really take notice of it even once because it is floated around hundreds of times. In other words, the trouble with cliches is nothing, the trouble is with you. Notice.

Time Series in R .. to be continued

library(quantmod)

SBUX <- auto.assign="F)</p" from="2012-1-1" getsymbols="" to="2012-12-31">
plot(SBUX$SBUX.Adjusted, main="SBUX Closing Price (adjusted) for 2012")

// Typically there are many things we might want to do in time series analysis
// *generate forecasts of future values (predictive distributions)
// *gain an understanding of the process itself

//Constructing Indicators
//how can a ts of past info be "transformed" into indicators useful for forecasting

//Standard ts models fit a process to the series, requiring the estimation of a few parameters

//Standard approach
//1. Plot the time series. There are a lot of features that are still most readilty identified by a human
//2. Transform original ts to a stationary ts
//(a) determine whether to apply boxcox/log transformation or not
//(b) check for trend, seasonality, sharp changes, outliers, etc then do appropriate transformation
//3. Fit a model to the stationary ts
//4. Disgnostic tests to check model is reasonable, if its not go back to step 2
//5. Generate forecasts (predictive distributions) for the model
//6. Invert the transformation made in step 2, get forecasts of original ts.

# Stationarity

//Weakly stationary ts if :
//Var(X(t))//E[X(t)]=mu for all t ---------------------------------(2)
//autocov(r,r+h)=Cov(X(r), X(r+h))= f(h) = autocov(h) --(3)

//Also (3) implies that Var(X(t)) is independent of t, that is, a constant. So (1) can be restated.

//Examples
//(1) White noise process WN(mu, SigmaSq) is stationary
//(2) Random Walk process X(t) = Summ(1,t) [WN(0,SigmaSq)] is NOT stationary
//(3) MA(1) process X(t) = WN(t) + theta*WN(t-1) is stationary
//(4) ARCH(1) process is stationary, actually ARCH(1) process is also a white noise process


acf(SBUX$SBUX.Adjusted)

Box.test(SBUX$SBUX.Adjusted,lag=10,type="Ljung-Box")

pacf(SBUX$SBUX.Adjusted)

//-----------------------------

//AR 1

//Stationarity of AR1. Stationary if |fi1| < 1

//use arima() to fit

plot(SBUX$SBUX.Adjusted)
Box.test(SBUX$SBUX.Adjusted,lag=10,type="Ljung-Box", fitdf=1) //fitdf=1 since AR(1), prevents overfitting
arima(SBUX$SBUX.Adjusted, order=c(1,0,0))

plot(diff(log(SBUX$SBUX.Adjusted))[-1])
Box.test(diff(log(SBUX$SBUX.Adjusted))[-1],lag=10,type="Ljung-Box", fitdf=1)
arima(diff(log(SBUX$SBUX.Adjusted))[-1], order=c(1,0,0))

//AR(p)

DGS3 <- auto.assign="F)</p" getsymbols="" src="FRED">DGS3<-last p="" years="">head(DGS3diff)
DGS3diff<-diff 1="" p="">DGS3diff<-dgs3diff diff="" is.na="" p="">
pacf(DGS3diff) #AR1 not appropriate as in AR1 lags 2,3.. shouldn't matter after accounting for lag 1
#In general in PACF plot for AR(p), shouldn't see significant numbers after lag p --- Important

#acf formula is hard for AR(p) but there is function ARMAacf
#see how the ACF and PACF for an AR(2) model with fi1=0.5 and fi2=-0.2 looks:
plot(0:10, ARMAacf(ar=c(0.5,-0.2), lag.max=10), type="b", pch=16) #ACF
plot(1:10, ARMAacf(ar=c(0.5,-0.2), lag.max=10, pacf=TRUE), type="b", pch=16)  #PACF

# using auto.arima() to fit.
# 1. argument max.p sets the largest value of p to consider, max allowed is 5.
# 2. to fit a pure AR(p) model, either use arima() or in auto.arima() specify max.q=0
# 3. ic="aic" or "bic", or "aicc" which is corrected AIC - used for model selction by auto.arima()
# 4. input data to this fn should be vector, not xts. Apply as.numeric()
# 5. stepwise=FALSE to be specified if you want exhaustive search
# 6. seasonal=FALSE if don't want to consider models with seasonal components (default)
# 7. argument max.q sets the largest value of q to consider, max allowed is 5.
# 8. d can be specified explictly (e.g. d=2) else it will determine itself (not preferred).


# Consider daily trading volume of MSFT for 2012, find first difference of series.
# what order AR is chosen with aicc?

# Answer

library(forecast)
MSFT <- auto.assign="F)</p" from="2012-1-1" getsymbols="" to="2012-12-31">MSFTVolumeDiff <- diff="" olume="" p="">auto.arima(as.numeric(MSFTVolumeDiff), max.p=6, ic="aicc")

//It fit a model with p=1 and q=1. In addition, mean parameter was found to be unnecessary.

//Stationarity of AR(p)
//Recall that root of a fn f(x) is value of x that makes f(x) equal 0.
//It can be shown that AR(p) is stationary if EVERY root of f(x) = 1 - Summ:n(1,p)[FI(n)*x^n]
//has absolute value greater than 1.
//To get the roots of f(x) shown above we can use in R, polyroot(c(1, -FI(1), -FI(2),...))

# for example, lets say an AR(2) with FI(1) -1.2074 and FI(2) -0.2237 is fit. Is it stationary?
polyroot(c(1,-1.2074,0.2237))
# both are greater than 1, but the first one is pretty close.
# Ruppert says, "since the roots are estimated with error, reason to suspect nonstationarity"

# Unit Root Tests
# These are hypothesis tests for stationarity
# the simplest one being Dickey-Fuller test - but useful only for AR(1)
# Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) is more commonly used: adf.test()

library(tseries)
adf.test(as.numeric(DGS3diff), alternative="s") #"s" for stationarity, "e" for explosive
#p-value of 0.01 suggests we can reject the null in favor of alternative, that is "stationary"

# Lets see what auto.arima fits on DGS3diff
auto.arima(as.numeric(DGS3diff), max.p=6, ic="aicc")
# It fit ARIMA(2,0,2) with some parameters. Can't use polyroot on it since it has MA component.

// MA, ARMA, ARIMA

# MA(q) process - Stationary, no correlation beyond lag q in ACF plot.

# Lets simulate MA(2) process data of length 250 with theta1=0.3 and theta2=-0.2 and sigmaSq=1
simdat <- arima.sim="" model="list(ma=c(0.3,-0.2))," n="250," sd="sqrt(1))</p">
# See if the simulated data is stationary by using ADF test
adf.test(as.numeric(simdat),alternative="s") #small p value suggests stationary data

# See if any correlation beyond lag 2 in ACF plot
acf(simdat) # no correlation beyond lag 2, as expected, since data was simulated from MA(2) process

# Let's fit a MA(2) model to this data (as if we didn't know it was simulated data from specified MA(2))
holdfit <- arima="" order="c(0,0,2))</p" simdat="">holdfit # returns an MA(2) with theta1 0.24, theta2 -0.16 and sigmaSq 0.88

# But the theta1 estimate has a std error - lets see the confidence interval for it
holdfit$coef[1] - 1.96*sqrt(holdfit$var.coef[1,1])
holdfit$coef[1] + 1.96*sqrt(holdfit$var.coef[1,1]) # 95% C.I for theta1 is (0.11,0.35)

#Ljung-Box Test (H1: "at least some correl at some lag") applied to residuals of the fit
Box.test(holdfit$residuals, fitdf=2, lag=20, type="Ljung-Box") #p not small enough to reject null-> no correl
acf(holdfit$residuals) # acf confirms box test result
qqnorm(holdfit$residuals) # normal probability plot.. need to make this work.
qqline(holdfit$residuals)

# Comparing acf from simulated data to acf from true process
acf(simdat, cex.axis=1.3,cex.lab=1.3,main="") # Sample ACF of simulated data
trueacf=ARMAacf(ma=c(0.3,-0.2), lag.max=30) # true ACF
points(0:30,trueacf, pch=16, col=2)
fitacf=ARMAacf(ma=holdfit$coef[1:2],lag.max=30) #ACF of the fitted model
points(0:30,fitacf, col=4)
legend(23,1,legend=c("True ACF","Fitted model ACF"), pch=c(16,1),col=c(2,4), xjust=1, cex=1.3)

# fitting ARIMA

DTWEXM <- auto.assign="F)" dollar="" getsymbols="" index="" p="" src="FRED" trade-weighted="">DTWEXM <- dtwexm="" p="">plot(DTWEXM) # clearly not stationary
plot(diff(DTWEXM,1,1)) #diff(vec,n,d) is lag n difference (X(t)-X(t-n)) applied d times #now looks stationary
plot(diff(DTWEXM,1,2)) #2nd (lag-1) differences .. this too looks stationary.

# We want smallest d that's good enough
adf.test(as.numeric(diff(DTWEXM,1,1)[!is.na(diff(DTWEXM,1,1))]), alternative="s")
adf.test(as.numeric(diff(DTWEXM,1,2)[!is.na(diff(DTWEXM,1,2))]), alternative="s")
# Looks like 1st differencing was sufficient, so d=1

# REVISION: using auto.arima() to fit.
# 1. argument max.p sets the largest value of p to consider, max allowed is 5.
# 2. to fit a pure AR(p) model, either use arima() or in auto.arima() specify max.q=0
# 3. ic="aic" or "bic", or "aicc" which is corrected AIC - used for model selction by auto.arima()
# 4. input data to this fn should be vector, not xts. Apply as.numeric()
# 5. stepwise=FALSE to be specified if you want exhaustive search
# 6. seasonal=FALSE if don't want to consider models with seasonal components (default)
# 7. argument max.q sets the largest value of q to consider, max allowed is 5.
# 8. d can be specified explictly (e.g. d=2) else it will determine itself (not preferred).
# 9. approx=F tso that true maximum likelihood estimates are found

fitted_model<-auto .arima="" a="" arima="" as.numeric="" d="1," fit="" ic="aic" it.="" it="" p="" see="" that="" to="" we="">
#---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Forecasting

# REVISION: Standard approach
//1. Plot the time series. There are a lot of features that are still most readilty identified by a human
//2. Transform original ts to a stationary ts
//(a) determine whether to apply boxcox/log transformation or not
//(b) check for trend, seasonality, sharp changes, outliers, etc then do appropriate transformation
//3. Fit a model to the stationary ts
//4. Disgnostic tests to check model is reasonable, if its not go back to step 2
//5. Generate forecasts (predictive distributions) for the model
//6. Invert the transformation made in step 2, get forecasts of original ts.

k=3 # number of future predictions
# Rem that holdfit was the model fitted to MA(2) simulated values
next_k_preds <-predict holdfit="" n.ahead="k)</p">
# Lets do another example

AAA <- auto.assign="F," getsymbols="" p="" src="FRED">AAA <- aaa="" p="">
plot(AAA) # Clearly not stationary, there is a trend
plot(diff(AAA)) # looks like trend has been removed, could be stationary
adf.test(as.numeric(diff(AAA)[-1]),alt="s") # small p value suggests stationary
holdfit <- a="" approx="F)" arima="" as.numeric="" auto.arima="" d="1," fits="" it="" p="" process="">
#diagnostic tests
Box.test(holdfit$residuals, fitdf=1, lag=10, type="Ljung-Box") #high p-value, fail to reject null: no correl
acf(holdfit$residuals)# suggests no serial correlation among residuals
pacf(holdfit$residuals)# suggests no serial conditional correlation among residuals
plot(holdfit$residuals) # looks good

#generate forecasts
holdpreds <- 6="" also="" care="" holdfit="" inverting="" n.ahead="6)" note="" of="" p="" predict="" r="" step="" takes="" that="" the="" transformation="">holdpreds

#--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Seasonality

HOUSTNSA <- auto.assign="F)</p" getsymbols="" src="FRED">HOUSTNSA <- houstnsa="" p="">plot(HOUSTNSA, ylab="Housing Starts (thousands of units)")

# We notice that there are trends not stationary
# We also notice seasonality
acf(HOUSTNSA) # confirms seasonality, peaks every 12 lags

plot(diff(HOUSTNSA)[-1]) #this removes the trend, but seasonality remains acf(diff(HOUSTNSA)[-1])
plot(diff(HOUSTNSA, 12,1)) #this removes seasonality but trends remain. (seasonally adjusted)
plot(diff(diff(HOUSTNSA, 12,1))) # this removes both and should be good. ------------(A)
# we can fit ARMA to it, but in practice this turns out to not yield models with sufficient flexibility

# Multiplicative ARIMA models for accomodating seasonality (preferred)
# ARIMA((p,d,q)*(P,D,Q)s) where s is the period of seasonality (12 for a year, for example)
# Think of it as fitting ARIMA(p,d,q) on non-seasonal component and ARIMA(P,D,Q) on seasonal component of ts.
# This multiplicative ARIMA model is fitted upon the ts obtained in (A) above
#(In R you needn't do the differencings first)

# Fitting a multiplicative ARIMA model

# METHOD 1: using arima() fitting a ARIMA((1,1,1)*(1,1,0)12) to the housing data again.
holdfit1 <- arima="" order="c(1,1,1)," period="12))</p" seasonal="list(order=c(1,1,0),">
# METHOD 1: using auto.arima()

# s is typically already known, or estimated exploring the ACF, not something auto.arima() finds.
# ts object fed to auto.arima should already be in a form that specifies the period of the series, i.e. s

HOUSts<-ts an="" creates="" frequency="12)" function="" not="" object="" p="" r="" series="" the="" time="" ts="" xts=""># d, D should always be specified yourself based on inspection of series, although auto.arima can search for it
holdfit2<-auto .arima="" d="1,D=1,approx=F)</p" ts="">
# We got a better (smaller) aic than that in the totally self-specified arima() model holdfit1.

# Use it for forecasting now.
holdpreds <- holdfit2="" n.ahead="24)</p" predict="">plot(HOUSts, xlab="Year", xlim=c(0,22))
lines(holdpreds$pred,col=2)
lines(holdpreds$pred + (1.96*holdpreds$se), col=2, lty=2)
lines(holdpreds$pred - (1.96*holdpreds$se), col=2, lty=2)

#---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Heteroskedasticity

#---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# ARFIMA models

#---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Revisiting Regression

# One key assumption in regression was that errors iid normal, i.e, uncorrelated with const variance
holdlm=lm(HOUSts~sqrt(HOUSts)) # just some random regression

# In a time series regression test whether they are really uncorrelated makes sense to see ACF of residuals
acf(holdlm$residuals, lag.max=10)

# Another way is the durbin-watson hypothesis test, made specifically to test serial correl in a linear model
# H0: there is no correlation. If small p-value, reject the null: there is correlation.
library(car)
durbinWatsonTest(holdlm,10)

# DW suffers from the same multiple testing problem as acf. Can use Ljung-Box on holdlm$residuals, if needed.
# In our example we can see that errors ARE correlated.

# How to deal with this problem?
# 1. might want to log transform the predictor or response variable or both in the linear model
# 2. If significant serial correlation, fit an ARIMA(p,d,q) process in place of model error, instead of WN.

# Example. Response var is 3-year tsy rate, predictor var is 1-yr tsy-rate.
OneYearTreas <- auto.assign="F)</p" getsymbols="" src="FRED">ThreeYearTreas<-getsymbols auto.assign="F)</p" src="FRED">
holdfit1 <- hreeyeartreas="" lm="" oneyeartreas="" p="">holdfit2 <- arima="" hreeyeartreas="" order="c(1,1,1)," xreg="OneYearTreas)</p">holdfit3 <- as.numeric="" auto.arima="" d="1)</p" hreeyeartreas="" xreg="as.numeric(OneYearTreas),">acf(holdfit3$residuals)

# This solves the problem of serial correlation. What about non-constant variance?
# One way is model the errors as GARCH. Unfortunately not straightforward like with ARIMA above. Follow steps:
#1. Fit a regular lm model.
#2. Fit a time series model to the residuals  from model fit above.
#3. Refit the model using weighted least squares, weights being reciprocals of conditional variances from step2
#   Conditional variance from garchFit() are found as: holdgarchfit@sigma.t
#   weights = 1/(holdfit@sigma.t^2)
# Do it yourself.

#----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These Economists

Time for some armchair speculation. Since Subramanian Swamy, being an Econ PhD from Harvard and one-time professor there, couldn't possibly be as ignorant about Economics as his letter to the PMO suggests he is, he is most probably being manipulative, in my opinion. If real world politics is as smart as 'House of Cards' and 'The West Wing' would have us believe, then it might be a tactic to elicit even louder public support for Rajan, and make keeping him for another term easier for the government, in the face of opposition from factions of business that the government can't openly defy. But my theory 2 is that the real world is not American television, and that Swamy is a bit of an egomaniac and a little dismayed in his old age that he is not more widely thought of as the Econ genius he is inside his own head, so he takes any opportunity he gets to attack others who are thought of in that way. In the past, he has slandered Amartya Sen as merely a Gandhi family flatterer, and now, it's Raghuram Rajan's turn.

Vices of reading a lot

A vast majority of what you read in facebook statuses, online articles, quora answers, have nothing new to say to you. You see cliches everywhere - things that have been beaten down to death in your head, and evoke little human emotion or 'aha' in you. Makes you generally undemonstrative.

In most debates, you are intimate with the cogent arguments of both sides, so you're rarely find yourself taking a stand with one side or the other, because you see how both have some great points and also how both are willfully or ignorantly blind to the great points of the other side.

Reading a lot is bad for the elasticity of your brain, and hampers genesis of creative ideas, especially if you read a lot on the same topic, if you specialize. If you read eclectically, this vice is limited.

Reading takes away from time you could spend outdoors, being active in the real world. And it takes away a lot - it is one of the most time consuming activities. The only respite here is if you're out in the real world a lot, you know that the real world is a little over-rated.

Reading ingrains behavioral biases in subtle ways that you have to always consciously guard yourself against, which takes effort.

Just another note to self

Always keep some chocolate at home.

Go fucking work

I am again in the midst of too much hectic. Time to put your head down and work, than worry and be daunted by how much there is to do and how improbable it will get done.

For others in the same situation as me, here's a nifty chrome extension. Using this app, you can choose the websites that are a time suck for you, and then when you unconsciously open a new tab and hit those websites again out of habit, what will open instead is a page that will say, in big bold letters, "Go Fucking Work". Pretty cool, no?

The link to the extension is below. Don't be offended by the colorful language you see on the link, because, sometimes, you can either give a fuck about language, or about getting shit done.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/go-fucking-work/hibmkkpfegfiinilnlabbfnjcopdiiig/related?hl=en

chrome-extension://hibmkkpfegfiinilnlabbfnjcopdiiig/options.html

Being Vegan 2

It is the fourth day of being a vegan now, and I have a little bit to report. It is true that with a vegan diet, I feel a lot lighter. I don't mean this in the kgs and pounds sense, but in the way you feel lying down, sitting, standing, climbing the stairs and moving about. There is a lightness for sure; whether it is a direct consequence of the vegan diet, or comes from the little yoga I've been doing, I can't be sure.

I also suffer from a bit of chronic cold in my nose. I do have a swollen cyst in my nose that was diagnosed long ago, but doctors both in the US and in India have left it to me to decide whether I want it operated: "If you can live with it, it's OK to leave it as it is because it won't morph into anything more dangerous plus the surgery is delicate, but if it's too much of a trouble, we can operate it". I've obviously chosen not to be operated upon, but it is definitely a frustrating thing, physically, to live with a bit of a blocked nose all the time. Anyhow, my nose has been troubling me a lot less the last 4 days, so that's good.

Outside of wellness, I've found a few jugaad ways to eat vegan and not feel like I'm torturing my tongue. That includes a few jugaad recipes; and while I won't go into the specifics, I'll just say sprinkling lemon juice, some black pepper powder, and some pudina powder, makes most things tastier.

Still, it's too early to come to any conclusions. But prima facie, things look good.

Being Vegan

I turned vegan yesterday. I'm going to try it for 21 days, and see if I feel any different. If it is half as good as Dr. Neal Barnard promises it is, maybe I'll stay vegan, otherwise I'll go back to being a vegetarian, which, incidentally, I had turned into from my earlier non-vegetarian self in the summer of last year. Turning vegetarian was not so much a health decision, but this one is. So far, anyway. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves already.

Bloggers

Most realized that it was a long route to a non destination, and slipped away, wisely, in what were still, from where I see it, early days. Others found love. Yet others, more adept at staying with the times, took to twitter. Some of the old fellows, who I am still in one kind or another of touch with, remember it fondly, nostalgically, as if it belonged to another era, now extinct. When I remind them they needn't be wistful, that they can restart today if they miss its charms, they laugh. Some laughs, I just never understand, and I tell them, ingenuously, that I'm still at it. What follows is an expression of admiration, with a tinge of suspicion that you can't miss, and, once in a while, a promise!  The first few times, I bought in on the promises, but now I know what to make of them. They are the promises of small-talk, those adornments that make the mundane memorable, even if briefly.

I wanted to be quiet, so I guess I still have some way to go.

Day 119

I did write posts on days 114 and 115 which I never could post for internet reasons, but I will be posting them tonight. For today, there's not a whole lot to say. I have an important work day on the 12th of May, similar to the one in January from which I had put a picture up on the blog. I do think I'll put a picture up from this time as well, unless I'm in a really bad place after the event, or, if I'm looking shabby. Soon after that day, I've taken a couple of days off adjacent to a weekend to go to San Fransisco, just to chill out. This sounds like the kind of thing which if I read someone else write a few years ago I would have concluded he's a wierdo, if not a full scale asshole. But how things are, is how they are.

I think I have an unhealthy capacity for self-reflection, and continually run an internal feedback loop. The main goal of the feedback loop is to become a more able, more helpful, and healthier person tomorrow, but the by-products of the loop are revised views of the same, unchanging past, and revised views of my past selves. One of the consequences has been a revised view of the role and importance of relationships. While last year I believed that relationships, especially romantic, are an indispensable part of personal growth, I am not so sure anymore. I still hold that relationships goad you on to become better, but my newly acquired conviction is that they goad you on to become better is certain set ways, and inhibit exploration of the infinite other unseen dimensions, an exploration that is as necessary in liberating you as it is rare. Note that I merely use the word inhibit, and not something stronger like cease, because of course it is still possible, only more unlikely.

In another news, I've decided to work out intensely until my CFA exam on June 5, just to do something counter-intuitive. Through late 14 and early 2015, I used to work out a lot, both cardio and strength, and then sometime in late April last year (yes, exactly 1 year ago) I stoppped, because I had to dedicate myself to preparing for the CFA exam a month away and who has the time to waste on working out, or so the warped reasoning went. It is characteristic of me to skip even showers, let alone work outs, in the days of intense preparation preceding exams. Part of the reason is I start very late, but that's only part of the reason. The bigger part, I believe, is that I convice myself that by skipping this and that I am somehow being more "serious" about the exam. But of course that is self-fooling hogwash, the kind that we realize is bullshit and continue to subscribe to all the same. So, to get out of this self-fooling tendency, primarily, I've decided that in the 35-40 days left before the exam, I will not only be not skipping workouts and showers, I'll infact be doing more of it. More exercise, more showers, ironing my clothes everyday - basically everything I would have ordinarily avoided I will amplify. Let's see how this experiment goes.

Day 113

Today was an odd day. I ate a lot as soon as I woke up. Like, a lot.

Something has thrown me off balance a little bit. I don't know if it is the incessant, unnecessary hullabaloo in my family surrounding getting me married, or, whether it is the seeping realization that my mom is clinically depressed, or whether it is something more endogenous. I got myself steeped in eastern spirituality and meditation last year, and had finally come to a state of balance that was not so transitory. I had thought it was for real, not a fluke peacefulness that hits you intermittently one way or the other. I still hold that it was, for the balance did last me fairly long, but maybe I had overestimated its longevity when I naively assumed it will last my lifetime. There were signs of it going astray in January, but I was able to quickly set it right before giving imbalance a chance to set in more solidly, and then it was back to good times. Besides, I took on so much work back then that there was little time for peacelessness. But the trip to India, it changed something.

Now I'm back, and I'm going to try to salvage the project that had begun last year from disintegration, and hopefully it'll work. Maybe my impatience to make it work is the thing coming in the way of making it work.

A fair bit of the day is yet to go, but I'm posting already. It's not as though something mind-blowing is going to happen, anyway.

Day 112

My sleep cycle has been a little twisted since I came back. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a jetlag, though. I sleep at around 9 and wake up at 4 AM. For some people who do everything by the book, these might even be perfect sleeping hours. For me, it's just a consequence of having moved from India. In any case, I seem to like it. Maybe if I woke up at 5 instead of 4 I'd like it even better, because at 4 it's dark so I can't really head out right away. I wait an hour (how do I wait? I surf facebook and quora, reply to emails and messages, watch the youtube videos of my subscriptions. Yes, how I wait is pretty uninspiring) and then get my camera and walk out into the breezy, chirpy spring mornings that bless us here at Princeton these days. There's a good chance of running into the most unique, colourful birds, even though getting a picture of them is challenging all the same. But there are squirrels out aplenty even if you miss the special birds, and they're guaranteed fun. They're better captured on video than in pictures, but I don't make videos of them, because they are best captured by the naked eye, not by eyes behind lenses. I've loved squirrels since back when I used to go to morning walks with my grandfather in the very early nineties. When I first moved to the US, I thought gosh the squirrels in the US are so big, no no no. But it's just a matter of getting used to them and then they're fantastic again, I guess, because on my trip to India earlier this month, I was equally surprised by how little India's squirrels were. Other than this, I'm particularly fond of American spring, when the flowers start budding and flood the trees, and the ground starts turning lush, lustrous green, and the sun is out just the right amount - not too hot, just sunny enough to help you smile like a fool. If I had my way, I'd lie in a park near my house from sunrise to sunset - standing up only to play cricket in the evening and for going up to the taps to drink water. But, I have to go to work. Which is also cool. Being employed is pretty cool. I say so because I've known the contrary, and it sucked like a miele vacuum cleaner.

Maybe I'll put some pictures up one of these days, but most probably I won't. I don't want to promise more than I can deliver, since that's a habit I've got to kick.

I don't know what else to say. I'm getting kind of bored of the whole blogging thing, and to a large extent I've been continuing only because I decided to do this at the beginning of the year. I'm unsure how long my obedience to myself will last, for the price of disobedience is pretty small when you're as close to your master as I am to me. I guess now I'm just droning on, so I'll go.

Day 110

I don't know what I'm doing with my life.

Sisyphean wish

I have sought you for years.
And now if you'd yield,
It'd be of great value.
And if you don't,
invaluable.

On my mysterious liking for Mad Men

Mad Men is one of my favorite TV shows, and I don't even know why. It doesn't keep you on the edge of your seat the way Breaking Bad does. It does not betray the caustic, clever brilliance of House. It has not the comic genius that makes the commonplace become the source of everyday laughter and joy for your soul, like The Office has.  In fact, I can only talk of Mad Men in terms of all the things it is not, than the things it is. Because of what it is I have little clue.

Many of its episodes just linger, like life, without a set goal or aim. Like an afternoon spent without knowing what to do or who to call.

Unlike my other favorite shows, which I watch with rapt attention whenever I watch them, with Mad Men I often find myself drifting away, zoning out, and realizing it 10 minutes later, at which point I scroll back to wherever I last was with the show, and watch again. Reviewers of the show tell us that it is about the feminist movement, about the changing social mores in the 1960s USA, but I've never bought it. I like the show because it doesn't pretend to know any answers, propose any theories. Because it is interested in different kinds of people, its characters, without painting with a heavy hand exactly how their stories should look and be interpreted. Because it is more interested in knowing than in telling. I like the show because it has the spirit of someone who knows they do not know.

Don Draper, the lead character of the show, is one of my favorite TV characters. Media reports extensively on his looks, his womanizing habits, his affairs, as though that is what Don Draper is about. Don Draper, if you ask me, is about trying to feel meaningful the possibly meaningless, about trying to act like stuff matters, day in and day out, when he doesn't know if it does. And that is why I like this character. 

Mad Men is a show I really like and never recommend to others, not only because I'm not sure they'd like it, but also because I'm not sure what I could say to recommend it convincingly. My feelings about Mad Men are very similar to my feelings about John Banville, the novelist.

Day 108

It's already day 109, woah! Days have a way of passing you by like credit card bills, furtively, smugly furtively.

I came back to the US in the wee hours of the morning today, and spent the day chatting and watching TV and driving about and eating with my brother. It was like we were doing all of these things simultaneously, all of that time. Although of course we weren't.

I didn't feel any heaviness of heart while leaving India, the way I used to feel before. I don't know, maybe I don't want to say much other than saying that I don't want to say much.

There's the CFA Level 3 exam in the first week of June, for which I'll start studying in a few days. Probably only next week.

And I've got to start running and playing a little bit from today, after gorging on everything edible with reckless abandon for 21 days.

Delhi 2016

I am in your town again,
which was once mine too,
until you, happened.

Now there are no towns that I call my own,
there are towns where I work, where I'd grown,
there are towns of my friends, of my mother.
But not mine, I go from one refuge to another.

Don't get me wrong, I love them all.
I love them, but they're not mine.
Towns are like people, and that's fine.

I'm in your town now, but I don't feel its beat.
I do probability for a living, and yet, naively, I
expect you on every once-friendly street.
Faces that resemble yours in faint ways, say 'Hi',
as they see me solving their contours, and that's also sweet.

Day 77

Coffee is a big part of American culture, sort of like tea in India. Except that coffee in America tastes like shite. The fact that it's the most awfully tasting coffee I've had anywhere (granted the only other places I've drank coffee are Toronto, Brussels, Vienna and maybe 7-8 towns in India) makes it all the more remarkable that it is celebrated as much as it is. But then, Donald Trump is on a winning streak as well.

I slept early yesterday (for fear of having to drink that coffee to stay awake, perhaps?) when I shouldn't have slept at all. I do that every now and again, I think it's an escapist tendency. By way of analogy, it is not too different from laughing at a question paper you know will leave you with a Fail. In the spectrum of performance anxiety, both extremes are dangerous -- escapist and over-anxious -- and I think I tilt a wee bit towards the former.

I traveled to India last March and it was much fun. I'm not one for celebrating my birthday, but my parents wanted to, and it drew a lot of my relatives and cousins and everyone looked good and was chirpy. It is eerie what a difference a year can make. Compared to last year's visit, my grandfather, one chachaji and one mausaji aren't around now. Another mamaji, and a cousin sister, are now very ill. Another previously high-flying uncle has gone bankrupt and am told is battling severe depression. My closest chachaji, who has for all intents and purposes actually always been a real elder brother to me, his business isn't doing well either, to put it mildly.

My current trip to India, due in 8 days, will also find me 20 pounds heavier than my last one, which limits my possibilities in flirting with hypothetical random girls in hypothetical wedding functions I might hypothetically attend.

Doors

Here, this is the day
of many knocks
on your door.
I made sure
that I have locks
on my doors today.

Day 76

The thing that halted my blogging isn't over until the 20th, but I have resumed already. I am not sure that I will be able to complete what I set out to, which is not to say that I won't continue to try. My mom asks me on the phone if I will be able to finish the thing off in time, and I say "I don't know". My mom knows that I don't say yes, unless I am sure.

She has asked me over the years if I would qualify for this college, secure that job, pass that exam, and she knows that I rarely said that I would, even when I did end up passing those hurdles. It is not the case that I decide to be conservative for fear of making a fool of myself. 'How would it be if I turn out to be wrong' is never at play. What is at play is only saying things I can also say to myself without feeling like I'm fooling myself (and I am the easiest person for me to fool).

Last year when mummy came to stay with me for the summer, it was the happiest period of my life in many, many years. We weren't having rollicking fun, but I suppose I've outgrown the charms of rollicking fun some time ago. I used to take her to the usual places - temples, Gita discourses, and, of course, shopping, which, with her, is invariably grocery shopping. I loved it all, which I guess doesn't bode well for my romantic success with girls my age, who, I'm told, hate bloody mumma's boys.

That aside, grocery shopping reminds me of a particular trend that I find a little annoying, although perhaps no one shares my opinion on this. I'm all for using technology to make our lives easier (in fact, what I've been working on fits the description) but when I see one startup after another making apps to get your groceries to you, I have to stop and wonder: where are we going?

Call me a lunatic, but grocery shopping, I think, is one of those integral parts of life that make us who we are. So much of my growing up days was sometimes being excited about grocery shopping because I'd secretly sneak in that other thing I also want, and sometimes being so unwilling to go for it because its such a chore and "I have more important things to do" but then getting over myself and doing it anyway. And then there is the time when you're actually getting stuff, waiting in lines, waiting for your turn, being careful about discriminating between two similar looking but significantly different products, learning how 1000 rupees don't go a long way and altering one shampoo for another as a last minute decision, and so on. Grocery shopping was at least as formative for me, if not wildly more, than reading Camus, Frankl, Wallace and Nida Fazli combined.

Now I've grown up, but grocery shopping is still a part of life I don't want to relegate to an app. It has its value for adults, as it brings us to appreciate and engage with the daily, the nondescript, the commonplace, which is what real life is, once you get past the concoctions of grandiosity. It is one thing to use apps to ease our lives, and it is another to invite them to substitute our lives. For this reason, and I hate to say this, those of you making grocery-delivery apps, I hope you don't succeed.

Evergreen song......

My loving grandfather passed away today.

Kanhaiya Kumar is not my hero. It takes a lot more than good oratory to get that spot.

I will continue this post later, as I get more time. Will try to finish it over a month or two.

Quick update

I am well aware that I'm shamelessly ignoring my resolution to post every day. It is just because I've been working on another thing; and if it didn't require so much time that blogging would feel like "wasting time that's better spent elsewhere", I would definitely try and post every day. It is what it is.

I'd been teaching a couple of Gurgaon back office guys some quantitative finance and data programming on my own time, and given that I've started doing this other thing, I've had to abandon that too. So yes, that's another thing I've get back to when I can.

This other thing that I refer to is a software project I've to work on and try to finish by a deadline. It's not related to my career, and I likely won't be making any money from it either (not that I make any money from blogging or from teaching Gurgaon folks in the evenings) but I thought that it would force me to learn something new in a couple of weeks which one would otherwise take, I don't know, 6 months or something to learn. I guess that makes it worth the plunge. And because it was about learning, it was able to push to the backseat, even if probably temporarily, both blogging and teaching, which at some level, are, to me, also about learning (although these 2 are about re-learning, or consolidating my learning, as opposed to fresh learning).

The third thing that it has unseated is my attempts to stay fit and active, and that part I'm not so unequivocally OK with. Let's see, I already have posted something, maybe I'll go to the gym too today, even if only for a short bit.

Yeah, and I booked my tickets to India for late next month, and I'm pretty excited about that too. I love Delhi, I love walking on gullies I've grown up wandering aimlessly on, going to shops I've stopped daily at for banta drinks after cricket filled evenings, and being around people who've nurtured me with love and fondness and forbidding amounts of mind corrupting, tongue seducing, tasty food.

One of life's big milestones

is to forgive someone who isn't sorry and, what else, doesn't need your forgiveness.

It's a pretty hard thing to do, it needs character and forces you to build character to be able to do it. But in the end it is worth it, and you feel grateful for it.

Day 24

I failed to update the blog for several days in a row as I was not feeling well. But I'm better now and so will resume the exercise, and hopefully starting tomorrow also study more and have more to report in my daily posts. But for today, I have no such productive work to report.

I've been thinking lately of ways to return to India. When I first moved here, I was pretty clear I wanted to come back. In five years, I told everyone, I'll be back. It's been three and a half years now, and I'm beginning to think how best to script the return. What will I do once I'm back there? 

One option that figures highly in my mind is to run a book shop. Why? Basically because I can see myself doing that for the long haul, without worrying too much about why I'm doing this. That's not entirely true though - there is, if I be totally honest, a latent conceit of intelligence in me, that makes me ask this question to myself a lot: "you could have done this with far less intelligence and skills than you possess, so aren't you wasting your talents doing this?" Partly, it is true, for running a bookshop needs not great smarts, but mostly, it is just conceited, for I imagine I am so much more intelligent. I have to confess I do harbor these ideas, even if somewhere I know they are crazy. All said, I can still see myself doing that for a long time, just because I think I enjoy being surrounded by books. In any case, if I do decide to follow it, I still have to save aggressively over the next couple of years to be able to set it up.

Another option is to work in the social sector. That work can be meaningful, yes, so that box is checked, and there is enough scope to be creative so that you're not left thinking you're doing dumb work. The rub here is it pays peanuts. So either I save so much over the next one and a half years, that I'll get by fine anyway, or do it in a way that pays enough for me to afford rent and a car and petrol, other than of course food and AC. How how how.

The third option is to go back and work for some investment bank in Mumbai or Bangalore - money will be decent, yes - but it would score so low on the meaningfulness front that I would be sure to question the point of moving back. If I had to do this anyway, why wouldn't I do this in the US while taking in much more money, with much better convenience of daily living, and much higher opportunities for making it big? So yeah, this option is pretty much ruled out.

A fourth option is to work on a start-up. India is growing, I have the coding skills, some ideas, so why not try it out. The only rub here is the risk of losing everything accumulated thus far. This option is exciting, but is it too late? I'm almost 30, will probably add dependents pretty soon, so do I want to take the risk? In a way, this goes back to the social sector option - as long as I'm able to save a fortune in the next couple of years, maybe I can do that, but again, how how how.

In the end, every option will have its share of rubs, and it will come down to which of the rubs I'm willing to take for the upside bearing those rubs might afford. I think about it everyday. Maybe one day soon I'll wake up with the answer. Till then, one thing seems clear: for as long as I am here, I need to earn aggressively, and I need to save more.

Shadow

You always praised my memory, as I sat
bloated, and yearned for more of that.
I wish now that you had praised my heart,
and in yearning, I may have learned the art
of loving, not fueled and fooled by ego;
of being at home, wherever we go.
But what choice did you have in the matter?
I gave you no chance to praise the latter.
I worked for more of what I got
(I can not lie, I loved it a lot).
For years apart, it's clear as hell
that I had memorized you well.

[January 16, 2016 | Princeton]

Soulicitation

Call me some time. It will very likely be awkward, yes,

but just a little. Tell me what work is like, what you do,

and I'll respond with measured interest, no more no less,

crack appropriate jokes - some old ones, but mostly new.

Important things hogged all attention, and time has shot.

Yesterday, I loved your taste, and you loved Wodehouse

and Rumi, who have grown on me, and Eliot, who has not.

Recommend a book, maybe, or stuff on the web to browse?

So much of life is hard work, and planning for tomorrow,

and that may be how it ought to be, by jove, for all I care!

But of that precious ticking time, I'd really like to borrow

a tiny bit of listening to any words you'd like to spare.

[November 30, 2015 | New York City]

Day 15

I'm a little tired tonight. It was a long day, and quite unremarkable.

I did not read any book today, but just the poems I've written in the last 11 years on my blog. I expected to be embarrassed, as I usually am by my previous deeds, but actually ended up feeling pleasantly surprised. Most of them, I think, were certainly better than what I can manage today.

That's it for today, really.

Day 14

Today was the annual review and bonus day. Although mine was nothing stellar and certainly below what I would have guessed it to be a priori, I got a sense that it was maybe better than my teammates, because they all looked pretty pissed off and were in a palpably bad mood through the day (some unpleasant emails were written, apparently). Alternately, it could be, although unlikely, that I am just stupid and therefore not protesting enough. Either way works for me.

Part of me wished that I knew Mandarin, to really know what people in the team were discussing (yes, they switched to Mandarin for today), but part of me is really happy I don't. It leaves me free, and limits just how unnecessarily tense I could possibly get. I personally think it is quite telling that year after year, this day of very possibly the biggest single cash inflow to your bank account that you'll see that year, coincides with the day you're especially unhappy and overly hostile.

On day 2, I wrote about the awesomeness of going to have a tea, after doing it for the first time. I now think much of the awesomeness was about it having been the first time, because I've done it four more times since, and it is only half as awesome now. It's a busy place that I go to, so a lot of what I enjoy is people-watching, more so because it is an Indian jaunt and I see a lot of Indians. Yes, the masala chai is very good too. They also serve vada pav, which I have every alternate time I'm there, and while it is nothing compared to the those served outside Siddhivinayak temple, or those outside Gokul's, or even Kanjurmarg's Balaji vadapav, let me not recall all that and get wistfully greedy. What they have here is good enough for me to be unable to resist it for long enough.

Over the last few months, I've listened with rapt attention to whatever Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev had to say. I'd been skeptical of Spiritual gurus before, but what he was professing made a lot of sense to me. In fact, let me not understate. It had a great impact on me, his lectures accessed a part of me I had lost access to as I had grown older. In a way, they helped me reconnect with the purer, happier parts of me. So let me not belabour how much gratitude and respect I have for him, because the more I write the more susceptible I am to an inaccurate depiction of it.

For this reason, it was hard for me to write the following comments on one of his recent videos. I'll paste the video as well as my comment here, and on this occasion I would invite any readers of my blog to share their views on the video and my comment. It was a big step for me, challenging the views of someone whose wisdom and intellect I deeply respect and consider far above my own, so I'm naturally a little iffy.

So here's the video:

And here's my comment:

"I've learned a lot from Sadhguru but I have to differ here.
One, the fact that slaughter of cows for export of beef is continuing is not enough reason to not be worried about animal cruelty in Jallikattu. This argument is akin to saying that if you can't climb the Everest yet, don't climb the hill near your house. Real progress is a step by step process, you fight for what you can get when you can get it, and then try for more. Two, whatever valour might be for a man or beauty for a woman, it is not bigger than what dignity and safety is for an animal, another 'piece of life', as we might call them. Besides, valour doesn't cease to exist because you can't express it by toying with an animal. Three, the point about no animal ever having died in this game even as men have died during it is not a valid defence (even if we assume it is a fact) for the simple reason that men who died during it made the 'conscious' decision to play this game, while the bulls that are injured (the videos I've seen of the game being played bear this out amply) did not choose this, they were forced to. I've learned from Sadhguru how what you do consciously is beautiful, while that which is not lacks any pleasantness, so I was surprised by this omission. I've learned a lot from Sadhguru and will continue to do so, but I think that I differ on this and just want to express what I really feel. Perhaps it seemed as important to me as valour is to men."

Thanks.

Day 13

I finally got some studying flow going today. Read a couple of papers on rates, inflation and unemployment by Cochrane and Noah Smith, and a few articles by various economists, of which I particularly liked this one, by our RBI governor Raghuram Rajan. Not sure if I'm ready to fill a post with my own thoughts; it would  be wrong for me to claim support to any one among this cluster of diverging views that modern day macroeconomics has become, before I dig some data to convince myself.

I got ready for bed a couple of hours ago, and just read 50 odd pages from "The Road to Character". The profile of Frances Perkins is great and left me impressed with the writing as well as with Frances Perkins herself. I've always believed that the true import of any reading is if at the end of reading you know something you did not read. Along those lines, one takeaway for me that was not alluded to in the book, was that even for worthy virtues such as modesty, kindness - it is much better to have that virtue be conscious rather than compulsive. When it is compulsive, it is easy to lose all sense of proportion, of balance. And of course we all know how too much of a good thing can be bad.

Then there was a profile of Dwight Eisenhower. I'll be honest, he did not appeal to me as anything extraordinary. Peculiar, original, yes. Extraordinary, no. Anyway, that's just what I thought.

My diet is a mess, and has been for a while because I don't feel like cooking, and eating out everyday is not that great. I've got to fix it soon, but how, how, how. Off to sleep.

Day 12

Home from work, I resumed reading 'The Road to Character' by David Brooks, and I have to say, it is a very fulfilling, nourishing book. I'm still reading that book, and looking forward to going back to it after posting this entry.

What else, I had a big dinner today. It was one of those "I'll eat heavy today because anyway I'm going to lead a spartan life from tomorrow until time's end" days. Only such days have been coming a little too frequently these days.

Day 11

So I did watch The Revenant today, right after work. Inarritu and DiCaprio, among several others, have to be credited for going to extremes to bring their movie out with a level of purity that astounds. There are some great performances, and if you go watch the film watch it for the performances, and for the moments where it forces you to examine a past human life, which was a life in the pursuit of survival, just like the animals yet so indelibly like humans still. At the level of plot, it may be called a revenge movie, but if you must watch the movie at the level of plot, you might as well skip it.

After the movie I stepped into the Barnes and Noble next door, after maybe a couple of years, and was looking at those elegantly handmade leather-bound notebooks with recycled paper. When I was new to the US and first saw those, I was quite enamoured by them. I remember thinking how I could've pleased my then girlfriend so much if I gifted her one of those, but I ended up not buying anything because I was pretty broke. It is just as well, because we broke up shortly after and if I had bought them I would've had to keep these beautiful things on my table and never write on them.

I picked up "The Road to Character" by David Brooks from the store after reading about 15 pages sitting there. I was already riveted. I came home and read a little more until Rohit called and we ended up talking about the young generation.

When I was a kid, or even when I was collegiate, the distinction between us and the adults was pretty clearly etched in my mind. There were those of us, and there were those of them, the adults. You couldn't mistake any of us as adults, or any of them as us boys, even if you only interacted with them by mail or phone, such that you had no way to infer by physical appearance. Even on a behavioral level, in our conversations, views, and preoccupations the difference was crystal clear. We were another people, with another set of things that we deemed important in life. As I've grown up, I've held on to most of the same preoccupations and a largely same world-view as back then. And so for long stretches of time I latently believe that I'm still a boy, just the same as I was 10 years ago, even 15. In the demarcation between boys and adults, there is no reason to assign me to the latter category.

Not quite. It is easy to crush this notion with simply an hour spent with a 15 or 20 year old of today. And then you see that there are those of them, these kids, and those of us. And perhaps that's the whole difference between boys and adults. It is not as if our elders underwent fundamental changes on reaching a certain age that made them different from us, made them adults. In all likelihood, they were just as they were when they were 20 year old young boys, only that they remained the 20-year-olds of 1980, which seemed rather 'adult' to us 20 year olds of 2006. And similarly, even though I feel the same inside as I did in 2006, I talk to a 20-year-old of today and can immediately see that we're different. It is another thing that I think they're a bit fake, but didn't our elders think the same?

Day 10

Yesterday (Day 9, for which I did not post anything) and today were both very lackluster. I slept a lot. I didn't study. I think I was doing a lot better in 2015. 2016 has mostly found me out of my elements. My apartment is a mess, everything is lying around and I keep putting it off, the cleaning up, for a tomorrow that doesn't seem to arrive. I haven't been in high spirits either, which is a big departure from most of 2015 which was plenty blissful. Let's hope for a turnaround pretty soon.

In another news, two people who in all likelihood came to know of each other because of this blog will be getting married soon! That's some achievement, I suppose, for this blog at the tender age of 11 years. What a precocious kid. I must have written at least 15 meta-posts during these 11 years where the blog talks about what its purpose was, why it exists, and I have to confess that I've painted various conflicting pictures while tackling this subject, pictures of varying levels of authenticity. Hopefully, with this, that shall happen no more, for anyway it is somewhat presumptive of me to pretend that I know why this blog exists - maybe it did only for these two to find each other.

With my previous paragraph I have maybe romanticized the love and marriage business a little more than I genuinely believe. So to make up for that I'll go watch The Revenant. Will write a post about the movie tomorrow.

Day 8

I watched the documentary series "Making a murderer" till the wee hours of the morning and was very moved by it. I highly recommend that others watch it too. 

Day 7

Today was another really busy day at work, the third one of back-to-back long days. This was the end of it though, at least for the next 5 or 6 days. I haven't been able to get a lot of studying of my own done this year. At work, one of my teammates has left and I am covering for her until somebody else is hired. On top of that was this presentation to one of the founders of my company that I finally got done with today. It went well, a couple of things garnered his commendation.

Many of the early career quants that I talk to find it rather intimidating to present to him. I did too, until some time last year. I think that whatever little initiation I've had into yoga, meditation and vedanta has really brought about a major transformation in how I approach everything in life, and being mostly relaxed even when presenting to such big-wigs, I think, is a direct consequence, or one of the manifestations, of that transformation.

One of the changes I've brought about is while earlier I used to take extensive notes of everything I would say, and almost memorized my presentations to the level where even phrases like "and for that matter", "so much so" and "let's turn to the top left part of the page" were not spoken naturally but were part of a thoroughly planned script, I let things flow almost entirely conversationally now. It has maybe added a few extra uhmms to my delivery, but from watching a recording of it, I felt that the overall feel of the thing was much better, much more real than the linguistically flawless but emotionally robotic nature of my older rehearsed presentations.

Of course, I could only make the switch from a super cautious to a more relaxed, natural delivery because via vedanta and mediation I was able to overcome to some extent the fundamental things that underlie nervousness and cause feelings of intimidation. All said, I'm still no good at workplace small talk, except with friends.

I also did away with the tie.

Day 6

No post tonight. Really tired. :|

Day 5 - (ii)

So I just got off work, it's almost 11, and I thought before I leave I'll write another post. Mostly because, well, it's my blog, and who will stop me?

Yeah, that was just lame, what I just said. But so what, it's my blog, and I can be whatever way I want, and who will stop me.

Now that was really, really dumb, what's the matter with me? I think it's either because I'm stupid, or because I'm a Delhi boy.

Either way, I get to drive back home now, because it's my car, and who will stop me?

Day 5

Today is a long day. It's 9:30 PM and I am still at work, and likely to be here for maybe a couple of hours more. Tomorrow promises to be similar.

I have this compulsive habit of running up stairs. Normally, I'm a little lazy, but when there's a flight of stairs in front of me, I almost automatically start running in leaps of two stairs at once, and at great speed. My desk is on the 4th floor, and that is just as well, for any higher and I couldn't have kept up with this madness. As weird as it is, I don't even try to consciously change this habit, because at some level I think it's good for me. I may be erratic about exercising regularly, but I go to work everyday, and each day I'm at work I walk down to the cafeteria on the ground floor about twice, which means there's at least this physical work-out I'm bound to get, with or without any self-effort to stay healthy.

But why am I talking about it today? Because I fell hard on those concrete steps while running up after lunch, and in this sub zero weather, it hurt a little bad, turned my knee blue, and ensured that I won't go running for some days now. It was only after this that it even occurred to me for the first time that this habit of mine of always turning crazy at the sight of stairs, might not be as unequivocally good as I imagined it to be.

Time to get back to work.

Day 4

Every now and then at work I zoned out thinking of mausa ji.

I chatted with Sambhavi after maybe a year.

A bunch of electronic things I'd ordered in December reached today.

It has got suddenly very cold around here.

I did not go running.

I did not study.

Day 3

He was an unassuming man with a wry, understated sense of humour that was brilliant. For me, I'd say, he even had glamour, although I suspect that I might be a loner in having this opinion. I say glamour, because I always wondered if I could know him a little more. I always thought that he was definitely so much more than what meets the eye, but I had no way of knowing what that more consisted of.

He ran a shop of bags and suitcases in a busy market, and was known to never miss a day even if it meant taking 3 AM buses from Delhi after an extended-family function to return to his house and shop in Ambala. His shop was a favourite jaunt of so many other shopkeepers of this market, who would stop by to share a smoke and banter with him whenever business would be slow at their own shops, and he would generously give them his time and wit.

Three years ago he was diagnosed with cancer, and had been growing thinner and losing hair in the midst of numerous chemos and hospital visits.

Last March, when I went to Ambala during my holiday in India, he asked me if he could go to the US with me. He said he could help out with my brother's retail businesses in the States, after all he'd been selling stuff for decades! He'd said this while watching a cricket match on the same old small black & white TV in his shop that has been there for as long as I can recall life. At first I thought he was kidding, but when I realised he wasn't, it made me sad in a peculiar way, a kind of sad that didn't tear me up, but still one that I hadn't been before. If he wanted to leave this place, the very air of which, to me, breathed synonymous with him, I couldn't imagine what he must be going through, despite the ever cheerful front. That broke my heart. All of this maudlin business was happening inwardly, in him and in me, because on the outside, this conversation continued in a matter-of-fact and light-hearted way, and was soon broken by a nondescript call for a trivial chore.

He was a particular favourite of my brother for the longest time. A decade ago it used to be one of my brother's big thrills to oversee his shop for little bits of time in his brief absences, and imagine himself a businessman! And since a decade prior to that both me and my brother have always relished his characteristically crisp one liners as he went about his business of selling suitcases. Of course, we also enjoyed the other perks of hanging around there, which was hot dogs, chow mein, paneer pakodas and aloo poori from all the cool places close by. That he would ever say he'd like to leave that and work for my brother was unimaginable to me, until he said it.

A month ago I was told he was seriously ill. I asked my parents about him on our phone-calls every other day, but I didn't call him myself. What would I say, what will we talk about, I thought.

He passed away today. I wish I'd called him and told him that I loved him.

Bye Mausa ji. Hope you keep smiling. Hope maasi and your kids find strength to deal with the loss of you not being around. You were awesome.

Day 2

I planned to run a half-marathon this morning, but gave up after 8.73 miles. It's quite alright though. In fact, it is quite alright if I never manage to finish one. Running is something I do on whims, and save for future whims. I respect people who can run a lot, everyday, but the feeling that always accompanies respect is "why would they do it"? I really am not quite at the point where I really get it, why people do this. So why do I do it? Because they do it. Admittedly, that's not a good reason. And that's why it's totally cool with me if I suck at it.

In the highlight of the day, I called my grandfather after ages. I don't even remember the last time I had called him. I love him, but I'd never called him for so long. I don't know why, maybe I thought I wouldn't know what to talk about with him. He was a little pained, I could tell, when in the summer of 2012 I decided to move to the US for my masters, but he wished me well. He is about 90 now, and although old, he is fairly healthy for someone his age, but has been tellingly lacking color ever since I lost my grandmother in early 2012. That was the first time I'd ever seen him in tears. That did something to me, although I can't quite say what.

My grandfather was very happy to talk to me. Unsuspecting, he had talked to me for a few minutes thinking I'm my brother, who calls him more often, before I told him it's me. At that point, he sounded cheerful in disbelief. I promised myself to call him more often, it's not everyday that I'm able to make someone so happy like that with such little effort, and delight myself too in the process.

In another first, I picked my car and drove to a restaurant just to have tea, all by myself. I don't know why I'd never done it before, because it was awesome, especially in this chilly weather. There was also little bit of harmless flirting with the cashier girl; actually I wasn't even aware of the flirting until she started acting really "flirted". But it was cool, with its share of hahahas. That's never bad.

Alright then. Hopefully tomorrow, on the first Sunday of the year, I'll get some serious studies done. 

Day 1

Yesterday night was spent partying and dancing in Manhattan. I already knew that partying and doing woo-hoo at turn-of-the-year moments was never much of my thing, but I was a little surprised to find that my marginal utility from dancing is also on a decline. Earlier, I used to enjoy dancing a lot, and I guess many a time I was responsible for dragging my friends along to dance at night. I've been doing it a lot more infrequently now, the last time before yesterday was in March of 2015. In any case, I realized that I didn't have nearly as much fun dancing yesterday as I used to earlier, especially back in 2013 and 2014. I still enjoyed it, don't get me wrong, but just a little bit. Mostly I was just happy to get some blood flowing and body moving after the highly calorific snacking throughout the evening.

This morning we roamed about for breakfast but all the "in" places had at least a thirty minute waiting, and who waits for 30 minutes for eggs? So we ate at subway, and then went back to one of our friends' apartments and watched BBC's exploration show "Planet Earth". It is just amazing the level of perfection these guys aim for, and the lengths to which they go to get us the rarest of earth's wonders. Highly recommend! Then we started watching Jim Gaffigan's stand-up special, which was good until I dozed off. When I woke up in the late afternoon, I was getting late for the train back to Princeton, but still managed to eke out enough time to run and grab Kathi rolls with Srinivas. The train ride back seemed shorter than it usually does.

After getting back home, I spent some time surfing the internet, and then remembered about Chinmaya Mission's cultural program for New Years day. So hastily took a shower and drove away to the temple. Some guy was singing bhajans and he was really good. A lot of volunteers had brought home-cooked food from their homes, and I feasted on so many delectable south-indian dishes with great relish. I feel like these guys do their best cooking when bringing stuff for the temple. Overall, the evening at Chinmaya was great. I always have a hard time talking to the resident Swamiji as I feel like he, being so adept at Yoga and mediation, would be able to see right through me to all my myriad faults. So I'm always shy around him, but I wished him happy new year today and he smiled back saying happy new year, which I'll be honest was a bit of a relief!

Anyway, that's it for today. I don't know that I learned very much, except that sometimes I'm nervous about things that are totally imaginary, and it might be worth it to be a little more carefree, maybe.

New Year Resolution

2015 was a great year for me. In terms of outward achievement, there's not much to say here: I'm still working at the same job I was in at the beginning of the year, at the same role, same designation and largely same salary. But on parameters exponentially more important, this was a great year. I think I developed good, healthy habits, was able to exercise far more control on myself, my feelings and my actions, developed a bit of a knack for staying rather happy most of the time, and possibly as a result of that was able to learn a lot about some of my favorite subjects, and about myself.

For the next year, my resolution is to continue on the same path, maybe a little faster. I failed badly in 2015 to deliver on my resolution of updating the blog every day with new things I learned. I did learn a lot about a lot of subjects last year even if not every day, but was mostly lazy about updating the blog. For the next year, my resolution is the same. I will update the blog every day with new things I learn, as well as sometimes taking time to synthesize and organize some the old things as well. I do think that the quality of writing will take a backseat (as you would notice it did in my last post on learning about learning) as making sure to record things takes time, and doing it in well-formed sentences and paragraphs expands that time needed manifold. I just don't think I'm that productive to be able to do that, yet. If I succeed in 2016, that would be the goal for 2017.

And then there's one big project (other than work/career projects): I hope to be able to create a Khan Academy style course on time series analysis. In my own attempts to learn this stuff, I realized that whatever's available online for this is just not that good, and young students do really need and deserve better than what's available. I'm not saying that what I will make will be better, but I will try. I say Khan Academy style because I repeatedly run into lectures elsewhere where teachers just turn one powerpoint slide after another, and that just doesn't work. Anybody who's taken a khan academy course or even learned from a good school/university teacher actually working problems out on the blackboard knows that that way is a lot more effective, but sadly nothing of that type exists for time series analysis.

It already seems a little too ambitious of a plan given my schedule, my work-habits, and my smarts. But I guess if it weren't a little daunting I would never be bothered to try.

Meanwhile my parents are increasingly focused on their own resolution, to get me married. So maybe I'm not taking into account the unknown unknowns, but when can we do that anyway.