Tu Mere Saamne

I was listening to the song Tu Mere Saamne sung by Rafi in the movie Suhaagan (1964, MD: Madan Mohan). The music was so soothing I was in a state of ecstasy. Initially I did not remember the movie the song was from or who the MD was. So I looked up my database.

And then it happened. When I searched for Tu Mere Saamne in my database a song of the same name from Darr (1993, MD: Shiv Hari) came up probably on account of Darr being alphabetically before Suhaagan.

And then I mentally played the SRK song's tune from Darr. It really gave me a rather unpleasant sensation.

Two songs starting with the same words - but the similarity ended there. I wish I could find a formula to rate music that I like. I am not yet there. I do not know how to codify music. As I remember, the song from the Sh..Sh..Shah Rukh Khan's movie was quite popular when it was released. But when I hear the same Darr song right after listening to the Madan Mohan song it feels like having visited a whore.

There are two other songs that make an interesting comparison. Both sung by Lata and belong to the same period. The first is Dil Ka Khilona Haaye Toot Gaya from Goonj Uthi Shehnaai (1959, MD: Vasant Desai). I like this song very much. 
The second one is Dil Ka Diya Jala Ke Gaya sung by Lata once again in the movie Aakaashdeep (1965, MD: Chiragupta). This tune in the second song is one that is out of this world - so much so that it makes the first song, Dil Ka Khilona, inferior in comparison. 

Again I do not know why I consistently rate the Diya song higher than the Khilona song. Both are slow songs. I am fairly sure it's not because the word Diya sounds more poignant than Khilona. What then is the reason?

It is strange, fascinating, that the same song creates the same sensation in me, whenever I listen to it. It is almost as though there is a mapping inside me which says "if it's this music, this will be your sensation". Meaning the liking or disliking of something, in this case a tune, is preset or wired within us?

I thought this was a good place to end the post. Someone thought not.

A friend replied that people have told her that their liking of a song depended on their mood. Extrapolating (liberally), their liking of other things also could depend on their mood. When a husband wonders why he is suddenly disliked by his wife, or vice versa, we may have an answer. It's mood, aka hormones. And if someone asks you what your favorite movie or novel or author or restaurant is... You got it, it could depend on the mood. It is known that women prefer alpha males when they are ovulating and beta, gama, delta etc males when they are not.

Is truth a virtue? What is 2+2? It depends on the mood. How difficult it must be when the teacher explains that 2+2 is 4 and always 4 and the answer does not and cannot depend on your mood. No wonder so many people hate Maths. It conflicts with their belief that things are not always so. As a friend tells me often "Har cheez har jagah laagu nahi hoti" (everything is not universally applicable).

Who said truth is invariant? For some people it is quite variant and truth has many dimensions. If there is a person like me whose liking for a song is kinda invariant, there is another person over there shaking his head and saying it depends on their mood. 

Just like you may not like deep fried stuff when you are very sick but may love fried stuff when you are fine. When we are sick we are acutely aware of things not being OK and the food we normally crave for doesn't tempt us.

Now imagine if you are acutely aware of your feelings every moment of the day, then what / who / how / why / where you like may vary with time or mood. Even this model, while understandable, is not complex enough. I am tending to think that even the data sensed from the environment (the what) is stored along with one's personal feelings or justifications (the why). Data and feelings aren't stored separately in the brain. Hence the ability of people to accurately recount data (only the what) is jeopardized. Because the data is modified by the feelings associated with it while the data was sensed and before it was stored. As Daniel Kahnemann saya human judgments are notoriously inconsistent. 

If you are a person with a sharp nose and I felt negatively about you, then I might store the information about you and your nose as "something negative" and if someone were to ask me about your nose I recollect from memory as "not sharp". 

The question is: do I understand what a sharp nose is. Yes I do. I can distinguish a sharp nose from a snub one. It's my feelings that caused the data to be stored incorrectly. It's like seeing the world with wrong prescription glasses. You see things not as they really are but as how you felt about them. You can see this lovely video: https://ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory?utm_source=whatsapp&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tedspread--b


Jesus, many of us usually take what people say at face value. Maybe Google can develop an Android app one day which will tell us in real time how much the person, we are with, is feeling and hence not to be taken literally.

Additional reading:

1. http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2011/02/music-directors.html 
2. http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2011/08/corruption-of-music.html
3. http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2010/12/old-indian-movies-songs-and-actors.html

Mortgage Repayment Calculation

Let's assume we have taken a mortgage (loan) on our house and we have a monthly payment that changes yearly at a specified rate (say 2.5%). The loan itself is to be repaid @5.24% reducing balance.

How do we find out the interest component monthly, the number of years to pay back the loan, the impact of prepayment of a portion of the loan on the tenure of the loan?

Let's say the loan amount is 342,500 and monthly payment is 1,836. And this monthly payment changes only because of the indexation @2.5%. Which means that for the 1st 12 months it is 1836/month and for the next 12 months it becomes 1,836*1.025=1,892/month and so on.

Here is the link to a spreadsheet which shows the estimates for the questions asked.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sSGCUr72AG4GSiVv_okF6Ig5Gvzb5aSkcNb5RaNEgHI/edit#gid=0

I Felt Like A Woman

A friend of mine recently said to me that she has found a man with whom, for the first time in her life, she felt like a woman. And she indicated that she was not as much involved in love with the man as she was in love making with him.

Incidentally the expression "made to feel like a woman" never applies to platonic love. It's woman speak for having had orgasms. Just like "he makes me laugh" indicates that a woman has a deep interest in the man. 

This reminded me of another friend who said that she preferred having many men in her life - one for love, one as a husband and one for love making (another for fixing a flat tyre?).

And these conversations took me back to what Ayn Rand said in Atlas Shrugged - that one could never be involved only physically with another person. And that if one did then one had no character. One could not need different partners for different needs. Or that is what I made of what Ayn Rand said. I was vaguely unsure, ill at ease. Could Ayn Rand be right I wondered.

Now I am more sure. Ayn Rand was perhaps wrong. The body responds in a way which is not connected to the mind. And it is possible to need different persons for different needs. Rather it's quite possible to need a mate purely at the physical level while other things with them are, as yet, unsorted mentally and emotionally. And perhaps hoping that love and emotional connect will happen soon. 

But I still can't help but wonder. Ayn Rand did not make such mistakes as this. How did she goof up? Could it be that my friend was wrong in believing that she was more involved physically than emotionally? Maybe she was more emotionally involved with the man than she realized. And did I misinterpret what another friend said to me about needing different men for different purposes?

Ayn Rand did make one mistake. It was her belief that a man could choose to be what he wanted. And that a man could choose to be an Eddie or Wynand or Galt or one of the moochers. 

Quotes from http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/atlas-shrugged/critical-essays/the-role-of-the-common-man-in-atlas-shrugged-the-eddie-willers-story - 

"Galt explains that rationality is a commitment to the facts — an inviolable willingness to face reality, no matter how painful, frightening, or unpleasant the truth may be in a specific case. Rationality means never placing any consideration above one's honest grasp of the facts."..."Eddie's character demonstrates the difference between intelligence and rationality. Intelligence is intellectual ability, whereas rationality is a method." "But intellectual ability isn't within a man's volitional control. The ability of his brain is something that a man is born with, but he chooses whether he uses it."

Intelligence is N, an ability, while rationality is T, the method - to use MBTI terminology. It is amazing that Ayn Rand (or the man who authored the cliff notes) got the difference between N and T so nicely. But the belief, that man could choose to use the brain - to be a T instead of F, is wrong. Much or most of what we do is without free will. Just as we cannot become more intelligent (the quote above does indeed say that man is born with a specific brain ability), we cannot become a T at will. 

While rationality and intelligence are attributes I like to see in a person i disagree with Ayn Rand when she says that persons who are not rational are evil. Nope. Not all of the non-thinkers are evil. 
Matter of fact I would go on to say that mankind's survival depends on the feelers. As I have explained here: http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/06/relation-between-nt-sf-natural.html

Additional reading:

1. http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/02/what-is-courage.html
2. http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2016/10/madurai-and-pandyan-express-train-photos.html

When Does One Judge?

I was talking to a friend recently. I told her about a blog post I had written on Geometry which, I added, would't interest her.

She immediately said it's not a nice thing to judge people. And that one should be more open.

Later she expressed a judgment about someone. I interrupted her to ask her how come she was now judging while she was uncomfortable when I judged her. So she thought about what I said and replied that she would like to rephrase what she said earlier. I said fine, go ahead.

She told me that she realized it was not judging that she objected to but judging and being negative simultaneously. Things like "you can never do this right", "he will never go far in life" etc. 

In a more recent conversation she was telling me about a job which involved counseling people undergoing grief and stress. When she overheard someone counseling over the phone she realized that this counseling job was not for her. Earlier she had always been very positive and had felt that she could take up any job and learn to do it well. But counseling, she realized, wasn't going to be easy for her ever. She told me she would never take up that job.

Being the nice friend that I am I asked her whether she was not being judging and being also negative (though about herself). Was she not violating her old code?

She thought about it for a second and then replied that she was not really judging. She had learned about herself better. And there was nothing wrong about learning stuff one did not know earlier.

So I asked her. When someone says "you can never do this", "she will never be sensible" etc, is it not true that that someone also learned some stuff about the people concerned and it so happened that what one learned was negative and what one said might come across as being judging?

My friend went into one more bout of silence, thinking deeply about what I said. She couldn't disagree with me. But she wasn't convinced either.

If what follows bores you then you are a people person. Abstract analysis isn't your cup of tea.

And then I wondered.

If we have thought through or often experienced something and felt something to be true, even if negative, we think it is a learning and we allow it. We don't consider such learning to have violated the code of being open. 
But when we hear someone else saying something negative we probably think that the other person is being judging. 

Why this double standard? Why do we do this? 
We do this because at times we haven't had some (negative) learning ourselves and hence we have nothing untoward to say about someone or something and we are open. And our open world is shattered when someone takes a negative stance about what something we are still open and haven't learned about.

Before Copernicus came along people would have generally felt that Sun revolved around the earth and maybe some people wouldn't have cared much about which object revolved around which. And when Copernicus mentioned his stance which went against conventional wisdom most people would have objected to his theory.

This dislike of judging is more about a dislike of the unfamiliar. 
For example, I have not felt X to be such and such. And you come and say X is actually such and such (something negative). I think you are judging. Because you have slotted X to be such and such while I am still open about X and haven't slotted it (or him) as negative. And why have I not slotted X? Because I am not much affected by X. What happens if and when I am affected adversely by X? Would I still hate to say something negative about X?

How many people would be personally affected if they were told that it was the earth that revolved around the Sun and not the other way around? If they were unaffected at a personal level why should they be bothered about the new theory or of any theory for that matter? Especially when they dislike theories in the first place.

So when someone says he does not like it when someone (Y) is being judging,

• He hates theories (he is  definitely P, not J as in MBTI). 
• He loves everyone being open and not judging (Openness as in Five Factor Theory is probably same as in P in MNTI)
• He believes that theories are meant for and used in esoteric places like labs and not between people - meaning theories have no place in interactions between people. "Games People Play" is a book he would hate.
• He has not been greatly personally affected by the particular theory that led to Y's judging.

Additional reading:

• http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2016/05/aphorisms.html
• http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2012/01/modified-five-factor-personality-type.html

How To Save On Electricity Bill - Analysis

Bill details from 5th Apr to 5th Jul for a particular establishment are shown below:

The rate per unit (KWH) varied during the said period. 

And the billing rates has two slabs: For the first 10units usage per day, the rate is 44.454 cents and beyond that it is slightly higher at 46.5 cents per unit. 

                                                          Usage       Rate

                                                          (Units)

For the 1st 10 units /day from Jul 1st  :   54.79    0.44454  

For the balance units from Jul 1st:           67.54    0.46500

For the 1st 10 units/day till Jun 30th  :   953.43    0.34241  

For the balance units till Jun 30th:        1175.24    0.36860

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Total units:                                           2251

Previous meter reading: 251

Current meter reading: 2502

As per bill total units consumed = 2502-251=2251 which matches with the value above. Values in the table above give the breakup of 2251 units because each of the 4 individual unit values is charged at a different rate.

The establishment also has a solar power unit which, during daytime, powers the establishment and also supplies any surplus, to the electricity company. There is no provision to store the surplus for usage during night. 

This is rather unfortunate because the electricity company charges the establishment about 44c/KWH while it pays the establishment 8c/KWH when the company consumes the surplus electricity (generated during daytime).

The surplus fed back to the electricity company for the 3 month period is 1055 units for which the establishment gets a credit of 1055*.08= $84.4. Had this surplus been stored in a battery and used internally then the establishment would have saved 1055*(.465-.08)=$406 which works out to $406/3=$135 monthly. 

The solar generating unit is rated 5KW. It has supplied 1055 units over a 3 month period which is about 12 KWH / day. Assuming it works about 12 hours/day that works to 1 KWH / day which is supplied to the electricity company. Is the balance about 5-1=4KW used by the establishment? Seems unlikely to me. If that is so, then what happened to the balance? It is to be noted that during daytime the establishment electricity requirement in the establishment is quite low.

Assuming the cost of a battery is about $9000 including maintenance etc, the payback period is $9000/$135= 66 months.

Does it make sense for the establishment to buy a battery now? Well aaaah ummm. Maybe if the battery costs $2000 in which case the payback period would have been 15 months or so. Is it possible to rent a battery @$50 a month? If yes, I would say go for it. One would pay $50 and save $135 as shown above.

Meanwhile if the idea is to save on electricity, the establishment has to be explored to see where it's excessive, where it's lean and where there is a sweet spot to cash in on.

The establishment has consumed 2250 units from the electricity company over a 90 day period which works out to about 25 units per day. 
Assuming that during the day there is an energy surplus owing to the solar power, the electricity usage from the company is primarily during the 12 hours after dusk. During daytime as explained earlier 1KW is "exported" during daytime and not much power is consumed during daytime. This means power consumption is 25/12=2 KW at night. 

Note:
I have assumed that daytime and night time are equal and both equal 12 hours per 24 hours.

Summary - The following questions remain nagging:

• Why only 1KW is exported by solar generator during daytime? 
• What is the breakup of 2KW power consumption at night? Which appliances consume the 2KW?

Math Puzzle - Geometry - How Do You Mark 95 Or 130 Degrees Without Using Protractor

A friend gave me this problem. Is there any way to construct a quadrilateral without protractor for 130 degrees or 95 degrees? I  assumed she meant whether there was any way to draw a non standard angle without using protractor. I have redefined the question this way: is there any way you can draw an angle such as 130 or 95deg without using protractor. If this problem can be solved then the original problem can be solved. 

My solution involves trigonometry. 
Draw a circle of radius r, r being any convenient value, say 5cm.

Let's say we want to mark x degrees. We draw a radius OP. O is the center of the circle and P is a point on the circumference. We need to find a point Q on the circumference such that angle POQ = x deg. 

Now the length of chord PQ = 2r sin(x/2). This is from basic geometry.  Hint: Bisect angle POQ so that angle POD=DOQ with D being the mid point of chord PQ. PD=QD= r sin(x/2).

We know where point P is. We use a radius equal to the length of chord PQ as calculated above and draw an arc which will interest the circle and mark point Q where the intersection happens. Use tables or google to find the value of sin (x/2). 

PQ = 2r sin(x/2) and hence angle POQ will be equal to x degrees. 

As an example, let us take x to be 90deg.  

Then POQ will be a right angled triangle with PO=OQ=r

PQ from Pythogoras theorem will be r*sqrt(2). 

If we use formula derived earlier PQ=2r*sin(90/2)=2r*sin(45)=r*sqrt(2) - matches the value we found earlier. 

Use this method for angles upto 90deg. For values like 130 deg, subtract 90 or multiples of 90 so you get a value less than 90, in this case =40deg.  Mark off 40 deg so that angle POQ=40. On the other side draw a perpendicular to OP, say OR, such that POR=90deg. Now angle QOR =90+40=130deg.

Second Time Investors In Mutual Funds (MF)

If you are a person who has invested once or twice in MF, typically through a distributor, and you want to invest more but want to DIY (do it yourself) this post is meant for you.

What you need:

• Your PAN card (you must have done your KYC already, if not get it done before you start investing)
• Bank account with Netbanking
• You may also need your Adhaar card.

We will take Birla Sunlife MF as a sample and let's say we plan to invest Rs10000 in Birla Short Term Plan Direct Growth Option. This also happens to have no exit load and the returns are decent.

Let's go to their site: 

1. https://mutualfund.birlasunlife.com/Pages/Individual/Home.aspx
2. On the top right you see "Invest With Us" Click there
3. If you do not have any investment made in Birla MF then Click on "New Investor"
4. As mentioned earlier you will need a PAN card and a bank account
5. Click On "Get Started"
6. Enter the PAN card, DOB (Date of Birth), mobile number, email ID etc. The DOB is for subsequent verification. Mobile no and email ID are taken so that information from the AMC (about your purchase, withdrawal etc)can be sent to you. 
7. Click "Check PAN status"
8. Go through FATCA verification and then give Aadhaar details.
9. Provide Bank details, choose a bank with Netbanking.
10. Provide Nominee details.
11. Choose a user name, password
12. Choose IVR PIN number, security question and answer. Make sure to keep all the data confidential. 
13. Choose the image for 2 step verification
14. Finally you will get a user id, pwd and folio no.
15. Using these to login in this page: https://mutualfund.birlasunlife.com/Pages/Secured/Individual/UserNameLogin.aspx?utm_source=Link_Login_Investor&utm_medium=Logins&utm_campaign=Homepage_TopLinks
16. Earlier we chose Birla Short Term Plan Growth Option Direct. Let's invest Rs 1000 (that is the minimum investment for this scheme). If you do this transaction before 3PM on a weekday then your transaction should get completed by next working day. Some transactions take 3 working days for example if you are redeeming more than 2 lacs from an equity fund. But these details can wait. You will get to know them later.
17. While doing this process it may help if you have a knowledgeable person available on call or chat who can provide live support in case you are terrified.
18. If you have other folios of Birla MF created offline but in your name (with same PAN card etc) you can map them to the same user ID you created now so you can operate on the other folio also online.

You are all set. 

Happy investing. You get 0.25-1.5% higher returns if you go through Direct and avoid a distributor. If you go through a Distributor you get some services from the distributor including good information and (sometimes misinformation) on products to invest in. If you are investing online and if you already know which scheme to invest in, use Direct as the option. Use growth option instead of dividend option unless:

• You are investing in equity schemes and you want regular divided
• You are parking money in arbitrage scheme and you want to reduce tax.

For other AMCs (Asset Management Companies like ICICI Prudential. HDFC etc. the process will likely be very similar though the websites would be different).


Additional reading:

• http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/07/arbitrage-and-debt-funds-and-balanced.html
• DIY: Going on a trip - for first timers: http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2014/04/going-on-trip-tips.html
• Which fund owns stocks in a particular company: http://www.morningstar.in/tools/stock-search-mutual-fund-portfolio.aspx
• Returns of funds: https://www.valueresearchonline.com/toprated.asp - Frankling low duration fund and other debt funds from Templeton seem to be doing well in the last 1 year with return about 8%
• Linking Aadhaar to Voter ID: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/1600664d83e9471e

Nice Riposte - Women's Wear - Puzzle

https://m.facebook.com/LeWorstOfTumblr/photos/a.321676287943581.71995.321653067945903/1368863183224881/?type=3&source=48&refid=28&_ft_=qid.6441150085413285602%3Amf_story_key.-3179312885584274723%3Atop_level_post_id.10213542483744577&__tn__=E

I saw this nice riposte yesterday. Is there any flaw in the argument?

Tech Mahindra Asks Person To Leave

Here is a news item including an audio clip purporting to be the conversation between Tech Mahindra's (TM) HR person informing an employee that he has to sign his resignation letter: http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/quit-tomorrow-or-get-terminated-it-worker-leaks-audio-clip-heartless-sacking-hr-person-64812

As per this article, CP Gurnani the CEO was paid Rs 150 Crores for the last FY. 

The audio clip is very interesting:

The HR girl has a very sweet voice and it's interesting to hear her tell the employee that he is fired as part of company's cost cutting. How difficult it must have been for her to have sat through the meeting and answering the questions while the guy (employee) was in such distress. If she was humane, she would perhaps have felt sick at the end of the meeting. And God knows how many such meetings with other employees she must have had. 

I have rarely come across anyone who has enjoyed being in the position of that HR person. I have only heard of one person who apparently enjoyed being in that position but that is another story.

The employee obviously is distraught that he is given only a day's notice. I came to know about another employee of the same company who also has not received his salary for about a month and perhaps going to be terminated. 

And then Mr Gurnani makes 150 crores. Is this fair?

The company is not bound to provide life time employment. The company reserves its rights to terminate any company as per the contract signed as long as the contract is relatively moral. When the company is in troubled times it makes sense perhaps to cut costs and survive with fewer employees than risk all going down together. Even a mother crocodile, when she does not have enough to feed its little ones, tends to eat one of its babies in order to survive longer and take care of its other babies and to reduce the amount of food needed for its brood. This enhances the probability of the survival of the brood. 

What about the crocodile baby that got eaten you may ask. What can one say?

The question now is: Are human beings no different from crocodiles? When you have to survive you tend to behave like an animal. 

Is this right? Now, that is a question I do not know how to answer. 
Supposing I was fired and I live in an expensive rented flat. Would I not leave that flat and move to a cheaper place? Would this not adversely affect the landlord? Would that have an impact on my decision to vacate the expensive flat? I have to cut cost to survive and I would cut whatever costs without cheating. Is this improper?

Coming to Gurnani. The amount he is paid is a contract between Mahindras and him. And Mahindras would gladly pay Mr Gurnani 15 lacs or 15 thousand rupees a year if they could get away with it. Unfortunately the CEO does not come cheap and his price was decided based on the value he conveyed that he brought to the Mahindras.

Can we say that the person, whom we heard in the audio clip, has enough to eat at least but the farmers in Maharashtra are committing suicides by the dozens?Should we ask the TM employee in the audio clip to share what he has with the dying farmers? By bringing Gurnani's salary into the picture are we not indirectly suggesting the same thing?

Any relationship between two parties exists because both parties find it good to have it. When either of the parties decides it's time to quit then the other party can't say he is not ready to quit. There is a pre-closure clause in their contract which comes into effect. Such is the way of modern business life (and in modern personal lives also when they have prenuptial contracts).

Our heart does go to the injured party. But let us not forget that the party that short closed the contract wasn't doing it for fun or being sadistic. 

And lets not forget one thing - the HR girl was doing what she had been told to do by the management at Tech Mahindra. She did not do it because she wanted some fun. 

Additional reading:

• http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2016/08/difference-between-man-and-other-animals.html
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tech-mahindra-sacking-merely-symptom-its-core-problem-prabal-basu-roy

My Favorite Actress And Her Mars

My favorite actress is Sadhana. Not because she was a good actress but because she was good looking. I was hooked to her ever since I saw the movie Rajkumar and saw the song Dilruba Dil Pe Tu. She was gorgeous in that song.

A few weeks back I happened to watch a dance of hers in a movie song sequence - Paas Rehte Hue Bhi Tujh Se Bahut Door Hain and Tere Pyaar Mein Dildaar from Mere Mehboob (1963, MD: Naushad) and I told myself that she ain't a dancer. And today I watched her run behind Joy Mukherjee in the song Aap Yun Hi Agar Hum Se Milte in the movie Ek Musaafir Ek Hasina (1963, MD: OP Nayyar). The short run was quite nice and unfeminine. Usually adult women run with their arms, from elbow to wrist, outstretched instead of having their arms by their waist / hips as men do. This must have something to do with their body structure.

When I saw her run, I correlated with her inelegant dance and I felt strongly that she must have a strong Mars. Only a strong Mars makes you dance (inelegantly) and run (elegantly) like a man.

So then I looked up her horoscope (check her wiki for DOB). She has Vargottama Mars in Aries. No wonder. I would be scared of her anger or violence. I would also predict that her voice was not sweet at all, more like Rani Mukherjee's or Bipasha Basu's. Unfortunately I do not remember Sadhana's voice and who knows, may be it was dubbed.

Ain't it sad that we can't dub for someone who can't dance?

Entrance Into AFMC MBBS- NEET 2017

Assuming you have got an All India Rank of 6500 and you are in the General Category.

AFMC has 130 seats, of which 25 are for girls and rest for boys. Overall 10 seats are reserved for other castes.

                                                               Boys  Girls

Seats                                                        105      25

SC ST quota                                                 8        2 (this is my guess of the                                                                                     break up of 10 seats)

General                                                       97      23

Numbers that will be invited initially           1200     300

Numbers above you in NEET                      4800   1700 (my guess)

It is possible that the actual breakup of 6500 may be tilted more towards girls than boys than shown here. It could be 3800 boys and 2700 girls. In such a case all estimates would change accordingly.

For you to be called for counselling in AFMC, we have hope that at least 3 in 4 boys above you don't opt for AFMC and only one fourth of students with rans higher than you opt for AFMC (1200 / 4800 = 1/4).

And of the 1200 that are invited about 1100 (1200-97=1103) should be rejected on some ground or hope that students themselves opt out of AMC for you to get admitted into AFMC.

I wonder how it was last year. What is the basis by which students who are called for counseling admitted (into AFMC) or rejected? Medical fitness only? Anything else?

Men In Tears

K Athangar's son V came home today with his wife C. Both of them had some physical problems. Neither of them could walk well. He had diabetes and vertigo. She had some orthopedic problems. We were discussing old times and catching up with stuff happening in our lives. V was worried about his brother R, who is a little retarded. That is one thought that is constantly in the back of V's mind - what would happen to R once V and his wife and father are no more. V lost his mother, my cousin, a few years back.

That's when I told him that if ever such a situation arises when V, his father and C are no more and if I am still around, then I will take care of his brother R. Incidentally my nephew happens to be a little older than me.

He had tears in his eyes. He couldn't believe anyone would offer to do such a thing. He is an idiot. He is a person, who with his wife, took care of his mother for years. 

His mother had had both her legs amputated. And I had seen how difficult it was to for my cousin as well as for her daughter in law C who had to help my helpless cousin whenever my cousin wanted to change her position -  sitting to sleeping or vice versa and for potty and... Imagine how many things had to be done for my cousin.

And then his father was in his late 70's and for some period of time he was taking care of his paternal grandmother also who was in her 90s. Plus a brother R who isn't easy to take care of. And he was thinking I was doing something nice. He said I had taken after my father who, my nephew reminded, had a special fondness for weak and helpless people, especially retarded relatives of whom our family seemed to have a few. 

Isn't it a wonder that it is R who is retarded instead of me? But for a quirk of fate it could easily have been the other way around.

Today I volunteered to look after R. There is one other cousin whom I plan to do the same for. Would I ever do it? I do not know.

It was strange to see V in tears. My father was the same. Both were strong F's (MBTI) Isn't it strange that there are some men whose eyes water easily while the rest of us have the sensitivity of a male orangutan?

From a different point of view:
At the end of the day, do we feel comfortable with ourselves if some our own are uncared for and helpless? Am I fond of relatives or does my heart go out to the weak and helpless? I guess it's more to do with the latter. Are the ones drawn towards the weak always ET's? Is it a reflection of a lack of character when one is drawn towards the weak?

How does one combine the two points of view? Is it sensitivity or a weakness? Or does sensitivity and weakness in character usually coexist?

Additional reading:

• http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-cousins.html
• http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2010/11/one-day-trip-to-yelagiri-and-lessons-on.html
• http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2009/10/lost-puppy.html

Arbitrage And Debt Funds And Balanced Funds And Emergency Funds

Arbitrage funds, we all know, provide a good place to park your funds temporarily. They are treated like Equity Funds for tax purposes and they are as safe as liquid / debt funds. 

Is there any issue in parking some money (typically for  emergency purposes) in Arbitrage funds?

Answer is Yes perhaps. If what you have parked is more than just for emergency, meaning a sizable amount and you earn only about 7% in these funds then are you utilizing the funds the best possible way? Maybe not.

There are debt mutual funds which give about 9.5 to 10% returns. Even if you are in the 30% bracket, the net returns post tax will be about 6.7% to 7%. And some of them are very liquid meaning there is no exit load. 

Let's assume we need a  maximum emergency fund of Rs 100,000. And if we have 2.5 lacs (=250,000) parked in arbitrage funds, why don't we move the excess Rs150,000 into a good debt fund. 

Ideally we should avoid having exposure to debt and equity funds. We could instead invest the money in balanced funds (which will have 35% exposure to debt funds) and in pure debt funds in order to further reduce equity exposure from 65% if we are conservative by nature. If we are aggressive, we could have a mix of balanced and equity funds. But investing in equity funds and in debt funds does not make much sense. Why is this so? Because of the tax implication when you redeem (sell) your debt funds.

Having said that, in the current context where we have some surplus funds in arbitrage funds I would not recommend moving the surplus to equity funds or even to balanced funds. The Sensex P/E ratio is currently about 22.6 (from the the Sensex site) and I do not think it's a great time to move our hard earned money into equity oriented funds, definitely not as a lump sum. 

P/E or price/earnings ratio is one way to judge whether the prices are too high. Sensex P/E is calculated by taking the ratio of the total current market cap of all Sensex stocks and the total of the net profits of the same stocks for the last 4 quarters.

So why don't we move some of the funds that are in excess of emergency funds to debt funds like UTI Short Term Plan which does not have an exit load and gives a return of about 9.5%? Other funds such as Birla SL Medium Term Plan, L and T Short Term Income Fund which have no exit load after 1 year. Unfortunately funds such as SBI Corporate Bond Fund and HDFC Corporate Debt Opportunities Fund have a stiff exit load of about 2% each if redeemed within a year. All these funds give a return of 9.5% or more.

Of course one could look at well performing liquid funds (these do not have any exit load) and see if you are better off with those than with the ones I mentioned in this post. Most liquid funds seem to give about 8% or less.

And finally remember one thing. While you may be happy getting a 9.5% return (though this is not assured), you may need to provision 20-30% of this return for income tax in case you redeem before 3 years. After 3 years, the tax may be lower. 

The rule is: 
Invest in                        If you will redeem them within
Arbitrage funds                  1 years
Debt funds                        1-5 years
Equity or balanced funds     more than 5 years

This also means if you park in debt funds for 7 years it's silly. You can get much higher returns in a good equity fund with very less risk. Similarly if you park in arbitrage funds for 2 years it's silly. Investing in PPF, LIC etc does not make sense. Use LIC only for insurance purpose, never for investment. PPF does not make sense because you get 8.5% over 15 years. ELSS funds give the same tax advantage, at the time of writing, and gives you much higher return with very low risk for the said time frame. 
PPF is a good option to invest low amounts (for example, Rs 1000 each year) for 12 years and maximize investment in the last 3 years where you get assured 8-8.5% annual plus tax savings.


Disclaimer:
I do not own any of the AMC's mentioned here nor am I the asset manager of the schemes mentioned.

Additional reading:

1. http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2011/01/pe-ratio-for-stock-market-index.html
2. https://www.valueresearchonline.com/story/h2_storyview.asp?str=31431&&utm_medium=vro.in - transfer of units in case of either or survivor
3. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/mf/analysis/how-does-joint-holding-in-mutual-funds-work/articleshow/56331738.cms?utm_source=AMPusers&utm_medium=emailshare&utm_campaign=socialsharebutton&from=mdr

Are Males Hardwired To Emote Differently

I had sent, to a friend of mine, this link about males being hardwired and hence emote differently from females. She replied that usually both boys and girls were similar in showing their emotions till the age of 5 and then everything changes - their choice of game, their way of handling things around them as well as emotions.

She asked me: if their (boys) brain are wired differently then why were boys emoting the same way as girls till the age of 5? Meaning where is the hardwired difference in the early ages?

She told me that she always felt that boys learn to emote differently because of the nurture and it was not hardwired. She was amused that most of the men or boys emote similarly.

Having set the stage for the discussion I would request you to read the link. It's awesome.

Now my take on this issue:

Male hard-wiring of poor communication and anger etc are not seen at a very age probably because all children communicate poorly. Well there are toddlers, even males, who have exceptional vocabulary and they go on, when they become adult men, to communicate as well as any woman. 

Quote from P.G. Wodehouse, Uneasy Money: "At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies."

But the average male is hindered from good communication. And the details are explained in the link about which my friend raised her questions. 

Anger and crying are kinda similar... Boys are taught not to cry and women not to show rage or anger. Hence to some extent men tend to stifle their sobs and women their anger and this is partially due to nurture. Anger needs energy as a raw material. Males have more energy and more anger. Look at any woman with exceptionally high energy and look at her anger level. You will agree that anger comes from energy and its at least partly due to nature. Can you make a deer or cow really angry?  Have you seen anger in a lion or tiger? 

Anger is men's way of expressing discomfort and unhappiness. It's like an animal's emotion. They cant express / communicate well and hence they show it as helpless anger. Women, with far better communication skills, can make their discomfort shown without raising their voice. For more details see the "interesting scene" in the movie 22 Shey Shrabon. It's in Bengali and I think without English subtitles. But if you focus on the scene where lady, in the middle of a discussion with her man, gets out of the car and walks off you can see how well contempt is shown (you may not need to understand the dialog). Only an F(eeler) can show that. Males can't show contempt easily. 

Now if you cannot show contempt what other resort do you have? Anger only, despite being an inferior alternative. Now you can relate to PG Wodehouse's quote shown above.

Males show anger or violence when they are upset. Crying on the other hand is the feminine equivalent of anger. And it's socially accepted for a woman to cry than for a man to show anger. Many a times men do not show their rage, they suppress it. Were they to display it, it would shows ill breading.

How well we women have molded the world our way and still continue to bitch that its a man's world?

Basic character like touchiness, generosity are more innate than nurtured is my belief. External manifestations like hiding anger or displaying more sweetness, saying sorry and thanks etc can be taught. 

The final question is: what is the master list of our traits that cannot be changed much? This is such a painful topic for the believers of nurture theory.