Sikkim Tour

Fond Memories. Very fond…all of them.. Right from the beginning.. We never knew it could turn out to be so memorable…all those roads built on the mountains by BRO connected us to a beautiful civilization… one that dwells on the slopes of Sikkim. Friendly people with eyes like chinks and faces fully flushed with innocence. Waterfalls helter-skelter… a feeling of being on top of the world..where we realize for the first time the magnanimity of nature… where we are all the times aware of a divine presence everywhere…in the dense forests…. The beauty of Sikkim flowed with Tista, sang with the local populace, swung like a proud maid on the roads cut and around the mountains, and finally scattered like snow on the lofty peaks.

We set off from KGP on …day with bags all packed and loaded on our shoulders..of course, Rahul was not carrying the bag, it felt like the bag had against his will mounted his shoulders and was bent on bowing him down… we were lucky, without much wait arrived the train and we hurried off to find seats. .. We were luckier that train departed as soon as it had arrived… because it started the chain of events that prompted - Khush to bahot hoge tum, Halu- remark from Shashvat. Actually, Shashvat and Rahul were about to miss the train but boarded another boggy. Mishra couldn't control nature's small call and yielded to it when he boarded off at Mecheda and went into a long exploration looking for a toilet. Unfortunately, train couldn't wait for him. He came on another train.

We had taken our train from Sealdah and we all had side window seats. I remember Avik and I appreciating the beauty of street-lights and light from car on Calcutta highways. We were peacefully bidding our time when we came to know of Paul da's sutta fiasco. Apparently, he was peacefully smoking his smoke when two policemen thinking that he was only a minor cornered him and started asking for money. I hate to think what would have happened had Arpit and Shashvat not found Paul da missing?

We reached New Japlaiguri early morning. We had initially planned to go to Darjeeling as well but came to know that it was raining there and lost our enthu in general as well. We were looking for a travel agent's office inside the station premises but we were too early to find them open. One of the guys who had been following us said that he could take us to a good travel agent. We had nothing to lose. Shashvat and Arpit took charge. After a series of negotiations about what the tour would include, where we would stay, and how much we would pay we got ready to start. I don't know which vehicle it was but it was something like a Tata Sumo.

Tata Sumo Journey

We shared the car with another group of Bengali tourists who were somewhat older than us. There was a plump Bengali who had once been to Sikkim earlier and was falling head over his heels to introduce his friends to Sikkim. It was I who obliged to sit with this group in the backside of the SUV. Others took their seats in the front and middle row. The Sumo journey to Sikkim was quite beautiful though a bit painful for those seated in the back. I kept trying to take some shots from Arpit's camera which he reminded me worked better in Night mode.

Inflation

There are usually two drivers of inflation - cost push and demand pull. Demand pull assumes an increase in the money supply in the economy relative to the production of goods and services. It could also come from a cut in interest rates, tax cuts or even exuberance in goods and services markets and capital markets. On the other hand cost push assume an increase in production costs which could result from either producing close to full capacity and/or an increase in commodity prices. Indirect taxes also contribute on this front. There is another equation which relates inflation to exchange rates. An increase in inflation is usually associated with a depreciating currency. This coupling between the two occurs through the interaction between goods market and capital market. Capital flows are the mechanism through which this interaction is possible. Capital flows occur in a manner such that more expected inflation reduces the expected return from investing in a currency and hence demand for that currency falls resulting in its depreciation. However, expectations of growth in an economy can also influence these flows. A huge current account surplus usually should result in appreciation of the currency or in an increased inflation. In both cases the foreign goods become cheaper for the country. Eventually, the economy has to let it's currency appreciate if it wants to arrest inflation. Goods markets are usually slower to respond and hence we observe overshooting in capital markets. Sometimes, an increase in productivity also results in inflation without affecting the exchange rates as has been the case with Eastern European nations.

An issue to ponder about is the causal relationship between inflation and exchange rates. Just like a high inflation may result in the depreciation of currency, allowing the currency to appreciate will help arrest inflation. But we talk about allowing the currency to appreciate rather than making it appreciate. Currency is allowed to appreciate when it's already undervalued in terms of its demand relative to other currencies. Only those economies can achieve it which have a huge foreign exchange kitty to back the appreciation of the currency.

Going forward, we can clearly see that tackling inflation requires clear identification of which factors and to what extent are affecting inflation. When it is a demand pull problem it calls for interest rate hikes and reduction in money supply. When it is a cost push phenomena due to capacity constraints, Government should make more capital formation possible. It could also try to restrain demand so that companies start operating below their capacities. When the cost push has resulted from increase commodity prices globally, the economy might have to allow its currency to appreciate in which case exports markets might suffer. It's a fine balance between how much we want to export and how much we want to import to support the domestic economy. When inflation results from movements in currency markets one needs to look at what is driving this movement. If it is a growth differential then inflation becomes a natural phenomenon just like it would have been when productivity of the economy was increasing. If it is driven by interest rate differentials then appropriate policy measures should be taken keeping in mind whether we are targeting inflation or exchange rate.

For India, I think all the factors are playing some roles. Hence, the policy of raising interest rates should be coupled with ensuring sufficient liquidity in the system to be able to sustain growth. That is what RBI is exactly doing. The balancing act between exports and imports and growth and inflation is what's keeping the GOI busy. After all, inflation being one of the direct consequences of high fiscal deficits is GOI's responsibility only.

Let's "revolve" to the music!!!

Men want to believe that they are equal even when in their hearts they know they are not. Priests love to preach about how everyone is equal. Democracy believes in equality of every citizen. I wonder what equality means. Does it mean that in the end we are all a collection of some atoms and some ideas? Doesn't it matter that protons and electrons are way too different. Or can we get away by saying that they are two different things. Then why is not one human different from another. Maybe because equality and difference are human ideas. Nature doesn't believe in such trivialities. No two peaks are the same height in nature and yet the sea level everywhere is the same. I don't want equality for myself and yet I know I am no different from you. But can the ideas which originate from humans be used as benchmarks to define them?

There's a pattern in the nature. And it has got nothing to do with equality or not. This pattern reflects in the way the planets revolve around the sun and the electrons around the proton. And yet it seems like they won't ever meet. When they do, it destroys them. It's like a potential that keeps building up while their monotonous sojourns in their respective orbits continue. And eventually it gets released. This is another pattern of nature - things moving from higher potential to lower potential or in other words higher stability. All this when we know that the entropy of the system always keeps building up. Being more stable also means being more chaotic. Then why is it that the society equates control with freedom? Isn't it a pattern very similar to the patterns we talked of earlier.

When you think you have figured it out you just get bored and don't want to write anymore. But I do want to share the idea. Please bear with me if the language gets even more dull from hereon. Society is the big orbit where we start rotating all our lives. But rotation can get on your nerves. That's why we need hope. And hope makes us happy. And yet too much happiness is also not good and we end up getting frustrated. And when we think we could take it no more, hope sneaks upon us once more. GOD!!! Yes, that's what we call it or Him. This source of hope, and frustration also. I don't believe God exists to love us or hate us. He is one of the variables in the equation even if the most important. But the equation is the same - same patterns, same orbits, same motions. Mundane, isn't it? If you think electrons lead a mundane life, yes it is. But did I get smug at the idea that hey, it's all about hope and that I have figured it out. I was getting there in some way when someone made me realize that the degrees of freedom of the psychological plane are way too above those in the physical plane. So can I really write something off that's happening in this psychic plane?

Major Jyotin to receive Ashok Chakra posthumously - KanglaOnline

Major Jyotin to receive Ashok Chakra posthumously - KanglaOnline: "

The Hindu

Major Jyotin to receive Ashok Chakra posthumously KanglaOnline IMPHAL Jan 25: Major (Late) Jyotin of Manipur, the first army doctor is receiving the highest peace time gallantry award the Ashok Chakra for his exceptional bravery. The officer laid down his life while fighting terrorists during an attack on Indians ... Army doctor awarded Ashok Chakra posthumouslyThe Hindu Kirti Chakra honour for 4 Army officers, jawanTimes of India Army doctor awarded Ashok Chakra posthumouslyHindustan Times Indian Express -Express Buzz -NDTV.com all 27 news articles »

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Tracking black money: Centre refuses to make names public - NDTV.com

Tracking black money: Centre refuses to make names public - NDTV.com: "

SamayLive

Tracking black money: Centre refuses to make names public NDTV.com New Delhi: The Centre declined to disclose to Supreme Court the names of those who have deposited their black money in the LTG Bank in Germany. The Supreme Court said, "This petition was filed in 2009. We just wanted to know if this is all the ... SC calls black money plunder of nation, pulls up governmentEconomic Times SC pulls up govt on black money issueTimes of India black money sc slams centre says theft of national money a crimeSamayLive Indian Express -SamayLive all 15 news articles »

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Unfinished Business

Unfinished Business: "
Life seems to be just this. If we achieve something, we are happy; well and good. If we are not able to bridge the gap between expectation and reality it indeed leaves a hole inside us. Then begins the difficult, frustrating and seemingly impossible task of filling that void. We try to pacify ourselves, talk ourselves out of it, settle for the next best thing, believe that what happened was for our best, degrading the value of our expectation, so on and so forth.

But can this void be ever erased from our memory and our whole personality per se? Or do we keep on accumulating such voids throughout our lives. Just try to imagine the sum of all such voids. It will indeed be a very heavy one. A whole bunch of memories standing for missed opportunities, chances, bad luck, regrets. So as we grow up, all these need to be discounted at the rate of “peaceful and boring” normal existence to get a net present value. Is it not really hard to have that, on ones shoulders, even more so as time goes by. The concept of compounding losses???

What is the solution then? Mathematically it should be:

NPV of Voids = ∑(The magnitude of Void)/(1+Normal happiness rate)t

Now this will turn to 0 , which we ideally want as Normal happiness rate tends to Infinity. Since we can’t really control the magnitude of void all the time (Yeah all of us have got a great illusion that we are in total control of our life , but are we really? ), the most obvious answer is to make our normal boring life so happy and content that such voids may come and go without having any effect on us .

The most obvious answers and solutions are the most difficult to implement.The above is what the Yogis and Swamis do. They do not live in the future (or the anticipation of it as sugested by Heiddeger ) like us, thus time variant voids do not matter.
To put it in another way revise your “Bhoole Bisre geet “--- Mein zindagi ka sath nibhata chala gaya …… “Gam aur khushi mein fark na mehsoos ho jaha”. And again we arrive at the same result .
Think !!! :)

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Lunatic

swooning all over the place.. lungs charred and burning.. music soothes.. nothing else does that.. smoke swirls on and on.. feeling cold.. feeling burnt.. feeling lonely.. feeling depressed... have to stop myself from buying another packet of that slow poison.. let's stay focused this time.. no more... more... more...