East and West headed for decoupling

The decoupling debate is back and with renewed vigour. Markets in Asia are not falling as much as in the west and the rallies are seeing full participation too. There has been a general feeling for the past few years that the east will take up the mantle of economic leadership from the west. How this would translate on the ground no one had any inkling. I think we are seeing that unfold. I feel we are making history and the much vaunted decoupling is happening before our eyes. This is an event of unmatched magnitude. We have already seen the scale of economic damage in the U.S. Never before heard scenarios are becoming realities. Very often some movies are derided for outlandish scenarios, but I for one have always believed that many of those scenarios from Hollywood movies do happen in real life. Dinosaurs became extinct and the shifting of economic power probably rivals that in magnitude. It will alter the way we think and the way we do our business. Our lives will change irrevocably. But the question is, are the new economic superpowers ready to take leadership? Can we provide better leadership than that shown by the Americans? Will we use that power responsibly? These and many more such questions should top the agenda of policy makers in countries ranging from China to Indonesia. One thing is for sure, life is never going to be the same again.

Message of hate

As a kid I studied in a christian institution. Our classes used to start with a prayer which went something like this 'In the name of the father, the holy spirit.....amen!'. And, a cross at the end for good measure.

The principal of our school Fr.Raphael, was one of my earliest role models. As a kid my exposure to religion and discussions on it was limited to say the least. When we found new friends our minds did not proceed to decipher the name as one that of a Hindu, Christian or Muslim. We were glad just to be together and have fun. There is nothing about my school days (or college days for that matter) which had even remotely influenced me and my belief about my religion or my friends'.

If faith was a town in India a returning visitor would be devastated by what he sees now. There are slums everywhere and prosperity has crumbled. Children now grow up in this town exposed to an omnipresent message of hate. They can easily distinguish a Christian name from a Muslim one. My 5 year old gets her doubts clarified when she is unable to make out whether her friend is a Christian or a muslim. How did things come to such a pass? And it is not just about religion, the divide in our society is even more radical when you make a deeper analysis. We have all become selfish and conceited individuals.

So where do we start the repair work? First and foremost in our minds. We need to change our perceptions and attitude. Think about the general good even if in the final analysis we end up losing more than gaining. I am teaching my 5 & 12 year old daughters to not view things through a narrow mindset. I am teaching them to accept and forgive, to give more than take, to accept and celebrate the diversities in our culture and to be proud of them. To be truthful, honest and sincere. I love my life and want them to spread the message of love and not hate. A visitor to my home should find that the bushes are pruned, the lawns tidy and the occupants glowing with love. He will go back and attempt the same.

The art of keeping fit

All of us have been through this at some point in our lives. We look at ourselves in the mirror and feel the need to shed weight or achieve better muscle tone. Many hit the road or trail determined to get there, but few do. What's the secret? I progressed all the way from 60 to 90 when I was bitten by the fitness bug. I have thereafter fluctuated between 61 and 70. They say the tougher part of success is maintaining it and I can see why. Keeping fit, in my opinion, is all in the mind. Of course, you need to drag yourself out of the bed and start pushing your body but a lot of positive thought precedes that. The things that I have found useful are :

1)When you are at home (this is the most dangerous zone to be in) you know the refrigerator is stuffed with goodies. So any moment you feel hungry you immediately head for you know where. The problem with me is that I visualise myself walking to the refrigerator taking out a bar of snickers or something and muching on it. And invariably that's exactly what I end up doing! This struck me a few weeks back and I have since weaned myself away from such visuals. No more kitchen sojourns for me now! And for  good measure, I leave some apples, fibre biscuits around so that I can munch on them whenever I get the urge. And after lunch or dinner, I pop 1 or 2 cloves to escape the more sinful urges.

2)Dragging yourself out of bed early in the morning for a workout is one of the most painful experiences. Here too, filling your mind and feeding it positive thoughts will help you quickly hit the tracks. Previously I used to tell my mind negatives in the form of - walked a lot yesterday and you deserve a break today, the legs are aching, feeling feverish and so on. Now I feed it positive thoughts like the goal to be achieved for the week and how skipping a day will make it all the more difficult. I also think of other positives to be gleaned from my workout, I visualise how the trousers fit snugly, feeling positive at work and energised. It's worked wonders for me.

3)One of the things that jolted me back to strive for fitness was the realisation that unless one is healthy it impedes performance. Losing days together at business is enough of a disincentive. Besides, being the sole bread winner also got me up and running, literally.

The human mind visualises everything, so make sure that it is all positive images.

Why blog?

People blog for different reasons. Some do it for reaching out to the outside world, some do it just to express their views, while some do it to share information. There are also other types who do it in order to give vent to their frustrations, and some do it just for fun. My blogs are basically for myself, sort of an online diary, a reflection of the times that I have lived in. Very often we come across situations in life to which we react. Some of these reactions have a positive impact and some have very negative ones. As time passes we tend to forget some of the lessons that we derived from these important situations. I hope to be able to reflect on my past with the help of my blogs.What got me to blog so aggressively during these past days? You could say it is because of a combination of the all factors mentioned above. When I blog I find that I am basically talking to myself. So why make it public? Well hardly anyone reads it anyway, but I think it is an excellent way to shed myself of inhibitions.When you express yourself your mind is filled with more and more ideas. And that can do no harm!

The wonder that is equity

One of the biggest bulls in the Indian market rather prophetically stated last year (when the markets had started its downhill journey) that rather than test the will of the investors what this downtrend will do is test the 'faith'.I thought at that time this gentleman hit the nail on the head and how right he was.It is hard these days to find a soul who would vouch for the wisdom of investing in equities.Our faith in the markets is truly being tested.There is a strong theory floating around that the era of equity investments is over.

So is it really the end?Not by any stretch of imagination.You only have to look at the rally of the last 3 days. And what sparked off this rally? A rather innocuous bit of information emanating from citigroup that the first 2 months of 2009 were run on profit. That's the power of equity investments for you, it will punish the bad news and reward handsomely the good ones, and how!This is not to mean that we are done with the downtrend, far from it.But imagine what a turnaround in the macro factors will do for the markets.Those on the sidelines will be left wondering why they didn't board the bullet train when it stopped and waited for them for ages.

Are we clutching at straws?

The world is indeed starved of any kind of positive news, more so on the economic front. Stock traders world over have been looking for something positive to grasp at. Citigroup gave it yesterday. If one looks at it in a normal economic situation the news from Citi is nothing to write home about. But the times are anything but normal.Markets have rallied all over the globe and short traders will be scurrying to cover.

But the big question is, is this the start of the turnaround or are we merely clutching at straws?

Time will tell...