CFA Journey -2

After 90 days of conducting the exam, the CFA institute has come up with the result and I have cleared CFA Level 2. Hurray!!!!

Is he the greatest Olympian ever?

Probably yes.

And he comprehensively knows 'how to win'. I saw live the race where he won his 7th gold, he was no where in the top half of the swimmers at the turn at 50m, but still he managed to win. In fact, the serbian swimmer Cavic was winning till 50.50 seconds; the race got over at 50.58 seconds with Phelps winning. The commentator rightly pointed out why Phelps won: "He surged his hands towards the wall 'above' the water while others did it under water. This is the only reason for Phelps to win with a margin of one-hundredth of a second. And, most importantly he knows how to win". Just happy to witness history getting created. Probably this is the most happening sporting season with the epic Nadal-Federer Wimbledon final, the arrival of a mystery spinner and indeed Phelps at Beijing.

Dasavatharam Review

Dasavatharam, after seeing the movie my first reaction was : "racy". The screenplay of the movie kept the audience always involved.  I see the movie in two parts: one, the 12th century portion spanning for about 15 minutes and the second - the actual movie, lasting for the remaining minutes. There was never a scene in the second part of the movie which I found was redundant. Even the two songs in this part were carefully placed and properly intertwined with the storyline.  Regarding the first part, I fail to see its link with the remaining portion of the movie. It looks as if Kamal Hassan, the story writer, wanted the audience to know that there existed violent enmity between Saivites and Vaishnavites before the arrival of the foreign rulers just as the animosity existing between religions in the modern days. The only trace of a link of the first part with the second I could find was that the idol to which Kamal Hassan was tied and thrown into the sea in the 12th century would reappear in the final scene with actually no real significance - Kamal and Asin would stand beside it and propose!

As it has been said in Sify, of the 10 roles, some of them did not have substantial part in the movie.  I may sound contradictory here, I feel the movie had no redundant scenes but the 10 roles of Kamal were not actually justified. Some of them were roles that are typically done by character artistes. But Kamal's acting, makeup, dialogue delivery in each of these roles were impeccable, especially, the dialogue delivery of Bhuvaragan in his introductory scene.

There are some of the roles which stays in my mind even after a good night's sleep: The faces of American President Bush, the ex-CIA turned terrorist, Dalit activist Bhuvaragan.

I felt the songs were a let down prior to the movie, but now I feel it is not all that bad as there are only three songs and nicely compensated by the intertwined story in almost all of them.

The climax scene with Tsunami was a visual treat.  I liked the way the screenplay linked the story to a real-life incident.  It did make the entire story appear (to an extent) like a real one, that could have really happened. I was reminded of Irving Wallace's Seventh secret.

I expected the movie to be more on the lines of Hey Ram (which to me is the best Indian film I have seen) but it turned out to be a fast action movie where the Ulaganayagan did not disappoint his fans or any movie-goer.  All in all, I was happy at the end of the movie with a feeling of well-spent 200 rupees and (more or less) my expectations satisfied.

CFA Journey

The sole purposeful deed I was involved in the last two months was the preparation for CFA Level 2 test.  Though, at times, I felt that preparing for the test was a PIA when I had to give up some sessions of DoTA or How I met your mother! Now the CFA preparation has come to an end, reaching its pinnacle for me in Singapore.

Thanks to the legal tussle among AICTE-ICFAI and CFA Institute USA, Indian students were put under confusion on where they can take up the test.  During the registration period, the CFA institute allowed Indian students to take the test outside the country and all those students who were ready to travel abroad registered in a country of their choice. In the last few years, when the test was happening inside India, the number of Indian students, in all the three levels put together, would be about 8000 . Because of the confusion this year, only about 4000 Indian students registered for the tests.  On an average, the expenditure would be close to Rs.20000 including travel, visa and boarding expenses, which translates to Rs.8 Crores of unnecessary expense and even more crores of rupees of opportunity costs (for the remaining 4000 who did not take) for the Indian test takers because of a legal battle that remains unsolved for more than a year.

Having gone to Singapore to take the test, I cannot stop admiring the professionalism with which the test was conducted. To start, the hall in which the exam happened had close to 4800 seats - the biggest examination hall in which I was a part. It was ensured that all the tables were firmly footed with sandpapers supporting the legs of tables which were shorter than the other legs by millimetres. I have been in exam halls, which were much smaller but with lots of tables dancing because of uneven base.  It was the first time in my life, I encountered toilet proctors whose responsibility was to ensure that no test-taker misuses the toilet facility! There were section proctors who took care of close to 30 students, and lead proctors and exit proctors and so on and so forth.  Even the outside of the hall (which would have spanned close to 100 metres) were patrolled to ensure there is no noise and no disturbance from outside.  To a person like me, I would say the set up was Pukka.

As for my performance is concerned, the morning session was quite easy. I finished with about half an hour to spare.  The afternoon session also I found was a cake-walk, completing the test with close to 35 minutes to spare.  After a light perusal of the threads in Analyst Forum I understood the majority found the afternoon session to be more difficult than the morning one. Overall, the posters there found the tests to be challenging and definitely not a cake-walk.  This should mean that either I nailed the tests comprehensively or I was fooled handsomely by the paper-setters' guile. I hope it was the former.

New Template

I moved to the layout based template of Blogger last week. The template I am currently using is downloaded from Isnaini. More than the template, the new blogger layout feature is capturing my attention. The ease with which we can add, remove or move content is miles ahead of the earlier blogger version. All this without having to touch the template code. I strongly encourage those who are still using the old blogger template to move to the layout based one.

Ponderings - revisited

In The Fountainhead, the protagonist Howard Roark says, “the last thing I expect for my work is appreciation”. Why can’t we be like that? This “we” surely includes yours truly. Though many of us bark as though we are Roarks, most of us are not. I have not seen a single Roark in my life. After all, The Fountainhead is a work of fiction.

Why do we expect others to evaluate us? Why do we want our works to be recognized by others? Why do we want others to hold us in high esteem? Why we, sometimes, become charlatans? Why do we do things just to impress others, while we ourselves do not like to do them? Why are we not ready to accept others’ superiority over us in some fields? Why we try to ape the ones we consider superior to us? Why many of us do not know what we want out of life?

Questions abound. Answers to each of these questions are available. Some of them told by the Krishnas, some by the Buddhas, some by the Ayn Rands, some in religious scriptures and some even in movies. But the whole issue is why are we not having a lucid understanding of these questions though we have a lot of answers.

Of course, man is a social animal. So he should give due diligence to gregarious commitments. But is it advisable to let those affect or determine his individual character? Yes, societal onus on an individual makes him not to indulge in unlawful/unethical/unhealthy practices “when others are around”. But if such falsity prevails within our self, what benefit we derive from the society’s applause.

Of the above questions, I consider the last one to be the most basic and most important which is being ignored high time by us. Not many of us can visualize our lives ten years down the line – of how we want our lives to be, what(or who) would make us happy. If we know what we want out of life, we can act towards that target – take tiny little steps in that journey, every dawn we move closer to that target...I understand, I am sounding Utopian.

I recently came across an article in wikipedia which discussed about the Seven Cardinal Sins. Though a bit far-fetched, I relate the questions raised above to these seven sins. The seven sins are Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Jealousy, Anger and Pride. Please do not ask me, how we could relate each one of these sins to the questions raised. After all, I do not commit any of these seven sins (Sin number 7: Pride)

iDailyDiary

I found this software "iDailyDiary" very useful. It ended my search for a software version of the diary. The basic version is a freeware with all the basic features enabled and with only certain add-on features like spell check, adding on tags that are missing. The only issue I think with this software is that the files created (one single file for one journal, not date-wise!) are stored with extension ".idd", and I do not think this extension is standardized. Any issue with the main software and all the journal entries might go for a toss.

Cool Cool

This is probably the best product in the Indian market. An ultimate cool one, especially in this heat.

Flynn loses Teeth!

Poor Daniel Flynn got two of his teeth removed, thanks to a "well-directed" bouncer from James Andersen. Incidentally, this is Flynn's second test in his very first tour for the black caps. In the earlier match, his first, his contribution with the bat was well appreciated by Vettori.

One tooth came off on impact and the other was removed later! Uff...Not a "gentle"-man's game....



Courtesy: Youtube

Can Sachin help Dhoni?

With all the help from the rain-gods, Chennai are one step closer to the semifinal spot. The rains went in their favour in the match against Kolkata and Kolkata suffered again against Delhi where Delhi also had to share the pain.

With Delhi at 13 and Chennai at 14 points and Delhi having 1 match and Chennai having 2 matches, the probability should favour Chennai. With one game against Rajasthan, I do not fancy Chennai to win. The other match is against Deccan Chargers which no one can predict. If one of Gilly, Afridi fires the match is gone. All these can be put to rest if Mumbai can defeat Delhi. If that happens, Delhi would be stuck at 13 and Chennai can qualify irrespective of what happens in its own matches.

So my dream line-up for the IPL semifinals might not happen. In all likelihood it is going to be Rajasthan, Punjab, Mumbai and Chennai.

IPL Semifinal Line-up

This is my dream line-up for Semifinals
1. Rajasthan Royals
2. Kings XI Punjab
3. Mumbai Indians
4. Delhi Daredevils

I sincerely hope Chennai Super Kings do not make it to the semis. I think their position right now in the table is more of luck than talent. I can recall at least 2 matches where the opponents gave the match away than Chennai winning it (one against Bangalore and the other against Mumbai). Any team that can lose like this, that too to Bangalore Royal Challengers should voluntarily exit from the race to the semis. With the rain threat looming large on the Kolkata-Delhi match, Chennai's luck may still help them get to semifinals.

Update:
The actual IPL semifinal line-up is
1. Rajasthan Royals v/s Delhi Daredevils; May 30; 2000 hrs local time
2. Kings XI Punjab v/s Chennai Super Kings; May 31; 2000 hrs local time

Arasangam

Was surprised to read some reviews on "Arasangam" which claim the movie is much better than expected.

Of course, with Gapdan in the lead, my expectation was actually zero, err....negative. Even the reviewers might have had such low expectations.

Is it time to watch a captain's movie on the big screen?

Laxman betrayed us!

Had Very very sappai Laxman been there, Chennai Super Kings would have won. Because of his absence, this happened.

It is to be accepted beyond the slightest of doubts that Hayden and Hussey have left a big hole, not only in the Super Kings' top order, but also in the confidence of the team as a whole. It was not that both these lefty aussies fired together, in fact Hayden was hardly closer to his usual. The batting order minus these two seems extremely brittle, where a bowler can run through the side. The problem is exacerbated with the weird logic of the best batsmen coming lower down the order. In the matches against Deccan Chargers and Rajasthan Royals, Dhoni came at No.6 and in the previous match against Delhi Daredevils, Raina came at No.6. In the shortened format, the best batsmen should be the ones to deal with the bowlers as early as possible. And, we are not playing in Manchester or Lord's where the new ball will talk.

Luckily for the Super Kings, the bottom 4 teams are struggling even more and they are still retaining their position needed to qualify for the semi-finals. But I expect a close fight among Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knightriders and Deccan Chargers for the 4th place for the semis. With the arrival of Akhtar, Kolkata looks a formidable bowling attack with Gul and Ishant to augment. But I am not quite sure about their batting though. Deccan Chargers are filled with players who can turn the match single-handedly: Gibbs, Gilchrist, Afridi and Styris. Rohit Sharma and RP Singh are also decent performers in the line-up.

I should say the IPL has lived up to its expectation and it has not been a damp squib. It might be true that it has reached a plateau now in terms of viewership after the initial days which might pick up again during the knock-out stages, the interest in the match results though has not subsided.

Padma Awards

Glad to know that 2 of my 3 heroes are among the Padma Vibhushan recipients.

Here is the full story.

Btw, the 3 heroes I look up to are Sachin Tendulkar, Narayan Murthy and Kamal Hassan.

An Indian Success

Harbhajan slapped Sreesanth.
Indian politicians are infuriated by Bush's comment on price increase (poor Bush!)
Warne blames in media about Ganguly's misdemeanor
Umar Gul re-affirms his captain will learn captaincy in the matches to come

These are the news that were given air-time and priority more than this.

Briefly, this is the first time that a rocket has carried 10 satellites and launched them successfully in space. First of all, it opens up the multi-crore space business for India - an opportunity for our ISROs to have commercial success. In addition, this success catapults India's status in the international space research and decision-making arenas.

P.S.: Was shocked to learn that China has an anti-satellite missile!

A brief IPL Analysis

Amidst some posts and allegations that Chennai Super Kings team is devoid of local talent (and that other teams are brimming with the same!), I started collecting some statistics about the 16 IPL matches so far. Having started to collect data, I did not restrict myself to the local talent question. The variables I wanted to test (yeah, some jargon!) were: Number of locals (local means local, like Ganguly in Kolkata, unlike Murali Kartik in Kolkata), Nationality of Player of the match, Number of Lefties in the top 7 of batting order, Toss decision, Result for team winning the toss and whether the team that won had chased or defended. This entire analysis is based only on the first 16 matches of IPL and no prior T20 statistics have been incorporated.

First, the local talent part. As per the playing 11 of the teams in the 16 matches so far, 26.9% of the team composition is local. The cumulative number of locals was 95 out of 352(for 16*2*11: 16 for matches, 2 for number of teams per match, and 11 for number of players per team). So as per the average about 3 players (obviously rounded off) in each team should be proper local talent. So, it is to be accepted that teams like Rajasthan Royals and Chennal Super Kings are not meeting the cut in terms of giving opportunities to local talent pool. (For Chennai Super Kings defense: Get back Murali Kartik, Dinesh Kartik!)

Second, the nationality of the player of the matches. It may be called the Indian Premier League, but 13 out of the 16 MoM awards have gone to non-Indian players. The 3 from India are Virender Sehwag (Delhi Daredevils vs Hyderabad Deccan Chargers), Yousuf Pathan (Rajasthan Royals vs Deccan Chargers) and MS Dhoni (Chennai Super Kings vs Bangalore Royal Challengers). With the departure of some of the key foreign players, the count may now tilt towards the Indian players. Hey, apart from Sehwag, the so called icons (iconic players, heh!) like Yuvraj, Laxman, Dravid, Ganguly have done rather poorly so far. Tendulkar has not done anything. Hope he gets well soon.

Third, the lefties at the top of the order. The cumulative lefties count in the top 7 of batting order is 77 out of 224 (16 matches * 2 teams per match * 7 players per team), which comes close to 35% or 2.5 left handed batsmen in the top order. So, Chennai Super Kings with their 5 lefties are far above the cut. Is this the reason for their success so far?

Fourth, about whether the 20-20 format supports the defending team or the chasing team. Out of the 16 matches, an overwhelming 75% of the matches have been won by teams batting second. Of the 4 matches won defending, 3 had targets in excess of 200. In the other one, Bangalore Royal Challengers somehow managed to lose against Chennai Super Kings. As the commentators on Set Max put it, they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Bottom-line, very difficult to defend if the team batting first has not put up in excess of 200 or if the chasing team is not Bangalore!

Now, for the surprise element: Toss. In spite of knowing the success rate of the chasing team (75%), in 6 out of the 16 matches alone (or 37.5%) , the toss-winning captain has elected to bat first. No wonder, the toss-winning team has won only 5 out of the 16 or 31%. Given this, there is only one team has won the toss, chose to bat and still won. Easy guess, the team is Dhoni's Super Kings and they have done it twice. I know the saying (or the now proverb!), "Statistics are like bikinis, what they reveal is suggestive, what they hide is essential". But I see a pattern in this format in India in IPL which strongly favours the chasing team and not many in the team managements seem to notice it.

The spreadsheet which I used for this analysis (yes, I am idle) is available here.

Update 1: 17th Match: My hypothesis about the fate of defending or chasing. Proved right: the defending team won - my claim was one can defend if the score is more than 200 or if the opponent is Bangalore. Delhi safely defended against "Bangalore" in spite of scoring less than 200.

Some ad!

This is a replication of a post from India-Uncut. This ad is just too good to resist.

Left rules

At least in the Chennai Super Kings - Punjab Kings T20 match.
5 out of the top 7 batsmen of both the teams were lefties. This has made me think whether the T20 format suits lefties more than the rights. Too lazy to analyze the composition of batsmen of other teams.

Glad that the Super Kings were better than the Kings today.

Boring Television

After a brief hiatus away from television, I am now forced to sit in front of it for long hours these days- thanks to the never-ending Argumentative Indian, never-insightful Fooled by Randomness and ever so boring CFA level 2 materials.

I thought only mega-serials and nedunthodars are the only bane (I am not alone, I have Afghan Muslim clerics for support). To add to the plight, the dance shows and talent-hunts have become a bigger pain. The contestants in one dance show are turning up as judges in another show, another channel. Sad to know that the TRP ratings for tamil channels are much higher for these reality dance and talent-hunt shows. With a Sun Direct connection, the only other option is to watch the news channels. where the only solace are the advertisements which occupy more than 50% of air time.

The lone star among the available channels to me is Vijay TV. Not that it tickles the sixth sense in me; at least it has some shows which are inherently different from the others (eg. Ippadikku rose).

D-War

IMDB has slightly over-rated this movie