In Defence of Economists

Economists have come under severe criticism for being unable to foresee crises, so much so that the efficacy of economics as a discipline is being questioned. Besides, people often point out that economists have been guilty of using models that are not applicable in the real world. Some of the criticisms are fair. However, to question the very efficacy of economists on the ground that economists have not be able to predict crises in misguided.

Firstly, many of the crises that people often quote can be attributed to asymmetry of information more so the recent Global Financial Crisis. Financial firms sell exotic financial products. The only information you have about these products is that they represent some underlying asset which will yield returns in the future. These products often come with an ostensible ‘Investment Grade’ rating from the rating agency and hence do not explicitly state the exact nature of the underlying asset. In such a scenario it is safe to assume that the investment products are a relatively safe investment. However, the problem arises i.e. a crisis takes place, when the financial firms or the rating agencies pass off toxic investments as good investments. The information that the economist has is that the investments are indeed good. All calculations are based on this information. This being the case there is no reason for the economist to believe that a crisis can occur. Then in the event of a crisis occurring people jump to conclusions that the economists have failed to predict the crisis. The real cause of the crisis is often not understood, in this case; being the lack of proper information about the financial products. Why should the economist be blamed if financial firms commit outright fraud?

Secondly, on using models that are far away from the real world; the very definition of a model is that it is a hypothetical description of a complex event or thing. The main purpose of any model is to simply whatever it is intending to explain. Thus, when an economist uses a model he/she endeavours to break down real life phenomena to a level where a study can be done with relative ease. The model is just a depiction of a complex happening in a way that is easy to understand or deconstruct. With the models many underlying assumptions are stated explicitly. These assumptions point out that the model is indeed a deviation from the real world scenarios. The economist, to his credit, makes it ostensible that the model is based on assumptions. In such a case is it fair to hold the economist responsible if someone else uses the model without fully understanding the implications of the assumptions being violated. Clearly, it is not.

Thirdly, “...the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones…” goes the famous Mark Anthony speech. Economists are treated in this way. The work done by economists is often forgotten. The recovery after the crisis has been steady. Timely interventions have saved the day and prevented another Great Depression from occurring. Economists have pointed out that government’s role in the economy is imperative and therefore the G-20 nations have accordingly undertaken coordinated fiscal stimuli of their economies. This action has stalled the free fall that the world economy saw during the financial crisis.

The cogency of the economist’s trade rests heavily on correct information being available. All deductions are based on information that is available. There is no reason for things to go wrong if the information available is correct. Thus, holding the economist responsible for dupery committed by others is not right.

My Experiments with Swimming

You may think that it is impossible for a boy of a six feet two inch frame to drown in five feet of water. Let me tell you, at the outset, that it is possible.

Having drowned, well amost, in a five feet swimming pool, I decided to learn to swim. I enrolled at the swimming pool at Anna University. The coach tried to teach me leg movements of the breast stroke. I kicked and I kicked hard for twelve days and could not even float. On the thirteenth day the coach thought that only fate could get me to swim. Thus, he made me dive in the the deepest part of the pool which was well over ten feet deep. I protested, he did not relent and got me to jump in to the pool. I jumped praying all the while to make God take me through this episode alive and in one piece. I jumped in and wallowed in the pool drinking large quanitites of chlorine water. I thought I would not be thirty for a week. I puked, well almost and felt sick. That was the last day I saw of the coach and the swimming pool at Anna Univeristy. I could not tell which was worse-drowning in five feet of water or trying to learn how to swim and the coach almost drowning you. The moral of the story was that I survived but did not learn to swim.

About two weeks ago I enrolled, again, in a course called "Learn to Swim" at the Tamil Nadu Sports Development Authority Complex. Twelve days later I could swim with much confidence and to top it all I have picked up three of the four genres of swimming. I managed to learn the freestyle stoke, the breast stoke and the back stroke. The coach, Mr Verra, at TN SDAT was brilliant. He got everybody in my batch to swim. I think I should take up the membership of the the TN SDAT to hone my swimming skills. Mr Phelps now is the time when you should start getting worried.

The Blue Mug - A Reflection

What would you associate with Rajat Kapoor, Vinay Pathak, Konkana Sensharma, Munish Bharadwaj, Sheeba Chadha and Ranvir Shorey when they come together for a performance? My expectation swung between the extremes of an outright comedy and the acute seriousness of contemporary threatre. What spanned out in those seventy five minutes caught me by surprise and brought tears to my eyes. Tears of sorrow and some of joy.

The Blue Mug was personal theatre at its very best. It was a play based on memories in which the protagoist was the memory of the thespian on stage at each point in time. This seemingly abstract play was not that abstract after all. It did serve a purpose, it did make a point and it did make a memory. In fact many memories, some bitter some sweet. The play tickled and tantalized with characterised ease. It made you feel different emotions at the same time.

Munish Bharadwaj was jesting that he had to visit the crematorium very often as people in his family kept dying often. His brother and he were the most sought after people during the days when someone had died because they had unprecedented knowlwdge on the rituals. " My brother had gone to buy wood for the pyre and gave Rs 800 for wood costing Rs 740. The wood wala said Sir change nahi hai to which my brother said koi nahi bhai sahab agli baar adjust kurlengay. Humara yaha aana jana luga rehta hai. My brother died five years ago". The lights began to dim thereafter and melancholic music played in the background. I could not help but feel the chill when at one moment I was delirious with laughter and at the next I was pained at the loss of life.

The riots of 1984 played before my eyes when Sheeba Chadha paced the stage with anxious steps and shuddery narration. "My father walked up and down the room and bricks kept piling on the roof. My father was not wearing his turban that day and that annoyed me. He looked like a distraught mad man and bricks kept piling on the roof. If someone had to come let them come now." There is a scream and the lights dim.

Ranvir Shorey plays a middle aged man whose world seems to have been stuck in 1983. His accent is pulsated with an overt Punjabi twang. Recent memories evade him. He recalls his childhood with ease but has difficulty remembering events that have transpired a quarter of an hour ago. His melancholic melodrama is imbued with the colour of raw humour. He inspires a feeling of overwhemling compassion. Konkana Sensharma plays his doctor. She graples with is condition and is unable to come up with a cure or remedy for his situation.

Rajat Kapoor guides the audience in to past and brings out pieces of our childhoods. The joint family festivities and the slumber on the terrace sprinkled with water on a hot summer night evoke a sense of nostalgia. His monologue is dotted with subtle humour and has gory mix of tragedy. "My brother called me at 10 in the morning. I knew something was wrong becasue my brother never called me during the day. He said that our father was sick. But my father had been sick for the last eight years. My dad woke up in the middle of the night and said that there was a man on the ceiling.  The next day he could not recognize anyone. I went to see my father and he did not recognize me. We got used to living with him in that state. I came back. One day the phone rang, agian, at 5:30 in the morning.

The exuberance of Vinay Pathak was very well captured in his performance. He loved going to the circus and enjoyed the whole atmosphere until one day a clown spat on him through his eyes. "I loved going to the circus. I loved the smell of circus, basically animal crap. I enjoyed everybit of it. Then one day a clown pointed his finger at me and came close, very close and spat on me through his eyes. I was very scacred. Everyone was laughing at me, I had no place to hide and no place to run. That bloddy clown ruined it for me. I had nightmares of the incident. I would wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat and my mother would ask me kya hua beta. What could I tell her. Kya bolta- Ma mujhe joker k sapne aate hai"? The light dims and music plays in the background.

Memories flowed by like the sands of time, changing by the ticking hands of a clock ever so fresh and then decaying in a split second making space for another. The play made me laugh and it made me weep running by me the countless memories of my life. I was left craving for an encore. In a span of those seventy five minutes I had relived my life. How I wish I can relive it some other day too.

*The quotes may not be exact but they capture the spirit of what was being protrayed by the thespian on stage.

The Reptilian Coach

The year was 1995, I think. It was the time when I was being introduced to basketball in my boarding school. Like most others of my age I was quite excited about the whole business of basketball. The game fascinated me beyond measure. At the same time it perplexed me as well. I could not figure out how could anyone basket the ball with such precision. This troubled my young unadulterated mind.

This seemingly imposible situation was solved by the basketball coach Mr Majumdar. Mr Majumdar (I think he was called Mr Majumdar) was our computer teacher and was filling in one day for our real basketball coach. Mr Majumdar's solution to the problem was very "reptilian". He said "Keep one eye on the ball; keep the other eye on the basket and shoot." We tried, and we tried again and again and again never actually managing to keep one eye on the ball and the other eye on the basket and shoot. We did shoot but never managed the former part of the advice i.e. to keep one eye on the ball and keep the other on the ring. We just couldn't. It was only in one biology class some years later that we got to know that it is physically impossible for humans/mammals to keep one eye on the ball and simultaneously one eye on the basket. Till then we had thought that Mr Majumdar has special basketball powers that allowed him to do what reptiles do with ease - look in different directions with different eyes. Mr Majumdar you had us for many years but now we have you for the rest of your life. Howwwzzzaaattt!!!

Big Words

Even protracted ruminations on the subject matter of sesquipedality has never led me understand the need for such acute communicatory profligacy. Engagement is such demeanour is often profligate. No doubt it sounds impressive, it conveys little leaving the reader discombobulated. Effective communication rests heavily on easy comprehension and sesquipedalian language does not lend it self to easy comprehension.

Now in English

I have never understood the need to use big words in communication. Using big words defeats the purpose of what it intends to do i.e communicate ( I am assuming it intends to communicate and not impress per say). Use of such language leaves the reader/listener confused about the meaning to what is being said. Communication depends on how easily people understand what they are hearing or reading. Using big words often confuses people and therefore is not good for communication

A Letter to Like

Dear Like,

I am sure that this letter of mine finds you in the pink of health. It has been long time since I had written to you last (2866 years to be exact) so I decided to write. I also write to you to bring to your notice that you are becoming increasingly omnipresent in the language of my species.

Although, I like you a lot Like I must point out to you that your overt and off late annoying presence is getting to me. Like, you know what I mean. Like you are becoming annoying like you are present after every word, like after nouns, verbs, adjectives, everywhere. Like you get what I mean right. You presence as a filler, like, is bothersome. I fear for the language of my kind. Like I am scared that it may be the situation soon that a majority of our sentences begin and end with you like. Like you will be everywhere.

Thus, I must take this opportunity like, to tell you that you have to stop becoming omnipresent and hence annoying. Prey, I beg you not to dislike me for disliking you. It is only the law of diminishing marginal utility that is operating here and I am a mere pawn in the game. I will like you more again if you begin to show yourself less and less. (Over exposure is never good).

I sincerely hope that you have understood,like, what I mean Like and will take it in the right earnest. Like, you will not feel bad or whatever as what ever I have said is only for your good and the good of our language.

Yours Truly,

Anand.

Reservoir Dogs - A Review

I can not claim to be too much of a "watching plays" person. However, having lived in Delhi for a little while I have had some exposure to theatre but only just. I was elated at the orginality of presenting plays on stage in two forms-screening some parts of the play and enacting the other parts. This is what ASAP productions did when I had gone to watch their play on Friday Sep 18th, 2009 at Museum Theatre, Egmore, Chennai. They play was called 'Reservoir Dogs'.

The idea of the play was similar to the movie having the same title. The stage was befittingly lit dimly giving the impression that one was sitting in a gangster's hideout. The acting was emaculate and flawless. Mr Orange did look like he had taken a bullet in his belly and the policeman did look like that his ear had been chopped off, so much so that I could feel the chill and some of my colleagues who were co audience covered their eyes with their hands. The performance was powerful. However, to my surprise many people left before the play got over. Despite the brilliant individual performances the play looked to be incoherent and failed to capture the attention of the audiences. This lapse I attribute to two things- first, the screen was crumpled up and second, some of the screeings were too long.

As far as I am concened I am waiting for other plays by ASAP for I am sure by what I saw that these are the guys to watch out for. I am going to be looking out for them, I suggest that you too do the same. You have my word, you will not regret it.

To Be Or Not To Be A Farmer?

What is common between Santosh Khope, Kishan Jadhav, Shirirang Dolarkar, Vinod Vaghare, Nanji Wadhari and many thousand others? Well, they are all dead. They paid a heavy price for being a farmer in India. The reason for their untimely death is not hard to comprehend. They committed suicide. Crop failure, debt burden and penury forced them to take their own lives.

Agriculture in India is in a bad state of affairs growing at less than 3% per annum over the last decade. Vagaries of weather and bad government policies have only accentuated the trend. While not much can be done with the weather; a lot can be done with the policies of the government. High cost of production, insufficient minimum support prices, lack of sustained access to institutional source of credit, high cost of borrowing from money lenders have only added fuel to the fire.

Banks debar farmers who are unable to repay their loans. On the face of it, this might seem to be a desirable things for the sake of efficiency of banks but this practice is inherently counter cyclical. Farmers who are in desperate need of money borrow from banks to fund their agricultural activities. Now suppose that the farmer has a bad year because of crop failure and is unable to repay the loan. He thus becomes ineligible for another round of loans. But the farmer needs the money to fund next year's agricultural activities. So what does he do? He borrows from private money lenders who charge extremely high interest rates. To repay this huge interest burden the farmer must have atleast a few years of good crops. But the irony is, a farmer can not have a few years of good crops because every year is not a good rainfall year. So the farmer struggles to repay the private loan. Eventually the situation becomes unsustainable and he he commits suicide. Well to stretch the argument further he not only kills himself but indirectly his family also as very often the farmer is the prime bread earner for the family. After his death survival of the family becomes all that more difficult.

The moral of the story is that people who need the money the most are denied money. The way out would be for banks to persist for a longer period of time with the farmer. This will give the farmer a fair chance to repay the loan and it also increases the chances of the bank getting its principal back (because even if the farmer has a decent year he will be able to repay the loan). Besides the banks will be fulfilling their duty of spreading equitable growth. The only institutions that will be able to do this will be banks because they have deep pockets and will be able to stay on the loans longer.

Come to think of it the aforementioned things are not so hard to implement. I only wonder why they have not been implemented yet?

The Batch of 2009

Am I not blessed to have studied at Madras School of Economics? I am, in my opinion, very lucky in that regard. It is not so much the academic foundation at Madras School that causes me to make such a statement. It is more about the company I was in. Come to think of it, at MSE I met the most incredulous set of talented and brilliant people. So much so that on many occasions I felt that destiny had played a very cruel trick on me. I felt so much out of place. The feeling was so intense and over whelming sometimes that I built a cocoon around myself and confined myself to the comfortable limits of the cocoon.

Almost everybody in my batch (the batch of 2009) had some extraordinary quality for twenty something years of age. Some were extraordinaries in whatever they did. Wizards at academics and champs at extra curriculars, everybody had something special in them. I mean everybody.EVERYBODY. Now, where did I fit in this scheme of things? To be honest, nowhere. Perhaps, my only job was to watch in awed admiration the splendid events as and when they unfolded and soak up all the beauty and wisdom thus being released. I did try in earnest to do so.

All of create identities in our lifetimes. Most from my batch will have examplary identities. Some will be great economists, some great managers, some great academicians, some of them will be the big bull on the stock markets, some will be civil servants of the highest cadre, some great thinkers. All this makes me very envious and sometimes sad. Sad because I know no matter how hard I try I am never even going to get close to any one in this regard. However, there is much happiness to be had from the fact that I had a chance to know such brilliant people. I do feel happy and blessed to have been able to do so. Like all others in my batch I will also create some identities ( thought much lesser in stature). No matter where I reach or what identity I create, my greatest identity will be that I knew these wonderful people. My epitaph (if I get one) shall read-He lived in the age of the batch of 2009.

On Why Cricket is a Religion

If you think that cricket is just a game in India you are probably from Mars or Venus (the choice of planet depending upon your gender). Well, technically it is a game. Generically, it is a faith, a sort of religion, a cult or say it is a passion catalyst. Illustrative examples follow:

Example 1 : It so happened India and Pakistan were locking horns in the 2003 world cup (the match in which Tendulkar derailed the Rawalpindi Express). My grandpa and I were watching the match. Halfway through the match he developed a heart pain and had to be rushed to the hospital and was in the ICU, unconscious. After a couple of hours when he gained consciousness the first thing he said was - "India match jeet gayi kya?"

Example 2: Svetha's grandma loves watching Sun TV, KTV and their ilk. But when ever a cricket match is happening all other TVs take a back seat and she religiously watches the match. No one is allowed to touch the remote even if WW-III is breaking out.

Example 3: Madan uncle works for a private firm. He takes a leave every time India has a match. EVERY TIME.

Example 4: My mother watches test cricket, five days full. Papa calls to find out the score every hour.

Example 5: I broke my collarbone while playing cricket and returned to play cricket after exact one month only.

Example 6: Rahul, Shishir and I buried our mobile phones in an unknown jungle to gain entry for an IPL match. We were not allowed to take our phones inside and since there was no place where we could keep our phones we buried them in a jungle behind a temple. Of course we retrieved it after the match.

The list is endless. Cricket unites and divides like no other thing or sport.