Scope for Microfinancing in India

I was born at a nondescript place in rural Bihar. Today, when I look at the the place, I see a lot of potential - waiting to be leveraged. An educated youth wanting to enhance his skills just so much as to get a job; A cattle manager wishing to increase his cattle strength to supply milk to larger consumer group (btw, I was amazed by this guy's implicit economic concepts- he talked about economics of scale and incremental cost vs production - though not in those words) ; a trader that sees a potential for home-made incense sticks.

There are a lot of needs that exist and wants that can be created among the population in the countryside. Many of them have the desire, the dream of making it big - to grow. But one of the major road blocks in executing these (seemingly) ambitious plans is the non-availability of loans to (seemingly) non-credit worthy clients.

This is where a microfinance firm comes in. These guys are supposed to see the demand critically, analyse the credit-worthiness of the person; And provide support for these people to grow.

There is little point in giving loans for consumption, the growth comes only for money used in productive way. If the loan is spent in celebrating some thing, true - the money goes into the economy and keeps the ball rolling. But if the same amount is used invested in a business, the economic effects are multiplied many times over.

It's this growth of small enterprises that really drives the economy. I hope that MFIs will help in extensive proliferation such small/cottage/medium size industries and leverage our country from a developing to a developed one.

The killer after the euphoria

I went for dinner at Barbecue Nation on Osman road last night. Wonderful food, good ambiance. LOVED every bit of it, with great starters, Lamb kofta, Claypso fish & Crab. It was worth every penny.

And today morning I received the terrible news. I have been allocated RR-M2 mess for the month of February. This is supposed to be the worst mess at IITM by miles. Should one be punished so heavily for missing the mess registration?

If the hostel affairs secretary is reading this, please make sure that from next time, the guys who miss the registration is allotted the same mess as the month before.

I am happy that February is the shortest month of the year :P

Scalability of business

Just read Anurag Srivastava's note (on facebook) dealing with scalability of business and life in general.

He writes
" .... what keeps one going is not the regular earnings that you get from the business which in a typical year is predictable - but possibility that there can be a time when all things will go right and will payoff exponentially. Every one who gets into business does it with that hope - that if all things go right - there will be a windfall ..."

I am not very sure about the comment about the "typical year" claim - all of us have seen how the markets crashed within a very short time. We are talking about black swans here. He seems to look only for the positive abnormalities but (probably because he is a die-hard optimist) prefers to overlook the tough times.

Though the expectation part is very valid - no one wants to do something that will remain mediocre all along. Its only the faint hope of greatness that drives the men.

Further he adds
"... where the business scales up purely on creation of a design or an idea that gets replicated easily and you get paid for every unit that gets produced by anyone through a license. So the Chinese might have factories which make the Nike shoes and scale up production as per what Nike wants and make incremental profits - Nike has to design and market those shoes to make exponential profits without too much extra investment on capital or humans. Ideas and intellectual property is scalable , bodies are not. Running a hotel is not scalable but the format/franchises are ..."

Here he makes a very interesting point. All of us knew it somewhere at the back of our heads but it still is a revelation when one first gets to see it articulated. Its the idea that can bring a turn around. In my opinion, the distinguishing feature of a scalable business is the fact that an additional unit is not accompanied with diminishing returns.

PS- More on business scalability in the manufacturing sector here.

Source of motivation

Watched "Slum dog Millionaire" last night. and have not stopped thinking about it.
A wonderful movie - none of the actors overshadowed a 10/10 script. And the best part about the movie - the guy never forgets his childhood love, and tries to get her time and again: despite all odds. All this while there was not once that they professed love towards each other. Like the instance when he had to fight his elder brother to try to elope with the girl. And the girl willing to sacrifice for the sake of the boy.

The story got me thinking, what motivated the protagonist to do all that he did. For that matter, what drives a person to attempt world defying feats? what makes a man try things that none else would imagine doing? Assuming everyone to be rational, a person will venture into such a thing only if he/she finds the potential rewards to be greater than the value of the effort required. The only way this could happen with a consistent valuation is that he/she sees a potential that others don't. It requires a vision to be able to spot an opportunity when its not evident. Also it needs courage to try out new things, may be the fact that they trust themselves when they do so makes them successful. Ancient Chinese script, Tao Te Ching says - Love gives the ability to be brave. In this context, its the love for the winning that gives them the ability to attempt things unprecedented.

Lets look at various motivational techniques people use:
For a few people, its easier to stay focused if they have something to look for, like Clearing IIT-JEE, Clearing CAT, designing a novel pump, building a world class organization.

But if a persons' aspirations, dreams are limited to falling into the arms of some other person: I don't see how that can drive him/her. Probably I am ignorant of the ways love works.


As I am pretty sure, you must have observed: The journey towards the goal is often more fun filled than the destination itself. That is what drove the founders of now world leading companies - continual improvement. Once establishing the organisation was complete, they could have gone to cool off their heels. But they did not - they toiled hard, to improve, even if by just a tiny bit. That's what made them great.

Its the determination and perseverance that gave them a reason to work. And when a quantifiable goal is cut-out, motivation comes naturally.

But is the challenging work, the only motivating factor for us? Apparently no. As documented so well in numerous Bollywood scripts and romantic novels, "LOVE" triumphs all when it comes to motivating the protagonists. Apart from that, (I risk being politically incorrect when I write this, but what the hell !), money that one makes while working is also a huge (de)motivating influence.
Probably its to do with personal priorities. Different people are driven by different things and its the valuation of the work-love-money mix against one's own standards is what determines the motivation level.

PS - While writing the "Different people are driven by different things..", I could not help recalling the lovely Obelix from the Asterix series who cared for nothing more than a sumptuous meal of wild boars. Well now You know why I named this blog "Foodological".

You only get to live once

I know this is a weird thought. weird not in the freaky way, but in the everyone-knows-it-but-lets-not-talk-about-this way.

It does not feel nice to be talking about death, at least not amongst youngsters. No one needs to be reminded that this is his/her last chance at this planet.(or,for the reincarnation believers, at least in this particular form, and with this name).

I don't know why or how, this thought popped into my head today morning. And since then it has infiltrated each of my neurons. All I have been thinking of today is that One gets to live only once.

So now I would like to pen, type down my understanding of this statement.

For one it indicates that since we are allowed only one life, we should not waste it in any form,one must do all the wild stuff to make the best use of their stay on this planet. But it also means that we need to get things right the first time! We don't get to change this back or correct it the next time!

It also means that we cant choose to defer helping others, for we might not be around for long enough to help them. It also means that we need to get our priorities right the first time, for we might not have time to correct it later on.

So everyone who is reading this blog, please do call up your parents and tell them how much you love them(U never know if you will be able to do so later). 

It also is a reminder that whatever we do for work, it will always be related to us. So any unscrupulous deed of ours will always to associated with us and that we might not be able to rectify it.

So I am thinking in terms of banning procrastination.  If there is a job to be done, it should be done right away, of course going by the priority order. And I believe that every person has,or at least should have, a priority order for the tasks he/she has to do. whether it is to do with choosing to play cricket with the family or designing pumps for nuclear reactors, everyone implicitly knows what precedes what. Work is important as the individual, but friends & family is what you are as a person.

And I believe that only a 'person' can perform well in any organisation. The days of I-can-give-the-customer-any-color-car-as-long-as-it-is-black are long gone. Only the people who treat other people who respect others can get respected in return and build an organisation.

One more thing about being ready to die the next moment is that we need to be loving whatever we are doing, always. So the moment of our exile is filled with joy and excitement. And my personal experience tells me that I perform much better while doing things that I love. 

PS - This is the summary of all that has crossed my mind today. I tried to recollect and reorder my thoughts while writing it, but please excuse me for any incoherence or digression that might have crept in.

serenity

For the past few days, I have been on the lookout for a truly relaxing moment. True. I have not been doing any work(not that I ever did) , but the feeling of restlessness was persistence.

Then in a flash, i felt all noise died down, all lights turned white, all of the world seemed to make sense.

Though it was all lost the next moment, but the moment was amazing. In a spontaneous reaction. I uttered the word serene!

I dont know what possessed me that moment.

I have tried to recreate that moment, but failed.I tried to go to the same place, think about the same thing, but it dint help.

The failed endeavor got me thinking, why is that we feel differently in different situations? How is it that our feelings are dependent not only on our present but also our past.
Why is it so difficult to recreate our emotions at another time?

Afterall, we did experience it at the first place. I think what I am thinking of right now is the idea that emotions should be re-creatable. Which seems logical, but I havent been successful in doing so.

May be its the way we are wired. But doesnt the re-creatability of emotions important make sense in the light of evolution? A man who got scared for the first time on seeing a lion, should pass on the gene for the same to his future generations. and also should get scared the second time too. Also a couple who fell in love, should be able to feel the same love the second time they meet too, else the whole concept of couples and bonding doesnt make sense.

So why is it that humans in our age find it difficult to recreate the exhilarating emotions? Is it because we are too disconnected from our souls? We generally are too busy in the nity gritty of life that we fail to listen to our soul. We tend to ignore or postpone listening to our inner voices. Its only when we look around and feel the disconnect that we realize what we have been doing.

May be if I could connect to my soul in a more primitive way, then I can realise the state of serenity that I long for.

social responsibility

One often wonders if one is contributing in making the world a better place to live in. Apart from pursuing one's personal goals, one also needs to think about the society. If I can make a difference in the life of someone, it will be an accomplishment.

On this line of thinking, I have tried to help NGOs in their endeavors.

The first one is "Tulir". Its a voluntary organization seeking to prevent child sexual abuse. It is an area of concern specially in India, for its usually brushed under the carpet here. I can understand if the parents don't feel too comfortable discussing these topics with their children. But it could be the life of your child at stake. At least they should be seen by the child as supportive and helpful and someone to look when they need guidance or help.

With the recent upsurges in cases of paedophilia in the country, it becomes all the more important for parents to be vigilant in terms of who their child meets. Of course there is no point stopping the child from meeting people. But what you probably need to ensure is that they are of the same age group, and that they have met before. First time meetings can be tricky. You might discover a totally different person from the person described on the Internet.

Internet is not the only place where children can be exposed to paedophiles, but it is the most potent and safe for the predator .That's because here they can hide their real self completely and don a completely different persona to attract kids. For example, they can change their age to teens , post pictures of some teen they found somewhere, mention interests that attract kids - whatever it takes, to fool the child.

But the fact remains that there can be genuine people like that and both could actually be good friends. The best way out of this situation is to educate the child as to what he/she should allow and what not. Knowing what is right and what is not will be of great help in protecting children. Another thing needed is the trust of the child that if he/she gets into some kind of trouble, his/her parents/teachers will be there to help them - no matter what.

The Selfish gene - a treatise on logic building

I read this book "THE SELFISH GENE" by Richard Dawkins - first released in 1976 . An engrossing read.

In the book, The Author proposes that the fundamental level that Darwinian selection takes place is at the gene level. Then he goes on to provide examples that support his views.
Further he ventures into fields that seem anomalous as seen from the individual selection but fir perfectly into the gene selection framework.

For me the most interesting aspect of the book (I am sure the ones with better knowledge of biology can find other things more insightful, so please do keep in mind that its the opinion of an out and out mathematical bent analysis guy) was the fact that he introduced a new concept, applied it from the first principles to begin with - and then gradually built levels of abstraction - individuals and communities. This was done noting the areas the abstraction is likely to fail, and the beauty of all this is that once he has described a situation , one IMMEDIATELY knows if the abstraction level will fail or not.

If anyone ever had the (outrageous) notion that biology cant incorporate logic, I recommend this book greatly. The way the logic is developed, It could well have been a book on practical logic building. Its just that the author was interested in biology that he chose to write on this.


Warning- Chapters 8 and 9 of this book should not be read by kids. I, despite being an adult of 20 - pursuing engineering - felt uneasy while reading those chapters. In these chapters, Dawknis applies his selfish gene concept to humans. And deeply committed to our families, as we are, we find it difficult to digest all that he has to say. His analysis should hold good for uncivilized nomads - but he has not taken into account society and its effects and hence I dont think his analysis hold good in this case.

Overreliance on models

As humans, we tend to have a desire to explain everything. If something does not fit our previous model, we create a new model to fit the new data into it. We need a model to explain everything. We learn, and let our models grow- enriching our knowledge and understanding of the world.

So far, so good. but the centuries of (implicit) model fitting has demeaned our ability to account for completely unforeseen possibilities. As Nassim Taleb puts it in "The black swan", we restrict our views to our imagination. And most people cant imagine things that contrast with the existing model, yet dont have any fundamental reasons for not being true. We often overlook the limitations of the model and believe it to be an accurate representation of the world.

Like the black swan itself, until the black swan was discovered by the Europeans in Australia in 1606, it was believed that swans could only be white. It was then that people realised that there is no limitation in the model of the swans that predicts the existence of white swans only.

We do a lot of implicit model fitting - "this female is pretty"- this indication is generated after the brain takes in sensory data, and fits it to the idol, finds the matching coefficient and produces a result in the form describable to other humans. Likewise, A lion on the look for a prey would glance at the herd of deers and decide to eat one particular deer - he does this after analysing the deer's features and size, and computes the expected benefit - cost . The lion finally will pursue the deer with the largest positive gain. This is again arrived at by implicit model fitting. These models can be created by two methods - by interaction with the surroundings, and through the hard-wiring of the genes. In fact, as I look at it, genes provide only the basic framework for the decisions. All the models are designed to meet the guidelines outlined by the genes. I am not aware of any study that tested an animal's reaction when its newborn was subjected to environmental learning that contrasted with its native learning environment. Maybe any of my readers could help me in this.

But the essential part to be kept in mind while using models are, that well they are models after all. Models are meant to take into account most of the available data and predict the outcome - with a certain degree of accuracy. These CAN NOT predict the future. Once we get used to the idea that our mind uses models (most probably more sophisticated NNs(Neural Networks) than any ANN(Artificial Neural Network) in use today) to predict outcomes, and that models CAN go wrong - then we can be in better control of things.

US Pizza rocks

Hog Max !!!

Today the three flag bearers of CPP decided to make the owner of US pizza realise the mistake they committed when they offered an all-u-can-eat at just 135 Rs.

Hence we commenced our journey towards Jamnagar city with a purpose. Despite the various obstacles we encountered that threatened to jeopardize our plans, as brave soldiers on a mission- we never even thought of backing off. For starters, it was raining, and I am not too fond of the idea of getting drenched in the rain. But well, good food is worth all the trouble. Then we were without our identity cards and one cant walk past the main gate without showing one's ID card. So we decided to board a bus to leave us just past the main gate.

So on and so forth, we reached US Pizza, in Patel colony No. 6. From the onset, we were determined to lay a long innings. We entered the restaurant at about 3 - 3:15 types and left at 5:10. We started off with some generous helpings of salad. I started with soya..something and Russian salad.Then the next round of honey soaked pasta with raisins. Next came grated carrots with raisins .. pretty much like our very own "gajjar ka halwa".

After the 'starters' we moved on to the main course. One garlic bread. Is this the best garlic bread ever made? No, for we had a similar experience when we were there last week. But it definitely is amongst the best I have tasted.

My roommate had had 13 garlic breads last time he was at the place. So in a not-so-healthy (Its loaded with cheese!) competitive spirit, we I declared my goal for the day- at least 14 garlic breads to be gulped down. Then, egged on partly by my friends and partly by my fondness for round figures(pun unintended), I decided 15 would be a nice number of garlic breads to have. It was a fest like moment when i got there, and I got a pic of the 15Th garlic bread.

In between when we got kind of bored with garlic breads, we ordered for pizza pieces. Cheese pizza was the best of the three for the day. I don't even remember the names of other pizzas.

In the end, when we were all done, I could not stand upright- let alone being able to bend down to tie my shoe lace . The meal I had for lunch would suffice for the next dinner and probably for next morning's breakfast too. (Its 11 in the night and feeling as full as just after a slightly heavier than normal dinner).