Children's Children

At times, I like to imagine that some relative/relative of friend of mine will, in some time far into the future, "discover" this blog. The familial links over time, place and generational tree will be so immeasurably complex and long winded that any possibility of communicating the existence of this "space" will shrink to negligibility.

In such a situation, then, the "discovery" will be both accidental and probably (hopefully) stimulating. To you, far removed reader, is this dedicated.

~

Back in the days when I was a jamuna-paar shady day scholar (I hope this phase is not completely alien), we had what is called "slang". Certain words used in certain ways to describe certain opinions, and their meanings diverge from the dictionary definition.

The thing about slang - which is one of my favourite words by the by - is that it possess certain characteristics that make it interesting:
(a) Extremely localized: the same set of words can have varying implications at different places; indeed meaning may vanish altogether.

(b) Extremely quick at changing: over time, words live and die with high velocity.

(c) "Cultural" implications: slang is often a short-form "instrument" for the communication of a set of ideas otherwise hard to express. The fact that such communication is needed may tell us something about the communica-tor and the communica-tee.

What is particularly interesting is how yours truly has himself changed/let go of/taken on slang as and when I've shifted around on this pale blue dot. 

~

Here are three words, then, that I used to use, or heard being used, while being the shady day-sci. Why three? Because three equals infinity.

1. "Arbit" - short form for arbitrary. When I first heard it I thought people were saying "Arbid". True story. It could either be form of mild contempt; or just plain wonderment at the mental faculties of the opposite party. Since my mental faculties were in their infancy, I got this a lot. Many years on, I suspect my mental faculties are still struggling out of their pram, the yolk spilling on the sidewalk (not pavement).
2. "Senti" - short for sentimental. Being "senti" was never a good thing. It meant your emotions were getting the better of you. If a tiny thing like emotion could get the better of me, that better part of me wasn't worth it! In the battle of emotion versus the better of me, I'm proud to say, emotion has always won. If you can marry being "senti" with "cold" logic, the fire-ice dance can be truly magical.
3. "Giving gyaan" - this usually meant someone talking about something they either knew little about, or the listener could not possibly care less about. Perhaps the last two statements are really saying the same thing. I don't know. I'm not giving gyaan here.

I have not used any of these in the last 5 years.

~

What about now, that is, the American United States? If you were quick about it, you'd have caught at least one piece of slang in the bulleted list above.

Here's two, then:

1.   "Shoulda-coulda-woulda" short for "should have been, could have been, would have been". I find this particularly interesting because it has at least two interpretations. Either it means that there is little point in think about what may have happened, since that did not actually take place. This is a very practical sort of thinking. Or it means that attempting to understand what may have happened is the only valid way of understanding what happened. This is even more practical. 
2. "Have a good one" - does it get any more American? This is technically incorrect English (have a good one what?), is extremely vague in what it means and yet conveys a sense of companionship without any idea of what it would take to be a good companion. Whatever it is you're having, sex, ice cream or a game of football, have a good one. Don't fake it, man, have a good one, go on.

That completes it then, the time capsule can now be closed. 

Get it out quick

If the goal of the economic process is to engage in exchange, then prices and quantities are ways of expressing the language of trade.

But although capable of rich expression, prices and quantities are not rich enough.

Hawk the Eager Young

In the middle of my applications, attempts at convincing people to employ me, I should be doing more of them, but here I am. For the following reasons:

1. I'm feeling the loss of not writing, it's been too many weeks, and I don't much feel like writing any economics.

2. Like someone says on Facebook, "I don't procrastinate, only don't feel motivated to do boring things." ha ha. 

3. This is an "important" time in my life, so it should be duly noted and recorded m'lord.

I maybe shouldn't feel so non-passionate about the job scene, but honestly I'm far too studied up to be out on the corner with begging bowl in hand. As I once politically incorrectly remarked in a seminar two years ago, "if that's what gets published, maybe it isn't so bad if I don't publish!". Kuch toh mil jayega, I tell a friend across the other side of the world.

A minor source of frustration finds itself in:

1. The lack of places looking for someone like me. Seems like most places care not a hoot about some institutional economics person. Who'd have thought it?

2. The incorrectly/poorly informed "mainstream" economists who profess to address the notion that peculiarly is still quite novel in economics: that people talk, such talk is often times an attempt to "gain surplus" (i.e. get more than what you ought to) and therefore ought to be attended to with some careful thought. Thus the profess-ors profess an incorrect profession. Aaargh!

Actually, it's quite good, all this you-guys-are-getting-it-wrong business, there is now "scope" for me to gain surplus, ah ha ha ha!

I ended up watching this English Vinglish movie, and was fairly let down. I simply don't get why the wife goes back to that awful bitchy family, instead of French hunk. Oh, and there had to be a French hunk, right? Why not the other stereotype - the South Indian engineer? (Which hello, but down South, us Indians learn to speak english, we got to, there's no melting pot Hindi to "unite"? ) What further put me off was the unnecessary anti-Amrika jibes, "ab inko hamse darna hain", all that.

What rubbish. Please. When you go for a Visa interview, there are separate lines if you wish your interview to be taken in Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Oriya, Bengali, whatever. The US has its source of problems, but come on. "How will you survive without speaking english?". You don't need to speak in English to get a tourist visa! Go to your nearest American embassy if you don't believe me. Cue - Aaargh! - again.

We don't need more disagreement, people! We find it hard enough to get along as it is. Why create all this unnecessary tension, why why why. Sometimes, really, us Indians should take a proper look at ourselves, the xenophobia is truly abnoxious.

See - once again - the costs (and benefits) of talk? Most important principle, I believe, in understanding social behavior.

And, postscript: What the hell is up with Sridevi? How is it possible to look the same 25 years on, who are her doctors, did they lock her up in Michael Jackson's hyperbolic (that can't be right) chamber?

Enough about that. Test cricket is back, and there's nothing better than Test match commentary as background noise while you plead your case - The sum total of our knowledge does not come by a few isolated geniuses, but rather by a far larger crowd who stood on the shoulders of those who came before them to see a bit further. Making students see this will more often than not make them feel as
equal participants. - it is the very sound of civilization.

Talking to a friend who's trying the arranged marriage thing, and has turned down multiple "suitors", she claims she doesn't feel anything, and "I don't know what it is I should feel, shouldn't I feel something?". I do some silly verbal equivalent of a backrub "there there, let me get on to it, phir dekhna...".

But what strikes me most about this free spirit, now attempting to search for the right man, is how right Axl was.

"Don't you think that you need someone?
Everybody needs somebody, You're not the only one!"

Leaving Here

It's been quite a ride, said he. It was a dream, and remains one. *snicker*, find more cliches, will you? Was it here, that we ate, laughed, got pissed, got drunk, got sober, wrote exams, wrote papers, sobbed, dreamed, slept, argued, shouted. And does it have to end like this, with the queer, desperate silence of deadlines and definitive statements of intent.

Yeah, gettin' tired (gettin' tired), sick and tired (sick and tired)
Yeah, take a train (take a train), fly by plane (fly by plane)
Yeah, gonna leavin' here, yeah leavin' here
Yeah, leavin' here, ya gonna leave all here now
Baby baby baby, please don't leave here

Been 5 years, a little more, who knew it would play out like this. I am reminded of my first day in this country, a little after 3 in the afternoon on a Monday, wondering at the description of the shrubs outside the main door. From that to this, older, a bit wiser, enough to know there is more to things than meets the eye. I figure why, "underneath it all", people do odd things, and that Tolkien quote, all that is gold does not glitter. Hits you in between the eyes.

In a Wonderland they lie
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summer die

Yet another joke of questionable impact

What were the grandparents doing on their rocking chairs listening to Van Halen?

Rocking out, perhaps.


: D

Culture wulture

An economist says to a biologist:

"I'm really interested in culture"

and the biologist responds:

"So am I!"

Good phrases

From an appreciation of Little Richard:

"...wailing with gleeful abandon"

Is there a better way to state what there is to love about rock music? I think not. This also explains why I have only slight patience for folksy music - Paul Simon is an important exception to the general rule, because he seems to be gleeful in his musings.

In related news, Alice Cooper was at Lords talking about cricket and how music companies no longer want to invest in new bands. Best statement: "That Pietersen, he's a bit a of a rock star, I hear." Second best statement: "Lady Gaga is the only real star these days." Third best: "People are afraid to be rock musicians today...if Paul Simon made Sargent Peppers  today, no major music company would want to sell it."

Tasteful tastes

I always liked Mohra's "tu cheez badi hai mast":



Especially the verse bit. But this is extremely embarrassing to admit, for the same reason that I find it hard to say in the company I keep in these older days that I like Iron Maiden.

As proof that my taste is "good", it turns out - thank you Pandora! - that tu cheez is nothing but a bollywood-isation of



Note for note! I knew my taste is tasteful! (But notice how cacophonous the cover is, how they cheapen the whole affair).

Memmy-Deddy

I missed my parents yesterday for the first time in my life. It felt strange. I wanted to sit with them in IIC eating fish and chips, drinking Kingfisher beer (with cell phones on silent, because "guests are requested" to do so in "consideration of others"). Being a saturday, I spoke with them, my mother was talking about a friend of theirs who passed away, at the age of 62 and "that age seems far to you but to us it is very near".

I remember this friend, I wasn't too fond of them, I don't think my parents were either, but I do remember she once said about me that I was a handsome young man. My mother replied to that, putting me in my place, "handsome is what handsome does."


The thing about my parents friends is that I usually like them. They're older, have seen more of life etc. and are usually more than glad to have a young 'un at their disposal.

My father's friends are all buddies from the civil service, and while bureaucrats can be very very egotistical, they are usually pretty open minded. (Though it takes a while to convince them). But I like them - they are usually well read, with deep knowledge of many things Indian, and there is a certain class that such education + experience imparts. Conversations with them are always fun.

Mother's friends are typically high school English schoolteachers - again a demographic I have no problems talking with. Conversations are less high brow than with Papa's dost, but more fun. (And we need that as well). Plus, there's usually some Wordsworth or TS Eliot thrown in  at random intervals.

Why talk about memmy-deddy's dost log? Birds of a feather, flock together, is one theory.

I believe the real reason is that I like how my parents are with their friends. I see how they would have been before they became parents, if this makes sense. They're usually more relaxed, allow themselves an additional glass of whiskey (Papa) or rum'n'cola (Mummy), and momentarily forget I am their son.

***

 

Bitten nails

Advisor hasn't replied to my last two emails...! Makes me want to sing:



ulp!

The LIBOR scandal

Assume a scenario as follows:

You're a teaching assistant, your only job is to grade assignments and tests. A student comes up to you one day, after a mid-term, asking about the marks you gave in his/her last test. You explain what you did.

The student is generally accepting, except that he/she says at the end "Thanks for your time. I'm worried that I won't get an A, which means I lose my fellowship and will be forced to leave the program, so that's why I am worried." You check this later on, and find it is true.

Now the next test comes up, and the student makes exactly the same mistake as before. It is however very slight but nevertheless implies a B grade. If you give the student just a marginal, tiny amount of more marks, he/she will keep the fellowship and be able to finish their course.

What would you do?

There are certainly costs associated with the minor inflation - one, where do you stop when you start. Two, it violates a personal code of grading. Three, the student will maybe not learn from the mistake.

If you don't carry out the inflation, the student is forced to drop the program, or perhaps suffer an extended delay of graduation. There is substantial harm imposed on the student.

How do you compare these costs? Either the student never learns, or learns the really hard way; so hard possibly that the lesson is no longer relevant. (The student gives up hope and goes home to work on a farm). 

Policing morals

If A harms B, is it fair to blame A? Harm is caused by both A and B - if B wasn't around there would be no harm in the first place.

Is it cheaper, then, to ask B to leave or A to leave? Or, what amounts to the same thing, ask B to pay A or A to pay B?

Celebrated but undisturbed

Scramble

A particular kind of egg, enjoyed very much with masala made from onions, garlic and tomatoes.
A rush, the adrenaline kind, to write write write. A mess, usually imposed by an external authority.

If you're looking for a point (or a silent sky) you won't find it here. I write this on a table not mine, in a room with furniture not mine, having just got back to a wonderful productive r u s h from a nice break.

I like that. To make a point, one can utilize font style. How much I wish I could write my papers like this. Hey academia, I'm talkin' to you.

"Now, the FCC won't let me be, or let me be me, so let me see..."

See previous post for where I was, incidentally I got that picture of the internet, but I saw it by mine own two eyes. I was called mamu multiple times by the cutest little adorable kid of a cousin sis who has matured into this half elder sister half mother figure that still throws me off. Especially since her face still looks sixteen.  She's married well. I love visiting them. Upper east side, get off at 86th and Lexington.

In-laws were also around, so it was good, showing them around the city. Took the ferry ride yet again, I don't get bored on a boat. I like watching the water. We experienced a rude Chinese waiter which wasn't fun, and Central Park which was. Sis-in-law surprised both of us by downing three shots of (admittedly mediocre) Tequila on a night out in the city. But hell, Tequila is Tequila. Lotsa alcohol content.

Girl and me, we trekked around the city, got a bit drunk at Bryant Park. "It's nice isn't it, all these bankers around us" "Yeah, they look so clean even though it's the end of the day"... "S has really done well to keep calling all these years, na?" "Your friends tend to do that"

We also interrupt an old man taking a photograph, girl is all "oh sorry". Old man is of the sweetheart type, replies "it's you I wanted!"

But the key revelation: "Women here really wear nice earrings". It's true, I never notice earrings. Has anyone else realised this, how women do all sorts of things men never even see? In any case, if you want see nice earrings, come to New York. Also, a lot of the women wear these impossible heels, cousin sis also mentions this, yet they walk around okay.

Also, met up with old friend, who surprised me by telling me she used to live in those parts, for three years. During school. Ruminated a bit over the probability of the two of us drinking masala chai in lower Chelsea, of all places. A bit surreal, she said, this. Is of the generally fed up with work life, but don't know what else to do. "I want to write, but where will the money come from?" "Feed the soul"  "But what about my stomach?"

In New York

On a recent visit to the Big Apple:

 And yes, I did look at the catalog. It was free, after all.

A Selection Problem

People think that people who sleep around are "loose", whereas they may simply be looking for validation.

People think that people who don't sleep around at all are "uptight", whereas they may simply have never had the chance.

It is a natural conclusion from these two statements that people who have never had the chance, but have the self-confidence to not seek validation are probably what we may term "well-adjusted". Neither loose, nor tight.

Since one cannot "know" with perfect certainty what a person's motivations are - indeed, one may not even know one's own motivation - well, then...

Bleg Blog

How many blogs talk wistfully about Delhi, this one included?

And how many don't?

And where, for the ones that do, do the authors originate?

Staticity

"Oh where, oh where
Can my baby be?
The Lord took her
Away from me"

I can't bear to read anything these days. Correction. I can't bear to read any economics these days. I don't quite understand it. I can't bring myself to properly write; all I have been doing is gritting teeth, grinding my molars away, writing up a "literature review". Reading turgid, stultifying prose and trying to breathe, no, blow some life into it. Giving it my "spin", my "voice". Which, heaven knows, isn't professional at all.

Well, at the very least, I console myself, you get the relevant literature out of the way. It has to be read. May as well do it when motivation is dragging, that too at a time when it shouldn't be. Should be. Shouldn't be. Should-a could-a would-a. Allocation of scarce resource, Ricardo be proud.

It is really worrying, this dearth of properly constructed sentences. Introductions that are cut-copy-paste. Predictable. Nothing new to see here, move on. Ideas that are minimal at best. What are we doing? Creating this monster called academia, for what? To pull this dataset one way, then another. To make this assumption, that assumption, this equilibrium that solution. Drowning in our mediocrity, we gasp for the few tufts of air that seem to come once every twenty years so.

And then you have the friends, colleagues is the grown up word. Who laugh when you say research must reflect life. Or, when you complain about the dryness of academic writing. They make my head spin, my falafel sandwich taste of dust. Why are you even here? I wish to complain. Go sell some toothpaste. Or something. Don't spoil my world, I got enough cynicism for two here.

To recover from all this, I read Barzel, Coase, McCloskey. All within the space of an hour. Restore my faith in the ability of humans to think and reason. I see faculty walking around, I share a joke about the economic view of corruption, the old man laughs. Sweet relief. Here it is, finally, the reason why I get into this mess in the first place.

“The lighthouse is simply plucked out of the air to serve as an illustration. The
purpose of the lighthouse example is to provide,” quoting now from Gilbert and Sullivan’s
operetta, The Mikado, “‘corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an
otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative’” (Coase, 1974, p. 375).

~

I've been having debates about my work, mild little spars. Everything always comes down to the same thing - what do you believe is right? Belief; right-ness. How is anyone supposed to answer these questions? Here's my model, there's my regression. Don't believe it? Be my guest, I think, walk away. I can't argue with a belief. But I press on, no see, if what you say is true, then so-and-so must happen, but actually this-and-that does, so...

~

Had a happy conversation last night, she was laughing at nearly all my rubbish jokes. What a contrast to the nightmare I encountered - ha yes they've started what with all this 'where-is-my-life-going' conundrum that finishing a doctorate degree entails - a beggar woman we refuse to pay, who follows us, then starts to run behind us, I turn to her to face her, there's nothing but emptiness where her face should be, only a strangely sonorous chant of the Spanish word puta (go Google it). Ugh, I had to wake up after that. Maybe it was the recycled furniture in the room that brought it on; perhaps feelings cling to wood.

"And on my deathbed I will pray to the gods and thee angels,
Like a pagan to anyone who will take me to heaven;
To a place I recall, I was there so long ago."

Fly on the (economist grad student) wall

The following is an email exchange I had with my advisor. I was troubled by what I saw being published - naive idiot, yes - and railed against it in my typical juvenile fashion. 

Here's me:

"There appears to be some link between (leading article published by leading researcher in top journal) and (not so leading researcher publishing in a close to the top journal)

Another reason (yet another…) why writing this stuff out is making all these parallels come out. I decided to quickly go over the main points of the (leading researcher) paper – just scanning the introduction and the final discussion, conclusion bits – and here’s what I find...(some details)

 Wow. Not only is this missing out on the central message of the model, what message is coming out is also (apparently) incorrect.

Sometimes this kind of stuff troubles me; if one the leading experts is writing confusedly what does this say about the profession? Forget about being right or wrong, surely one should at least get the basic point of a paper…"

 

Here's advisor:

"You would be surprised how common it is for economists (even prominent economists) to misunderstand each others' work.  Papers aren't always 100% clear, and people are busy, so they read quickly.  And being a leading expert doesn't necessarily mean that you understand others' work any better.  You become a leading expert by publishing a lot, not necessarily by reading a lot.  In general, knowing what other work is being done helps a lot in writing good papers.  But that doesn't mean you need a perfect understanding.  And there are a lot of people who are good at doing original research and writing good papers, but not at all good at understanding others' work.

 

There are a few ways to tell based on CVs who is likely to be good at understanding others' work.  People who have substantial experience as journal editors tend to be in that category, for example.  So do people who look "overplaced" -- they have a relatively thin CV for the department they're in.  Look for the opposite cases -- people who are prominent but haven't done much journal editing, and people who look "underplaced" -- and those tend to be the people who aren't good at understanding others' work.  Of course, those aren't perfect indicators (particularly the over/underplaced measure).

 

Anyway, don't let this trouble you too much.  Errors like this do tend to get corrected eventually (though it sometimes takes a while)."

 

People are going to screw up. Even the well regarded ones. Takes the pressure off. In fact, I have only documented more of this sort of writing - confusing at best, incorrect at worst - so much so that I have virtually given up any hope of a general understanding being reached. But this is perhaps inevitable; an outcome of a process where freedom to question is generally allowed. Incorrect or misleading statements will happen. One must tolerate this, otherwise you end up being a servant of thought, not its master.

 

Art/Life/Duality

"Players may have different beliefs (priors) due to different information they acquired during their lives. Theoretically, one may try to model all this learning as simple Bayes' update of a prior one has at birth. Unrealistic as this may sound (or, indeed, be), this story could still be (a part of) a viable model, the reduction of all decision problems in one's life to one "grand decision.

Yet people surely differ even at birth. For instance, they have different genes which may
determine both their utilities and priors. Therefore, the argument goes one step further and
considers the "players" before they acquired the information contained in their genes.

Thus, we are asked to think of some intelligent entity capable of logico-mathematical reasoning but which does not yet know what actual player it will materialize in. At the moment of birth (or
conception, or even much earlier, depending on the reader's faith and social policy preferences),
this intelligent entity--the empty shell--learns the genes it got, updates its prior and becomes a
"regular" player with a utility function and beliefs that are now the posterior.

However, the "empty shell" argument concludes, before learning the genes, there is no
reason to distinguish between these empty shells. They are all identical, since any distinction
among them is assumed to be learned later on. In particular, they all have the same prior.

One extreme view of empty shells is that they are (almost) nothing but the logico-mathematical entity needed to "understand" the model and reason about it. According to this view, they are free from all that is mundane, and, in particular, have no preferences. Loosely, pure logico-mathematical entities simply don't care (about anything).

But if empty shells do not (yet) have preferences, one may not attempt to derive priors
from them a la Ramsey, de Finetti and Savage, and the concept of "prior" becomes somewhat
metaphysical."

-"Why the empty shells were not fired", Itzhak Gilboa, 2010

"I came from nothing before nothing began
Broke the window of existence and became a man
No sympathy for fools, my star is black and burned
I tilt toward the light, I suck your souls into my might

We are starchildren, coming out of nowhere and to nowhere return
Starchildren, a hundred million souls sucked out in one breath"

"Starchildren", Bruce Dickinson, 1996

The Basic Philosophy: Sure, Sharp, Economic

I've been on a Joan Didion trip recently, ever since I discovered, somehow, her book titled "Slouching Toward Bethlehem". I liked the vision in that title, apparently it's a quote out of Yeats. Or Keats. One of those poet type people who everybody quotes but nobody reads. 

I picked up a compilation, a fat, heavy monster leaning in on 1000 pages, this titled "We tell ourselves stories in order to live". Jaw drops to floor when I read that and immediately issue it (see I'm poverty struck I haven't bought a book in, I think, 4 years now. With my own money that is. Thank you, library!). A powerful line, but check the following extract, it's from a book boringly called "The White Album". Emphasis in italics, they are mine.

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five...We interpret what we see, select the most workable of multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience."

In many ways, the pursuit of a line of inquiry into the world  - otherwise known as "research" - is, implicitly or explicitly, exactly this. The problem is most people conducting the damn research are unaware, trusting in some misplaced notion of "Science" (with a capital S) as being this purely objective thing that arrived by itself and dribbles itself into our conscience every now and then. 

Recognizing that in research we are essentially carrying out "the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images" would benefit not just the researcher and the research, but also the world wide notion of what research is. Telling stories. To live. 

"You know, some people got no choice
and they can never find a voice
to talk with that they can even call their own
So the first thing that they see
that allows them the right to be
why they follow it, you know, it's called bad luck."

"Street Hassle", Lou Reed, 1978

monotonicity

It's always fun to wake up to music, to sleep to it, something in your brain unlocks.

This youtubing of all songs has nearly destroyed an activity I used to indulge in; of sleeping to an album. I wonder how many people do it.

That's all for now, I guess. I agreed to do some random poster presentation this week, don't ask me why. Spreading the gospel, I describe the motivation to one co-graduate student.

Blogger is now offering me all sorts of exciting statistics, so this deals a slight slap to my deliberate I don't want to know my readers philosophy, the handful that there are. Surprise, surprise the largest amount of traffic comes via the two blogs that list this bit of the internet vacuum in their "blogroll".

Asking my advisor about what "editorial review" he says it is "at least mildly better" than a desk reject. This is a phrase falling straight out of intro micro economics on the relations of preference, but it is at least mildly poetic. So my article is now being read by greater powers.

I will write about my Delhi visit. Some highlights: the girls are dressing better, although some of the skirts on the school girls are of questionable intent; the food remains excellent *sigh*; Hauz Khas Village (or "HKV" as one of my friends put it, I spent 20 minutes searching for "HKV restaurant/pub/bar" before getting back to said friend) is a revelation both good and bad; DU/CP/Khan remains mostly the same with Khan sliding more; the roads were unrecognizable for the most part; I didn't hate Gurgaon this time; heard all the item numbers with more attention that they perhaps deserve, this unbridled sexuality seems a revolution, Dibakar Banerjee claims its the easiest way to claim progress without really doing anything.

Post-Saturday Lunch Apoplectic Outrage

From LiveMint.com, courtesy the pen of Mayank Soofi, comes a recent article on the changing nature of St. Stephen's college. This is the place I went to get my undergrad - and I mean that phrase literally. There's lots of things people say about St. Stephen's - most of it coming from previous graduates - but what bugged me was the following:

"In no other DU college is the algebra of infinite merit as complex as it is in Stephen’s. You have to be top-notch academically, have blue-chip public school pedigree or have parents belonging to the old boy network, be part of a religious quota or other reserved categories such as sports and physically handicapped, to get into the college."


Let's start with the writing shall we? What on earth does the phrase "algebra of infinite merit as complex" mean? What happens if we replace that clumsy, meaningless line with "it's hard to get into St. Stephen's because you have to fulfill a variety of criteria." ? Nothing, and the meaning is clear.
Next, on to the reasons why it's hard to do so. "You have to be top-notch academically". This is the Indian version of academic success - getting top marks in a bunch of exams held at the end of high school. I am not the first person to state this is a very limited definition of academic quality. But that, well, nothing much we can do.

What is required, however, is a comparative examination of this criterion. Is this "top-notch"-ness any different from other leading colleges in Delhi University? (I stick to Delhi University to abstract away from state-wise variation in undergraduate education). No. Other colleges - Ramjas, SRCC - have similar, if not more demanding, notches.

You "have" to have "blue-chip public school pedigree". Indeed. By this, I suppose, is meant the finishing school for boys and girls - your Doon School, your Mayo College. Unless you want to factor in the Sardar Patel Vidyalayas, the Delhi Public Schools - presumably, you don't want to. Not only is this incorrect, I take great offense to it, for it implies quite seriously that admission depends on a factor that no right thinking person should account for. One of my classmates, who I admire greatly, expressly did not come from blue-chip pedigree. Many of those who were my classmates came from quite the usual set of schools.

We are also informed that if you don't have the above, then you must either play "sports" (which ones exactly?) or (the writer uses the word "and" but he means "or") be physically handicapped or come from a religious minority (i.e. Christian). Again, this fails the comparative test because such qualified admissions are made in other colleges as well. (I have a minor complaint against the "religious minority" leeway given but well).

Basically, there is nothing in any of the above that is true. What is different about the admission process in St Stephens is the interview - and as the writer points out, this biases faculty toward choosing English speaking students since the interview is conducted in English. Still, an interview does help you weed out what I would call, for want of any other word, the DelhiBoy. (For an example, look at the main actor in the movie Band Baaja Baaraat).

I'm no sentimentalist regarding St Stephens. I don't believe it is the bastion of civilization it keeps claiming for itself. I despise all the rubbish about calling the canteen a "cafe", calling the hostels "residence" and calling the alumni "old Stephanians". Fuck you, I'm still young, and don't brand me with a decision I made at the age of 17.

I do think it is a good college within India though, all things considered. It is not the best, no. (In fact, there is no "best" college, I'm sorry, but the quality of undergraduate education that at least I received was not all that great.) But it is up there. There is no denying that it has a definite character, a presence that I did not find in other colleges. But whether this is more the case in Stephens versus other colleges - and maybe it is all because of the relative absence of the DelhiBoy - I don't know.

Sometimes I wish it would acknowledge itself with a little more, how would you put it, latitude.

I just found it really egregious that such a statement could be printed, at all. It paints a completely inaccurate picture, that too of one of the things the college got right, or at least less wrong than others (the admission process, specifically the interview).

So, Delhi

I'm coming for a few, after 2 years away. I expect you will be very different, but please, please be gentle on this slowly aging boy.

I thought I'd have more to say, but there's work to be done and the above two sentences are as full a summary as any.

Dirty Rotten Cheap and Free

"Hey, do you think we could watch a movie sometime?"

"Sure, when?"

"Maybe Saturday?"

"Okay"

"How about my place?"

"Alright, should we do dinner?"

"Hmmm...lets just order pizza"

"Okay, see you then; but which movie"

"The Johnny Depp one"

"Done"

***

"Hey!"

"Hey!"

(effusive hug)

"I got some wine, thought why not"

"Okay..."

"I mean, we're ordering food so I thought I could make up with this"

***

*rustle*

"Your hand's on my thigh"

"I know...sorry..."

***

"Wine's over"

"Ya.."

"Whoa"

"What?"

"Lets not...I mean...what..."

"You think too much"

"No, look, I didn't mean..."

***

"What are we doing?"

"What do you think we are doing, Sherlock?"

"I should call my folks"

"What??"

"Tell them I'll be late"

"Where's the damn phone?"

....

(adapted from a conversation overheard on the J-4 from College Park to Bethesda, Maryland)

You may sit, Adam

Rare thing, insight. Rarer still, humour. A natural derivation from these two axioms: humour and insight in one must be rarest. Ronald Coase has it in spades. Spades.

Economic writing isn't usually fun to read. Most economists aren't really all that interesting. Connection? I think so. The best have this quality to their writing - it shimmers, it shines, it grows from the page, a living breathing entity. The writing has that most important element - zip.

So, for your pleasure and mine, here is a case study taken from the 1990 Nobel Symposium on Contract Economics. (By the by, do read. Such a collection of economists, all commenting on each others work. Coase (duh), Alchian, Demsetz, Stiglitz, Cheung, Williamson, Hart, Holmstrom, Rosen, gosh!). Ronald Coase was called to give closing remarks:

"When Professor Werin asked me if I could be a member of this panel, I agreed, but he didn't tell me what my duty would be...I was quite happy with the arrangement...it meant I couldn't be upbraided for not carrying out what I had agreed to do, since I hadn't agreed to do anything."
zing!

"When we move to the legal system...it is not easy at all to say what the legal system is actually doing...the only generalization one can make is that if a change is made it will increase the income of the lawyers..." zing!

"In the rest of economics the existence of markets and firms is assumed...what in effect we do is study the circulation of the blood without a body" zing!

"From my point of view the chapter I enjoyed most was that of Rosen and the reason was that it was a survey of empirical studies...I read it and was fascinated...when the studies agreed I was puzzled and when they disagreed I was puzzled. This is how we got hold of things." zing!

"Williamson...felt that...good work had been done and we need not be ashamed...Well, I agree...that old puzzle of how you describe things: is the glass one-tenths full or nine-tenths empty? I happen to think it is nine-tenths empty at the present. Oliver Williamson has reason to be pleased...since a large part of it is the water he put in..." zing!

In all of this, outside of the superficial though enjoyable comedy, there are lessons buried in the words. They are not there by accident: how do you specify a closing speech? (you can't, but yet you have to); what is the point of law anyway? (it is really not clear); how do we write models in economics? (false metaphors can kill the patient i.e. the economy); how do we know things? (by measuring them); has progress been made? (yes, but in one dimension). I know of few economists (Lucas' and Solow's Nobel Lectures come to mind; most stridently McCloskey of course makes her presence) who can write with such eloquence, such precision and humour. They are teachers, all.

So let it be written, so let it be done

One, three out of.

Over, out of the way, here's the (20th version of) the abstract:

Transaction cost economics helps explain the existence of economic institutions such as market structure or contract form by considering these to be intelligent governance mechanisms. The focus on governance ignores the institutional environment in which contracts are written. Using data on 20 years of coal procurement in the US, I show that changes in the institutional environment - in the form of the reorganization of the railroads, and the Clean Air Act Amendment of 1990- enables a switch to fi xed price contracts, by changing the transaction
characteristics of relationship speci fic investments and frequent ex-post adaptation. This enables me to derive causal estimates of these transaction characteristics. I find that ignoring the role of the institutional environment can lead to biased estimates of the e ffect of relationship specifi c investments; and ex-post adaptation appears a more important determinant of contract choice than relationship specifi c investment.

I hope I haven't quite sunk that abstract in a morass of academic-speak. Although there ought to be at least a smidgeon of difficult language. Because otherwise, if I reduced everything into commonplace utterances people could understand, they might get the wrong idea. Some camouflage in dense verbiage and mathematical mysticism is actually useful because it makes the reader work a bit to understand what the hell the writer's going on about.

This is why I don't agree with the usual dictum of 'being easy to read'. Because - notice, readers, notice - being easy to read is very easy to confuse with being simplistic. The end result is a temptation to advertise falsely, although the falsity comes in because you're trying be an easy writer. Oy, we aren't writing bestsellers. If you wanted to do that, why do a PhD?

If you want to get me, you're going to have to work at it, at least a little bit. Free riding isn't useful here, babe.

"Now it seems everyone wants to discuss me,
But it must mean that I'm disgusting"

With a little help from my friends

A faint stirring of the pot: something here about the inalienability of rights, that google appears to want to alienate, perhaps this is frightening?

Number 2

I'd like a little rest, sometime, but I don't think it's coming anytime soon. Long hard look ahead, I am a rational forward looking "agent" after all, there is much work to be done, much much much. Three equals infinity, like what Jeff Ely said.

But, hang on, what is this "agent" anyway. Why does economics love to use such communist notions? Ronald Coase said we are all communists at heart, like everything Coase says, I cannot disagree. So, are we all economists? Probably. After all, all of us have at one time or another said "this is too expensive, outrageous times we live in, hai o rabba". But that we are all economists does not mean we are economists all. And this is a weakness of economics, not of us. I'm nobody's agent.

How am I to make sense of the future? By not making sense of it, maybe. Ouch, the burden of all this wisdom. Twinges muscles, racks limbs, races minds. I like the word "wisdom", it sounds so regal and empowering. "Clever" is sort of saying, okay yaar, I see what you did (you sonofabitch).

***

On phone with old friend, destined the two of us are to go down greying together, discussing the flirtations taking place in the esteemed hallways of MIT and Harvard:

me: man, the whole thing is weird, why would you want to hook up with her anyway

him: they produced papers, they produced a book....babies are next

me: what, do you think he said "I love how you say internal validity"

burst of guffawing laughter for 2 minutes, the sort of thing that reminds you of your humanity, we can still act like school kids. A lovely foolishness.

Blogging a bubble

this is #201: okay, admittedly half of my posts are lame excuses for pushing whatever nonsense music I happened to be enjoying, usually under the influence of beer or wine.

But, damn it man, if Sachin can have his idiotic landmark - or would it be more correct to say people are willing to give it? - then why can't I. Agree? Okay. So. Next.

I'm not sure too many people have noticed it, but 90% (accurate statistic, that) of all blogs I used to follow can now be officially declared dead. Yet I go on. What lesson, beta, do we learn from all of this tomfoolery?

Let it be known, kind and dear reader, that this author believes this tells us something about the nature and existence of bubbles.
To an economist about to be trained in the degree of a philosophical order, nothing, I mean nothing, annoys more than the casual throw of the term 'bubble'. "But, but", you say, "the economist claims the term". Rubbish. Economists should know better, they do know better.

So, bubbles are often used to describe pricing behavior that forms a bubble. If this idiotic sort of definition doesn't already inform you of the intellectually poor foundations beneath the concept, then the usual definition handed around like Gatorade after a football game should: "bubbles occur when the prices diverge from the fundamentals."

Eh, what. Excuse me, sir. Exactly what are these "fundamentals" oh lord of the universe? Time to use a non-price-quantity framework to describe what people call a bubble.

Many Indian people, of English medium training, around the holy year of 2005 or thereabouts, decided that it would be cool to tell their friends through a website how happy/sad/boring/exciting their lives are; some more talented ones used it as a mechanism to enhance their writing skill, a minor few actually had some ability with words and phrases. One spoke about blow jobs, and got book deals. But this is beside the point (is it?).

Around 2010, many of these blogs stopped dead. It is really quite something. Almost everybody I used to read stopped writing, simultaneously. I maybe will even generate a dataset. Many world famous blogs came to an end. I was sad to see a couple go, because they provided much entertainment during long Sunday evenings. (Sunday evenings are the worst, in case you didn't already know).

Now, if we look back at this, we say "Ah! A Blogging Bubble! Clearly the price of writing diverged from fundamentals. Now, the actors suddenly wake up and realize - hello! My writing is not as valuable anymore! - and- I have more important things to do! Look the index of fundamentals, will you. Oh well, enough of this online stuff."

Of course this is not what happened. So, you say, smarty pants, what happened?

I can't really say. But I know it has nothing to do with fundamentals, because the story of man's existence has been of evolution, growth, adaptation and change. Dynamic, to put it in mathematical terms. It might be a bit rich to compare mankind's evolution to blogging by a few of the Indian babalog, but I think the analogy is basically correct, although quite stretched. "Fundamentals" don't exist, except in some warped notion of a stationary world, where everything must be in line, like what ma'am said.

Obligatory obituary

It would be easy to attempt to contribute to the growing number of glowing good-byes.

Rahul Dravid, alone of all sportsmen/women I know, tells me I can play at the highest level if I work at it.

To this day, via the career of Dravid, I believe if I practiced my forward defensive and straight drive enough, I would play for India.
It is a most useful metaphor.

riding the tiger

12.30 am no sleep

got my first murakami today, no work day, well apart from some saaf-safai. cleaned out bathroom to a sparkle, kitchen to a shine, the bedroom to a gloss. (stop wincing, it was a clever idea). lady turns up tomorrow, fridge stocked with whole milk and butter, she can't live without these. the sri lanka australia match playing in the background, with ravi shastri saying to my utter shock that the batting team would like to keep their wickets and the bowling team would like to take them. I will die and that man will be saying this then as well. Well, that won't happen, because dear friends, hear me this, cricket is a dying game, the whole thing is ridiculous. but this is another idea. oh god now wasim says wickets are key...

somewhat of a celebration I suppose, advisor sahab says the paper is ready to be sent, I can send it to him for comments, but honest f*er he is, says he will take some time to reply. diagnosed with skin cancer, face all bandaged. i ask if a serial killer came over for breakfast. gives a loud laugh informs me of cancer, my face denotes shock. then the counter "99% recovery rate, and the 1% left usually survive second round of treatment". pale reminder of our mortal ways, the over 300 citation paper thins into vapor comparatively.

well, so it looks like this thing is taking off. who knows I may be published sometime. whatay turnaround from 10 years ago when I was struggling to be even a mediocre student in an uninspired undergrad degree. but there is a massive amount to be done. the coolest thing, the dissertation has formed itself into a nice tight little ball. everything connects in a intimate fashion, there is a beauty in it, the logical completeness of it. I can't put it in words, I can sketch the logic of it though.

the funny thing about doing work you believe in: how much less you believe in others.

thought for the day, as they say

you tell me what is certain, i'll tell you what is true

Things past?

I can remember even though I feel I want to forget. Such a haunting feeling, like the memory of you, occasionally kickstarted to life through the facebook picture and the birthday email. It is pointless to try to forget, sometimes I wonder why it all happened - the bus route, living on the other side of the river together, you coming home at odd hours, my mother remarking at your ease in coming into the house.

She thought there was 'something going on', perhaps there was for you, it was certainly for me. Matters were not helped when I started getting close, but you always stood a bit further away. And on that sorry birthday, made sweet by your letter and the appearance of the two quizzing fiends (hello!), the letter you wrote, I still have it, "I sometimes take you for granted." I told you no, but of course you knew I was lying.

The world and life swung by us, and swung us by, it started to drift, but this was only natural. It was a true friendship, honest and open, kind and gentle; the biggest compliment here is that such friendships are simply not being made anymore. (Notice the emphasis on the past.)
I tried keeping my end of the bargain with visits that never fully felt complete, to be fair, you tried too. When my lady and I got together to face life with each other, the email that came in, it was straight from that shared past.

It's been my birthday come and gone, 4 years ago you called me from across the world and we spoke for half an hour. You got married, it was quite the fairy tale come to life, I feel extraordinary happiness for you. Now, we are barely a few hours bus ride away and despite all the facebooking, emailing, free phone calling on weekend...

"I owe you a phone call", full stop.
****
Here's a thought to chew on: if something begins to fade between two people, since no one else is around to notice it, does it really fade?

If ever a transaction came with cost

(the DRS must be it)
"There must be some way out of this" says the joker, with the thief listening.

"It's too confusing, boss. The administration dithers, the scientists bring in more angles. Even Harsha Bhogle wants relief. And none of them understand what it's worth."

"You get excited too easily" says the thief. "You know we can use an auction to discover worth. You and I, come on, we've been through that."

(pauses, while Mark Nicholas airs his view on shrinking three dimensions down to two)

"Let's not pretend to perfection, the game's staring down the toilet bowl it will soon start to circle as it is..."

All along the TV towers, HawkEye keeps it view.

Unanticipated events and the DRS

when the Decision Review System (DRS) was brought in to cricket, it was meant to resolve the "howlers" that is decisions made by an umpire that was obviously wrong.

Instead it is used for marginal decisions. But that is not of concern here, the focus is on the unanticipated effect of using the DRS - it has changed, or will change surely, how the batsmen play their defensive shots.

Why should this be so? The DRS contains a highly controversial ball tracking technology that can "predict" where the ball would go. In times past, when the umpire on-field was the sole voice of authority, it was usually okay to tuck bat inside pad and take a big step down the wicket to smother the ball (the only caveat was if it was obvious that the batsman was not offering a shot, then a more relaxed, bowler friendly decision is possible). This would cause enough uncertainty as to where the ball would go, since it still had a way to go, and the benefit of the doubt went to the batsmen.

Now, with ball tracking, this uncertainty is removed. Obviously (in retrospect) now batsmen have to use their bats more to pat the ball down. For this alone, the DRS is a good thing, no more will England and South Africa get over their inadequacies against spin by hiding behind their legs. Perhaps a more equal game, and thus, a more interesting game awaits.

Shows how policy changes can have effects that were not anticipated, let alone expected.

Vital Curriculum

Breaking Adolescence

Manic Algebra

Generic Evisceration

Illuminating English Gardens

Mostly Satisfactory

Persuasive History, Discriminating

the rhetoric of twitter

bhogleharsha Harsha Bhogle

@

@vvkrj because i am looking at it rationally, not with a pre-determined mind.

Harsha Bhogle believes that being rational means being not pre-determined. He should read some McCloskey.

Station Id:47283

By chance, I happen to fall upon a website that allows you to tune in to Cricket Australia.

And now, I discover the joys of listening to radio commentary. Let me tell you kids this is one of those rare little pleasures that one happens to tumble onto. Test match through a radio perspective is a strange mythical beast, I struggle to put into words how vivid everything seems. It is probably the greatest tool I have come upon as background to when I work.

It helps that there isn't an obnoxious ex-Indian captain telling us how he would do it; or an ex-allrounder whose collection of methaphors wouldn't exceed the number of fingers he has on one hand. The quality of commentary is so much better, and it isn't simply that they have to describe everything - that would be boring.

For whatever reason, sacrificing the visual implies you note the rise and fall of the commentators voices more clearly; at the same time the commentator also understands this. The two reinforce each other in a symmetrical merry go round, chasing each other on and on. The commentator also translate the emotion of the players better; partly this is due to the fact that one hears the noise the crowd makes - and let me say, crowds in Australia are superb, they applaud whenever a bowler gets a wicket and once again at the end of the over, for instance. Talk moves over the nature of the players, their movement, you hear the whirring of the air-conditioner as they talk about the heat and your mind makes images that reality could only disappoint.

These tiny flicks of atmosphere are almost totally missing from television coverage, don't ask me why. I feel so much more drawn into a game, even when its boring, you can feel the breeze they talk about or the slope of the ground as the ball rolls away. Your head is clear of most thoughts, and your mind opens up.

And the oddest thing of all - one feels more neutral and tend to empathize in a strange way. This isn't pantomime, no, it's a bunch of (mostly) 20 somethings attempting to snatch a piece of history for themselves under the knowledge that most of their efforts will be wasted. There is a heroism here of an ordinary kind, the best kind.

I feel more grown up, ain't that somefin' as the little girl delightfully yelled to her mother when she saw the rainbow over the car park?

A heavy nostalgia hangs in my head these days, searching for I don't know what, I spent 2 hours staring at the sky today with thoughts of my papers, friends, and family popping around, mirroring the shift of the clouds, duality to the power of too many. I can't see what's going on, but something is changing. Edges are smoothing, puffing away silently from chaos into order. 2 years of thought strained by the constraints imposed by academic discourse into a few pages of talk and numbers (but the numbers also talk only we give them their speech). There are no endings, only new beginnings, proclaimed Sir Bruce Dickinson. So all we are right now disappears in an instant, and then we are reborn again; what we end up is then a collection of beginnings besides the dust and bones, it is this that people remember, no? A delightful view, I urge you to consider it with care.

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.

facebook? more like facepalm

for the last time, quit it,

(a)those pictures fishing for compliments

no it is not something you did that made your friends squeal with "so hottt yarrr"

other than show a little skin, wearing a flirty little nothing expression and that handsome pout

so don't f*ing say "thanks! :) "

its about as original as having cornflakes as breakfast - nice, but nothing new

gah

(b) and i'm happy your professional life has kicked into a higher gear, don't shove it in my face, i don't really care, your writing is pretty ordinary anyway

talk is cheap, but listening isn't, no sir.

Growing into me

Okay, so I'm warning you this is going to be very intense and emo type

Still there? I mean, I'm listening to Atif Aslam.

Hmmm.

Right now, life is close to being a bit scary; for, as they say, "professional" reasons. I suppose one can comfort oneself by claiming it is okay beta chase your dreams and all. And, being the obstinate romantic fool, I be doing the above, right mamu?

Except that there's times of doubt, where you look back at yourself extrapolate forwards in time and worry about your own abilities. Self doubt is a terrible thing, you see, although it is a great motivator. It is probably the single worst thing you have to confront because no one, no one has an answer to it.

The problem is, I'm seeing capable, smart people not quite making it. They're not exactly on the streets, but the desperation is evident even to me. Where am I going to go what am I going to do I'm turning 30 god help me etc. These are good friends, old friends, the sort you don't hesitate to call (although it's been a long time since we had a chat like 4 years ago when we were freed of the need to make something of ourselves). Calling is painful too now, how do you soothe someone with its-okay-something-will-happen when inside you're squirming as well? Honesty requires an honest answer, and scary as it is, I don't have an answer.

Should I say listen perhaps you aren't as good as you thought you were? Should I say the world doesn't know what its missing? What can I say to you when you don't return the email I sent, with a lame attempt at a joke 3 years past its expiry. I get it, you're not in a laughing mood, this is no joke, there's a possibility of a happy accomplished life that looks like it's slowly sinking away. Maybe you could consider the possibility that that's not what you were cut out for.

That is however the only way I can respond, because it isn't too far now for me, this looking for security. So I make fun of it, because thank the lord, at least we have a place to go to in case everything fails. Ex-post, like my brother says, everything works out. Might as well have a laugh about it, because apart from laughter and the warmth of our lately disappearing companionship there really isn't much else worth fighting for.

But I get it, I really do, and it scares me as well. What if, you're asking yourself, what if I have to spend the rest of my life as a disappointment to myself?

Maybe we should have done that MBA what? Yeah right! It's been a great trip so far, so what if it takes an unexpected turn? Come over to our little dumpy flat with its old carpet sometime won't you. We'll get drunk and watch movies and make french toast at 2 am again to go watch the snow outside and strike up an arbitrary conversation with two old ladies who surprise us with their energy at this time of night-morning. It did nothing for our ego, but it got us through in splendid fashion.

Gazing into the Abyss

There is a school of thought, exploited for instance in George Orwell's 1984, which suggests that very often the corruption of ideas takes place without the knowledge of the parties whose ideas are being corrupted. Indeed, the process of corruption itself arises without intentional design but manages to envelop parties that are "close" to it. The only cure for this is prevention, and prevention comes through utmost skepticism.

Reading this:

http://opinionsoncricket-india.blogspot.com/2012/01/dirty-picture-indian-story-2011.html

Excerpt:

Sachin Tendulkar decides that IPL is more important than a tour of the West Indies.

2011 is the year Sachin Tendulkar became just another cricketer.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni leads India to an expected win in the first Test on the West Indies tour. Then he takes the mike in the post match press conference and delivers perhaps some of the the most arrogant and unsportsmanlike responses to questions by any Indian captain.

Why men like Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Virendra Sehwag, and Zaheer Khan did not do more to come better prepared left me with a sense of betrayal. What value do these seniors bring to the team if they are unwilling to influence priorities and make a stand and instead simply be content to play the 'We are victims of the system' card.

and comparing it with the soft superficialities that Harsha Bhogle, supposedly India's premier writer on cricket, comes up with on cricinfo, it is clear which analysis is cutting closer to the bone; and who is really calling it as they see it. Bhogle blames lack of fitness for the Indian cricket team's record of 6 straight losses.

Let me be clear here. I haven't really been following cricket from about 2002/2003 until the World Cup victory last year. That's a big break, mostly because I grew tired of seeing the same meaningless one day internationals, while all I was looking for was Eden Gardens part II. I would notice off and on if something happened - such as the Sydney test in 2008 - but it wouldn't really register. I did notice however that India were actually winning some test matches, and I remember wishing I could care a bit more.

I suspect I will be returning soon to that looking at how India played in England and the rubbish they're doing in Australia. What angers - angers! - me is the denial shown - Ashwin going to press conference (since when did this start to happen anyway?) and saying no we didn't do anything wrong, the pitch is dead what to do. What is interesting is not what he said, but what he didn't say. He didn't say we were playing like we didn't care. He didn't say we were totally uninspired. He didn't say they were trying different things but it didn't work.

Look, Ashwin is only 24, and we've all done foolish things at 24. I don't understand why Captain Fantastic wasn't handling the press conference. You're captain, you're answerable damn it.

If cricket wants to be taken seriously, it better take itself seriously. Otherwise it'll all go down the T20 way, which god bless its soul, retains nothing of the beauty, drama and the aesthetic of Test cricket. American football, or just plain ol' football is by far the more preferred bang-bang kind of sport; cricket has no hope against this.

So when the richest administrative body in the world, with players who are treated like Gods, with money tumbling out of their pockets, cannot see to it that it ought to run its business professionally; that the big mad media machine refuses to see this as a major problem; that cricketers in India are above all blame, I am afraid cricket will not hold out for another 100 years. And all ye on cricinfo take note: if there's a lot that is *not* reported and there appears to be quite a bit of this, you are burying the sport that much deeper. Not that the guys doing commentary are any better - oy, if you hate t-20 so much, why bother watching and commenting on it?

Cricket is lucky that despite such losses and the ambivalence shown to them, we the paying emotionally invested Indian audience will keep watching. The lack of honesty will ultimately have massive harmful effects.

The real cause of trouble though is that this lack of honesty may be being committed in total innocence.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Metaphor

Many times I have moaned about the loss of the music of rock, however it seems that the rock stars turned into investment bankers:

http://totalfratmove.com/769302

sexism? check.

misogyny? check.

a realization that most of them are just lucky to be there, but being cocky instead of grateful? check.

a tendency to engage with drugs and women of questionable morality? check!

I should re-phrase: there is a lot in this of the sort of rock and roll I actively dislike, which is why I never warmed up much to Led Zeppelin what with their wanting to be back door men and all. Somehow they're okay, but when Poison did the same, ohnomygod that is awful.

Probably this is also why I prefer the very uncool Iron Maiden ("born by quest for fire/ they roamed across the land" ha ha oh relly mr dickinson) as my favorite band; I also tend to have a preference for working class bands - early Metallica, early Maiden, Motorhead, and Tesla. They're a bit cheesy - though some Motorhead is an exception - but its raw and honest, sort of like a god-fearing piece of sushi.

But I digress from my point: as much as we might despise the rock star, he/she is necessary to provide the sexiness, the move and the shake. The rock star is the capitalist ideal in human form, and the extreme example tells the story. Annoying, simple, depraved, but what a great avenue to showcase the creativity and solidarity of man. They're rock bands remember working within a limited range - this isn't jazz.

I like the comparison of good rock music to say, a good burger, or a alu paratha. Thick, rich, not necessarily the most subtle blend of flavors, but a good source of fuel. I'm in good company here, Anthony Bourdain and other celeb chefs of the real sort say over and over their favorite meal would be something simple (Pho for instance is really simple).

So, I guess what I'm saying is: the investment banker is the rock star of our generation; we need them to get off. A basic, simple need. It's time people see this. Let us not lose the sexiness!!!

"You cannot yet imagine,

How you will dance for me;
But you will dance forever
To the tune that I decree." - Motorhead, "Serial Killer"

Of late, horror of horrors, I've been listening to some electronic music. Seems to be a natural progression of sorts.