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Showing posts from February, 2012

Why Malleswaram Railway Station Still Feels Like Home

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Malleswaram Railway Station — a place that never felt like “just” a station. A few months ago, someone forwarded me a video of an elderly lady speaking about the charm of Malleswaram Railway Station. She mentioned how, whenever her children visit Bangalore from Canada, one ritual remains unchanged. Her son insists on visiting the station, picking up idly from Raghavendra Stores, and eating it right there on the platform. I smiled when I heard that, because for many of us who grew up in Malleswaram, the railway station was never just a transit point. It was a quiet witness to our growing up. Even now, if I close my eyes, I can hear the metallic rhythm of trains slowing into the platform, the echo of announcements bouncing off the tiled roof, the smoky sweetness of roasted maize drifting from the bridge, and the soft warmth of idlies wrapped in paper from Raghavendra Stores. The station was never silent — but it always felt peaceful. For nearly a decade, ...

The stock market expert

I am currently reading Michael Lewis's Boomerang: Travels in the new third world , a hilarious account of the events that led to the economic meltdown in Iceland, Greece and Ireland, and of course, eventually, the rest of the world.  Iceland's situation was due to the fact that every fisherman wanted to be a financial investor, Greece's was due to inflated accounts and Ireland's was due to the collapse of the banking structure. Iceland was especially funny, because I could exactly relate to what happened.  I am not a fisherman, but I did turn a financial investor with fantastic results.  So, let me tell you three stories; these stories changed the way I invest. The first story was pretty devastating as an early investor.  After making tons of mistakes by investing in worthless companies, I thought it was time I took on the big guns.  I realized that if you actually want to make money, it should be done not by volume but by the quality of the stock. ...