SG OwnBlog

Of late I realize how attached I get to people, places and even things.  This is not just limited to stuff that I care about, but also mundane things that I don’t really generally much about either.  On most days, I am not even conscious about it. But when I am, I find it increasingly weird.  This hits different than hoarding though. Garbage is something I can easily get rid off. It is just that the definition of what I consider garbage is limited. More worryingly, I find accepting stuff (or God forbid, people) that I considered a treasure can now safely be put in the bin extremely difficult. This was always the case to an extent, it is not new. Just that at my age I just have come to this self realization on my own.  What do I need to do about it? I am not sure to be honest. On one hand, I agree, obsessively being attached to anything or anyone is not healthy. But, at the same time, Life still works, relatively okay. Of course, inanimate objects are better in this r...

I used to hear this a lot - for Bengalis (Bengali Hindus), Saraswati Pujo is equivalent to the Valentine's Day . Girls would wear yellow sarees and braid their hair, while guys will be wearing yellow punjabees and white dhoti or pajama.  This time on Feb 14, 2024, they fell on the same day. Woke up pretty early in the morning, showered, wore the dhuti and uttiyo and did Saraswati Puja. Most of the mantras I have got by heart now. After the pushpanjali , I was done and we (my mother and I) could then break our fast with the Mahaprasad . Took a day off for the day, but still joined for a quick catchup call.  This is how she looks like. There is a bit of a history here. Usually, Hindus get the vigraha from the shop every year, worship and then do visarjan (immersion) in a river or pond. However, she is with us since I was in class IX. When I was in Standard X, my grandmother had died. As part of the souch (relatively inauspicious greiving period), we could not get a new vigra...

I was off for a while. I mean, I was not. I painted an old shoecase that now looks a gorgeous white cupboard. I fixed my bicycle.  But beyond this, I did not do much beyond what my work paid me to do. So here I am, about to touch a new year of my life - and I am itching to get back into the habit of writing again.  Not just writing stuff here, but also making applications or music.  In fact, after a very long time I feel like sketching again. I think I am going to sketch my wife. Or may be finish my ex wife's sketch. I dunno. But I am gonna get started with a pencil tomorrow. Thanks to chatgpt, I have restarted my application brainstorming and dusted my old Github repos.  I think this is going to be a good run this time.

 This is going to be my chess journal.  I am going to document blitz and rapid games mostly. I will be playing only 3 games a day. I have won all 3. The FEN for the same are below. FEN - 2r5/Q7/1kp2p2/1p4r1/8/1P1B3P/5PP1/R5K1 b - - 6 40 FEN - 4r3/ppp3p1/1b2p1k1/4P3/4n3/2PN2pK/PP4P1/5R2 w - - 2 33 FEN - r5k1/8/p2p3p/1pnNp1r1/2P1P3/3P1K2/P4P2/8 w - - 2 32

Imagine this scenario. You gift your spouse something and decorate your home the way she likes it (lets assume). Then you text her saying that you have done this. You would expect her to feel nice and may be ... I don't know - thank you, at the very least. What if instead she directly questions you why you had changed your contact name in her mobile phone without asking her permission? You will probably be stunned by the question. You may take a couple of minutes to check if she is actually serious or just pulling your leg. An uncomfortable realisation dawns on you. This is not a joke. She directly assumes that you have unlocked her phone with her passkey, went to her contacts application and changed your name and then once again locked the phone back on. And this is when you don't know her key, and have never touched her phone. You check if this is a prank or some kind of nightmare induced by REM sleep. Naah, no luck. This is real. The basic questions that come to your mind, b...

Time affects everything and everyone We all grow up. After college, friends go places, to different states and far away countries. You get less and less time. Some go for higher studies, again, in other states. Parents get older. Then friends start getting married. First it’s usually the girls. One by one, your crushes tie the knot. You dismiss it, you are still young. Then your guy friends start getting married too. Your circle shrinks. In the end you look around. All you are left with are ideological nutjobs, immature imbeciles, idealistic crazies, bohemian hippies, or other misfits. Do you really belong here? Okay, that was too harsh. But you think. You say to yourself, ‘ dil to baccha hai jee ’.  Okay, fair enough. And then... Then, you see a growing pot belly. Something you always despised. Your dad had one (he still does). After taking a shower, you look at the mirror. You are losing hair. You search on Amazon for hair growing products - it is too much of a hassle. Hair trans...

 Defense Without Strategy Ukraine seems to be hell bent on fighting a static war without almost any flexibility. Their forces may be valiant and defiant, but without a coherent strategy, the best they can hope for is to prolong their own suffering WITHOUT significantly hurting the enemy. Here is how the situation stands as of now. Kherson has fallen. The front in the South was decisively broken day before yesterday with the capture of the railway station and port. Naturally, the Russian forces did not wait and moved straight North to Mykolaiv. All UA forces on the Dnepr facing South are likely to be outflanked. Unless the Russian spearheads are cut off and destroyed in a day or two, it will be too late. The fall of the entire South seems to be inevitable.  To extricate the forces, UA should have withdrawn forces from other sectors (including far away Donetsk front). Now, the best they can try is to win time to reinforce Kyiv. Kharkov is almost surrounded. This battle seems to ...

From a glance at the map and the news reports, it appears that the Russian advance has been very slow or even checked. However, a deeper look shows the situation has worsened significantly for Ukraine. That this happened as per my expectation in the past few posts makes me feel worse. In the North, the Russian forces have already encircled Chernihiv in the past couple of days. This is not yet fully updated on this map. The two strong armored spearheads from Konotop (which had also fallen) are currently holding in Pryluky and Nizhyn. The Chernihiv garrison probably has a day or two before the Russians reach Kozelets. Then any breakout attempt to Kyiv will become extremely difficult and will likely result in very heavy losses. It is to be expected that this city too, will fall soon without affecting the battle of Kyiv. This is bad for Ukraine. Now that the International Community has rallied for Ukraine, the previous fears of Russia dealing with breakaway republics in the East should be ...

The media has been reporting massive Ukrainian victories and impending Russian defeat. The talks have also been cancelled, neither side could agree on the conditions and location. Russia has in the meantime put its nuclear arsenal on alert. Below is however the frontline as it stands roughly. Kyiv Front As we can see from the map, the situation is actually worsening for Ukraine and pretty quickly. While the latest attacks on Kharkiv were beaten back and most of the city retaken by ZSU (Ukrainian Armed Forces), Kyiv is being encircled slowly but surely. The North was the first to fall and rapidly. A direct assault to occupy the city failed yesterday, and it seems a further reinforced assault also failed to breach the city defences. In fact, some of the supply convoys were attacked further slowing the Russian advance. However, if we look at the map, it is clear that the Russians are simply encircling the capital. The road to Korosten is in Russian hands, the road to Zhytomyr is being thr...

Russian Armed Forces have continued their invasion of Ukraine over the past couple of days. The first operations had begun from the bridgeheads claimed by separatist forces in the so called Donets,  Luhansk People's Republic and the Crimean People's Republic. I will not go into detail comparing the tactical or operational situation. That requires a more serious study. Also, the information coming from the media sources is fairly limited and often contradictory - so drawing the proper conclusions is difficult. However, the overall strategic situation is a lot clearer . The image below shows the current frontline. The major problem is that such a solid frontline beyond these lines do not exist. There have been saboteurs who have been found operating significantly deeper inside Ukrainian territories. But these are roughly the lines where the major conventional forces stand. Ukrainian Mistakes before the invasion Intelligence Failure There have been some failings from the Ukrainian...

The Left in India has long outlived their sell by date. They have been able to outlive the fall of the Berlin wall, the Soviet Union and even the collapse of Yugoslavia.  After the fall of the Soviet bastion in India (West Bengal) and the demise or change in allegiance of many Left oriented intellectuals, little remains on the ground. The last breath was drawn when the Maoist movement was extinguished in the second decade of the 21st century. It does not mean the Left is extinct. There are still a sufficient number of people - both young and old who remain enamored (or infected) with Communism to this day. Indeed, non Communist parties also often toe a very avowedly socialist line when it comes to public policy.  With the death of a viable political leadership, the Communists survive and try to find like minded voices in the deeps and crannies of society. The Zombified existence remains and continues to create perverted art, articles and a narrative. Though significantly less ...

 I am pretty sure there are places where hate and bigotry directed against Hindus is shared and disseminated. However, having joined r/India in reddit actually opened by eyes to something far more one sided and vicious. The hate there has no limits, no naysayers and no justification. This will be my own megathread of all the hate speeches and opinions for the record. I did try reporting to reddit admins and mods but none of the hate speech was removed. So here I am, documenting them here. Exhibit 1 Source   Exhibit 2 Source I will keep updating this.

Overall Market Sentiment This is very confused today. The OPEC meeting did not turn out to be great. They are NOT going to increase the oil production, so the prices are going to remain high. That means BANKNIFTY will most likely not do great. There was another major problem that came up. Facebook plunged in the US since they had a downtime of more than 6 hours. This led to NASDAQ falling by close to 2% in a day! This did not sustain and we can see a recovery. However, there is a China Taiwan crisis looming on the horizon. So International Markets and especially the Asian markets are going to remain choppy for some time to come. India is in a sweet spot. FIIs and DIIs were both buyers yesterday and this trend is likely to continue today offsetting some negativity.  NIFTY AND BANKNIFTY Nifty has opened relatively flat and I think it will remain rangebound, between 17500 and 17750 for the week. Then we have results coming out, starting with TCS on October 8. So if you want to buy the...

The global cues are still weak. But we are seeing some signs of improvement. Bad news first - Evergrande trading has been suspended in the Hang Sei market (Hong Kong) stock market for the next few days. Their index fell more than 2 %. That is huge. In general the Asian markets were under selling pressure. For NIFTY, a gap up opening was assumed looking at SGX NIFTY. It is hovering around 17650 as of publishing this post. I will not enter into a trade until it crosses 17700 and stays there for at least half an hour. There is a lot of anxiety and this may result in some profit booking. BANKNIFTY is up by close to 1% by now and we can expect some profit booking right now. I will just wait and watch. There is not much for me to trade with. I have signed up with Zerodha over the weekend and will buy a few bonds or gilt funds this week. I intend to use this as a pledge for getting my collateral margins in place. As for India, the signs are positive, and the results are coming out from the ne...

I have started actively trading and investing in the Equities and Futures and Options markets. This is a simple journal of what I do and why. The format will be simple. I will jot down my points during the start of the day and make some plans.  During the day, (when the market opens), I will execute them. After the market ends, I will note down my observations and see where we stand and how far the strategies worked and why. Disclaimer: This is my personal journey. I am not a financial advisor of any sort, so copying my trades or scrips is NOT recommended. Background After rallying almost 1200 points, Nifty finally showed some weakness and and has come down from the highs of 17950 to 17600. That is a big fall. I see a few major problems:  US bond yields are getting higher. Source There is an ongoing energy crisis ongoing. Coal is in short supply, gas stations are running dry . Monthly expiry was on September 30. This led to a lot of positions closing. Ok. This was a minor poin...

Bahalrampur is a sleepy little village in Western Uttar Pradesh, India. Before independence the only thing people did there was rear sheep and farm in their fields. The highways connecting Delhi and Kolkata in the early 21st century brought what we call as modernity and development to this place. Now it is bustling (for a village) with people opening up businesses, tractors ploughing the fields and large fertilizer dealerships. There are also large dairy farms, each housing more than 200 cattle and selling milk to the ever increasing demand in the National Capital Region. In the summer of 2020, just after the first hard wave of COVID was reaping its deadly harvest, this little village was coming to terms with a slackening consumer demand. Instead of the hundreds of large tankers of milk that flowed every day from the village to the Noida collection center of Amul, there were barely barely a few. The price of milk increased and the few remaining firms made a lot of money. It was at this...

 I have never considered myself to be particularly intelligent. Though I have not had myself clinically diagnosed, anecdotal evidence and day to day activities amply demonstrate how stupid I am. Now wait. This does not mean I am indulging in self pity.  No. Far from it. I have had successes in life. I continue to do well in things that I love to do. I have no complaints there. It is just that I do feel my intelligence lacking. My success is, therefore, despite my stupidity and I take some pride in it. Of course defending the statement - 'I am stupid' is difficult. Especially without a test that ascertains the fact for certain. I will make a more nuanced statement as a result. I have less intelligence than the average person around me. That is a more defensible stance and there are tests (even other than IQ) to confirm it. Aptitude tests are a good example. I do horrible in them.  Okay, there is an exception - I got into IITB. But that was me trying for a third time. In an...

I had never used a ThinkPad in my life till 2018. To be honest, I did not really see the benefit of using them anyway. Consumer series laptops (with plastic bodies) were the ones that I had always used before. Then I was introduced to the rugged looks of the T60 and T61 original IBM ThinkPad designs that came out way back in 2004 or so. And I loved it. Finding a ThinkPad that old did not appeal to me. I was impressed with the smaller compact X series laptops and decided to have either an X230 or an X220. Both of these are fairly similar and were launched about 8 years back. But they still sport good processors, plenty of memory upgradability, provision to add a maximum of three hard disks and a decent battery backup to boot. My reasons to get this were simpler -  They are rugged, I like to use my laptops well Memory is not soldered. There are plenty of options to upgrade. The keyboards are probably the best in the world. Why not get the latest ThinkPad? Again, simple.  They co...

Money can not buy everything.  But it does make things easier.  Money can't make you feel good. But an AC on a hot day may make you better better than otherwise. It is one of the biggest cliches that you must have come across numerous times in life. It is not necessarily true though. There have been a lot of dramas, stories and philosophers' notes on this topic. But at the end of the day ONLY those who have the luxury of meeting their basic needs in life can ponder over these questions anyway. The poor do not have this luxury. For the vast majority of them, money is actually ALWAYS a good thing. The next higher rung in society is what we know as the Salaried class today. I am one. We work the week (and sometimes beyond) and get paid for it. We are the ones that actually run the factories, drive the cars for businesses, teach kids in school and colleges, report stuff to papers, manage projects for businesses and so on. We differ in two very crucial aspects to the group that sit...

There are not many places you can go to during this lockdown. There are friends' places you can go to. And relatives.  If you wish to go further and visit more distance places (if you are residing in a city) - things become a lot more difficult.  One - there is the threat of the virus. Second - there is a psychological issue that works. Why go so far when we can just chill at home? The point is that there is only so much 'chill' a person can do at home, especially since the virtual house arrests already make sure you are AT HOME most of the time. And it has been months. So on we went to the last stop the river Hooghly makes before meeting the Bay of Bengal. This was the destination. We did not plan to stay a night, it was just going to be a simple visit - spend a couple of hours and come back. It was raining all the way (almost) on our way to the town. Fortunately it had stopped when we reached there.  We could see the rains pouring on the other bank of the river and the ...