Is it not one big irony of life that the cold, calculating, and ruthless world of money and stocks depends and thrives on sentiments?
Whoever coined the word Real Estate deserves an award. I wonder what is real at all in that world. Greed perhaps. In all the scams of the world, you will find the unreal greed for the land real. Of course in all the riches of the world too, you will find it. Perhaps the only exception being a certain Bill G.
The talk in the air today is of depression, job losses, unpaid mortgages and gloom. And elections around the corner don't help at all. God save us if it is a hung parliament.
On the flip side, I see a lot of to-let boards, a lot less arrogance on the face of land lords, and a grudging respect for employers from the young turks.
All this got me thinking on the old Tamil saying, "Nadhi moolam , Rishi moolam ketka koodathu". This loosely translated means, don't enquire into the origins of the river or the saint.
The message is loud and clear. Move on. Don't hang on to the past. Don't bother so much about humble origins. Don't read too much meaning into past glories or past sins. The great saint Valmiki who wrote the Ramayana was a lowly robber before he turned a new leaf. Many great rivers have their origins in humble ice cubes.
As an aside, of course, both saints (Chandraswami etc)and rivers (Cauvery etc) have caused us enough grief. Again as an aside I have met the much despised Raju albeit briefly and liked him a lot.
As all performers know, their last performance is forgotten by the paying public as soon as it over. When they pay again, they expect performance.
Likewise judge a player, a performer, an employee or company by his/its future and not by his/its past alone. I guess we need to get over the ” my grandpa had an elephant” hang ups. Anyway life is a cycle.
nice thought. to let go, to begin anew every time. but it is not possible in reality. most people bask on their past laurels specially politicians. worse still are those who think they deserve respect becoz of their ancestors
stocks do get stuck once in a while. life does too. and yes, it is a cycle with uneven phases you can never really quantify
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John Abraham’’s opening statement in geography class used to always be “The earth is round ya”! Until, that is, Murugan corrected him saying “It is actually spherical sir”!
but the irony is we cannot let go of the - when I was your age or my grandfather rode on an elefink or in my previous job - syndrome
somehow we refuse to snip off the umblical cord that connects us to our past - and I hope your words motivate all of us to some extent. take care :)))))))
very practical !
Madhu I read this on the first day itself and I had to rush for something that I forgot I didnt leave a comment. The title of the blog reminded me of the saying”kanakam moolam kaamini moolam kalaham palavidham ulakil sulabham” Here the malayalam moolam means reason not origin. BTW your blog reminded me that I too had a tharavad where my great great grandpa had an elephant hehe! A unique post as usual!
Somehow, this post seems like you churned it out impromptu and it is brilliant esp the last paragraph which is so close to me heart.
unborn tomorrow, dead yesterday,why fret if today be sweet.Live for the moment ……s what the gr8 visionaries of the good old days said.
i lyk your musings. whether or not they make sense to me, yu know like d sound of river or something.
But I don”t understand one thing. We easily accepted the sensex’’s move from 3000 to 21000, but its move from 21000 to 9000 odd is so difficult to accept?
I am a Marathi. This Tamil saying ”Nadhi Moolam, Rishi Moolam” sounds interesting. But I did not understand its meaning. Anyway, I used to do short term trading for some time. Then got fed up of it with the Sensex plunging. One of the greatest wisdom I have heard on share market is ”There is never a bad time to book profits.” All the decoupling theory was decoupled from analyst’’s minds, as soon as the western worlds indices plunged. Re. VR
Apologies for the delay Madhu. One of the top posts I have read in recent times. Life is indeed a cycle and there is a law of averages and we are all as good as we are as of now, however there are certainly some bankable or principal qualities that are essential to make this cycle worthwhile. That line ” on the flip side…..” covers a gamut of emotions and is my personal favorite line in this post. Cheers!!
“Anything new is always unexpected. What you expect to happen is your past which is dead.” Bharat Thakur
ee nadhi moolam, rishi moolam header kandappol, my expectation was to see an article on raashi’’s (astrology).
Yes life is cyclical and people ACTUALLY have peanut brains……else why should they forget the mistakes of the past and repeat them in the future?
Good reading boss.
Cheers
As the bard says “There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”…Yes don”t rue on the past…move forward…may be there is a tide in waiting for us to reap….Good thoughts Madhu….liked that Tamil Quote…PGR
As far as stock markets are concerned, two things that drive them the world over - GREED and FEAR. Though these are cycles that keep repeating one after another, either of them in excess would spell doom for the masses. “REAL” estate in India went through a greed phase. And now, it is the fear phase that has set in.
“Your past does not equal your future”. This was one of the inspirational quotes that I used to have on my softboard when I was a student. Though I see where your thoughts arise from, I”d say that the judgement is a tad too harsh. Past performance does matter, and it gives a (though admittedly, not-too-reliable) reasonable yardstick to gauge the future. VCs & hedge funds as well as stock market punters the world over who blindly believed in the future story have either been burnt badly or have gone out of business. But yes, the past would not a reliable guide to the future. Raju, Frieda Pinto, Christopher Reeve, Abe Lincoln all would stand testimony to that. Ummmm…. “my grandfather had an elephant”… that’’s Vaikkom Mohd. Basheer’’s story, is it not?
true … what goes up has to come down … i saw rocky 5 recently … it said life hits hard … and it does not matter how hard you can hit back … its how long you can take it..:-)
And yes, life is cyclic… So we should always be positive… Another amazing post from you… Keep writing, we look forward to any word from your “pen”…. Regards, (Rahul)
For sharemarket too, people analyze the past performance. In contrast to what you say here: that we should look at their future and not the past: there is a strong saying that we should analyse their past and not get fooled by future projections. Future may be like a dream, and dreams are are dreams, its a hard world out there. But the past has happened, its concrete. We can get to know 100% about the past and hence can judge the past in true sense. Nothing like this for future. What works is a combination of many things, it would take pages and pages… for example there are 5 Cs of credit and many other concepts and models. If I have to say in one sentence: then I can say: See nither the past nor think about the future; analyse at the “trend”…. Chandraswami was not a saint but a tantric and astrologer and those who “sell” their vidya/saraswati to make money/lakshmi can never be …
But along with the term Real Estate, there is another term attached for a long time now: “Real Estate Bubble”… It had happened in countries like Japan, US, and had brought recession… In fact this recession in the US is also caused by the same housing sector…. A very nice post, you included some very good topics to write on :), may be they could have deserved seperate blogs too… Very true about change in the patters in employment field. I dont know why it is said so about not enquiring into the origin of rivers or saints… May be it tells about the limitations in our thinking capability, if we start to reach somewhere but don”t know the proper way and are not strong enough, we may get “lost”. If we remain on the banks, at least we survive…
aanalum nadhi moolam rishi moolam marakka makkalukku neram pidikkum
unga thoughts nalla irukku…
as is said, we never learn from the mistakes of the past - yet we love to talk of grandfather’’s elephant. while a financial base is required, no one seems to be able to resist avarice…
ur comment envelops the entire gamut of life………………. these rules will change only if we start to think of others as much as we think about ourselves.
but then past can be a free guide for someone to make a rough presumption of the future course of action the fellow or company will take. i know of a person who had eloped after a major fraud and resurfaced after 12 years, being a lucid manipulator, headed a computer centre as its ceo without investing anything, in which some of our known people were shareholders. We warned them about his antecedents, but they fell prey to his charm, and in two years, he again made major financial misappropriations, which resulted in huge losses to the company, he this time escaped scotfree as he was only an officiating officer, not a shareholder or director. so how can someone judge another just by the present?
But how can one allow others to forget one’’s past glories… therein lies the ego. You are imparting too much wisdom about living in the present and the future… very difficult to live in the present. The ego keeps on rising like a demon. ANother human weakness is greed. No amount of lecture can prevent greed. PK, very thought provoking post in very few words.
“Don’t hang on to the past. Don’t bother so much about humble origins. Don’t read too much meaning into past glories or past sins.” - this almost sounds like a quotable quote, MPK. U hit it bang on here. And I agree swamis and rivers have caused us enough grief. This is exactly what I feel about this phase too, it will take out several masks. Only the worthwhile shall emerge. Money is such a wonderful philosophy, u know. So is greed. Both are good. Both are needed. Balance is the difficult thingy to achieve. Too good a post.
that was a wonderful analysis of the economic situation and the roots of the ills of the economy.
but what is causig the near zero trend in the deflation in india?
quite an apt analysis of the present day world- people were cribbing about runaway inflation just six months back. With deflation likely in a week’’s time, people have still not realised the main thing- money, that is quantised units of greed, is at the root of all problems!