उगवला चंद्र पुनवेचा !

If you love Shankar Mahadevan's Music, here is a treat !
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq3V-93diXE
उगवला चंद्र पुनवेचा !
मम हृदयी दरिया ! उसळला प्रीतिचा !
दाहि दिशा कशा खुलल्या,
वनिवनी कुमुदिनी फुलल्या,
नववधु अधिर मनी जाहल्या !
प्रणयरस हा चहुकडे ! वितळला स्वर्गिचा ?

गीत - प्रल्हाद केशव अत्रे
संगीत - श्रीनिवास खळे
स्वर - बकुळ पंडित
नाटक - पाणिग्रहण (१९४६)
राग - मालकंस (नादवेध)

First Venture - in Kody's Words

Forrest Gump's mom famously said, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get"....

As we draw curtains on the historic and emotional-Land Sharks project, just thought that it wouldnt be such a bad idea to travel back memory lane...and so, here's this message !

An hour after registering the property in the buyer's name and driving back home with a bag full of cash, and yet, it still hasnt sunk in - that we've successfully closed out our first venture, and whats more, made money out of it too ! As the three of us - me, lamba and papa felt a sense of victory, a feeling that perhaps Sachin had when he scored his first run in international cricket, it was, in our own small way - "a history being created". Yes, it was a feeling of - "We have arrived...and how !"

This is a real sweet victory and what makes this victory sweeter is the journey itself. I vividly remember when the architect of this project - lamba, discussed the exciting investment opportunities in Kerala realty around Aug/Sept 06, and it wasnt long before we took a plunge into the hot and volatile realty space. A-Smooth-Ride is the last thing that strikes us when we look back at those 20 eventful months. It pretty much has been a mixed bag. Executing a plan so quickly gave us tremendous joy in November, and ensuring we raised sufficient funds to register the property in our name gave us an equal amount of anxiety in the following January. To top it, the way we've managed to share the EMI burden despite all of us going through a cash crunch just cannot be forgotten. Who can forget Papa signing the POA at the Tuticorin Airport and getting it dispatched to Lamba in double quick time !

And boy, did we celebrate the culmination in style ! The only way that the final celebration could have been better was the presence of kaku, mythri, papa, shweta and shravani. Folks, we really missed you guys that night !!

Through all this, we stood by each other, weathered many a problem, and our bond only grew stronger with each passing day. Am I going overboard with all this ? Perhaps, not ! The underlying idea is - when, after 3 decades, on a rainy evening, sipping a cuppa' tea, we turn back time, this sweet albeit small experience doesnt get lost in the dust, but brings a smile on our faces. This is a tribute to our resolve and the spirit of partnership !

We rock !

Cheers !

P.S - Did not have Kamya bhabhiji's ID...Dangy, could you pl. forward it to her !

10 Startling Facts

1) Coca-Cola was originally green.
2) The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
3) The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
4) The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
5) TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
6) It is impossible to lick your elbow.
7) People say "Bless you" when you sneeze because when you sneeze,your heart stops for a millisecond.
8) The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
9) Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades - King David . Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
10) 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321 (BEST fact)

Munar Trip - Narrated by Kody

Caught up in daily routines and professional pressures, there was hardly any opportunity to meet up with friends. The only way to communicate with friends, both near and far, was through the cellular technology. Seems like it was not long back since we passed out from college, but, time is running like there is no tomorrow. The trip to Munnar was a welcome break and a refreshing one at that. I hadn’t met Vindy after coming out of Manipal. It had been close to three months meeting suppy, dangy and nussy as well, so I was really looking forward to this trip down to the God’s own country. A hard-thought out itinerary, bowl full of pranks and a perfect execution is how our vacation in Munnar can be described. The disappointment of missing a reunion at Homecoming in Manipal due to various professional commitments was in a way compensated by this trip, though not completely as some junglees couldn’t make it even this time around.As soon as our program was finalized, I couldn’t wait for 23rd October to come. It was great travelling from the flash of the NE monsoon in Hyderabad to the height of the humid kerala. I arrived in Cochin on the afternoon of 24 th October and was received by Vindy at the railway station. Suppy, nussy and dangy were all waiting at home for me to come, but as always, I reached late for the party. Amidst all these, the most heartening thing was that each of us were as excited to see each other as much as we’ve ever been. We had a quick lunch, and then, we set out for Munnar in a stylish Qualis on the Friday afternoon.

It was a wonderful journey with each of us finding it hard to remain silent. No matter what we talked, we used to invariably end up discussing about "whatchya"There was a lot of singing and leg-pulling [esp. papa’s] on our way upto Munnar. Papa was appointed the Finance manager of the trip. We had a short-break half-way up the hills. It was about 9.30 in the night by the time we reached the guest house on the hills. [by the way, the guest house was sponsored by HDFC]. We started boozing at around 10 pm and continued till 4 am, early morning. We shared our experiences and had dollops of fun during this. We didn’t realise when we slowly slipped into sleep. Next morning, we set out for sight-seeing on the hills. Saw the lush green forest with clouds moving like they do in a movie, and boy, was it beautiful!Then we stopped over at the lake for a boat ride. It was a speed boat and it was a lottov fun. There was a femalus horribulus, who vindy aptly described as "good from far, far from good..!" We also found one for dangy… The boat driver drove the boat with many twists in the water and it was like another exciting water sport.We had lunch in a restaurant which took us just about a coupla’ hours…. and even that was because we had a mallu with us…had it not been for vindy, we probably would have completed our lunch by the dinner time. We then moved on to see the tea estates.

All through Munnar, you drive for miles and miles in any direction and you are guaranteed to be surrounded with tea plantations. You will be amazed at the amount of labour that has gone into building these plantations (and also into destroying the forest). But I have to admit that neatly trimmed tea plants spread like a lawn all over the hills does look really beautiful. We had clicked a few snaps there and then were on our way back to the guest house. A day had passed off, completely unnoticed by us.The next morning, we left for kochi as I had an early train to catch. It seemed as if time was running at the rate of knots. In the afternoon, I was on the train heading back to hyderabad, ending what was a fantastic vacation, even if it was short.Time in kerala moved so swiftly that I hardly realised that it was three days up, and now I’m back to work. That’s for my travelogue….FYKIU guys take care… So, till next time that we meet in papa’s wedding…its me,

Vinay/Kody

Leveraged Bust Option - Sep'2008

Up until 2003, all investment banks in US were allowed only 12 to 1 leverage. Then in 2004, the SEC basically gave 5 banks (and only 5 banks) the ability to lever up 30 or even 40 to 1.
Bet you can guess the names...

Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

3 down... 2 to go!