Break on through to the other side!

Music - What does it mean to you?

To me music means everything, I embrace music in whatever form it is, be it Acid rock, heavy metal or hindustani. Basically I dont care about the genre of the music. If a song can put you into a state of trans - why care about genre.

I started tripping on english music 2 years back - I was influenced by few of my friends from the previous company and later i got sucked into it. By English music I mean the legendary bands like - The DOORS, Led Zep, The Kinks, Grateful Dead etc.

Listening to the the LedZep's stairway to heaven and no quarters have made me have mood swings - whenever I'm low on morale I play these tracks and i get back to my full vigour. No day passes without listening to Kinks - "You really got me going" - The voice of Dave Davis puts me into a world of "no- worries". Any music lover would love that song - its just a 2.11 minute piece but delivers an ever lasting impact on what music was during the sixties.

If ever God grants me a wish - I would ask me to put me back into 60's where i could grow up listening to these great bands.

And if given a second wish I would want to meet Jim Morrison - the god of music. His song "Light My Fire" made every person in farthest part of planet run crazy. His voice was magical and the songs he has given to the world during his short stay in the earth (he died at 27 - yes same like Jimi Hendrix; Great people die young!) is still raved about. I love this guy just for his attitude. You guys must have heard of this phrase : " Dont live in this world like you rule it; Live it like you dont give a damn whoever rules it". He was a epitome for this phrase.

Let me quote an episode which reiterates this. The Doors was given a chance to perform in the Ed Sullivan's LIVE show - then considered the Mecca for the rock bands. They had to perform their No.1 single - "light my fire". The production manager of the show made one small request to the band and asked them to change one world in their first stanza of the song which goes like this :

"You know that it would be untrue,

You know that I would be a liar,

If I was to say to you

Girl, we couldn't get much higher"

The production manager wanted the last word changed from "higher" to "nicer" as it was provocative and vulgar those days. After some confrontation - the band agreed.

When the show was aired LIVE - Jim continued with the original script and stuck to "higher" as he didnt want to change the song for anyone.After the song was over the band was thrown out of the studio and the remaining contract to perform for 4 more shows were terminated. Ray - the key board and pianist of the band, came to Jim and asked him " Jim, Do you realize that we will not be allowed perform the greatest music show on earth "the Ed Sullivan's show" ?

Bang came the reply " Ray, we just peformed on the Ed Sullivan's show". This shows the attitude which he owns and flaunts.

Apart from the english music scene I also love our Tamil music.My all time favorite is Munbe Vaa.and I love hindi music too! The latest peppy numbers by A.R.Rehman Masakali and Dilli-6 has made me go crazy.

If english music and filmy music makes my head turn, Carnatic music is not far away.

we have been blessed to listen to the likes of Smt. MS Subhulakshmi, Shri. Maharajapuram Santhanam, Shri. Madurai Mani Iyer and other great souls.

"Kurai ondrum illai" rendered by MS soothes every nerve in the body and "Bhaja Govindam" sets in you a sense of self realisation.

Okay let me take a break now. I dont want to bore you guys anymore.

My Farewell letter to my co-workers!

How lucky I'm to have something that makes saying Goodbye so hard

I passed out my CA exams in July 06 and I was almost clueless what I was going to do next. Whether to continue what I was doing till then - Auditing or to try my hands at something new. I somehow landed up a job with ThinkEquity in Oct 2006. the words "equity research" sounded too exciting to me.

As the dust settled I got introduced to exciting world of equities. There was not one day I repented my decision for taking up the equities as my career path. After a while my stint at TEP was like a song so melodious and soothing.

After 30 months or so the time has come for me to depart this beautiful company ( I mean it - it meant everything to me) I want you all to know that I am truly leaving here with mixed feelings; happy about my new career opportunity but sad to be leaving many wonderful friends and colleagues. The last three years as a member of the TEP India team was the best period of my career so far.

I always felt that TEP India was my second home and never felt tired even after staying for 2 days on a trot in office - this place was so enthralling, believe me! I became addictive for staying in office. You guys made the office so beautiful - I doubt whether I would get such a great set of friends in my future professional life.

Now its the time to say goodbye!

I always believe good times are always punctuated and never gets terminated. So our good times together are to continue.

I part with a heavy heart and I'm sure we only part to meet again!

Thanks for everything guys! Please stay in touch - I mean it !

My personal email ID is ramakrish.pt@gamil.com

For good times to come!

Ramki

www.thinkramki.blogspot.com

Go go, they say you got to go!!

The song by Jim Morrison - "Light My Fire" comes calling at these distressed times.

" you know that it would be untrue...
you know that i would be a liar,
If i was to say to you,
Girl i was never fired"

In this tumultuous times getting fired is is like catching a cold so common and contagious. People are just being thrown out of their jobs in a very systematic and smooth manner and Pink is the color in vogue. Axing, sacking and other job cuts adjectives take the headline in all the dailies starting from Financial Times to Mylapore Times. Once the famous hailed upon Wall Street is cracking up and the so called dooms day has become a daily affair. United States, the Goliath of the world's economy was diagnosed a Cancer patient a few months back, sticking to its basics the disease started spreading into other countries and every economy started imploding. The economists of the world are still trying to arrive at a magic formula to treat this cancer which has already taken a toll on the most part of the body. The economists of individual countries though had a different opinion, they thought their economies were intact and was de-coupled from the world's debacle. Yes they thought that the world could take a shelter from a few growth economies like India and China. These countries once considered piping hot economies has started showing signs of influenza. What could a panda and tiger do when the whole forest is on fire.

So is world coming to an end? Are we in for an another depression, apologies, let me be honest, when do we get out of this depression? When do we again see John Thains and Vikram Pandits start raking in millions through bonuses?

Even the world's best economists don't have the answers for these thought-provoking questions. We are in deep muck and it should take years (how many??) before we come on a firm footing.

Whos responsible for all this? or may be whats responsible for all this?

May be that's like the first question in the show - "who wants to be a millionaire?" so easy and so insulting - "Greed". If there are 12 gods as per greek mythology, there are hundreds of gods of greed and Wall street was abode of these gods - One stop shop. Wall Street housed classics like like Bernie Madoffs and Dick fulds (of the Lehman's fame). Wall street people always thought that they were straight descendants of the greek god of wealth Pluto conned every investor (victim of greed??) and company to amass sacks and sacks of money through complex derivative (considered WMDs of the financial world) instruments.

It is often (mis)quoted that even a sweeper in wall street earns about $600K per annum. I used to be surprised at this fact and used to think to myself that may be the wall street analysts and fund managers sitting on high rise building have too many dollars that some of that might overflow on to the roads of the wall St. Wall street was always like wonderland and we were like Alice. I hope atleast now people come out of their perpetual derangement and realize that the cliche "wall street" is now in history books and its time to get on to the main street. The raging bull has been tamed long before!

I'm stopping here right now as I got to get back to my work - hope its still on!!

More to come ... stay tuned..and stay in a job!!