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Personal Finance - Another Perspective

2/9/2019

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Recently, one of my friends aged 29 Years who is a motorcycle enthusiast bought Hardley-Davidson motor cycle for about INR 8 Lacs (personal borrowing of 3 lacs), costing him his entire savings. He is an IT Professional and draws around 50K/month. His explanation for this costly affair was primarily his love for the bike for which he had been raising money, secondly he wants himself to be identified by 'HD wala' in his colony. Now, people have started judging him saying he wants to show off. Another uncle commenting 'Agar yahi paisa FD me daal deta to...'.

Few thoughts on this.

1. First thing first, it was his hard-earned legally acquired wealth which he used to fulfill his passion. Isn't it wrong to judge him for doing something unusual?

2. There are people who suggest to invest heavily for retirement by suppressing our desires, simply called delayed gratification citing example like 'Marsh mellow experiment'.Well, what if you don't reach that age itself given death is so uncertain? Why not enjoy wealth while you can, before your body starts experiencing the whole lot of old age issues. What wisdom is in living poor and dying rich?

3. I have come across several articles on personal finance discussing how foolish it is to own a car in the age of ola/uber/lyft or terming house loan as contract of slavery and advising to use that money in mutual funds. MF houses are only worried about increasing their AUM rather than making you rich. My argument for this is why lower your standard of living for the sake of saving & investment for an uncertain future. Why not think about increasing your income to afford that car/house? Robert Kiyosaki, the author of famous personal finance book 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' said that Savers are Losers. Find out why he said so?

4. You must have come across articles on how someone would have made huge money by investing in Eicher Motors rather than buying Royal Enfield or how a man made his fortune by investing in WIPRO. These are just marketing gimmick by Fund houses/Advisors to make your believe you can make your fortune by investing in their schemes. In practical, it is very very hard to spot multi-baggers. Multi-baggers are known in hindsight. There were many contemporaries of WIPRO who vanished in the oblivion (delisted from exchange) which used to be darlings of those era. Be wary of Survivor-ship bias. Coming back to Eicher, well even Eicher did not know that RE will be their hit product and many ace investors have accepted in their interviews that they had invested in Eicher looking at future prospects of their trucks & buses. RE was a fluke.

5. Another point is if everyone turns investor and there were no consumer, then economy will collapse. Consumption is the engine of economy. America is number one economy because it is the biggest consumer. If it weren't for America, Indian IT would not have the feat it enjoys today. What would be impact on share price of Eicher if everyone just bought the shares and no one bought the bike?

6. Final thoughts, I am not against saving or investing per se but just want to convey that you cannot become rich by saving. The magic of compounding will be able to charm you only when you have a sizable capital to compound, of course time horizon is another important factor. Never imagine financial independence by just saving unless you are full time into it. The only way to become incredibly wealthy is to start your own business, one capable of scaling to a significant size. And for that you need to work your ass off, to acquire the necessary skills and resources. Your expectation from investing should be reasonable. You can’t make more than the company’s earnings growth over long term. Of all the listed companies on the two exchanges, only a minority make >15% on capital. So for common investors, expecting a CAGR of more than 15% is foolish (pro stock-pickers are excluded from this generalization though).
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And please strike a balance between your savings and expenses. Do not suppress/postpone your desires just for the sake of saving/investing because you just live once and you don't know till when. So, if you can afford it from your own pocket; just go and spend on that dream trip with your loved one, buy that expensive car you have been longing for, buy that latest iPhone you always desired to own (if you can afford and not by selling your kidney :) ).
P.S: These are just my thoughts and not facts.
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Managing Money: Back to Basics

6/4/2018

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If you want to work for money, you will be doing that throughout life. If you can’t protect your money, financial predators will chip it away. If you don’t budget your money, others will make you fritter it way. If you don’t invest properly in the right assets, your money will be eaten up by the monsters of income-taxes and inflation. If you are reckless and do not invest your money properly, you will lose your wealth at the next unexpected event.

Although we all love money, it’s difficult for us to understand money and very tough to achieve financial independence. That’s simply because we all “work for money” rather than making “money work for us”. In this article, I try to make readers understand the nature of money, solve its mysteries and how to make it work to achieve financial independence.


Enhance Your Income
The first and foremost thing is income. We all have to learn to enhance our incomes. We all have some talent—we have to identify our talent, hone our skills, gain experience, improve our networking and increase our knowledge because that is the key in the current high-flying technology and information era. We all have to try to consolidate our strengths and minimize our weaknesses and aim to earn as much as possible because income is the first tenet of the profit & loss account.

Start Saving Early
Whether it is life, sports, exams or any other activity, there is nothing better than starting early. There is a saying that what you plan to do tomorrow, do it today; it best applies to the world of savings and investments. For example, if one saves Rs 25,000 annually at an expected rate of return of 10%pa (per annum) for 30 years, the total corpus would multiply to a staggering Rs 3.80 crore. Now, for whatever reason, if that individual were to delay his/her decision by, say, just five years, then, at the same expected rate of return, the corpus would be Rs.2.07 crore, almost half the corpus in the first case. Thus, by starting five years early, one could have almost doubled one’s investment corpus!

Increase Your Net (after tax) Income
Earning more income is just the beginning and will not, in any way, solve your financial problems, unless you follow the other rules. The second most important thing is to enhance your net, or after tax, income. There are lots of financial predators and the biggest amongst them is income-tax which legally picks money from your pocket. There are three kinds of income: 1) earned income (like salary where the person actually works to earn money), 2) guaranteed income (where the return is guaranteed like bank fixed deposits and, hence, there is negligible risk) and 3) portfolio income (where neither the principal nor the return is guaranteed like dividend from shares, rent from real estate, capital gains, etc).

Please remember, the tax structure is discriminating. As a general rule, there is maximum tax on earned income, as if the government wants to punish you for working hard to earn your income. Also, there is maximum tax on guaranteed income from portfolio because the tax policy assumes that you are an idle investor and, so, are not taking risk with your money to earn the return. However, the moment you are buying market-linked products, there is a lower rate of taxation from portfolio income. Hence, rather than working hard for your money and paying higher taxes, you have to be smart to let your money work for you and pay lower taxes.


Unnecessary Revenue / Capital Expenditure
Examples of unnecessary revenue expenditure are: a foreign trip, costly dinners at five-star hotels, etc. Unproductive capital expenditure would mean too much investment in assets which produce negative income, like car, holiday home, etc. But, we all have to incur expenses for our existence like food, clothing, medical, etc. Therefore, we have to learn to budget for these expenses and plan a judicious use of our finances. And, finally, what is the use of money if we can’t enjoy life? So, at some point of time, everybody has to incur unnecessary revenue expenditure or bad capital expenditure, but you don’t pay for them—let you assets pay for them. Treat all money equally, i.e., the money you got from, say, a lottery ticket or from the estate of a deceased relative or any windfall gain, with the same respect as the money you have earned from your hard work.

Keep a Contingency Fund Ready
The most certain thing about life is that it is uncertain. Therefore, everyone has to have a contingency fund; because you don’t want your long-term financial freedom to be sacrificed because of short-term problems. For example, one would hate to dip into the corpus fund set aside for one’s children’s education to meet an emergency medical need. Hence, keep adequate funds in liquid assets like short-term bank fixed deposits (FDs) or liquid mutual funds to meet any kind of unfortunate untoward emergency need.

Goal-based Investing
An individual would have different goals in life which would demand varying amounts of financial commitment. There would be basic goals like food, clothing, shelter, education, medical, etc. Then, there will be lifestyle goals like car, consumer durables and the like. Finally, there would be aspirational goals like purchasing a holiday home, enjoying a costly foreign vacation or sending children abroad for higher professional education and so on.

​Investing is not beating your neighbor, or performing better than some mutual fund manager. Investing is about being able to pay for all your future needs effortlessly, live a worry-free life and be able to achieve your higher self-actualization goals. Therefore, the success of a goal-based strategy is measured by how well an investor’s portfolio is tracking against a stated goal.

A traditional investment approach generally focuses on outperforming the market while staying within one’s threshold for risk. A goal-based strategy uses individual asset pools with an investment strategy that is tailored to the client’s specific goals. The two biggest advantages of goal-based investing are: it increases one’s commitments to one’s life goals by enabling us to gauge tangible progress towards these goals, and it reduces negative behavioral biases such as impulsive decision-making and over-reaction.


Liability Side – Good Debt and Bad Debt
Learn to distinguish between good and bad debt. According to me, bad debt would be that debt which is used for unproductive capital expenditure. On the other hand, good debt would be that which helps you  to create an asset which then puts money in your pocket (income) as well as scope for future capital appreciation, e.g., rental property which earns rent, shares which earn (tax-free) dividends. Also, both have potential for future capital appreciation. Never borrow to incur revenue expenditure, like a foreign trip or bad capital asset like a car or a holiday home, because they will not only take away money from your pocket in the form of interest payments but also put you into incurring wasteful revenue expenditure in the form of maintenance like petrol, repairs, property taxes, etc.

Asset Side – Create Good Assets
Always aim to create good assets which will provide income to you. For example, equities which will give you tax-free dividends, rental real estate which will give you rent, etc These have multiple advantages like they are either tax-free up to a limit (dividends) or subject to lower rate of taxation after exemptions (rent) than earned income (salary). Use the power of leverage to create good assets—let the income from the good asset pay your loan interest. And, once the loan installments are over, the future income (taxed at lower rate) on the good asset as well as the good asset is yours for life. And the trick of enjoying life, as well as securing your financial future, is to ensure that the portfolio income from your good asset pays for your revenue expenditure or bad capital expenditure.

Don’t forget that income-tax reduces your gross income; interest on loans (on revenue expenditures / bad assets) diminishes your net income and inflation eats into your remaining income. Follow the simple rules stated above and you are on your road to achieving financial emancipation.

Originally published on moneylife.in
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Getting Rich vs. Staying Rich

6/10/2017

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Abraham Germansky was a multimillionaire real estate developer in 1920s. He also loved stocks, betting heavily as the market boomed. As the crash of 1929 unfolded, he was wiped out.

And that was basically the end of Abraham Germansky.

Germansky disappeared on October 24th, 1929. The 
New York Times posted a short story near the back of its October 26th edition, with Germansky’s lawyer, Bernard Sandler, asking for information on his whereabouts. It tells a powerful story in just a few words:
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Later that week another investor in the same city had a very different experience.

Jesse Livermore returned home on October 29th to a wife who, seeing news of the day’s record market crash, was prepared to console her husband and return to a life of frugality.

Jesse said that wasn’t necessary. He was short the market and made more money in the crash of 1929 than during the rest of his life combined.

“You mean we are not ruined?” his wife asked, according to Livermore’s 
biography.

He replied: “No darling, I have just had my best ever trading day – we are fabulously rich and can do whatever we like.” He made, in one day, the equivalent of $3 billion.

Polar opposite stories. Germansky went broke, Livermore became the richest man in the world.

But fast-forward four years and the stories end up nearly identical.

Livermore made larger and larger bets, and went on to lose everything in the stock market. Broke and ashamed, he disappeared for two days in 1933. His wife set out to find him. “Jesse L. Livermore, the stock market operator, of 1100 Park Avenue missing and has not been seen since 3pm yesterday,” the 
New York Times wrote in 1933. He returned, but his path was set. Livermore eventually took his own life.

The timing was different, but Germansky and Livermore shared the realization that getting rich is one thing. Staying rich is quite another.

Everything in the economy is cyclical. Nothing great or terrible is likely to stay that way for long, because the same forces that cause things to be great or terrible also plant the seeds to push them the other way.

Bull markets make stocks expensive, expensive stocks leave little room for error, and little room for error increases the odds of bull markets ending. Same thing in the other direction. Recessions cause pessimism. Pessimism causes underproduction, underproduction leads to scarcity, scarcity leads to a new boom.

People and companies, whose behaviors are changed by their own success, are vulnerable to the same cycles.

I’ve noticed a pattern: Getting rich can be the biggest impediment to staying rich.

It goes like this. The more successful you are at something, the more convinced you become that you’re doing it right. The more convinced you are that you’re doing it right, the less open you are to change. The less open you are to change, the more likely you are to tripping in a world that changes all the time.

There are a million ways to get rich. But there’s only one way to stay rich: Humility, often to the point of paranoia. The irony is that few things squash humility like getting rich in the first place.

It’s why the composition of Dow Jones companies changes so much over time, and why the Forbes list of billionaires has 60% 
turnover per decade.

Andy Grove, Intel’s founder, put it this way: “Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction.” Scrappiness and the ability to think differently turns into complacency and the desire to keep things the same. Harvard Business Review wrote about Grove’s management philosophy in 1996:
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Grove believes that at least some fear is healthy—especially in organizations that have had a history of success. Fear can be a healthy antidote to the complacency that success often breeds. A touch of paranoia—a suspicion that the world is changing against you—is what Grove prescribes.

​Michael Moritz, the billionaire head of Sequoia Capital, was asked by Charlie Rose why Sequoia was so successful. Moritz mentioned longevity, noting that some VC firms succeed for five or ten years, but Sequoia has prospered for four decades. Rose asked why that was:
Moritz: I think we’ve always been afraid of going out of business.
Rose: Really? So it’s fear? Only the paranoid survive?
Moritz: There’s a lot of truth to that … We assume that tomorrow won’t be like yesterday. We can’t afford to rest on our laurels. We can’t be complacent. We can’t assume that yesterday’s success translates into tomorrow’s good fortune.
Not skill, or market insight, or even hard work. Fear and humility.

Humility doesn’t mean taking fewer risks. Sequoia takes as big of risks today as it did 30 years ago. But it’s taken risks in new industries, with new approaches, and new partners, cognizant that work worked yesterday isn’t what will work tomorrow.

IBM and Xerox did this when they shifted from hardware to services. Netflix did it when it cannibalized its DVD business to invest in streaming. GE has reinvented itself about every 20 years for the last century, going from a lightbulb company to a dishwasher company to a bank to a wind turbine company.

Each could have looked at their past success and concluded they were doing the right thing, patting themselves on the back. But they didn’t. They were, for the most part, paranoid, eager and willing to jettison past success in an attempt to keep up with where the world was heading next.
It’s not easy to do.

For decades people used Coke, Gillette, and American Express as examples of companies whose success was so solidified – whose moats were so deep and protected – that you could foresee their dominance indefinitely. But now all three are under attack. Coke’s is fighting 13 consecutive years of soda decline. Dollar Shave Club came out of nowhere to take 14 percentage points of market share away from Gillette. And as Charlie Munger, one of AmEx’s largest investors said this week: “If you think you know what the state of the payments system will be 10 years out you’re in a state of delusion.” Only the paranoid survive.

We don’t know much about Abraham Germansky – only that he went from rich, to broke, to disappeared. But we know a lot about Livermore, whose life was well documented.

Livermore was was one of the most skilled people in the world at getting rich. But few people in the early 20th century had a harder time staying rich. He made and lost at least four fortunes, never going more than eight years without flirting with bankruptcy.

After his third wipeout, Livermore recognized his mistake: Getting rich made him feel invincible, and feeling invincible led him to double-down with leverage on what worked in the recent past, which was catastrophic when the world changed and the market turned against him.

He reflected:
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I sometimes think that no price is too high for a speculator to pay to learn that which will keep him from getting the swelled head. A great many smashes by brilliant men can be traced directly to the swelled head.

​“It’s an expensive disease everywhere to everybody” he said.

Originally published on 
collaborativefund.com
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Appreciate when you have it!

1/4/2014

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We live in a disposable world. We tend to do anything and everything to achieve what we want (when we don't have it). I it holds such a high value in our minds before we posses it, but once we acquire the object or the person, we forget what it took to get it and the value slowly depreciates in our minds. When we acquire things like a cell phone,a computer, a TV; shortly after we want the newer, bigger and better model. Trading up has deprived our society of the appreciation we once had for what we worked hard to obtain. Holds true even for relationships.

This is because we begin to lose sense of the appreciation we have for the person or item and tend to stop doing the little things. If it's a cell phone, we stop cleaning it and keeping it scratch free; if it's a girl we stop telling her she's beautiful and we love her. If we were to misplace the phone we go crazy looking to find it; If the girl stops caring we go crazy trying to win her back. The key is to always appreciate the things we want most in life while we don't have it and even while we have it. That way we are always reminded of how special it is to us and will do whatever it takes to keep it feeling special and appreciated. The value of the person or item never changes, our appreciation towards them is what changes. So remember. the little things are what make up the big things, the little things matter most, the little things say the most.
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Lifestyle Crime

5/22/2013

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I woke up today with the news of Rs 500 crore betting racket of IPL matches (I consider IPL matches a Business more than a Game) with Sreesanth, Ankit Chawan and Amit Singh admitting their involvement. But what caught my attention was this small footnote at the bottom which read : Boy Murdered to Pay for IPL Bet. The victim named Aditya Rankha, aged 13 was stabbed with kitchen knife several times by his cousins and finally burnt to death a little outside Mumbai after a ransom plan didn’t pan out the way his assailants had planned it. These muderers had lost Rs 10 lakh in illegal IPL bets and hence they kidnapped Aditya and demanded a ransom of Rs 30 Lakh for teen's safe return, to which Aditya 's father did not agree.

The killers are not strangers, but relatives Aditya had grown up with, trusted and perhaps loved. The accused are neither hard-core criminals, nor professional killers. They represent the aam aadmi on every level. So what is the malaise in our society that is leading such people to commit dastardly crimes? Do they really think they’ll get away with murder? Do they think at all? Or is the glitter and glamour of instant gratification far more compelling than the risk involved? What about the reactions of their young wives and children? Other family members? The shame and ignominy of it all?

We are used to such urban crimes and we find nothing unusual about such stories. Thats why such articles find place at the footnote at the bottom of Dailies which we wearily read, get bored and turn the page. These killers were reported splurging wildly at nightclubs and 'enjoying' themselves. This idea of “enjoyment” has become a social disease that recognises no bounds. From a slum in central Mumbai to a penthouse on Pali Hill — it is no longer a distant dream or fantasy. It is happening. It is achievable. It is worth murdering a cousin for.

The scary truth is the lure of a luxurious lifestyle has completely blinded young urban India to consequences — moral or otherwise. There seems to be nothing at stake anymore. Everybody is chasing some impossible dream that promises paradise. Sometimes, one looks at the TV commercials (especially the ones that are telecast during the ongoing IPL) and wonders. They are so clever, so subversive they startle and shock the unwary! Most tap into middle-class frustrations, with wives and children demanding more and more and more from harried husbands and fathers (exotic summer vacations, bigger TV sets, pricey air conditioners). Banks offer attractive zero per cent interest on loans (come on, guys! who are you kidding?) urging the gullible to splurge on the latest smartphone or even a beach villa. Irresistible and heady as such offers are, there is always a catch.

That’s where these killer typos get phasaoed. Unwilling to wait for goodies that require some effort to acquire, they start gambling, first with currency, then with life itself. Young Aditya’s murder is emblematic of this rotten syndrome. As of now, one can only see a further escalation of similar crimes. The stakes may get higher. But lives will definitely get cheaper.

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No time to stand and stare

4/6/2013

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We have an inner impulse to satisfy our desires. Eat what we want, when we want to, giving no thought how much we eat. Drink what we want,when we want to, listen to audio entertainment when we want to, giving no thoughts to the words or to how long we have been listening or to how loud it is. Surf the internet, and watch video entertainment giving no thoughts to the websites we visit, the sounds and images we take in, to how long we surf or to how straining it is to our eyes. Pursue the fulfillment of our lower desires whenever we want,with whomever we want,wherever we want, for how long we want........
In this world, there is utter, uncontrollable chaos.Nothing is controlled and no one is exercising any control.No one needs anyone else as everyone is concerned only about themselves.

Every one is on the brink of losing their hearing and sight due to intense and continuous exposure to loud music. television and computer monitor screen.The clothing industry is thriving because people have to buy new clothes every other day. Medical and other human service professionals are working overtime to address the near exponential rise in the demand for emergency medical care, counselling and endless therapy sessions for people suffering from IHLTCS(I have lost total control syndrome). The reason for this chaos is turning away from Almighty,our creator to satisfy our lower desires.Let it be rich or poor,No one is happy. Everybody is Under stress. Newspapers carrying the news of suicides have become the order of the day. Why do people who have all the means of good-livelihood and all the objects of enjoyment take this extreme steps?We are living in the world of TENSION.

In this so called fast-spaced life and modern era, people give lesser importance to their servitude(to the creator) than their servitude and services to man. the slaves and servants of man are generally fully devoted to their employers to do the work they consider as their duty. Under the employer's instruction, they run to and fro, not even concerned about their meals-whatever little comes to hand is consumed.

If you want to live peaceful life, I call you to islam.Turn yourself to ALLAH.You will be successful in this world as well as the world hereafter. Never love a woman, a man or a pet.They will all disappoint you one day. But ALLAH will never disappoint you, ALLAH is always ready to listen to your blight.Devote sometime in Tableeghi movement started by Moulana Ilyas(Rahmatullah Alaih) so that your eyes are opened before death.

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Man’s Misuse of Freewill

4/6/2013

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Man’s urges for the satisfaction hunger; sleep and sex cover the entire spectrum of his living condition on earth. They were given to man for his survival and maintenance on earth.

The hunger and thirst that man could satisfy with a loaf and a glass of water or feeling contented with what is available to him/her at ease and at hand is destroying the human edifice in a continuous process and multiplying his problems manifold, making the human life unbearable of hundreds of millions in the developing and underdeveloped countries who have little or no access to get this natural urge satisfied at peace.  The colonial powers and the occupiers have robbed their natural resources ruthlessly to satisfy their own mania of ever-increasing life standard and are miserly holding their “robbed” capital shamelessly in their banks and financial holding companies. What a curse it is for the great powers of Europe and America!

He needs a few hours of sleep and that he could get even lying on hard stones if he is overpowered by his tiresome work. But man went on increasing the luxuries of life. He wants luxurious houses, foam or water spring beds, air condition living rooms and sleeping piles.   If he could live within the natural means available, he could live in peace. However, man is found running after these urges day in and day out, like a “mad-man”, crazy to fulfill them by hook or crook, by fare or foul means, by honest or crocked means. He never feels satisfied and always cries: more and more, creating lopsided economies in the world and in every human society, dividing it in “haves and have-nots”, affluent and deprived, rich and poor, making the scenario worst and worst with every day and night: the rich is getting richer and the poor becoming poorer even by hours.

The urge that was given to man for the continuation of his species on earth through the process of procreation and the institution of marriage between man and woman has seriously been endangered by man through his perverted behavior of having sex with the same gender or committing the most heinous crime of homosexuality, a crime against human race being committed by humans for the satisfaction of his sexual urges in the most unnatural, unhealthy and shameless manner that is worse than animal behavior. Man is again misusing his freewill to satisfy his urge for sex out of wedlock thereby belittling the institution of marriage and the future of humanity at large.

The freewill of man has a choice to do wrong as well as free to do good and there lies its accountability after death as how he acted, lived and behaved on earth to make it a hell or a heaven for himself as well as for his species. Accordingly, he will be punished or rewarded in the life Hereafter – the ultimate reality that each human being will face when resurrected after death.
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    Man is made by his thought. As he thinks, so he is. One’s perception of his life  greatly impacts  his standard of living, his success and failures,  the way he responds to the odd situations, the extent to which he makes his presence in the society he is living in.  The prime purpose of this blog is to share my thoughts and the other parallel thoughts from external sources which interest me with the readers of my blog.

    ​This blog is about all the things that float through my head, things that make me happy, things that make me wonder, thoughts that settle comfortably in and thoughts that come visiting once in a while. Come in and spend some time in my world. I have something for everyone. You are most welcome to express your views and take part in the discussion. I would love to read your comments, suggestions, appreciations and criticism.

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