One of my friend’s gtalk tagline read “when you do NPV of life…u should use a discount rate of approx. zero”. Now given my interest in DCF (Discounted Cash Flow analysis for non-MBAs), it was quiet natural for me to get intrigued by this statement.

After all, if you use zero as discount rate than effectively you don’t discount future at all. So implications are:
(a) NPV (Net Present Value for non-MBAs) of your life gets artificially high,
(b) You come up with a seemingly tough to digest logic that say if you hungry today still you are indifferent to getting a meal now or a week later and
(c) Since you have made discount rate zero so it also means that any return on effort in life is equivalent to nil…so either you having a really wretched life or you just don’t have anything left to achieve or attain.

Therefore, I was a little confounded and I just assumed that what she might have meant is to actually live in present and not worry about the future in which case she should have ideally used a discount rate of infinity ;-)

It was upon broaching this with her when I figured that she came up with this line while reading a book called Secret by Rhonda Byrne and the philosophy inherent in that. So I picked up the trail to chance upon what is known as Law of Attraction. Now, I have a very strong opinion on this “law” but before I prejudice you with my perception, let me just state what it actually stands for, so I would borrow the definition from the link above ( while strongly recommending that you go through that link once):
“It states that people experience physical and mental manifestations that correspond to their predominant thoughts, feelings, words, and actions and that people therefore have direct control over reality and their lives through thought alone.”

Interesting right, let me put it a little simply …it says that “for something to happen, all you need to do is to believe/hope that it would happen” So how life will pan out is suddenly not a function of your actions but simply a function of your thoughts. Now, critics would argue that’s not what it means - one obviously needs to act on his thoughts. So even if I allow lee way for a one to one mapping between functions of thoughts and action i.e. we use a prototype subject who puts all his thoughts into action, then for him things should just pan out the way he wants them to. So suddenly life would become fixed and definite because now there’s no uncertainty. But wait, there is a contradiction, what if two equally deserving and earnest individuals decide to want the same thing with equal fervour and dedication. Now if both of them think that they should have that thing then who would eventually get it. When thoughts of different individuals are contradictory what course would nature take, how would the universe react?

It goes on to say that if you really want something just assume you have it. Now that’s an interesting treatise with long term disastrous results guaranteed. So if you hungry just assume you just getting back from the grandest buffet you ever had and try surviving on this assumption for a week, or if its raining just assume you carrying that black umbrella you lost last week (and hope not to get drenched) and so on… I know am pushing it to logical extreme but then this “law” kinda asked for it.

So now since you have assumed you have everything which you could have ever hoped for, life has suddenly nothing more to achieve. Rather life just becomes a constant wait for your thoughts to turn into reality. And then I see another logical contradiction here. If you assume that you have all you ever needed, would that satisfy you, give you delights of owning what you wanted to own – coz if it does, then there is no need for your thoughts to ever change into reality because you are pretty happy with the virtual reality of your own but if this assumption doesn’t give you any satisfaction or benefit then won’t it leave you disgruntled and dissatisfied - in which case you are back to where you had begun…

This philosophy did have some echo in another popular book – Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (Another popular book that I couldn’t bring myself to like) – “when you really want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it'”. But here it’s far more subdued because it doesn’t guarantee achievement; it just talks about a conducive atmosphere where final result is still a function of your actions.

Nevertheless, my logical & sensible self completely revolted against the entire premise of this theory. But remember, few days back I wrote about little rules of faith and how each one of us need to have some illogical friends like that. Well, I would have let this one pass as one such rule of faith but then what made me write something this long about it is the pretense of this ‘law’ that there is more to it than faith, that you should believe it because it has its roots in quantum physics or its effort to gaining credibility through blatant misinterpretation of Hinduism or Buddhism.

Faith and physics - they make strange bedfellows. I have always believed that faith is as much an ally of a man as logic is. Just that when you base your actions on faith don’t look for support in science and when you act on science just don’t hope that it would turn out any different from how it always does…

I got back home by 6:30 today and for want of anything better to do, switched on Sony. It was showing some recent hindi movie which I don’t really think I would have seen in a better frame of mind , but when you are acutely bored –anything goes. So I ended up watching this flick.

Now it was another of those usual formula hindi movie – Mr. Hero and Ms. Heroine falls in love in first 60 mins, sing songs, exchange vows of true love. Then some misunderstanding crops up and they get apart in next half an hour. Enter Mr. Nice Guy, he supports our Ms. Heroine for next one hour. Mr. Nice Guy gets into good books of Ms. Heroine though our Ms. Heroine still cries all night for Mr. Hero in one or more of those sad songs. With half an hour to go, she comes round and agrees to marry Mr. Nice Guy. Now we enter the climax, just as they were about to get married, misunderstanding between Mr. Hero and Ms. Heroine gets resolved by some twisted stroke of fate. But all this happen almost always on the wedding day. Now Mr. Nice Guy is left with no choice, he steps up and lives up to his name by bringing together Mr. Hero & Ms. Heroine and walking away himself. And without fail, he does this with a perfect smile playing on his face at the end. Result – everybody is happy at the end of three hours. .

I have seen this plot numerous times, two movies I can immediately remember are Kuch Kuch Hota Hain and Mere Yaar ki Shaadi Hain and I seriously felt bad for characters of both Salman Khan & Jimmy Shergill. I mean poor Mr. Nice Guys, why should they always step aside. Why should fate be cruel on them? Why can’t all these misunderstandings get resolved well in time before these poor chaps make an entry? Now you can’t sympathise much with Uday Chopra but u can’t fault SRK for falling in love with Ms. Heroine at first place and we all want things to work out between the leading pair which eventually does. But someone must spare a thought for our poor Mr. Nice Guys. That way Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam was a little different, while Mr. Nice Guy, as usual, decided to step aside but in the end Ms. Heroine came back to him. But then that happened because Ms. Heroine was already Mrs. Heroine by the time movie entered its climax. Now in almost all hindi movies if Ms. Heroine ends up marrying Mr. Nice Guy then we all know happy ending requires our leading lady to stay put in the marriage. That’s why I think Mr. Johar came up with an excellent story for Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna though he spoiled it entirely with frivolous execution of that movie. Now that’s more or less the only movie I recall where Ms. Heroine walks out on a seemingly perfect hubby to pursue her heart’s calling – guess it was too mature and complicated a story for Mr. Johar to handle but I just hope somebody more competent tries a remake of KANK. Am sure this is one script that has immense potential to change the standard formula of hindi movies.

But coming back to tried and tested love triangles of hindi movies (which upon applying rules of geometry should be isosceles in my opinion), I was just wondering could these stories have any other ends? Probably not. On careful thinking, the very reason why the third angle of this triangle is called Mr. Nice Guy and not Mr. Hero 2 is because he is never supposed to be the hero. He is just there to fill in for Mr. Hero till fate plays one of its tricks and set right all that was wrong so far. I mean while all Mr. Nice Guys are immensely likeable but they are not really supposed to be loved or are they? Not really, if any of the hindi movies are to be believed … I don’t seem to recollect any flick where Ms. Heroine (and not Mrs. Heroine) chose to prefer Mr. Nice Guy over Mr. Hero (and not Mr. Anti-Hero).

Frankly, if you ask me if I would like the original formula changed so that Ms. Heroine forgets Mr. Hero and fall in for Mr. Nice Guy, I myself would have serious apprehensions. One or two offbeat movies ok but always …ummmmm no please. Reason – if misunderstandings did them apart in first place then it would be really hard on Mr. Hero as well as Ms. Heroine, if they are kept apart just because it was too late by the time it all got cleared. Guess that’s why our directors prefer to play the game of brinkmanship and chose to clear air just in time i.e. on wedding day ;-) And so if there got to be one sacrificial lamb in the whole thing, its only fair that it is Mr. Nice Guy. After all, Ms. Heroine was never meant to be with him at the first place.

But then, just for the sake of being different. I really wish to see one movie where our Mr. Nice Guy is both liked and loved. And it’s not him who is required to make way at the end. I mean even by the law of large numbers Mr. Hero should run out of luck at least once after repeated success in all the hindi movies in walking away with the bride. Some bright guy somewhere should come up with a believable excuse why Ms. Heroine can live happily ever after with Mr. Nice Guy instead of going back to Mr. Hero.

Now only guys I can trust to do justice with something like this are either Vishal Bharadwaj or Sanjay Leela Bhanshali. But given Shakespeare never thought of a drama like this so Mr. Bharadwaj might just be long way off a movie like this and as for Mr, Bhansali, well…does anyone know what’s the story of Saawariya ? ;-)



Song recommendations:

Now that I have established my knowledge of hindi movies beyond dispute. Let me recommend my favourite tracks from Saawariya. Excellent album and it was really tough to choose one song as favourite over rest and actually I couldn’t do it in the end.
So, two of my fav songs from this album are:

1. थोड़े बदमाश हो तुम, थोड़े नादान हो तुम….. sung by Shreya Ghoshal; &
2. माशा अल्लाह….. by Kunal Ganjawala

There are lots of things I like about night.

Like darkness which hides you from constant glare of the world, quiet that let you steal some moments of peace, solitude that let you be yourself.

After a long day, night is like nature’s gift to you. A gift, wrapped in a beautiful starlit sky and laced with a ribbon made of moonlight.

It's so beautiful and fascinating and still people spend it sleeping…

I wonder why...

I once told myself that tougher it gets for you to get something; greater are the chances that you would eventually get it. Because when something is very precious, God just wants to be sure that He is giving it in the right hands. So, when He makes it difficult for you it’s not to scare you away, but all He wants is to be absolutely sure that you really want what you asking for. And so all one needs to do in such moments is to stay put and not give up.

And while this may sound a little childish, but this invented “rule of life” of mine has stayed with me since then and actually helped me slug it out in moments when everything seemed lost. I would be the first one to agree that this little principle of faith may not be able to stand slightest of test of reason. But then I turn to it only when reason refuses to stand by me.

There are times when you want something very badly but you can’t seem to get it and in these times, your wisdom, your reason, your logic all gang up and ask you to turn back, assuring you that there is nothing wrong in giving up, convincing you that best thing to do is to just step aside. And still you just don’t want to give up, because something deep down tells you not to – at least not just yet.

And in such moments, all of us need our little friendly rules of faith, ones to which we can turn and who can tell us to ignore all the sane advice and just heed to call of our heart – rules of faith which can tell us to stay put and not give up as yet. And they may be childish but all of us need one or two childish friends like these. Because just like little kids these little acts of faith also don’t question you, they don’t argue with you, they just look at you and smile approvingly – and that smile is enough to bring back your confidence and hope. And sometimes this little faith is all that’s needed to bridge the last stretch between your dreams and reality.

And even if it is not enough to take you to the end but it at least takes you as far as you could have possibly gone and doesn’t leave you with a regret of giving it up when you could have still made that last ditch effort.

After all, so often what comes back to haunt you is not that you lost but that may be you just didn’t try right till the end…

It was very dark. Nobody could have seen it. Nobody could have even seen the drops of red dripping from his fingers. But he could feel the hot blood on his hands. And he could see her body lying in front of him.

It must have been a very painful death. He had slit her throat and as blood drained and her body twitched, he stood there watching. But she didn’t scream. She had not even shouted when he took out knife in that dark alley. She had just looked at him for a moment….and then she closed her eyes. And in that single moment, her eyes didn’t ask him “Why ?”, rather those eyes asked herself “How could he?”. She didn’t say a word thereafter. Not when he pressed the knife to her throat, now when he made the first cut, not when he slit her throat open and not a sound when she lay there fighting a painful battle with death. She just took it all with a stony silence.

And silence is all that he was left with now. He touched her body, it was cold - it had none of the warmth that he was used to. Her eyes had popped out - they had none of the twinkle that he has known. Her lips had turned blue – not the rose red that he remembered.

He had killed her.

He knew he had killed her but it was still very dark so no one else might have seen it. So he decided to wait by the body till the day break. They might just need a witness or two to prove that he killed her…

And he didn't want to take any chances with the hanging....