Friday, October 30, 2009

"Two States: The Story of My Marraige " review



I just completed reading Chetan bhagat’s new novel “2 States: The story of my marriage” and here is the review.

Brief Outline:
The Story starts with the protagonist Krish and Anaya meeting at the IIMA canteen. From there the story tracks their love story as their relationship status changes from “just friends” to the being “madly in love”. As their IIM days come to an end they decide to take the relationship to the next level but there is one major roadblock he is a Punjabi and she is a tamilian will the south accept the north or vice versa is the question that the author tries to explore in rest of his novel.
All the ups and downs in the relationships are nicely penned by the author. It gets the reader hooked and one is easily able to relate to the characters. The scene where Krish proposes to ananya during her HLL interview is well written and is one of the most romantic scenes in the book. The novel starts off with a fast pace and in the middle losses the pace but the picks up pace at the end. I cannot blame Chetan Bhagat for the loss of pace in between because it’s a story about a couple and not all the moments in life can be that interesting. Although the novel is not high on literary content but has is entertaining and has got all the required ingredients which its target audience is looking for. Overall a nice attempt by Mr. Bhagat.
For all those who have read his earlier works like the five point someone, one night at call centre, the 3 mistakes of my life I would suggest read this. I guess after 5 point someone this the best work of Chetan Bhagat.

One thing I must say that nothing sells like one personal stories esp. the love stories in India. We can see how this fact is used very shrewdly Mr. Mahesh Bhatt for his films. Anyways no malice is intended towards anybody.

Just go and enjoy the book.Mr Bhagat has got one more Best seller up his sleeve.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The Axe Efffect

Unable to attract even a single girl, frustrated man sues Axe


In what could prove to be a major marketing and legal embarrassment for Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), a 26-year-old man has filed a case against the FMCG company, which owns the Axe brand of men grooming products, for ‘cheating’ and causing him ‘mental suffering’. The plaintiff has cited his failure to attract any girl at all even though he’s been using Axe products for over seven years now. Axe advertisements suggest that the products help men in instantly attracting women.

Vaibhav Bedi, the petitioner, also surrendered all his used, unused and half-used deodorant sprays, perfume sticks and roll-ons, anti-perspirants, aftershaves, body washes, shampoos, and hair gels to the court, and demanded a laboratory test of the products and narcotics test of the brand managers of Axe. Vaibhav was pushed to take this step when his bai (maid) beat him with a broom when he tried to impress her by appearing naked in front of her after applying all the Axe products. No girl ever asked Vaibhav to call her.


“Where the f%*@k is the Axe effect? I’ve been waiting for it for over seven years. Right from my college to now in my office, no girl ever agreed to even go out for a tea or coffee with me, even though I’m sure they could smell my perfumes, deodorants and aftershaves. I always applied them in abundance to make sure the girls get turned on as they show in the television. Finally I thought I’d try to impress my lonely bai who had an ugly fight with her husband and was living alone for over a year. Axe effect my foot!” Vaibhav expressed his
unhappiness.

Vaibhav claims that he had been using all the Axe products as per the company’s instructions even since he first bought them. He argued that if he couldn’t experience the Axe effect despite using the products as directed, either the company was making false claims or selling fake products.

“I had always stored them in cool and dry place, and kept them away from direct light
or heat. I’d always use a ruler before applying the spray and make sure that the distance between the nozzle and my armpit was at least 15 centimeters. I’d do everything they told. I even beat up my 5-year-old nephew for coming near my closet, as they had instructed it to keep away from children’s reach. And yet, all I get is a broom beating from my ugly bai.” Vaibhav expressed his frustration.

Vaibhav claims that he had to do go a lot of mental suffering and public humiliation due to the lack of Axe effect and wants HUL to compensate him for this agony. An advocate in Karkardooma court, who happened to mistake Vaibhav for some deodorant vendor when he entered the court premises with all the bottles, has now offered to take up his case in the court. HUL has been served a legal notice in this regard.

HUL has officially declined to comment on the case citing the subject to be sub judice, but our sources inform that the company was worried over the possible outcomes of the case. The company might argue that Vaibhav was hopelessly unattractive and unintelligent and didn’t possess the bare minimum requirements for the Axe effect to take place. Officially HUL has not issued any statement, but legal experts believe that HUL could have tough time convincing the court.

“HUL might be tempted to take that line of argument, but it is very risky. There is no data to substantiate the supposition that unattractive and unintelligent men don’t attract women. In fact some of the best looking women have been known to marry and date absolutely ghoulish guys. I’d suggest that the company settles this issue out of court.” noted lawyer Ram Jethmalani said.


Source:http://www.bangalorexpo.com/news/politics/unable-to-attract-even-a-single-girl-frustrated-man-sues-axe/

Monday, October 26, 2009

Information Asymmetry

Once upon a time there was a village in which there lived many married couples. There were certain qualities about this village, though, that made this village unique:
Whenever a man had an affair with another man's wife, every woman in the village got to know about the affair, except his own wife. This happened because the woman who he had slept with talked about their affair with all the other women in the village, except his wife. Moreover, no one ever told his wife about the affair.

The strict laws of the village required that if a woman could prove that her own husband had been unfaithful towards her, then she must kill him that very day before midnight. Also, every woman was law-abiding, intelligent, and aware of the intelligence of other women living in that village. You and I know that exactly twenty of the men had been unfaithful to their wives. However, as no woman could prove the guilt of her husband, the village life proceeded smoothly.

Then, one morning, a wise old man with a long, white beard came to the village. His magical powers, and honesty was acknowledged by all and his word was taken as the gospel truth.

The wise old man asked all villagers to gather together in the village compound and then announced:
"At least one of the men in this village has been unfaithful to his wife."
Questions:
1. What happened next?
2. And what this got to do with stock market crashes?
Answer 1:
After the wise old man has spoken, there shall be 19 peaceful days followed by a massive slaughter before the midnight of the 20th day when twenty women will kill their husbands.
Proof:
We will use backward thinking for the proof. Indeed, the very purpose of this post is to demonstrate the utility of the backward thinking style. Let’s start by assuming that there is only one unfaithful man in the village - Mr. A. Later, we shall drop this assumption. Every woman in the village except Mrs. A knows that he is unfaithful. However, since no one has told her anything, and she remains blissfully ignorant. But only until the old man speaks the words, "At least one of the men in this village has been unfaithful to his wife."The old man's words are news only for Mrs. A, and mean nothing to the other women. And because she is intelligent, she correctly reasons that if any man other than her own husband was unfaithful, she would have known about it. And since she has no such knowledge in her possession, it must mean that it's her own husband who is unfaithful. And so, before the midnight of the day the old man spoke, she must execute her husband. Now, let's assume that there were exactly two unfaithful men in the village - Mr. A and Mr. B.
The moment the old man speaks the words, "At least one of the men in this village has been unfaithful to his wife," the village's women population gets divided as follows:
Every woman other than Mrs. A and Mrs. B knows the whole truth; Mrs. A knows about philanderer Mr. B, but, as of now, knows nothing about her own husband's unfaithfulness, so she assumes that there is only one unfaithful man - Mr. B - who will be executed by Mrs. B that night; and Mrs. B knows about philanderer Mr. A, but, as of now, knows nothing about her own husband's unfaithfulness, so she assumes that there is only one unfaithful man - Mr. A - who will be executed by Mrs. A that night. As the midnight of day one approaches, Mrs. A is expecting Mrs. B to execute her husband, and vice versa. But, and this is key, none of them do what the other one is expecting them to do! The clock is ticking away and passes midnight and day 2 starts. What happens now is sudden realization on the part of both Mrs. A and Mrs. B, that there must be more than one man who is unfaithful. And, since none of them had prior knowledge about this other unfaithful man, then it must be their own respective husbands who were unfaithful!
In other words, the inaction of one represents new information for the other. Therefore, using the principles of inductive logic requiring backward thinking, both Mrs. A and Mrs. B will execute their respective husbands before the midnight of day 2.Now; let's assume that there are exactly three unfaithful men in the village- Mr. A, Mr. B., and Mr. C. The same procedure can be used to show that in such a scenario, the wives of these three philandering men will kill them before the midnight of day 3 as described below: When there are exactly three unfaithful men - A,B, and C what would happen on day 1? Mrs A knows about infidelity of B and C Mrs B knows about infidelity of A and C Mrs C knows about infidelity of A and B. Each thinks her own hubby is faithful. So nothing will happen on day 1.
Day two comes. What will happen on day two? Mrs A will think that today before midnight both B and C will be killed by their wives. Mrs B will think that today before midnight both A and C will be killed by their wives.Mrs C will think that today before midnight both A and B will be killed by their wives. Each of them will presume that their own hubbies are faithful and so nothing will happen.
Midnight of day two will come and go and nothing will happen.
One second past midnight of day 2 what will happen? Mrs A will think, "Why the hell are B and C still alive? It must be because there is another unfaithful man, which must be my own hubby!" Mrs B will think, "Why the hell are A and C still alive? It must be because there is another unfaithful man, which must be my own hubby!" Mrs C will think, "Why the hell are A and C still alive? It must be because there is another unfaithful man, which must be my own hubby!" And so, if there are exactly three unfaithful men in the village, all of them will be slaughtered by the end of day 3. Using the same process, it can be shown that if exactly twenty husbands are unfaithful, their wives would finally be able to prove it on the 20th day, which will also be the day of the bloodbath.
Answer 2: Connection with Stock Market Crashes
If you replace the announcement of the old man with that provided, by say,SEBI, the nervousness of the wives with the nervousness of the investors, the wives' contentment as long as their own husbands weren't cheating on them with the investors' contentment so long as their own companies were not indulging in fraud, the execution of twenty husbands with massive dumping of stocks, and the time lag between the old man's announcement and the killings with the time lag between the old man's announcement and the market crash, the connection between the story and market crashes becomes obvious.
Information Asymmetry
One of the most interesting aspects about the story is the role of information asymmetry. You and I knew that there were exactly twenty unfaithful men in the We had complete information about the number of unfaithful men in that village but not their identity.
On the other hand, every woman in the village knew the identity of at least nineteen unfaithful men. For example, if you were Mrs. A, you would have known about nineteen unfaithful men, but not about your own husband's unfaithfulness. And, if you were one of the women whose husband was faithful, then you'd know the identity of twenty unfaithful men. But the old man did not say that there were twenty unfaithful men in the village. All he said was that there was at least one unfaithful man in the village. So, his statement, did not add anything to the knowledge of any individual woman because each of them knew of at least nineteen unfaithful men!
And yet, his statement caused the bloodbath after twenty days!
The lesson is simple: It's not necessary for any new information to cause havoc in the stock market. Sudden realizations about the stupidity of gross overvaluations and dubious accounting practices followed by some companies in bubble markets can and do occur simultaneously in the minds of the crowd. And that sudden realization can cause markets to crash.

Note:
The above village story was adapted from John Paulos' excellent book,"Once Upon a Number" and was repeated in his, other, also excellent, book,"A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market."