magic, love and wonder
and simple acceptance of these
(to the point of self-defeat and helplessness)
in the little things of life

the night could contain it no more
it finally rained like the confession (that never came)
and she could hear it on her window incessantly
through her wakeful sleep

so most environmentalists say emission standards should be set. and most economists say 'pay to pollute' is more efficient. they never try and understand what the other implies. pay to pollute would actually (given rational polluters) reduce pollution in a cost effective manner, accepting humbly that no pollution is impossible. and the proponents of this see standards as allowing 'free' pollution upto the standards and that is preposterous to their calculating minds. they conclude that the environmentalists are nuts.

now the environmentalists cannot understand economic math and so they don't see the efficiency being talked about. their argument is simple. how can you let anyone pay to commit a serious offence against the environment. its like saying, once you've paid, the offence doesn't remain one. its morally wrong. it doesn't send out the right signal to the world which should be 'do not pollute'. ok, so no pollution is impossible, but humankind should aim to reach as close to that impossible as possible. so set tight standards.

three borrowed thoughts

its so obvious and yet so deep. never seemed to realize it. cost-benefit analyses assume that the marginal utility from a unit of money is constant and the same for everyone involved in the study. which is kind of restrictive.

you would think a rich guy wouldn't care to earn a dollar and someone else may consider that very important.

and yet counter to this is Edgeworth's argument that a rich guy can enjoy an extra dollar more than a poor guy can. meaning a rich person because he has already satisfied his basic wants, can get more pleasure out of extra money where as someone who really needed that money will maybe not break even with it. so in that case, sensitivity of the rich to additional money is higher than that of the poor.

so, welfare considerations get confused. obviously

tell me i haven't changed you, and i would consider it my greatest success

"he was at once both too great and too small for love"

while in his stories he tries to decipher the mysteries of the nature of the characters he narrates to have known, i wonder about him. at some point i'm convinced that he detested women in a way, that he was contemptuous of them but then he surprises me toward the end of the tale by springing on me, this woman who is a contradiction to the most ubiquitous of womanly faults. and is yet, so whole a woman. was it that he never found the ideal that he was searching in woman? and therefore he was gay...?

the moon came and went unnoticed
and so will the sun again tomorrow
the clouds heavy in their heart
just hung there
and failed to share their sorrow

and now my blog becomes as accessible as chat. i'm sure that'll make the posts even increasingly tweet-like. and so update for the day - i'm hoping tonight-tom's snow will be the last of this winter. its been a thick-skinned winter not to take the hint and end its stay

they'd rather leave it as an imagined claim of right, than make what meat they can out of reality. what they sure do, is deserve each other

good old non-credible days

the world has changed so much. some non-credible threats have now become so credible. in a hijack-game in undergrad class today, the prof referred to the game as being played in pre 9/11 days. that one sentence held so much information for a game theory student. it made me smile, despite the underlying gloom in its meaning. there was a time in this world when killing oneself (with killing others) was considered an incredible threat, by theorists at least. even though the people threatened often took it seriously and thus obeyed. though this started to change in parts of the world even before 9/11, it was 9/11 that left no doubt about the credibility of such threats. since then, blowing oneself up in order to blow others, is no longer seen as having a negative payoff for the perpetrator of the threat. in fact, sometimes the suicide bomber may not need the excuse of his demand not being fulfilled to threaten to bomb. the bombing may in itself be an end result to him/her. and what's scary is that, in such situations, for reasons still bewildering and half unknown, there may in fact be a positive and dominant payoff to the bomber.

so the prof changed the payoffs to represent a present-day scenario for comparison. subgame perfect: bomb no matter what.

the be-nice-to-strangers is beyond me. how can she paste that smile on her face for so long while checking so many people out, and greet everyone with the same pleasantness. and then make small talk, "enjoying the sunshine? i'm loving every minute of it". how can she love the sunshine when she is indoors the entire day beeping objects and cards and smiling and saying, "thank you, have a great day". i guess its nice to be nice and to have people being nice to you. but did anyone wonder about the dipping curve of the marginal utility of niceness.

to the water people

"Mother always said that my sister Satsu was like wood. As rooted to the earth as a Sagura tree. But she told me I was like water. Water can carve its way, even through stone. And when trapped, water makes a new path."

anyone who loves delhi, will naturally find a friend in me. extra points if the love is over that for bombay. :) its a spiritual connect. delhi was not my home. it is my soul's space. somehow even as a teenager in bhutan i knew in my heart that i wanted to study in delhi and that i'd find my love in north campus. and even though i had hardly seen delhi then, it felt like my future. and now going back from anywhere will always mean 'to delhi'

stats lec cartoon

history and conflict

i thought here i would only see people who loved economics. instead i come upon this large number who are doing it cos its a way to get rich! back home those would have filled up MBA schools but here an economist is different. and so there are these people who understand nuts about the beauty of economics, and are therefore killing themselves over it. for what? money!!! and in the process they hold the teachers responsible for making their lives hell. and its very apparent that those teachers love their subject. i'm clearly biased here. and i do not fit in.

Frost - 'Departmental'

an ant on the tablecloth
ran into a dormant moth
of many times his size.
he showed not the least surprise.
his business wasn't with such.
he gave it scarcely a touch,
and was off on his duty run.
yet if he encountered one
of the hive's enquiry squad
whose work is to find out God
and the nature of time and space,
he would put him onto the case.
ants are a curious race;
one crossing with hurried tread
the body of one of their dead
isn't given a moment's arrest-
seems not even impressed.
but he no doubt reports to any
with whom he crosses antennae,
and they no doubt report
to the higher up at court.
then word goes forth in Formic:
"Death's come to Jerry McCormic,
our selfless forager Jerry.
will the special Janizary
whose office it is to bury
the dead of the commissary
go bring him home to his people.
lay him in state in sepal.
wrap him for shroud in a petal.
embalm him with ichor of nettle.
this is the word of your Queen."
and presently on the scene
appears a solemn mortician;
and taking formal position
with feelers calmly atwiddle,
seizes the dead by the middle,
and heaving him high in the air,
carries him out of there.
no one stands round to stare.
it is nobody's affair.

it couldn't be called ungentle.
but how thoroughly departmental.

waiting for a poem to rise in my heart. its welling up within. like that final moment when you expect it anytime. but noone ever said that the final moment can sometimes last ages. if only the sun stayed golden on my cheeks and the wind stopped howling. it may yet come. even the waiting is beautiful

a person's room has a spirit and character of its own. whether its in north campus, or an audience to the daily clatter of neighbourhood kannadiga life, or overlooking a dark back-lane between lil flats in a typical vk block, or in the surprising greenery in cluttered south delhi; i am carrying along this bodyless spirit with me. give it some time, and the essential clothing it begs you for, and so what if white blinds replace the indian curtains it loves; the room will breathe the same. more often than not i forget how much the outside world has changed, it feels so - the same. its as if i carried it with me in one of the 23kg boxes allowed and just put it down here. so what if this mattress cost me 10 times more and the wood is donated and scratched. it travels over time, back and forth in the past, while i daydream. and i am in all of those rooms at once