The Man who knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel

Srinivasa Ramanujan may have had a short life but his short life had captured the imagination of a cross section of Mathematicians, intellectuals , commoners for the sheer romanticim of rags to riches of an intellectual type.What adds to the aura was that he almost completely self learnt maths and rediscovered in quite a number of cases already discovered Higher mathematics on his own.

Robert Kanigel has brought a deep understanding , a humility in trying to learn and understand the social miilieu , at that point of time,in South India, the social millieu , more specifcally of the South Indian Brahmin community. The way he has reasearched and brought out the background and underlying meanings of certain practices , words ,is remarkable. He throws in underlying meanings of Sannidhi, derivation and meaning of Triplicane( Tiru alli keni which means sacred lily tank ) talks how Ramanujan developed his skills playing Adu Puli ( Tiger and Goats literally ) with his mother or was it Pallanguzhi ?. He beautifully brings out the earlier generation practice of child marriage and the convictions surrounding it, the conflicts between a young daughter in law from a lower strata ( economically ) of the society and the domineering mother in law. How the daughter in law is kept away from the son.

Very perceptive observations by the author.

He explores the mind of the genius , how from a person who was excelling in all aspects of academia, he gets so focussed on mathematics to the exclusion of all other subjects.

He talks of how the education system was not quite amenable to encouragement of a genius. Our education system encourages average ability or to put it crudely, mediocrity across rather than extraordinary ability in one area . How success or view of success by society and how job opportunities are dependent on a formal degree rather than just ability.

One thing to be said in favour is that there were quite a few people who saw the genius in him and gave him a leg up starting from Ramachandra Rao, to Narayanaswami Iyer to Seshu Iyer.

etc.

The author also delves on the system in Cambridge, Tripos which was possibly the toughest and which to a large extent encouraged problem solving of known things rather than a laissez faire of an open research. The author does extensive research on Hardy and the English millieu at that point of time.Hardy was one of those great intellectuals who found the Tripos very oppressive . He was all for pure reasearch. The author captures a view that post Newton, there was an era of English mathematicians living in a world of ,mathematics of taking past as sacrosanct, as axioms and not really questioining or even exploring newere concpets. The rigour of proofs and evidence brought in by the European mathematicians was lacking. Hardy was one of thos who took the lead in bringing back the rigour and spirit of exploration .Hardy remained a bachelor all his life . Was a devoted brother , his sister too remaining a spinster. Was a man with great interest in Cricket. Typical English Intellectual with interest in Cricket and great interest in Pure maths .

After several failures in Coleges starting from Kumbakonam Colege and Pachaiyappa's college, Ramanujan does get some encouragement from people within the Mathematics Community. Was afforded for sometime some private scholarship by oen Ramachandra Rao. Later based on recommendations by various people manages to land up a job in Port Trust.Gets encoraged by some Englishman in India who were in Government employment.

Encourage by local support and prodded on, Ramanujan does manage to write to Hardy. Introduces himself as a clerk who is not formally trained in Maths and not following the treaded groove/beaten track but is striking out his path. Sends several formulae on prime numbers, infinite series, sends his article on Bernouli's numbers. Send enough to create interest in Hardy but also no proofs that also creates doubts in Hardy's mind

Hardy refers the letter to another great mathematician of his time. Littlewood, to ascertain the genuinness of the person and the capability of the writer (Ramanujan). Comes to a conclusion that , the writings were not that of a quack but a brilliant mind , probably not trained. Makes arrangement to get him over to Englang. After initial reservations, Ramanujan undertakes the journey to England. First two years makes significant progress. His area of spcialisation was more on numbers, Prime numbers, Composite numbers, integers , inifnite series, partitions, continous franctions. He does add to his arsenal under Hardy's tutelage without really losing his originality and creativity.

Lack of vegetarion food during wartime ( First world war ), the cold weather , lack of communication from wife and simmering unrest on the home front between his mother and wife , his own reluctance to take proper care of his health, sickness etc , renders him sick or aggravates the sickness. Diagnosed at various points of time as Tuberculosis, amoebiasis, he had to return to India in 1919 after of course a great recognition in the form of Fellow of Royal Society. Hardy plays a pivotal role in having this expedited.

After return to India, while he does have access to good food, the damage had already been done,. It was just downhill in terms of health, he does prodice some great matehmatics towards the end, which is termed the " Lost notebook". Dies in 1920 at the age of 32.

Great life cut short at the prime. Imponderable are, what coul dhave been the achievement if only

- he had got more training at an early stage

- if he had been familiarised with development in mathematics the last 100 years

( he spent significant time rediscovering several aspects of mathematics)

-he had lived a bit longer

But one also has to concede that he acheieved what he did only because by a starnge quirk of fate and circumtsances. his capability and work came to the fore and he spent time in England and quite a number of his work found its way to good mathematcians.

His notebooks filled with several theorems and formulae when he was in India as also his : lost notebook" have been researched and are still being researched and some new applications and use are being discovered.First by Watson , later by George Andrews and much later by Bruce Brendt .

One things is sure, he had caught the fascination of the south Indian brahmin psyche so much that , post his death for almost 40-50 years, good mathematicians who came out from south were inspired by Ramanujan to take up mathematics .He still is a great inspirational figure. What is amazing was single minded focus on mathematics and fiery desire to do what he liked best , in the midst of huge personal problems, relative poverty .

Very well researched and written.

Sad news- Passing away of an ex colleague

Got to know the shocking news of passing away of Venkateswaran ( Venkat ), who used to work along with the undersigned in APC . Excellent person, very calm but extraordinarily efficient and effective person. He used to take care of Engineering. Was in Motorola before joining APC. In between left APC , joined Elcoteq but rejoined APC.Was a vey active member of the APC team under Javed.

Was an excellent engineer , good organiser and a very good human being.

Recall the very effective way he used to organise APC Annual days along with Suneeta ,Praveen Das and Devdas.

Understand that he was diagnosed with Bone marrow cancer just about a month back . Came out when they tried to probe reasons for fever. Very sad. Found it very diificlut to digest the fact. He was just 36-37. Prosys Manju sent across a message. Later spoke to him. Shivram spoke and later Suneeta.

Sadder part is , he is survived by his old parents , his wife and sister .

Srinivas babu just now spoke .

May his soul rest in peace. Sincerely pray that God gives his family the strength to bear the loss.

Just an update

Have given reading a pause for the last two months after a fairly hectic reading period of around 6 months. Right from Sept 1 st , after leaving employment, had been reading up a quite a bit and in fact had been posting reviews on most of the books. Last time, that I managed to do this kind of reading was after CA Final exams and to some extent last employment gap , that is between Future metals and Mantri Developers.

The reading that I did after CA exams was more of fiction and this time , I would think it would have been 40:60 , Fiction : Non fiction.

This time the gap has been much longer.Reading has taken a back seat in the last few months , now that we have started working from office at Rajaji nagar. Few contracts are trickling in but not a deluge or for that matter not very remunerative by any stretch of imagination as of date. All that we need to get is just one decent break in terms of a decent deal. That will give a great deal of confidence .

Atleast, would have been happier if the Sonata software had taken off or I had chosen to sell once it reached Rs 65. Now it has slid back to Rs 59.

I am still hoping that TNPL ,SPB and Vardhman would get to 2-2.5 times the current market prices of Rs 98, 198 and 260 respectively

Have rejected another interview offer , one Namdhari seeds. Not sure whether , it is the right decision or should have atleast attended the interview

Common stocks and uncommon profits by Philip Fisher

Read “ Common stocks and uncommon profits by Philip A Fisher. Was first written way back in 1956 and retains by and large the main material out of that and has been updated for developments subsequently till the early 80 s. Lengthy introdcution and foreword by son Ken Fosher who himself was a very successful investor.
Warren Buffet was supposed to have taken several ideas of Fisher especially on the growth stocks.

Very insightful and admirable in that quite a number of ideas and propositions put forward by the Author has still a lot of relevance, in fact most of them have relevance. It is quite amazing that the Author talked of Technology and more specifically Electronics and Semi conductors when both were fledgling and when one would not have had much of an idea how they would shape up.

Right through the book there is emphasis on Investment in Companies which have an Insititutional culture like long term goals, R & D , people orientation etc. This at a time when there were talks of labour exploitation etc.

Author talks of long term investment and that too in growth Companies . He is more oriented towards growth in sales and earnings rather than trying to sweep the existing minor variations in valuations that arise out of price play.

He does talk about the buying at the right time but the emphasis is more on Investment research, zeroeing on grothw Companies and buying in to them.

Excellent read.

He talks of the need to balance Dividend distribution and reuse of money for internal growth.

Just listing out 15 Points the Author has mentioned as the basic selection criteria for Investments

1.Does the Company have products or services with sufficient market potential to make possible a sizeable increase in sales for atleast several years ?

2.Does the management have a determination to continue to develop products or processes that will still further increase total sales potentials when the growth lines have largely been exploited ?

3.How effective are the Company’s research and development efforts in relation to its size ?

4.Does the Company have an above average sales organisation ?

5.Does the Company have above average profit margin ?

6.What is the Company doing to maintain or improve profit margin ?

7.Does the Company have outstanding labor and personnel relations ?

8.Does the Company have outstanding executive relations ?

9.Does the Company have depth to its management ?

10.How good are Company’s cost analysis and accounting controls ?

11.Are there other aspects of the business somewhat peculiar to the Industry involved which will give the investor important clues as to how outstanding the Company may be in relation to its competition ?

12.Does the Company have a short range or long range outlook in regard to profits ?

13.In the foreseable future will the growth of the Company require equity financing so that the larger number of shares outstanding will largely cancel the existing stockholder’s benefit from the anticipated growth ?

14.Does the management talk freely to investors about its affairs when things are going well but clam up when troubles and disappointments occur ?

15.Does the Company have a management of unquestionable integrity ?

The author talks of scuttlebutt method which essentielly means , checking up about the Companyt with outside experts and more importantly with people who have something to do with the Company and or its products like the Customers, Distributors, vendors , Industry experts etc.

The author alo list 5 Don’s for Investors

1.Don’t buy in to promotional companies
He primarily talsk of Companies getting in to unchartered territories , say new products or new process etc and says that this should be left to specialised financing entities/groups , may be like Venture Cpaital etc.

2.Don’t ignore a good stock just because it is traded “ over the counter”.
This is more liquidity and fear on availability and price call

3.Don’t buy a stock just because you like the tone of its annual report

4.Don’t assume that the high price at which a stock may be selling in relation to earnings is necessarily an indication that further growth in those earnings has largely been already discounted in the price ?


5. Don’t quibble over eigths and quarters.
Author talks of how the small price variations are nothing compared to the kind of growth that we anticpiate and expect to gain. He talks of people putting some arbitray limits for buying whis continues to be a shade lower than the actula market price and how the stock never comes to that pric and lives up to our expectation of growing. The amount we lose is a lot more than the amount we would have lost by paying few pence more

Five more don’ts for Investor

1. Don’t overstress diversification
2. Don’t be afraid of buying on a ware scare
3. Don’t forget your Gilbert and Sullivan, which one understanmds means that do not pay too much attention or give undeserved attention to superficial financial statistics
4. Don’t fail to consider time as well as price in buying a true growth stock
5. Don’t follow the crowd

Attractive part of the book is its relevance even after 50 years. Author touches upon the imporance of margins on sales, ability to grow sales, need for people orientation to keep the morale high for more productive results etc

Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Just finished reading this book. As the topic of the book is suggestive, it is about the tipping point where things gather momentum and become a kind of a deluge. It could be a product plodding along in the market for long and suddenly shooting up . The author specifically brings in Hush puppies . How word of mouth in small corners of a small towns, becomes some kind of a large movement where every one is trying to get on to the bandwagon. The point the author brings in is that there could be linearity in all things up to some extent, once the tipping point is reached, things just shoot up.

He traces the reasons for tipping point and also traces the people and the events that lead to this. He talks of Mavens, connectors and salesmen who act as the catalysts and more .

A very nice concept the author brings out is the relationship between crime and what he describes or rather what is generally described as Broken window sysdrome. He talks of the contextuality for behavioural responses . A broken window which is quite visible across, leads to a general acceptance and almost a certain permission for lawlessness.He traces how crime rate in New york came down, when the suburban train authorities addressed Graffitti , ticketless travel by additional manning etc and other hygiene issues in the system rather than reacting to crimes by just arresting people in response to crimes.

Inter relationship of Contextuality and a behaviour is something very real and we see that around us.If a certain type of behaviour is accepted or tolerated easily, we do find that the society and people around us behave in certain ways without any trace of guilt or misgiving.

We see the relevance of Tipping point in all aspects of life , whether a dress code or a growth of a Company or an Industry etc

Empires of the Indus by Alice Albinia

This is a travelogue cum historical cum archaelogical. I had read a book review of this a few years back in Business World , I think. It had come in for high appreciation.

Excellent. The Author has travelled right across the delta of Indus right through the tributarties to the main source near Tibet

Admirable stuff. It is no easy task, a young woman through , Pakistan , Afghansitan and parts of Muslim dominated India ( in Kashmir ) and Tibet.

She stays for days in unlikeliest of places , with locals, roughing it out with them in huts /semi permanent structures , managing to stay in uncomfortable places ,eating whatever was locally available. Just reflects the focus and committment of the author.

It is very difficult to capture in a "precise" all that the author came out in the book. It definitely requires another read. This was written over a period of 4 years.

First and foremost, the author makes a point that the river Indus which finds several mention and did in fact form a major part of the Hindu scriptures ( more specifically Rig Veda )runs mostly through Pakistan. Together with Ravi, Beas , Sutlej, Jhelum and Chenab , and two other rivers from Afghanistan and North west Frontier it flows south , forming a delta in Pakistan and gets in to Arabic ocean.

The author traces the name of India from Sindhu,Indu and Indus to India.

There are some interesting pieces like, presence of Sheedis who were migrants form Zanzibar or Ethiopia.

There is the mention of how Buddhism grew in parts of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan and Afghanistan right from the days of Ashoka, Kushans and Kanishka. Budhist monasteries set across , the silk route helped merchants in easier movement and in a way helped in propagation of Buddhism. Places like Bamiyan where there were huge Buddha sculptures , one may recall were destroyed by the Taliban.These were , supposedly more than 2000 years old.

She also traces Ghanzni and Babur from Turkey and Uzbek to Afghanistan to India

The author reads up on Rig Veda( she , one understands ,is quite conversant with urdu)

She visits Harappa and Mohenjadaro and touches upon the not conclusively proved theory of the IndusValley Civilisation in the two cities ( which were very well developed with Civic facilities)

was well before Hinduism and how the Aryans coming in Horses drew the people in these places down south.

Interesting bit of information of Polyandry in some parts of Tibet and she drawa comparison to Polandry in Mahabharatha.

It is like reading a History book and unless one notes down , assiduosly, one can not do justice to a precise also.

It is first hand account by an unbiased Historian and deserves to be read and reread for better understanding. One is left with admiration on the kind of courage shown by the author in travelling ( on jeeps, cars, buses and on foot) through all kinds of terrain.

May be next read should be a bit slower and should note down the chronology and the sequence better.

She is also saddened by the fact that the river is running dry in some places and heavily dammed so much so that the delta which was quite rich is now rendered dry and devoid of any significant cultivation.

Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini

Very moving story woven around displaced Afghan s, , atrocities in Afghanistan perpetrated initially by the Communist regime and the Russians and later by the Taliban.

Story carries a lot of conviction, the Author himself , being one of the Afghans, who spent his early years in Kabul and shifting to US in the early 80 s. Part auto biographical I presume and longing to get back their old peaceful land though I would think, that peace in a place like Afghanistan was far and few between.

The story brings out the kind of huge divide between the Sunnis ( Majority in Afghanistan) and Shias who are a minority and by and large confined to one part of Afghanistan. Contempt and feeling of superiority by the local Pashtuns Vis a Vis the Hazaras ( the Shia Muslims of Afghanistan , who bear a facial resemblance to Mongolians) just shows that rascism was/is as much in Asia as it is in Europe or US or Australia.

Having a normal life under a peaceful Government is a big blessing, atleast that is what one would feel once one reads the state of affairs in Countries like Afghanistan. The sad irony is , how the locals welcome the Talibans ( post the communist rule and the Russioan puppet Governments) and in a matter of few days Talibal prove to be a far worse alternative. They carry out ethnic cleansing by getting rid of Hazaras ( the shias with part Mongolian lineage).

The author weaves the story in such a way that the protagonist of the story feels a deep sense of guilt both on the personal front which realy reflects on the larger social front also since almost all the Afghans who leave their country to greener pastures would be carrying a certain sense of guilt.The story traces the journey of the main character , how he gets back to Kabul and brings back his childhood mate's and half brother's ( he himself gets to know about it much later ) son to US. His father had fathered his half brother with the servant's ( Hazara ) wife .

When intellectuals across the globe are talking of the accelerated development happening across the globe, here is one country ( seems to be the case across all these theocratic states )which appears to be going back to uncivilised and hunting days, where survival is just dependent on which side of the political class you lean or you just get killed. May be there is a lesson for all of us , may be a inclusive growth would help us all have a more peacful world. The deprived lean and take refuge under extreme religion . Religion is some kind of a drug ( Oscar wilde or Stevenson said that Religion is an opiate of the masses ) which gives the udnerprivelged a perceived equal status and also the freedom without any sense of guilt to usurp from the haves.

A world without war and conflicts arising out of greed to rule and enjoy at the epxens of others, may be a Utopic world, not real.

While Western nations, more specifically , Germany has its great sense of guilt , in Holocaust, it appears that quite a number of other nations have had its own share of Holocaust equivalent.

Scary part is, weapons with enormous destructive potentiel are in the hand of some of these theocratic states , more specifcally our neighbours who are sliding fast on a path of self destruction , they may unwittingly take us along with them, if not fully , atleast they may cause huge damage.