I had a lot of fun using a business and brand framing to look at the Pan-India vs Bollywood debate. Thank you Guru for pushing me to do this.
Trailer
The world is fighting many existential crises – climate change, rising inequality, real and virtual viruses. That’s why it’s imperative that we discuss the one thing that offers us escape from all this. No, not the metaverse, but Bollywood. And its own existential crisis. I tried unsuccessfully to fob it off as Bollywood getting on the quiet quitting bandwagon but got unamused looks. So here goes – a simplistic take on it.
As a journalist and for this book, William Green interacted with over forty marquee investors – from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger to Jack Bogle, Sir John Templeton, Howard Marks, Nick Sleep & Qais Zakaria, and many others whom I encountered for the first time. With access to not just their behaviour and rituals, but even their homes, relationships and deepest philosophies, Green is able to glean insights and synthesise them into great lessons for investing, and to some extent, life.
There are fantastic stories – Mohnish Pabrai’s relentless cloning, John Templeton’s cold remorseless discipline (in evaluations of others and self), his willingness to be lonely, and that amazing ‘short’ during the dot-com boom and bust when he was in his late eighties(!), Howard Marks’ lessons of humility from Japanese Buddhism, Eveillard’s view on not depending on the kindness of strangers (amen), McLennan’s appreciation for entropy being the ironclad rule of the universe, Greenblatt’s preference of a sensible and good enough strategy over an optimal one, Tom Gayner’s approach of small, incremental advances over long stretches of time, Geritz’s ‘price of a hotel room’ heuristic in a country she’s considering for investments, Kahn’s prudent thoughts on preserving wealth, and Munger’s principles for avoiding idiocy, and his seminal lesson to Buffett- ‘It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.’ And yes, omnipresent is the towering godfather whose influence is visible in many conversations – Benjamin Graham.
Their philosophical inspirations range from Vivekananda and Buddha to Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus to Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). The great truths, as Green mentions, are deceptively simple, but few have the wisdom, the focus, and the nerve to create and apply their philosophy, while subtracting everything else, over extended periods of time.
After I finished reading, I wondered whether there is an over-indexing on richer, then wiser, and only then happier. Why is this important? While money definitely is not a guarantor of happiness, and people can be wise and happy even while not being rich, both wisdom and happiness have its own mindset play and a line of thinking and doing, to achieve it. It isn’t that it doesn’t get a mention. Many investors do bring up their philosophical inspirations and the books they read, in addition to fitness, mental health, family and relationships, ‘purpose’, but the focus is clearly on investing. In my case, I have realised that I need to be financially secure for me to get (what I currently think is) my gateway to happiness – freedom, from the opinion of others, and time (which they use to read). This is interestingly a common point that I share with at least a couple of investors. That’s encouraging!
Favourite quotes ‘Hope is not a method‘ ~ Jeffrey Gundlach ‘Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.’ ~ Demosthenes
Kumbalangi, as made famous in Kumbalangi Nights! The second time we play tourists in Cochin.
Grand Hyatt. We had to see the place after Jayasurya’s Sunny. What a view! They have a sunset cruise, but we were told that that the boat was ‘unwell’! But the fantastic views along the walking path made up for it.Dinner at Colony Clubhouse & Grill at the hotel. Surprisingly good food! Tip: Choose the city side view for a changeBreakfast at Gokul Oottupura, behind the Siva temple. Now a regular part of the itinerary.There’s something about Puri Bhaji in Kerala 😀 By the way, their dosa chilli chutney is amazing.Fish curry meals at The Grand is another fixed part of the itinerary. Welcome to the Aquatic Island Resort, KumbalangiIt’s all ‘floating’, and the bedroom is below the waterline. No, you don’t get to see it as you might in a submarine. First stop – Chellanam harbour. Less than 30 mins away. Walk the causeway there. For local cabs, call JJ Tours and ask for Vivek. Puthenthodu beach. In the evening, you can watch the Beach Soccer League in full flow! 🙂Cross the district border to reach Andhakaranazhi in Alleppey. Vivek’s suggestion. Quiet, with only locals around. Images never do justice. Anjilithara Road is just a mud track at one end, but the sereneness is out of the world. 5 mins walk from the resort. The breakfast view from the resort restaurant.Cherai for lunch. This is Chilliout. Funny name, but clean and pretty!Not to mention, great seafood. Squid and tuna. Cherai beach seemed surprisingly not much to talk about. This is high tide, but…Kuzhuppilly on the other hand, was lovely. Stretching indefinitely, and full of erm, love birds! The Vypin lighthouse as seen from the Puthuvype beachPuthuvype beach. Unfortunately not very well maintained. The National Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Ransom (I kid you not) aka Vallarpadam Basilica Remember this, from Kumbalangi Nights? If you know what OMKV stands for, you might drop in only for that kick! But you also have a beautiful sunset view here. One that you can enjoy while you eat absolutely local stuff. The Pal kappa was so-so, but we loved the kappa (beef) biriyani It’s hard to say goodbye, but we’ll be back in a bit
I don’t know if I (sub)consciously avoided travelogues since 2020 because I would miss travel even more. But irrespective of that, there was something very poignant about the title itself, so I just had to pick it up. The good news is that it lived up to its promise. Anna Sherman does in this book what my favourite books about places do – let me travel in time and space.
The second part of the title – Meditations on Time and a City – gives a very good idea of the book’s focus. It talks about both the changes in Edo (before it came to be called Tokyo) with time, as well as its changing relationship with time itself. Like many other concepts, the Japanese have many words for time according to the context. Before its citizens started using manufactured devices to tell time, Edo’s time was told by the ringing of bells. At first, there were three, but by 1720, as the population touched a million, six more were added. And these bells are what the narrative follows.
With each, there are stories attached. Origin stories of the locality and the bell, and its journey through times good and bad – victories, wars, earthquakes, fires and so on. Nihonbashi – the Zero Point has its prison stories (prisoners let out during a fire would voluntarily return because they’d be found and killed otherwise). Asakusa has its beauty and murder story. Akasaka has the smallest bell, and love-hotel rooms which cater to any and all fetishes, with protocols that outsiders will find difficult to understand. Mejiro is home to the stone that honours the rebel samurai Chūya Marubashi. Nezu has a fascinating tale of clockmaking and how time shifted from personal to shared, and ‘the idea of time became mechanical.’ Ueno, where the battle in 1868 marked the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. A few months later, Edo would start making way for Tokyo. Where the bell-ringer knows he is probably the last of his kind. Kitasuna, where more than 700,000 bombs landed on 9-10 March 1945, and caused the deaths of more people than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The book did a fantastic job of transporting me to the time and place. The words somehow gave me a visceral feeling of the place, the emotions of the different people who lived there, their daily existence, the events they have gone through, and sometimes I tended to see the place as a person too – changing, shifting, sometimes slowly and sometimes suddenly. It was like walking through the lanes. The one thing that I wish the book also had was maps so I could also get a better directional sense of where these places are. I think, after this book, when I do visit Tokyo (Edo), I will see it through new eyes and old stories.
After a failed exchange plan, I gave our TV to the apartment security guy. I had thought it would be an upgrade for him, but it turned out he had no TV at home, and therefore no clue what to do with it. I suggested talking to the cable guy in his neighbourhood, but the next day he gleefully announced that his daughter had connected it to the mobile and they were now watching YouTube. I told him about data charges but overall, the issue was resolved.
Them
Around the same time, D got a call from a relative in Kerala about her daughter joining a college in Bangalore. She wanted to know if we knew about the college, and also check how far we were from it. We were especially far away, and I wondered why they didn’t use Google Maps since all relevant locations were known to them. Later, it turned out that they even visited Bangalore to get the hostel sorted and apparently went right back because classes had not begun and any stay in the hostel would involve extra charges! This time I wondered why they didn’t use the phone to call ahead and ask the college before setting out! I found it especially surprising because the girl’s brother claimed to regularly shop from Amazon! I automatically compared these two kids to the security guy’s daughter, roughly the same age. Did staying in Bangalore provide a kind of ‘tech privilege’, or was it a mindset?
Us
We also have a few friends in their 40s who have settled abroad. A conversation about waiting times for doctors in Europe led to a quality of life comparison. We have now spent close to two decades in Bangalore, and never really made any attempts to settle elsewhere. I remember how in my 20s, my mindset was that we’d be second class citizens anywhere else in the world. I also didn’t want to move far away from Kerala, though this was at a time when culture – food, movies etc – wasn’t as portable as it is today. Traffic notwithstanding, I really like Bangalore and wouldn’t trade places, but the 40s are when you face your “what ifs” head on, and ideally get some closure! But I digress.
The discussion made me wonder how an objective observer would evaluate our decision to not move abroad. I think we could have easily done it in our 30s if we had decided to, especially given we had no procreation plans. And yet we didn’t really consider it or even have a serious discussion about it. Arguably, the quality of life in at least some parts of the West is better, and so, would that observer think of it as an opportunity wasted? And think of us the same way I thought of D’s relatives – not using the access they had to ‘unlock’ information and opportunities?
Everyone
The concept, of course, is bounded rationality – the idea that rationality is limited when individuals make decisions, and under these limitations, rational individuals will select a decision that is satisfactory rather than optimal. Satisficing vs optimising. But what I am realising now are a couple of things. One, it is practically impossible to be objective about it. I continued to rationalise even as I wrote about our domicile non-decision! And it’s not just for the self after time has passed – it’s a moving target because one evolves. Not stepping into the same river twice and all that. It is also for others about whom one can be relatively more objective. Funny how I expect them to optimise when I don’t always do it in my personal life. Yet another reason to stay from being judgmental about others, and self! And two, the increasing levels of satisficing that happens as one grows older. Interestingly, I automatically compartmentalise work and life and am an optimiser in the former. But in personal contexts, it’s a struggle because there are two opposing mindsets – “growth happens at the end of your comfort zone” vs “you do you”. And I can’t even say do what you’re comfortable with because that’s clearly in the comfort zone. Maybe a better framing is “what makes me feel alive”.
