The Hair Cutter...

One of these days I was sitting in office when Betsy our radio announcer started shouting about some Fiscal Haircuts. Just brought back a memory.

I was 10 years old, in Asansol, before I had ever heard of the concept of a Jawed Habib haircutting saloon. The barber I used to frequent was a gentleman called Lalloo, Lalloo dadu I used to call him, and his hair cutting was exactly like his name. Made me look like a Laloo, such was the brand value. Anyways this barber had been frequented by all my uncles and my dad in days bygone, so by tradition I had to go there too and get my hair cut for Rs.10 only.

There was a new buzz in town though, those days of a saloon called Maya. Air Conditioned it was and supposedly could cut your hair like any Bollywood star you wanted. Anyhow he charged Rs.20, double of my hair cutting budget, so then it was beyond my means. I crossed by it often on my cycle and looking at the dark glass and air conditioning, I wondered what it would be like from inside. I pictured a dude with an Elvis Pressley hairstyle, wearing dark glasses, and cutting hair with the swagger you would associate with a Viv Richards. Air Conditioned saloons were a vogue, and I desired to be a customer.

Anyhow, one fine day, I broke my piggy bank, and decided that enough was enough, I was going to get my hair cut there, albeit at the expense of my entire savings. So go there I did, and dressed myself up for the occasion, wearing my best clothes, hoping to impress the hair cutter enough to give me a Shah Rukh Khan type hairdo.
I was in for the shock of my life.

Air Conditioned it was, most definitely, but beyond that my imagination could not have been more deceived. The Elvis Pressley guy definitely wasn't there, the dark glasses too were missing, Insted brandishing the scissor in their hands like swords, were what seemed like four Bihari gentlemen, each of them completely bald, well not completely, but the tiny pigtail of hair donning the back of their shiny heads, and all of them ready to attack.

For all you do, you definitely do not want a bald man to cut your hair, just out of the fear that maybe they would treat your head like an experiment to express what was expressed on their shiny heads. At least my previous barber had hair, I told myself as I wondered what to do.

I did end up getting a hair cut there that day, and it definitely was no Shah Rukh Khan, but from that day forth, I reverted back to my old barber Laloo, at least there were no false dreams there, to be a Lalloo, is to be a lalloo...

The paan wallah: Part 1

Name: Govinda Chowrasia
Age: Anywhere in the range of 18-22 years
Address: Banaras, Uttar Pradesh
Occupation: Paan and Ciggarette ka thela outside Millennium City, Kolkata
Side Business: Masala Cold drink and Soda Shikhanji on additional thela

Probably one of the most enterprising young paan wallahs of the area, he boasts of a majority of the cigarette smoking population of Millennium city. He specializes in his meetha Benarasi paan, and abuses bengali paan wallahs for not knowing the art of making one.

Intelligent, sharp as a razor knife and always looking for different avenues to grow into, Govinda started a cold drink stall next to his thela, and decided to name it, (as he told me) 'CCD kaisa naam rahega?'.. "CCD?", I asked, "Wo toh wahan hai" and pointed out a Cafe Coffe Day to him. "Arre wo nahi bhaiya, Chowrasia Cold Drinks.. CCD hi hua na?".. Call that copyrighting....

He doesn't allow people to keep udhar, but definitely allows them to deposit extra money when he doesn't have change, so that they come back for more later. As he told me once, "Paise se hi paisa banta hai sir, aaj koi mujhe 2 rupaiye kam diya aur 2 din baad waapis diya toh uske liye toh theek hai, but mera sochiye, 2 din me mein 2 rupaiye ka 4 bana sakta hun, toh mera 2 rupaiye ka loss hi hua na?"
Call that shrewd business sense...

Well definitely a bit irresponsible, he often leaves one of his cigarette smoking clients in charge of his cart while he goes off to catch a byte to eat.

I once gave him the suggestion to start keeping mobile recharge vouchers, but according to him the margin isn't good enough. "Agar sim card bechte hain toh theek hain, thoda paisa ayega, but recharge voucher me margin bhi nahin aur chote chote kaagaz ka is thele pe dhyan kaun rakhega."

Now due to construction of the footpath in the area, Chowrasia ji has been pushed onto the brink of the road, which apparently will be widened. When I pointed it out to him, he told me " Sir, Government ka kaam hai na, toh koi problem nahi. Agar bol rahe hain ki 3 mahine me road ko bada karenge matlab araam se yahan 2 saal baith sakta hun."... Call that total faith in authorities.

Well chowrasia ji is definitely an aspiring entrepreneur and a shrewd one at that...

Don't really know.....

I was watching this game show a few days back.. KBC.. A guy with 1 crore in the bank was attempting to win 5... The downside of course would be to lose all but 3.2 lacs of it.. and he had a lifeline which gave him two bites at the pie.. The problem was he had no clue what the answer was... As I looked at him trying to make a decision, i wondered what I would have done in such a situation...

Looking at it objectively
(i) 2 goes at a question with 4 options, a probability of winning increased from 1/4th to 7/12th... a probability of more than 50% that answer would be correct... More objective thinking.
(ii) If I win.. I get 4 crores... if I lose its just 0.968 crores I'm losing...

Random thought...
But wait... I've won 1 crore... I can fulfill most of my dreams with this.. why risk throwing it away... But if I win 5 then I really can do even better... what should I do...

Ego comes in now... If I win I will be the first guy to have won so much in a game show. people will know me. I will be famous... Come on there are so many cameras here.. the whole world is watching.. and I cant be so unlucky.. Come on i just need one out of the 2 to be correct(So now for me the probability becomes 50%)

Now this is where the mentality of a trader starts to come into the picture.
You can never make money without risking money.. Money makes money, so let me give it a shot. I'll take it this way.. If I win, I've done amazing money management.. if I lose, well I tried hard, I put my risk on the table, and unfortunately it didn't pay off.

But suddenly a story flits into the back of my mind, the story of a certain Mr. Nick Leeson.. He had all the risk worked out, one trade was going to make him and his bank a millionaire, and then at that very moment, an earthquake in Indonesia lead to Barrings Bank being sold to RBS at the royal sum of 1 penny.

And now the host starts saying, ' Aap kaafi duvidha me lag rahe hai.. Aap 1 crore jeet chuke hain.. Agar aap chahe toh aaap game abhi isi waqt chhod ke jaa sakte hain.' And really on the spur of the moment, keeping all the pros and cons and the fact that I didn't know the answer at all, aside, I would have said..........

Well I still can't understand myself yet.... Will be back as soon as I have an answer.....