Downfall of REFCO !!!!

This is an article I read and am carrying the same here. Noep I did not write it. The credit goes to Rob Gordon

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21st-Century Bank Run

Watching a $4 billion company fall apart in a week.

Bank run, 1931-style
If you want to know what a modern bank run looks like, consider the case of the giant commodity trading firm Refco. It went public in mid-August, but in the course of the past week it has gone from $4 billion stock-market darling to carcass. The proximate cause of the meltdown was the surprise disclosure on Monday, Oct. 10, that an entity controlled by CEO Phillip Bennett had owed $430 million to the company. A week later, trading of the stock has been halted and vultures are picking over Refco the way hyenas gnaw on the remains of wildebeest.

Refco was no boiler-room operation. It's been around and successful for a long time. (Scandal connoisseurs will recall that Refco was Hillary Clinton's commodities broker.) And it had been getting more and more respectable. First, Thomas H. Lee, the highly respected private equity investor, agreed to take a big stake in Refco in the summer of 2004. Then gold-plated underwriters Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse First Boston brought it public two months ago.

Refco was a model 21st-century business—a highly digitized, high-tech services company that traded complicated financial instruments on behalf of customers all over the globe. But its meltdown shows that its real assets were not its New Economy algorithms and brainpower. Rather, this extremely modern company depended ultimately on the kind of assets that built American capitalism in the 19th century: trust, integrity, and the personal reputation of executives.

Nothing material changed in Refco's financial situation when it announced that Bennett had secretly owed money to the company, or when it provided more details the next day about how Bennett had hid the debt. If anything, the company's situation improved, since Bennett paid the money back and quit the same day. The company also took further proactive action, hiring Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to help clean things up. Refco was solvent. It had tons of cash on hand. Nobody was worried that it wouldn't be able to pay its rent, salaries, or utility bills.

But it was already too late. Refco was in the business of facilitating trades that are conducted essentially through a digital handshake. The actual exchange of cash—the settlement—takes place within a few hours or a few days. Any company operating in this environment relies on liquidity—the ability to access vast stores of credit instantaneously and cheaply—and on the willingness of other institutions to act as counterparties, to wait a day or two before receiving payment.

Once the trouble was announced, Refco's customers wondered whether it was wise to do business with a company whose internal controls were so weak that it didn't know its own CEO was hiding a nine-figure debt. So, the demise was swift. (Here's the nasty five-day chart.) Within two days of the announcement of the discovered debt, Refco had to shut its nonregulated capital-markets subsidiary because it lost liquidity. In other words, people no longer trusted Refco to make good on trades. Customers began to yank funds, clients started to steer business elsewhere, and employees began furiously to look around for new gigs.

In abandoning Refco so rapidly, the market proved that creditworthiness is not an absolute attribute that can be proved by showing you have a certain amount of cash on hand, or that your equity-to-debt ratio is above a certain level. Rather, it's relative. Companies may boast excellent credit ratings from agencies like Standard & Poor's. But ultimately, creditworthiness is in the eye of the beholder. It's something that people say you have, based on personal experience, reputation, and marketplace behavior.

And that's how Refco found itself transported back 150 years. Dun & Bradstreet has been in the business of providing credit ratings since the 19th century. Its predecessor companies, including R.G. Dun & Co., employed correspondents in every major city and town who would send word to headquarters about the reliability of various businesspeople. Much of it was gossip, which is part of what makes Harvard's collection of R.G. Dun & Co.'s massive leather ledgers such great reading. The correspondents may not have had access to merchants' balance sheets, but they did know whether, say, a dry goods merchant in Albany, N.Y., had stiffed a supplier on a $10 bill, or which glass manufacturer in Brooklyn could be trusted for $1,000 of credit.

But Refco's downfall isn't simply an occasion for a history lesson, or an object lesson for people who make their living in the commodity pits. The entire global economy runs on the lubricant of easy credit extended among companies. And much of that credit depends on trust and reputation. An auto-parts company that gives its customers 30 days to pay it and has 30 days to pay its suppliers can function quite well. But if a few suppliers become worried that the company might have difficulty paying its bills, and demand to be paid in 10 days, that company could go bankrupt in a matter of days. These days, you don't have to be a bank—or even a liquidity-dependent finance firm—to suffer a run on the bank.

419 scams from Nigeria- an interesting read

This was in LA Times sometime back:

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'I Will Eat Your Dollars'

To the cyber scammers in Nigeria who trawl for victims on the Internet, Americans are easy targets. But one thief had second thoughts.

FESTAC, Nigeria — As patient as fishermen, the young men toil day and night, trawling for replies to the e-mails they shoot to strangers half a world away.

Most recipients hit delete, delete, delete, delete without ever opening the messages that urge them to claim the untold riches of a long-lost deceased second cousin, and the messages that offer millions of dollars to help smuggle loot stolen by a corrupt Nigerian official into a U.S. account.
But the few who actually reply make this a tempting and lucrative business for the boys of Festac, a neighborhood of Lagos at the center of the cyber-scam universe.

The targets are called maghas — scammer slang from a Yoruba word meaning fool, and refers to gullible white people. Samuel is 19, handsome, bright, well-dressed and ambitious. He has a special flair for computers. Until he quit the game last year, he was one of Festac's best-known cyber-scam champions. Like nearly everyone here, he is desperate to escape the run-down, teeming streets, the grimy buildings, the broken refrigerators stacked outside, the strings of wet washing. It's the kind of place where plainclothes police prowl the streets extorting bribes, where mobs burn thieves to death for stealing a cellphone, and where some people paint "This House Is Not For Sale" in big letters on their homes, in case someone posing as the owner tries to put it on the market.

It is where places like the Net Express cyber cafe thrive. The atmosphere of silent concentration inside the cafe is absolute, strangely reminiscent of a university library before exams. Except, that is, for the odd guffaw or cheer. The doors are locked from 10:30 p.m. until 7 a.m., so the cyber thieves can work in peace without fear of armed intruders. In this sanctum, Samuel says, he extracted thousands of American e-mail addresses, sent off thousands of fraudulent letters, and waited for replies. He thinks
disclosure of his surname could endanger his safety.

The e-mail scammers here prefer hitting Americans, whom they see as rich and easy to fool. They rationalize the crime by telling themselves there are no real victims:

Maghas are avaricious and complicit.

To them, the scams, called 419 after the Nigerian statute against fraud, are a game. Their anthem, "I Go Chop Your Dollars," hugely popular in Lagos, hit the airwaves a
few months ago as a CD penned by an artist called Osofia
"419 is just a game, you are the losers, we are the winners.
White people are greedy, I can say they are greedy White men, I will eat your dollars, will take your money and disappear.

419 is just a game, we are the masters, you are the losers."
"Nobody feels sorry for the victims," Samuel said. Scammers, he said, "have the belief that white men are stupid and greedy. They say the American guy has a good life. There's this belief that for every dollar they lose, the American government will pay them back in some way."

What makes the scams so tempting for the targets is that they promise a tantalizing escape from the mundane disappointments of life. The scams offer fabulous riches or
the love of your life, but first the magha has to send a series of escalating fees and payments. In a dating scam, for instance, the fraudsters send pictures taken from modeling websites.

"Is the girl in these pictures really you?? I just can't get over your beauty!!!! I can't believe my luck!!!!!!!" one hapless American wrote recently to a scammer seeking $1,200.

The scammer replied, "Would you send the money this week so I may buy a ticket?" "Aww babe. I don't have the money yet. I will get it, though. Don't you worry your pretty lil head, hun," the victim wrote back. The real push comes when the fictional girlfriend or fiancee, who claims to be in America, goes to Nigeria for business. In a series of "mishaps," her wallet is stolen and she is held hostage by the hotel owner until she can come up with hundreds of dollars for the bill. She needs a new airline ticket, has to bribe churlish customs officials and gets caught. Finally, she needs a hefty get-out-of-jail bribe.

The U.S. Secret Service estimates such schemes net hundreds of millions of dollars annually worldwide, with many victims too afraid or embarrassed to report their losses.

Basil Udotai of the government's Nigerian Cybercrime Working Group said 419 fraud represents a tiny portion of Nigerian computer crime, but is taken seriously by authorities because of the damage it does to the country's reputation.

"The government is not just sitting on its hands," he said. "It's very important for the international community to know that Nigeria is not glossing over the problem of 419. We are putting together measures that will tackle all forms of online crime and give law enforcement agencies opportunities to combat it."

Asishana Okauru, acting director of financial intelligence for the government's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said $700 million relating to 419 crime had been seized in the two years since the establishment of the EFCC. There have been 12 convictions in such cases brought during that time, he said. Okauru said he felt this was a good result given the sluggishness of Nigeria's legal system, but critics say the courts are too slow and corrupt.

Nigerian authorities, extremely sensitive about 419 crime, say the scammers are mostly from other countries, and that any Nigerians who participate do so because of high unemployment and, above all, the greed of victims. When Samuel, at age 15, sat down in a cyber cafe and started drilling away at the keyboard, he had no idea he was being watched by one of Festac's cyber-crime wizards. After noting Samuel's speed and skill, the crime boss, nicknamed Shepherd, invited him to his mansion to try extracting e-mail addresses using search engines. Then, to make Samuel feel special, he took him shopping for designer clothes.

"He's fun to be with. When you're around him he makes you feel you have no problems," Samuel said. Shepherd hooked him with the same bait he uses for maghas. "He said every hour I spent online I could be making good money," Samuel recalled. "He said, 'The houses I own, I got it through all this.' And they're not just ordinary houses. They're big, made of marble. He's got big-screen TVs, a swimming pool inside. He lives like a prince. He's the biggest guy in this town." A teenager who didn't really know about the scams, Samuel was "a bit confused" when Shepherd offered him 20% of the take. "But I looked at everything he had, and it got into my head, actually. The money he had, the cars."

Eager to impress his new boss, Samuel worked for six-hour stretches extracting e-mail addresses and sending off letters that had been composed by a college graduate also working for Shepherd. He sent 500 e-mails a day and usually received about seven replies. Shepherd would then take over.

"When you get a reply, it's 70% sure that you'll get the money," Samuel said. Soon he was working for two bosses, Shepherd and Colosi, both well known to authorities but neither of them bothered in a place where police involvement in the scams is widely alleged.

"Most of the time you look for American contacts because of the value of the dollar, and because the fraudsters here have contacts in America who wrap up the job over there," Samuel said. "For example, the offshore people will go to pose as the Nigerian ambassador to the U.S., or as government officials. They will show some documents: This has presidential backing, this has government backing. And you will be convinced because they will tell you in such a way that you won't be able to say no."

After a scam letter surfaced this summer bearing the forged signature of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, police raided a market in the Oluwole neighborhood of Lagos, one of six main centers that provide documents used in the 419 scams. They seized thousands of foreign and Nigerian passports, 10,000 blank British Airways tickets, 10,000 U.S. money orders, customs documents, fake university certificates, 500 printing plates and 500 computers. A stolen U.S. passport fetches $2,500 on the black market here.

The scams often involve bogus Internet sites, such as lottery websites, or oil company, bank or government sites. The scammers sometimes use London phone prefixes to make victims think they are calling Britain. Though the fraud is apparent to many, some people think they have stumbled on a once-in-a-lifetime deal, and scammers can string them along for months with mythical difficulties. Some victims eventually contribute huge sums of money to save the deal when it is suddenly "at risk."

Stephen Kovacsics of American Citizen Services, an office of the U.S. Consulate, spoke to a victim who had lost $200,000.
Kovacsics says he is awakened several nights a week by Americans pleading for help with an emergency, such as a fiancee (whom they have only met in an online chat room) locked up in a Nigerian jail. He has to tell them that there is probably no fiancee, no emergency.

Kovacsics said victims can't believe that a scammer would spend months of internet chat just to net $700 or $1,000, not realizing that is big money in Nigeria and fraudsters will have many scams running at the same time.

By 2003, Shepherd was fleecing 25 to 40 victims a month, Samuel said. Samuel never got the 20%, but still made a minimum of $900 a month, three times the average
income here. At times, he made $6,000 to $7,000 a month.
Samuel said Shepherd employs seven Nigerians in America, including one in the San Francisco Bay Area, to spy on maghas and threaten any who get cold feet. If a big deal is going off track, he calls in all seven. "They're all graduates and very smart," Samuel said. "Four of them are graduates in psychology here in Nigeria. If the white guy is getting suspicious, he'll call them all in and say, 'Can you finish this off for me?'

"They'll try to scare you that you're not going to get out of it. Or you're going to be arrested and you will face trial in Nigeria. They'll say: 'We know you were at Wal-Mart yesterday. We know the D.A. He's our friend.' " "They'll tell you that you are in too deep — you either complete it or you'll be killed."

Samuel said his mother, widowed when he was 16, was devastated when she saw him in the street with Shepherd and realized what he was up to. "She tried to force me to stop, but the more force she applied, the more hardened I became. I said: 'You can't give me what I want. I want a good life.' " but Samuel began having second thoughts when a friend was arrested after ripping off a boss for $17,000.

The friend was badly beaten before disappearing into the depths of the labyrinthine Nigerian justice system. Samuel thought of his mother and how she would be left alone if something happened to him.

When he gave up cyber crime at the end of last year, he said nothing to his mother. But she noticed. "She said she was happy and she could sleep well," he said. "Actually, I started crying. I couldn't control myself. I realized there was more to life than chasing money." Now when he sees Shepherd in the streets, his former boss just grins. "He says: 'Don't worry. You'll come back to me.' "

The many forms of 419 scams Advance-fee frauds, also known as 419, appear to offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get rich or find the girl of your dreams. The scams can involve phony websites, forged documents and Nigerians in America posing as government officials. Here are some of the most popular:

• The "next of kin" scam, tempting you to claim an inheritance of millions of dollars in a Nigerian bank belonging to a long-lost relative, then collecting money for various bank and transfer fees.

• The "laundering crooked money" scam, in which you are promised a large commission on a multibillion-dollar fortune, persuaded to open an account, contribute funds and sometimes even travel to Nigeria.

• The "Nigerian National Petroleum Co." scam, in which the scammer offers cheap crude oil, then demands money for commissions and bribes.

• The "overpayment" scam, in which fraudsters send a bank check overpaying for a car or other goods by many thousands of dollars, persuading the victim to transfer the difference back to Nigeria.

• The "job offer you can't refuse" scam, in which an "oil company" offers a job with an overly attractive salary and conditions (in one example, $180,000 a year and $300 per hour for overtime) and extracts money for visas, permits and other fees.

• The "winning ticket in a lottery you never entered" scam — including, lately, the State Department's green card lottery.

• The "gorgeous person in trouble" scam, in which scammers in chat rooms and on Christian dating sites pose as beautiful American or Nigerian women, luring lonely men into Internet intimacy over weeks or months then asking them to send money to get them out of trouble.

Obituary:

Today we mourn the passing of an old friend, by the name of
"Common Sense" Common Sense lived a long life but died in the
United States from heart failure on the brink of the new
millennium. No one really knows how old he was, since his birth
records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He selflessly devoted his life to service in schools, hospitals,
homes, factories helping folks get jobs done without fanfare and
foolishness. For decades, petty rules, silly laws, and frivolous
lawsuits held no power over Common Sense. He was credited with
cultivating such valued lessons as to know when to come in out of
the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, and that life isn't
always fair.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't
spend more than you! earn), reliable parenting strategies (the
adults are in charge, not the kids), and it's okay to come in
second. A veteran of the Industrial Revolution, the Great
Depression, and the Technological Revolution, Common Sense
survived cultural and educational trends including body piercing,
whole language, and "new math." But his health declined when he
became infected with the "If-it-only-helps-one-person-it's-worth-
it" virus.

In recent decades his waning strength proved no match for the
ravages of well intentioned but overbearing regulations. He
watched in pain as good people became ruled by self-seeking
lawyers. His health rapidly deteriorated when schools endlessly
implemented zero-tolerance policies. Reports of a six-year-old
boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate, a
teen suspended for taking a swig of mouthwash after lunch, and a
teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student only worsened
his condition.

It declined even further when schools had to get parental consent
to administer aspirin to a student but could not inform the
parent when a female student was pregnant or wanted an abortion.

Finally, Common Sense lost his will to live as the Ten
Commandments became contraband, churches became businesses,
criminals received better treatment than victims, and federal
judges stuck their noses in everything from the Boy Scouts to
professional sports. Finally, when a woman, too stupid to realize
that a steaming cup of coffee was hot, was awarded a huge
settlement, Common Sense threw in the towel.

As the end neared, Common Sense drifted in and out of logic but
was kept informed of developments regarding questionable
regulations such as those for low flow toilets, rocking chairs,
and stepladders.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and
Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and
his son, Reason. He is survived by two stepbrothers: My Rights,
and Ima Whiner. Not many attended his funeral because so few
realized he was gone.

--Obituary author unknown.

IG Nobel Awards

This is as Bizzare as Bizzare can get !!! Research, inventions all of which have no use but yet provide the entertainment value. From finding the pressure at which a penguin poohs to artificial testicles to studying the brain of a locust while the locust watched Star Wars!!

Awarded by the Science Humour magazine, the IG Nobel has traditionally been awarded to off beaten track research…. and the winners of the award, have all done things that first make people laugh, and then make them think. So, what did the other winners do this year? Well here goes:

Economics: Gauri nanda for inventing an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring the people DO get outta bed. Which – theoretically at least – means more productive hours to the workday.

Agricultural History: James Watson for his scholarly study of – The significance of Mr. Richard Buckley’s Exploding pants…

Physics: John Mainstone for patiently conducting an experiment that began in 1927 – in which a glob of congealed black tar had been slowly dripping through a funnel, at a rate of approximately one drop every nine years.

Medicine: Gregg A. Miller for inventing “neuticals” – artificial replacement testicles for dogs, which are available in 3 sizes and three degrees of firmness.

Literature: The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to cast of rich characters – General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon Mbeki, and others – each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them.

Peace: Clarie Rind and peter simmons for electrically monitoring the activity of a brain cell in a locust while that locust was watching selected highlights from the movie Star Wars.

Chemistry: Edward Cussler for conducting a careful experiment to settle the longstanding scientific question: can people swim faster in syrup or water?

Biology: For painstakingly smelling and cataloguing the peculiar odors produced by 131 different species of frogs when the frogs were feeling stressed. Several scientists including a perfume company had carried out the study.

Nutrition: Dr. Yoshiro Nakamats of Tokyo for photographing and retrospectively analyzing every meal he has consumed during a period of 34 years (and counting).

Fluid Dynamics: Victor Benno Meyer Rochow for using basic principals of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside penguins, as detailed they sum up their report as “Pressures produced when Penguins pooh – calculations on Avain Defaecation.”

So did you laugh out loud??? Well, now start thinking…

Brutualities in Bangalore ? Who is right, who is wrong ?

I read today in TOI that Nimish has withdrawn his complaint. According to the report, independent witnesses examined in presence of Nimish and the accused Railway Officials have stated that Nimish was in an inebriated state and did not have a platform ticket at the time of assault. The report goes on to give further details, which I have not included here as I could not get the link on TOI website. Its available on page three of the main newspaper.

This has left me wondering if

1. Did Nimish present his version of the case properly ?
2. Did Nimish really go to Railway Station in an inebriated state ?
3. Did Nimish not buy a Platform Ticket ? According to the report,Nimish is supposed to have pointed to a particular ticket vending machine which was out of order on that particular day!!!!
4. What about Srinivas ? Did Srinivas really do as what Nimish has indicated. Ofcourse Bangalore Police are investigating and we will know something more on that soon.
5.Have the Railway officials conducted an impartial enquiry ? But I do know for a fact that they do conduct impartial enquiries!!

There are too many questions that pop up ? Makes me wonder who is right and who is wrong or was the whole episode blown out of proportion ??? Whatever, Nimish owes us an explanation for withdrawing the complaint, for we all blindly supported him to the hilt !!!!

What makes the matter worse is that his post has been forwarded across the world through emails, sullying Bangalore's image!!!!! Wonder will this report from TOI be forwarded the same way ???

The Man and the Machine

The smell of burning wafted through the room. "Bloody hell", cursed a voice. The Machine had lost again, in the game with Man. Another one was consigned to history!!!A history that was replete with fallen Machines trying to cope with demands of the man using it!!!

Not much sympathies though!! The Machine was unplugged from the power connection and replaced with a new one. Fresh as a new born baby,never exposed,never used to the rough and tumble of life.

The Man sighed as he took one last look at burnt out Machine, shook his head and dropped it into the dustbin. Then he started to put the new Machine through its paces, slow at first and then speeding as if to outrace a formula 1 car. But it was like driving a F1 car on a potholed road!!! A few creaks here and few creaks there,the machine still unused to the pace, failed to register. Not the one to give up, Man took the Machine through their paces again and again until they all worked in tandem as would an orchestra. It was a moment of joy, Man gave out a shreik that sounded like a yell of victory. He was beaming, patted the Machine with affection. And then he said "I have found the right one"!

Relaxed and happy, he settled to down to use his Machine. He Lit a cigarette and sipped on the strong coffee his assitant got him. He leaned back for sometime on his chair, lost in his thoughts. Suddenly a smile spread across his face. He had found his inspiration ...................................
.............................................................................




























..........................................................for the next imaginary conversation. Vincent started to type furiously on his brand new laptop the next edition of the imaginary conversations.....

IIPM Legal Notice-a Legal view

As a layman I could find out numerous loopholes in the legal notice sent by IIPM to various bloggers. Link below provides a legal view point. Interesting perspective

http://inkscrawl.blogspot.com/2005/10/dissecting-iipms-first-notice-of-legal.html

Rok sako tho roklo

After all the hungama about IIPM in the blogosphere, I wonder if IIPM has really gained credit with anyone. Opinion seems to be totally against IIPM. Here is what I think about IIPM

1. Arindham Choudhary: Did he ever sound real ?.The book he wrote "Count your chickens ...." filled me with a sense of Deja Vu. He never sounded real to me, all kind of made up!! Unreal, as unreal as the boost he gave to Sunny Deol's filmi career!!!!

2. Burn 100 laptops: Why threaten ? Why cant you just do it ? If you are serious about your intentions, why threaten, just do it!!!!! BTW IIPM would have gained credit, if they had just ticked IBM off the vendor list and switched their hardware to a different vendor quietly.

3.Threatening someone with a 175 crore suit and arrest warrants: How stupid can this get ? The legal notice displayed a lack of legal knowledge. Emails cant be notarized. Even if it was, does notarization add any value to it ? Nopes,none at all!! Its just another piece of paper. Go to any civil court and pay those notaries sitting there a hundred bucks and they will notarize any document, without even reading it!!! Just posting a link wont fetch an arrest warrant in the court of law. Is posting a link a non-bailable offence requiring immediate arrest ? Nopes it is not. There have been criminals in this country who have NBW's against them for murders with no arrests in sight and here IIPM is threatening arrest within one day !!! Wondering if IIPM owns the Judiciary and the Law and Order department!!!

Or is the 175 crore suit, IIPM's way of raising funds for their expansion plans :))

Further IIPM cant take away our freedom of expression. Comon , there is nothing so stupid than suing someone for posting a link. It would be prudent if IIPM opened its dubious doors to outside inspection and prove all the allegations wrong.

BTW I am also posting the link to the stories....Rok sako tho roklo !!!!

http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/2005/10/lies-damned-lies-and-fake-blogs.html

http://www.jammag.com/careers/articles/mbacorner/iipm/index.htm

http://constructal.blogspot.com/2005/10/web-of-deception.html#links

http://curiousgawker.blogspot.com/2005/10/something-fishy-this-way-cometh.html

Subramani, an inspirational story

I know Subramani for some time now. Softspoken, polite and ofcourse an intelligent guy with a good knowledge of the world. He speaks Japanese, has completed his PG degree, works as a Journalist in Deccan Herald, Bangalore and is an avid quizzer. If you thought whats so great about it, try doing this. Blind fold yourself , walk 30 steps without bumping into anything. Subramani is as normal as anyone of us except that he is blind. Want to know more about him ? Read about him, in his own words. Nothing can get more inspiring than this....

My name is L. Subramani, I was born in Salem (Tamil Nadu) and lived
the best part of my 32 years (dob: 06-07-1973) in Chennai. I belong to
the Brahmin community.

I had myopia from the age of five and was testing to change the
spectacles in 1988, when my ophthalmologist told my parents I have RP,
an eye condition that would lead to blindness. Though the doctor
believed blindness may occur later in my life, it happened
surprisingly early: two years after diagnosis.

I was doing higher secondary schooling and as my sight deteriorated, I
wondered how possibly I can complete the schooling. As it was too
late, government education department rejected my plea to have a
scribe and so, I had to write the final school exams on my own. To my
disbelief, I secured 64 percent, for exams I wrote as half-blind.

My parents were devastated and thought life was over for me, even
before it started. Some relatives suggested I must stay at home and
pursue my degree through distance education, which I rejected.

My mother N. Vijayalakshmi supported my idea of going to college and
explained about my problem to various college principals and requested
them to admit me in the college. Her efforts paid off, as Loyola
College was ready to admit me in 1991. The college was where I
completed my BA and MA. During my stay in the college, I met wonderful
friends; some of them continue to be very close pals even today. My
friends, Ashwin Chand, K C Vijayakumar and a few others, use to cycle
down to my house and record all the study materials for me. Readers
Association for the Blind, an informal NGO comprising of educated
house wives in Chennai, lead by Mrs. Neela Ananthachary, also chipped
in with reading assistance and acting as scribes for me and 30 other
visually challenged students of my college.

It was during the college days, I took interest in journalism, as I
enjoyed interacting with people and found knowing about them
interesting. I should mention thanks to my personal interactions with
several people early on in my life as a visually challenged person, I
could learn ways of tackling my problems.

Even before I lost my sight, sports events used to interest me a lot.
I particularly loved watching tennis and as I was losing my sight, I
saw the Wimbledon finals between Edberg and Becker and struggled
subsequently with enormous pain in my eyes. And, at the end of the
match, I used to write down my observations, with inadequate
vocabulary and flawed grammar. Little did I realise that was what I
would end up doing (I think with much improved grammar and vocabulary).

After college, I tried hard to pursue higher studies abroad. But money
and inadequate academic records (thanks to my blindness) were huge
stumbling blocks. That was when my friends suggested to apply for a PG
Diploma course in Journalism and I promptly did.

The course led me to The New Indian Express, where I joined as a
trainee for three months. I wrote my first article in 1998 and felt
thrilled, when well wishers told me I have a promising career ahead.
It also answered my critics at home, who didn't believe I can ever do
anything close to that.

Journalism was quite challenging, as I felt it hard to use computers,
despite knowing the keyboard operations, thanks to my brother L.
Prakash. JAWS (a software fir the blind to use computers) was
expensive and I had no choice but to learn to work on the PC without
it. Surprisingly, apart from things like spell checking, I managed
everything without the speech software.

But, employing me full time was a decision the newspaper management
was finding it hard to take, as they weren't fully convinced.
Understandably, some higher-level managers raised questions about how
independently I could work. So, I had to continue my career on
freelance basis. I found newspapers encouraging and had mentors like
K. S. Latha, former Economic Times editor, who helped me hone my
skills as a writer.

This was when an offer to join Chennai Online came, which I grabbed
with both hands. It was quite interesting, as I started writing on
sports. I covered several matches for them, including two
international tennis events (the Gold Flake Open, which subsequently
became Tata Open). I had more exposure and quite liked what I did.

Reporting on sports, particularly on tennis is quite easy, because,
you can hear the ball bouncing on both sides of the court and the
chair umpire would tell the score. With the help of my fellow
journalists like K. Srinivasa Raghavan, tennis correspondent, The New
Indian Express, I would decipher the shot that was played and record
it in the palm-size tape recorder. I would later listen to it and type
my reports. If I can say so, I was the first visually challenged
sports journalist at that time.

I left Chennai online, after the dotcom burst and worked as a language
consultant (effectively a technical writer) with a company called
Sofil Information Systems, where I reviewed technical documents
translated from Japanese.

The director of the company once called me and told me to teach
English for seven of our Japanese staff. I found it exciting, as, with
no common medium of instruction, I had to explain most of the things
to them by gestures. But, I couldn't believe myself, as in three
months time, I learnt to speak Japanese. Today, my spoken Japanese
language level is quite comparable with anyone who can handle the
language, though I am yet to master the script.

During my stint with the software company, I continued to report on
tennis tournaments for Chennai online on freelance basis and
contributed to famous dailies like The Hindu (metro plus supplement).
When I decided to get back to mainstream journalism in 2003, I
resigned from Sofil and kept myself busy contributing for newspapers
in Bangalore as well. This was the time, when I also did research work
for the memoirs of film actress Padmini.

In the same year, I was called for an interview at Deccan Herald and
my esteemed editor Mr. Shanth Kumar understood my condition and was
willing to give me an opportunity. A great feeling of triumph filled
my heart, as I could convince editor of a famous daily on my skills.
From April 2004, I work in Deccan Herald, concentrating on editing and
writing assignments. I write on several topics, including on
disability affair. Sports, alas, isn't an option I have explored so far.

On the question of JAWS, I can afford it now, as my brother L.
Prakash, went to work in Japan and bought that for me. My visual
status is nothing more than total blindness.

The list of people I had interviewed includes:

Film Stars Kamalhassan, Vikram, Surya, director Manirathnam, Dharani,
music directors Bharadwaj, Harris Jayaraj, Hamsalekha, Gurukiran,
Vidyasagar, tennis stars Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathy, Magnus Norman
(former world no 4), Sjeng Schalken (present world no 20), Paradorn
Srichaphan (world no 12), Karol Kucera (former world no 6), Guillermo
Canas (former world no 10) and Sania Mirza (who was a junior player in
2000). (and the list isn't complete).

The Jackal

I am reading a book on Illich Ramirez Sanchez. If the name did not ring a bell, here is a clue.
Carlos-The Jackal. Does that ring a bell ??? Yeah, the world's best known terrorist, known for his daring acts of terror, until Osama took over. The Book "To the Ends of the Earth, The hunt for the Jackal" has been written by David Yallop, who met Carlos in flesh for this book. First published in the 1993,this book seeks to the dispel myths surrounding "The Jackal".

Watch out for the next post , will write in great detail about the book.

The Day I got Lost

Every Dasara reminds me of this incident that happened nearly 23-24 years ago. I thank god for giving me the presence of mind that day or else my life would have changed forever. Instead of being what/where I am today, I would have ended up at a Home for lost children or some orphanage or something worse could have happened .

It was the Dasara time during the early 80's. Unlike nowadays, a lot of people from the surrounding areas used to attend the festivities , making Mysore one really crowded place. Am talking of Elbow to Elbow cramming of people. In those days the Tonga's were the sole means of transport with a few autos and buses thrown in. The festivties were fabulous.

It was during this festivities that we went off to the Chamundi Hills. My Parents,myself, my sis Akhila who was probably a year old, My Uncle & Aunty and their daughter formed the entourage. Chamundi Hills was crowded to the brim. And more were pouring in. I was holding the hands of my Uncle as we started to walk towards the Mahishasura Statue on Chamundi Hills.We all stood admiring the statue and suddenly I realised I was alone with none of my family in sight. I remember looking around and shouting "Amma" a few times. With no one in sight I just sat on the wall around the statue, swinging my legs. Soon an amused
Police Constable approached me and asked me why I was sitting there. I casually told him that my Parents had been lost and I was waiting for them here :)). I can still remember the laugh that the Constable gave when he heard what I said. He enquired me about
where I came from. I remember telling the address and my parent's name. My Mother had forced me to byheart the address and probably that paid off. He took me to one of the stalls and got me some water and some sweets and waited with me near the Statue.

By then an hour or Two had passed. My parents had realised that I was missing and were searching frantically everywhere. They had come back to the Temple andsoon arrived at the statue and found me sitting and chatting with the Police Constable without a care. My Mom
was in in tears and was just glad to have found me. I remember wondering why Mum was in tears.As I recall the incident today,I can now understand the emotions that Mom and Dad would have undergone that day. My Parents thanked the Policeman for taking care of me, but forgot to ask his name. I was given a royal spanking once I was back home and soon was treated like a king. Ofcourse I enjoyed all the attention I got for a few days.

Time has flown, but every Dasara, I remember the Police Constable and pray for him and his family. His face is a very very faint memory now,I dont even have a way of finding if he is still in the Police force or if he has retired. Wherever you are, may God be kind on you and your Children.