On Talking by Kahlil Gibran

And then a scholar said, Speak of Talking.

And he answered, saying:

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;

And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.

And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.

For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.

The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.

And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand. 

And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.

In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.

When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.

Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear or his ear;

For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered

When the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more.  

From The Prophet (Knopf, 1923). This poem is in the public domain.

Source: Poem

Common Thread between movies

Three movies:

• Incendies - Canadian Movie (2010)
• Iratta - Malayalam Movie (2023)
• Maharaj - Tamil Movie (2024)

Common thread flows between the three movies, even though, situations dramatized are completely different.

Performance of Joju George in Iratta, Vijay Sethupathy in Maharaj are praiseworthy.

In case of Incendies one will remember only story, the performers are unknown to even western audience.

How business effects demography

UltraTech Cement acquired stake in India Cements (South based) owned by N Srinivasan.

N Srinivasan issued a statement:

No need to feel threatened, insecure: N Srinivsasan reassures India Cements employees.

Above statement will be applicable for five / ten years. Post that the changes will be visible.

Now we will look at the Board of India Cements (Source: as on March 31st, 2023) composition:

S N	Name	Indian
1	Sri N. Srinivasan Vice Chairman & Managing Director	South
2	Smt. Chitra Srinivasan	South
3	Smt. Rupa Gurunath Wholetime Director	South
4	Sri S. Balasubramanian Adityan	South
5	Sri Basavaraju (till 10.08.2023)	South
6	Sri S. Christopher Jebakumar (Nominee of IDBI Bank)*	South
7	Sri Krishna Prasad Nair (till 23.06.2023)	South
8	Smt. Lakshmi Aparna Sreekumar	South
9	Sri V. Manickam (w.e.f. 24.06.2023)	South
10	Smt. Nalini M Ratnam (Nominee of LIC)	South
11	Sri T.S. Raghupathy (till 10.08.2023)	South
12	Sri V. Ranganathan	South
13	Smt. Sandhya Rajan	South
14	Sri Sanjay Shantilal Patel	North
15	Sri Siddhartha Mohanty (Nominee of LIC)	East
16	Sri K. Skandan	South
17	Sri Y.Viswanatha Gowd*	South
	* - Assumption
	South Ratio (15/17)	88.24%

Many will argue, this introduction of South / North is unnecessary.

But a look at the Board of UltraTech Cement (Source: website 30 July 2024)will give you an answer.

S N	Name	Indian
1	Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla	North
2	Mrs. Rajashree Birla	North
3	Ms. Anita Ramachandran	South
4	Mrs. Alka Bharucha	North
5	Mr Sunil Duggal	North
6	Mr. K. C. Jhanwar	North
7	Mr. Anjani Kumar Agrawal	North
8	Mrs. Sukanya Kripalu	North
9	Mr. Vivek Agrawal	North
10	Mr. K. K. Maheshwari	North
	North Ratio (9/10)	90%

The change of ratio in the Board will be immediately seen.

Note: 

• India Cements uses Shri. / Smt. and UltraTech Cement uses Mr. / Mrs.
• India Cements have in Board from other regions of South. UltraTech Cement has majority from Marwari community.

In case of employees, the change will be felt in five / ten years.

Someone can do this working after five / ten years, if data is available. The change will be visible.

It takes time to percolate changes form Head to Toe.

Yes agreed all are Indians / Funds are important, but regional demographic distinctness must be retained. 

The divide of they versus us in case of north versus south will remain and continue.

Howard Marks - Investors/Luck/Intelligence

But I don’t remember ever writing about his second factor, which Galbraith says is “the specious association of money and intelligence.” When people get rich, others take that to mean they’re smart. And when investors succeed, it’s often assumed their intelligence can lead to similarly good results in other fields. Further, successful investors often come to believe in the strength of their own intellect and opine about fields with no connection to investing. 

But investors’ success can be the result of a string of lucky breaks or a propitious environment, rather than any special talents. They may or may not be intelligent, but often they don’t know any more than most others about subjects outside of investing. Nevertheless, many are unsparing with their opinions, and those opinions often are highly valued by the general populace. That’s the specious part. And today we find some of them speaking with conviction on all sides of the issues related to the election.

Howard Marks

Alphaideas

Finding New Ideas - Stock Picker

Well connected statement shared in an article helps you to understand that there is a connectivity across.

For me – I find ideas like a spider builds a web. The spider can’t catch a fly by singling out one fly. It makes a web and waits. It’s the same for finding ideas. You must build out your web through brute force, screening, researching, networking, and relationships. You must be diligent in maintaining your web and keeping it free of debris so you can feel the tremor. It might be once every two years or ten times per year but eventually something will hit your web and you will feel it. Then you go see what you caught.

Source:

1.MicroCapClub

2.Alphaideas

Hit and Run Vahan / Rath Case - Bharat

Recently, in the past few months there have been cases of Hit and Run Cases:

Mumbai hit-and-run case: Mihir Shah admits he was driving BMW car at time of crash, say police.

Pune teen, who killed 2 with Porsche, submits 300-word essay on road safety.

In Sanatan India more than 750 years back horse and Rath were used as travelling mode by Royalties.

Nowhere in the stories / books / Podcasts anywhere an incident appeared where a commoner was struck with the Rath / Vahan of the Royalty and died. Similar to the present day Hit and Run case.

Rath / Vahan of the Royalties, 750 years back leading to thousands of years were the high end vehicles of those times.

Surprising never heard of such incidents / accidents.

Were those period accident free, difficult to accept or those times were ruled by King and no one dared to go against the Royalties.

Food for thought for all the current researchers.

India - Compensate Voters / Candidates

In India, politicians contest from two / more different constituencies. Post win, they drop out from one / two.

Example: Congress politician Rahul Gandhi won from Rae Bareli and Wayanad during 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

On 18th June 2024, congress clarified:

During a pivotal Congress core meeting, it was decided that Rahul Gandhi would keep the family bastion of Rae Bareli, while his sister, Priyanka, would run for the seat in Wayanad...

One suggestion to Election Commission of India:

There is no harm in running for two seats. However, if you win both or more and drop one or two seats, compensation should be collected from the member.

The member should compensate for the following:

• Cost of the running the booth for election i.e. election staff, EVM Machine rent, security staff etc.
• Place a cost for every voter who voted for the winning candidate in case of Rahul Gandhi 647455 total votes. 
• In case of Wayanad seat, arrive at price based on common working or else place for example INR 1 / INR 5 per vote and recover it from the individual / party.
• Use the fund collected for the expenses to be incurred for re-conducting the elections and balance remaining for development of the constituencies.

The objective is not to penalize the Individual / Politician:

• Time shared by voters for voting 
• Voters believing in the candidate for what he will do for the constituency
• Compensate the voters who voted for the candidate
• The expenses (Deposits / Fee / Advertisements etc.) incurred by the other candidates for contesting, that particular seat.

At the same time, not allowing the winning candidate to walk free smiling with no cost attached.

Let there be a price to drop out from a constituency.