In 2010

01/01: Celebrated New Year with Abhishek and Mahendra

01/14: 1st 100 ticks, last in the group

01/19: 1st net profit score after transaction cost adjustment

02/05 – 02/07: Navdeep Mama's marriage ceremony

03/12: US Retail Sales (Q: Short, short, short? A: No. Long, long, long)

03/27 – 03/28: Hrishikesh Trip with colleagues, amazing trip though the driver was a sucker

05/06: Flash Crash, People were saving their asses and I made a fortune

05/15: Rajasthan trip with Anti

05/28 – 05/31: Gurgaon – Bhopal (Abhishek’s wedding) – Indore (Kartavya’s place) – Mumbai (Home) - Gurgaon

06/05 – 06/14: Hong Kong trip (IFC, LKF, Peak and more to it)

06/14 – 06/26: Kolkata trip

06/29: Scratcher’s party, last in Gurgaon @ Barbeque Nation

06/30: Transfer, Gurgaon - Jaipur

07/01: 1st day in Jaipur office

07/13: My birthday, first of its kinds till date and I hope, the last too

07/14: Biggest loss incurred, first time had a discussion for stop loss limits

08/13: Tarun’s birthday bash

08/16: Missed my Mumbai – Jaipur flight, started Atlas Shrugged finally

09/07: Highest profit

10/29: Last day at Futures First Info. Services Pvt. Ltd..

11/01: Met Gurpreet Sir, Vanshika and Baijal Sir. It was good.

11/04: Jaipur – Mumbai. Hmm.

11/ 25 – 11/28: Marriage ceremony of Sonu Masi

12/23: Met Dhole

Alien and I

Has it not become increasingly common to compare actions of a Human to a machine and vice-versa? 'Lives of Humans are becoming mechanical with every passing moment', is a statement that has become rhetoric. 'Urban life is responsible for robbing people of their charming and vibrant nature', has become a cliché.

Progress in artificial intelligence is happening at a neck-breaking speed. Human is investing His efforts and brains in automating and speeding up His lifestyle. Robots are summoned for duties that span the entire spectrum; from cleaning of a house to solving a multi-variable 'p'th degree, 'n'th order partial differential equation. To get a rough estimate, in the time You finish reading this article a leading motor-bike company would have assembled at least a double digit motor-bikes, a cigarette producing company would have rolled thousands of cigarettes and a trading algorithm would have generated millions for its Owner.

Undoubtedly, Human progress in the materialistic realm has been phenomenal. Human has defied convention; He has proven conventional wisdom fallible. Human has defied boundaries; He has gone that extra mile. Humans have hailed Scientists for achieving supernatural feats and damned the same Ones for being resistant to intellectual developments. He has been extremely ruthless and mediocrity has been unacceptable to Him. He is relentless, even today.

I have complete faith in one thought, ‘Nothing comes for free, if it does, it’s worthless.’ When Human did set himself standards as great as those He had to pay a price to emulate them. His mechanical lifestyle is a direct outcome of the kind of balance He showed in his professional and personal quests. Valuation of materialistic success probably outweighed emotional satisfaction, which in itself is very difficult to fathom as there has been no reliable quantification of emotions.

After pondering over it all this while I am remembered of my childhood days. Aliens, UFOs, Extra-Terrestrials and high end technology. Aliens must be like You and Me, but technologically advanced. Aliens must be advanced Humans Who have managed to find life or developed one outside Our planet Earth with exceptional technological development and innovation. They have Their civilization based there. Most of Them are portrayed emotionally subnormal and lead mechanical lives in our fiction series. It may be just that They felt nostalgic (a rare kick that makes Them emotional about Their past) or had technology and money (conceptual: medium of exchange) to splurge on an inter-planetary/ galaxy travel that They came around and We happened to spot Them. Big deal, do We not get nostalgic and visit ancient caves?