Book Review -- Death of Dreams: A terrorist's tale by Aditya Sinha

There are many books on Kashmir. But nearly all books are written by people who have some kind of bias, ideological, national or political. This is the sole reason why when we see a certain tone of message being constantly repeated throughout the book. Facts are used to paint a black & white picture. The truth is far from it, as always!

Most individuals tend up grow in certain way. We are at an age where we are protected by parents to an age where we want freedom to hang out with friends and dream endlessly about forging the dreams into reality.

Death of dreams is perhaps one of the few books which catches the entire story of J&K from a Kashmiri's perspective. It’s about a boy who grew up around Srinagar. The story is the journey of a boy named Firdous's story was no different except that in trying to achieve his dream, he grew and understood how lack of leadership and politics for personal gains has made the dreams into nightmare.

It marks his entire journey of what led him to join the terrorist organisation? His discovery of short-sighted and selfish politicians in India. An ISI who in the name of caring about people of Kashmir have one single aim, make India Unstable. Irrespective of what they say openly, they have no intentions of looking into the benefit of the people.  How he got captured by the Indian Military and then the role of select officers of Indian military whose questions made him think of the choices he made.

It also highlights the different point of time when hurriyat had a mass following and when JKLF had a say in the state. The strengths and flaws of the organisations, and how they lost the plot.

This book has captured the atrocities that the people had to suffer at the hands of everyone including terrorists and the collateral damage at the hands of the army.

For anyone who has interest in the history of Jammu & Kashmir, Death of Dreams: A terrorist's tale by Aditya Sinha is a must read.

Chanakya's Chant

"Chanakya Chants" has two parallel story running in different ages. One is a historic fiction describing how Chanakya achieved a united 'Bharat' for his protege Chandragupta Maurya. The other parallel story is from modern India, 60 years after independence, and how Gangasar made his protege Chandini the Prime Minister.

In the historical fiction, some of the events are facts which we have read during our school years, and then there are lots of fiction to make the reading interesting.

Where as, reading the current times had a mixed feeling that it was not entirely fictional either. Rather all that has been described has actually occurred over the 60 years since independence.

Just to give you some examples. We had lady prime minister (Indira Gandhi), she was endorsed and placed in power by a famous kingmaker in the Congress party, named K. Kamaraj.

Then there is a mention of how a trader profits from the licence raj implemented in the country. The trick described in the book is similar to what Dhirubhai Ambani was accused of doing.

On the whole the concept of the entire story is that corrupt and vile nature of human beings are not new. The only thing that has changed is the form and how different people try to achieve it. Assassination was a more common way of eliminating enemies during Chanakya's time, and in the new age 'character assasination' is more preferred.

The life of both the protagonist's across the  both the eras' show that to attain power takes a lot of sacrifices of various emotions and also of conscience.

It does give an impression that at certain times achieving goals are more important than the means used to attain them. And on other occasions no matter what decisions one takes, it will be deemed as wrong. Like, is it right to allow two kings to go to war and let thousands kill each other or is it correct to use deceit and let the  two kings decide through a dual and then kill the surviving king using an assassin!

In short, Aswini Sanghi's second novel should be read by those who have keen interest in either politics or fictional history, it will be worth the time. The novel has a crude language, even the choice of words is not eloquent. It feels very disconnected when on occasions the characters of the novel are using the famous quotes that are attributed to Benjamin Franklin, Oscar Wilde and Mao Zedong  then on other occasions these characters blurt clumsy lines used in colloquial language.

'The Big Short'. How the world jumped off a cliff

Although there are many books on the subject of what happened in 2008, which we keep referring to as financial meltdown, panic etc. This book is an excellent read for those who do not know anything but would like to know about it without bothering much of complicated explanation.

Before dissecting the book, a few words about the author just to lay the foundation of why he was able to write this book the way he did it.

Who is this guy, ‘Michael Lewis’?

Michael Lewis did his BA in history from Princeton and then pursued MA in Economics from LSE (London School of Economics). He then got a job with Saloman Brothers and worked at its bond desk. He left the company and wrote his first book Liar’s Poker, describing his experience at Saloman Brothers.

In both the books – Liar’s poker and The Big Short – he has mentioned many times how amusing the financial landscape is. Read the following first sentence of the The Big Short “The willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grown-ups remains a mystery to me to this day.”

Ah! So this guy actually understands finance. But most importantly he is not blinded by money and so he managed to walk away from it.

The Big Short – A True Story

In this book, leaving out the nitty-gritty of the financial crisis, the author -- Michael Lewis -- has focused on two things. The book’s idea was to find out the people who first identified the problem in the financial world. And in the process of introducing these people, and their thought on investments; along with that he has also explained the problem of the financial world.

It is common that once an event passes away or has occurred there are many experts or pundits who claim to have predicted it.  But how seriously should these people be taken? This is the tough part to answer.

Had someone put in their hard earned income and reputation behind their rationale, well such person should be taken very seriously. Because they will lose out on everything, economic and social, if their rationale doesn't come out properly in real life.  

The entire book is about the people who understood the fallacy of profit that the market had built and exploited betting against it. Lewis also meets these people to find out how they came to understand that the castle of modern finance had its foundation in air, and it will fall the moment people wake up from their slumber.

Reading through his search leads to the conclusion that there were four main people who understood and placed their money where there mouth was. These set of people shorted the sub-prime market even when the world discouraged them and against all odds at the end they made truckloads of money.

The first guy mentioned in the book is Steven Eisman, a cynical money manager who does not hesitate to speak his mind and be honest. One of hedge fund manager who described Eisman to Lewis said, “He’s sort of prick in a way, but he’s smart and honest and fearless.” He understood what was happening way back in 2002 although he was shown how to short the sub-prime market only in 2006.

Then the second character is introduced, Dr Mike Burry, who perhaps created the very instrument a carried out the first trade where he shorted the sub-prime market in 2005. In fact, it was his insistence that made all the banks creates the financial product called CDS (corporate default swap). And he was a neurosurgeon by education who also understood equity investment. He started a blog where he would discuss his thoughts on specific equity trade, which eventually many people started following and they were actually making money. How refined he was with investment ideas on his blog can be gauged from the statement made by money manager at a big Philadelphia value fund: “He is doing value investing – in the middle of the dot-com bubble. He’s buying value stocks, which is what we are doing. But we are losing money. We are losing clients. All of a sudden he goes on this tear. He’s up fifty percent. It’s uncanny. He’s uncanny. And we are not the only ones watching him.”

So once Dr Burry realises his potential, he opens a hedge fund called Scion Capital.  The moment he made this announcement on his blog, investors piled up. And hence the doctor began his new career as a hedge fund manager. Somewhere in the middle, it is revealed ‘why the doctor is such a genius,’ but at that point the book feels like a personal tragedy where the protagonist discovers that he is not special as he thought he was. (I will not reveal any further about this person. Read it to find out.)

After this the readers will be introduced to Greg Lippmann, a Deutsche Bank trader. “The least controversial thing to be said about Lippmann was that he was controversial. He wasn’t just a good bond trader, he was a great bond trader. He wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t even rude, at least not intentionally. He simply evoked extreme feeling.”

This description should say it all. He is one of the people who dealt with Dr Burry while providing him with the CDS. And once he understood what Burry was doing and that bonds containing home mortgage loans are crap.  Lippmann was the guy who went around approaching selling the idea of CDS. He is also the person who showed Eisman on how to short the entire sub-prime market.

Then, the readers will be introduced to two more guys, Jamie Mai and Charlie Ledley who would form the company called Cornwall Capital. These two along with one more person, Ben Hockett, short the sub-prime market. What made these people unique was that the two partners of Cornwall Capital had opened their account for investing with $110,000. They had managed to convert this in to $12 million in a span of two years! There was nothing brilliant or genius about their methodology, it was pure common-sense.

It’s a great book. One should read it just so that they understand that most part of finance is not complicated, it is simple. The book tries to explain an important event. It is unsettling to know that so many smart people had actually no clue about that they were trying to build profit from thin air and in ways that belies the common sense! 

Despite making money, Eisman explains how it feels to be on the other side: “In 2008 it was the entire system that was at risk. We were still short. But you don’t want to the system to crash. It’s sort of like the flood’s about to happen and you are Noah.  You’re on the ark. Yeah, you’re okay. But you are not happy looking out at the flood. That’s not a happy moment for Noah.”