Ram Writes

I shouldn’t let anxiety get the better of me. Mumma said these things happen during this phase. And that I should not think too much. I know my delivery date is a year away. But I dream of Kavi, my dear baby girl all the time. I am sure it is a girl. A girl child will be with me for life. I had been a good kid to my mumma. And Kavi sure will be a good girl. But what if it turns out to be a boy? Argh! Boys enjoy getting dirty in the mud pool. They hate to wash their body. How will control a brat? Mumma has warned me about this as well. Use carrots and sticks she said. I am not sure what that means. She didn't offer details. She said only a mother know her baby. I don't want to wait till Kavi is born. I need to know all there is to know. Stop! I am thinking too much. I should not take the stress. Mumma said mental health matters too. It is not always about physical well-being. I should eat fruits and greens. Look! There is a pineapple. How did it get here? Our dear humans must ha...

Source : Penguin Random House Oftentimes concrete real-world examples or stories help in summarizing a difficult concept.  I came across one such story while I was reading the book Nudge. Nudge was written by Richard Thaler, Nobel Prize Winner for his work in the field of behavioural economics. And the book is about his award-winning behavioural concept. T he story that follows will help you understand what it is. Read on!  Mr.Thaler had prepared a draft introduction about his book. He had intended to explain what his book is about to a friend. He sent an email but forgot to attach the draft. His friend was with Google at that time and wrote back asking the author to send the missing attachment. He added that Google is experimenting with a new feature for Gmail that solves this problem. When a user mentions the word “attachment” but doesn’t include any file, an alert  “It seems like you forgot to attach a file” will be shown. Source:  Gmail I don’t know about y...

RAF Avro Lancaster Bombers used in WW2 Photographer - Richard R Schunemann It was the Second World War, and  British Royal Air Force (RAF) , raided Germany and bombed their cities. German defences were strong. German fighter planes and anti-aircraft gunners shot down British bomber planes. The Royal Air Force wanted to save their planes and pilots. Adding armour plates to the planes can protect. But too much armour adds to the weight and affects the range, speed and air time of fighter planes. RAF analysed fighter planes that returned from their missions for bullet holes. They found that wings, nose and couple other areas took the most hit. But cockpit, engine and tails were less damaged. They decided to fix armour plates to protect damaged areas of the plane. But  Abraham Wald, a Hungary Mathematician  suggested the opposite. His suggestion shocked everyone. But Wald reasoned, RAF was analysing planes that survived the mission. Yes, these planes took hits. But they were ...

Amul Girl - Amul brand mascot The year was 1946. Dairy farmers from a couple of villages in Gujarat supplied milk to a company. The company processed the milk and sold it to the Bombay Government, which then distributed to consumers in Bombay. The company made a lot of money but paid the farmers way less. Farmers sought help from Sardar Vallabhai Patel. Farmers protested and demanded that the Bombay Government buy milk directly from them. The government didn’t budge and so farmers halted the milk supply for 15 days. Bombay went without a drop of milk for 15 days. The Bombay government finally gave in and accepted the farmers' demand.   Farmers from villages set up milk union and started milk processing plants. Farmers dropped in their daily milk produce to a village collection centre. Milk quality was tested right there at collection points and sent to processing plants. More and more villages joined the union and district level collection centres cropped up. Milk Union managed eve...

Loss Aversion Photo by  Peter Feghali  on  Unsplash I hate to lose. I hate it even more to lose my money. I started to invest in stocks soon after I started to earn. I was naïve enough to ignore sane advice. I didn’t do my research and picked stocks when they were ripe at a pretty insane price and eventually, it became sour. I am a bit of a hygiene freak. I don’t even consume apples that have been cut like 10 minutes ago.  I throw them away or give it to others.  I should have done this to my sour stocks as well. But I didn’t. Instead, I held them too long, hoping to sell it at least at the price I had bought them.  I sold good stocks, made a profit and felt happy. I held dear my bad apples. My portfolio was full of bad apples and in red. I sold them off sadly at throwaway prices. But there are still a few bad ones which I cannot even sell. I learnt my lesson, “Throw away bad apples (stocks) when I see one and cut down on my loss”.  Oh, by the way, hol...

Photo by  Alistair MacRobert  on  Unsplash Miller, a Harvard Professor, in the 1950s conducted experiments to know maximum items or things a normal person can remember. It turns out an average person can remember 7 items. Miller called it “ Magical Number Seven ”. Come to think of it, humans have utilized number 7 to the fullest. There are 7 wonders in the world. There are 7 colours in the rainbow, or at least only 7 colours are visible to us, humans. Then there is Steven Covey’s bestselling book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. A google search on basically any self-help topic redirects us to a blog or website that more often than not has “Here are 7 ways or steps to achieve whatever you want” listed somewhere in the page. And then we have M.S Dhoni whose jersey number is, well, you guessed, 7. Totally unrelated fact, but ok. And surely there are more than 7 ways to help me remember grocery items but none came to my rescue when I needed them the most. You see, I h...