Hindsight Bias

The house is suddenly abuzz with terms such as presumptive loss, notional loss and opportunity loss.  And depending on one’s political proclivity   ‘the no loss’ theory also has been aired with equal felicity. The lady in the house has suddenly taken a fancy to the word ‘presumptive loss’ to get even with her male counterpart. For so long, she has been trying hard to get her point across when ever a decision concerning money was involved. Now with the CAG report to shore her up she has been on the offensive on many of my financial and investment decisions.  She has also dug up incidents of the past and put them under the microscopic scanner. Mercifully she has not cast her inquiry to the pre marital days but in all likely hood, might reassess her losses on her father’s decision to give her in matrimony to a dull wit like yours truly.

She has now found the stick to beat me with for my alleged acts of procrastinations and avoidance. Her stock argument is that I have caused irreparable loss to the family’s financial position by not acting on her advices. The losses are both capital and revenue, and if you may, sweeten it by prefixing ‘presumptive’. (By the way, a loss presupposes a possible gain. So a presumptive loss of 376000 crores means every Indian could have been richer by Rs 3000, which is a nice elevating thought. This logic takes off from a very original idea propounded by VKN: that is, increase the population so that   the ‘per capita debt burden’ of India would lessen!  My acknowledgements.)

Her first charge is that the family (read, I)   has not considered the dirty yellow metal as profitable investment option. By this act of omission, the presumptive loss, according to her, would be the sum of both the scams put together, if you, as much as, ignore the crore tag.  I agree, albeit, with a slight modification… the loss is ab initio, as the investible amount was presumptuous to begin with.

Her second charge …. We could have saved a lot on the house construction had we started it early, courtesy her advice.  The difference in cost of construction between the dates we finished our house and the date of her advice, is a loss we could have avoided, if I had listened to her.  How I prefix the loss, the choice is mine…notional, presumpumtive or opportunity, so long as I don’t emulate Mr. Sibal in claiming no loss.  She will not buy my claim to a whopping capital gain, notional if she insists, considering the sky rocketing realty prices. Her advice: be cautious of the bubble around the corner and do not rejoice in haste.

The third charge is my reluctance to heed to her advice on my stock market exposure. She accuses me that my timing of the market is so amateurish that I have only made losses. Had I listened to her advice I would be sitting on heaps of money, she avers. And pray what’s her advice?  When ever she sees the slightest signs of the bulls taking over the market she wants me to offload all the stocks I hold.  When I tell her that I should stay invested and participate in the rally and see my portfolio grow, her view is that the growth is all ephemeral. Hard cash is all that appeals to her. And when the markets tank she will be the first to point her finger……..didn’t I tell you.  She doesn’t buy the argument, the losses are all notional and as a risk averse investor, it is best go long. Her outlook on the market resembles that of Anil Ambani who says a bear cartel is working extra time.

Another issue on which she smells a rat is the skyrocketing prices of Onions and Tomato. Her expert view is that somebody has played the commodities market in respect of these vegetables. Not the ‘futures and options’ but something like what the legendary Puzhakkare Vettil Chathu Nair did in the epic (will it qualify?) Pithamahan by VKN: the daring act of burning 200 bags of paddy in the Cochin beach, which act earned him the Sir title from Queen Elizabeth. Chathu did this not to manipulate the market but to teach the Dewan a lesson. In the instant case, the prices of onions have come down fast but she smells a scam there also. Luckily, no demand for a JPC!

Slivers of the Failed Experiment

This post is a sequel to my previous post which was mostly in the form of  trivia. Herein,  I place  the few remnants of the experiment, fortuitously preserved by me . Those who were part of the venture may  like to reminisce about the good old days. To those  others, who were not part of the endeavour but love Ottapalam and Good Cinema , here's some thing which will tell them, 'we did our bit'. It is for them to start it all over again.

This post does not purport to be the whole story. There are many others who can supplement my modest effort. To them my request is please share the  memories you  have. Further, I'm aware, the  story is incomplete in one respect at least .... about the 'end ' of the venture.

This (picture on the left) was the model we followed. Chitralekha Film Society Trivandrum Annual Report 1970-71. Look at the great names. Ours , Sathyajit Ray Film Society ,Ottapalam was a  modest affair. We had no great names and worked on a shoe string budget.

An intimation circulated among members.Mukundan's single finger effort. Kesavan chipped in seeing Mukundan's struggle with the type writer.

Most of the films we screened  were 16 MM prints. These films were shown at the NSS Training College which had a 16 MM projector Raman, the operator, was from Mayannur, across the river (after 35 years we have a swanky bridge across Bhartha Puzha) and on many an occasion he would have missed the last boat and had to make it to the other side wading through water. We are obliged to you , Raman, wherever you are!                                                              

Synopsis of three movies:

Hello Elephant(Italy)

Apanjan (Bengali/Tapan Sinha)

A Blonde's Love ( Czeck/ Milos Forman , later well known for his movie

"One  flew over the cuckoo's nest"  )

 

Chaplin movies like The Gold Rush , Modern Times could easily connect with the audience even if  the underlying pathos escaped a few at least . Vittoria DeSica’s   Bicycle Thieves did indeed  receive sympathetic response.

Some of the foreign language films shown. The notice, as you can see, was painfully and patiently typed by Mukundan.  The matter was given by the  FFSI or the National Film Archives. Most of the films were 16 mm. Some were  silent and many had English Sub Titles.

The language , grammar or spellings in the notice were  not of much  concern to us. What mattered was seeing the movies and keeping the cost at the lowest. Remember, we did not have computers or xerox machines. The most advanced technology in use was the type writer and the stencil cutter!

   D W Griffith's  classic silent movie 'The Birth of a Nation' .   Did we create history of screening the first silent movie? For most of us this was the first time.  By the time Ottapalam got its first permanent  theatre,  Laksmi  (then owned by entrepreneurs  EP Brothers), the talkie movies had already come and were in vogue. 

The one film which found a ready acceptance amongst all  was the brilliantly made  ‘The Incident at Owl Creek’ directed by Robert Enrico . I still remember the storyline,  the hallucination and hope of the protagonist, moments after the noose is tightened and just before his fall to death at the gallows. The shock among the audience was palpable.

Ritwick Ghatak’s SubaharnaRekha, a movie set in the backdrop of the partition of Bengal was another movie that  struck a raw chord with many a viewer. I particularly remember a slow trolley shot on Madhabi Mukerjee whose close up almost hits you on the face.Tapan Sinha’s ‘Ankush’ ( based on Narayan Ganguly’s  story Sainik) where the central character was an elephant ,was shown in the local theatre, open to public .That was a decision we regretted later as the front benchers started to show their restlessness on the benches, much to the displeasure of  Sethu. Mercifully they settled down to our entreaties. 

Tapan Sinha’s  Apanjan and Mrinal Sen’s  Bhuvan Shome , Interview , Calcutta 71 and Chorus were some of the other movies we exhibited in the theatre and had smooth passage.

Synopsis of Luis Bunuel's Cannes Festival (1959)Award winner Nazarin.

The Golem  , a milestone silent movie of 1920. The earliest of Monster movies.

Most of the movies had little entertainment value. They were either world classics or milestone movies.Another movie in this genre  was the 1928 movie The Passion of Joan of Arc  with the close ups of Joan that would haunt one for a long time.  

World Classic Akira Kurasowa's Throne of Blood (1957)

How I wish we had more insights and access to critical reviews of the movie then. Did we also get to see Kurasowa's Rashoman? I doubt. 

Memory fails me as to whether we could get Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries) , Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin) or Fellini. There were many who wanted to see these movies. Perhaps , these would have been brought by the new team that took over, before the venture folded up.

One year of existence. The Notice for the annual general body meeting .    Was a tame affair. The statement of  accounts was presented by me . I do not have a copy of the accounts , but I think we had a surplus.The accounts were approved without much ado. Somebody , though, made  a caustic comment ,more in jest than anything else.... we spent more on refreshments!

Well , these are the materials that I have retained. I'm sure some like Mukundan must have preserved a few. I put this in public domain before my memories  fade and the papers disintegrate .
Hopefully , this post would inspire a renewed effort .