An Accountant's Thoughts On the New Year!

Dear Sridhar ,
A small story - but a BIG lesson ,which many of us need to learn yet ! Good , Sridhar !
Eventhough i tease u while u jump like a school- boy (!) on seeing the round number , u won't believe ... i do enjoy it silently !!!
Coming to the " figures" matter : How innocently Cheeniya sir has given his valuable fb to you .... you 've just changed the real color of the matter & shown ur own colour ( real face ) - this time no excuse , sridhar ... u can expect me with a stick ( i won't tell u what metal it is made of ! ) ... when u come back for lunch !
Indhu .

Hello Aruna,

Thanks for your kind wishes and let me wish you and yours a very happy and a prosperous new year.

Getting round numbers and strange numbers always excite me. I have this nasty habit of adding up the numbers of cars to find out THE number applicable to the car. For example if the car's number is 5879, then the applicable number is 2. At times my wife and I have a race in finding out the magical number. Since I dwell in numbers day in and day out, I invariably win.

That way new year is just a round number. But as we have designated it as the year beginning we can use it profitably.

I share your note of optimism that our profits will double in 2008 and 2009.

regards,

Thanks a lot, Kamla. And let me once again wish you a happy new year.

Hmmm....

Keep to numbers young man, figures can look after themselves, you don't need to look at them!!

Now honestly Kamla, I don't know what you are talking about. We, poor, prosaic accountants use the words "numbers" and "figures" interchangably only to refer to the numbers. "Tell me the profit figure." " These figures are not all right. Can you run them again?" These are all statements you will frequently hear in an Accountant's office. I being one of the most innocent man ever existed on this earth, cannot even think of attributing any other meaning to the word. By the way, does the word, "figure" have any other meaning?

Huh, men will be men!

And so I will be I. Thanks.

All in fun...Kamla!

Ditto .... sridhar

Dear Janani,
Thanks. Let me wish you and yours a very happy new year 2008.

You are right, Janani. There is no point in comparing ourselves with others. You can never compare apples with oranges, my Algebra teacher used to say in my 8th standard. After seeing the world for donkey's years, I like to say that you cannot even compare one apple with another. Every apple is quite unique.And so is the case with every orange.

We should be content without being complacent. That's the caveat I want to issue on the story.

Regards,

Hi Kripa,

thanks for your kind wishes.

Wish you, Ramesh and Shriya a very happy and a fulfilling new year. I have been missing you for quite some time. I could not see you in HE. Now that the year end is over long back, I don't know what is keeping you busy.

You have quite interesting new year resolutions. But before putting them into action, just have a word with your DH. Some DHs don't like slim simrans.

and of course for the first time in my life chatted up with a world famous writer maha ganam porundiya srimaan
sridhar aka varalotti avargal.

I wish that my entire family reads these words. My father would have enjoyed it and my mother would have believed it. And my wife and my daughter would have let out a roguish smile over it. That's world.

When I wrote figures, I never meant the "curves" and if at all I mean the "curves" they are the parabolic curves that appear on the graph when you plot a quadratic equation in the form of ax squared + bx + c.

Once again love to you, Ramesh and shriya.

Love,

Oh, Indhu,

My God! what have I got myself into!
Well, first a big thanks for appreciating the story.
And madam you have yourself confessed that you enjoy a round number silently. My enjoyment might be a little noisier, (I being a younger version than you are) but it is not wicked.

Coming to the " figures" matter : How innocently Cheeniya sir has given his valuable fb to you .... you 've just changed the real color of the matter & shown ur own colour ( real face ) - this time no excuse , sridhar ... u can expect me with a stick ( i won't tell u what metal it is made of ! ) ... when u come back for lunch !

Well, dear, since I have an "urgent business meeting" this afternoon, I am not coming for lunch today. ha ha ha.

And Madam, remember we now have the domestic violence law in Tamilnadu. I don't want you to be the first woman-accused under the newly enacted law.

If you promise to throw the stick aside, I can tell you that I am the very embodiment of innocence. Shakespeare, if alive today, would have written,
"Innocence, thy name is Sridhar"

I have heard about a thread becoming sticky. I never thought it would happen like this.

Love,
sridhar

Hello Varalotti sir,
Wishing You and Yours a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2008!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your write-up. My P&L a/c for 2007 was neither a NP nor a NL. I am happy that it got balanced unlike the usual P&L. Numbers do fascinate me too. Whenever I wait for the traffic signal, my eyes catch the car license numbers. I like numbers which end in tens’ and fives' in it. It gives me some happiness. May be, because I handle numbers everyday.
I liked the oak tree and bush story which really has a very good moral.
Thank you sir, for this wonderful post.

Wish all the days of this NewYear be blessed with happiness and peace!



best regards,
Sindhu

hello sridhar

the title got me thinking
that the write up
may be a trial balance
of accounts of life in 2007
like the interview of great people
who are asked to write
about what they read, great movies etc..

enna irukka pogirathu
varudathin kanakkugalai
pagirnthu kolla enru ninaikkayil
kathai ornu ezhudha....

kathaiyay vitha vitha ma
paarkum enna alaigal....

1.oak tree valarnthu konde ponathaal athu uyarathai etta
bush uyara ninaikkamal..athe bush...
valarum ennam vendum?
2. paarthavar kannukku valarchi theriyum...paadum kuruvigal
paranthu vanthu sellum
avatrukku maramo chediyo
theriyaathu ellaam onre...
3. asking questions within... why am i not as happy as you are.... thats just looking at life from different angles... sometimes it the positive angle that gives you happiness sometimes the happiness within you is contagious and spreads when others see you are happy....
pothuma innum venduma...kathai patriya sinthanai kanakku?
wish you and your family members a very happy and prosperous new year...
may it glitter, shine and bounce with joy...!

sathya

Dear Sindhuja,

Thanks for your kind wishes. I am pleased to reciprocate your kind sentiments.

Have a great year!

When we present a P&L account which shows neither a net profit nor a net loss, the Income Tax Officer will not believe that. He would accuse us of doctoring the "figures" (Now I have to be very careful with this seven letter word, as its meaning has assumed gigantic proportions well beyond my comprehension)

We balance the balance sheet but just draw the Profit and Loss Account.
I presume that you have many items in your balance sheet which has to be reckoned as income. Or you are being very conservative with the numbers, that you do not want to reckon any profits now.

When I apprenticed for CA I was so fascinated with numbers that I used to just total up numbers day in and day out, for 30 days at a stretch, without a calculator.
With the car numbers I always run the divisibility tests. Or at times I check whether they are prime numbers. When I learnt programming, I wrote a small algorithm which will throw up all the prime numbers upto a billion.

Thanks for the kind words about the story. I wish you a very happy new year once again.
regards,.

Hello sathya,
As usual your verse set me thinking. My very first accounts teacher in my pre-university course talked like this in the farewell lecture.
"Today is the final day of this year. You are now preparing the Profit and Loss Account for the whole year.
On the loss side you have to write, ignorance, immaturity, fear, uncertainty. On the profit side book your knowledge, confidence, maturity and your success in life.
You owe to your parents, to your teachers, to your alma matter and to the society at large. These are your liabilities.
Your personality, your education, your capacity to earn and live like an adult are your adults.

Your financial statement are healthy now. Go out to the real world. And after your retirement finalise your life's accounts once more and find out where you stand. Best of luck."

1.oak tree valarnthu konde ponathaal athu uyarathai etta
bush uyara ninaikkamal..athe bush...
valarum ennam vendum?

The bush should not have the thought to beat the oak tree in height. Then it will permanently in turmoil.

2. paarthavar kannukku valarchi theriyum...paadum kuruvigal
paranthu vanthu sellum
avatrukku maramo chediyo
theriyaathu ellaam onre...

True. If the bush has any child bushes, for them the bush will appear like an Oak.

3. asking questions within... why am i not as happy as you are.... thats just looking at life from different angles... sometimes it the positive angle that gives you happiness sometimes the happiness within you is contagious and spreads when others see you are happy....

Now you have twisted the question to give a positive angle. In the story the prince asks, "why are you happy, while I am not?" If he had rephrased the question as "Why I am not happy, while he is?" Then that would have launched him into a deeply meditative state and he would have come up with the same answers his Guruji told him.

Thanks Sathya once again. And wish you a very happy and a prosperous new year.

You don't like HE? I don't see you there these days.
regards,