THE ULTIMATE TRUTH

Moved to www.kirandhanwada.com

2009-01-21T14:27:00.001-08:00

I finally moved to my own personal domain -> http://www.kirandhanwada.com

Long time in the making, but atlast neverthless. A long winding explanation of the story on the new website.

So long sarvamekam.blogspot.com.

Kindly change your RSS feeders - power up that feedreader and plug in the new details. Thanks again. God bless.

The Inevitable - Change!

2007-11-27T21:41:00.000-08:00

It had to happen someday. I was increasingly getting frustrated at the template changes (code changes) I had to make on my blog. I evaluated different blog-supporting websites (webpress, typepad, rediffblogs etc.) but found wordpress to suit my need. So here it is -

1) From today, all my new blogs would be posted on the new website http://www.sarvamekam.wordpress.com. I have migrated all my older posts from blogger to wordpress (which in fact, was one of the major utilities that impressed me to shift to wordpress). I like the new template too - simple and elegant. As usual, your comments are welcome.

2) I have also started a new weblog - http://www.lucidviews.wordpress.com - which would offer my perspectives on 'life outside mine' as I would like to call it - Politics, Entertainment, Sports, Finance, Economy, Stockmarkets, Technology etc. Do visit that blog too and let me know your valuable comments.

Ciao from Blogger then! Catch ya on Wordpress!

A Sensual Romance!

2007-11-19T20:11:00.000-08:00

Amit landed in Delhi after a 3 month trip to Singapore.

Avantika was eagerly awaiting him.

Their affair (or as they say in history books, story dated back) was on for 3 years. They both had passed out of college barely knowing each other. However, in a chance meeting (happened to be a common friend’s birthday party) they happened to hit on each other extremely well and from thereon, their relationship was going only one way – up.

Amit was an architect and Avantika was a fashion designer. The diversity in their professions made their relationship even more spicier and interesting. They both had decided that unless both of them had settled professionally, they would not get married to each other. They stuck to their promise – and their parents now had mutually agreed on their marriage one year hence.

Amit had left for Singapore on an office trip. Since the time of their engagement, they could not keep hands off each other – and 3 months was a long time. When Avantika spotted Amit coming out of the airport - tears of emotion overflowing, she rushed and hugged him - unmindful of the surroundings. Words could not convey their relief - they looked in each other's eyes and smiled. They quickly went back home in a taxi.

When Avantika closed the door of her empty house, Amit immediately hugged her from behind. She could feel his tremble – tremble, due to separation for what seemed a long time for both of them. She let him rest in that posture for a few minutes. Amit murmured ‘Missed you big time’. Avantika turned around and gave him a wide flashing smile. He captured that moment and immediately hugged her tightly, landing kisses all over her face and body. His kisses were like winter fire, slowly but surely wearing Avantika down. He started feeling the contours of her entire body gradually, sensing the laces, linen and her sweat little-by-little but intently. She too responded to his intense emotion – hugging him tightly and responding to his kisses. Time had no meaning at that moment, neither did the surroundings nor that they were still in the foyer of her place.

They made love.

They were lying on the bed, one on top of each other in their post-lovemaking stupor –which traversed the foyer, drawing room and subsequently the bedroom. Earlier, she had asked him what fruit she represented? He had replied ‘Watermelon of course’. ‘Why?’ ‘Ripe, juicy, edible and a fulfilling treat, that’s why!!’ She had liked the description. She had always liked his descriptions, barring a few of his crazy ones. They had made passionate love for the past hour or so and now were mumbling sweet nothings in each other’s ears.

She looked into his eyes and asked “Tell me, how much you love me?”

Amit gave her a surprised look.

She: I want to know.

He smiled - one of those wicked grins. She knew something crazy was coming up.

He: I love you as much as I love free lunch coupons.

She smirked.

He: Er…ok! I love you as much as Wooster loves Jeeves.

She: C’mon Amit, be serious!! Tellll me!!

He looked into her eyes, her hair all over him and said ‘Beautiful’. He wanted to express his love in terms that she loved the most – literature and music.

He: “As passionately as Howard Roark atop the University hill”

“As detailed as Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings”

“As flowingly as Somerset Maugham”

“As silently as a Shakspearean sonnet”

“As longing as a Wagner’s Opera”

“As much as the center of my life”

“And my dear, as madly and crazily as myself”

She looked into his eyes, smiled and said “You are a damn fool” and proceeded to kiss him. The pressure was perfect and the teasing just about there. A long, soft kiss and mercifully unlike the last one. She was drawn in closer to him – a moment she wanted to last forever.

Numbers!

2007-11-11T09:10:00.000-08:00

Numbers - one of the most fascinating discoveries (or is it an invention?) of mankind. A bedrock of industrialisation and now, computerization - numbers have been a part and parcel of everyone's life. The appeal of numbers lie in their clear cut logic and unambiguity at any stage, be it an equipment, any business or dare I say, any entrance exam. The lure of numbers was too much to resist for me. Mathematics, being my favorite subject back in school and college - I was just enthralled by various tricks that numbers played - from algebra to calculus and geometry, the variety was immense and sometimes mind-boggling. I just loved numbers - till, let's say one week back :).

That was when I started for the United States of America (weird...USA or just US sounds much better!). As part of my job/career, I was bound to visit the US at some point of time (sooner rather than later). Anyways, official formalities done, had reached the airport to check-in. This is where I was struck by US's fascination for numbers (and I would list down the encounters I had in the past one week).

- Jet Airways check-in asked me for the address I would be staying in the US. I gave them the address. They asked for the zipcode - I told them I don't remember it and asked them whether they are gonna post me anything (like free vouchers etc. :P)? They replied back, 'Sorry sir, but the US authorities require us to fill the zipcode in our system - mandatory'. I mean they had my whole address - why did they need a zipcode (which, by the way is a five-digit number)?

- Passport number - I understand a fetish for this number, it's mandatory in any country. No complaints.

- SSN Number - a universal number in the US. Even if you wanna register for a walk in the park, you need a SSN. Hotel check-in, purchasing a mobile phone, leasing an apartment, opening a bank account - everywhere and anywhere. The worst part is, they need atleast a month before they can issue a SSN. A 'month' - in the seemingly most advanced nation in the world; beats me.

- Credit score - You need a credit card, loan, utility connection, retail purchase card - you need to have a credit score; everything and anything with the financial world in the US is connected to the credit score. 'You have to build a credit score' is the most common reply I get when I enquire about any of the financial products. Why should I build a credit score as if I was born just two minutes back? I already have a credit standing somewhere else. I feel, I am just paying for your inefficiency for not able to retreive that information.

Having said that, I can understand the sheer efficiency that one can generate when as a personality you are just confined to four numbers - SSN, Credit Score, Passport number and the Zipcode. Especially, the SSN. And this is where I guess, the logic of numbers and hence efficiency of computerization kicks in. I can imagine a software programmer rubbing his hands in glee if he could identify every person in the US by a primary key (SSN). He can put this SSN in a million other tables as a foreign key and just link any table to the main table (a.SSN=b.SSN) and cull out any information [Whoa! That by the way is the maximum amount of knowledge I have about databases :)].

There is a price to pay for efficiency - and I guess I don't have a choice!

P.S -

1) I haven't yet applied for a driving license - unfortunately, they compulsorily require a SSN. So, one month hence - I will be identified not by one but two numbers.

2) India has tried to replicate this system of unique identification with PAN. The reason it failed miserably is primarily because of two reasons - bureaucracy (which essentially means lack of responsibility) and two, a unique number should be issued when a person is born, not when he turns 18, which is when he can replicate his personality multi-fold :).

3) I digress but just couldn't help it - What is it with the fairer sex dressed in red? - All of them look pretty (rather I say...hmm..awesome) :). Not that I am complaining - I am only indicating :D.

4) Will be in the US for some time now. Fingers crossed, 24x7 connectivity might just increase my frequency of blogging.

5) Apart from the usual pics of 'At Statue of Liberty', 'At the White house', 'At Times Square', 'At Niagara Falls' etc etc., I do have some specific and unique plans. Will keep you updated on that. And nope, I am not into the usual IT guy cycle (work in US for 2 years - marry someone - come back to the US for sometime (or settle here) - and go back to India to settle) - (what's wrong with the IT guy cycle - nothing wrong as such, but seems more of a parasitic and generic way of living for me) - been here, done this, hopefully something different next :).

6) I know what you are thinking right now - 'Your P.S should have been another blog!'. Yes, I agree (in the US, you say 'I appreciate it' - dude, why should you appreciate me ya?; beats me again!) - but just couldn't help the digression :). The entire 'Me' or 'You' just reduced to a number - maannnn, strange country :)!

The Art of Gifting!

2007-10-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

Before I begin, let me state the rules of the Art first –

Art of Gifting for me – Get and Forget!

Art of Gifting for you should be (must be, infact) – Give and Forgive!

Rules set, let me pontificate on this interesting but often a controversial topic. How do we give (remember again – for me, it’s always get) good gifts? Whom do we give good gifts to? (to me of course, silly), What constitutes a good gift? Should there be any occasion for giving gifts? Questions and discussions range from the esoteric to the merely trivial. There have been fights and scandals over gifts received/given (oh yes! Believe me, I have been a part of many ;)). (And, now I use THE statement – a statement which has been beaten down to death a million times over) Gifting is an art and not a science.

I guess the art of gifting has matured (or immatured) over the years. From being a tradition to a means of flaunting money power, the meaning of gift has changed both in its form and intent. Gifts should be a reflection of understanding and feeling for our loved ones (wow!). Gifting is an experience (yes, a bad experience for me – it costs me money!). The value of your feelings should be of much more importance than the value of the gift (yes, definitely – don’t I do that always – lots and lots of feelings ONLY)!

Sarcasm done, let me get back to the topic at hand. I somehow am very clear when it comes to gifts. Always receive the costliest of gifts (actually, demand) and always give gifts of feelings and love – which I guess (and strongly believe) is more invaluable than the former. But somehow people don’t seem to empathize with me (I get stares (not to mention some English (****) which I do not want to understand till date))! However, when I am in my very good moods, I try to buy something of physical value (I know, how cheap of them to demand a gift which they can touch and feel and also has resale value!!) not exceeding Rs. 250 (after frantically searching for a discount sale). But still, I get the looks!! Guess, I am not attuned (or heavily tuned) to the art of gifting at all.

However, I realize I am very good at getting gifts – in fact, without hinting at the gift at all. Here is an excerpt of the conversation I had with one of my uncles in the US when I was 20 (yeah, 5 years back…now c’mon, don’t make me nostalgic!!)

Uncle: So, beta! How are you? What shall I bring for you from US?

Me: I am fine uncle (notice the subtlety, not very fine…just fine). Why do you want to take any effort uncle. It’s ok (Damnnn…how did I say that?!)

Uncle: No, no beta! I have to get something for you. Tell me, c’mon!

Me: No uncle, it’s actually ok. I don’t need anything right now (Damnn..the second time, not happening)

Uncle: Now c’mon, be a sport! Tell me.

Me: (Before he says, No, No…Time out, Time out…Gifts for you only next time) Ok uncle…if you insist! Actually I have been watching NatGeo quite a lot nowadays and I like people in it shooting with some lenses and flashlight and something else (see..hinting, not specifyin…a talent developed painstakingly over years!) the animals. I would like one of those.

Uncle: Ho hum!! Cough, cough! Beta…but!

Me: (Before he could say anything) I know uncle, that’s too cheap for your standards but, but still, you just forced me.

Uncle: (No choice left) Ok Kiran (Beta to Kiran…now that’s quite a change, probably indicated lots of love) You will have it (Wow! So much love!).

The next week when he came – he got me a zoom camera (although now it’s lying almost in some remote garage because it involved film rolls and they cost a lot!...On second thoughts, I think it comes under my category of ‘passing this gift to someone else’…hmm, lemme chew on that fact for a while)! See what I said, get the gift without hinting at it.

However, when it comes to giving gifts – I reign supreme. For, what better gift than lots of love and feelings towards the other person? What better gift that you wished him/her on that particular day (taking the effort to remember the day)? What better gift than wishing him/her with open arms (empty of course, not with a physical gift, chi chi…what are you talking about?)? I tried all of the above – but somehow the other person doesn’t seem to understand/relate to my feelings. Probably they are too immature in the art of gifting – for the best gift, I always believe while giving is the one you give with feelings and love J!!

Update: Almost forgot, I have Excel worksheets with extensive cost-benefit analysis of every gift I have ever given (physical gifts, that is - feelings don't have any cost-benefit :))! Analysis involves the value of the gift I am giving versus the future benefits (which includes gifts, favors etc.) from that particular person. If you want to have a peek at these, mail me :)!!

P.S –

1) I love the recent ad of Cadbury Celebrations – Gifting chocolates is a novel idea and excellently marketed. Touched upon a brilliant point of recycling gifts (passing on the gift you never wanted in the first place) which we do always (Now, c’mon – Admit it!). Perishability of chocolates doesn’t allow you that freedom along with conveying sweet (literally!) greetings.

2) Courtesy AJ’s question – Bribing officials – Will it come under the art of gifting? Hmm…AJ, my blog doesn’t allow scandals :)

An Internet Tale! - Heheh!

2007-10-05T06:21:00.001-07:00

She was in Mumbai. He was in the US.

She sat in her bedroom in front of her age-old computer, twitching the end of her chunni endlessly.

He had just got up from sleep, visibly excited, switching on his laptop – revising one-liners, statements-that-a-girl-will-fall-for and opened the chat application.

They both were online now.

It all had happened by chance. Engineer-MBA guys were the flavor of the season and he was an Engineer-MBA. He wanted to marry an Engineer-girl. Their parents were looking out for matches – traditionally as well as online. During the course of searching through one of these online matrimonial websites, they found each other. Each one liked the other’s profile (and necessarily, their parents’ also liked each other’s family background etc etc) and decided that they should communicate. Because of the distance involved (she in India and he in the US) – after exchange of few mails, decided that Internet chat would be the best option.

Today was the D-day.

They saw each other online.

(Lines in Italics are his/her internal thoughts. Others are the ones which they type on the chat application).

He: Should I ping her first? Or will she ping me first? Will I appear too eager if I ping her immediately? No, let me hold on till she pings me.

She: He is online right now, so why doesn’t he ping me? Is he not interested in me? I guess being a guy he should take initiative. What will I do with such a non-initiative taking guy? Did I make a mistake?

After a 5 minute standoff, where each party is thinking why the other is not pinging, the guy loses his patience.

He: Hey! Hi.

She: Ufff, finally you dumbo! Hi.

He: I was just checking my mails till now. Didn’t see you online?

She: Oh yeah, really! Kid someone else. Same here. Not an issue at all. Glad you pinged.

He: Isn’t this chat a wee bit uncomfortable? It would have been better if we had met face to face.

She: Didn’t know what to say and didn’t want to look stupid. One trick she learnt over the years if she didn’t know what to say, say – Heheh!

He: Ooohh!! She’s funny too! Sense of humor. Good, Good. So…finished your dinner?

She: Ah! How boring? Anyways, let me continue. Yes. Finished it just now. How about you?

He: I just got up. So….

She: So…

He: Strange behavior lady. Take initiative somewhere. So, what do you like?

She: Like, like what?? Her mother had always taught her to keep the guy in suspense.

He: No, in general, hobbies like that, like that.

She: Ohhh..that!! My hobby is photography. I like reading books too. She always found it fashionable to say that her hobby was photography. Never mind she never had any expertise in it. Her hobby was photography simply because she had a cute digicam. Reading books – ahhh..she wanted to appear intellectual.

He: Ohh!! That is greattt. My hobby too is photography. In fact, I love photography. Reading books – ahh..not that much. But I love listening to music. Again, back in Engineering college and his MBA, he was awed by others because he mentioned photography as one of his hobbies (Later, when they came to know about his photographic skills – well, the matter took a different turn J). He had also heard that mentioning the word ‘photography’ turns on many a lady.

She: Wow!! He too likes photography. I think I found the right guy in my life. What wavelength and frequency match. That is lovely!! So…what if I want to do higher studies? Is your family ok with it?

He: He was always told by his friends to appear progressive. All girls want to study after marriage – that was a rule rather than a exception. He didn’t want to whine. She will study right…what the heck? No, no…not at all. In fact, my family would love a girl who is ambitious. They would be proud of having such a girl in the family.

She: Patting herself again that she found the right guy…so, what else??

He: So, what about cooking? Do you know cooking?? His friends had always taught him to add disclaimers when he asked such questions…No, not being a male chauvinist but asking in general!

She: Smiles…adding disclaimers too, he must be intelligent…I know cooking…not an expert though…will you help me? And she didn’t want to upset him with the next line..so…And how about you? Will you help me with the cooking part….Heheh!

He: Oh..sense of humor again…good, good! Yes, yes. Sure. Will help you with cleaning dishes and washing clothes too. She wants me share everything already…yuhoo…I think this is a done deal.

She: And…how about wearing western clothes?

He: Progressive behavior was the order of the day…No, not an issue at all. Unless you decide to wear spaghettis and minis…hehe!

She: Good sense of humor…I like the guy! Heheh! No, no…I was just talking about jeans and t-shirt.

He: So...what kind of music do you like?

She: When in doubt, say A R Rahman! She was taught this cardinal rule repeatedly. Classical Indian was out-of-date. And Spice girls would sound outlandish. Conservative but good-taste – that was the mantra. Nothing really special, but I like A R Rahman.

She: Oops!! Music of A R Rahman….Heheh!

He: Nice timing of humor again…I really like the girl! A R Rahman…Conservative and good taste. Good, good. I like Backstreet boys and A R Rahman too….wanted to sound macho as well as force himself to like her taste…agreeing with the lady was a big plus – he was told.

She: Wavelength and Frequency match again! She was beginning to like it. So…how about food habits? Non-veg, Smoking, Drinking etc etc. You know typical habits..Heheh!

He: Enquring ability…nice trait of a lady! Good, Good!! No, No, No…I am a vegetarian with no smoking and drinking habits. How about you? Not that I am questioning you…but still would like to know more about you – He was told the line ‘to know more about you’ was very satisfying on a lady’s mind. It helped soothe all her fears and anxiety…in fact, it was a big plus for any guy who asked that question.

She: What a gracious way of asking the question!! Now, I really like the guy. He wants to know more about me – good good sign J Nope, am a vegetarian too…with no smoking and drinking habits.

He: Good, Good. So…what else?

She: You tell.

He: So…do you like me?

She: Hmmm…let me think ;)

He: Was that a YES?

She: Ahhh…I never said that…Did I? She was taught never to say YES directly in such matters – it looked too arrogant. In fact, not saying a YES was more ladylike and guys liked it – she was told by her marriageable friends.

He: Should I ask my parents to proceed?

She: Aren’t we supposed to proceed? Heheh!

He: Good sense of humor again. She is the girl I want to marry!! Yes, we will proceed. I will talk to my parents to talk to your parents.

She: Ok! Hope to talk to you at length after you come to India.

He: Of course, of course! Can I call you now?

She: Nope, not so soon! Heheh! Shall we meet same time tomorrow online?

He: Sure, I am already waiting for tomorrow to come.

She: Heheh!

With that, he closed the chat window. She had good sense of humor, could cook okish – what else did he need in life?

She too closed the chat window – He was gracious, although he was slightly boring – which I can change after our marriage, his hobby too was photography. What else does she need in life?

She smiled off to sleep. He went to office excited. And the proceedings began.

P.S – Before you jump to conclusions, Pure Fiction :D

I told you so!

2007-10-03T06:56:00.000-07:00

Haven't we heard this line a zillion times before? From anyone and everyone. Usually from older, experienced people to the younger ones but more irritatingly, from your peers, friends and cousins - everyone in the world seemed to have known the result of the endeavor you had undertaken, except one - You.

Before I undertake the noble task of pontificating on this topic, I would like to declare that the author himself has used (and abused) this line umpteen times before - however, he has mellowed down considerably in its usage - blame it on his age, experience, blah and blah.

How many times have people come up to you and said 'I told you so' - when something positive has happened to your life? In my experience, I can just count them on my fingers. Rarely, very rarely do you see your friend/relative/cousin/older guy (generically called 'They' in this blog) come up to you and say 'Dude, I told you so'. Even if they did, you would feel irritated - the reason being, you were the cause for this positive result and the result did not happen because 'They' had told you before. Aaarrggghhh!!!

The above scenario is atleast slightly bright - because you can sink the 'I told you so' bitterness in the positive result. However, most of the time (when I mean most, it means >90%) They would come to you with this line when you are actually down in the dumps - negative result. 'Arreyy baaba, I had told you before - you should learn to value my experience', 'Dude, I told you so right - from now on atleast, you start valuing my advice', 'I told you before only na, I don't understand when will this younger generation get over its over-confidence' and many many such lines. The max you can do in such scenarios is give them a dirty stare - the only way to get back (my way atleast) is to get to a positive result and shove that in their face.

Observation over an extended period of time would tell you that all the 'I told you so' scenarios were pessimistic scenarios - scenarios where the result of the said endeavor was negative. My question to these guys (and these guys includes myself) is 'How worse can an endeavor get below the pessimistic level you are exhibiting and expecting?'. More often than not (and research has proved it) it would take 100 failures to make 1 successful invention. What is the big deal about being pessimistic? (I have personally seen even the best of so-called optimists utter 'I told you so' to poor chaps - so self-proclaimed optimists, please shut whatever).

As everyone and their grandma in the world knows, everyone has a vision of 20/20 in hindsight. It is very easy to say why Walmart was a success, why India won T20 world cup and how liberalization/globalization helped India become a big player on the global stage. Analysis, my dear friends is so easy. But imagine Sam Walton investing his entire life savings in his venture at that particular moment of time, the confidence of Manmohan singh (circumstances aside) to liberalize policies at that particular moment of time - if you have taken a decision which can make/mar your life, you can understand what 'that particular moment of life' means.

Decisions in life can be so tricky - at every stage in life. 'Best foot forward' has always been my philosophy. Some of the questions I ask myself before taking decisions 'at that particular moment of time' might range from trivial to the entirely esoteric. Listening to people, taking in the value of their experience in that particular field, mapping the same onto my analysis of the situation (ahh...explaining this would not be possible on the blog - summarily put, it would encompass probability, psychology, behavioral sciences etc etc etc :)) and arrive at a decision. When I arrive at a decision in this particular way, I am really not bothered about the outcome or 'I told you so's. Many of my off-the-cuff decisions have yielded great results and some of them were terrible outcomes. However, the joy I experience after I get to a decision after evaluation is something indescribable. And yes, some of the outcomes were positive and some negative - but look back, and I would have had no regrets at all.

What was the point of the above paragraph? It simply meant that if you are bothered about the outcome rather than the decision (and how it was taken) - you would be troubled by these 'I told you so's within yourself as well as plenty of 'They's. Get yourself to make decisions in a structured manner, least bothered about the results - you would notice a huge amount of difference. If people even then come up to you with 'I told you so's, tell them to 'Go, Multiply' [Totally private joke :)...not really difficult to decipher].

P.S -

1) People who know me well, know that I live by the philosophy of 'Evaluate on how the decision was arrived at than be bothered by the outcome' - what with I have irritated them umpteen number of times with this behavior. This post might have been a rambling out of this behavior - for all you know, I might be drunk now ;).

2) People who forward me mails about 'If you had invested Rs. 10000 in Infosys shares in 1993, you would be a Crorepati now' - please also note that 'If you had invested in Arvind mills (the biggest and the hottest stock in 1993) in 1993, you would be owing around Rs.2000 today. Noone knew something called IT existed back in 1993. 'At that particular moment of time', if you had told me to invest in Infy rather than Arvind mills, I would have booked you for insanity (and couple it with Rs. 10000 to invest was a huge amount back in 1993 - probably three months of savings back then - three months saving in 'what is that, Infisys, Infosys, whatever, shall we call the doctor to see if everything's alright with you?'). Analysis and hindsight people, anyone can give'. Let me know if you have any stock recommendation for today - and probably 1 year later tell me 'I told you so'. I would appreciate that more than the stupid forward.

We Won, Yessss!! We Won!!

2007-09-24T22:59:00.000-07:00

As one of my friend would say later, 'Watta match!! Watta match! If you had asked me if a girl's kiss is better than this - I would have disagreed completely!!'

Let me say at the outset, that this match and the tournament was won because of only one man - Ajit Agarkar. Thank Goodness, he was on the bench. Else, I doubt if we could have reached the semis. So, let's just take a bow to this great man for the greatest contribution he has ever made to the Indian Cricket.

Billed as the greatest final that was ever to happen, the match lived up well and truly to its expectations. No one, either in the stadium or across millions of homes in India and Pakistan would have asked for a better match - a match that went right down to the last over - a match where the quality of batting, bowling and fielding was outstanding - a match which starkly reminded me of Miandad's last ball six (which thankfully, did not happen) - and finally, a tournament final which did not end up as an anti-climax where one side would romp home with victory (as has been the case usually)!! Could I have asked for anything better on a Monday evening - Absolutely not. I was on the edge of my chair all throughout the match - instructing (actually ordering) my friends in the room not to move an inch from their places till the match was over (Not that the stars and future of the match was entirely dependent on the seating arrangement of a few people in a room - but where passion overtakes sense, logic is out of the window).

As the ball went sailing over the rope in the last over of Kaka Joginder, silence prevailed in India while jubiliations would have begun in Pakistan. It was all a matter of one wicket or a six. Probably the only person in the world who had to hear more abuses than Agarkar was Kaka Joginder in that particular moment. Then, it happened. Misbah's "mind running like a computer"(I will come to this phrase later) crashed - generating a serious error of trying to scoop the ball over fine leg instead of hitting that lollipop-half-volley-decent pace ball over the bowler's head for a six. Psycho Sreesanth held on to the catch and only just (if he had dropped it, then probably that would have been the end of his career after his magnificient 4 overs for 44 runs is a totally different matter). India celebrated, Misbah cried and Pakistan was shocked. Kaka Joginder redeemed himself to do the jig along with Harbhajan and Pathan during the lap of honour. Crackers were burst, People screamed and when we had dinner at some restaurant later, everyone was in a fantastic mood - smiling, hi-fis and boisterous laughter. It was one party!!

Everything that happened for India and Pakistan in this tournament happened for their own good - Pakistan have found a deadly pace combination in Asif, Umar Gul and Tanvir - if nurtured properly (instead of hitting around with bats and getting into squabbles) would become fearsome. Misbah is more than an ideal replacement for Yousuf (although I cannot say he has a long bright future ahead of him - he's already 33!) and an able and a fantastic leader in Malik. For the Indians, the biggest gain has been the pace attack, Rohit Sharma and Kaka Joginder (who's fate is similar to Misbah). Dhoni's silent thumbs-up to Harbhajan after he bowled Michael Clarke during the nail-biting India vs Australia match is more than a sign that he is here to stay - lest, politics do him in. Needless to say, this signals the end of Agarkar's career whose only credit is that he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory countless number of times!!

Now that India has won the Cup, I need to ask a few questions to a few people - not that their answers would matter - but then, let me exercise my right as a blogger -

Shoaib Malik - How did you assume Muslims around the world are supporting you to win? India has a sizeable population of Muslims and they celebrated India's victory yesterday probably more than the other communities did (I am sure you missed seeing Irfan Pathan on Yousuf Pathan's back enjoying every moment of their victory!!). Why bring in religious fervor and stupid comments to such a wonderful match? Beats me.

Ravi Shastri - What's with your cliches nowadays? Have you run out of them? You used 'his mind is running like a computer' probably 5 times in 5 minutes of your commentary. Others include 'Going right down to the wire' (still can't see the wire), 'Anybody's game' and your oft-so-used-to-death 'Game on'. You better 'go back to the drawing board' and invent new cliches. Please!!

Harsha Bhogle - Dear o dear! What was wrong with you in this tournament? You were so insipid and were looking for words - 'Oh! Misbah has hit the ball over the rope, I just can't describe how he hit the ball' - I guess your job is to do that. Once or twice, I can understand - the statement was repeated across multiple players in multiple matches. Is it 'Familiarity breeds contempt' scenario here? Improve oh dear, Kindly do. So many people in India admire you.

Psycho Sreesanth - I mean whatt!! I guess Dhoni does a security check on you before you step on to the ground, lest you draw out a pen-knife and slice Hayden or some other player. I guess you need to turn your aggression inwards and develop more consistency - else, you are a 'gonner'!!

Freddie Flintoff - It is just not ok to blurt 'I will hit your face, you just wait' to Yuvraj. Back it up and please, to a team of jelly-bean throwers and whiners of 'too much away from home', this attitude would not work - Nope it won't.

Sunil Gavaskar - For once, I guess you should have appreciated that India won - whole-heartedly. We can completely understand that you are grief-stricken that Sachin did not play a part in this 'important historical event that happened after 24 years' but please - for once, could you stop saying 'Both teams deserved to win' and say that 'Indians played a magnificient game under an able captain to win comprehensively. Deserved winners'!! Could you? Somehow pessimism overtakes my usual highly optimistic behavior when it comes to you.

Ajit Agarkar - Oops, sorry! No questions Sirr!! You have played very well. You have motivated the team very well from the trenches (Imagine, players saying to each other - however worse, we can't get worser than him, pointing to Agarkar). No sir, seriously - thank you very much. I don't think you should have expected a better farewell than winning this Twenty20 world championship.

Yeee!! Twenty20 is here to stay. The 50-over match on Sep 29th between India and Australia already sounds boring!! :)

Keep 'Marriageable' off your radar!!

2007-09-04T05:29:00.000-07:00

40000. Yes, 40000. No, I am not mentioning any salary figure – those were the number of marriages conducted on a single day around a week back in one particular state in India. 40000!! I mean whatttt!! Mind-boggling is not the word. However, number of marriages on a particular day is not the subject matter of this blog.

The statements made pre-marriage (just before and after engagement but before marriage) and post-marriage (till 6 months after marriage) is!!
Over the years, I have learnt quite a few pearls of wisdom dealing with ‘marriageable’ (pre and post) people - and I felt it would make immense sense to share these with my dearest blog readers.

1) I met this friend of mine (a girl) at a multiplex. She came along with some guy I didn't recognise (a first-time meet). After exchanging the usual pleasantries of ‘Hi’s and ‘How are you’s, she moved in for the kill.

She: So, this is my fiancée Amit.
Me: Hey Amit! Nice to meet you!
She: So….
Me: So… (still didn’t get the clue, I was waiting for her to start/end some topic)
She: So….(desperately rolling her eyes, screaming silently)
Ah…I pick the clue, albeit a trifle too late!
Me: Hey!! Both of you look lovely to-gether. You make a great pair.
She: Ah!! (smiling with vanity) That’s nothing. But anyways Thank you Thank you.

That was it. I had to push off before the next ‘So…’ :)

2) I still can’t fathom why people getting married (and immediately after marriage) state the obvious ever so often. Am still amazed. Few examples to substantiate.

a) He/She: We are both so happy being to-gether. He/She makes me so happy, we are perennially on a laugh riot. So comfy with each other you know.
Me: Oh..that’s great!! (To myself: if you weren’t happy/comfy to-gether then you would have got divorced or not got engaged at all – you silly!!)

b) He/She: So many things change post marriage you know. I thought that I would never change for that one person coming into my life. I am glad I was proved wrong.
Me: Ha ha ha! (To myself: Why the laugh, I have no idea! They just expect this reaction. Probably I was just laughing at his/her foolishness of feeling vain in proving themselves wrong. How stupid! Ha ha ha!)

c) He/She: It is like we were made for each other. Both of us were like ‘Why didn’t we meet each other before?’ types. It’s so much fun you know!
Me: Ha ha ha! That’s very interesting! (To myself: What’s interesting…Don’t ask! And No, I don’t know. And why didn’t you meet each other before – that is because you had to hammer(bore) me with this statement and many more statements to come. That’s why!)

3) Also, I still can’t understand why they don’t get literal and state the obvious in certain situations – say like what happened during honeymoon? Why? No clue. Probably it was too boring, and that is why they don’t want to share it. However, I am all ears to hear this OBVIOUS part, although it’s boring – all my time, all my ears to it…No, Seriously :)!!

4) Never ever enter these ‘marriageable’ people home(whether they be friends/relatives, anyone for that matter). They will either kill you by

- Showing you different types of dresses/jewellery/why they chose one wedding card over another/food items for marriage (in pre-marriage scenario) or
- Submerge you with reams and reams of wedding photographs with ‘So…how is this photograph? The lighting was not proper, no?’, ‘So…how are we looking in this photograph?’(post-marriage scenario)

You get what I mean. So…AVOID by all means.

5) One common, most common statement I have heard (and got terribly bored over the years)

He/She: You know why there are so many rituals, functions during marriage…mannn, it’s so tiring.
Me: Ya! (And before I finish my short yet sweet syllable)
He/She: And that is why I guess divorce rates are much lower in India. Who in their right mind would want to go through all the trouble (all functions/rituals) all over again. Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha (If I don’t cut him/her off, they would continue the saddd joke and their laughter to infinity)
Me: Yes, Yes..completely agree…the customary laugh…Ha, ha and a ha…So, when you knew that there were so many rituals/functions, why didn’t you opt for a register marriage…so easy and simple, you know...and by your logic, you can get married again and again (A wisecrack indeed…or so I thought)
He/She: A wry smile (didn’t know what to say; they somehow seem to change the entire marriage topic after that statement…still wondering why! ;))

Those were a few of my encounters with ‘marriageable’ people. I know it is a never-ending topic, but then I am not yet in the ‘marriageable’ category (if you get the drift ;)). Not just yet. And if you thought that knowing all the above, I would not be making such stupid/foolish statements and not state the obvious when my time comes – you are very wrong. I am a firm believer in compound interest and I shall have my REVENGE (if you know what I mean, Beware!!) :))

Anti-thesis!

2007-08-21T22:45:00.000-07:00

Note: Couple of short stories with no relation between them!

They were sitting facing each other.

It was a month before this moment that they spoke to each other for the first time. He in Mumbai, and She in Chennai. He was an industrialist, a multi-millionaire and single. He was on Yahoo chat that day, a rather unusual one so to say and he met this girl. They started talking on the first day, flirting from the second and third day they decided that they were perfectly suited for each other. From that moment onwards, they were on phone almost all day and night, and longing to meet each other. They decided to get married but before that found it suitable that their parents’ should meet each other.

Their parents decided to meet each other along with their respective kids. The boy and girl were sitting facing each other. They exchanged furtive glances, smiles and winks. They looked so much in love; both eager to embrace the other in their arms. The entire atmosphere, it seemed to them was filled with happiness and only both of them existed in the world. The parents had talked all day and then decided that the boy and the girl should be left alone to talk on a personal basis.

Boy: I was waiting for this moment all month long. Finally it happened. How are you feeling sweetheart?

Girl (drawing out a gun): Agent Malini Ramani, Mr. Ratan Shukhla you are under arrest in connection with the 2006 Mumbai blasts case!!

It was a romantic day.

I was alone at home, parents off to some relative’s daughter’s marriage. It was cloudy, about to rain any moment. Slightly windy and chilly. Romance was in the air. Ah! I thought…I wish someone was with me at that very moment…but then I let it pass. I had some household chores to do – finished the same and proceeded to have my bath. Just then, there was a knock on the door. I wondered who? Parents’ would not be back home so soon and noone was expected today. Who could it be? With all my curiosity, I slowly opened the door.

There she was. Wind blowing across her long, smooth hair. She adjusts the hair all over her face onto a plait at the back. It would seem to anyone who looked at her, that she looked as fresh as jasmine – freshly bathed with little makeup that you would hardly notice but would not go unnoticed. Her beautiful blue saree fit wonderfully on her slim frame. She smiled – and how else would you describe a perfect smile? She stared at me. I stared at her. She smiled. I smiled.

She asked “Ammmmaaaa hai ghar pe????”.

My kaamwaali bai had come.

Are You?

2007-08-02T21:57:00.000-07:00

I wanna snatch you from the world
People around you - near and distant
And just zip into infinite eternity
Just You and Me; I am willing!
Are you?

I dream of you; loving you
Intensely, passionately and whole-heartedly
But you are just far away - physically and mentally
Just You and Me - so good to-gether; I am willing!
Are you?

I communicate to you - irrespective of the mode of communication
Communication which turned from regular to sporadic; Intensely intimate to the very trivial
I long for communication. I am willing!
Are you?

I am willing to let go off the past;
Turbulences, relationships and the rest
And I eagerly look forward with hope
I dare to hope. I am willing!
Are you?

We danced and sang to-gether
Now, the dance floor is empty
And so are the voices of the heart.
I am willing to dance, sing and LIVE
Are you?

P.S - The theme of the poem being 'Melancholic Dare'! One musing out of the million musings I usually have on a train journey :)

Time Flies!!

2007-07-26T23:27:00.000-07:00

As I sit in Dubai airport musing about the heavy shopping that is going on and various announcements being repeated, I am amused as to how fast time flies! It was 3 months back, that I sat in this airport before I flew to UK and today, that event seemed like yesterday. Time usually flies and before you realize, the moments would have passed. And when you have fun day in day out - well, time just zips!!

It's been an eventful 3 months in UK. Learnt a lot of things - both personal and professional. My cooking skills have dramatically improved, learnt ice-skating, my badminton is much better than before, visited quite a few places (you can find all the pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/dkirand), learnt different types of trekking but much more than all of this is the fact that I made some great friends - each with his own individualities and quirks, but great fun all the same. And to top it, I had my best friends out there in UK which made the trip all the more memorable.

I need not reiterate how a fun crowd can ease off whatever pressure you are under, and the crowd at my place was exactly that. JT with his one-liners and MTV loveline, JK with his amazing skill at map-reading and directions, VS with his god-enthu for Rajni and Tamil movies and VA with his culinary skills (one of the best I have tasted) and fun-loving nature. Couple this with the fact that I was also spending time with my best friends - I was having the time of my life!!

3 months and it passed like a moment. It's already been more than 4 years since Engineering and as I was chatting with my friend, it seems yesterday. I guess the same feeling pervades across every one of us. Nostalgic, yes but then as one of my friends frequently used to say 'This too shall pass!' - we always have something better to look forward to everyday and currently I just see a hectic one week ahead of me :).

P.S -
1) I am currently addicted to 'Everybody Loves Raymond' and 'Two and Half Men', thanks to the past three months. I have no idea how will I cope without these serials everyday!! (I assume that Star World in India doesn't telecast these sitcoms).

2) Was just wondering as I peeped out of the window of the plane - I saw huge thick clouds just before the plane descended and when the plane landed, I just saw a clear sky above. Now I understand why the top management always has a clouded view of the details below them and vice-versa :).

3) Wrote this post in a real hurry coz I know that once I land in India, I would possibly lose this strange feeling and secondly, am getting late to catch my flight!! Grammatical and Spelling mistakes - my Apologies :).

Rant!!!

2007-07-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

- Why does everyone nowadays think that he/she is a born photographer? Everybody's hobby/passion/expertise seems to be photography. Is it because of the pervasiveness and cost-effectiveness of the digital camera or something else? I am tired of looking through hordes of poor digital photographs - seemingly thought of by my photographer friends/acquaintances as 'some of their better pics'!!! Is it because people force themselves to be recognised/appreciated through this skill (did I say skill??) - something they can showcase to the world because they cannot/don't have the courage to showcase themselves?? Why doesn't someone ban these digital cameras to avoid all this trouble?? [Probability says that if you have clicked a 1000 pics, then atleast 5 pics would be 'better pics'. So please people, don't get under the impression that you are the next big thing in photography. And yes, if you have done courses in photography, please keep them to yourselves - DO NOT try to impress them or your
photographs upon me]

- Why does every tamilian's sentence have to end with a 'da' or 'ye' or a 'macchii'?? Tamil is such a beautiful language, kindly use its vocabulary people!!

- Why do some people always live in the past? Is it because they are too scared to face/live in the present or do they take pride/pleasure living in the past?

- People nowadays take extreme pleasure in exhibiting self-centric/egotist behavior and they are proud of it. Never can understand why - to quote Albert Einstein 'A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires will sooner or later always lead to bitter disappointment'. The same population exhibiting such behavior know about this and yet continue to do the same - ????

- What is this fascination for Rajni's style or Hritik's biceps, Vidya Balan's eyes or Katrina's smile?? Appreciating perfection - I do not think so! Idolism - No way. Why??

- Expecting people to talk to you and shower affection when you want it and not returning the favor when people are in need of it - what should I call this behavior? Nonsensical, to say the least.

- Can someone convince of the necessity for daylight savings time? No one seems to be able give me a logical answer.

- The whole world cannot laugh/cry with you when you want to laugh/cry. Blaming the world being insensitive because it doesn't empathise with you/understand you is stupidity if not foolish.

- Last but not the least, kindly do not expect me to comment on how smart/pretty/handsome/beautiful you are looking whenever you change the orkut profile pic!! Please don't - if the pic can be commented on, I will - good, bad or the ugly!!!

Ladies, Women, Girls!! Uffff!!!

2007-06-24T13:34:00.000-07:00

Statutory Warning: Feminists, please stop reading this blog right here. Further reading might cause feelings of extreme hatred leading to various forms of obnoxious behavior - especially breaking off into Dharmendra's dialogue "Main tera khoon pee jayoonga, haddi pasli ek kar doonga”; please spare the effort and close the window right away.

First things first, I am not a MCP - kindly take that thought out. In fact, I respect and adore the fairer sex to the extent possible and firmly demand that they should be treated as equals and blah and blah. This blog is just an observation on their wonderful and graceful demeanor and antics - in fact, I am so overwhelmed writing this blog that right now if a lady was in front of me, I would shoot her (obviously with my camera, silly ;))!!

The rough estimate of different types of antics by women is infinity. However, to save blogspot and hence google, I shall restrict them to a measly number. Read on and you would know how LOGICAL their antics are -

Shopping: Another synonym for Ladies; invented by man for his basic needs and utilities, abused by women for everything else!
One of my cousins is a shop-freak (and by corollary, deduction being she is a girl). She shops for everything and anything. She has a huge wardrobe - with different types and varieties of clothes. Last heard, her Excel ran out of the standard number of rows and columns to handle her wardrobe - she was migrating to SAS. Just can't understand - shop for x (x generally > 3) hrs and buy one dress; shop for x hrs and buy something you already have; shop for x hrs and buy
something you would never need; last but not the least, shop for something because it would be useful in the future - approximation of future being tomorrow or 10 years later!!

Statements: Slowly entering the dangerous arena!!

'You won't understand!' Boyyyy! One of the most dangerous statements and when this one comes out of a woman's mouth, you better shut down your work and plead her to make you understand (you would never understand anyway, but atleast put up an act!! if you don't, well...the less said the better!!) An ominous utterance - ignorance to the same is fatal. Implore her and find out what is wrong, else hmmmm!!

'Never mind, It's Ok!' - It is NOT OK and you bloody well get down on your knees and explain why and how things went wrong with her. Ranks high up on the list of menacing expressions which essentially means that you (you as in you and me, the guys) have to cajole her, take her out for dinner, probably discuss some women-oriented movie and how women should be empowered - then, then maybe just maybe she would become normal again.

Questions: THE MOST dangerous area of all!!

'Ms. Y was looking beautiful in that black gown, no?' - Now the answer should entirely depend on the age of Ms. Y. Little toddler/teenager or a woman over the age of 40 - rattle all the best and positive statements you ever knew. Start off with 'Completely agree with you. She was looking so graceful and pretty etc etc'. If she is in her mid 20s, YOU DO NOT HAVE a correct answer for that question. Try faking a panic attack in your right ear - ear-splitting pain and
you are not in a situation to hear what she was saying. Try asking her whether she can just let you cool off till the ear comes back to normal state. If the question is asked again, Repeat the procedure prescribed above, probably with a different organ.

'How is my dress?' - She is actually asking you whether you went weak in your knees after you saw her in that dress; That is not a question, IT is a statement and you better answer it in one of these ways 'The dress is very nice, suits you very well' or 'You suited the dress than the other way round' etc etc. NEVER EVER answer in a negative tone - it will only be answered by a shrug, a demeaning look and a 'You won't understand'!! :)

'Do I look fat?' - The dreaded statement of all, dreaded by men all over the world, scarier than Darth Vader or Veerappan - nothing can go right when this question is asked, just resign to yourself that it is a bad day. Don't even try a wacko 'Where?' - she would write you off as the dumbest human being on planet Earth. Try diverting her attention to something else and avoid answering the question. A 'Yes' would lead to a certain murder and a 'No' would make her wonder whether you were blind. I have worked out different ways of answering this question (Warning: Does not work 95% of the time, I just utter a few words under my breath and take it as a bad day) 'You look beautiful anyway', 'The dress is sooo pretty, you have a wonderful taste' with very very limited success results.

See, it is sooo simple to understand women - wonder what all my wisdom personified ancestors were thinking when they said 'You can never understand women!'

Uh! 'They won't understand!!' :)

P.S - With all due respects to the fairer sex who have read till this line (which essentially is the end of this blog) - a big thank you. This blog was not meant to disparage or make fun of your antics. It was just an appreciation of your wonderful, yet profound thought process. We just can't live without you (under my breath, neither can we live with you!!)

Sivaji...First Day, First Show!!

2007-06-15T04:46:00.000-07:00

There are the usual spectacular and brilliant movies and then there is Sivaji! The story is as old as our Independence, yet the delivery, larger-than-life screen presence and of course Rajnikanth make the movie more than worthwhile to watch (even this is an understatement)!

My blog was never meant to publish any movie previews or reviews and this particular entry too is not one. This blog is about watching a Rajni movie First Day, First Show (FDFS) - driving 90 minutes from Nottingham to Birmingham and back just to watch Rajni's movie FDFS; about standing in queue for more than 15 minutes inviting shocking stares from the cinema assistants (who were Brits) as to what the craze is all about; shout, scream, whistle and scatter papers whenever Rajni does a stunt or cracks a dialogue - movie meant to be enjoyed the way it is meant to be - it wasn't a movie, it was an Experience.

If you can ignore the gravity-defying stunts of Rajni - the story is awesomely believable. It is the usual Shankar movie plot - one man fighting against the corrupt system against all odds. The comedy track is excellent, Vivek is almost unbelievably humourous. Shreya does what she does best - look very very pretty and hot at the same time (feminists,kindly hold your guns - she acted quite well but....!!! ;)) Suman as a villian is one of the shining stars in the movie. Rajni is subdued till intermission - post intermission, it is Rajni's movie all the way. The last 15-20 mins of the movie prove to all as to why Rajni is such a big superstar - his style, acting, behavior, dressing sense - it just takes your breath away. Doesn't matter if you have missed the first half of the movie, DO NOT miss the last 15-20 minutes.
The only let down of the music being A R Rahman's music - it was boring!!

Forget the movie - I watched FDFS of a Rajni's movie, albeit in a foreign country - am absolutely thrilled with such simple pleasures in life!! :D

P.S -
1. This experience did not come without any sacrifices - I had to let go my ice-skating class for the week; but then who cares, I will make up for it next week!!
2. Couple of my friends accompanying for the movie couldn't understand Tamil and by corollary couldn't enjoy the movie as much. I did - Thanks mom, Thanks Sun TV :))

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Z!!

2007-06-10T16:10:00.000-07:00

Three most commonly used set of keys; personification of a word in English - indispensable; used atleast once in a day by people who use computers; functionality which made the typewriter obsolete; keys which are used from the level of a CEO to a data entry operator and many many more - three most powerful keys, probably without which computers wouldn't be as widespread as they are today.

Coming to think of it, the entire IT industry in India and the subsequent boom would be in doubt if not for these three keys. Indian software companies typically hinge on concepts (you may call them jargon for colloquial use) like 'component reusability' and 'OOPS' - terms, which can be simplified as Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. If a component is misplaced within a wrong component, Ctrl+Z. Hundreds of powerpoint presentations (typically called a sales pitch, consulting document and a program library in 'conceptual language') use these three keys probably more extensively than any other set of keys.

Imagine computers without these three keys (I know you can't and neither can I...but just consider for a moment) - I wouldn't be able to copy files to another disk (all smart people who want to give me the brilliant idea of drag and drop via mouse, you can forget it - the drag and drop also uses the 'function' of Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V), I couldn't have replicated projects, assignments and powerpoint presentations in my academic life, I would probably have taken double the time to complete documents/projects/proposals - which boils down to one point, the computer in itself would not be better off than a typewriter (Backspace key can just save face, but electronic typewriters have this functionality too!!)

It is funny when I think of it. Three indispensable keys I need when I am at work/study/leisure and I extend the concept to normal life - I don't need them at all. Would you want to copy and paste some event which happened in the past now or some time in the future? Would you want to undo something that you did in the past? I definitely wouldn't. Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V..hmm..I really have to think hard if I would want to use it anywhere...probably if I want to relive the event - then yes, but not definite. Ctrl+Z - I definitely think not. One of the most frequently used keys by me on my laptop and one key I would shun if given an option in life today - personal, professional, academic or sports. Would anyone want to - depends entirely on how they lived their life, and have they given it their best shot? You are your best judge.

The more interesting part - if given control of these three keys on someone else's life, who would it be? Consider it for a moment. Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V is too much of an effort. Probably I would use Ctrl+Z for Himesh Reshammiya's singing career :P!! Let me know your choice of the key and the person!!

P.S - I thought long and hard about the dependability and complexity of Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V - and whether there is any significance to it. Then I realised that these were thoughts emananting from my convulsive effects of watching Shekhar Suman's music video and Tushaar Kapoor's role in Shootout - Apologies :)

Marriage and its Audience!

2007-05-21T01:04:00.000-07:00

One of my acquaintances recently commented 'When people are happy in life, they have a tendency to ruin it. They do things like getting married.' I have nothing against marriage though (I am still waiting for a man married for a long time to comment thus :)). It is a wonderful institution of two people promising themselves to live to-gether and blah and blah. Anyways, I do not have a problem with people getting married as long as people don't expect me to show up with precious gifts and lots of blessings. Blessings, I guess I can, but gifts....hmmm!! During my time in Mumbai, I had friends inviting me for weddings - the wedding card explicitly mentioned 'Gifts are not entertained. The only gift you give in my marriage is your blessing'. We all know what that means (For the uninitiated, the guards at the Security gate would ensure that you would not enter the marriage hall unless you have a gift in your hand).

That is only the first step. The second is the most dangerous one - Relatives!! Again, these are not close relative, they are far-off relatives and their probing questions. At one point of time, I was made to meet my grandfather's brother's second cousin's son..whoaa!! More so, they interview me as if I am there not to attend a marriage but an UPS interview. I positively think that the latter interview is much more easier to clear than the former. Why, What, When, How of everything and anything. An example conversation I had with one of my far-off relatives at a marriage a year ago -

R - So, what do you do?
Me - I work in the **** **** in Mumbai
R - what is your educational qualification?
Me - I quote mine.
R - For that, you work at **** ****. My son with similar qualifications is working for Deloitte Consulting.
R - Anyways, how much do you earn (the dreaded question?)
Me - I avert the question - 'Quality of work is more important than how much you earn' and other management gyaan..people typically quote when they are earning below poverty line salaries.
R - (By now, she has decided that I was good for nothing) So, any girlfriends? I am sure you have one. When you are in a place like Mumbai, you are bound to have one. That is the reason, my son works only in Hyderabad.
Me - Whoaaa!!! I have many aunty. The list would take ages to complete (all this, with a clear wink of course). Anyways, I admire your son working in Hyderabad just not to have girlfriends.
R - (feeling proud) Yes, yes. Do you drink and smoke, I am sure you do...but then, don't overdo it, ok na?
Me - Aunty, you forgot drugs...and I walk away because I heard a faint call from another far-off relative sitting a mile away.

Another snippet - this time on my dress. I didn't even know who this far-off relative/friend's mother was, I met her for the first time in my life.

R - Hey, what is this you are wearing - a black t-shirt and a blue jeans. Black should not be worn during marriages. Go, change and come.
Me - But...this is fine with me, I am really comfortable.
R - No, I am not. Go, go change and come.
Me - My house is quite far from this marriage hall.
R - The marriage is not going to stop if you are not here. Go, go change and come. I will wait for you. We'll have lunch to-gether.
Me - Whooaaa..aunty, one request.
R - What?
Me - I will change and come. But you continue with your lunch. I have some friends (imaginary!) waiting for me.
R - Ok. Change and come, I want to see the dress you come up with.
Me - Uh!!

Then, you have friends. Long lost friends, friend's friends turning up, giving a hi-fi for no reason, laughing for the most nonsensical jokes and all of a sudden, there is silence. An uncomfortable silence - at which point you do not know whether to continue with the hi-fis and laughing like you just had puffs of Nitrous oxide up your lungs.

Anyways, lets come to the main event. Food...aah..the wedding, we'll come to it later. Food, I guess is the most important for most of the guests who have arrived at the wedding. I for one, first look at the menu and the caterers and then come into the hall for the wedding. Lest the bride and bridegroom think otherwise, I ensure that I have breakfast, lunch and dinner during the day of the marriage. I am lucky in the sense that I have a set of friends from diverse backgrounds - Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannadigas etc. I get to have a wide variety of food - from alu and paneer mutter to idli-sambar. The success of marriage is decided on food - if food is great, then it was a perfect match. Else, aahh...the couple are good-looking, BUT the food was not that tasty...see what I mean when I say the main event of any marriage is food. No wonder there is so much focus on food.

The actual wedding - more of garnishes and decorations. Bride and bridegroom - I guess the only members in the entire event thinking about the main ceremony. Others are generally busy with showing off jewellery, sarees, sons who returned from US recently, daughters who recently cleared CAT. If not for the above, they can generally be found in the dining hall.

I cannot come to a conclusion about this marriage and its audience topic nor can I stop writing about this. All I can say (a.ka. Bush) is that Marriage is a wonderful institution where two people promise themselves to live to-gether and.......................and the audience come in to bless the couple profusely in their own inimitable way!!!!

Living in the Present!!

2007-05-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

The title is something I think of almost all the time. A serious problem I grapple with day in day out. Most of the time, I tend to either live in the past or in the future. As and when I drift away in my thoughts, this question strikes me time and again. Why am I not able to live in the present, live in the moment and enjoy every moment to the 'T'?

One of my favorite teachers quoted - Past is past, forget the past. Future is uncertain, why worry about it. Live in the present, 'that' is happiness. The profundity of the statement never hit me, till couple of years back.

The reason might be this - Probably I never realised that I either lived in the past or in the future. I thought I was living in the present, but on further evaluation never was. Slowly but surely, the depth of the statement dawned on me. I try desperately to remain in the present at various instances - and I enjoy it. It is such an elevating feeling living in the present, yet I fall back in my normal mode - either live in the past or the future.

Consider this. Right now, as I am writing the blog, I am thinking of what to do next weekend. I am also thinking of what would I do once I go back to India on a short trip. I would also want to buy a house within the next six months - how much would the EMI be? Will my savings be enough? What are my future career prospects? Will some course help me move on the corporate ladder faster? How will my life-partner be? Is there any way of getting an oppurtunity to appear on KBC (or even flashier - how about Koffee with Karan?? :))? Should I buy the ticket for watching India vs England which would take place some time in July?

The other side - Ah! Childhood was great, we were so carefree, we did everything. Till school life was excellent. Engineering was mind-blowing, what with four years of enjoyment interspersed with a few exams. MBA, maaannnn..was that fun? Absolute, Non-stop fun. Quizzing sessions - lovely thursday and friday evenings. Or, had I prepared harder for CAT/GMAT/IIT etc etc, I would have been in a different league now. Did I take the right decision in academics/career/love/job/friends? We used to have so much fun back then, in the canteen, IEEE bus, events in college etc etc.

Think about your own life. How many times/instances in a particular day have you actually lived in the present? I bet, you can count on your fingers. And how many times/instances have you lived in the past/future on any given day - Infinite. While we all know that living in the present is so blissful, yet we let our mind wander. We are always thinking ahead of time or behind time, never on time. This facet probably cuts across all cultures and countries.

Each one has his own way out of this quagmire. I have mine - I try to remind myself at very frequent intervals to live in the present, to enjoy the moment; that way atleast I am out of the loop of past&future for a few moments. Each one to his own, but never forget to live in the present. Live it once and you will know.

P.S -

1) So what do we do? Past is ok, but should I not think of the future? Of course you should. But not all the time. How about sitting for a few moments to think only about the future and nothing else? Isn't that equivalent to living in the present?

2) I also hate people justifying their past - especially, when things have gone wrong. 'You know, it had to happen that way, because I had to be here' ; 'Good that I left him/her, otherwise, god knows what would have happened' ; To me, it indicates only one thing - unfulfilled commitments/effort at that particular moment in their past and justification as a means to trudge along with their lives. We may take comfort by justifying the past so ridiculously, may look/sound good to others - but to yourself, you are the only judge. Accept it and move on, you would be fine. You have lived your past, thinking about the future. Don't commit the same mistake again. Because as I said earlier, the present is too precious to let go.

3) This blog was long overdue, the idea dated by now. However, yesterday when we were driving at 100 mph on an express way with the drizzle, beautiful greenery on either side and soulful music on the stereo, I let my mind wander. 1 hour drive and the time I lived in the present - probably around 10 minutes. That is, 50 minutes of pure happiness lost. That is when, this post came high on the radar of my thoughts :).

Air Travel – Bangalore, Hyderabad, Dubai, Birmingham!

2007-04-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

In this age of low-cost airlines, every Tom, Dick and Harry seemed to have traveled in different airlines – long distance or short. At 24, I had not boarded the flight even once, out of my own volition for quite some time though. However, an opportunity came by and travel I did, on company’s expense in different flights and if you ask me my first impressions…ah..well, flights are not as interesting as traveling in trains.

Bangalore – Hyderabad

Well, this was Kingfisher Airlines in the evening. Known more for its style and panache, Kingfisher did not disappoint at all. The passenger sitting beside me was an Iraqi – huh, great start I thought. He was a consultant in Iraq, helping Iraqi students get education abroad – from counseling to ticketing. We had an interesting conversation at 30000 feet about different food habits in Iraq, post-Saddam Iraq and the way Indian economy was becoming stronger by the day. He was fluent in Arabic and German (that is what he claimed) but was not in English. So, we had a kind of Morse code going on about some words he could not utter. The air-hostesses were pretty and they were taking kisses on their cheeks from all the little babies around….ahhh..I wish…

I digress.

If Bangalore runway was pathetic, Hyderabad was even worse – felt like some speed breakers on the runway (interesting way to stop a plane though J). I would not be wrong if I claimed that the Bus station in Hyderabad is far cleaner and better than the airport. Most of the trolleys don’t work and pre-paid autorickshaws are a misnomer. End of the first-trip on an Aeroplane was exhilarating, watching the land, lakes and the clouds from 30000 feet. Conversation with an Iraqi made the trip even more memorable.

Hyderabad – Dubai

The best flight of the three – flew in Emirates. Very comfortable – seating, food and entertainment. All fell in place. The only complaint was that every announcement was made in English as well as Arabic – so had the funny pleasure of watching every advertisement and hearing every announcement twice. Watched Rocky Balboa and Bollywood Calling again after an hour of admiring the grandiloquence of Boeing and the takeoff it made. Enjoyed them thoroughly. The landing in Dubai airport was near perfect and to go along with it, there was a superb runway and an excellent airport. Had McDonalds and Coke for Lunch which cost me 15 Dirhams. Hopefully my company reimburses this too J

Dubai – Birmingham

Emirates again. Worst of the three. Bad food, Bad entertainment and a 7 hr flight. There were no choices in movies like the earlier Emirates flight. We had to watch what they played. They played ‘Don’ (SRK) which I watched and some arcane Priyanka Chopra movie which I didn’t – didn’t have the courage must admit. The view from the plane over Alps and other rivers was breathtaking. That was the only salvage point of this travel. At the end of 7 hours, was tired, hungry and frustrated. Immigration authorities were kind enough to let me through within 5 minutes. Picked my luggage and took a taxi to Nottingham. The taxi was extremely comfortable – was at my destination in an hour and a half. Charge – 90 pounds. (huh!)

Airplane travel…ahhh..well, it would be great if the travel doesn’t exceed 4 hrs at a stretch and there is good food. Otherwise, it is quite boring. Train or even bus travels are much better.

The Futility of Logic!

2007-04-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

How often have we heard the terms ‘How logical is that’, ‘Your logic is brilliant’, ‘Logically, it is true’. Yet, rewind the instances in your thought process and evaluate whether the logic convinced you or your sense of logic or thought process merged with the logic spoken by the other person.

In my experience, logic did not convince anybody at any point of time. As I read in a book the other day, only when the spoken word appeals to the other person’s self-interest, will or thought process, will logic be of any use. Logic primarily is to be used for rational beings, or inanimate objects, say with computers. Logic works perfectly in such a system because they are devoid of their own thought process and neither do they possess a sense of individuality and hence self-interest. Human beings are primarily emotional creatures. In an emotional atmosphere, there is no place for logic.

The religion/culture (or whatever you might want to call it) of almost every country doesn’t propagate selfless service. It propagates ‘you help people, there is heaven when you die’, ‘you get punyam’. The key word essentially is ‘you’. The futility of logic was perceived was by our ancestors thoroughly. They had to create an incentive, a self-interest motive to help the poor and the needy. ‘What is in it for me?’ primarily drives arguments and not logic. Innumerable examples to support the futility of logic. They are around us every day and every moment, from global to personal.

Logic states that pollution of air has to be reduced drastically to reduce global warming. Many countries signed the Kyoto Protocol. However, major pollution causing countries like the US have refused to sign Kyoto Protocol indicating that they do not believe these global warming reports. The most industrialized and a developed country speaking thus – logic, what is that?

Shilpa Shetty being kissed by Richard Gere in an AIDS campaign in India. As usual, a furore over this was telecast a million times in various 24x7 rubbish news channels. Shilpa Shetty enquires – ‘Why is the public raising such a furore? I do not see any logic in raising such petty issues to a national level’. The same lady was silent and probably approving with glee when the same public created a ‘star’ out of nowhere because of another worthless TV show ‘Big Brother’. Wasn’t logic working then?

Personal experiences are multiple. If my friend is faced with a particular situation, and I am offering a so-called ‘objective’ opinion, that is because of two reasons. The decision he might take will not affect me in any way and two, I get this exalted feeling of helping him out of a situation. All said and done however, my friend would act in a way that would maximize his self-interest and not any other way round. I have been on both sides of the fence multiple times and have observed that unless the logic serves our self-interest, the logic is bad/faulty/no use.

Rationalism, Objectivity are all things which can unanimously be applied to machines and computers, never to human beings. Next time someone says it is so logical, just take a step back and evaluate as to how it would benefit that particular person, because the way world is, ‘self-interest’ rules.

P.S – Books like ‘The Art of Negotiation’ and similar books have one baseline, serve (maximize) your self-interests, give and take very few. The blog is fundamentally against a core philosophy I strongly believe (tried it, with disastrous results :)), but then…‘Selfless’ uh…I hope to reach that state someday.

Indian Actors and ‘Apocalypto’

2007-04-17T02:50:00.001-07:00

One of the visually-brilliant and most violent movies – ‘Apocalypto’. I watched it last week. The film essentially tracks Mayans (or Aztecs depending on whom you would want to believe) being captured and sacrificed by Mayans/Aztecs living in a different region so that they could satisfy their god Kulkulan. In the end however, as all movies end, the lead character ensures that all the villainous characters are killed and the hero and heroine live happily thereafter.

The lead character in the movie is enacted by Rudy Youngwood. For a novice, he was brilliant. But last heard, that different Indian actors were auditioned for this role before Rudy. Mel Gibson (who directed the movie) flew down to India visiting various states to finalize on the lead character – he deduced, albeit empirically, that since the Indian Economy was booming, if he hired an Indian Actor, there would be a ready market.

He wanted a dynamic actor, with a booming voice and a great body. An immortal line from the movie, and I quote ‘I am Jaguar Paw and this is my land. My father had hunted this forest before me and my sons will hunt it after me’. This was the line given as an audition test.

He started off with Bollywood.

Sunny Deol – Oyi, itni si baat!! Mein to Gaddar mein aur bhi shor macha ya tha. Audience meri aawaaz sunn ke, bhehere ho gaye the. Oyi Gibsonnnnn, sunn…’mein Jaguar Paw hu aur ye dharti meri hai. Mere baap ne ispe raaj kiya tha, aur mein jaane ke baad, mere bacche bhi raaj karenge….jo bole so nihal, sasriyakaal!!’

Mithun da – ye Mel….kuch disc visc lagaate hai na, kuch dhinchaak vinchaak rahega to apni public bhi khush ho jaayegi. I did lot of B-grade movies you know, where you know, I have shouted a lot you know. With me in your movie you know, you have a lot of market in Bhojpur you know. Now listen, I am Jaguar Paw, otherwise known as Disco Dancer. Ye meri dharti hai, kyun ki ispe maine disco dance kiya hai….mere baap bhi kiya tha aur mere bete bhi karenge’. But Mel, be sure to provide me a good wig you know, and a 20-year old girl as heroine you know – that chemistry should be there you know.

Mel Gibson was disappointed to say the least. He moved South.

Firstly, telugu actor, Balakrishna, fondly Baliah baabu – Balakrishna doesn’t waste time delivering his dialogue with meaningless banter, Shreya was waiting for him for a dance sequence. He jumps directly to dialogue delivery ‘vorey vorey vorey, ee seema naadi. Nenu toda kottanu ante, ee seema loni jantuvulanni naa kaallla daggaara vochi padtaayi. Ee seema paina maa naayana raktam kuripinchaadu, nenu poyina tarvata, naa pillalu raktam kuripistaaru’ – saying this, he rushed out and Mel almost fainted.

He decided to call it quits with Indian actors. Just then he had an idea. How about having dynamic Indian cricketers. He enquired about dynamic Indian cricketers with disgruntled fans – they suggested:

The first fool, otherwise known by the name Kris Srikanth – Mel Gibson met him, did not understand whether he was speaking in Tamil, Hindi or English. Kris enquired whether Mandira would be playing the lead role. Mel denied and Kris said he was not interested in the role.

The bigger fool, Sidhu – Mel Gibson met him over three big glasses of Lassi, and decided to hire him as a dialogue writer for a movie Mel decided to direct once he turned insane.

Last heard of Mel, he was enquiring about Indian actresses for the lead female role eventually played out by Dalia Fernandez. Mallika was the universal choice suggested by many. Mel asked her if she had any inhibitions about wearing Mayan clothes (typical to clothes worn by pygmies). Mallika immediately replied that she would not waste time even on wearing Mayan clothes and would get on the job without them too. Wisely, Mel decided against her.

He went back to Latin America. Found Rudy Youngwood and Dalia Fernandez from Mexico and the rest as they say is ‘history’

P.S – If you want to watch blood, forest landscapes and learn a bit about wrong history, do watch the movie. Just kidding. It is brilliantly done, although I would have loved our Indian actors in it. Then, I would have recommended it as a must-watch :)

In Memory of Saugat Jit!!

2007-04-16T03:48:00.001-07:00

I never ever thought that I would get to write an obituary of one of my closest friends on my blog. Saugat Jit was a person, aged 25, one of the brightest colleagues I have worked with - he met with an accident today morning and passed away in the hospital.
I guess the first job, first company and the first team you have worked with would always be dear to your heart. Saugat was one of the first team members I was introduced to in the Bank. We hit on like we had known each other for a very long time. He was bubbling with enthusiasm almost all the time - either at work, play or at home - making him one of the employees everyone loved to work with-colleagues, bosses or the customers. We have had innumerable rides on his bike and I for one still believe that he was one of the safest riders I had ever pillioned on. He was very conscious of his image, what with his big, strong biceps to go along with his short and stocky physical stature. He had an extremely short temper, but he would greatly surprise you with his calmness and smile the very next moment.
The bosses at the Bank had immense faith in him, as he had executed almost every task given to him to perfection. He was a dedicated and an intelligent employee, every organisation would have loved to possess.
Will miss you buddy, memories of all the breakfast and lunch sessions we had had everyday together for over 20 months just flooded in front of my eyes when the news came to me. It was plain unbelievable.
May your soul rest in peace!

Friday the 13th!!

2007-04-13T03:11:00.000-07:00

The conversation went on and on. On Friday the 13th, X and his friend were discussing about friends, relatives and life in general over the past two hours. X was getting restless with each minute. It was already 4’o clock and only an hour remained before he could meet her. In the meantime, he had to rush back home, take a shower and rush to Coffee Day which was 30 min from his place. He had tried helplessly to close the conversation for over 15 min now, and yet there was no finish in sight. X reached his limit – he looked at his watch and said “Buddy, gotta rush back home, have some important work before I fly back tonight”. His friend became speechless, more so because he could not offer any counter argument to continue the conversation. X rushed as fast as he could from that place. He decided between boarding a bus or an autorickshaw and decided on the latter considering the circumstances. He rushed back home, evaluating his options of reaching Coffee Day on time versus the excuses he could offer, if he was 10 min late. He was lost in all the mushy thoughts of meeting and talking to her. He never left the city before meeting her, atleast for an hour or so and inspite of an extremely short trip, he had squeezed this schedule, and there was no way he would be late to the date.

He finished his shower and put on his favorite shirt. Just then, the phone rang. It was her. X thinking within himself ‘No way, she would be early to a date. Am I dreaming? She never came on time and now this…WOW’. The smile turned into a smirk, it was the usual excuse. She would late by half an hour. Her manager had held her up with some ‘important’ work. I sometimes wonder why she doesn’t just show the finger to me. Every time and all the time, being late had become the order of the day. He slowed down all his activities and more importantly his heartbeat.

On the other hand, she was as restless as he was. She was all enthusiastic to meet him from the day he promised he would meet her. She wore a dress which he always loved and admired, along with her favorite perfume. She had completed all her work by afternoon itself so that there wouldn’t be any inordinate delay. She consciously avoided eye contact with her manager all day for obvious reasons. Then, the inevitable happened. A report had to be submitted to the management by end of day and she HAD to do it. She cursed her manager profoundly, she cursed herself and she cursed her company. She didn’t want to be late this time around atleast. She had planned everything and now this. This was bad but she had no choice. His voice at the other end made her fell all the more sad and downtrodden.

She boarded the bus half an hour post the scheduled time comforting herself in the feeling that it was only half an hour’s delay and not an hour. In her innumerable travels back home from her office, it usually took only one hour with the driver honking continuously and screaming his bus over multiple potholes and Coffee Day was only half an hour from her office. She felt smug at the feeling of meeting him after a long time. But as the bus proceeded towards her destination, clock seemed to tick by very fast. The driver was in an unusually good mood, driving the bus with leisure and pleasure. Half an hour ticked by and they were not even half way through to her destination. She sent three messages to him in space of 15 minutes. ‘dear, boarded the bus now, should be there in half an hour’. ‘dear, caught up in traffic and the bloody driver is drunk – he seems to be happy today, will be delayed by 15 minutes’. ‘sweetheart, am so sorry, am reaalllyyy very sorry, 15 minutes or nothing, I am gonna kill this driver ba***** today’ and hoped that he would not be really upset.

He was waiting near Coffee day for 15 minutes before the first message came by. He didn’t know what he could do for 30 minutes. There was no Crossword around where he could browse through some books. His phone was on roaming for him to chat with another friend, neither was any shopping mall in sight. So he did the obvious, stared into infinity and occasionally looked at pretty girls with spaghettis and minis walking past. He enjoyed the delay. However, with every 15 minutes, he was getting increasingly frustrated. He wished he had met her at her office itself.

Her bus finally arrived at the traffic signal immediately preceding her destination. She just wished she could just jump out of the bus and run to meet him. She decided wisely against it and in the meantime, the signal turned green. She got down quickly as soon the bus came to a halt. There she was, looking at him from a distance wearing a white shirt with blue jeans. She was overwhelmed. He looked at her getting down from the bus. She was wearing his favorite dress – a cream t-shirt and a black skirt. He was overjoyed to say the least. As she came closer, he wanted to hug her and give her a peck. He decided against it as she usually did not like public display of affection. He restrained his emotions, but his delight could be seen in his eyes. Her perfume smelt quite a way from her and he was in a different world altogether. She rushed straight to him, hugged him and gave him a peck. X was dumbstruck with happiness and glee. She took his hand and rushed into Coffee Day, uttering many expletives on the driver, traffic and life in general. He was just too happy to hear what she was saying. X felt the delay and the effort worth it. Now, he thought, they would talk for an hour, an hour of bliss and happiness. She rambled off to glory, with all the delight in the world. For an hour, she would not think of anything or anyone else except him – and so she thought.

She was woken up by her mother. It was already 9’o clock in the morning and she would be late to office. It was Friday the 13th.

Motorola L6i and Canon A530

2007-04-03T04:49:00.000-07:00

Two buys this weekend - one was forced and the other planned. As my previous blog indicates, I finally bought a mobile phone (which was forced) and a digicam (which was planned). Both of them were bought after a lot of research and peer review. After couple of days of intense use, here I present a review on both.

Motorola L6i - Well, any mobile is defined by the requirements of the user along with the budget he has. My major requirement was phone along with a basic level of camera. FM and MP3 were not a priority as I already had a mp3 player. With my limited budget (of Rs. 5k), I went about searching for different models, reviews on Net and reviews from friends.

Now for my review. This model has excellent speaker quality along with an user interface which is comparable to higher end models of Motorola. The VGA camera is quite good with a functionality of exposure on the pic (-4 to +4), although the pics are not comparable to the ones in megapixel. However, this one is much better than VGA cameras of its competitors. With Bluetooth functionality added in, this one is helluva value-for-money. I hope it stands up on reliability for a long time. I guess there is only one hiccup however - the battery needs to be charged almost every day, which can be quite a pain. Other than that, with the sleekness, the looks and the functionalities, I would recommend this to anyone anyday, as long as they are a bit tolerant towards the battery life.

Canon A530 - This one involved a lot of research for over two months. Peer review almost universally recommended Canon over Sony (Sony, it seems are much better at handycams). Within Canon, I was looking for a bit of flexibility in terms of my snaps as well as good picture quality. Budget was not much of a constraint here, although I was very clear that I would not be going for a SLR.

A530 fit in almost all my requirements. After using it for more than 2 days now, should admit am completely satisfied with the product. With a 5 megapixel and 4X optical zoom along with the price tag of Rs 11k, it is brilliant. Some of the features which I love -

1) Stitch functionality - A landscape can be broken into different snaps and can be stitched later in the laptop. Although I used this functionality before in other cameras, the difference and disturbance used to be visible. Take a look at this stitched photograph of Infy campus from the terrace of my house - the difference is negligible (zero in fact). I should experiment on the number of snaps that can be stitched yet, but the first stitched photograph involving three pics is great.

Before Stitching -

After Stitching -

2) Manual Option - My best option in the camera. Although other cameras claim to have a manual option, 70% of it is already programmed. However, in this camera, almost every setting can be tweaked to suit the requirement. Right from Shutter speed, aperture, brightness, ISO, image quality and many others - the feature is outstanding; and the best part being after clicking a photograph it switches back to the initial setting, making every pic customizable.

3) Optical viewfinder - I am not sure, but then I saw a majority number of cameras without the viewfinder. I used to use this quite frequently in other cameras (my friend's :)) and am fairly comfortable. If anyone is low on batteries, this one is the best solution to save on batteries as well as have some snaps. Wonder what those digicam guys are thinking about removing this viewfinder from their digicams?

4) SCN option - This one is found in other cameras as well, but the range is excellent. From Colour Accent to Pets to Snow, it covers all. I guess more usage would let me fine tune it.

The major feature I did not like is the delay between one pic and another. 1 second - and this is the timeframe between a bird sitting on a porch and about to fly away - that crucial one second. Flash photography was never the claim, but a second is too long. Kodak has one digicam (I dont remember the brand though) where the delay was absolutely nil (though costed around 15k). Hopefully Canon would fix this in the future. All in all, a camera, 1GB card and soft case for 11k seems reasonable for a camera with multitude of features and great picture quality (unless prints are big, I dont think it wud make a difference between a 3.5 megapixel and a 7 megapixel camera).

More pics to come in the blog...and as usual only the best would be put up. Experimental pics would be the first one to be put up although my interest lies with landscapes. Smile please!! :)

A week without a mobile phone!!

2007-04-02T12:13:00.000-07:00

It is surprising how one gets attached to mundane things like a mobile phone. A device which I had bought couple of years earlier (a Sony Ericsson T230), a device which just had to serve the purpose of communication wherever I am, an instrument which neither had a camera nor a bluetooth but basic functionalities of a mobile phone - it was my constant companion over these two years day and night, serving me in innumerable ways. I had become so attached to it, that once I lost it a week ago, stupor hit me. I went numb for a little while thinking about all the phone contacts with my mobile. Cost was not much of a factor, because the depreciation of the phone was close to zero. The phone contacts were priceless.
On my way back home the same day, the first instinct was to buy a mobile phone immediately - a typical knee-jerk reaction. However, I pondered and decided that I would do without the mobile for a week. Reasons were multiple - the main being I loved the challenge of staying away from something I was so deeply attached with. This challenge was enticing and exciting (partly becoz nowadays there is no challenge(work) at office). I decided to go ahead with my plan. Challenging myself like this on numerous occassions has helped me immensely - both mentally and psychologically. Probably the challenge in resisting something you are attached with remains probably for a day or two. Subsequently, it magically disappears.
Some of my friends were very frustrated of not able to contact me - some of them on mail quoted - 'What is wrong with you, why the **** are you not buyin a mobile phone?', 'abbey *******, jaldi khareed na!' and others which I cannot quote at all. Yet, in the midst of all these chaos, I felt immense calm. I did not have to worry about missed calls and messages while in a meeting, nor worry about messages about the stock market, which would have sent me in a headspin. Calm and Peace - two words you could have associated with me over the past week.
A week passed by. In the meantime, I had to scurry through reviews and websites regarding the mobile phone. I finally decided on one and bought it day before yesterday. A review of my mobile phone and digicam I bought the same day in the next blog. The process has started of putting in place my phone contacts. Hopefully should not take long.

Pic of my mobile - here goes

Lift Conversations?!

2007-03-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

Well, the title in itself is an oxymoron. Invariably, there are no talks or conversations while in the Lift. Innumerable number of trips in the Lift have left me with a conclusion that there invariably is some treasure hidden somewhere in the Lift which people are looking for.
I was 10 years old when I first got into a lift which was in one of the offices my uncle once took me to. Lifts back then fascinated me. The whole idea that I need not exert any effort to move up 5 floors coupled with the curiosity for lifts back then was extremely wonderful. Lifts were not as common back then as they are nowadays and the rarity made it a thing to boast about with your friends.
Time passed and I encountered physics. With physics, the inevitable happened. Newton's laws and Acceralation due to gravity was awed. The effects of these on Lifts was even more fascinating - interesting problems emerged, and with almost every problem on lifts I used to imagine myself in the lift trying to solve that problem - did my weight increase or decrease,
is the lift moving with constant acceralation or constant velocity and the associated solutions. It was great fun solving them as well as served as an enthu factor for getting into lifts again and again.
As time progressed, lifts became more common (and with it, my vocabulary of calling it an Elevator :)). I then began to notice strange things happening. People in the lift almost never talked to each other unless they were closest of close friends. Whether it was claustrophobia or something else, I do not have an idea. People absolutely normal outside the elevator behaved strangely in the lift - staring at walls, looking at the celing, observing their shoes and rarely observing people around in the lift. A strange sense of silence prevails before the hustle-bustle of the floor begins again. I seriously couldn't (and still don't) understand as to what people look at. Are they trying to find some hidden treasure on the ceiling or between the walls? Are they trying to observe the formations of dust on their shoe and deduce 'The Dust Theory'? Are they looking at their watches continously and trying to calculate whether time slows down due to relative motion of the lift against the speed of light? I mean What???
And then there are categories in Elevators. Fast and Slow elevators - the slower the lift, the more tortous it is. Slower lifts are a bane on organisations (my previous organisation had one :)) and their people. People get frustrated waiting for these lifts at each of the floors only to be tortured much more in the 'Field of Silence' inside. As luck would have it, I was in the lift with the CIO of that particular organisation one day. Strange situation - I didnt know whether to smile, to talk, murmur - so what did I do? I stared at my watch for an awful loonnng time, spoke a hello, how are you? and looked hard at the ceiling for a virtual crack in it. He got off the next floor and I heaved a huge sigh of relief!! So much, for the slowness of the lift.
And then there are elevators with capacity of 8 persons or 16 persons - invariably during lunch time, you would find more people in the lift than on any given floor :) And god save you, if there is a power cut and no backup available for the lift. Or even worse, the lift gets jammed (experienced it twice). Given the modern world of steel covering and alloy covering, voices inside the lift do not reach outside - all that would be left would be prayers to God, if he can get a peep into a stuffed lift that is!!
Having said all the above, with skyscrapers shooting up in almost all parts of every city, lifts are a necessity rather than a luxury. Lifts have undergone a massive makeover - from typical iron-grills to metal doors and fancy gadgets. However, in my 14 years of experience in these lifts, people have never changed. They never talked inside lifts always looking for the seemingly invisible particles that would make their day. I hope one day, they do find it and prove that they were not wasting time inside these lifts in the 'Field of Silence'.

Cherished Conversations!!

2007-03-12T22:37:00.000-07:00

This post has been pending since long. The initial draft was around 2 months ago...but then in the melee of situations, it has been delayed. Apologies.
There are moments in life when you pause and reflect, reflect on situations you want to live through again, given a chance. As mentioned in my previous posts, situations typically are filled with conversations - verbal and non-verbal. Although every conversation is important, there are some conversations which are very dear to your heart. It took me long walks in silence
and a lot of introspection to come up with five conversations which I would want to live through again, relive them irrespective of the situation. Quantifaction is a necessary evil because of some constraints (like space, time, my patience and well..your patience :))...so here we go, a post to cherish for myself (not necessarily in any order) -
1) Conversation with K at Andheri Railway station at around 9 in the night - We were chatting off to glory about family, career, friends etc etc in the midst of peak Mumbai traffic, unmindful of the frenzied atmosphere around. It was a talk interspersed with lot of noise around which included the innumerable local trains, vendors and the public. I guess we ended up talking for a couple of hours because by the time we came out for dinner - all restaurants were closing down for the day. We slept eating little dinner but having had the satisfaction of talking your heart out.
2) Conversation with D at Malgudi - Lunch - Now, this is some fun discussing it. We just didnt have any idea of the time or the people around. We went to Malgudi because I insisted on having a good Andhra meal and decent ambience. We went there in a very sober manner and the moment we started having a conversation over lunch, we started laughing - for just about everything and anything. The waiter gave us a surprised (or was it astonished??) look but we cared less. If people had objectively judged us, we were insane - it was just one laughing riot. It was a typical case where you talked everything and anything, content being immaterial but your stomach aches because you laughed your lungs out. We happened to meet many times after that
again, but never again was it so much fun, frolic and laughter.
3) Conversation with R, P and C at R's place - This happened way back in Engineering (way back..am I that old now??..yeah..it was kindaa 6 years back) when we were to do our first technical paper submission. 'I and R' and 'C and P' were to do a paper. We met at R's place and till 12 in the night, everything was going as per schedule - we were working very seriously on the paper. Then came the tragic mistake - C acccidentally fell asleep (This was inspite of paper presentation the next day). Very normal, we were very tired working throughout the day and it was but natural to fall asleep (I can't stop my laughter as I write this right now!!). But then P had different ideas - he took a pillow and a blanket, woke up C and asked him to sleep COMFORTABLY. Now this was it - I and R burst out into laughter and probably kept laughing throughout the night (we incidentally did not sleep through the night due to the presenation) because C got up (recovering from the sarcastic shock he got :D), went into the verandah and practised entire night - I and R laughed our lungs out - and whenever we happen to meet
(either of us), that incident pops out and again we burst into fits of laughter.
4) Conversations with C at lakeside - Now these are conversations where you meet the other person and even if silence prevails for the entire time, you can just walk away and feel that you have had the best conversation. Not sure whether it was the ambience of the lakeside (waterbodies usually tickle my philosophical bent :-)) or the person - conversations ranged
from the usual banter to very serious topics - but everytime you have a conversation, you feel better. Guess I would call this a cherished time than a cherished conversation as we had innumerable number of conversations, each one better than the previous one. The content of conversations ranged from daily mundane affairs to serious decision making and the fact that the pattern of thought was similar made these conversations all the more worthwhile.
5) Conversation with T, J and D at Pilani - Another laugh riot, this time at a place completely foreign to us. T was in 'form' and J was adding fuel to the fire. We had a silent dinner (and very little) and initially thought to spend some time together before we crash to sleep. What started as a banter of imitations of professors in our college led to humor par excellence. Each one of us were bursting with tears at the end of it, which was at 4 in the morning :)

As can be deduced, essentially almost all of these conversations are less about content and more about the relation, the sync (frequency match - language of P :)) and things you can relate - which makes each relation stronger and better. As someone said, people may go to different places, time may take them away from you but what remains are converstaions and memories that would remain for the rest of your lifetime - to bring a smile to your face whenever you are down, to make you laugh better when you are happy and make the journey of life as memorable as it can be!

Personality Conflict!!

2007-02-19T21:50:00.000-08:00

Till Xth class, I guess noone would have had any dilemma as to his/her personality. As we age, we tend to have more and more choices about the subjects we choose, about the friends we have, about partners and various other important aspects of life. I specifically mention Xth class because till then we (or should I say 'I') did not have any choice about the subjects we chose - forget about other aspects like friends and partners.

Then came the period between Xth and graduation - mathematics or biology. I for one, did not have any doubt, for two reasons - one, I was terrible at drawing and sketching (which I came to know through my friends who took biology) and two, I liked mathematics - although must admit the love for the latter, especially the so-called glory of being called 'An Engineer' swept me away. Limited choices - two of them - was not that difficult to make this choice.

Then came Engineering - college, branch, friends, hangout places, games - multiple choices (now I understand the reason for Entrance exams having multiple choice questions - and choosing the best answer). Over four years, one common thread I observed was that for a given problem, there was only one given answer - analytically and mathematically. This was wonderful, only one answer to any given problem - a methodology which got ingrained, whether you completed Engineering by rote or by experiencing it.

Then came Management. Multiple scenarios, multiple solutions, multiple companies and multiple packages. Initial days of my management classes were a little too difficult for me to digest. Some claimed that Engineering was the ideal background for a MBA - How? I asked. I received no answer. I personally feel they are on either side of the horizon - one speaks of perfection (one answer to a given problem) and the other speaks of time (a good answer now is better than the best answer at a later time). Finance and Accounting they say, is akin to Engineering. To speak in MBA gyaan, to arrive at an optimal value, a company can use different accounting systems and financial policies. 'Optimal' is the key word - there is no perfection in Management - Management is about people, and are people perfect - they are only striving towards perfection (Am I?)

There you go - here I am with two degrees on opposite sides of the horizon, trying to derive the best value ('best' from Engineering and 'value' from MBA :-)) - Isn't there a personality conflict everyday in every situation??

P.S: At the start of the blog, I wanted to deal with the friends and partners angle too - that angle is waaayyyyyyyy tooo complex - they bring in so many impressions and thoughts with them - there might be no personality left, forget about the conflict :-). Last but not the least, had a taste of Banking - providing the 'best' to the customer and now Consulting - providing 'optimal' solution to your clients :D

Selfishness - A Matter of Perspective!!

2007-01-30T03:30:00.000-08:00

Selfishness - one virtue that is inherent in all humanbeings. When I mean all, it includes greats like Gandhi, Mother Teresa etc. Every man (or woman) is selfish in his/her own way. However, how selfish and the reasons behind selfishness is what differentiates probably the bad, good and the great.
A question might arise that categorization of selfishness (into good, bad and the great) is absolute nonsense. Selfishness is something very emotional, it is not a market survey to be categorised - some might argue. However, my plain argument to that is if the highest forms of knowledge (encompassing description about the Supreme Power to the most emotional of thoughts), the Vedas - can be categorized into different volumes, based on the subject, depth and understanding, so can emotional matters like selfishness.
Keeping categorization aside for a moment, the question arises as to why people tend to be selfish. When I asked this question in various forms to friends of mine - I got one universal answer - though not necessarily in the same form - I want to be happy and hence I tend to be selfish. If selfishness is what it is usually portrayed to be, which is evil, then is being Happy a crime? As is the case with black or white - there is no little selfishness and extreme selfishness (and don't get me started on the gray area - a topic of total jibberish) - a person is selfish or he is not - and we see the case across, everyone is/was selfish at some point or another.
Interesting arguments arise out of daily life. I have faced the ire of my close friends in instances where I have been selfish - however, when I point out their selfishness at a different point of time and question them, I get seemingly baseless or escapist answers. This is common across organisations, family, friends and at every instance of daily life. What seems right to you, which can make you happy seems wrong to the other person and vice-versa - as I mentioned earlier, it is a matter of perspective again.
Great people like Mother Teresa and the Mahatma were selfish in their own way - very selfish - they wanted freedom for their country and liberation for their people respectively. I have used 'their' very deliberately - a word which distinguishes the bad/good from the great. The Greats use 'their' and 'our' as selfish motives while people like me use 'I' to keep myself happy. The worrying factor at present and probably in the future is the hedonistic feeling that is creeping in everyone's thought process - I live my life, I want to be happy, why should anyone care or be bothered - which actually affects others in a miserable manner. How we deal and differentiate between hedonism and what we term to be 'happy' is a question only the individual can answer, least of all others' perspectives.

The City of Mumbai - A year gone by dedicated to the 'City of Dreams'

2007-01-15T02:48:00.000-08:00

I never ever thought 20 months was enough time to fall in love with a city. A city of dreams for many and a city of bread for many others. Every aspect of Mumbai, be it the cultural diversity or the magnanimous nature, the ever crowded trains or the never ending traffic, innumerable number of nature spots to hang out or the myriad pubs to suit the western culture, the never-say-die spirit or the city that never sleeps - these and many more make up for the wonderful city it is.
I had my initial apprehensions of Mumbai - a city where the underworld dwells, a city of open murders and thefts, a city where getting in and out of the local trains is akin to clearing a competitive exam and last but not the least, a city where every house is congested and fighting for space. For reasons unknown, I wanted to live in this city, atleast for some time. Although I had an oppurtunity to take up almost any job profile across South, I chose to move to Mumbai - where I had one relative and very few friends. What drew me here is still a mystery to me - probably the charm of living in Mumbai or the mystery associated with the never-say-die spirit - a decision I would cherish throughout my life.
Two things lead a person to cherish a place - One, you gained a lot in terms of exposure from that place and two, simply because you enjoyed thoroughly out there. I am sure there might be much bigger cities and with better amenities than Mumbai has, but to imbibe the culture of hardwork, street-smartness and helpful nature takes ages to seep in a society. In terms of exposure for a typical south-indian like me, it was just tremendous - in terms of financial smartness or the way you deal with different people, my bosses at my previous organisation, friends etc etc, I can go on and on. The peace you experience when you sit in Worli facing the sea face or the fun me and my colleagues had at Aksa beach, the failed attempts to enter a discotheque as a stag or on a Monday :) or the heavy bargaining for good books at Churchgate - I just transport myself mentally there when I think of such things.
The place where I stayed - my roommates - encountered different characters over this short period of my stay there - an extremely short-tempered guy (had great fun tickling his temper :)), an absolutely fun-lovin guy who sleeps only in the day and forgets that it was night that he was supposed to do that activity, a guy whose passion was singing and one more who used to chatter endlessly about everything and anything. There was one television and I dont remember even for once that we fought for the remote control (points to two things, one - noone was interested, two - our interests matched). There was a sense of immense trust in the financial calculations that one person's job was and there was immense miserliness on the other hand by the same set of people. All in all, a great set of people, all extremely knowledgeable - had sooper fun with them!!
It's been 25 days since I left the place and moved on to a different city - and how I wish this city was as good if not better than Mumbai. I havent seen much of this city, probably it is much better - but then Mumbai would remain as it always was 'A dream destination'.

The three 'ists' that define People!

2006-10-07T00:49:00.000-07:00

After trudging through a couple of topics, not knowing where to end or how to end, eventually leaving them incomplete and unpublished, here I am writing about a topic inspired by a friend who set me thinking on this one.

In this cluttered world of extreme market segmentation, where every new attribute is broken up into different classes, taking a macro-view on people helps. The dictionary defines 'ist' as a person who follows a distinctive doctrine, theory, system or practice. I essentially feel that there are three kinds - Optimists, Pessimists and Realists.

Ask anyone in this world or for that matter yourself whether he/she is a pessimist? The answer, most if not all the time would be an overwhelming NO. They would rather classify themselves as 'realists', someone who know the ways of the world. We have different words for the same set of people - a slightly more optimistic term would be 'Pragmatists' while a pessimistic term would be a 'Cyncist'. How about each one of us? Different types of reactions for three different words - Optimist or a Realist, you feel good and termed as Pessimist or Cyncist, you rise to defend yourself staunchly.

Why do people react negatively when others associate them with slightly negative terms (does the term 'pessimist' or 'cynicist' connote a negative meaning is a totally different argument)? Hope is a very siginificant part of anyone's personality. Hope denotes Optimistic view of the future. Optimism correlates very strongly with self-esteem and psychological well-being and hence by corollary, we expect all people in the world to be Optimists. However, the number of studies that have been done on Pessimism are far more in number than those done on Optimism. Does that serve as any indicator to how most people think?

How about being called a 'Realistic' personality? A feel good factor probably - knowing the perfect balance between what is optimism and pessimism! But probably that is the way we should function. In psychological terms, Optimism and Pessimism are not opposites. Having more of one thing does not mean you have less of another. The factors that reduce one do not necessarily increase another. The dilemma/conundrum as is the case with every human tendency is the balance of the two, to achieve harmony in a personality - a task which might be difficult, if not impossible.

Prejudice!?!?

2006-07-22T13:50:00.000-07:00

Waves of optimism and pessimism might make a man disbelieve in time-tested principles but no matter what happens, he would never waver from his prejudiced thought process - Benjamin Graham

Prejudice - The word itself leads me to two different conclusions: One that this is the right way of looking and interpreting things and two, it is a wrong way of looking at things. Various words have originated out of this one base word of Prejudice - Feminism, Sexism, Racism, Religious intolerance etc. How do we actually define prejudice? Is it some judgement we come to by means of an experience in the past? Then, why would we call Experience as our Best teacher! Is prejudice something learnt in childhood or do we get prejudiced every day? Is manipulation by gross commercialists and politicians by way of slogans and advertisements contributing to our way of looking at things?

What does the dictionary have to say about the word 'prejudice'? Prejudice is defined as: An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts. Simply stated, it is a preconceived judgement, in a negative fashion. Going by the definition, is it right for me to say that various religious views thrust upon me since chldhood which have held the test of time prejudiced me the way I look at the world? This particular word, usually used to accuse someone else - saying, so and so was prejudiced against me. By uttering that mere statement, aren't you prejudicing your conclusion?

Lots of questions!! Further food for thought - People are prejudiced because they lack sufficient experience, is a common argument we hear. However my question is, how much experience do you need to satisfactorily say that his point of view is not prejudiced? If no amount of experience entitles a person to a point of view, then the word 'objectivity' loses its meaning and charm. Fallacious extensions of one's own experiences will lead to a horribly colored view of the scenario. We had had innumerable number of such examples - Anti-Semitism, Nazism, Racism to name a few, which have led to destruction of human life.

Taking the discussion a bit further, I take pride in the fact that the decisions I make or the suggestions I give to others are entirely objective - based on proper analytical facts, weighing pros and cons. But isn't the analysis itself flawed if the basis of my assumptions is itself prejudiced? Analytical that I am, I wanted to have an answer to this complex conundrum. The answer being - There is a continuum between decisions based on prejudice and decisions based on experience. Most of our decisions fall under this continuum - atleast that is what I think (prejudiced again?? ;))

Relationships - Conversations = NULL

2006-06-20T04:37:00.000-07:00

There are two types of conversations - Memorable ones and the others. Memorable ones needn't necessarily be the ones in which you laughed your lungs out, they might also be the ones in which you cried, the ones in which you felt 'one' with the other person - essentially the ones which weren't bound by space nor time.

How often do we come across conversations like these? A brief conversation with a stranger, a conversation between long lost friends, conversations which gave you a new dimension about your thought process, silent conversations, violent conversations and so on and so forth - each one of them highly significant, each one a brick to build something. There are other conversations which counted little in terms of spoken matter, but counted a lot in terms of the value it built into a relationship. For that matter, how do wonderful relationships develop? Don't they develop by conversing from sweet nothings to profound thoughts all in the same breath? Doesn't a relationship base its foundations on some of the memorable conversations - on the phone, in a bus, during a walk, on the beach, on the Net or during lunch/dinner. Conversations interspersed between lots of talk and long moments of silence - silence which conveys infinitely more messages than lots of talk.

Some of my best conversations have happened at places least expected - On the ground (in my Engg days-some crisis as we would call it), in the middle of heavy traffic, at 3 in the morning while working on a paper, in an auto (where nothing was said and everything was communicated), on the beach (invariably philosophical), during the early hours of some event. There are infinitely many more - at various instances, at various places and various times. Each conversation - postive and negative - has been a brick into making the foundation stronger and its memories extremely fond.

Memories...

2006-03-16T06:14:00.000-08:00

How often do you come across something accidentally, a book or a piece of paper you had totally forgotten about, a long lost friend whom you can recognise by face but can't recollect his/her name, a childhood photograph which you never really cared to have a serious look then or the little dress you had worn when you were born - and makes you totally happy no matter which situation/mood you are in!!

Two days back, something very similar happened to me. I was in the most irritable mood possible, a situation wherein I had no patience to deal with anything or anyone. I was just plain fussy, for reasons unknown. In such a desperate situation, I was looking for something in my suitcase and as usual, when you are looking for something desperately, it usually eludes you. However, accidentally, I did stumble across the scrap book of my MBA(nothing very flashy, a very small and a plain spiral pad) - filled in prominently by many of my seniors I admire and respect. The 'Lines for Me' section is the best of them all. One from my wing leader(he has been inspirational in everyway) said - 'Know Goal, Reach Goal'. A simple, four-worded statement, but then it hit me like a bullet considering the situation I was in. Another one said, 'Good, Better, Best - Never let it rest. Till the Good becomes Better and Better the Best'. A lovely line, striving for perfection all the time. Another one said ' Live and Let Live' - I should say, pretty good view of life ;). 'Be HONEST with...yourself atleast', 'Be the way you are, that will take you places' - some of them written in jest, some of them written with a heavy heart but all of them having a profound influence. I would be extremely delighted to get back to those days - but then as one of my senior wrote 'We meet to create memories, we part to cherish them'. A true ending to what was one of my best phases in my life - and back to the present, the irritable situation just vanished(as mysteriously as it had come about) by just reliving those memories!!

Play to Play OR Play to Win??

2006-02-19T20:36:00.000-08:00

Interesting proposition! I was conversing with one of my friends yesterday and the conversation veered towards whether we have to Play to Play or Play to Win! This topic set me thinking for quite some time for the simple reason that it is contradictory and yet convincing.

To begin with, in any game, everyone is not a pro - each one of us has a learning phase and then you mature at how the game is played. To bring in the argument at this juncture, Playing to play the game - I believe, we will never learn. Only when you have the desire to win the game, however small the desire, only then something can be learnt. I did hear some of them say, 'I just play for playing sake'. Well, I don't believe it. If you are in the game, you are always trying to win it - that is when the adrenaline can flow, that is when you get the kind of excitement in learning the game. Playing to play will evoke no interest to participate in the game. I can say with my own personal experience, when I play to play - the result is often disastrous, losing is just the start - your opponent would lose any further interest to play with you.

Looking at the larger issue of life(as a game itself), I believe you need to play to win everyday. You win some, you lose some - but at the end of the day, you learn. Learning is the key to any aspect of life. When you play just to play everyday, you drift along in life, eventually getting monotonous. Life is a challenge, tackle it - the only way to do it is to be prepared all the time, to develop the instinct to win all the time. Life is a dream, realise it - dreams into reality will require courage and a willingness to challenge, action on it and win it.

However, there is one subtle issue to be looked at here. Not getting too philosophical, disappointment is bound to follow if after putting all the efforts you dont get to win. It is, but natural. But it depends on your character as to whether you allow the disappointment to get better of you or you take that disappointment as a stepping stone to a new level of learning and experience. Once again, when you play to play - there is bound to be little disappointment, and a lost chance of inculcating a new experience, a learning chance gone a begging.

Time and with it Confusion!!

2006-02-02T05:56:00.000-08:00

People just don't seem to have the time for anything nowadays. They don't have time to spend with their family, friends, with their books, sleep nor work. One such case is an excuse of not finding enough time to BLOG. Wonder how? or rather why? Am amused that I don't even have time to answer that question.

The question remains - what do I do with my time? I have no idea. Maybe fulfill some of my needs - talking to people, trying to work and thereby earn some money and worse still, idle around. It's been kind of funny over the past month - tried to do many things in too short a time and ended up doing none. Or maybe I did, but not to my satisfaction!! Wonder why this question pops up time and again - Is time too short or is your need too insatiable??

I can already hear people reading this piece talk about managing your time well, how effectively would a planner work, books on managing time etc. Effectively what remains is whether you are spending your time in the way YOU want to or are you trying to fit in what people want YOU to do in the 24 hrs possible? Difficult question to answer - Needs and wants have to be satisfied through all the things people want YOU to do and We generally get under the false notion(or is it hope) that what they want US to do is what we actually want to do! Confusing - yeah, same here :-)

There are moments where time just seems to fly by and you have enjoyed every moment of it. I want those moments to repeat - maybe many times over, just because of the fact that I did what I wanted to do. There are other times where time drags on forever - reason, people want me to do it and I have no choice about it. People talk about doing what their heart tells them to do, and listen to noone - they say. 'You got to spend your time the way you want to all the time' is a common comment. Nice to hear, I say - but how many of us have the choice? Everyone has their own constraints, own beliefs and own ways of dealing with the world. Even to do what we want to do, we need to know what we want to do! How many of us really know what we actually want to do or what we are really capable of? I am not, I have certainly thought about it but could not arrive at any concrete answer. I am certainly not living the way I want to all the time - for the simple reason that my time moves like a sinusoidal wave, sometimes fleeting and sometimes dragging like a snail. I am confused (and am sure you are too :-) ). Any Answers??

People and their Opinions!?

2006-01-04T04:57:00.000-08:00

I often wonder why am I not able to seperate people from their opinions? One of the more challenging tasks I face in discussions, meetings or interactions is to look at someone's opinion objectively. More often than not, we make a sweeping assumption that people are defined(and are represented) by their opinions and not otherwise. How do we keep the discussion restricted to issues on hand rather than dragging the personalities involved is a difficult task, deftly handled by a few.

The best debates(and often the most passionate ones) happen when two people can argue on one issue in diametrically opposite directions without any risk that personal equations might get affected. Let me take this issue in a more broader sense. In a team of four, if all the four tend to think alike, then that group is wasted. If people start thinking in different directions, that is when creative ideas sprout. Creative solutions to problems are often not without conflict with other's ideas but the ability to cope up with this conflict and build upon it.

We are all trying to arrive at creative solutions. But then why do we find getting to such a situation so difficult? The answer lies in the fact that we personalize an opinion rather than evaluating the merit of the opinion. We often tend to look at who is making an opinion rather than the opinion itself, and therein we miss the wood from the trees.

To achieve balance is very difficult - something I have to grapple with all the time. However I have come across people like S, H, P, C, O...with whom I can have exactly the type of conversation mentioned above and needless to say, these have been my most memorable discussions so far.

I will strive to the level where I can perfectly insulate the opinion or argument from the person...a typical case of shoot the message and not the messenger!! If this requires practice and reflection, so be it...will find time for it!!

Unpredictability and Epsilon

2005-12-24T02:43:00.000-08:00

What is one thing that you fear the most? Most of us would answer - the future, in other words something unpredictable. How many of us are comfortable with the idea that there is a remote possibility that we would not be alive tomorrow or the guy/girl you marry wouldn't suit you or for that simple matter, we would not get tickets for a movie at a theater. Not many and I would even say that each one of us is trying to manage(should I say,mitigate) this unpredictability in some or the other way, everyday all the time.

Statistics has a word called noise/error factor given to it, and has ‘epsilon’ representing this factor. Any model can be created to explain various phenomena in life, but an epsilon is always tagged to it, just to say that there are certain things, which are unexplainable and cannot be captured by these models and this is precisely what I am getting at.

I see attempts being made by people to rationalize life, to explain everything, to put blame on luck or God, etc. Life cannot be explained. There are too many events, which just happen and have no correlation or association per se with our scheme of things. No astrology, not palmistry, not zodiac signs will help these. The maturity lies in accepting these things as being purely random and completely uncontrollable (in spite of my passion for ‘free will’ as a driver of decision making). The only way to control these is by learning to control our responses to these events, rather than by trying to control these events themselves.

Despite all the best efforts, not getting what you want could be the work of epsilon factor. The best response here is to control the response to such event and think about ways to diversify/reduce risk such epsilon factor can bring...unpredictability is uncontrollable but mitigation of it is!!

Moods!!

2005-12-16T02:54:00.000-08:00

So very often, what we do or how we do a particular job depends on what mood we are in. More often than not, how we perform depends less on ability and more on the mood in which we are in. Some people have violent mood swings, while some have fleeting. But one feature that is common across humanity is mood and its swings.

How frequently have we come across people who act rude although they had no intention of being rude? Accidental rudeness happens alarmingly often (courtesy:Dumbledore), which brings us to the fact that people generally associate mood swings with negative qualities like anger, irritation, sulking etc. Have we ever done a reality check as to whether our mood swings can be associated with positive emotions like happiness, laughter etc; For what is a mood but a function of the perspective you see/feel a situation in!!

The most vivid example of 'mood behavior' affecting the economy is the Stock market, where it is essentially called 'Investor sentiment'. Although this sort of mood is non-distinguishable as it cannot be attributed to a particular person/entity, its 'Mood' decides as to who will be in a happy mood(made profits) and who will be sad(made losses). Marketing departments across companies work overtime to manipulate moods of people-good or bad to buy a product(and the moods cost them billions!!). The most important facet of moods is 'Boss Management', where the answer to what you ask depends less on 'what' you ask but entirely on 'when' aspect(and I am sure most of us faced it-whether its a boss in a company or a teacher in school).

Mood is a very important aspect of human behavior. There could be a difference in the degree but never the absence of it. People vacillate between extreme performances due to 'mood swings'. Hence Management by Moods, I feel is going to be as important and on par with other management theories like Management by Objectives, Management by Walking Around etc.

(For my regular readership, another important 'M' affecting everyone's lives :-))

The Power of Context...

2005-12-13T01:58:00.000-08:00

I have reached the pinnacle of 'busyness'. No one asked me to start a blog. Having started it, it was only reasonable to expect regular posts. From the feeback I get, I realize that the readers have got tired, if not vexed, of visiting the site and finding the same old post for more than a month. While a long hiatus is unexplainable as well as unpardonable, I hope the readership will pardon this and excuse me this time.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

I was wondering about the power of context as well as perspective. Sultan of Brunei has his aeroplane fitted with lots of gold...How much do I care? However, if my neighbour purchases a new car, it begins to hurt me. Bill Gates riches don't inspire me for a better performance but if my colleague wins a lottery or gets a promotion...a sudden rush of blood question, 'why not me?' is asked.

People crave for particular things at various stages in life. During childhood, its winning a game; youth is about winning the hand of a particular guy/girl; a career is about a specific job profile and the list goes on and on. Coming to think of it, how does it matter? For example, consider a MBA grad looking for a consulting job...at present, this is the only job that he would ever consider. However, if that doesnt happen, will he brood about the same thing 10 years later?...I think not. His priorities will be to benchmark against the 'best guy' around and surpass him, which will engage his thoughts all the time, consulting being the least on his priorities.

Such is the power of context...a drastic terrorist activity a few years back seemed horrendous while it is commonplace now. Globalisation was opposed by the Chinese back in the '80s while they are the frontrunners at present. There was a time when people used to respect people who stood for morals. Nowadays, technical ineptitude is a greater sin than moral turpitude. The world was not the same before as it is now nor will it ever be the same again. The same holds good for people and their thoughts.

So how do we rule ourselves out of this 'context' and hence be unbiased. Distance gives perspective. It is very important to distance oneself from the context to be able to make the right decision. Another of the easier said than done types!!!

Vanity...!!!

2005-10-17T15:38:00.000-07:00

Why does man relish vanity?? This question has been troubling me for sometime. A feeling of excessive pride in oneself, self-importance imposed on self and a craving to be recognised by one and all present around is something each one of us have percieved and felt too. I am surprised at situations where people work themselves to be the center of a conversation or an issue. Some people even go to the extent of holding back knowledge impressing(or is it depressing?)upon others implicitly that they are important, while others make it very explicit.

As a writer, I take pride in writing this article...is this vanity? How do you differentiate confidence and self-belief and vanity and excessive pride? Each one of us wants to be appreciated for the work we have done - however meagre or big. Does man really need appreciation from others to sustain himself and in case he doesnt get the expected, does he really have to go extents to boast about himself? How often have we come across people who put up an impression of a be-all and know-all? How often have we come across people who are self-centered and any conversation other than him/her is utter nonsense? How often have we come across people who can fake at will and convince you whatever they say is the truth? and How often have we come across people who actually make people listen how important they are and why we should strive to become like them, although that would be difficult!! Questions and questions galore, but each one of us know and can relate to each of these situations, as a culprit or as a victim.

Now to the question of why man thinks he is the center of the universe or rather the microcosm in which he is present? One reason is out of purely psychological reasons - low self-esteem. Although every other reason boils down to this, there might be a variety of experiences throughout a person's life which might have forced them to take this route. The other plausible reason might be that people take life too seriously and end up being self-centered and therefore the vanity factor comes in...although the reasons by themselves don't seem to convince the author.

How do we get out of this disease of vanity which seems to affect even the best of people? Humor might be one but then can everyone humor themselves? The other person might think that he is making a fool of himself...again the vanity cycle?!! Even people who think that they don't care what people think about them also come under this umbrella of vanity since they too want others to recognise them as people who think they don't care about others - got my point?? I am in need of some answers as urs truly too, at some point or other has been a victim of this deadly disease called Vanity.

Inspiration...

2005-09-26T06:48:00.000-07:00

Is there anything called Inspiration and if yes,where do we draw inspiration from and from whom? Does inspiration really mean working harder which eventually would result in more perspiration or is there something more to it. Such a good word to use in every sphere of life - college, work or family. People overuse it or may I say misuse it to such an extent that it becomes such a cliched word that everyone is turned off by a mere mention of it.

To ascertain whether anything like Inspiration exists or do we tend to draw inspiration from others, it is necessary to define what inspiration is or means? Inspiration according to the Oxford Dictionary means three things -

1.arousal of the mind to special unusual activity or creativity
2.a product of your creative thinking and work;
3.a sudden intuition as part of solving a problem

According to the above, inspiration is related more to creativity and less concerning relating it to another person. If creativity is related to an individual entirely - as is usually believed , then why do we often associate inspiration to some person or a third entity? We have speakers who claim to inspire others, various mind management programmes to derive inspiration from, we tend to 'draw' inspiration from famous personalities - how many times do we hear statements like the above. How much of truth is contained in those statements needs to be enquired to bring the dilemma to a conclusion?

Man as a homosapien evolves over time. However, the process of evolution is exponential rather than linear - which does mean that there is some reason which makes him grow faster than usual in this chaotic world. A pillar of support he can rely on anytime, someone from whom he can learn ways of the world or someone who has already been successful at something. I for one, am inspired by people with knowledge - any knowledge powerhouse, one of my friends is inspired by songs of MLTR, another friend of mine is inspired by the books he reads - different people, different ways of getting inspired. Research has proved that when we do hear some 'Inspirational' talk, the effect is directly on the right side of the brain. No wonder many people get inspired but cannot explain the feeling of it - just like creativity and that is where the two ends meet.

All people in this world are inspired by someone or the other. Some people tell it out and some won't. However, in the process of continous improvement, every humanbeing is goaded by some or the other Inspirational factor or should I say Creative factor..??

Mobile lets me fly...

2005-08-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

A couple of days earlier was the 10th anniversary of the foray of mobile communication in India which has been one bumpy and an extravagant ride. While one company converted its assets worth 25 crore to 9000 crore in the space of 10 years (Bharti Airtel), another company which was a pioneer in this field (in fact, this was the provider for the first mobile call in India between Jyoti Basu and the then Communications Minister...by the way, the company's name is Modi Telstra) was bought by some other. From a handful of users in 1995, we have grown to a user base of over 2 million and it is expected to touch 10 million by 2010 which will make us the 4th largest user base in the world.

We have made a big leap if we consider the following statistics. A bulky mobile phone cost Rs.52000 with an incoming charge of Rs. 8 and outgoing charge of Rs. 16, while we now have some of the sleek phones for as little as Rs.3000 with no incoming charge and an outgoing charge of Re. 1...It used to take around 2 weeks to get a landline connection, if not more while it takes only around a day or so to go mobile - and that explains the explosion in the consumer base.

Apart from the basic feature of conversing, mobile phones as such have evolved into facilitating transfer of messages, images, video recording, fm radio and an mp3 player all bundled together. Not to mention the furore over the MMS exchanged between thousands of people which created a lot of controversy but died without a whimper. A completely radical use was found in criminology. Mobile phones have also helped the crime authorities to track criminals by a process of triangulation. Without going too much into detail, it is a process wherein the coordinates of a person is tracked using the signal exchange between the phone and the mobile towers near it. Viruses have taken quite some time to jump into the bandwagaon while eavesdropping of mobile phones is much more technical than the ordinary landline and hence the security is leaps and bounds over the landline.

A new technology, which is set to revolutunise the way we interact with others is emerging in this field which is called 3G (Third Generation technology). The transfer rate as of now is 6-8 kbps while in 3G it is 2 Mbps. A quantum jump which would enable people to have video conferencing just like the multinational companies do it everyday.

An interesting scenario if I may say so, when we consider that the boom in the mobile communications industry coincided with the boom in consumer spending and the IT boom. Categories across consumer durables have witnessed a tremendous growth over the past 10 years and not very surprisingly, mobile phones seem to be the priority. Mobile phones have become another extension of our own personality day in and day out. People seem to enjoy the very fact that they don't use the same mobile phone for more that 15 days and change the ringtone every 3 days. The frightening growth in the usage of mobile communication has considerably brightened the lives of a hawker on the street to a CEO of a company. Euphoria is one small word which can be associated with the boom and I am proud to be a part of one in every way possible of the greatest revolutions of the millenium.

Expectations...

2005-07-26T03:44:00.000-07:00

What's wrong with expectation? Mankind survives on this sole word of 'expectation'. We expect to be happy in the future (ignoring the present of course), we expect to earn a great deal of money, we expect to travel around the world and many many more. We not only expect something out of ourselves but expect something from others also. But most people forget that some others are also expecting something from them and I feel here is the weakest link for relationships.

Say, you(A) are close to someone(B) and you expect something out of them. But, they dont meet your expectation not once but many times over a period of time. Then, you lower your expectation and still 'B' doesnt meet yours. This cycle would continue till you end up with little expectation from 'B'. 'B' brags on and on with his/her own stories least bothered about what 'A' is feeling/thinking amd whats more, shrugs off whatever 'A' is saying. At this particular point of time, you(A) really feel that the relationship is not worth the time, effort and resources. Then there are other people in your life who go great lengths at making you happy, make you feel that you have been with them for years and yet you don't give the required credit. They are excited about meeting you, talking to you or for that matter, just spend some time with you and yet we tend to ignore.
The problem seems to be not with 'B' fundamentally, but with 'A'. 'A' has simply not allocated the right kind of effort towards the right kind of people.'B'is some other person who is interested in something else than 'A' seems to think...a classic case of misunderstanding the extent and depth of a relationship. Well, to say the least, when 'A' is not clear of his priorities, his relationships...does he really have the right to expect something out of somebody? Can't he just take a step back and look at the various relationships he has and allocate the right(let me say, optimum) effort to the right kind of people? Is 'A' looking only at part of the conversation and not the total (or the essence of) communication between him/herself and 'B' and jumping to some kind of conclusion about expectations and the outcomes or is it something else?

Haven't we all gone through this? We can place ourselves at places 'A' as well as 'B' because they are literally two sides of same coin. Can we just take a step back and look at everything else afresh again??

The Letter 'M'

2005-07-09T03:32:00.000-07:00

The most powerful, influential and intriguing letter across all languages is the 12th letter of the Roman alphabet and the 13th letter of the English alphabet - the letter 'M' and my emphasis would be the words beginning with the letter 'M' and just a peek into its magnificient power.

To start with, all ancient civilizations - the oldest ones recorded were that of Mohenjadaro in India, Mesopotamia in the Middle East and Mayan in the Americas. Two of the most powerful dynasties to rule over India in the B.C as well as the A.D were the Mauryan and the Mughal dynasties.

Science has proved that Man evolved from Monkey. Mother is the sole purpose of how a Man exists. We all would like to be Models of perfection. While we had the Mahatma enchanting the masses down here in India, at about the same time, we had Mussolini machinating like a Machiavelli in Europe. While we had the greatest and perhaps the longest epic which enlightened mankind - Mahabharat, we had an equally oppressive 'Mein Kempf'.
While we had Mickey mouse entertaining people all around, we had Model T motorcar to depict what modernity can bring about. We had the beautiful Madhuri, have the sexy Mallika and erstwhile dream of every man - Marlyn Monroe.

The world today runs around Money. No wonder that two of the biggest brands in the world are McDonalds and Mont Blanc. We have advanced weapons in Machine guns and Missiles, again developed by Man due to excessive itch on his Medulla oblongata.

One of the greatest revolutions of the 20th century was Marxism, one of the greatest mysteries unsolved being the Mummy and one of the most mind-boggling roles in Movies being the role of Morpheus in Matrix. Think of controversy, and one of the greatest controversies involves Mary Magdalene. One of the most feared groups in today's world is the Mafia and the costliest drug available is Marijuana. Not to leave all us far behind is the Murphy's law which would remind us of the reality everytime we think of some mouthwatering prospect.

From the Macrocosm to Micro-organism, this letter influences everyday, every moment. From the Morning of our life to our Mourning, this letter is forever to stay with us and that my dear friends in summary is the magnificience of the letter.

P.S: Last but not the least, my HR Head's name is Mandeep Maitra (For God's sake, save me from this letter 'M').

Number perfect - The Agony and Ecstasy of Seven

2005-06-25T23:11:00.000-07:00

This blog is dedicated to one of the favorite articles I had read in recent times in the ET. It talks about the fascination for the number seven that the author has and the expanse of knowledge about a particular number. I similarity I can relate here is my fascination for all the words beginning with the letter 'M'. Will blog about it in the near future. I actually put this in the electronic form rather than save it as a paper draft...the impact was such. Enjoy the article!!

The seven rishis, the seven circles of marriage, seven generations and seven reincarnations. The Egyptians had seven gods, the Persians had seven sacred horses, the Japanese have seven gods of happiness and luck, the Greeks had the Pleiades star cluster - also known as the Seven Sisters, Rome was built on seven hills and the Sun God Surya's chariot is believed to have seven horses. Seven days make up the week, there are seven ancient wonders, seven colors in the spectrum, seven seas formed part of ancient lore, seven continents constitute our planet and seven musical notes make up a raaga. Strangely enough, even the Companies Act in India requires a minimum of seven people to form a public limited company and behavioral scientists believe that seven is the optimal number for group dynamics. Few numbers have found as much mention or captured the imagination of mankind like the way number seven has. Management best sellers have been written - Stephen Covey not too long ago made a small fortune writing the 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People' - and movies have been made - AKiro Kurosawa a long time ago made the classic 'Seven Samurai' - around No. 7.

It's not hard to see, therefore, why stockbrokers and investors across the nation had been itching for the sensex to scale 7,000. The wait is finally over no that 7,000 is here. Dalal Street is getting ready to uncork the champagne and all set to party. While currently everyone associated with the markets is in (where else but) seventh heaven, they would do well to remember that Ms. Sensex can take you to heaven quickly and bring you back to earth even quicker. And while it is unlikely that in this euphoria we think of anything but the largely pleasant association with the number seven, market men in particular would do well to remember that mankind's woes are largely brought upon itself by none other than the seven deadly sins.

2005-06-06T06:46:00.000-07:00

Recently I read this poem by Betty Midlers and it struck me as a poem written for the present times that we are in. I will quote one of the paragraphs here...

From a distance, we all have enough
And noone is in need
There're no guns, bombs nor disease
No hungry mouths to feed
From a distance, we're instruments marching in a common band
Playing songs of hope
Playing songs of peace
They're songs of every man.

Quite profound are the thoughts, but how many people would actually sit back and think about them. We are at war perenially, whether it is a proxy one or real. The whole world is in turmoil, millions of people die everyday due to war and yet we have the guts to say that the Tsunami was an international disaster when just over a million had passed away.

I shudder to think of people who do not have access to a square meal, of people who are perenially worried of an explosion, of people who suffer from diseases and yet do not have access to medicines due to their poor economic condition. Yet, what gets publicized in the media are the gangster wars, expansive coverage of lavish weddings, the frequent change in political conditions and coverage on some stupid case going against some individual.

And we have people who are the very cause of destruction being named Person of the year, getting a Nobel Peace prize and we have people who are not recognized just because they are from a Third World country. Here, I am reminded of a quote by Mark Twain who said"It is better to deserve an honour and not recieve it, than to recieve one and not deserve it".

Oliver Holmes had said "The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving" and I sincerely feel that it will not be long before people begin to find their direction and go back to the fundamentals which are beyond money, power and evaluate as to what gives them happiness.

Celebrity - How? Really??

2005-05-22T09:56:00.000-07:00

I have always wondered what makes a celebrity?? With all these shows like Channel V popstars and some other channel's Indian Idol, can anyone become a celebrity or does it take something really special to become a celebrity?

For too long, celebrities were an alchemic creation, taking a mystical combination of ability, timing and blind luck to suddenly pop into our midst. We marvel at these Godpeople, who seemed to be one of us while being so utterly celestial. It was never clear how exactly one turned from flailing duckling to cruising swan and that was part of the mystique surrounding celebrities.

A consumer society needs two opposite powerful forces to pull against each other. We must believe that celebrities are impossibly distant and yet know that anyone can become one. Just like fashion, which makes us feel uniquely individual while making us conform rigidly to the current notion of what's in. This tension between apparent inapproachability and the manifest accessibility propels us in an ascending spiral of desire. We want more because there are things we cannot have, but people just like us have managed to get.

Be that as it may, as a country we have certainly made progress. We are now our own hypnotists - we have found a way to publicly collaborate in manufacturing a god-like being through all the shows possible and still retain some belief in this God of our own making.

Googled??

2005-05-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

There are search engine companies, there are some more search engine companies and then there is GOOGLE! I am impressed by the way this company is growing. Google Search, News, Groups, Blogspace, Scholar, Maps, toolbar, Watch, directory, Picasa, Keyhole.. and ofcourse GMAIL!! The phrase "I am going to Google" or "Have you googled for this?" is quite common these days. They are beating every other company in the field.

Yeah Yeah Yeah. I am happy. I had been googling and regoogling and reregoogling stuff on the internet ,and today finally I stumbled onto a pretty useful chunk of useless data required for my job. In fact, on a philosophical note , the more I live life , the more I become aware of the importance of "Google" in supporting the human race.

When we guys were on the brink of a nervous breakdown making our assignments, it was "google devta" which came to our rescue. We downloaded a decent amount of information from the net and ended up making something which we still have got no clue about . During my MBA course, google was used more than any financial or economic model ever devised. Be it a report on the cigarette industry of India , a survey on the bicycle usage in Finland , or an outlook on the undergarment industry of Zimbabwe - every burning need has the one and only Lord Google to satisfy it.

And not only the professional life , google has had a pretty divine imprint on the personal aspects of my life too.I still remember that "kaali amavas ki raat" (too much of scary hindi movies ?), when as a nervous 18 year old, I typed down "britney spears pics" on the sacred google bar , leading to a very informative and educational online session. Then there was the sunny afternoon , when a frustrated friend of mine , tired of carrying around the "single-ready to mingle" tag line, angrily punched in "how to get a girlfriend" on google's website. I still occasionally google the names of girls I've had a crush on in my short lifetime , hoping to find them somewhere ,with the culmination being a happy and teary reunion , with the girl telling me how much she admired me secretly.

But even our newtonic genius called google fails at times.Recently , I had to find out about the acquistion of "Ruchi Biscuits" (where do these sell?) by "Shyam group" of companies(what do these guys sell?).So I googled about it, but it so conspired that I ended up reading the review of a South Indian flick with a hero named shyam and the lead actress called ruchi. But this can be classified as an off day for google ,the knight in the shiny armour for students , engineers , summer trainees , sex maniacs , parted lovers around the planet.

May the Great Google live on!!!

Finally...

2005-05-04T06:07:00.000-07:00

Finally, after a lot of confusion, deliberation, discussion (oops...Dialogue, my HR Prof would kill me), I have joined HDFC. Thats about my employment and since the major issue is resolved, I would like to get back to serious blogging business.

I was just thinking...why did the confusion arise in the first place? One point clearly hit me, clarity of thought...one value I hold very close to my heart, yet, I did not follow it this time. I think this is where they say that Wisdom comes above Knowledge. I was confident of my knowledge, yet when it came to taking a critical decision in my life, it failed me. I feel this is where Wisdom comes into play. I started talking to senior people, various points were being raised, yet one common thread in all the discussions pointed to their clarity of thought.

Taking this discussion(oops again...dialogue) further, I think the experience and the character of a person decides how and what you think. Many of you might differ with Helen Keller as to what she has to say, but I strongly believe in it.
She says
"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired and success achieved"

Thats a statement made by a person who actually went through all the sufferings in life. Learn, Learn and Learn...this is what my parents continously emphasize. The past one month has broken down some of my misconceptions, taught me a lot about various facets of life reminding me of one of the beautiful quotations I ever read -

"Play the game of your life such that when the master referee scores against your name, it is not whether you have lost or won that counts, but how you have played the game".

Confusion at the point of Fusion

2005-04-10T21:34:00.000-07:00

Long Long ago, So Long Ago, I updated my blog and now after a very long time, I am writing again. Sorry folks!! I myself am confused thoroughly that I didnt know what to write.

So, whats the confusion? I got a Day Zero placement in HDFC bank. However, after some ponderation, I realised that I might not fit the Banking sector after all. Why? How? Thats a long story which I wouldnt like to elaborate.

So what next? I do not know. Something is on the cards, will let u guys know once I confirm it.

I think this is one of the most unstructured write-up I have ever written, but that explains what is going on in my mind right now.

Anybody has any CEO openings, dont forget to contact me...I am available.

LAST BLOG from B-School

2005-03-19T04:23:00.000-08:00

My last blog from B-school. My B-school days are coming to an end in another 12 days and that’s it…however there are some exams to write and hence I do not know when I would write my blog again, but surely it wouldn’t be before I complete my exams. We went on trekking today. We thought of going to a mango grove on the other side of a mountain, however due to some miscalculation, we ended up at a coconut-mango grove...which we enjoyed thoroughly. And that sums up my days in the B-school.

Looking back, it’s been one huge ride for me over the last 2 yrs. After the dejection of losing out on the CAT, I got through this school with some effort. I was not sure of the place and the environment and how I would go about handling it. I was a completely opposite personality to what the place demanded. However, the passion of doing a MBA just pushed me through the first few days. And boy! After that, it was just Masti, MASti and MASTI.

Apart from the academic rigor and the usual B-school stuff, I went through a rapid as well as a steep learning curve on all the aspects of life – people, cultural, sports and just about everything. I learnt to handle 30 people to complete projects on time, first as a junior and then as the head of the dept., learnt finer aspects of script writing and acting (although I am still bad at both, considering the standards of this place), learnt Table tennis, painting and of course blogging apart from other mundu aspects.

I also found my ideals down here. An ideal speaker, an ideal computer genius as well as hacker (oops!), a financial wizard, master artists, fantastic actors, terrific sports players…u name it and they are in this place. Down the line, any day I need any sort of motivation I can think of these guys and I would know what to do. Such is the talent, such is the brotherhood of this place.

I feel very sad at this point of time that I have to leave so early. Because without doubt, these have been the best two years in my life, two years where I can look back and confidently say that I have learnt something.

I am reminded of my signature in my mail…something which I strongly believe in.

Perfection is the Goal.

GOD tolerates Excellence.

Recently, I came across this quote which complements the above, which explains why I have to move on.

Advance and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood - Khalil Gibran.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” said Charles Dickens. I couldn’t fathom how do two situations co-exist for quite a long time, but I think I have the answer right here, right now. It was the best of times, for surely I have enjoyed my stay and moving toward my goal, it’s also the worst of times since I am leaving the place I love so much.

Last but not the least, I would like to put the whole experience in three lines – “The woods are lovely, dark and deep/But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep…”

Advertising Adversity!

2005-03-03T06:21:00.001-08:00

Hurrah! Tests are over and I am going to slog sleep today…haven’t had a good night sleep for the past week. That aside, as promised the article on advertising is up on the blog…Enjoy it and don’t forget, comments are always welcome!

“Freedom without opportunity is a devil’s gift and the refusal to provide such opportunities is criminal” – Anonymous.

I beg to differ with the above statement if it concerns advertising of today. Just take a look at these figures and you will know why. Basic education for all in this world would cost $ 6 billion, while the expenses on cosmetics in the US cost $ 8 billion. Water and sanitation costs for the world would come to around $ 9 billion while ice-cream costs in Europe costs $ 11 billion. Basic health and nutrition for all would cost $13 billion while expenses on pet foods in US and Europe cost $17 billion.

Hankering ‘after more’ has left the society in a constant state of chasing a mirage! In US, a sixth of its total GDP is spent on marketing and advertising. Most of it is tax-exempted – which implies that people pay for the privilege of being subjected to manipulation of their attitudes and behavior. To support the advertisers are the various laws of economics. One such law is the Law of diminishing Marginal utility – which states that the satisfaction you would derive out of using a product would diminish over time or repeated usage. Advertisers are known (or meant) to accelerate the pace of this law. This essentially means that you get satisfaction only for a short period of time. For example, you buy a Skoda Octavia. The utility you derive is only for a period of time. In a short time, you will come across another ad regarding the advanced version of Skoda Octavia – Skoda Octavia SX. Then, you will feel dissatisfied at your car and would aspire to buy a new car. A satisfied man is an advertiser’s nightmare – but you can rarely find a satisfied man in a capitalistic society and hence you can understand why ad agency revenues run into millions. The ideology of capitalism makes us all into connoisseurs of liberty – of the indefinite expansion of possibilities, but have we taken it too far.

The world’s headlong rush towards crass commercialism, meretricious materialism and mindless consumerism can only be stopped by a tsunamic effort. What will allow us to unleash our venom at the sheer fluff of empty-headed hedonism that consumerism creates?

I conclude with the hope that atleast India’s cultural a.ka. advertising producers will preserve their tactical gift of revelation-by-surprise, eluding both commodifiers and the regimenters, the color-blind ecclesiarchs and the color-drunk publicists.

---the article ends here.

Go ahead and rate it!!!

gone with the wind

2005-02-28T21:18:00.000-08:00

i thought that the closing months of my MBA would be really cool and i can enjoy myself thorougly. But what i have and am experiencing for the past 15 days and still going...i think i better shift to the opposite bandwagon. tests are going on now and each subject's portion is like some final examination portion in a school...weightage 25%.

but i have resolved that once my tests finish on 4th, that day my blog on Advertising is going to hit the Net.

got to study for the next test...Knowledge Management...i just hope i manage the knowledge optimally to get a good score. bye

Something...Guessing around??

2005-02-10T08:23:00.000-08:00

Sorry guys…pretty late update this time around. Was busy in some management simulation game throughout the week (more on it later). Some of my friends complained that I was taking myself too seriously in the first three blogs…so I embarked to write on something little bit casual this time around. To start off with, three news bits which left me wondering…

1) Call it the ripple effect or the nipple effect, it seems that advertisers are wary of pumping money into the 39^th SuperBowl games in the US (American football for the uninitiated). The reports say that this is as a result of the Janet Jackson’s Bare-all episode last year, courtesy Justin Timberlake…although they covered it up by creating a new English phrase: Wardrobe malfunction. I was actually thinking about the reason behind the advertisers move and I was shocked when I found the answer. Guess what it is?? Ethics… silly. The same US advertisers who pump money urging people to have more junk food and shorter and shorter clothes…it is ethical u see?? B.S.(More about advertising in the next blog).

2) Steve Jobs, I thought was an excellent entrepreneur with amazing technical ideas. But recently I found that he is also a management guru, specializing in marketing. How else can one explain his fantastic marketing idea of the iPod Shuffle which left competitors flabbergast in one of the latest tech shows in the US. Usually all the music players have a little screen to tell u which song is playing and which songs are in the pipeline. However, iPod Shuffle doesn’t have any and Steve Jobs marketed this as a Unique Selling Proposition of the product. Take off a feature of a product and call it a USP…his competitors think he is crazy, but the customers are buying the idea and the sales are zooming. Beat that for a marketing tactic.

3) Pfizer has recently declared that it wouldn’t supply AIDS medicine to Africa at subsidized rates. The reason they gave was that if they export the AIDS medicine to Africa, then the virus may mutate itself against the medicine and hence become even more dangerous, rendering future medicine ineffective. Therefore, they said in the Greater good of Humanity, they declined to offer their medicine to Africa...ethics and morality again, my dear.

Back to urs truly, I finally watched ‘Troy’, exactly eight months after I thought that I have to watch it. I hate giving movie reviews on my blog but briefly, the movie was very well shot although Helen could have been a lot more prettier….:-).

Coming to the last week’s management simulation game, it was called the Threshold Competitor. The whole class was divided into teams of 6 each. We had to sell plastic products and the game was computer simulated, encompassing almost all the facets of business. My team included Shravan, Harish, Aashish, Raghu and Pranav and the team’s name was ‘Khuss Unlimited’(Try to guess the meaning...). Needless to say that our team won…but in the process, my whole week got screwed up. But I am really happy that we won and the effort was worth it.

I admit that it is quite a long blog, but I just couldn’t resist the flow of thoughts. The next blog is on Advertising…coming up very shortly in a blog near u…J…bye.

Nation and Nationalism….what’s wrong with you??

2005-02-04T04:30:00.000-08:00

I wrote this article for one of the newspapers. I do not have any idea whether it is going to be published or not. Just read on…and rate my chances of this being published….anyway, u guys are lucky to read this before it is published…J

Today’s nationalism is not about a large entity called the ‘Nation’. Rather, it is nothing but a “pathological sense of inflammation”, a grievance about the real and imaginary wounds inflicted on people and a sense of not being able to choose one’s own destiny.

Otherwise, who could explain the uproar over the usage of the word ‘Sindh’ in our National anthem disputing whether such a word can be used hence. Even more shocking is the serious consideration the Supreme Court is giving to this issue when there are other very important matters to look into. The English sing “God Save the Queen”. Since this is not relevant to our times, will they think of changing it to say - “God Save Tony Blair”. The Singaporean National anthem is in the Malay language, which is not even one of the recognized languages of Singapore. Yet, do they raise an upheaval about it??

Another important issue is that of the match-fixing scandal, which we have brushed down the carpet but are never sure when it would raise its dirty hoods again. Dirty?? Did I say Dirty?? In a nation where corruption is touching a billion lives on a daily basis, where the majority of us are involved in some corrupt practice or other, why should we expect just those eleven cricketers to be honest? And why should it be front-page news for weeks when it is of no consequence to the lives of majority in our country? Why doesn’t the media talk about how the corrupt politicians are letting down a billion people every moment instead of igniting our passions about a few cricketers?

We live in times of guided missiles and misguided men. Caught between the prophets of imminent apocalypse and peddlers of optimism, we expend little effort towards self-criticism and consequently on a movement towards self-possession. Can we dream of a Nation which ingrains Gandhian philosophy for real and not as hogwash? A philosophy where the issue is not about trivial usage of words or money, but about ‘Nationalism’ in the true sense. ‘A man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for’, said Rudyard Kipling. Let us so live life, that when we come to die…atleast we can have the glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel.

Where am I and What am I doing?

2005-01-29T07:39:00.000-08:00

Or is it We?? I think this is one thought that troubles most of us. Where am I, What am I doing and do I really love what I am doing?? I think these are the questions to which every MBA or a post-graduate student would like to have an answer to.

I came in here to a reputed B-school hoping to find my unique purpose in life – unique as we all are, or so I thought. Let me generalize the tone of speech and shift to We. Once in I don’t think most of us have managed to resist the charm of being one among the crowd, being accepted by one and all. Isn’t it amazing how all of a sudden all our dreams, all our aspirations seem the same – different as we all claim to be? And what is more amazing is how predictable a life we’re all set to lead – busy, cash rich, with no time to spare for anything but work.

We’ve turned into disinterested youngsters who treat the classroom as though it were personal rooms. We treat the professors as though we’re doing them a favor by listening to them. We treat attendance as the be all and end all of existence. Lectures hold as much meaning for us as an advertisement that we zap through disinterestedly. Better still; lectures are where we catch up on our sleep – the busy all important souls that we are, its impossible to catch sleep back in our rooms. And of course the great communicators and thought-leaders that we all are, we never miss a chance to criticize a lecturer for his flow of thoughts or the matter/manner which he speaks.

What is really sad is that not all of us were like this when we walked in here. But to be accepted as one of the crowd it is important to blend in – to do what the majority does. The few of us who do want to stand by what we believe in end up being ridiculed by the rest. After all being conscientious is so uncool! And staying awake in class – you have got to be kidding! What kind of loser are you if you stay up through class – and god help you if your reason happens to be sheer respect for the elderly individual who is teaching you (Talk about Moral dilemmas!!).

And what have we learnt by making lots of presentations, project, assignments?? How to put in header and footer, insert bullet points, make a colorful power-point presentation and never mention the help that Prof. Google does for you. Google is compared to God for copying and pasting information, Microsoft an Angel to make presentations and talk about real Stuff – u got to be joking, who is going to listen to us anyway.

So how do I evaluate myself and move from this situation to a much better one which I love. I am looking for some serious answers. I just hope I would answer them before I finish my MBA….Think!!

"Sarvam Ekam"

2005-01-26T05:43:00.000-08:00

Everything is One, and that is the Ultimate truth - so the Vedas proclaim. So is the title of my blog "Sarvam Ekam", since I wanted to blog the truth and nothing but the truth about myself, my friends, ideas and in general about life.

So, why did I choose Republic Day of India to be my inauguration day on the blogger's community? Simply because of two reasons - One, Republic indicates free and I wanted my thoughts to flow freely on the blog and two, sheer coincidence :-).

To start with, I wanted to blog down one of my favorite quotes which I personally think indicates the essence of life.

When Faith is present, there is Love.
When Confidence is present, there is Love.
When there is Love, there is Truth.
When there is Truth, there is Peace.
When there is Peace, there is Bliss.
When there is Bliss, there is God.

I think all of us in this journey of life are trying to attain happiness in every act of ours, yet we find that it is either ephemeral or non-existent. Each line of the above quote indicates the progression towards that happiness which is eternal, which I feel is the right way to go. I am not that spiru as the above lines might indicate, although I am trying really hard to learn the fundamentals….still trying.

Humor is one part of my life which I can’t do away with. Although this is not meant to demean anyone, I found this piece I read yesterday a bit funny. When Buddha got enlightened, it seems this was the first sentence he spoke “Oh monks! Realise that when you take a deep breath, you are taking a deep breath, Realise that when you take a medium breath, you are taking a medium breath and Realise that when you take a low breath, you are taking a low breath”. That’s enlightenment for you. Next time the Prof. asks you any question about “Customer Value Proposition” or “RF Signal Processing”, you know what to answer, right?.

I think I would sign off here. Although I have been postponing blogging for quite some time now (I wanted to start on the eve of New Year), nevertheless I have resolved to blog as regularly as I can. Mid-terms start tomorrow, got to go and start studying….bye.