My Stories.

Vonnegut and Rushdie

2010-05-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

I've been a voracious reader lately, not by choice, but rather forced by endless airport layovers and paid internet services. Which is a good thing, in a way. I can now claim to have read authors of the likes of Kurt Vonnegut and Salman Rushdie. But I cannot say that I liked their works.

Cat's cradle in the words of Vonnegut's midget protagonist in the book "There's no damn cat and there's no damn cradle" pretty much summarizes what I felt about the book. It's a satire on the advancement of science and the destruction of mankind. But with all due respects to Kurt, I guess I wasn't in the frame of mind to enjoy it.

The first book that I read of Rushdie happened to be Haroun and the Sea of Stories. It was similar to Alice in Wonderland but unlike Lewis Carroll's work, in this case I felt I was beyond the right age to enjoy this book. I probably wouldn't have loved it as a kid either.

But thankfully, there was another book by Vonnegut that I liked much more than his popular work. It was The Bogombo Snuff box, a collection of short stories, some (not all) of which were enjoyable. And as for Rusdie, I started reading Midnight's Children yesterday midnight and it seems to be much more interesting.

Recent fan of Satyajit Ray

2010-05-22T17:27:00.000-07:00

I've been watching a number of Satyajit Ray movies lately. I started out with searching for something interesting to read or watch. Anyone familiar with my reading habits, would know that once in a while I go out in the search of reading some meaningful fiction (a challenging task by itself). And more often that not, after meandering through samples of different fictional writers, I typically return back to the cold comforts of non-fiction. This time I meandered from reading to movies and instead of watching standard Bollywood fare, I decided to watch something more critically acclaimed and started with Ray.

Thinking back, I feel it was the auteurist nature of Ray's works that captivated me - evocative stories about the struggles of life during the '50s in post-independent India to the challenges of being a unemployed graduate in India during the '70s. Ray's unique story telling abilities he takes you back to the era he is depicting and makes you part of the story.

I started out with watching Jana Aranya and Pratidwandi, two movies from the Calcutta series which primarily deals with the struggle of graduates trying to find a decent job befitting their qualifications, and how they fare successfully or otherwise in their search for a meaningful life. The compelling manner in which Ray tells these stories intrigued me and led me to his famous Apu triology, where again, I started off with watching the last movie Apur Sansar first. Compared to the earlier two movies, Apur Sansar had a very concise but poignant storyline. Ray uses visual cues and superb story telling skills to tell a moving story. I followed Apur Sansar with Pather Panchali, which is probably one of the most acclaimed Ray movies, and the first movie of the Apu triology (which is a technically a bildungsroman, a new word that I learnt).

Pather Panchali, or song of the path is a beautiful story of Apu and his sister growing up in a rural Bengali village of the 1920s. The way they enjoy life through their little games and squabbles captures the essence of childhood which could be in a village or anywhere else. Sadly, I recalled that things haven't changed drastically in villages, even today. Majority of the houses are still mud-houses, susceptible to inclement weather. Electricity at least seems to be more common, though it may not be the case throughout the country. TVs are common-place, but even more common are cell-phones - they are everywhere. However it still left me with a feeling that, not much has changed over the last century, when it should have ideally.

I then moved on to the Teen Kanya series, which are Ray's renditions of short stories written by Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore and Ray seemed like an irresistible combination to me and I wasn't disappointed. True to my recently acquired style, I started with the last movie of the triology, Samapti. It is a tender story of a tomboyish girl who is trying to come to terms with letting go of her playful teenage and transforming into an adoring wife. I had seen Monihara, the second movie in the triology, a couple of years back, so I moved on next to The Postmaster, which is yet again a beautifully told story of a post-master in a remote village and the Ratan, the child who works for him.

Now, having seen most of Ray's trilogies, it was time to experiment with some of the other movies. So I moved on next to Charulata, which Ray mentioned was one of his favorite movies. Somehow I didn't like it as much, maybe because of it's theme or more so because it's based on a theme that is often repeated in most of the Hindi movies of my age.

Meanwhile, I'll keep exploring some of the other movies that Ray made in his life-time. I think Jalsaghar will be next...

The movies depicted in the collage at the top are -
top row - left to right - Apur Sansar, Pratidwandi, Jana Aranya, Charulata
bottom row - left to right - Samapti, Pather Panchali, The PostMaster

Snow-globes

2010-02-13T15:51:00.000-08:00

Do you remember from childhood,
what a snow-globe was like.
Those spheres made of glass, with that dancing couple inside
One little shake and the white dust would change to snow
And through the cold hard glass
that separated the world inside from the out
you could see the snow drift down but not feel the chill.
That's how it feels in my apartment today,
just that things are the other way round
I'm inside the globe and the snow is all around
I look at it drift and fly by the glass,
insulated and protected, but it feels like I'm trapped.

The art of making sabudana khichdi

2010-02-12T20:21:00.000-08:00

I was trying to make sabudana khichdi today and I succeeded. This is something that I've tried to make so many times and screwed up that it definitely used to figure at the bottom of my culinary achievements. But it now ranks much higher.

For those of you who have tried to prepare this dish, you would know that the trick lies in soaking the sabudana right. Otherwise, the dish is quite simple to prepare. But if you don't get the soaking right, you either end up with a big gooey blob or uncooked lumps of sabudana beads or worse still - both. There are advocates out there who recommended a quick wash and drain and leaving it overnight to soften. But you must understand, being a bachelor, I rarely strategize about what I'll eat the next day. So any over-night planning isn't likely to happen. When I got the sabudana from the store at 11.30 am, I had plans of having it lunch within an hour.

So here I was, trying to think of a way which would speed up the "soak" process. And being an engineer, experiment I must. So I started off with my brilliant idea of using boiling water to soak the beads quickly and then draining it off. I then planned to leave it for maybe 15 minutes to soak up the excess water. The supporting logic behind this, was that the hot water would quicken the softening of the beads and the quick draining would remove any excess water which typically causes the lumps. So theoretically, it made perfect sense and as you might have guessed already, practically, it was a disaster.

The hot water did more than soften the beads. The sabudana beads just crumbled, as if made of soft chalk to form a milky paste. By the time I could get to draining the water, there was no water left - just a vessel full of milky paste. Khichdi was out of question - the only option in front of me was soup.

But didn't I say at the beginning that I succeeded in making khichdi. Yes, I did. Just that I didn't have it for lunch, instead I had it for dinner and it was the best khichdi that I ever made.

So what's the big deal? Why write a post on making sabudana khichdi? Because there's more to it than meets the eye.

Typically, after such screw-ups, I would normally just have the soup and worry about what to do with the rest of the paste. I would regret having the idea of trying this and make a mental note to never try again. But this time, I took a different approach. I didn't have a clue of what to do with the rest of the paste. However, instead of trying to contain the failure, I took out some more sabudana and tried soaking it again. This time I just sprinkled some water and left it out in a plate. Every 15 minutes or so, I would sprinkle some water, just to make sure it wouldn't dry up but at the same time, not let it become too watery. Then I left it probably for 3-4 hours for soaking. By evening, it still looked pretty good and hadn't formed lumps yet. And this time, when I cooked it, it was perfect. Absolutely no lumps and amazingly soft and delicious.

So what are failures, other than results that you don't like or didn't expect. Or maybe new discoveries. To teach us to make changes to get what we want. In case you are still wondering what happened to the white paste, I've decided to make kheer out of it tomorrow.

Random pictures

2010-01-29T20:15:00.000-08:00

That's one book that been lying on my 'To-read' list since quite some time...

Another shot of a random collection of books and paper (messy)

That article by Alec Baldwin was quite good. Azadi is a book that one of my friend left behind for me to read. And that's Garry Kasparov's book below it (yup, that's Garry upside down). I'm again half way through that book and undecided on whether I should continue. I guess there must be a name to this syndrome - reading books half-way and then quitting.

Agree to disagree

2010-01-26T19:37:00.000-08:00

In one of my classes today, we were given an exercise on discussing ethical scenarios and reach a consensus within the group on whether some actions were ethical or not. What had initially seemed like a straight forward discussion with minimal variances turned out to be actually quite difficult. We were arguing on pretty much every question and it was a big revelation to me when I realized that we sometimes had diametrically opposite views to an ethical question. Also, it wasn't the case that one group was right and the other group chose to be wrong because of some situational benefits. Both groups were equally convinced that they were right and other was wrong.

The discussion didn't last very long and may after a few minutes, we summarily aborted it. Overall it was an unpleasant experience with a lot of residual bitterness among the group. Somehow it didn't seem to register that it was just an exercise.

Later tonight I was reading an article on NYT, about Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame and one of his recent ventures, "Mechanical Turk". It's based on what Jeff calls Artificial Artificial Intelligence, or otherwise known as 'crowd-sourcing', wherein humans are employed to perform tasks that are very complicated for machines to achieve. This could involve variety of activities such as writing comments or identifying objects in pictures, for which the workers are paid varying amounts (typically some cents per minute). I found it to be an interesting entrepreneurial idea.

However another critic, Katharine Mieszkowski, wrote “There is something a little disturbing about a billionaire like Bezos dreaming up new ways to get ordinary folk to do work for him for pennies.” Now, that's another way of looking at it, something that hadn't occurred to me. So who was right? I guess that doesn't matter. As Bezos replied, “MTurk is a marketplace where folks who have work meet up with folks who want to do work". He didn't try to prove her wrong or himself right. He just stated it the way he saw it. An apt reply, I feel.

Sometimes we should just agree to disagree and be at peace.

Work expands to fill in the time at hand

2009-11-23T08:04:00.000-08:00

They say "Work expands to fill in the time at hand". I agree with that. And I also know that I'm loaded with work these days. Or so I would like to believe. And this belief has led me to drop things that I always wanted to do by the side, so that I could focus on the work at hand. But that doesn't help. Fatigue sets in sooner or later and my efficiency gets affected. What I feel should have taken a couple of hours to complete, stretches on indefinitely. So I've decided to take a contrarian approach to the entire matter. I'm going to increase the number of items on my plate, with the hope that the lesser time I have forces me to be efficient with it.

I started my day by going to the gym - on a day when I'm inundated with work, assignments and deadlines. I'm already feel a lot fresher and ready to plough through the day. Wish me luck!

Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free

2009-11-17T08:06:00.000-08:00

I realized the depth and profoundness of this statement today. When I had seen the movie, it had seemed like a nice quote, but I hadn't really paid much attention to it. You might feel the same way today but some where, at some time, you'll be reminded of it, when you actually experience it. I did today. And I feel exactly the way it is shown in the alongside image.

It's not walls that make a prison. It's the despair and fear that holds one down. And a faint ray of hope can change that. Even before being actually free, just the hope of being free one day kept Andy alive. He was free even within the walls of the prison and that hope translated into reality in the course of time.

So despair not, keep the hope alive. Keep working on your Rita Hayworth.

I can tell you - I am.

Film poster for the 1994 American film, The Shawshank Redemption.

Fair use rationale

Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:

It is a low resolution copy of a video cover.

The image is only a small portion of the commercial product.

The use of the poster will not affect the value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original video.

It illustrates educational articles about the film from which the cover illustration was taken.

The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of topics in the article

It is not replaceable with an uncopyrighted or freely copyrighted image of comparable educational value.

In search of the Nikon 35mm

2009-04-23T17:35:00.000-07:00

I've been looking for this lens all over, but just can't seem to find it anywhere. I've heard Nikon is releasing this lens to commemorate Henri Cartier Bresson. And ever since I saw his photo of the kid smiling with 2 wine bottles walking down the road, I've been impressed! I'm planning to start street photography as soon as I lay my hands on it...

But I dunno when I'll get it :(... I've already placed an order with Amazon and Adorama as well. But no one seems to have it in stock...

Where have I been (continued)

2009-04-22T18:50:00.001-07:00

Here's are the sunset and Richmond skyline pics that I had promised last time..

This time with a frame of branches from a nearby tree -

And here's the magnificent sunset that I witnessed-

Where have I been

2009-04-21T04:53:00.000-07:00

It's been quite sometime since I last posted below. Well, I've been shooting a lot these days, so much so that my photo developing, posting and blogging activities are finding it hard keep up with the pace. So I decided to plug in a couple of shots on this page...

Few weeks back, I had been to Pittsburgh. Below is a shot from top of Mt Washington (think that's the name) of the Pittsburgh skyline.

On the way back, we stopped over at DC where the Cherry blossoms were in full bloom. So here's a pic from there...Btw, this looks much better full-size.

I think it was the week after Pitts trip, that we went to Belle Isles during sunset. So far, it has been the best place I've seen in Richmond to shoot sunset pics. On the west end of the island, there's a beautiful unobstructed view of the sunset over the James river and on the eastern end, you can see the Richmond skyline bathed in the light of the setting sun. Ironically, I haven't developed either of these snaps, so here are some spring blossoms from the same trip

Another interesting event from this trip was the photog. There was a professional photographer on the island with a very beautiful model, a big camera, huge lens and a speed-light with diffusers. We saw them shooting some cool snaps using the setting sunlight on the model and the speedlight probably providing some fill light. Neither did I have a big camera, lens or a speedlight. But I did want to take something similar. So I asked my friend to stand against a formidable backdrop of rocks which contrasts well with the attitude reflected on his tee-shirt and the smile of confidence on his face.

I'll post the skyline and sunset snaps as well... hopefully soon

Goochland County

2009-03-28T15:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I did finally go down Broad Street into Goochland once again. This time it was in the evening, very close to the 'golden' hour, but since it has been raining since the last couple of days, there was hardly any sunlight to boast about.

My target was the 'Tack Shop' that I wanted to shoot and I know will look great in B/W, but before I could take those snaps it started raining. I guess I'll need to make another sojourn into Goochland to capture that Tack shop.

Meanwhile, though it started raining, I was able to capture a couple of shots - nothing great, but nice. Almost in the middle of nowhere, there is a clearance in the woods, and someone has planted grass all around. It might not have been grass but that's what it seemed like. I tried a couple of cross cropped grassland shots, a lone shot of an electric pole, some shots almost lying on the ground. The greens from the grass were refreshing after a long winter. We were about to leave, when I got a brilliant idea. I decided to place the grass as a background for my magenta colored car. The snap came out quite good and I liked the contrast in the picture. (I should have fixed the wheel cap on the rear tire though...)

Here are the snaps -

Misty James River

2009-03-28T14:46:00.001-07:00

Misty James River, originally uploaded by sarit_mishra.

Spring was just breaking through last week, and it seemed like the last vestiges of winter were fading away. I had been reading so much about the 'golden' hours of twilight in Bryan Peterson's book, that I really wanted to capture some magical shots of this hour.

Weather.com told me the sunrise was slated for 7.11 am on Sunday. I remember the last time I had been to the James River, it was around this time and it was actually too close to sunrise. The darkness before the sunrise, had already been lost that day. So I was determined to atleast an hour earlier to catch the first rays of the sun. I hadn't originally planned to go to James river again. In fact, I was planning to drive down Broad Street, cross ShortPump and go into Goochland County. I had once strayed into this area and found that right after Short Pump, the country side began with rolling green pastures everywhere. I was thinking that these pastures would nice to look at in the morning sun. But on the other hand, I didn't want to capture a lot of barren trees in my shots. Since it's not quite spring yet, most of the trees are still quite barren.

So I woke up at 5 and was out in my car by 5:30 am in search of the perfect spot to catch the morning rays on a pasture. But I wasn't very lucky since it was pitch dark and I could make out the shadows of the barren trees almost everywhere. Secondly in the darkness, most of the houses in the countryside were bleak and dark and on second thoughts quite foreboding. It definitely didn't look welcoming enough to wait for an hour for the sun to rise.

I guess I wasn't very happy by the way things were turning out so I decided to go back to the James River. If I'm lucky I would catch the early-morning mist and at least it was in a part of town that I was more familiar with. And I was lucky... as you can see in the shot above. I quickly assembled my tripod and camera and started shooting. During those days, the days were quite warm but it grew quite chilly in the night. I guess that's why the fog was almost everywhere. The river was literally smoking. I've captured so many snaps from that morning and stopped only when my fingers were numb from the cold.

Some more snaps below.

When I started out shooting, the moon was high in the sky, but before I could change my camera settings to take a good shot, the sunrise had almost started so I decided to the ditch the moon. This is the only moon shot that I captured, that too restored mostly from RAW

Photography

2009-03-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

I'm recently into Photography. It's a new hobby I developed since I landed myself my first DSLR Nikon D40 with two lenses 18-55mm and 55-200mm during Thanksgiving'08. I guess I'm in for the long haul, since it's been more than a couple of months and my enthusiasm is anything but sagging.

I've been carrying my camera to places I never thought about before. I've going around just to get my next best shot. And I've been gobbling up books by Bryan Peterson and Joe McNally like I've never eaten for years...

So... I've decided to write about it too... That way I get back to writing and also share my photography experiences.

Sacred Heart Boys' High School, Santacruz, Mumbai

2008-12-22T19:25:00.001-08:00

Guess I was just plain home-sick today.

It all started off from a client appreciation email asking all associates to enjoy their time off during the Christmas break. What struck me in the message was phoniness in the way it was addressed to a specific group first and then forwarded onto us, as if on second thought, to pass the cheer along. Anyways, that’s a separate story and I didn’t pay much attention to it.

I was thinking about how I used to celebrate Christmas back when I was a kid in school and it reminded me of my school. It brought back memories of running down hall-ways during the breaks, occasionally slipping and mostly sliding on the polished floors. I used to like the old school building much more than the new one because it was made of blocks of stone on the exterior. The interiors were pretty much like any other building but from the outside, it looked like a castle to me back then. And that’s probably one of the reasons I remember it most. The class that comes first to my mind was the Std IV class, which was on the ground floor. Maybe I remember it because it was closest to the exit and farthest from the principal’s chamber. There was a beautiful church attached to the school, and it also had a spooky castle-like look with all the trees surrounding it. If it hadn’t been for the big school grounds in front of it and flanked by the busy SV road on the other side, it could have been straight out of a medieval story. I never liked the new school building much. It was way too normal and contemporary to be of any interest.

As I sit here in my cubicle with my friend in the cubicle behind me, drowsy from a heavy lunch and lurching from side to side, I wonder if I ever had a clue that this was where I would be so many years down the line. I guess not. I did a Google on my school name and found that Santa Cruz means ‘Holy Cross’ in Portuguese and the place was named after an old church located at the very same location where the school stands today. Interesting piece of historical trivia.

Coming back to Christmas, I and my friends used to go down to Akbarally’s at Santacruz on Christmas eve. Neither were we big shopping aficionados back then, nor we had the means to be. But we went there because there used to a big Santa sitting outside the shop distributing free gifts. It used to be so exciting back then. It wasn’t anything great but it used to be fun to get gifts. And the place wasn’t too close. I and my friends had to walk at least a couple of miles (something that would take lot of persuasion for me to do today) down to the school and then from there on to Akbarallys. Unlike in the US, late nights never felt like late nights back in Mumbai. Everything was so lit-up and there used to be so much life around, people walking about, traffic still on the streets, though no more clogging it. And as far as security was concerned, it never crossed any of our minds. I wonder how it is these days. Do kids (or their parents) back in Mumbai, think twice before venturing out anywhere. I hope they don’t have to but I guess I don’t know.

As I look back from my seat, I still see my friend dozing off. And it doesn’t look like he’s drowsy anymore. He has dozed off for good. I couldn’t recollect the Akbarallys name at first so I did a Google on ‘Mumbai Santacruz department stores’ and it appeared as the first entry. It also looks like it has closed down as well. It wasn’t doing too good once all the shopping malls started cropping up in Mumbai and I had heard that those free Christmas gifts had stopped long back. But the closing of the store was news to me. And it seems it closed in Jun ’06, more than two years back.

It would be nice to back to the school some time. When I was kid studying there and these old alums used to drop by once in a while, the teacher in class would stop teaching for some time and let the alum address the class. I used to like it because at the very least, it was a much wanted reprieve from the teacher’s lecture. Back then, I used to think that when I grow up and become someone ‘big’, I would come back to the school and off course get chocolates for everybody apart from the speech. I would then deliver an inspirational speech telling them how I started like one of them. Do I have that speech ready yet?

Some higher-ups just came by my friend’s cubicle and the poor guy had to wake up quick. I guess I’ll also need to get back to work. Maybe I’ll work on the speech sometime later. Getting chocolates would be the easiest bit. And what about the inspiration in the speech? That's something that needs more working on - sleeping colleagues and dull work environments are hardly anything to talk about.

Jhumpa Lahiri's 'Unaccustomed Earth'

2008-12-18T18:06:00.000-08:00

I've been reading Jhumpa Lahiri's new book 'Unaccustomed Earth" lately. Her style of writing is simple and easy to grasp, and doesn't quite feel like a Pultizer prize winner's piece of work. And I'm glad it's that way. Or I would have probably deserted it in between. Another good thing about it is that it's a collection of short stories. So even if you leave it in between you've atleast read a couple of stories and carry a sense of accomplishment, as compared to leaving a large story mid-way, with a feeling of remorse at the sunken cost in terms of time and effort. And till now, I've managed to complete two stories of the collection. The stories are quite interesting focussing mainly on immigrant families, staying away from home, trying to adapt to the new culture and at the same time to trying to maintain their 'Indian' identity.

Some would call them stories of ABCDs (American born Confused Desis) and I guess they wouldn't be too wrong, however it is to Jhumpa's credit that she brings out much more in the characters than just 'confusion'. Many of these stories could apply to people living in the Indian sub-continent, but I guess the cross-cultural environment in the US adds to the confusion aspect. One thing that I have noticed till now and am hoping that it won't repeat in the all the stories, is the 'love' angle. Most novels, stories, movies in our age are obsessed with love. And such is the case with people in real life as well. Love is over-rated in our world. Especially the guy-girl kind. It's been a matter of research for so long that this aspect has been covered from all possible angles in writing and direction. So there hardly an creativity evident when someone writes on this topic. However, since I haven't read the entire book as yet, these observations do not apply to this book and most likely Jhumpa leaps across the banality that I just described.

Let's see...

The 'Broken Windows' Theory

2008-11-26T05:40:00.000-08:00

Can the can
The idea that graffiti-spraying and other forms of low-level delinquency promote further bad behaviour has now been tested experimentally

Above is a very interesting and quite true explanation of how a disorderly environment promotes similar (and maybe criminal) behavior. It definitely explains the sudden civic sense that we grow when we move out of India and come conscious of the cleanliness around. But put that same person back in a littered street in India and he'll probably not think twice about adding to the litter that's already out there. Firstly the pre-existing litter shows that its 'OK' to have litter around even if he personally wouldn't like it to be there. His non-contribution would not remove the existing litter. And lastly the increment in litter on the street by his contribution is probably deemed negligible compared to the cost effortwise, in finding a dustbin to put the stray bit of paper in.

Solution (or atleast the closest resemblance to one) : Clean up the current litter and put lots of visible, accessible dustbins around. Basically making it easier to behave well. And of-course, chain all those bins to lamp-posts, so that they are not 'lost (else, they can fetch a tidy sum of money for someone who needs it)

Captive audience

2008-11-22T17:28:00.000-08:00

Today I understand the real meaning of the word 'captive audience', unfortunately by being one. And the bad part of being part of a captive audience, is not the 'audience' part, but the 'captive' part.

The current situation being the way it is, I have to wait for 4 hours in a airport terminal for my flight to get me out. But waiting is nothing - I have waited for longer periods in the past. But right now all the LCD TV screens in front of me are playing the same program. And they have been doing that since the last couple of hours. First it was a batch of tele-marketing ads. And were they long... you should have seen them! I guess the airtime rates on these monitors are not much, so all these advertisers can afford to post 15-30 minute ads. Try imagining how that feels. All LCD screens around you blaring out ads trying to sell get-rich-quick schemes, lose-fat-quick plan and even revolutionary kitchen-ware and repeating them again and again, until it burns a permanent image on your brain. Terrible, terrible torture. And maybe that's the intention when they keep the screens hanging out of reach from the ceiling and the remote control is no where in sight.

Go smelly

2008-10-18T05:39:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered how 'rocky springs' smells like? Sound nice, doesn't it. Conjures up places that you probably haven't been in quite a while. But how does it smell like? Can't seem to remember... can ya? So how does 'cool' smell like? Probably smells of confidence and success. But I can't seem to go beyond that.

Now, try this. Imagine how 'rocky springs' and 'cool' together smell like? This is the point where I stopped. But you don't have to. Imagine how 'meadows' smell like... Nice and green and add a few more colors to account for the Fall season. But the smell? Now combine that with rain. I can imagine how rain smells like or rather the way the earth smells like, when it rains. But imagine just rain and it's smell.

If you are bored with these combinations, you can try 'Summer and Splash'. Or you can lay your imagination to rest and head to the nearest Walmart to check out the new collection of Febreze. They all smell good, and after a number of samplings they all smell the same. But to co-relate the smell with the name - that requires a whole lot of imagination. But you might fare well - you've already had some practice now.

Half way done

2008-10-18T05:24:00.000-07:00

As he half-filled the bottle cap and poured the liquid into his mouth, he could feel the tinge and the foaming building up.

'Sodium Hypo chloride' he said to himself. Sounds so familiar. And then he realized that the familiarity was with Sodium Chloride. What a difference hypo makes? And while he thought these thoughts, another thought crossed his mind. Maybe he had the name wrong. So much for the contemplation. Taking a look at the bottle contents, it read 'Sodium Phosphate....'. Hmmm, half way correct and half way familiar

Gandhi

2008-07-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading 'My experiments with Truth' By Mahatma Gandhi and it left me with a feeling of emptiness. I had attempted to read this book earlier but had abandoned it in out of boredom. Recently I decided to give another try at this book, mainly to gain an understanding of how Mahatma Gandhi looked at developing India. The way India is developing today is not in keeping with the vision that Gandhiji had for this country. And I wanted to understand Gandhiji's vision better.

I had started losing interest again this time when it came to the details of the working of the Indian National Congress, but I kept going just to make sure I completed the book this time.

There were a number of intermittent lessons that one could learn from, and what really hit me was last chapter which is titled 'Farewell'. It is really heart-wrenching when you read this portion because it feels as if the book wouldn't end if I didn't read this chapter and I wouldn't lose Gandhiji. So it was very painful to read those last two pages.

There is one complaint that I have with this book is that it doesn't dwell very deeply on the work that Gandhiji did in India. More that 3/4 of the book is based on the South Africa experiences and learnings, which is good in a way that it explains the formative years of satyagraha. But most of the work done in the Indian revolution is left out since his life since 1921 has been an open book, known to the public. It is shameful to say that, that may have been the case during his generation or maybe the next, but not in my generation. We know precious little about him and it would do us a lot good if we took the effort to learn more about him. I guess it's an indication that I'll probably need to read more about him to understand his thinking better.

I've harbored different opinions with respect to Gandhiji in the past. But one thing that I've always been amazed by has been his mental strength and immense will power. He may have had his share of faults but I think he's paid for more than his share with the two bullets that he got in the chest. To understand his strength, one should read the 'Freedom at Midnight's account of his role in the Bengal riots. One man single-handedly controlled the riots what thousands of British army-men could not control in Punjab.

Much ridiculous as it may seem, Ahimsa still holds the key to peaceful co-existence today as it did earlier. People may still not believe it, neither did many believe it earlier. Some of my friends have a complaint that if it hadn't been for Gandhi we wouldn't have all these hartals and bandhs. So much of precious productivity is lost in these disruptive activities. I wonder if they would approve of it, if instead of going on a 'strike' people decided to blow up those with whom they have differences. I wouldn't. It is natural that people will have difference and it's their right to demonstrate it through peaceful means. Because hatred foments hatred and the same applies for violence. After Godhra, came the riots in Ahmedabad followed by numberous acts of violence including the recent bomb blasts. Are we any closure to avenging the deaths of the innocents? How long would this killings go on for? I know not. But I don't think we have any other option than tolerance and peaceful co-existence. But I wonder if people would realize that.

Quote from the Bhagvad Gita...

2008-07-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

Interesting and thought-provoking..

Dhyayato vishayan pumsaha sangasteshupajayate
sangat samjayate kamah kamat krodhohabhijayate
krodhadbhavati sammohah sammohat smriti vibhramah
smritibhramshad buddhinasho buddhi nashat pranashyati

Dhyayato vishayan pumsaha sangasteshupajayate
Repeated dwelling on a object creates a degree of affection or love (sanga) for the object

sangat samjayate kamah kamat krodhohabhijayate
Once affection is born, you want to have it (kama). If you are able to fulfill that kama, it's OK but you may not be able to do so (and more often than not, this is the case)

krodhadbhavati sammohah sammohat smriti vibhramah
Unfulfilled, the kama leads to krodha (anger), which brings about an inner torpor which leads to sammohah. When this happens, past experiences do not offer their wisdom to you (smriti doesnt' work).

smritibhramshad buddhinasho buddhi nashat pranashyati
You cease to understand what is what (buddhi-nashah). Viveka (discriminatory power) is gone, which leads to a lack of understanding of what is to be done and not to be done.
Buddhi and viveka is what makes human a human. With the loss of buddhi gone, the person is lost.

Lost but recoverable, hopefully when buddhi and viveka return in due time.

What's with the snow...

2008-01-19T17:36:00.001-08:00

It's been snowing in Richmond lately. And it's beautiful. I'm not used to snow and so it's always a novelty for me, whenever it does. It's not that I hadn't seen snow before. I mean I've seen snow (the noun 'snow') a couple of times before - in Kashmir, Kullu Manali and Shimla. But I had never seen it snow (the verb 'snow') before.

It's so very peaceful to watch it snow. Unlike rain. And mind you, I come from a place where I get to see a lot of rain. Rain always seems to be in a hurry - to fall, to flow, to get going. It drizzles, it pours. Very unlike snow. Snow doesn't really fall either, it actually drifts down, peacefully and quietly. Small flecks of white behind blue, black and morose backgrounds. It seems to be in no hurry. And once it lies down thick, it so hard to believe that it fell so gently, slowly and quietly.

White, quiet, and sending chills down your spine, without even trying.

Christmas break

2007-12-25T20:49:00.000-08:00

It's fun to go to office on a Wednesday after a long weekend. Of course, it's the next best thing to not going at all. I was at home for the last 4 days, well, almost. Festival periods like Thanksgiving or Christmas can be sometimes the dullest periods of one's life in the US. So, I picked up a whole new bunch of books from the library at the beginning of the break, making sure that I don't suffer from book-deprivation in the middle of it.

The last 4 days have been a motley period in whole. From reading a number of books in parallel (which is something I regularly indulge in, before giving up on all of them at the same time) to playing pool in a nearby sports-bar to watching Sweeney Todd (or rather enduring it at times), looks like I did all that was humanely accomplishable in 4 days. And how could I forget - one day in between I went to the Ashland mall with a friend who wanted to some company for shopping and got a lot more than I bargained for.

To cut a long story short, she forgot her sunglasses in one of the stores and when we went back for it she left the jacket and car-keys in their place. The next couple of hours were spent in searching for those until we finally gave up and called up a cab to take us home. And as luck would have it, a salesgirl came running to us telling us that she had found the keys and jacket. I had a quick conversation with the cab-driver, trying to explain him the situation and why we didn't need his service anymore. By this time, the lady got us the jacket and the keys, but these were the house keys and they didn't contain the car-key (Don't ask me why they were separate, I haven't been able to figure that one as yet). So in the end, the jacket and the house-keys were salvaged (thank goodness). The car-key was lost and we also discovered that the cellphone was missing. Finally we called up another cab (I wouldn't dare call the first one again) , went home, got a spare key, came back and picked up the car and came back home again.

Comparatively, watching Sweeney Todd was quite uneventful. I could still manage without all the songs though.

The ways of smart people

2007-07-12T19:57:00.000-07:00

The village simpleton is a person whom you are likely to find in every village. Readers of 'Malgudi Days' would probably understand the kind of person I'm referring to here. He's the typical idiot or more aptly a simple-ton who's so gullible that he is a great source of entertainment to the entire village.

But although he may be the butt of jokes, there are times when he is the most sensible of all. Maybe as a result of his simple mind, he doesn't seem to complicate the truth beyond what it actually is. And most importanly he does not deceive himself into believing that he is the smartest of the entire lot and holds an upper-hand over everyone else. This is something that normal individuals like us are not able to achieve at times.

We have an office simpleton as well but this story is not about him. On the contrary, its about the rest of us...

One of my friends in office has been trying to convince his manager to send him offshore. He's tired of the monotony of the life here and wants to go back to India for a break. Every time he meets with the PM, it's the same story in a new package - "We definitely understand your need and desire to go back but the team really needs you here and the business requirements are such that we can't afford to lose you. It's a matter of a couple of months, when things ease off and you can go back home. Two months from now, your going home Blah..blah..blah..". And he would come back and tell us that he's going home, soon. And this went on and on and he's been going home since almost a year now.

Recently he hit the limit and he went and fought. He fought with the threat of 'You let me go' or 'I go'. Not wanting to lose an employee during such stressful times, the PM asked him to hold on, that the dawn is near and he would go home in October. My friend was esctatic - he finally had a date to fall back on. He came back and narrated the entire episode to us, about how scared the PM was when he was threatened with such dire consequences. He painted a vivid account of how much the PM has been working on sending him home, about the constraints being worked on and how he would be released in October.

Maybe we shouldn't have asked him, but unfortunately we did. From a different point of view, how about harboring the thought, no matter how unlikely it seemed, that maybe... maybe the PM had done a good job at convincing him again...?

This germ of a thought got him thinking and soon he wasn't too sure about his recent success. But no, he said shaking his head - he had really scared the shit out of the PM, no doubt about that.

In the meantime, while he was pondering on the prospect of different interpretations, the phone rang. It was one of his close pals who also was keen on returning to India. The guy on the other end was ecstatic and he told my friend that he's got great news, that he is actually flying back to India. He too had a discussion with his PM and had finally convinced him today.

My friend was excited for him and asked him eagerly about when he would be flying - The guy on the other end replied, 'In October!!!'.

Oscar Wilde was right when he said “Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable"

2007-07-12T16:21:00.000-07:00

"Sweet child of mine.... Wooo..ooo ...sweet love of mine..." blared from the speakers lying on the floor behind him. The lone light glowed from the corner from top of the lamp-shaft, silently spreading the yellow light across the room, struggling against the light from the setting sun which still had a dominating though receding stake on the room.

"Mamma take this badge from me... I can't use this anymore.." ... "Feels like I'm knocking on heaven's door". The song has changed but it's still Guns and Roses. Somethings never change. And neither has he, sitting on the lonely chair by the lonely table, crouched over his laptop, typing away pensively. "Knock..knock... knocking on heaven's door"

There are books scattered all over the place. A bed lay in the middle of the room, not slept in since the past 8 hours well, almost. He's been lying on it once in a while staring at the ceiling taking a break from his little screen, listening to the music or perhaps thinking to himself.

Among the litter lies another laptop close to the wastebasket in the room. It's a wicker waste basket - a lame attempt at improving the interiors of the room. And that other laptop is his work-laptop, constantly connected to the corporate network over VPN. Sitting so close to the waste-basket, you can't help but notice the similarity.

Guess I need a break - time for a swim!

(This was meant to be abstract - if it didn't make sense, don't bother and if it did, it doesn't matter)

Ratatouille (Rat-a-too-ee)

2007-07-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

What can be inspiring about a rat that cooks... Well, nothing much, really.

And that's what I thought too, before I saw the movie Ratatouille. But I'd take back my words, because the movie really gets you thinking [Of course only if your used to doing that more often than not :)]

Hey, don't give me that look - I haven't suddenly turned rat-o-philic or something. But the movie just rocks. It's amazing how much life and story is packed into these animation movies! Or maybe because they are animation movies they have to go that extra mile to prove their worth.

The movie is peppered with inspiring quotes such as the one below.

Remy: This is me. I think it's apparent that I need to rethink my life a little bit. I can't help myself. I... I like good food, ok? And... good food is... hard for a rat to find!
Django: It wouldn't be so hard to find, if you weren't so picky!
Remy: I don't wanna eat garbage dad!

On the surface, this might just sound like a rat craving for good food but down below, it could mean much more - it could be anyone of us craving for a better something, when everyone around has settled for garbage.

And the following critique by top food critic Anton Ego towards the end of the movies packs in quite a punch -

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. Last night, I experienced something new, an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize that only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more."

All in all it's a must-watch.

Btw, it's pronounced as "RAT-A-TOO-EE"... Like in most french words, half of the characters are silent. If they are gonna be silent, why have them in the first place - don't ask me, it's french monsieur!

Laid back...

2007-04-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

As I lay on the carpeted floor listening to Iron Maiden's 'Hallowed be thy name' blaring on the Bose speakers connected to my IPOD Nano, it brought back nostalgic memories on my college days.

Back in those days, I didn't have a music system of my own, rather I had brokered one. A friend of mine had an amplifier and a pair of speakers placed in earthen pots (for that bass and surround effect). Another friend of mine had a CD player, which he wasn't using much. So I got them both together, and had both the amplifier, the CD player and one of the speakers (with a pot) placed in my room. The other speaker was positioned in the room of my amplifier friend. My friend didn't mind what I played as long he had some music in his room.

But most of the times, I preferred sitting in his room listening to the music. And this was mostly during the exam times, when most of the guys would be huddled in their rooms preparing for their destiny.

Each of us had a single, mostly spartan room, containing a steel cot, a table and a chair, all of them painted olive-green and the paint peeling off to reveal the rusting iron. There was one window, with a grille and four small windows. So you had the option of keeping them open in the combination you desired. There wasn't much to look out of the windows, except for the neem trees which kept the sun out during the hot summer days. Most of the rooms were kept pretty austere in nature, the only adornments being the posters on the walls and a occasional hanging lantern to add a touch of exotica. The floors were of cold concrete, mostly dusty, with the invariable presence of a couple 'chatai's scattered around. There was a single door, with a small window built in, which you could open to let the cool night breeze in.

During those tense nights before the exams, and especially during the breaks that were necessary to keep going through the night, I would half-lie-down on my friends bed staring out of the partially open window of the door. My friend would generally be sitting at his table racing against time to commit entire portions of books to memory. However, he wouldn't mind the occasional breaks where I would land up in his room, after having put some rock music on our system. And we would sit there trying to enjoy a moment of idleness interspersed with the tension of impending doom.

The darkness and silence of the night beyond those doors would be interrupted by an occasional friend going to the water-cooler. Invariably he would be surprised to see us so laid back and enjoying ourselves. After the exchange of a few pleasantries to enquire if we had given ourselves up to fate's hands, he would go off, probably unable to bear the strain of stayed that long from his study desks.

It gave a sense of magnanimity (false, most of the time) to be lying back enjoying the cool breeze of the night, while everyone was tensed up. And I had the same feeling while I laid back tonight, though things have changed quite a bit - the luxuries have increased, and so has the stress, while my list of friends have gone down...

In search of e-meaning...

2007-04-23T20:57:00.000-07:00

There's got to be something better to do, than staring at my gmail inbox for mails to arrive, or waiting for someone to scrap on orkut or checking the list of online friends on messengers. This is not all that's out there, I said to myself.

And thus I set out, with this new determination to find something more interesting and break the monotony. I have to admit that I've met with certain success. I've been watching a couple of episodes of Russell Peters, including his new video 'Outsourced'. It's fun to watch a comedy show. Now that definitely sounds like an obvious fact, but not many realize that you don't need to be in any particular mood to enjoy a comedy show. Even if you think you're not in the right mood, just go ahead and watch it - you'll end up loving the decision.

Also to try something new, I opened up the National Geographic site. Once upon a time I used to be a frequent visitor to download photos from their wallpapers section and adorn my desktop with a new photo every other day. So it was quite nostalgic going back to the site. But this time I didn't go for the pics, it was for the content instead. Somehow I strayed into the People and places section.

It was here that I read about Syria and Azerbaijan. I had definitely heard of these countries, but it was interesting to read some details about them, how these places are endowed with natural beauty and how they too suffer from ethnic strife. There was one poignant incident narrated about an old woman who was a cemetery care-taker. 3 of her sons died in an ethnic strife and she decided to take up the job of the caretaker of the graveyard in order to be closer to them...

This definitely beats orkut and its likes.

Of Outer Banks and pirates

2007-04-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks back, I had been to the Outer Banks, North Carolina over a weekend. It's a lovely place, which reminded me a lot about Cape Cod. I was interested in going to this place because it's a thin strip of land out in of the ocean, a string of islands, but not quite. Normally the sun, the white sands and the blue water are enough to attract me to a beach, but in this case there was another fact that intrigued me the most. It was something I learnt after landing there - it was the lair of the famous (or rather notoriously infamous) pirate BlackBeard. There is a sense of adventure and romanticism around pirates and piracy which enthralls both young and old. It's probably because the concept of pirates connotes a strong sense of freedom/rebellion and adventure. Though during their actual reign, their deed weren't as heroic as they are made out to be, I'm still pretty fascinated about pirates.

If you look at the map alongside, we stayed at place near Kitty Hawk at the beginning of the strip. The strip continues further down south crossing the Bodie lighthouse over a bridge onto the Cape Hatteras National Sea-shore. This portion of land is present in it's most natural and unadulterated form with sand dunes and beaches all over. A single road travels down the strip to the Hatteras light-house. Apparently this lighthouse (pictured above) had been moved around a mile inland to save it from erosion. This region is also called the 'Graveyard of the Atlantic' because of the numerous ship-wrecks which have occurred around this place.

Crossing over the Hatteras inlet via a ferry, we get into the island of Ocracoke - the lair of BlackBeard. More accurately BlackBeard a.k.a Edward Teach (his favourite alias) used to haunt the waters near Ocracoke inlet, further down south the island. Ironically this was also the spot where he met his nemesis Maynard and was beheaded. You can read the legend of BlackBeard and Ocracoke here.

The island still has a quaint little village at it's southern end, where you have small houses, numerous shops trying to capitalize on the BlackBeard name and pristine beaches. And while being here, you get the distinct feeling on how it must feel on a Treasure Island (you'll probably understand if you've read R.L. Stevenson's book by the same name) - sailing through the blue waters in search of land, and what a spectacular sight these white sands and greenery must behold to the sea-faring lot.

P.S. - I've also picked up a book - The History of Pirates, which is quite an interesting read.

Holi hai ! (Back in College)

2007-03-04T07:49:00.000-08:00

Being a compulsive early riser, I always tend to get up much before the day's frenzy began. This would deceptively give an impression that maybe this Holi wouldn't be as exciting as the year before. I and my friends used to check on each other, just to make sure that we weren't the only ones who were probably missed out by the rest of the mob. However the shouts and cheers coming from a distance, probably the adjacent hostel used to assure us that soon we would be devoured by the colorful gang.

It has always been a routine for me to smear myself by a layer of oil before changing into a set of old clothes. The oil helped in washing off the colors once it's time to clean up, and spared the extra scrubbing. By the time I was armed with my oil armour, the crowd would have reached by room. I would soon be engulfed by a gang of similar looking black and blue guys and in matter of a few seconds, flying colors, stuffed ears and nostrils, with all shades of color in my hair, I would become one of them - ready to take on the rest of the world :)

We would then go around each of the hostels, armed with colors, converting people from their lonely colorless monotony to a medley of colors. There were some who hated getting colored, so they would tend to stay in their rooms and lock it from inside in the false hope that they would be left alone. But the crowd didn't have the intention of leaving anyone alone. So we would burst into their rooms, breaking the latches if required, pulling them out from under the bed (which surprisingly used to be a last resort for many).

Once everyone had been colored, the entire mob would go around making sure that every person met every other person to show off their colors and see if they were still recognizable. Also, I forgot to mention, most of our clothes would be in tatters. The reason being, it's fun to tear up clothes, not something that you get to do daily. Also since most of the people would be in their oldest pairs, they would join in the fun too. It's interesting to note how artistic and creative, people can get - leaving enough shreds to cover the bare minimum while making sure that their isn't much scope for further shredding.

So, understandably, back in college, Holi used to be a pure guy's festival and come to think of it, it used to be more enjoyable that way.

Movie time

2007-03-02T21:15:00.000-08:00

Work's getting a bit lighter so I'm back to writing again.

I've been watching a couple of movies lately, or rather re-watching some of them.
One of them was Me, Myself and Irene. Jim Carrey has always been one of my favourite actors. He does over-act at times, but then no one can over-act like him! His facial gimmicks are amazing. All in all that's one idiotically funny movie.

Then there was Truman Show, one of Jim Carrey's serious movies. I've always liked something about the movie. Maybe it's because Carrey's role is refreshingly different than his standard fare.

Then there was a non Jim Carrey movie that I watched - One flew over the cuckoo's nest. This one by Jack Nicholson is a good movie. It would rank pretty close to Shawshank Redemption. Though I don't think I've seen anything yet that would beat Shawshank Redemption. That movie belongs to a separate league by itself.

Jack Nicholson plays an amicable guy who lands up in a mental asylum. He manages to liven up the dreary lives of the inmates only to realize in the middle of the movie that most of the inmates are voluntary and not committed. That means they can leave anytime they choose to, but they choose not to. It depicts the typical inherent human nature that cherishes a comfort zone, no matter how uncomfortable the so -called 'comfort' zone is. There is a sense of security that a comfort-zone provides which prevent us from venturing out.
All in all, One flew over the cuckoo's nest is an interesting watch.

Rest in peace...

2006-10-01T10:49:00.000-07:00

The sun was shining softly on his face and the clear sky was so blue - he had never seen it that blue before. The leaves of the trees shook gently as a soft breeze blew through them, the same breeze which caressed his face and tousled his hair gently. The leaves looked much greener, with the sun shining through them. Were they always that green? Maybe he never noticed them before. The view of the city was very different lying down - as if he was seeing it for the first time.

He had been through this part of the city before, but it all seemed so new to him today - almost as if he had never really been here before. He liked the greenery and serenity of the place, so he used to come here frequently to jog, always carrying his IPOD along. Much as he liked the serenity he couldn't run without his music. Today he didn't have his music with him and he saw what he had pretended to see all along.

It was a new experience for him. Maybe people were not right in thinking that death was the final experience. Lot of things had changed - the trees had grown taller, so had his children. His family had grown apart, all while he ran oblivious of his surroundings, of everything and everyone else. He had run all his life - to be finally carried on the shoulders of men, leaving behind all that he ran for...

Sometimes it helps to see life in flash-back from the future. It helps to get your perspective right - to know where you are headed, for what and all that you are leaving behind in the process.

These thoughts ran through my head as I lay down on the grass behind my house, staring at the quivering green leaves above me, the sun shining softly on my face, a cool breeze blowing over my face, with the birds chirping in the background. I rested in peace but I wasn't dead yet - that's a great feeling in itself.

Whizz...

2006-09-22T06:07:00.000-07:00

Days just go by... hurtling like a train, while I stand on the platform - a sudden gush of wind,lots of noise and then when it's gone, silence for a moment till the next one comes. Sometimes it's hard to realize what just happened - it has such a numbing effect.
Am I working too hard or am I just thinking that I am? Morning to evening to night I'm doing something - work! And it feels like I'm standing on the platform while life passes me by - WHIZZ!!! - one day at a time.
I guess I just need to find some time out for myself.

Indians, Indians everywhere...

2006-09-10T15:25:00.000-07:00

This is something that I've noticed every since I set foot out of India. I see Indians everywhere and I'm not hallucinating. Right from the attendants at Paris airport, the cabbies in the US, the techies, my neighbours, the familiar colors at Wal-mart - I doubt there's any place left where you won't find desis.

I heard somewhere that the Indians and the Chinese together make up 50% of the world population. And if that's true, what I see shouldn't be surprising. And you might be wondering, what suddenly brought this thought into my mind. I was checking out the discussion forums of some of the top B-schools and almost all (or almost 99%) of the questions were being put forth by Indians. Moreover almost all the ads of these B-schools featured an Indian faculty member.

From the city of Mark Twain to the home of Edgar Allen Poe...

2006-09-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've moved out of CT to Richmond, VA - places associated with great writers whom I've always admired - Mark Twain and Poe.

But it wasn't the love of literature that's driven me south, as usual it was work. I've left all my old friends, and had to move on to a new territory, new experiences and a new break of life. We've just landed in Richmond yesterday and will be staying in a hotel for a week before we move onto apartments.

Dilbert for real

2006-09-06T20:27:00.000-07:00

A very interesting incident happened in office today - an actual Dilbert-like situation. Thanks to the strategic location of my cubicle between the managers and the associates, I was able to over-hear the entire conversation and here it is for you.

Brian and Tim were having some general chit-chat when their manager Mac happened to drop by. The only time I had seen Mac around their desk, was when he had some work. Probably he too realized that and decide to indulge in some small-talk as well. Now, Mac's pretty athletic. One look at him and you'll know that he's been going to the gym lately. And to the contrary, Brian's quite plump, whereas calling Tim plump would be too modest.

Probably with the intention to strike up a conversation, Mac came up to both of them and asked Brian, 'Hey, how's your indoors cycling going?'

Brian: Well... I did start off with it, but haven't been much regular.

Mac with a smile: Oh! I can make that out!

Both Brian and Tim grin back at the joke, before Brian continued "But I've come up with a schedule. I'm expecting that to do me some good."

Mac: And what's your schedule like?

Brian: Well, I'm planning to walk for half an hour and then cycle for another half-hour. That get's quite tiring.

Mac: Yeah, I understand. That must be quite tiring. Which reminds me, did I tell you guys about my recent workout schedule?

Both Tim and Brian nodded with interest at which Mac continued...

Mac went on to describe his elaborate schedule, of which I remembered only a few key phrases such as running for an hour...cycling... endurance-training... cooling down with an half-hour run... and blah blah blah.

Though I couldn't see Tim and Brian's faces, from their hu-uh's and Oh!s, I could make out how very interested they were with the direction the conversation was taking.

But, probably to show they were still awake, Brian asked Mac, 'So.. how'r you feeling today?'

Mac: Great! Absolutely refreshed. Man, you should have seen the way I sweated!

Tim: Right..

Mac: I was drenched to my underwear.

Brian : Oh!

Mac: Even the new t-shirt that I wore while driving back home got drenched. In fact I had to cover the seat with my towel to keep the upholstery dry.

Tim: Man...That's great. Must have been some feeling.

Mac: Yeah...I'm feeling great now. You should try exercising more often. And you Brian, make sure you stick to your schedule.

Brian: Yeah. You'r right... and muttered under his breath, when Mac was out of hearing range.. Man, What a maniac!

It's raining

2006-08-15T04:26:00.000-07:00

The room was dark as I opened my eyes. Did I get up too early? Just to make sure I checked the clock again but I was on time. It was probably raining outside. As I rolled up the blinds and peeked out, it was raining quite heavily. That made me quite nostalgic, bringing back old memories. And suddenly this place felt a bit like home.

Rain has been so much a part of my life. I remember when I used to go to school in a raincoat, little rivulets of water managed to trick the raincoat and go down my neck. How I hated that and I used to pray that a holiday be declared because of heavy rains. It rained in college and it rained during Engineering and I still cherished the faint hope of a holiday. Then at work in Pune when it poured and poured and finally when they gave a holiday - it was like a dream come true. And look at the irony today - it's raining and I'm still hoping, although today is 15th August, Independence Day back at home. But I don't see much hopes of getting a holiday.

So, as I got ready to go to the bathroom, Eric stopped me. He needed to go to work early, so he got to go first, he explained, telling me to go back to sleep. The old rules still seem to apply and Eric's been my roomie from Pune and that's how it was in Pune. The only difference being, Eris used to sleep, while I used to stop Bihari a.k.a Gauri a.k.a Gaurav from entering the bathroom. Heck...things haven't changed much after all.

Back to Cape Cod

2006-08-13T10:56:00.000-07:00

I was back again at Cape Cod this weekend, with another group of friends, who hadn't been there last time. And as usual, I loved the place... There's something about it that keeps pulling me back. Maybe it's the sun and the sea, or maybe the stark blue waters of the Canal, or the special undergrowth of the place. This was something I noticed on this trip. Along the roads, you get to see a lot of stunted oaks, which gives a unique look to the place - the stunted growth results in a lots of greenery, but at the same time, an uninhibited view of the clear blue sky.

During this visit, I covered a couple of places that I had missed out last time - the Cape Cod canal and the National Sea-shore. The water of the canal was amazingly blue - pretty hard to imagine. We went to one of the beaches on the National Sea-shore, the Nauset Light Beach - obviously the one with the Nauset light house. You can have a look at the view on the beach in the video at the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTCPoUzNVTQ

The water at the beach was quite chilly, though I did manage to take a dip in it. Summing it all up, it was a great trip. Maybe I wouldn't mind going there again...

For more pictures, check out this link.

Pose for Orkut

2006-08-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

Orkut has lately become quite a phenomenon. You hear almost everyone talking about it - the species of Orkut-o-philes is spreading like plague. You network... network... and network. Or atleast that's what they all claim to do, even if it means putting a 'Hey, how'r u doing?' scrap in the scrapbooks of all your contacts. But, praise it or curse it, one has to admit that you can't ignore it.
And the most interesting phenomenon that I've observed lately are the orkut snaps. Earlier when the photo of a person came out well, you would generally tell him to frame it and give it to someone he loved. But now people would say, "Hey, that's a perfect Orkut snap, why don't you put it up there?"...

Well, frankly speaking Orkut is just another form of constant distraction, similar to the mindless channel browsing on TV, which many of us are addicted to. But all said and done, I too do spend quite some time on Orkut. And that reminds me...gotta check if someone 'scrapped' while I was writing this out...

Excuse me!

2006-08-11T20:37:00.000-07:00

That was something I thought I'll never learn to say - not because I wanted to be rude, but more so because it felt real silly. Now, you must be wondering what I'm talking about. This is not the 'Excuse-me!' you say when you sneeze, burp (or maybe fart and there's no way you can put it on someone else). This is the 'Excuse-me!' you say when you suddenly come in someone's way. Well, you probably won't understand this concept, if you haven't been to the US or atleast met someone who's returned from the US lately. People here say "Oops, I'm sorry!", "Excuse Me!" probably more often than they say 'Hi'. (And they say 'Hi' quite often too...)

Well, there's nothing wrong in that. It works fine in sparsely populated places that you find here. But if you try doing that back in Pune or worse, in Mumbai, you'd probably end up muttering the E phrase all through out the day. And I guess that's why it seemed so silly back then. Imagine getting into a crowded bus (or a local train!!), hanging on to your dear life near the door-way and saying Excuse me! in return to all the bumps, shoulder pushes and kicks (at times) that you get. The most polite gesture that you could expect in return would be a glowering frown. And as they say, when in Rome - Do the Romans! And I used to be quite adept at all the pushing, shoving, and glowering. It's not as simple as it may seem - you need to know when to stop and avoid getting into a fight.

So when I used to meet all these guys who had recently returned from the US, it used to be fun. If I suddenly come in their way, they would go 'I'm sorry, Excuse me!' and in return, I would give them bemused look. It sounds so rude now, but you need to see the embarassed look on their faces to enjoy it. And there were times, when I would bump into someone (inadvertently of course) and the poor guy would soil his trousers from the lunch-tray he was carrying. And what followed would be a 'Sorry' from him and a smile from me in return. But the smile would be apologetic - I wasn't so mean. But it was a smile nonetheless.

This behaviour did surprise me back then...but I guess I should meet myself now. Damn, I miss that old prankster in me.

Beirut burning...

2006-07-31T19:05:00.000-07:00

A beautiful picture, though sadly of destruction...
It's truly how these National Geographic guys come up with such amazing photographs. That's the picture of Beirut airport burning...

Perspective

2006-07-22T23:05:00.000-07:00

Above, you can see where Cape Cod and Acadia are located. To the bottom left of the map, you can New York. I stay at a distance of around 2.5 hours westward from NY (not depicted in the map)

Acadia National Park, Maine

2006-07-22T22:39:00.000-07:00

Acadia, that's where I had been the weekend before I went to Cape Cod. This place is actually a National Park in Maine. And we went there with 2 days in our hands, as usual. On top of that, we had to meet a number of people on our way, since ours was a group of 15. And you know how it is to co-ordinate between a group of that size. So unfortunately, we didn't get much time to explore the entire place.

However we tried to make the best of the time that we had with us. We went to one of the summits, called Cadillac Mount. It had an awesome view from the top. The sea seemed so steady, in fact even the waves seemed so still that it almost seemed like a big canvas was spread out in front of us. It hardly seemed real. We stayed in the Holiday Inn near Bar Harbour. We missed the harbour cruise and the whale-watching trip. But that's ok, since I covered the whale-watching part in Cape Cod. And I guess all you get to see in Acadia is a bunch of dolphins anyway. I guess we also went to Jordan Pond.

This is again one of those places where you need to stay for more than 2 days. Go camp somewhere near the river, bring your own kayaks and go kayaking...Maybe next time...

P.S - By the way, Maine is the northern-most state on the East Coast while Florida is the southern-most. So technically speaking I guess I've covered the east coast top-to-bottom!

Cape Cod.

2006-07-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

This is where we had been last weekend. It's a nice little place by the sea located in Massachussets. Cape cod is ideally a place where you should land up with atleast a week to spare. Well, that's the way with most of the places around US. You can cover them in a day or two, but to really enjoy it to the core, you need some more time on your hands. But as usual, we had only a weekend on our hands and we decided to cover as much as possible within two days.

We landed up at Hyannis (thats the place where you can see the dotted line leading to Nantucket). First we booked a place in an Inn where we planned to stay for the night. Our original plan was to cover Nantucket Island on the first day, but since it was already a bit late in the evening, we decided to go whale-watching instead. Whale-watching was an amazing experience - we were on one of the lucky trips (at-least that's what the naturalist on board said) where we saw atleast 15 different whales all around us. It was truly humbling to watch such huge creatures all around us, with no intention of harming us. You can see some videos here

The next day we had to choose between covering the National Seashore or going to Nantucket. But since Nantucket was more of a land-mark that you keep hearing about, we decided that our trip to Cape Cod wouldn't be complete without a visit to the Island. So off we went, on a cruise to the Nantucket Island. As you can see in the map, the place is at quite some distance from the Cape - around 2 hours by normal ship and 1 hour in a fast boat. Since time was a premium for us, we decided to take the fast boat. The Island's filled with rich ageing folks owning summer villas, zipping around in flashy convertibles.

Decided to make it a memorable experience, we rented bikes on the Island - a couple of normal single bikes and a few tandem bikes (twin-seaters). And we headed off to the West-most corner of the island - Siasconset Beach. But what we didn't realize at that moment was that the trip to S'conset Beach and back was around 14 miles. 14 miles doesn't sound like much but you realize it's magnitude when you cycle that long. And we were EXHAUSTED by the time we came back. I hardly remember much of the trip. We caught the last ship back to Hyannis harbor and made our way back home.

P.S. - I had bought a new hat just that weekend and as you'll see in the snaps, I had it on all the time. It's one helluva cool hat!
Among the places that I would like to cover in my next visit would be the beaches along the National Seashore, idllying on one of the canal cruises, maybe a sunset cruise and a trip down to Martha's Vineyard. Quite a lot actually to go back for...

Bombings et. al.

2006-07-22T06:43:00.000-07:00

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to write about it...but being from Mumbai, when everyone's voicing their opinions on how things should be handled, I guess few words from my side won't hurt.

The bombings killed hundreds of people. I won't put figures here, because none of them are accurate. Though the difference of a few numbers may not make much difference to a news agency that reports them, it makes a big difference to the families that have lost them. And what was done next...? Hundreds of people were rounded up - anyone with a past history of crime picked up and put in custody. It's like a necessary evil, many would say a small price to pay - I would say it's a big price. It all adds up to the feeling of embitterment and anger, which is stoked from time to time until one day it's blows off.

But could it have been avoided, was there any thing else that could have been done? Well.. I guess not. It's easy to blame neighbouring countries and call it an 'intelligence failure'. But intelligence gathering and tracking in a country as big as India (size-wise and population-wise) is not an easy task.

Some people feel that inspite being such a large country, why we don't retaliate like Israel did on Lebanon and Palestine. Frankly speaking, I don't think that's helping Israel in reducing the animosity against it. A show of strength can help in pacifying the citizens that some action is being taken - whether it actually helps or not is a point of question.

A terror attack doesn't end with a bombing - it actually begins there. How the city reacts to it can determine the chances of the next bombing. And the quicker the city bounces back to normalcy, the less effective the attack. We've lived through such bombings and as the current scenario shows we are living through this one too. And thats the ground-reality.

Another trip to the point of no return and back...

2006-06-30T07:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had been to a cemetery, which is closeby (a couple of miles away from my place). Don't ask me why - everyone I talked to about this, asked me that question. You could ask me how it was, and I would say "It was beautiful".

Somehow most of the people I know, can't imagine going to a cemetery or a crematorium. It's a nice to place to be... especially since for some it could be your future address someday. I say some, because people like me would go up in smoke - so not much would remain to require an address. It would be 'back to the elements' for us guys.

Miner's cemetery is quite a nice and serene place. As expected, there was no one around - except for an old man who was clearing away leaves with a blower. I took quite a few snaps of the tomb-stones and the cemetery in general. You can check them out at
Yahoo Photos - Miner Cemetery

There were a couple of old tomb-stones that were quite spooky - marble aged and stained by the weather and molds. And the engravings on them were so blurry that you had to go quite close to be able to read it, until you realized that you were standing very close :D . Initially I thought that maybe I'll take a couple of snaps of those, but then changed my mind...

Back 2 Boston

2006-06-25T19:28:00.000-07:00

This weekend I was back in Boston again - back with Hiren, his ol' friend Hirak and his Acura SUV - MDX .

My initial plpans were to go for the IHLD party somewhere in CT, but that was not to be. Sometime in the middle of the day, Hiren called up to ask me if I would accompany him to Boston. Well, in CT I had the option of going to the party and whiling away the weekend at home. But if I was to while away my time, then why not in Boston, And off we went.

Boston is around 2 and half hours away from Middletown, but thanks to Hiren't driving, we made it there in a little more than a hour. It was only after having reached there and seeing the suprise look on Hirak's face, did we realize that probably we were a bit too fast :P

Well, that night we ate in an Indian joint (which invariably happened to be the Taj). You go to any place, if you find an Indian place to eat, it's gotta be a Taj. I guess it's only in india, that you are infatuated with the Taj.

Now, what did I do for 2 days... We watched God-father 1 again, and as usual I slept off in the middle of the wedding scene. It was raining the next day so there wasn't any point in going to downtown. We finally settled down for a game of pool and a movie in the evening - The fast and the furious - Tokyo drift. The movie's good and there's an amazing babe who i thought was an Indian (I'm still not sure that she's isn't). There was another movie at we watched at Hirak's house - Crash. A pretty intense and thought-provoking movie. Maybe I'll watch it in leisure sometime.

Well that's about it... a couple of movies, pool and eating out - and a weekend over.

After a long time

2006-06-19T06:32:00.000-07:00

I used to complain a lot earlier, as to why people don't write more often... But I guess now I know... :) In between I was thinking that maybe I shouldn't turn this blog into a diary of sorts. But I guess I might end up doing that pretty soon. Unlike back in India, I rarely get time to sit back, relax, think of something and then write about it. Right now, I feel the best I can do would be to write what i do generally... something like a day in the life of Sarit...
(I'm not changing the title of the blog yet, cos I'm not sure how long this will last)

Photo-story

2006-06-07T17:35:00.000-07:00

There are so many snaps and so many things to say, about each of them...But it's like one of those times, when you have so many things to say, but don't know where to start from. And that makes you prolong your start much longer...And in the end this happens - you just write something, something that's better than not writing anything at all...And that's how this post started...

Here are links to some of my albums and a short description about them - whatever comes to my mind, literally.

House-snaps: There are some snaps of 9-8 (that's the old house where I first moved into, when I came down to the US). And then are some snaps of my current house - 6402. You'll also find a couple of snaps of the brooke - now that's one of the major attractions of my place (after me, of course). There's this brooke running by the side of my house. A glass door in the hall opens up to a lawn and a few feet away, there's a brook flowing by. And trust me, it's beautiful.

Beach@Groton: The week after Niagara, we had been to Groton to buy a couple of things from a yard sale. And that's when we went to this beach - it was quite beautiful except for the fact that it was too chilly that evening (as you can make out in the snaps)

Playing golf in Boston: The next weekend, we went to Boston. Actually Hiren was going to meet one of his old friends in Boston and he didn't have any company for the ride. I had just woken up from my afternoon siesta (mind you, it's not that I get to sleep that often - it was probably the only time I got to sleep in the afternoon). Hiren asked me if I would like to join him on his trip. Anyways there wasn't anything planned for the weekend, so off we went! It was a pretty interesting trip and the first time I played golf. As you can see from the snaps, I need to work on getting that swing right. But fret not - I did manage to hit the ball (but mind you, that's not as easy as it seems).

And the weekend after, we had a long weekend - Monday was Memorial Day and I took Tuesday off (which wasn't very easy at first). So with four days to spare, we went to Orlando, Florida. But we couldn't make it to Miami (the beaches!!) since we didn't have enough time.
However we covered almost all of Orlando - all the major theme parks including Universal Studios, Disney MGM-Studios and Sea-World.
Florida was fun as you see from the pics.
Orlando Florida - Day 1
Orlando Florida - Day 2
Orlando Florida - Day 3
Orlando Florida - Day 4
(You'll need to mail me for more pics ;)...)

Coffee.

2006-06-07T17:07:00.000-07:00

Back in India, it was like just any other drink - a cup of coffee was as good as a cup of tea. You wouldn't notice anything special about, except maybe the fact that it was more prevalent in the southern states or off late in the metros.

But when you are in the US, it hits you right in the face. You suddenly realize how much more 'special' coffee is here. People actually 'live' on coffee... And they don't have cups and cups - they have gallons and gallons of it. Infact the caption of one of the popular coffee-chains around, Dunkin' Donuts is 'America runs on Dunkin!' - Coffee is literally the life-blood of America.

When I initially started off with drinking coffee here, I started with a 'small' cup. But mind you, that small is actually a misnomer by Indian standards. It's easily equivalent to at-least 2 cups of coffee back in India. And come to think of it, I used to think that I'll get addicted to coffee when I used to have 2 (indian) cups of coffee...Anyways, I guess you learn with time and experience.

Apart from the small, you also get medium and large-sized cups of coffee here. That's something I'll take some time to try. Apart from the size, people here generally have regular coffee - that's black coffee, and needless to say, a large cup of it. But that's something that I don't think I'll ever try.

In the meanwhile, I still struggle to finish my small cup of cappuchino with extra sugar and milk.

An update that was long due.

2006-05-12T09:14:00.000-07:00

I'm in the US now. It has been more than 2 weeks now and things have been moving so fast that I haven't really settled down yet. I've got many mails asking me if I stopped blogging. Well, Thanks a lot for all that attention :) and I definitely haven't stopped blogging. It's just that the last few weeks just zipped past without me being able to make much sense about what's happening.

Cutting a long story short, I landed in the US on 24th April, after being stranded for a day in Paris, since the flight I was flying by was cancelled due to some technical snags. People were really pissed when the flight, after having almost taken off taxied to a halt and a problem was detected in the hydraulic system. Pretty soon, or rather after 7 hours in the plane, the right propeller (which I could see from my side of the window) was completely dismantled. I don't know about the others, but I was pretty happy to be delayed. If that flight had taken off as it almost did, I'm sure I would have made the headlines next day (ok, maybe not the headlines but a small snapshot of world news at the left hand side column of the Times of India).

After reaching the US, I shifted into a friend's place, where already some extra people (in addition to the original lease-owners of the apartment) were already staying. So once I was in, there were 6 of us, instead of the official 3. And where there are people, there's masti, and where there's masti there's noise (for those who are not part of the masti). And my joining the original group didn't help in reducing the noise levels (or rather the nuisance level as per our neighbors). Pretty soon, the original tenants of the flat were served a legal notice that their lease would be terminated if they didn't address the problem within 15 days. The extra folks in the house (that includes me) had originally planned to take up another apartment in the same complex, but that application was rejected for obvious reasons.

But we did take up an apartment, in a different apartment complex, under the name of a new room-mate (who was in no way related to the nuisance apartment) and finally shifted in. (Talk about 'jugad' :D) The new place is fabulous. You walk down a flight of stairs to reach it. In the hall there's a sliding glass door which opens up to the lawn. A few feet from the lawn, flows a little brook. If you open the sliding door you can hear the gurgling sound of the brook - Absolutely amazing!

But I haven't had the opportunity yet of idling on the lawn or lying on the carpet listening to the gurgling stream. And the reason has been mostly work and play. Work here at onsite is pretty much hectic with strict time-lines, far from the kind of work at off-shore. A typical day starts with a conference call at 7 in the morning, juggling to get ready in the meantime, going to office by 8, working almost non-stop till 6 or 7 pm. And then play starts, going to some cafe or some place for burgers/pizzas/snacks, followed by dinner at some place, and finally landing up at home around midnight.

If weekdays have not been hectic enough, weekends have been much more tiring. The first weekend after landing up in US, I was in Atlantic city. It was pretty much unplanned like most of the things - friday evening we decided to go, to make it there by early morning and off we went. That weekend was spent amidst slot machines, poker and blackjack tables, walking or driving on roads brightly lit by the lights of the casinoes.

The next weekend I was in Niagara, looking at the falls from all possible angles. Americans are good at selling things - they've sold the falls to the world. The falls are actually on the US side, but they are visible from the Canada, which is right across the river. But, for the benefit of the people who can't go across, there are all kinds of rides around the falls. We walked pretty close to the bottom of one of the falls (Cave of the winds). Then there was a boat ride to the center of the river with the falls all around you - The maid of the mist. There's also an observatory tower almost mid-way into the river, probably teasing the border-line - Every bit of American space has been utitilized to the fullest. And finally we took a helicopter ride over the falls. I had no clue if I was afraid of heights or of motion at heights for the simple reason that I had never been that high. But thankfully I wasn't air-sick or it wouldn't have made a good scene sitting right next to the pilot and soiling his windscreen. The chopper ride was the best of all. I would like to fly a chopper some-day :) - that would be pretty neat!

(Check out the snaps here. Have a look at the albums Atlantic City, Helicopter o'er Niagara and Niagara Falls)

What next...

2006-04-16T03:46:00.001-07:00

Since I had an extra day this weekend (Good Friday being an holiday), I thought I'll spend some time trying to figure out what I want to do in the near future. Trust me, it never is an easy question to answer. My dream is to be an entreprenuer, but since I haven't found any interesting oppurtunity to capitalize on, I might as well continue being in the rat-race.

An MBA is pretty much on the cards, though I'm not very sure when and where. The 'when' part can be answered as the coming year but the 'where' part isn't that easy. Since I'm so bullish on India and it's future, it would make more sense to do an MBA somewhere in this sub-continent, if not exactly in India.

And once my MBA is done, what next? (All this while, assuming that I haven't hit on any idea to start off my own firm.) I-banking is an hot area - one of the elitest of the elite rat-races. And so is consulting. But what I fear is that once I get into these races, there would be very little time left to fend for myself (in the sense of being an entrepreneur). Investment management would be an comparatively interesting field to be in, considering the fact that I could manage my own money while I'm at it.

So I've got many options and as I always say "The possibilities are endless...".

For now, I guess I'll leave it to fate and let's see what turns up. Because I'm still amazed by what life keeps throwing at me. Who knew that I would be so keenly interested in investments after joining a tech company. I didn't.

Need for reforms

2006-04-09T04:52:00.000-07:00

CRPF jawan shoots down his colleagues, frustrated at being denied leave.

It was supposedly the second such incident in Kashmir in the last one month. I missed reading about the first one probably because casualty figures of our soldiers are typically relegated to small corners of the newspaper after making way for all the advertisements and hot stories such as Dhoni getting an haircut and dying his hair too. Moreover these casualty figures were not due to militants, but rather due to in-fighting - our own men killing each other.

So, what made me remember this particular incident? That's because I lost my maternal uncle in a similar incident. He was an SP - Superintendent of Police with the CRPF posted at Mizoram. Due to the issues with insurgency in that state and work-force shortage, he had to deny leave to one of his junior-officers. The junior officer strode into my uncle's room and before anyone could react, pressed the trigger. One instant there were 13 bullets in the magazine of the automatic gun and the other instant, they were embedded in the wall beyond. In that one instant, a life was lost - a son of a widowed mother, husband to a wife and father to two children. And needless to say, the junior officer was hanged. Another life lost, another bread-winner of a family. He had to be hanged, because such indiscipline cannot be tolerated and justice had to prevail.

But if justice prevailed that day, why do such incidents keep occurring? What are the conditions under which these men work, such that a leave-denial can cause one to kill others ? Those conditions need to be tackled. Only then can true justice prevail. Like we have NGOs working for the poor and down-trodden, the women and the street-children, we need NGOs for helping the police tackle professional stress.

Right now, I can only write about it, but someday I'll try to do something about it.

Private Equity

2006-03-31T01:23:00.000-08:00

I was reading about Private Equity the other day and came upon a number of interesting facts (and maybe fiction too). It all started when I read this article claiming that the private equity industry is booming in India.

So these are a bunch of firms that gather funds and invest them in mostly private enterprises. Earlier, these funds restricted their scope to venture-capital activities (nursing ideas with capital) But later, they ventured out to full-blown LBOs (Leveraged Buy-outs) gobbling up entire corporations, bringing in their own management or reining in the existing ones. Pretty impressive, aint it?
(For more information check out Wikipedia or this excellent survey by The Economist)

Now, there are a number of such firms but the big-names include Blackstone, The Carlyle Group etc. By the way, Mr Vivek Paul, Ex-Wipro chief joined a PE group called TPG (Texas Pacific group). These groups also hire a number of big-names too, like George Bush Sr. and John Major (Ex-PM of UK). What initially struck me as odd (hiring such big names for what purpose?) began to make sense once I followed a link to the a review of the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.

It seems that after the Iraq war (all right, I know it hasn't ended yet), there was huge competition for bagging the tenders for re-construction projects. And a majority of the contracts were awarded to companies which belonged to the Carlyle Grp. Apart from that, this group also owns a number of weapons-producing companies. Whoever said. "All is fair in love and WAR" definitely wasn't kidding. And just the right matter for a Hollywood flick.

By the way, the same day I read another article which said that Rakesh Jhunjhunwala has picked up a 15% stake in the Topsgrup group of companies (remember all those security guards in malls, multiplexes flashing TOPS on their uniforms). This was one company I had tried to find out more about for investment purposes. But unfortunately, it's a private company which might come up with an IPO soon. That's the time the 'aam-aadmi' gets in and RJ has the option to move out, if he's not happy with the progress of the company. (Reminds me of Kiyosaki's advice to the average investor : Don't be average!)

Scandals apart, working for a PE firm surely must be challenging. But somehow private placements (of the RJ-Topsgrup kind) seem much more exciting.

In the press...

2006-03-27T21:54:00.000-08:00

Finally, one of my most inane posts, which I wrote inspite of my general abstinence from commenting on Bollywood, made it to the press.
It sure does feel good, but it would have been better if my name had figured too :P
Hehehe... On second thoughts, maybe it's good this way, since many people seemed to have liked the movie.

The remaining years - Part 3

2006-03-27T03:08:00.001-08:00

The Lab Sessions

When it came to attending the labs sessions, was it a privilege to be in Comp. Science or not? I could never decide on this one.

In the first year, when we had a common curriculum, labs were a pain in the neck. I had to force myself to attend all those workshops, none of which had a ceiling fan. These workshops were huge serrated structures housing lathes, engines and what-nots (Unfortunately i don't remember the terms, so I guess what-nots will suffice to describe all the other machinery). The reason why they couldn't have fans, was simple - the ceiling was way too high. By the way, the serrated design was supposed to provide better lighting and ventilation. You would realize why I'm stressing about the missing fans, if you had faced the dry and blazing Trichy heat.

Imagine wearing a heat-retaining khaki uniform (mandatory for the lab sessions) inside a workshop which has been pre-heated by the Trichy sun blazing above 40 deg. and working on a casting assignment in front of a foundry. No wonder, I had no clue about the temperature maintained in the foundry or why were we casting that stupid cast in the first place. For the weak hearted, you can imagine the same scene minus the foundry but working on a welding experiment instead. That aptly sums up how much fun I had during these sessions.

Once first year was over, I promptly donated my khaki uniform to one of my friends and began to mentally prepare myself for attending all future labs in air-conditioned rooms. But lab-life was not as rosy as I thought. For my friends in other streams, atleast the labs ended within 3-4 hours. Instead for most of us in CS, those 3-4 hours we did everything other than working on the assignments. The actual grind of working on them was relegated to post-dinner hours. Unfortunately for me, I could never get the hang of passing off someone else's program as mine. Invariably I would get caught. I don't mention this as a virtuous trait, rather I claim it as one of my gravest deficiencies at that time. And as a result, sadly I had to spend many a precious nights in OCTA, coding away in a semi-dazed state.

And this went on for almost 3 years. So I'm still not sure whether the khaki uniform and all that sweat was compensated by the AC labs. Not that I had any choice.

And lastly a few words on what we actually did during those 3-4 hours in the lab. All those night-outs that went into the assignments didn't always ensure that I had a working program in the end. Most of the time, I, like many other batch-mates of mine, would be busy arranging for a working program for the demonstration. And once we had managed to get our hands on one of the few programs available, we would get busy in changing the variable names and the display-related part of the code, so that every program would atleast look different. And then there were these great men among us who would take the program and show it off with finesse without making any changes, so that they could better utilize their lab hours in chatting and other productive activities. My true salutes to them...how much I tried to emulate them but in vain.

The remaining years - Part 2

2006-03-22T01:13:00.000-08:00

Talking about 2nd year, there was one thing that I can definitely not miss - how I gained close to 20 kgs within a year. And it all started something like this...

At the time of joining RECT, I was around 49 kgs - shirts on me looked like they were suspended on a hanger. And I just hated it, so I won't write much about it.

One morning, while going to the Mess for breakfast, I saw this advt. on the notice-board. It was a call for participants for the Best Physique contest - an annual college event. At that point of time, I was in no position to even think of participating in the contest. But deep inside, I wondered silently...Could I win that medal?

It was not that I had never tried to do anything about increasing my weight. I used to eat a lot in the hope that atleast I would put on some fat. But it was later that I realized that the problem was with my metabolism - I could keep eating and not put on a single ounce of fat. What I needed was a judicious exercise routine or in plain english, iron pumping.

But it wasn't the ad for a contest which fired me up to pump weights. It was something really silly, but now when I look back, I guess I was just hungry for a reason. And the reason came to me in the form of Hritik in the movie "Kaho na Pyaar hai". Simply put, I was damn impressed by his debut performance in the movie and I told myself - Man, you gotto get a body like that! I wasn't sure if I could do it, but it was something like that quote - "Get rich or die trying...". And I was ready to try my best. Coming back from the movie, I headed straight to the college gym. I just looked around a bit that day, since I did't have any workout clothes, but that was the start of my gym-ing routine.

Meanwhile, knowing that I needed to get all the info that I could on the subject, I read through hundreds of web-sites dedicated to body-building. I must have made an amusing spectacle browsing those sites in the lab, because soon guys start calling me 'Arnold'. It definitely wasn't meant as a compliment, but I always took it like one - I wasn't about to give up so soon.

All this reading did help, because contrary to popular belief, body-building is not just about pumping weights and over-eating. There is an entire body of knowledge and techniques involved, which can go a long way in meeting one's goals, and if ignored can make the way longer than it needs to be. One of the major hurdles that I faced was being a vegeterian, I had limited sources of protein to go for. So, to make sure that I consumed enough proteins I used to prepare sprouted pulses at my room and have a bowlful of those daily. Again, since the milk served at the mess was too watery, I tried to have 2-3 glasses of that.

And finally all that effort, sweat, discipline and a good amount of luck paid off. I could manage to gain close to 20 kgs by the end of 2nd year. I carried on with my routine - both exercising and eating right for the next 2 years.
And finally in my final year I won the medal - Silver for Best Physique in the 65-70 kg. category. It was one of the happiest days of my life (and I really doubt, if the guy who got the Gold was that happy). It feels really awesome when you set out to achieve something almost impossible and actually manage to do it.

(Incase you are also interested in body-building, you could check out www.bodybuilding.com - one of the most comprehensive site that I ever found. You can also check out The new Enclyopedia of Modern Body-Building written by Arnold himself. Unfortunately I couldn't get my hands on this book at that time, but after going through it recently, I was definitely impressed.)

The remaining years - part 1

2006-03-18T06:02:00.000-08:00

For some reason, my memories of Engg. college can be broadly classified as first-year experiences and the other-years experiences. Not that I enjoyed any lesser in the other years, but it always felt as if first-year took a real long time to get over with.

First year was full of efforts at staying within Agate and running away to Coimbatore on weekends, while attending classes and labs on weekdays and preparing for the always-around-the-corner exams. Whoever said that Engineering would be a piece of cake and I would never have to touch my books again surely had been kidding - my hands still itch to lunge at his throat.

Second year was spent in Diamond-54. I still remember proudly walking down the long narrow road which led to Diamond from Agate - my memories of scurrying down the same road as juniors finally being laid to rest. D54 was on the 2nd(top) floor, part of just 3 rooms in that wing - away from the general hustle-bustle of the hostel. It was one of the closest rooms to the TV room and the terrace. Again we were allocated 4 people to a room and this time I did get a corner for myself. Though the room-mates had been allocated randomly, we got our friend shifted in. In fact, I had actually been allocated Coral#10, but I and a bunch of friends shifted into D54.

Officially, my first year roomies were Vignesh, Nataraj, Durai, and Ravi. However I suppose Anuppie spent most of his time, lying there too. And we carried forward almost the same group to the next year. Well...almost. In the second year, it was me, Ravi, Anuppie and Vivek(Gurkha) together. There had always been a thin red line between the Northies (generic term for hindi-speaking guys) and the Tambies (guys from TamilNadu). Inspite of much mingling during 1st years, the demarcation always remained and people like me, NRIs and mallus were rather on that border-line.

I don't know about the others but I was always interested in meeting new people. The fact that someone is different from me gives me all the more reasons to get to know him/her. But unfortunately, many people hold prejudices against others who are different from them, and more more than not, they themselves lose the oppurtunity to meet some new and interesting people.

The only discomfort of staying in D54 was that the nearest rest-rooms were on the floor below. But the advantage of having the TV room almost next-door (but far enough to insulate any noise) outdid that lone issue.

Some of the joys of second year were

Being absolutely free to do whatever I wished like - no security guards to bother, no fences to scale, no scaffoldings/pipes to climb to get into the hostel.
Having a cycle of my own - It was one of the most useful things that I bought in those 4 years. You can't do without one when your campus is as widespread, with almost every building spaced out almost as far as possible.
Having a big collage in my room of beautiful damsels - People from distant rooms and hostels used to make periodic pilgrimages to pay homage at the site. The collage and it's reputation followed me to Lapis 101 (my abode for the next 2 years).

1st year of Engineering.

2006-03-13T04:59:00.000-08:00

It was sometime in the summer, when I first saw AGATE from the end of BARN, after having bagged the seat that I wanted so desperately - Computer Science in REC Trichy. BARN was the auditorium where the counseling was held and AGATE was the first-year hostel, where I was to spend one year of my life. Little did I realize how I would spend a year in that hostel which lay beyond a vast expanse of barren land, shimmering because of the heat waves.

It was 6th September 1999, when I first lay foot in Agate. Thanks to some contacts, I had spent the previous day in the Hostel Warden's house - Mr. S. Krishnamurthy. A person I knew, was SK's senior in his college, and using that pretext, I stayed at his place. Generally having the warden as your local guardian would have helped, but in this case, it was good that I never took his name in public, or my fate would have been worse. SK was one of the most eccentric and disliked personality on campus, as I learnt later.

It was my first day in a hostel and I found the place disgustingly dusty and dirty. But since it was the beginning of a new phase of staying independently, I was far too excited to notice the dust. I was given Room #3 which was situated on the Ground Floor, towards the left, when you enter through the gate. It was pretty close to the bathrooms and I made a note of it thankful that I wouldn't have to race through the corridors in cases of natural emergencies.

We were supposed to stay 5 in a room and I was the first to arrive in the room. It felt pretty queer when all you have are a couple of suitcases, a bucket, a mug, an iron cot, a table and a chair to call your own. Most of the guys had come with their parents but I had arrived alone. With their parents guiding them, they could decide on their respective corners. There were 3 available corners in that room (since one corner was un-occupiable because of the door) and I was one of the guys who didn't get a corner. Though it may sound pretty insignificant now, I was disappointed (while my roomies were ecstatic) since I didn't have a corner to call my own. I would try to explain how insignificant a corner actually is and they would explain back how I had greater chances of falling off my bed since it was not aligned with a corner. Strangely, they sounded more convincing.

My room-mates were pretty nice and I guess that's what everyone has to say about their room-mates. Actually it's something like this prison syndrome I had read about. When a group of people are put in a hostile environment, they tend to get closer and develop a fraternal bonding. The same group in a comfortable environment would not have got along that easily.

AGATE was in many respects like a jail, but being inside was safer than being out of it, needless to say because of the terror of ragging. There were guards posted at every entrance and seniors were not allowed in without permission. A fence ran around, which housed the hostel and the mess. The mess provided the worst food that I ever tasted in my life.

Looking back, it was as if the entire system was designed to break us in, something like the way a wild horse is broken. Each one of us was forced to come to a level where we could really understand each other. And everything, starting from the pathetic mess food, the rash behavior of the administrative staff and faculty to the ragging of the seniors played a part. In fact we were ragged by the entire system until we began to fit with each other. Egos were trampled and prejudices were thrashed till what remained were just good old boys.

Although most of my memories of the first year are of getting thrashed during ragging, we also had a lot of fun. Leaving the hostel would be as good as committing suicide, so we restricted all our activities within the fence that guarded the hostel. A few courageous ones among us would try to venture out to the city and invariably get caught by the seniors. Their stories would provide some solace to those who wouldn't dare such feats.

However once the fresher parties were done with, the feeling of freedom that surged in us cannot be described. I remember not having slept that night after the party. I along with a few others decided to spend the night in OCTA (short for OCTAGON, a lab that was open 24hours). OCTA was out-of-reach for us during the ragging period. And a night-out in OCTA seemed like an exciting prospect especially for a person like me who cannot go without sleep. I didn't realize it that night that it was the first among of a series of night-outs that I would spend in OCTA.

The food never got better, and neither did the faculty but once ragging was over, life was good and we loved it. If there had been no ragging we would have probably hated the food, the faculty, the people and the place. Though I still oppose ragging, it did help in many regards in building my personality.

May the fittest survive

2006-03-11T20:02:00.000-08:00

After the CNOOC-Unilocal deal fell through, it's the turn of the DPW (Dubai Ports World) deal to bite the dust. Similarly the Mittal Steel - Arcelor bid is facing tough resistance in Europe on the grounds of a lowly Indian company trying to buy an elite European steel company. Somehow the facts that Mittal Steel is not an Indian company and on the contrary is much larger than Arcelor doesn't figure in the reasoning. Free-markets and globalization have always been terms which the developed countries keep harping to the developing ones. But it could be the other way this time. Unlike previous instances where the WTO used to accuse developing countries excessive proctectionism, hindering free-trade, this time its the developed countries which are playing spoilsport.

CNOOC was denied the deal mostly on the basis of it being a Chinese company and US is not very comfortable with a Chinese company buying out one of it's oil firms. It was a similar case with DPW which is owned by the Dubai govt. and the US again is not comfortable with an Arab company controlling it's ports of entry. Protectionism has a comforting role to play in the short-term, but it eventually turns out to be expensive.

Survival of the fittest has always been the way the world works and it will continue to do so. And by isolating themselves from the rest of the world, what they don't realize is that they are just breeding contempt and dis-trust, which will take its toll eventually.

A similar article by one of my favourite writers, Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar: http://www.swaminomics.org/articles/20060219_Brown_Takeovers_with.htm

Highlights from Forbes annual list

2006-03-09T21:47:00.000-08:00

The number of people whose wealth reached 10 figures stood at a record 793, an increase of 102 from the previous year, with Microsoft founder Gates in first place for the 12th straight year.The magazine said strong markets around the world contributed to the surge in wealth, as the total net worth of the list jumped to 2.6 trln usd -- more than the annual GDP of Germany.

'Making a billion just isn't what it used to be,' observed Forbes Associate Editor Luisa Kroll, who noted that the number of billionaires had grown by more than 300 in the past three years.

While US names accounted for nearly half the fortunes on the roster, this year's ranking was notable for the influx of newcomers from Brazil, India, Russia and other emerging economies.
'Why is the list growing? The answer is an obvious one -- the global economy is growing,' said Forbes editor-in-chief Steve Forbes.

'In the last few years the global economy has grown at rates not seen since the end of World War II. It is phenomenal and it's been fuelled by a commodities boom,' Forbes said.

The summit of the cash mountain had a familiar look with Gates followed by investment wizard and perennial runner-up, Warren Buffett, with a 42-bln-usd fortune. Buffett's pile has fallen by two bln usd, however.

Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal dropped two places to fifth with 23.5 bln -- down 1.5 bln.

Hind Hariri, the 22-year-old daughter of slain Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, beat out Germany's Prince Albert von Thurn und Taxis by eight months for the title of the world's youngest billionaire.

At the other end of the age spectrum was American John Simplot, 96, who made his fortune processing potatoes.

Thirty-nine people fell off the Forbes list, victims of market forces, dubious ethics and, in 11 cases, death.

The United States boasted 371 names on the list with a collective net worth of 1.1 trln usd, while Europe's 196 billionaires enjoyed combined wealth of 802 bln.

Europe's rising star was Russia, with 33 names including seven new faces.

In the Asia-Pacific region -- home to 115 billionaires -- the standout was India which added 10 new faces to total 23 on the list with a combined worth of 99 bln usd, 60 pct more than last year.
China saw its presence in the rankings grow from just two billionaires last year to eight.

Of the 793 who made the global list, 452 were self-made billionaires

New York has the highest number of resident billionaires with 40, Moscow is second with 25 and London third with 23.

http://www.forbes.com/home/lists/2006/03/07/06billionaires_worlds-richest-people_land.html

Indian Administrative Services.

2006-03-06T03:12:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered how the country functions? Many of the important portfolios/ministries are held by absolutely incompetent politicians. So who actually runs the country? and what has prevented India from going to the dogs?

Much was we would like to deny it, it's the bureaucracy that keeps India going. It is one of the major bottlenecks that holds back reforms and progress, but at the same time, it's the only reason for India to have survived more than 50 years after Independence.

The competency of the bureaucracy isn't very surprising. After all the IAS examinations are till date, the most comprehensive and exacting of their counterparts. The people who manage to clear these exams are without doubt, some of the best men/women the country has produced. However, off late not many from the current generation are attracted towards the IAS.

People from the urban areas are almost ignorant about them, or would prefer to remain ignorant. The lack of lucre (by ethical means) in the profession is probably one of the biggest reasons. Some are still attracted by the status and prestige associated with post of an IAS officer, but are put off by the fact that they'll have to report to un-educated politicians.

So who's left - people who are attracted by the power and the prospects of money-laundering. Maybe that's the actual source of rot in the system which turns an other wise impeccable system into a bottleneck of red-tape. But I presume, there are still some great IAS officers around, because of whom, we are where we are.

Jet On a Highway Syndrome

2006-03-03T07:36:00.000-08:00

I just turned 24 a few days back. It was a pretty memorable day, complete with it's share of celebrations - a surprise cake in the morning, cards and a party in the evening. I was apprehensive about the way I would be spending this day, since there were plans of me travelling onsite that day. If those plans had gone through, I would have been on an inter-continental flight maybe somewhere over Middle East or Europe, but alone. So thankfully that trip got postponed and I spent the day, with people who mattered.

But as I turn 24, I'm reminded that time is running out and it brings to my mind the series of recurring thoughts which I had named as the JOHS (Jet on a Highway Syndrome). I wanted to write about this earlier, and finally today I've decided to put it down. It's a syndrome that I suffer from time to time - I use the word suffer because it's not a very pleasant feeling. However there are some positive aspects to it in the way that it keeps me going. Read on and see if you can relate to it in any manner...

Have you ever felt like a jet on a highway - a highway that's cramped with other vehicles. If you are compared with the vehicles around, you just don't stand upto the mark. You are not really as efficient as the other cars when efficiency is measured in terms of fuel consumption. Neither can you zig-zag through the traffic. You are just stuck there - a misfit, you just don't belong there. Maybe if luck shines on you and the traffic clears up, you can go faster. But still, you can just run (maybe a lot faster than the others). But you still can't fly... And what use is a jet that can't fly.

And that's how it feels sometimes, I'm turning 24 and still stuck in the traffic. Sometimes the going gets good and I run. I run fast. But I am yet to take-off. It may sound frustrating and that's how I used to feel earlier, until I decided to use it for my good. You can call it creative frustration and that keeps me burning, it keeps me going. It's my source of motivation.

I cannot rest until I get this jet flying.

Travelling onsite blues

2006-02-27T02:07:00.000-08:00

Creativity-on-demand doesn't work, and that's one of the reasons why I haven't been writing much lately. The self-inflicted compulsion to write creative articles has actually whittled away my urge to write. Thankfully, I reminded myself that this blog is not about creative writing as much as it is an autobiographical attempt. And thats when I decided to log a few of the incidents that have occurred lately...

They were rumors that I might be traveling onsite soon. I call them rumors since they haven't been confirmed yet. However, I'm done with most of the shopping and giving people treats, because it's mostly a matter of time now.

However, I have mixed feelings about traveling onsite. Firstly, it's about going out of one's comfort zone. I'll be leaving behind my parents and my friends here. It'll be a new place, with new faces. I'll need to make new friends all over again - but that's life I guess.

Secondly, I'm not very keen about living in the US. I believe India is the place to be in, right now. But at the same time, I do need the dollars. However my destiny as I envision it, would be as an entrepreneur in India. However, who knows maybe I'll get started on it, in the US. Who really knows...

Life in the US as a techie, isn’t really that great, as per the accounts I hear from my friends already there. There’s hardly anything beyond working till late, responding to calls from off-shore and resolving issues. Work sucks and the only consolation are the dollars. But how long can one work like that…? Atleast I can’t.

I’ll be distanced from the markets here. But I guess, I’ll continue to participate in the nights (trading hours here would mean night-time in the US). After all that’s the reason I want the dollars for. I might try a stint at commodities. I’ve bought the book “Hot Commodities” by Jim Rogers and plan on completing that soon.

Maybe I’ll do a part-time MBA or some other course while I’m at the US. But like most other things, I’m not sure how these plans are going to work out…

Meanwhile, I learnt today that my onsite trip has been delayed. I don’t know if that’s good news or bad. I’ll have some more time to wind up all the loose-ends here. At the same time, half of my wardrobe is now in Mumbai – or rather all my trousers, to be more exact. I had planned to finish half of the packing, so I took all the trousers and packed them off. Guess I need to work on my contingency planning skills.

Tides of destiny

2006-02-18T04:52:00.000-08:00

I never was a firm believer in destiny, but of late I'm beginning to believe in it. Or else what could explain my passion for the capital markets? A guy who took up Science because at one point of time he wanted to do research in Physics is now totally immersed in pure commerce - from pure physics to pure commerce..What a transition !

And it's not just for the money...I can already hear people smirking, but believe me :)
Maybe it's some kind of love or infatuation - in fact, I even call it my first love. I can spend hours researching companies, going over all news and nuances. There are times when I wake up and suddenly remind myself "Hey, it's been a long time, I haven't checked on that company - maybe I'll do that today".

Now, I want to learn all that I can about derivatives and commodity markets. Maybe someday I'll do some forex trading. By the way, did you know that the forex market is actually a market that never sleeps. It literally follows the sun - trading continues throughout the day, throughout the world. Somehow that bit of info excites me. I read accounts of big traders checking on their positions every two hours during the night. Wow.

That's destiny... and I intend to fulfill mine.

The era of entrepreneurs

2006-02-02T01:34:00.000-08:00

This is continuation of the line of thought I proposed in an earlier post (Inflection point)

The era of entrepreneurs
Sunil Bharti Mittal

It's heartening to see young students, fresh from college, say "I want to be an entrepreneur". For a country of aspiring doctors, engineers and civil servants, this is quite a transformation. This is a new resurgent India, sure of itself and confident of challenging the best. Not too many of us would have anticipated the profound impact that liberalisation would have on our economy.

Today, the country is witnessing a revolution in telecom, IT, retail, exports, banking, real estate and other related sectors. India is one of the first investment destination.It's the second fastest growing GDP in the world after China. Our forex reserves are healthy and many Indian companies are competing with or complementing the best in the world.Economic reforms and the process of liberalisation has been the key to unlocking the potential of various sectors in the country.

In fact, liberalisation has pushed forward the need for a more open and market oriented economy. Measures like scrapping of the industrial licensing regime, reduction in the number of areas reserved for public sector, amendment of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, reduction in tariff rates and a change over to market determined exchange rate, propelled the growth process.

More than anything else, it's the impact of all this change on the mindset of average Indians that signals the triumph of the process. The current generation of business leaders no longer belong to the metros alone.They come from everywhere — Ludhiana, Meerut and Mangalore. Twenty years ago, nobody would have believed that places like these would produce national business leaders. To me, this age is the second golden age of Indian business.

The first golden age was between 1947 and 1960. A lot of young entrepreneurs are being motivated to try and establish an enterprise that creates employment, catalyses growth and transforms lives.Entrepreneurship is fast becoming a mass movement. Bharti itself is a product of economic reform. And after a decade of being a part of the telecom revolution in the country, we feel elated to have been able to connect India across the length and breadth of the country.

Economic reforms have set the foundation for building enduring, profitable relationships with customers because it rewards entrepreneurs for continuously creating new propositions and innovating on existing ones.India is poised to emerge as one of the most developed nations by 2020, which will be more literate, knowledgeable and economically at the forefront. The massive growth in telecom is yet to come.By the turn of the century, India is expected to rank amongst the top five countries in wireless subscription. The economy is expected to grow between 6% and 8% over the next one year with an increased focus on the rural sector.

For the Indian-bred entrepreneur, the path to sustained excellence is one that requires willingness to change, learn and excel. Most entrepreneurs exhibit a balanced combination of education and entrepreneurial drive with an eagerness to change and innovate.No doubt, they will be able to play a vital role in contributing to our country's development. As many more entrepreneurs spread their wings and explore new horizons, the fundamental focus must remain unchanged — seek the best in every domain and put it to the service of the customer.

Let this core thought continue to drive the spirit of entrepreneurship in India. If the political set up and the business class continues to walk their talk, it's certainly not difficult to achieve this dream and vision.

The author is Chairman and Group MD, Bharti Enterprises

People don't understand

2006-01-28T22:59:00.000-08:00

Her schedule had been offset by more than an hour. There were so many things to do and so little time. But she couldn’t help it. Her little kid was in a playful mood today and was not ready to sleep yet. He would generally sleep immediately after being fed, giving her a couple of hours time, to finish off all her household work. But not today, he wouldn't sleep and her work wasn't getting any less. On top of it, they had planned to go for a movie in the evening and that meant she had even lesser time. Maybe they'll be able to watch the movie today... just maybe... if he sleeps late now, hopefully he would be asleep during the movie. The last movie they had gone for was a disaster. To pacify his wailing, his Dad would take him out of the hall and show him the stalls outside. The kid seemed to have a liking for pop-corn - watching the pops coming out of the machine, quietened him down and he would smile. Finally tired of watching the movie alone, she came out of the hall and they left before the interval.

(It would be unfair, not to mention the kid's point of view, so here we go...
As for the kid, he couldn't understand what so many people were doing in that dark room. The lights flashing in front almost blinded him and the noise was deafening. And worst of all, nobody, absolutely nobody noticed him, except for the occasional pat of his mother when he tried to say something. It was a different matter that they never really understood what he was trying to say. He liked it when people gazed at him lovingly and went "cho..chweet..." and muttered sweet nothings, until they got too hard on his cheeks. But this dark room was different. He infact did try to catch the attention of the lady sitting behind, but she was too engrossed in the flashing lights ahead to look at him. And that was when, he decided that he had had enough. Soon, he and Dad had a nice time watching the popcorn machine popping. Somehow Dad seemed to have a liking towards that machine because after every round they took of that place, he would come back to that machine. The kid would smile back, giving his approval - at least he was out that room. But now he was getting bored of this ordeal too and was about to start crying again, when Mom came out of the room and he was happy going back home.)

Her thoughts returned back to the present, when she realized that he had finally slept. Getting up quietly from the bed, taking care not to make the slightest noise, she got to her chores. She had to finish cooking lunch, wash the clothes, clean up the house and finally do the dishes, all before it was time for lunch and his feeding. "So much to do and so little time", she muttered to herself as she went about finishing off the cooking part.

Almost two hours later, wiping away the beads of perspiration from her forehead, she was done with cleaning the house and cooking for lunch. Thank God that the kid was quiet and sleeping all this while. At this rate, maybe she could get finish off the laundry too. She decided to check on the kid on her way to the bathroom and the sight shocked her. Contrary to her belief, he was already up and upto his mischief. He had managed to get his hands on the sindoor box lying on the dressing table near the bed and greeted her presence with a big smile, blinking to keep the powder out of his eyes, his face smeared red beyond recognition.(Incidentally the bed sheet was also ruined).

From the child's point of view, what he had hoped would impress his mother didn't work out well and the consequences were too violent to be depicted here. Grown-ups can be so confusing and so confused at the same time – especially Dad. Now, spending so much time outside the house, Dad was bereft of the special understanding that develops between the mother and the kid. Some things which were obvious to the mother and which she skipped in her explanations of the day’s antics were not so obvious to him. For example he couldn’t figure out how the kid managed to get his hands on the sindoor box. Or for that matter, what was the sindoor box doing on the dressing table? Shouldn’t it be in the drawer? But logic is not always the best approach, and he realized that soon, with the discussion ending with him trying to explain that he didn’t really mean it that way – She wanted to know how he could expect her to remember where the sindoor box should be, when she had so many things to look after – him, his kid, his house… and so on. He decided to skip the other questions that he had – after all, being a little confused isn’t so bad, especially when the clarifications take unexpected turns. He was bewildered to find the kid's face pink (inspite of all the scrubbing) and his bottom a similar shade (conseqeuent of...). Now, why would the kid take so much care to smear sindoor on his face and his bottom as well? He couldn’t figure that out.

You can very well guess what happened at the movie...

(Based on a real-life incident...I was the kid who made Dad watch pop-corn while Mom watched Lawaaris.)

Inflection point

2006-01-27T20:22:00.000-08:00

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

--Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Something makes me believe that we are at an inflection point, as a nation.

Almost every other person I know is involved in some social activity or other and is trying to make a contribution to the society at large. NGOs, rehabilitation of slum children, education, providing hope to kids who were born with AIDS - you name it, they are in it.

The economy is also doing well, inspite of all the systemic problems that we have. So there are lots of opportunities for people who want to be involved in building the new resurgent India.

And a few words for those, who would like to leave the country and settle abroad, it's about time they realized that if there is any growth happening in the world, it's in India or China. The US is stagnating and Europe is busy in keeping the EU united and not making much progress.

People seem to be more caring now than before...
They seem to have more dreams than those before...
And the opportunities seem to be much more than before...

What we need is that critical mass, the momentum which will set the ball rolling.

People tell me that the youth is always gung-ho about their dreams, their ambitions and have lots of zeal which doesn't last the vagaries of time, as they age.

I don't know, maybe they are right or maybe not.

Happy Republic day.

2006-01-26T11:45:00.000-08:00

26th January evokes mixed feelings in most of us. There have been times when I have been happy and times when I've been sad - depends on whether it occurs on a weekday or on a weekend. And thats what the Republic day (or for that matter, Independence Day too) means to many - a public holiday, which, if it's on a weekday can be clubbed till the nearest weekend for that elusive trip home.

I remember going for the flag-hoisting celebration in school, partly because it was compulsory and partly for the sweets that were distributed. But most of the time me and my friends would be disappointed that we were not allowed to continue playing after 12.00 when the school premises were customarily emptied. And pretty soon as we grew up, we stopped attending these sessions, because sweets weren't a great incentive anymore and we also realised that "Attendance is mandatory" doesn't always mean that.

Now, the celebrations are limited to buying the tricolor at traffic signals, and adorning your car's dashboard for the coming weeks. Earlier when Doordarshan was the only channel available, there was no other option but to watch the Republic Day parade. But now with a variety of channels, watching the glory of the nation is optional. Earlier the radio played patriotic songs at least through out the morning till noon. They still play those songs even today, albeit intermingled with the 'Kajra Re' variety.

Back in Mumbai, we had a flag-hoisting ceremony in our society. It was organized at 11.00 in the morning (I suppose technically speaking, 11.00 means morning) so that majority of the members would be awake by then and there would be maximum participation. Inspite of that, the majority still didn't attend (and that included me) for various reasons.

There is isn't really any single reason for this indifference towards 26th January or 15th August. One of the major reasons could be that none of the current generation or their immediately previous generation were closely related to the freedom struggle. So we cannot relate to what freedom really meant, since it's always been that way for us. However, if you have been outside India for a significant amount of time, you feel a certain emptyiness when you are working on such a day and realize that 15th August means absolutely nothing to the local population.

But inspite of this indifference, I still believe that patriotism is not dead yet. Something still brings moistness in my eyes, if not tears, everytime I hear "Aie mere waatan ke logon" by Lata Mangeshkar being played. I hope that feeling stays longer in the hearts of the coming generations, than the already limp flag does on the dashboard. I hope we still continue to think twice before disposing of the plastic flag openly after a few weeks. And may that day never come when we toss the tricolor out of the car's window, like anyother piece of plastic.
(Meanwhile let's get rid of this habit of tossing things out of the car's window.)

A milestone met...

2006-01-23T20:20:00.000-08:00

Jan 2006 @ age of 23...
Next target: Same amount, but in dollars...

Going all wrong, but turning out perfect...

2006-01-22T05:38:00.000-08:00

Getting back into auto-biography mode after a prolonged hiatus...

Some things begin to make sense as you look back into your past - things that didn't go your way and had seemed horribly wrong, begin to look right.

During placements season when Oracle (the first company to visit our campus), turned me down after a stretched 8 hour session which included the interviews and waiting period outside the interview hall, I was bitter. Not just disappointed, but bitter because it seemed like a gender-biased decision - reasons not worth delving into at present.

Whatever may be the reasons, I wasn't selected and the next company I sat for, inspite of a sloppy written examination and a casual interview, I was in. I hadn't attempted 50% of the questions in the written because I wasn't sure whether I wanted to be in this company. But once I was selected for the interview, I just went through it ritualistically, because not turning up for the interview would create problems with the Training and Placement Dept. And surprisingly I was in. Well, it wasn't much of a surprise... I was the highest ranked CS guy in the list who had sat for that company.

And now I've spent 2.5 years in that company, always taking care that I don't work too much - complete the assigned task and just a litte bit more to get decent appraisal grades. But most of the action has been on the sidelines. Today, I'm actually happy that I didn't get into Oracle. My destiny is not in fiddling around with Java or ASP, but it's in being a magician... I learnt to do magic with finance - creating wealth and that's what drives me. People don't really believe me when I say that I'm not in for the money. Money is just a by-product (and a very useful by-product at that). I derive my satisfaction and excitement by being proven right. Ocassionally I do take a number of contrarian calls, and it gives me great satisfaction, when I'm proved right.

If I had got into Oracle, I probably would have never realized my destiny. With a pretty limited income, I learnt how to make money work for me. Most of my friends are concentrating on working for money- shift jobs, get an MBA, get a better package. But what's the point, if you can't make that money work equally hard for you. It'll dwindle away as inflation eats into it. (I must admit I've been heavily influenced by the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad"). Now's the time to increase the capital base and make it work hard.

It's difficult to live upto people's expectations, but one need not try. People have different parameters for measuring success and most of the time, it doesn't match with mine. They would judge me as more successful if I had shifted my job earlier. But what would that achieve... I would have worked in some other technology and earned a better package. But technology doesn't excite me and a better package is no good if you don't know what to do with it.

I could now use the extra capital to boost my investments and the consequent returns. For that I'm waiting for my onsite trip. Many feel that I'm not doing enough to force my superiors to send me onsite. Well, that also doesn't matter...Whenever I go, I'll be going for atleast 3-4 months - that means approximately $5,000 * 4 i.e. $20,000 at max (haven't factored in taxes and other expenses). But those 20 grands are there for me, whether I go this month or next. Meanwhile with all the activity going on in the capital markets, it makes more sense to be involved in that. So by postponing my flight, I actually stand to gain more.

And talking about gains, I'm expecting to be a rupee millionaire by the end of this financial year and before I turn 24. Incidentally, both occur on the same day - I was born on 28th February, the last day of our financial year and the day the Budget is declared. That could be the best gift I can give myself on this birthday and I'm working towards it.

Enough about people and their expectations; lets get back to discussing things not going one's way but still turning out well. I didn't make it into ISB either. But surprisingly, this time I wasn't too disappointed. I have a feeling that something's gonna happen this year, which I can't afford to lose being locked in ISB.

Apt reply

2006-01-16T21:40:00.000-08:00

(This was the reply that I posted on the bulletin board later to contest the claims of plagiarism etc. on the "Macabre" post. You can check the debate in the comment's section of "Macabre")

Since I was the one who started it, a few parting words would help to let the matter rest in pieces.

I had tried writing a couple of articles for PETA, which I believed was a group of people who loved sweets - especially those sugar-coated ones Agra is famous for. So in my articles, I made it a point to bring out technical nuances, such as why 5 is the maximum number of curls that a well-made jalebi could have or how to prepare the perfect rasgulla syrup, so that the gulla floats in the middle of the ras - neither sinking to the bottom nor floating on top. But sad to say, they didn't appreciate any of these dissertations. And somehow they liked that silly chicken story. I could never really understand that, but I guess they probably love chicken for some reason. My friend tells me that PETA stands for "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals". That did explain a lot of things, but I still can't figure out their love for chicken dishes.

Anyways let us leave that at that.

Coming to the plagiarism bit, I vehemently deny having any such disease. From the limited knowledge that I have, I understand that it's an epidemic caused by unhygienic conditions and rats in particular. It cannot be an epidemic, if I alone have it. And so I don't have it, hence proved.

Lastly I would like to thank Ravi, because without him, there would not have been any critical dissertation of my work. And the comparisions to Mario Puzo and Grisham were flattering. I can't really re-collect these names, but from what I remember Mario was that stupid computer game, in which that guy keep jumping over obstacles. Never really liked that game (but that's my personal opinion- I see that there are a lot of Mario fans around). But I do know Grisham, he's the one who wrote Jurassic Park, but I never read that book, since I saw the movie first.

But the Anu-malik bit was offending. Imagine how offended he must have felt, being compared to me! And without offending him much, I would just like to add that my work was my own, though I can't really help the English part. It has always been that poor.

And to my greatest fan Ravi, I promise you the best of health (smiling :)) and I'll do my best to leave you in splits.
No..No... I don't mean any violence. From my understanding, 'to leave one in splits' means to leave one laughing. But I'm not too sure about my English - I just wrote this whole thing by randomly picking words from the dictionary.

It's not personal...it's strictly business
(My friend tells me that Mario said this, I dunno...maybe it's there somewhere in that game.)

Macabre

2006-01-16T03:07:00.000-08:00

The floor was stained with blood and so were the walls. They were splattered with different shades of red - from almost black, dried blood to fiery and fresh red. A mangled pile of disjoint limbs and innards lay in a corner. A decapitated head lay in the mess, caked with blood - blood that was probably wet and fresh, giving it a shiny red appearance. An eye which was full of life a few minutes back, stared into nothingness, seemingly aghast at the macabre sight that it could no more behold. Rivulets of blood dripped to the floor.

People who stood around, were unaffected by the sight in front of them. One lady held up a kerchief to her nose to stop the stench of death from nauseating her, while few others tried to look away. But most of them had become absolutely immune to the killings and were ready with their specifics.

“Sirf leg-pieces dena...”, insisted one of them.
“Arre kitna haddi daal diya... haddiyon ke paise lete ho kya..?” someone retorted back.

How much is a human life worth? Well, it actually depends on who has died. But for the sake of simplicity it can be said that it is worth another - If you a kill a human, you could possibly be hanged.
But how much is a chicken's life worth? Hmmm… not much really… maybe a little more than Rs 40 per kg.

Doodling away

2006-01-15T05:35:00.000-08:00

Recently, I felt like writing small intense pieces, trying to capture emotions as vividly as possible. Real short pieces as the one below...

Feebled...
His world had crashed around him. He was dazed, still unable to accept what had happened. Memories flashed before his eyes as he walked, each step bringing him closer to what he dreaded the most. The sun was blazing hot and the ground was scorching but he took scarce notice of it as his life had suddenly become unbearably numb. He had lost what he treasured the most, and the streams of tears that ran down, drained out the last vestiges of hope and energy in him. He clutched feebly at the earthern pot on his shoulder - the same place where he used to carry his son lovingly. Memories flooded him as he completed circling thrice - an entire lifetime captured within those three circles. And it ended as he dropped the pot on the ground, shattering into pieces, as feeble as human life. And with the hand which had helped his child to walk, he lit the pyre, consigning to the flames, a part of him which was no more there...

Maybe some day I'll be able to capture emotions better on a large scale... will help when I write that book I have in mind...

Rest in Peace.

2006-01-11T04:43:00.000-08:00

(A bit of a background first...
There is a bulletin board (BB) in our company, where people let loose their boredom, frustrations, ramblings... Sometimes they tend to forget that there's Big Brother (the HR dept.) watching and you can definitely speak your mind, as long as it subscribes to the company's BB usage policies. And for those unfortunate ones, who tend to cross the thin red line, there's a small discussion that ends with a courteous apology on the BB and the sudden disappearance of the entire conversation... )

It's one of those days, when you have absolutely nothing better to do, than stare at your PC and drop off messages to your buddies at an online forum. The intermittent flow of messages somehow has a life of its own. Conversations start off as a single post and grow into huge raging debates. And that's when you notice a harmless looking message with innate potential to be the hit of the day. You dash off a smart retort, and so do many others, eager to outdo each other.

It's an uncontrollable urge, akin to gambling. You initially bet small - you win - you are ecstatic. Your bets become more frequent and the stakes keep piling up. And finally you bet too much and the inevitable happens...

The phone rings... Trrng...Trrrng. Each ring impinges your heart with fear, and with a sinking feeling you pick up the handset, almost expecting what’s next.

"Hello Mr. Andersen.... It's about time we met."

That's all you hear and before you completely lose control... you vaguely remember being transported to a glass chamber, facing the music... And then there is complete silence...

Absolute deathly silence... followed by an apology.

(A fictitious story - any resemblance to any character/situation in real-life is purely co-incidental and un-intentional)

What is torture ?

2006-01-03T22:41:00.000-08:00

Torture can have many forms, but the worst I have experienced is a high-pressure flush operating at full-force. Now I suppose that wouldn't have made sense, so let me elaborate..

Torture is the sudden call of nature when you least expect it.
Torture is going to the restroom, which has only 2 cabinets, and finding both of them occupied.
Torture is sprinting to the only other restroom on the floor, which is 200 mts away, with the faint inkling of what to expect.
Torture is the sinking feeling of finding the first cabinet locked and looking expectantly at the next door.
(Enough of torture, time for some relief - there is only one available cabinet on the entire floor and you are in it)
Now, getting back to the torture part...
Torture is pressing the flush and after a few seconds of wait, realizing that there is a malfunction.
Torture is looking at the storm in the commode which is not in any mood to cease and the realization that you can't sit on it.
Torture is knowing that you have no other options
Torture is balancing yourself on your knees, careful to stay out of reach of the hungry laps of the storm beneath.
Torture is the sense of relief when you are done, immediately followed by dismay as you reach for the tissues.
Torture is realizing that there are no tissues in the rack.
Torture is almost having sat down in shock.
Torture is having to use the kerchief, which your girl-friend loving gifted you.
Torture is consigning the kerchief to the still-raging storm, when you are done.
Torture is watching your token-of-love being devoured by the storm.
Torture is looking at the lever of the flush, and realizing that it had got stuck.
Torture is bringing back the lever to it's resting position and watching the storm calm down.

Torture is ... an absent mind.

(An absolutely fictious story - product of an idle mind.)

Tell me something nice...

2006-01-03T00:24:00.000-08:00

"Tell me something nice", she said. "It's been a long time since I've heard any good news. I suppose things must be going well for you".

A month back, her dad had suffered a stroke and was in the ICU of a hospital in Mumbai. He was in coma for 14 days - a period she remembered very vividly - each day had been a torturous experience. She died every night exhausted from fear and woke up to life in the morning, with a faint glitter of hope. That period had been hard on her but soon her dad was convalescing. It had been probably harder on her mother, who suffered an heart attack soon after, but fate had been cruelly quicker in her case.

Before things started going bad, she was in love with a guy and they had plans to get happily married. As things got worse, she was occupied with the calamities facing her and he got married elsewhere due to some family problems.

Her dad was worried about her future, as he was uncertain about his. But she didn't want to marry, ever. Her Dad understood and so did she. That was when she thought of calling some of her old friends, someone to just cry out to, someone who would listen her out.

He hadn't heard from her for a long time. It was a pleasant surprise, but soon he realized that things weren't that pleasant for her. He prided himself on having a good sense of humor, on being able to make people laugh or at least smile with his twisted interpretation of things in general. But he was at a loss of words, when she pleaded with him to give her some good news.

All he could talk was about broken relationships, of crashed dreams and dashed hopes. But somehow they paled in comparison with what she had been through. Life can be a great comedian but at times, can make you cry out in pain and he realized with a sinking heart, that he was no match for Life. All he could do was pray, "Please Life, tell her something nice".

Power play - Saddam Hussein

2005-12-26T20:00:00.000-08:00

I read somewhere that the trial was not really serving it's purpose in indicting Saddam, rather it was giving him a platform for stoking the insurgency in Iraq. Whoever wrote that article had done some brilliant thinking. I wouldn't want to comment on the trial serving it's purpose, because I myself don't believe in the validity of the court being set up. But one thing is clearly evident. Saddam is making full use of the limited oppurtunity he is being provided with.

He's playing the role of a perfect victim - a just ruler who has been dealt injustice. His emotional outbursts show that he's the victim who is traumatised. He garners sympathy, when he talks about the torture that he is undergoing. At the same time, he maintains his dignity by not totally breaking down. When he lambasts the opposition he shows that his pride is still intact, that he will fight against the injustice. At every moment of the trial, Saddam stays in control, even when he displays his emotions, his frustration and his anger. In the last session, he even requested for a prayer break from the court, in the middle of the trial. As the world looked on, he kneeled down and dutifully offered his namaz. That should have had a great impact on his millions of devout followers.

The picture that he portrays is that of a just, dignified, god-fearing ruler who has been wrongly forced to give up his kingdom, while the invaders try to trap him in false cases (or cases in which he had acted rightfully) and although he has no powers left, he'll fight them till the end and he believes God is on his side.

In reality, Saddam's regime was far from a perfect regime. He has committed (or authorized) the most atrocious crimes possible. But unfortunately, right now, he is stoking the insurgency in Iraq almost as efficiently as he would have, if he had been free.

He provides more motivation to his supporters than Bush/Rumsfield provide to their Marines. And wars are not won by technological superiority - they are won by motivated fighters. An Iraqi insurgent is fighting for his country, for his independence, for his religion and will not hesitate to give up his life, for claiming the lives of a few more from the enemy. But a US Marine is not fighting for any high ideals. He is there in Iraq, because he has been sent there. He may or may not agree with the logic behind the necessity of the Iraqi regime change. He hardly has any motivations to fight - other than to survive, so that he can go home safely.

In the current situation, there's hardly anything that the US can do to stop Saddam. They are caught in their own trap. They cannot spot broadcasting the trial proceedings, as that will raise a large hue and cry. So they need to come up with some fresh ideas. Meanwhile, let's hope that Iraq does not turn out to be the next Vietnam.

Aggresion

2005-12-26T05:12:00.000-08:00

When they were teaching "Assertiveness skills" in a workshop at my present company, I was pretty impressed. These skills definitely help a lot in realizing one's potential, by helping one speak out. However after having worked for some years and interacted with people from different industries, I know realize that being assertive is not enough. It definitely scores above being timid. But if one is to be a leader, one needs to be aggressive, not just assertive.

However it wouldn't make sense to coach everyone to be aggressive. It's not just about being a brute and throwing regard to the wind. Such an attitude would totally back-fire - one needs to be aggressive and at the same time not offend people, or make more enemies (than necessary). One needs to exude confidence while being aggressive, without showing anger or other negative emotions. There is a certain amount of art involved.

However this advice is not for the public at large. Though this may seem like an offhand comment, most people need to be docile (or assertive, at max) so that the organization can function. If everyone becomes aggressive, it would be difficult to get any work done.

- Comments are welcome...

A Nobel laureate

2005-12-21T22:27:00.000-08:00

That's what I could have been, once upon a time...

Is there a free-will or is it just fate...?
This is something that has intrigued me for quite a long time. What I am today - Is that a result of all the conscious decisions that I've made till date or is it just a quirk of fate? Is there anything actually under my control or is it just one grand illusion?
Every step that I take forward is definitely my decision, but whether I go one step ahead, or tumble and fall or zoom ahead isn't really under my control, and may be just fate in action.
Anyways, since I have a free-will, I intend to keep using it and I would attribute both choice and fate for being responsible for what I am today.

And that includes why I will not be a Nobel laureate. It was the critical juncture of my life, when I was about to complete my Std XII exams and had to decide what to do next.
I had a keen interest in Physics and also Maths (but mostly abstract mathematics). I had read a lot of biographies of famous physicists, Nobel laureates and was greatly inspired by them. I nearly read about all famous Indian scientists, from Raman to SN Bose to Chandrasekhar and was convinced that my future lay in research. There was this time, when I read a biography of Ramanujan and was so motivated that I kept a small notebook, wherein I did my own bit of research with infinite series and number theory. My study was decorated with black and white photographs of all the scientists that I could find.

I wanted to be a scientist and no ordinary scientist at that - I wanted to win the Nobel prize. One evening, I told my Dad, that I would study physics and not go for engineering. He was suprised, but he didn't discourage me. He told me that it was a great idea if i actually wanted to do that, but I should put in more thought to my decision - maybe I should think it over the night.

And that night I thought, and I thought...
There are no great places in India to study Physics (even today). IISC seemed to be the only decent place, but they admit students only for the Masters Degree. And I didn't want to waste my formative years (of doing Bachelors) in some second-rung college.
And no Indian had won the Nobel prize since a long time. So I was doubtful about the kind of mentoring that I would get. I have always believed that to be the best, one has to learn from the best.
And lastly, I had read that a lot of discrimination happens during the Nobel prize selection process. Most of the Indians who received the Nobel prize, were Americans at the time of the award. And invariably, most of them received the award years after their actual discovery, almost towards the end of their career.

And after all this analysis, I found that the risks were too great and the chances of reward too little. And thats how the river changed it's course - whether it was fate or my choice, doesn't matter anymore. However I still do research independently, though not in Physics anymore, but in equities and the rewards are much quicker.

And, being an perennial optimist, maybe a NOBEL in Peace could be a remote possibility. But that will definitely be a quirk of fate, rather than a choice.

Interesting job offerings

2005-12-17T20:49:00.000-08:00

Saw this ad in The Economist, which I found pretty interesting...

Possibly, the most challenging job in the world.
CLANDESTINE SERVICE CAREERS

The CIA's Clandestine Service is searching for qualified applicants to serve in the US and abroad. These exciting careers offer fast-paced, high-impact challenges in worldwide intelligence collection efforts on issues of US foreign policy interest and national security concern. Applicants should possess a high degree of integrity, strong interpersonal skills, excellent written and oral communication skills, and the desire to be part of something vital that makes a difference for family, friends and country.

Qualified applicants should possess a minimum of a bachelor's degree with a GPA of at least 3.0, an interest in international affairs and national security, and be willing to relocate to the Washington, DC area. Foreign travel opportunities exist for all positions and some require relocation abroad for 2-3 year tours of duty. All applicants for Clandestine Service positions must successfully undergo several personal interviews, medical and psychological exams, aptitude testing, a polygraph interview, and an extensive background investigation. Following entry on duty, candidates will undergo lengthy and thorough training. US citizenship is required.

For more information and to apply, visit: www.cia.gov

An equal opportunity employer and a drug-free work force.
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE CENTER OF INTELLIGENCE.

Spies and espionage had always fascinated me, when I was a kid. I guess all young boys feel similarly. I had read all kinds of books about real-life spies and double agents, starting from Mata Hari to Ian Fleming's escapades which were personified in James Bond. I lapped up every bit of information about agencies like the KGB, Mossad, CIA, NSA, the M15, RAW, and even ISI.

And thats what they remained, one of the many fascinations that I carry...one of the various professions that I could have been in, but I dropped the idea somewhere along the way.

(Maybe sometime, I'll write about the other professions that I was interested in...)

Conquer Your Fear

2005-12-15T22:50:00.000-08:00

Conquer Your Fear
by Donald J. Trump

History knows no resting places and no plateaus.

-- Henry Kissinger

History is relentless because it happens every second. In other words, no resting places and no plateaus. The same applies to business—you can’t rest on your laurels, you can’t become complacent, and you have to be persistent—even when the odds are against you. That’s where courage comes in.

Hemingway coined the phrase, “Courage is grace under pressure.” Some people, when they hear the word “courage” automatically think of heroic moments in war and in calamitous situations such as earthquakes or other disasters. That of course applies, but in our daily lives we also have the opportunity to be courageous. Going at it day after day without becoming discouraged is a form of courage as well. It may not be as dramatic, but the results can be.

People are surprised when they hear I very often work 12 hour days in my office. That is the norm for me, not the exception. I know that to succeed and to remain successful, I have to be persistent. If you are working 40 hours a week and then add on another 20 hours a week for awhile, you’ll be surprised at how much more you will achieve. Prolific people are prolific for a reason.

I remember reading about Michelangelo when I was a student. That guy was not only a genius, he was unbelievably tenacious. He went to extreme lengths to achieve the results he did. He also had courage because he lived in a tumultuous time in history during which he had to deal with the de Medicis, a variety of popes, warring families, and even Savonarola. He often worked in appalling conditions. He had quarrels with the pope. How he managed to get anything accomplished in the midst of all this was amazing. He had to have persistence and courage to match his talent. Most of us don’t know the names of the popes from the sixteenth century, but most of us have heard of Michelangelo. That’s staying power.

On The Apprentice, you will notice that the candidates are not only persistent in their pursuit of landing the big job, they also had the courage to go for it in the first place. Auditions can be daunting. There were over a million applicants. Those weren’t great odds and yet they persisted. That’s why I believe there are no losers on that show. Taking the first step means these people are winners to begin with. No one likes to be rejected, and they are risking rejection in front of millions of people. I give them a lot of credit for that, and I expect all of them to succeed, whether they are chosen as my apprentice or not.

Courage means never giving up. It’s much easier to give up. Don’t take that route. Being determined enough to continue despite discouragement is probably the number one virtue necessary for success. Some very ordinary people have accomplished amazing things by simply being persistent. Abraham Lincoln is a good example. His courage made him extraordinary.

Sometimes I’m hard on people because I know they can do more, and I know they haven’t lived up to their potential. I may have more faith in their abilities than they do, so I have to be the catalyst to get them going. I remember a young executive who was in my office one day when I realized I wouldn’t be able to make a speaking engagement. I told him he would have to step in for me. He told me, “Oh, I don’t do public speaking.” So I told him, “You do now.” And do you know what? He has become an accomplished public speaker. He just needed a shove to get going. I need people who can think—and speak—on their feet, and that’s one way to develop them.

Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s the conquering of fear. Just because someone appears to be confident doesn’t mean they have no fear. Many great performers suffer from stage fright. They have to fight to overcome it. Sometimes it never goes away, but that doesn’t mean they don’t perform. They work through it, they persist. They know part of their job is having the courage to display their talent. Talent alone isn’t enough. Talent takes work and talent requires courage.

History has shown us that those who persist very often succeed. Respect yourself enough to give yourself a chance! The odds will be on your side. I expect every one of you to succeed, and I will accept no excuses. So let’s get going. History isn’t waiting for any of us.

Turning traitor

2005-12-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

"I'd rather be a martyr than a traitor..."

Those were the words of my superior, on that fateful night, when we were to support our friends working behind enemy lines. We had received their message in the morning, followed by a briefing on what was to be our tasks for the day. We realized the gravity of the situation as the voice crackled over the radio, explaining grimly the tough resistance that they were facing. We were to wait for their orders and if need be, provide cover with artillery fire.
With Chrismas coming near, the festive season was in full bloom. But we were not a part of it, even though we'd want to. As if reading my mind, he said to me "I'd rather be a martyr than a traitor...". The words stuck to my mind and I steeled my resolve. So be it.

...Sgt. Asrit's war-journal entry dated 14-Dec-05.

Now for the anti-climax...

Although those were the actual words of my boss, things aren't that heroic. This morning, we received an e-mail from our onsite co-ordinator that the system wasn't working as expected, followed by a telecon and a meeting to discuss the agenda for the day. While the rest of the team prepared to go for the project-party, we were to stay back and provide 'support' to onsite.

Had it not been for my boss, I would have turned traitor by now ...

(Note: Sgt Asrit is my alter-ego and since we share the same imagination, we're in constant touch with each other)

D-day

2005-12-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

Today was the final D-day that I had been waiting for - the day of the ISB interview. And as far as I'm concerned, it was a great experience.

The only preparation that I had done was mentally running through the different scenarios that might crop up - the most likely questions that I would face and my answers to it. I had also prepared a list of points that I wanted to highlight, and invariably convey to them. These mostly centered around my high motivation levels and zeal to be an entrepreneur.

Since impressions matter a lot - in fact that's the reason why the interview was being hosted at the TAJ and not any other hotel, since the brand TAJ is synonymous to the best - I wanted to appear at my best. So on Friday, I had a quick shopping tour, wherein I armed myself with an impeccable white shirt and other acessories. There's something about the color white, which appeals to me and is a quick confidence booster. And confidence was what I was counting on.

With a quick eye on details, I groomed myself as much as possible, within the short time frame - from getting a clean shave with a neat french-beard to trimming my nails.

The interview was good. Under the best circumstances, I had hoped to leave them enchanted with my confidence and spirit ("leave them gasping for more", was what I kept telling myself :)). Though thats not exactly what happened - the interview had started with one guy in the panel yawning away to glory, but somewhere towards the middle, all three were listening attentively and towards the end, I had a fleeting feeling of having left them dazed. Most of the time, the questions remained within my comfort-zone and when they didn't but were pretty close, I pulled them into that zone. There were 2 current affairs questions at the end, which I suppose was directed to put me off my confident stance. I'm not sure if I answered them right, but since it was almost the end of the interview, I suppose it didn't affect me much.

All in all, it was a great experience...

Rahul Bajaj not too impressed.

2005-12-08T10:20:00.000-08:00

Amidst all the hype and hoopla surrounding Bill Gate's visit to India, one man had the courage to speak out his mind and what was right... Kudos to him !

Rahul Bajaj not too impressed.
Source: The Economic Times (08-Dec-2005)

Not all CEOs were starry eyed with the hype around Bill Gates visit to India. Leading the list of sceptics was CII past president and Bajaj Auto chairman Rahul Bajaj. He created a flutter at CII’s CEO forum in the morning by virtually brushing aside Mr Gates concern for digital divide in developing countries such as India, reports our Delhi Bureau.

“What are we talking about? At the crux, is the increasing income inequality among nations and within a nation, with the spread of globalisation. Digital divide is only the means, the end is per capita income and once that is taken care of, the former will vanish on its own,” Mr Bajaj told the audience.

Speaking after Mr Gates and India telecom pioneer Sam Pitroda, Mr Bajaj said, “I know Sam and Bill can solve all our problems. But what problem can they solve. The main challenges facing the country are not digitisation of access to technology. We need to provide the basic social infrastructure to our citizens — health, education and an effective governance.”

He also took pot-shots at the repetitive praise heaped on India’s higher education system, especially the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). “Education doesn’t begin and end with the IITs. What really matters for the nation’s well-being is our school and university education system. Both of which are in a real mess.”Mr Bajaj didn’t spare Microsoft and its products either. “My company also uses many of the software products and solutions sold by Microsoft. It’s another matter that they should be cheaper and better.”

In search of excitement

2005-12-07T06:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I and my roomie decided to go for a walk after dinner. There are not really many places to visit around my house so we decided to go to the crematorium instead. The idea popped into my head quite abruptly, but once it did, it seemed exciting enough to give it a try.

So we went through the crowded streets and soon turned to the sparsely lit lane which leads to the crematorium, in search of some excitement. The path was mostly moon-lit but it was not a full-moon night. The sky also was pretty normal, neither too starry nor too cloudy - it was just like any other night. There were no dogs (or wolfs :)) baying sorrowfully in the background. And not even a cat jumped across our way (I had fancied that a shadowy black one would).

When we reached the place, it was silent - not the deathly silence we were expecting but peacefully silent. The wind wasn't howling among the trees and there was not even a cold draught blowing. We decided to sit facing the area where the pyres are burnt, since it was our first visit and we didn't really fancy sitting next to a pyre.

We just sat there for sometime enjoying the silence, away from the hustle-bustle of the city, fanning away mosquitoes and chatting for a while. We didn't get our share of excitement that we came in search of (and maybe somewhere deep down hoping that we didn't). But the place seemed to beckon that if there is any excitement - it's in being alive.

Devdas...

2005-12-03T22:20:00.000-08:00

Just came back after watching Devdas on TV with my mom... :) Not many things are watchable on TV these days, atleast not with your parents. So, when I get a chance to watch some thing that I've seen before, something which won't spring up uncomfortable surprises, I take that oppurtunity. That was one reason for Why Devdas (of all movies) ?!?

And the second reason is that I have a soft corner for the Devdas character... Each time I watch the movie, it's a different experience - you emphathize in different ways and as always, the dialogues ring true, touching your heart in some way or other.

The first time I saw the movie, I got the impression that Devdas was the hero of the movie, the victim of society and blah..blah... But if you look closely at the plot, and try to figure out who was responsible for all the pain that Devdas underwent - was it Paro? or his father? or his mom? or society in general? No... none of them. There is only one villian in the movie, who is responsible for all the suffering and tragedy and that is Deva himself. (Don't want to be too hard on him, so I'll call him as Deva).

Deva was the child who never grew up, who never embraced change, who never realized that some things are meant to be and best left forgotten...that some things are good while they last, and when they don't anymore, it's because something else is coming to take it's place...
Unfortunately there was no hero in the movie, who could protect Deva from the villian.

"Dil ke challon ko koi sher kahe... to ghum nahin...
Dard to tab hota hai, ....jab log waah-waah karte hain...."

So instead of ending with a "waah-waah", I'll end with ...'Sorry Deva...'

Creating a 'mahoul'

2005-11-28T05:19:00.000-08:00

These days, I've been listening to a number of ghazals. It reminds of my college days, back in RECT when we used to have these ghazal sessions. It was mostly after dinner when we viz. Ashish(Paro), Piyush(makda) and Sachin(Bacardi) used to gather in Paro's room, set the lights to dim (or rather shut off all lights except a low-wattage bulb, covered in one of those big paper-ball lanterns). I used to term this exercise as "mahoul-banana" - thats not a fruit, rather it means creating the right situation (mahoul).

We then lounged around in the room, me lying on Paro's bed, makda sitting adjacent, paro sitting at his chair and bacardi settled on the mat below. Ghazals would be playing in the background, on Paros tape-recorder while we just laid there, doing nothing and trying to emphathise with the 'depth' in the ghazals. Soon or later, we would get to discussing each others crushes on girls who were totally unaware of it and about affairs that never happened. It was absolute bliss, just lounging around doing nothing until Paro felt hungry and we would turn on the lights and start cooking Maggi noodles.

One more thing, I forgot to mention. This generally happened on the nights before exams, when there was a lot to study and not enough time and a night-out seemed imminent. When you don't have time, you realize how exotic doing nothing could be.

Bombay-Pune in an ambulance - IV

2005-11-19T18:50:00.000-08:00

Salim and Rehana (or maybe, Ali and Rehana)
----------------------------------------------

Ali who had been quiet all this while, or maybe dozing off suddenly decided to speak, probably bored with the morose nature of our discussion. I was glad that he did, since I was running out of topics to discuss. So I sat back and let him steer the conversation in whichever direction he chose.
Looks-wise, Ali seemed smarter than Zahir, with the clean-shaven look and sharp features. However when you looked at them both, it was pretty clear that Zahir was the one who was in command - one hard look and Ali would be quiet. It was interesting to listen to Ali, because he had some real juicy stories to tell, but he spoke with such a slur that I had to listen real hard to understand what he said. Ali had the typical personality of the comic side-kick in any Hindi movie.

Ali seemed to have had a pretty lucky time with almost all the girls in their neighbour-hood. I cannot vouch for the veracity of the stories he told, but I can confirm that they were well-told. And he made his escapades look so simple, that he made us all laugh.
He would start off like "You know that girl Xyz in our gulli...ya.. that one.. she's amazing...you just need to ask, and she'll be ready...amazing...(He would then be lost in thoughts for a few seconds, maybe thinking about her or maybe thinking of the next name to drop).. and you know that girl Abc..." Our incredulous looks and smiles were enough to keep him going.

There was one story he told, about Salim and Rehana, which was a bit different. Salim was the guy who owned a couple of vans and hired people like Zahir and Ali to run them. Rehana was his wife. Ali seemed to have won the heart of Rehana (and a lot more) when Salim was not around. Ali was pretty graphic in his description of their entanglement, which is unprintable, so I leave it to your imagination. The manner in which Ali spoke, was very charming and funny, especially with his slur and that mumbaiya accent thrown in.

But Ali wasn't happy with the way things were going. It seemed that the last time he spent with Rehana, she had asked him for money. He seemed pretty heart-broken and Zahir emphathized with him. It was truly interesting. Here was a guy who had no qualms about commiting adultery or about cheating on his boss, but was heart-broken because she asked for money. According to him, he was just trying to help her out in dealing with her life. And all that she had asked for was Rs 100, to which Ali objected - "why pay for something, which you were getting for free before?"

He left the story there, as we pulled up at a petrol pump to refuel. I had almost covered half the distance to Mumbai, safely. It had been a peculiar experience - travelling in an ambulance, chatting with people so freely which I wouldn't have done otherwise, and all these stories thrown in good measure. Here I was in the middle of the express-way, equi-distant from Mumbai and Pune, wondering what I was doing in an ambulance after all.

Dare to dream -- L.N. Mittal

2005-11-19T14:32:00.000-08:00

WE ALL dream. It is an inherent part of human being and I believe it is good. To dream makes you strive,. work harder, have ambitions and goals. I recently had the pleasure of listening to a speech given by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, arguably the world’s greatest living explorer. Sir Ranulph’s achievements include the first circumnavigation of the world’s polar axis and running seven marathons in seven days, on seven different continents.. Listening to him speak was truly inspirational. It made me realize that anything is possible if you put your mind to it, truly believe an are 100% committed to fulfilling your objectives. Having said this, dreams should always be realistic. I am often asked if when I left India in 1976 it was my dream to recete the world’s largest steel company. The answer is, of course, no. Leaving India and starting a Greenfield operation in a foreign country was a big risk. The last thing on my mind was to become the industry leader. I was simply focused on getting the operation up and running, finding a market and making some money. At the time that in itself was a big enough achievement.
I always remember a piece of advice I was given in those early days. To dream and reach for the sky is good, but at the same time it is equally important to keep your feet firmly on the ground. I have always tried to remain true to this and I would offer the same advice to anyone looking to build a successful global business.
Global expansion should not be about conquering, but about what makes sound business sense. This is the fundamental question that every business must ask itself when considering its future growth opportunities. Why do you need to expand? Is it because it will helps the consolidation of your industry? Or help you to capture international market share? Or create a global brand? Is it necessary in your market segment? Is it about technology? Is it because the financial community is putting pressure on you to find new ways to maintain growth? Or is it only because growth is fashionable?
Towards the end of the 1980s my business in Indonesia was firmly established and running well. I was ready to expand and look for new opportunities. The next step that we took was to lease the assets of ISCOTT from the government of Trinidad and Tobago. Why did I do this ? I always believed in a global model for the steel industry and this was my first step, but more importantly the deal made sound business sense. The primary input material that we used at the plant in Indonesia was DRI sourced from Trinidad, and we were highly experience at utilizing this in the steel making process. DRI was a growing market and I saw a way of integrating it into our business strategy. The opportunity to lease the facility in Trinidad was there and it was natural that we were interested. This is not to say that it was easy. We were an unknown operator, competing against Hamburger Stahlwerke, a well established German company that was currently leasing the assets. We first had to convince the government that we were the best partner, and then after we had leased the assets, ensure a successful turnaround before we were able to finally acquire the plant outright.
Our move into Mexico and Canada is a further example of how our global expansion was strategic and demonstrates that we only took on projects that made business sense. These companies were based on direct reduced iron as raw material and struggling financially and lacked leadership, vision and technology. It also gave an opportunity to foothold in the North American market. It was a huge challenge but we ultimately made a success. By the time we acquired these companies, we were more established and my ambition to create a truly global steel company was developing.
In the case of the steel industry, consolidation was, and still is, vital for its survival. Right from the early days, I always believed that a global business model would bring substantial business benefits for a steel company. Our growth and strategy was shaped accordingly. We have been proved right, but when I started to follow the path of consolidation it was in fact extremely unfashionable. My peers believed that the steel industry would always remain regional. This is where confidence plays a very large role. If you are convinced of the soundness of your business strategy, follow it even if it goes against that is traditionally acceptable. Despite facing many hurdles over the years, I am extremely proud that Mittal Steel has led the way in steel industry consolidation and played a central part in shaping the future of steel. Our focus has always been on being a low cost, high margin producer with a key part of strategy focusing on the benefits of being vertically integrated. We have achieved a great deal but it is not by any means over yet as there is till a lot to do before we can emerge as a truly sustainable industry.
What are the opportunities for Indian business? The economy has doubled in real terms since reform began in 1991. Consumer demand is increasing even faster. Stocks are performing well and we are seeing considerable foreign investment into India. We have a lot to be excited about. It is forecast that India will emerge as on of the world’s top five economies by 2025. The question we need to ask ourselves is, “Is Indian business ready to play such a central role?” Certainly it does not have this profile currently. Indian business today is, comparatively speaking, not global. So what must it do to improve on this position?
There is no doubt that Indian business today has some very strong foundations. Firstly, it has the benefit of a fast-growing economy with a democratic process. Secondly, its multicultural and multi-ethical society means it is already used to operating within different cultures and regions. We Indian people have a great intellectual capacity, coupled with a natural ambition and entrepreneurial spirit and a drive and character to work hard. When we acquired our facilities in Kazakhstan in 1995, we were taking on a great opportunity but an even bigger challenge. The plant was really struggling, production was a fraction of what it was capable of, wages weren’t being paid and there was no power or water supplies to the town. Other steel companies, including major US and Austrian companies, had tried to rejuvenate the plant but both could not succeed. Conditions in Kazakhstan are incredibly harsh with temperatures reaching +40 in the summer and -40 in the winter. To this day I firmly believe that one of the main reasons for our success in Kazakhstan is the strength of our management that we sent over. To me, it is the perfect demonstration of the drive and will to succeed that Indian people have, and a great example of an asset that sets us apart from others.
We also have a number of notable global success stories already that demonstrate to us that Indian business can be highly successful on a global stage. To date these are mostly, but not strictly, in the software and IT industry. The Indian telecoms industry is another good examples so is airline industry, petrochemical industry. These sector are prime example that how the entrepreneurship can change the entire model and how this business model can be taken globally.
As well as becoming more global in their outlook, it is vitally important for Indian businesses to take full advantage of all opportunities that exist within their home markets. Yes, they must look for global opportunities, but not to the extent that they ignore Indian demand - first exploit `inward’ opportunities before looking outwards’.
Yet despite these strong foundations and good examples, more broadly speaking we are not yet playing a major role in global business. Why is this and what do we need to achieve it? There are a number of key components which will be vital to its achieving greater success on a global scale. These include better corporate governance, more clearly defined leadership and direction, the right mind-set for expansion, a more open culture and economy, a responsibility to society and the community, partnership relationship with the unions, better integration with overseas countries, technology and innovation and the flexibility to take advantage of opportunities when they arise.
It is no small list. But being successful globally is not easy. It is about continued hard work and commitment. All of these components I found key to our own successful global expansion. Take for examples corporate governance. Mittal Steel operates in 16 different countries with listings on the NYSE and Euronext. This means we have to have very high standards of corporate governance. The cornerstone of our philosophy is that we have to use the most stringent practices at all our subsidiaries.
It is fairly easy to identify what is needed. The hard challenge is in addressing these issues and encouraging corporations to adopt the right mind-set and make the necessary changes. This change has to start at the top down. The CEOs of Indian companies are going to need to look at their own role in the organisation. Most likely if they want to expand globally the structure of the organisation will need to change. Truly professional organisations will have to be created with clearly defined responsibilities and delegation. It is often difficult for CEOs to let go and place trust in others, particularly in the growth phase When I started my business I was deeply involved in every aspect of our operation. As we have expanded it is no longer possible for this to be the case. My role as CEO of a US$30 billion company is nothing like it was as CEO of a small rolling mill in Indonesia or even a marginal steel producer with 3 or 4 units. I have had to embrace new challenges and let go of old responsibilities. I encourage all of my employees to do the same. Each year I tell them that 50% of what they are doing should be new and that 50% of what they were doing should be taken up by someone else. Only this way can you continuously evolve and develop, both as a company and as an individual.
It is also important to create a strong, but flexible, vision for your c o m p a n y. This is a very i m p o r t a n t point and one which I would like to expand on. It is important to recognise that large-scale, b u s i n e s s - changing opportunities don’t come along every day. Managers can and should take steps to encourage a major opportunity, but timing and preparation is equally important. Opportunities will come along but you can only take advantage of them if your business is already in a strong shape and you are well prepared. Preparation and continued focus in the quieter times is equally as important as the big deals. People often forget that I spent 13 years building up our business in Indonesia before we made our first acquisition in Trinidad & Tobago. Our key ability to take advantage of this opportunity was our strict cost-focus and management expertise. A philosophy that we have maintained over the past fifteen years as we have continued to grow. Mittal Steel today is still one of the lowest-cost producers in the world with a strong balance sheet. We have this position not because we are simply low-cost, but because we work very, very hard at being low-cost.
Thus when the golden opportunity presents itself if you should be prepared. It is important to recognise also that opportunities when they come will not necessarily be how you expected them. As such it is important to have a strong, but flexible vision. Our vision is to be the world’s most admired steel industry. This vision has remained constant over the years, but is still gives us the room to be flexible when opportunities arise. We have never for example said that we must only be in developing countries or only in developed countries. I would not have anticipated in 1994 that a year later we would buy an integrated steel plant in Kazakhstan. At that time we were a mini-mill producer operating largely in the Americas. Yet we recognised the opportunity that was on offer and moved quickly to capture it. Flexibility was key.
It is Mittal Steel’s ability to be flexible that has enabled us to demonstrate leadership on a global basis which has led to our swift emergence as the world’s largest and most global producer. The privatisations in Central and Eastern Europe are a good example. We saw these as unique opportunities in markets with considerable growth potential due to EU accession. At the time, other steel companies were unable to either identify or act on the opportunity due to other pressures or priorities. We, on the other hand, were ready and able to act.
Maintaining a global employee base is also crucial when looking to expand globally. Indian businesses should start thinking about what talent they can bring in from outside India to help them achieve their international aspirations. Our Board of Directors and Senior Management team also comprise a mixture of nationalities and this cultural mix is another key ingredient to our success.
Leadership starts right at the top and it is the responsibility of management to set the right tone. But political support for the development of Indian business is also key and I do believe that our government can improve in this aspect.
I am very proud to be an Indian and genuinely excited about the prospects for the Indian economy and Indian business. Indians have some outstanding personal attributes that give us a significant advantage over other nations. I truly believe that no other country can compete with India in terms of entrepreneurial spirit, drive and hard working nature. We are living through an exciting period of change and development and have an opportunity to emerge as one of the world’s leading economies. We have strong foundations and a lot of potential opportunity. But there are many aspects where further improvement and focus is required. Fundamentally it is important to understand the rationale for being global. Does it really fit with the profile of your industry and your longterm strategy? If the answer is yes, then have the confidence required and demonstrate the leadership necessary to chase your dreams. Stay true to your convictions and set clear operating, financial and marketing strategies that will be crucial to creating alignment in your organisation. If this can be done then yes, I believe that India Inc can “conquer” the world, just like what we have done in the steel industry or India has done in IT, telecom, airlines & petrochemicals

Bombay-Pune in an ambulance - III

2005-11-16T00:32:00.000-08:00

Chapter 3 - Conversation with Zahir.
--------------------------------------

I had to keep the conversation going, as if my life depended on it. In fact, it did - after all a minor error can prove fatal on the express-way. Zahir also probably understood, because he too was pretty forthcoming with the conversation. Zahir loved traveling to distant places and driving. He had driven all the way to Delhi and Calcutta from Mumbai. They were all official trips - to deliver bodies. When I told him that I was basically from Orissa, he told me that he would love to go there sometime and added with a smile that such a requirement needs to come up.

We shifted our discussion back to the special privileges of the flashing lights above the car. He told me an ironic story of his friend, who used to drive an ambulance in Nagpur. Once he was carrying the local MLA's son who was in a critical condition to the nearest hospital. He was zipping through the traffic, paying scarce attention to the traffic rules, when he crossed a school. A school-bus was parked at the curb and kids were getting out of it. Blowing the horn at full-blast, the ambulance driver decided to overtake the school-bus. Anyways the kids were getting down on the footpath and the road was clear. Just when he was about to cross the bus, a boy leapt across the road in an attempt to cross it. The ambulance hit him and the kid who was barely ten, was thrown in the air. The ambulance driver didn't stop, for the fear of his own life (he would have been lynched by the mob that gathered at the spot) and for the urgency of the parents in the ambulance, who were worried about their own kid. All he saw in the side-view mirror, was the motionless body lying on the road, a crowd slowly gathering around it. The ambulance was able to reach the hospital on time and they managed to save the life of the kid in the ambulance. The parents, in turn using their political clout saved the driver from the hassles of the police.

When Zahir ended his story, we were silent for some time, maybe in deference to the slain kid and the tragic ending or more so because I wasn't interested in developing the conversation over that incident.

Ali who had been listening to us all the while, decided to break the silence.

Bombay-Pune in an ambulance - II

2005-11-13T19:10:00.000-08:00

Chapter 2 - The passengers
----------------------------

The place where the other guy got down, was a well-lit bus-stop. I could now see the interiors of the van I was sitting in, more clearly. Even more clearly, I could see the expressions on the faces of the people waiting for a bus or a lift outside. None of them were ready to go with us. There was a look of fear on their face, which I couldn't actually understand. However, one more passenger got in. He seemed like a guy from the country-side who probably wasn't that afraid.

The driver, Zahir was a dark guy with piercing eyes. He probably hadn't shaved or washed since some days, driving for quite long time, but didn't look very tired. Sitting next to him, was Ali, with an handkerchief tied around his head. He seemed comparatively more amicable and smiling. Ali was clean-shaven and spoke with a slur, that made it difficult to completely understand his words.

Ali told the new passenger who got in, that he could sleep in the back, if he wanted to since it was empty. The guy climbed at the back but was a bit apprehensive when he saw the stretcher behind. Actually I noticed later that there was an ice-box behind, similar to the kind of refrigerators you see in super-markets which stock ice-creams or vegetables. This ice-box was however meant to carry mortal remains to their final destinations. The new guy also realized this and abandoning his plans of sleeping, crouched in a seat next to the box. When he asked me what was there in the box, I couldn't resist telling him that it was a body. He was startled and immediately jumped over the seat to come and sit next to me.

Ali tried consoling him that there was nothing in it. They had already left the body back in Gulbarga, where they were coming from. But the latest passenger was in no mood of sleeping on the box. However pretty soon, he settled down on the seat next to me and dozed off.

By now, I had become accustomed to the smell inside the van and looked around to gauge the surroundings in which I was to spend the next 3 hours knowing that, I had left my options of alternate transport behind me.

Zahir looked as if he hadn't slept for quite some time and that had me worried, since he was at the wheel. I started talking with him solely with the intention of keeping him awake and alert.We discussed about their trip to Gulbarga with the body, how he hadn't slept for almost 2 days now and why he hadn't eaten anything that day. He said that staying hungry helped him stay awake. This was a forced conversation at best, when the conversation doesn't flow naturally but rather in bursts, as you keep looking for reasons to talk. And I used every reason that cropped in my mind.

We talked about how an ambulance doesn't have to pay any toll-charges. He also told me with a hint of pride, that he need not obey signals either, as long as the blue lights on top keep blinking. He turned them on for greater effect but in the dark of the night, it created an errie effect by reflecting off the overhanging rocks by the side of the road.

Bombay-Pune in an ambulance - I

2005-11-13T18:58:00.000-08:00

Chapter 1 - The beginning
--------------------------

This is about the trip I made in an ambulance from Pune to Mumbai. No, I didn't travel as a patient but just as a passenger. It was one of the most entertaining and far from normal Mumbai-Pune trip I've ever made. An experience which very people will ever have, travelling in an ambulance, not as a patient or a patient's relative.

7th October was a Friday and just like any other friday, I had planned to leave for Mumbai at 6.00 in the evening. And just like any other friday, I got loaded with work in the evening and unfortunately couldn't make it to the 6.00 bus. By the time, I finished my work, it was 8.00 and I was waiting on the Bombay-Pune highway, hoping to catch a bus with some empty seats or maybe get a lift.

Some cars did come by but they were not going to where I wanted to go. Some buses also happened to halt, but there were no vacant seats. There were a couple of more guys in a similar condition as me, waiting on the highway. Pretty soon, most of them managed to catch some car or the other and were on their journey. I was getting pretty tired of waiting and decided to catch whatever comes by next.

By now, there were only me and another guy waiting for a lift. It was pretty dark and the only lights available were those of the passing vehicles, which were more blinding than illuminating. Meanwhile, a van (something like a mini-bus) came by and I couldn't really make much out of it except that it had some phone-numbers written all over it, in large letters. The guy sitting next to the driver offered to take us to Mumbai to the place I wanted to go, for Rs.100. Sounded like a good deal, and since it was private vehicle I was hoping that we could make it to Mumbai faster. I had to get in through the front door, jumping over the front-row seats to the row behind. The other guy with me, also decided to get in.

The interior of the van had a strange sweet sickening smell. It reminded me of the smell of my biology dissection lab back in college - the smell formed from the peculiar mixture of dead-rat carcasses and chloroform and other chemicals. I looked behind me, and in the dim light I could make out a strecher lying behind. It then dawned on me that I was seated in an ambulance! It was queer feeling to be seated in an ambulance, but not as a patient which brought in a sense of relief. My co-passenger had probably realised this much before me and he seemed pretty peturbed. He asked the driver how long it would take to reach mumbai, now that it was 8.45. The driver replied back, saying "Don't worry, we'll probably make it before 10". THe journey from Pune to Mumbai takes around 3 hours and the fastest I have been, was in 2 hours. I suppose the driver's retort totally shook up my friend, who motioned to me that we should get down.

I wasn't sure that we would be lucky to get another lift at that time of the night, so I decided to stay put. Once he was down, the driver looked back and asked me if I wanted to go too. I smiled and said no. The driver smiled back and nodding towards the other guy said "Lagta hai woh darr gaya...Darne ka kya hai, ek din let ke jayega, lekin aaj baithke jaane se darta hai"(Seems like that guy got scared...What's there to be afraid of? One day he'll be travelling in this lying down, but today he's scared to go seated.) I have kept the original dialogue in Hindi, because it looses the impact when it's translated. That dialogue appealed to me and I felt that I had probably taken the right decision by deciding to stay. I prepared myself for an interesting journey.

Excerpts from "The Magic of Thinking BIG"

2005-11-11T15:13:00.000-08:00

HOW TO USE THE MAGIC OF THINKING BIG IN LIFE'S MOST CRUCIAL SITUATIONS
There is magic in thinking big. But it is so easy to forget. When you hit some rough spots there is danger that your thinking will shrink in size. And when it does, you lose. -

Below are some brief guides for staying big when you're tempted to use the small approach. Perhaps you'll want to put these guides on small cards for even handier reference.

A. When Little People Try to Drive You Down, THINK BIG. To be sure, there are some people who want you to lose, to experience misfortune, to be reprimanded. But these people can't hurt you if you'll remember three things:
1. You win when you refuse to fight petty people. Fighting little people reduces you to their size. Stay big.
2. Expect to be sniped at. It's proof you're growing.
3. Remind yourself that snipers are psychologically sick. Be Big. Feel sorry for them. Think Big Enough to be immune to attacks of petty people.

B. When That "I-Haven't-Got-What-It-Takes" Feeling creeps up on uou, THINK BIG.
Remember: if you think you are weak, you are. If you think you're inadequate you are. If you think you're second-class,you are.
Whip that natural tendency to sell yourself short with these tools:
1. Look important. It helps you think important. How you look on the outside has a lot to do with how you feel on the inside.
2. Concentrate on your assets. Build a sell-yourself-on-yourself commercial and use it. Learn to supercharge yourself. Know your positive self.
3. Put other people in proper perspective. The other person is just another human being, so why be afraid of him?

Think Big Enough to see how good you really are!
C. When an Argument or Quarrel Seems Inevitable, THINK BIG. Successfully resist the temptation to argue and quarrel by:
1. Asking yourself, "Honestly now, is this thing really important enough to argue about?"
2. Reminding yourself, you never gain anything from an argument but you always lose something. Think Big Enough to see that quarrels, arguments, feuds and fusses will never help you get where you want to go.

D. When You Feel Defeated, THING BIG. It is not possible to achieve large success without hardships and setbacks. But it is possible to live the rest of your life without defeat. Big thinkers react to setbacks this way:
1. Regard the setback as a lesson. Learn from it. Research it. Use it to propel you forward. Salvage something from every setback.
2. Blend persistence with experimentation. Back off and start afresh with a new approach. Think Big Enough to see that defeat is a state of mind, nothing more.

E. When Romance Starts To Slip, THINK BIG.
Negative, petty, "She's(He's)-unfair-to-me-so-I'll-geteven" type of thinking slaughters romance, destroys the affection that can be yours. Do this when things aren't going right in the love department.
1. Concentrate on the biggest qualities in the person you want to love you. Put little things where they belong-in second place.
2. Do something special for your mate-and do it often. Think Big Enough to find the secret to
marital joys.

F. When You Feel Your Progress on the Job is Slowing Down, THINK BIG. No matter what you do and regardless of your occupation, higher status and higher pay comes from one thing: Increasing the quality and quantity of your output. Do this:
Think: "I can do better." The best is not unattainable. There is room for doing everything better. Nothing in this world is being done as well as it could be. And when you think, "I can do better," ways to do better will appear. Thinking "I can do better" switches on your creative power.
Think Big Enough to see that if you put service first, money takes care of itself.

In the words of Publilius Syrus:

A wise man will be Master of His Mind
A Fool will be Its Slave

Some more pointers from the middle of the book...
1. Action cures fear. Isolate your fear and then take constructive action. Inaction-doing nothing
about a situation-strengthens fear and destroys confidence.
2. Make a supreme effort to put only positive thoughts in your memory bank. Don't let negative,
self-deprecatory thoughts grow into mental monsters. Simply refuse to recall unpleasant events or situations.
3. Put people in proper perspective. Remember, people are more alike, much more alive, than they are different. Get a balanced view of the other fellow. He is just another human being. And develop an understanding attitude. Many people will bark, but it's a rare one that bites.
5. Make everything about you say, "I'm confident, really confident." Practise these little techniques in your day-to-day activities.
a. Be a "front seater."
b. Make eye contact.
c. Walk 25 per cent faster.
d. Speak up.
e. Smile big.

1. Don't sell yourself short. Conquer the crime of self-deprecation. Concentrate on your assets. You're better than you think you are.
2. Use the big thinker's vocabulary. Use big, bright, cheerful words. Use words that promise victory, hope, happiness, pleasure; avoid words that create unpleasant images of failure, defeat, grief.
3. Stretch your vision. See what can be, not just what is. Practice adding value to things, to people and to yourself.

1. Look important; it helps you think important. Your appearance talks to you. Be sure it lifts your spirits and builds your confidence. Your appearance talks to others. Make certain it says, "Here is an important person: intelligent, prosperous, and dependable. "
2. Think your work is important. Think this way and you will receive mental signals on how to do your job better. Think your work is important and your subordinates will think their work is important too.
3. Give yourself a pep talk several times daily. Build a "sell-yourself-to-yourself" commercial. Remind yourself at every opportunity that you're a firstclass person.
4. In all of life's situations, ask yourself, "Is this the way an important person thinks?" Then obey the answer.

1. Be environment-conscious. Just as body diet makes the body, mind diet makes the mind.
2. Make your environment work for you, not against you. Don't let suppressive forces-the negative, you-can't-do-it-people-make you think defeat.
3. Don't let small-thinking people hold you back. Jealous people want to see you stumble. Don't give them that satisfaction.
4. Get your advice from successful people. Your future is important. Never risk it with free-lance advisors who are living failures.
5. Get plenty of psychological sunshine. Circulate in new groups. Discover new and stimulating things to do.
6. Throw thought-poison out of your environment. Avoid gossip. .Talk about people but stay on the positive side.
7. Go first class in everything you do. You can't afford to go any other way.

In quick recap, grow attitudes that will carry you forward to success.
1. Grow the "I'm activated" attitude. Results come in proportion to enthusiasm invested. Three things to do to activate yourself are:
A. Dig Into It Deeper. When you find yourself disinterested in something, dig in and learn more
about it. This sets off enthusiasm.
B. Life up Everything About You: your smile, your handshake, your talk, even your walk. Act alive.
C. Broadcast good news. No one ever accomplished anything positive telling bad news.
2. Grow the "You are important" attitude. People do more for you when you make them feel important.
Remember to do these things:
A. Show appreciation at every opportunity. Make people feel important.
B. Call people by name.
3. Grow the "Service first" attitude, and watch
money take care of itself. Make it a rule in everything you do, give people more than they expect to get.

A little about Rajat Gupta

2005-11-09T20:49:00.000-08:00

I was trying to gather some information about Rajat Gupta yday. He's one on the list of my most-admired personalities. All I knew about him earlier was IITD -> Harvard -> MD, McKinsey.

The search did bring up a number of things, things to learn from…

1) People skills - More than what you do and what you know, it's who you know that matters… (That might sound crude, but that’s the truth – the sooner you accept, the better)

Rajat was initially turned down by McKinsey, because he didn't have any work-ex, but a personal letter from his prof. to the manager of the NY branch to re-consider the decision finally landed him up with the job.

Gupta always finds time for people and their problems; he personally knows all the 148 senior McKinsey partners around the globe, and most of the 400 partners. "He values relationships."

2) Deep desire to succeed. Here's what his room-mates had to say about him,

"There was a spark there. You knew he would definitely be going some place."

New unkempt look

2005-11-09T00:30:00.000-08:00

Got a new hair-cut yesterday. It’s pretty different – an unkempt look…

I’ve generally had bad experiences with barbers, always expecting them to know best about styles and giving them a free hand. But this time I decided to take charge and gave explicit instructions about where to snip and how much. Also had a pretty detailed discussion about what’s wrong with my current style, how I want the new style to look like and how to go about it :)… Hmm…I suppose, a good example of leadership, shared vision of the big-picture and cohesive team-work. Hehe… wow, sounds cool.

I got this idea from my friend, who was suggesting that I go to the barber at one of the 5-star hotels around here. I was almost convinced, until I asked him if they show you photographs or something to describe how your new look will look like. He said “No, You’ll have to explain in detail, what exactly you need”. What the hell then, why should I pay 20 times more, when it all depends on my communication skills? So I decided to try out my people skills on the local barber down the street. In the worst case, if things didn’t go as per the plan, I would have gone for a crew-cut. But luckily, it has come out fabulously, just the way I wanted it to be :)

2005-11-05T21:12:00.000-08:00

"This is my body. And I can do whatever I want to it. I can push it. Study it. Tweak it. Listen to it. Everybody wants to know what I'm on. What am I on? I'm on my bike busting my ass six hours a day.
What are you on?"

--Lance Armstrong

2005-11-05T21:07:00.000-08:00

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I'VE FAILED over and over again in my life. And that is why I SUCCEED."

--Michael Jordan

My first love

2005-10-31T22:20:00.000-08:00

No, it's not a girl, but it's the capital markets... I just love equities.

Initially, when I didn't know much about equities and most of the people I met were those who had burnt their fingers in the market, I thought it was a form of gambling. I had not heard of a single person who made consistent profits in stocks except for the likes of Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh. But before I dismissed it away totally, I wanted to make sure that such was the truth.

Thankfs to that attitude of maintaining an open mind, I was able to understand that stocks offer a great channel for investment and it is possible to consistently make profits, regardless of whether it is a bull market or a bear market. People who burn their fingers do so, because they don't know what they are doing.
Here's a quote from one of my gurus, Warren Buffet
The market, like the Lord, helps those who help themselves.
But, unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.

So, my sincere advice to anyone who wants to try his/her hand at equities, would be that, you have made a good choice. BUT, make sure that you learn about investing in stocks, before taking the plunge. And mind you, there IS a lot to learn.

Cutting a long story short, finally we fell in love and I knew we were made for each other :) But unlike, other love-stories, I wouldn't mind if you too were in love with equities and would be glad to offer any assistance.